The Village Nurse's Happy-Ever-After

by Abigail Gordon

  She had to pass Harry to get to them, however, and he said, ‘It’s rather a crush in here, but this table has been reserved for me especially, so why don’t you and Marcus join me? I haven’t seen much of him lately.’

  And whose fault is that? she almost said, but refrained in case her sarcasm made the situation worse that it already was.

  As she was carrying him through the crowd to where Harry was waiting, her little one saw him and the smile on his face made her heart twist. That wasn’t all, however. As they drew level Marcus held out his arms, Harry got to his feet, and to her dismay as he reached out for him the little tot said, ‘Daddy.’ Now she understood why it had been his first word.

  Slumping down on to the nearest chair, she asked bleakly, ‘Where has that come from?’

  He was observing her sombrely above her son’s curly chestnut mop. ‘Not from me, in case that is what you’re thinking. I have no idea where Marcus has picked it up from, except that he said it the other day when Beth called me out to the nursery because a child had been taken ill.

  ‘I arrived at the same time as some of the parents, mothers and fathers, and as some of the kids started shouting “Daddy” he joined in, but I didn’t think it was directed at me.’

  Any further discussion was prevented by the arrival of the food, brought over by a member of the events committee especially for the guest of honour and his friends.

  As they enjoyed the cream tea, with Marcus biting on a scone with obvious enjoyment, Harry said casually, ‘So what have you planned for the rest of the day?’

  ‘Nothing special,’ was the reply. ‘We might go down to the beach or go to see the bluebells in the woods.’

  ‘But of course!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’d forgotten this was bluebell time, so why don’t we do both?’

  ‘We?’ she questioned, and he had no reply.

  He was desperate to be with her, like a starving man for food, yet was aware that he was the one who’d set the guidelines and made the conditions. Short of telling Phoebe once again about his dread of the responsibilities and what he saw as the pitfalls of family life, he was going to have to abide by his own rules.

  But he’d reckoned without her longing to be with him and, as if she hadn’t questioned what he’d said, she asked, ‘So where first, the woods or the beach?’

  ‘Er…the woods, I think,’ was the reply, ‘then down to the beach.’ As they prepared to leave the community centre, he asked, ‘Where’s the baby buggy?’

  ‘Across at the vicarage, and we’ll have to go back to the apartments to pick up towels and change into our costumes.’

  ‘Yes, okay. Let’s go, then,’ he said quickly, before she changed her mind.

  It was quiet in the woods, with again only birdsong breaking the silence. Marcus had fallen asleep on the way and as Harry pushed the buggy with Phoebe by his side, an onlooker would never have guessed that they weren’t the serene couple that they might be mistaken for, out walking among the bluebells.

  Yet they’d been happy enough until a few moments ago, when Harry had said out of the blue, ‘I’m going to be away from the practice for a few days at the end of the month.’ As she’d observed him enquiringly, he’d explained, ‘I’m going back to Australia for the inquest on Cassie’s death. You can imagine just how much I’m looking forward to that, but needs be. I won’t be able to settle to anything until it’s over. The only thing in my life that I’m sure of at present is Bluebell Cove and the practice. Everything else is a blur.’

  You could have been sure of me, she wanted to tell him, if you hadn’t pushed me out into the cold. Instead, she asked, ‘Us included?’ with her glance on the sleeping child.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he replied.

  There seemed no point in telling her that her face was always before him, that the memory of them making love was something he would treasure always, and that he wished that these precious moments amongst the bluebells could last for ever.

  Down on the beach it was just the opposite from the peace of the woods. There was plenty of noise and laughter, with lots of people milling around either in the sea or playing on the sand. As she watched Harry making a sand castle for Marcus, Phoebe felt like weeping.

  He looked up and caught her expression.

  ‘What?’ he asked, and with a quirky smile. ‘Are you upset that I didn’t choose you as the winner in the Easter Bonnet Parade?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she protested. ‘Winning meant far more to Lucy than it would have done to me. I thought you were very fair with regard to that.’

  ‘But not fair in everything perhaps. Is that what you’re thinking?’

  ‘It might be,’ she told him, adding as she picked Marcus up in her arms, ‘We’re going for a paddle.’

  It was really warm for the time of year and picking up on Phoebe’s need for a little space from him he spread out a towel on the sand and said, ‘I’ll join you shortly. I’m just going to try to catch the sun for a little while before it goes down.’

  ‘There’s no rush,’ she replied. ‘We’ll be fine on our own.’ As he closed his eyes against the glare Harry thought that was one for him again—a reminder that they’d managed very well before he’d come on the scene and no doubt would continue to do so.

  It was his last thought before the effect of an accumulation of restless nights took hold of him and he slept.

  It was chilly when he awoke and the beach was almost deserted. He could see a lifeboat ploughing through the waves out at sea and thought that someone was in distress out there.

  In the same second he realised that Phoebe and Marcus were nowhere to be seen and he was on his feet in an instant. The buggy was still there but it was empty.

  He’d said he would join them soon and what had he done? Wasted precious time with them both by falling asleep. He was pathetic. It was the first time in weeks he’d been near either of them away from the surgery and he’d dozed off.

  Maybe she’d gone home in disgust, he thought, and couldn’t blame her if she had. ‘Have you seen a woman with a toddler in the last hour?’ he asked the few people who were hanging on to get every last ray of the sun and a few more breaths of sea air in their lungs.

  ‘No,’ was the only answer he received, and now he was thinking surely Phoebe wasn’t so disenchanted with him that she had gone home, as he’d at first thought.

  His mind was in chaos. No one seemed to have seen them and none knew better than him the joys and perils of this beach, unless it was Ronnie the lifeguard, or his cousin Jenna.

  The two of them had spent hours on it during their growing years and knew all about the rip tides with their treacherous currents that could sweep the unsuspecting out to sea in a matter of seconds.

  There was also the risk of being trapped in the caves or on the rocks when an incoming tide took them by surprise, as had been the situation before the two lads he’d saved had ended up in the outgoing tide.

  His glimpse of the bright orange of the lifeboat a few moments ago was also adding to his unease, even though he knew that it wasn’t always an emergency when it put out to sea. It could be on a training run for the benefit of new crew members or on a trial run after repairs.

  He flung the towels into the buggy and as his glance raked over the rock-strewn beach again, he finally saw Phoebe coming slowly towards him, silhouetted against the last rays of the setting sun. With one hand she was supporting a small figure as he took wobbly steps beside her and with the other she was holding a beach ball.

  Thank God! he thought as he ran towards them. ‘Where on earth have you been?’ he cried when he drew level. ‘You’ve been gone ages. I was getting so worried about you!’

  ‘We came looking for you when you didn’t come to join us,’ she protested, taken aback by his greeting. ‘Didn’t you notice that I’d covered you with the dry towels? It was getting chilly and you were so soundly asleep it seemed a shame to disturb you.

  ‘Then Marcus saw some children with a beach ball and
wanted it, so I took him to buy his own from the shop on the road above. As he is getting more keen to be on his feet every day it was slow progress. I’m sorry to have caused you anxiety once again on our behalf, Harry, but remember we are not your responsibility!’

  Feeling that he’d just made a fool of himself, he said grittily, ‘If I had known that Marcus was walking by hanging onto you, I wouldn’t have been thrown by seeing the buggy still here. That was why it never occurred to me that you might have gone up to the top. So maybe I’m the one who should be apologising.’

  ‘Let’s forget it, shall we?’ she said gently, bemused again by the extent of his concern.

  He didn’t reply. Just lifted Marcus into the buggy, fastened the straps, and not another word passed between them as they left the beach behind and proceeded up the coast road to the surgery building.

  He was insane to have let Phoebe take such a hold of his feelings, his heart, his life, Harry thought as they walked along in the spring dusk. She was kind and loving; everything about her took his breath away. If it had been Cassie who’d found him asleep in the chilly afternoon, she would have found a bucket of water from somewhere, thrown it over him and laughed as he’d shivered and spluttered beneath it. Phoebe’s gentleness, covering him with towels to protect him against the cold, would have been completely foreign to her.

  They were at the top of the stairs now and Phoebe couldn’t stand the thought of them separating with a brooding silence between them. As their glances locked she reached out and touched his face gently, but to her dismay he recoiled, took a step back and said harshly, ‘Play fair, will you, Phoebe?’

  Turning his key in the lock, he flung the door back and almost in the same movement closed it behind him, knowing that if he’d let another second go by she would have been in his arms. It would have progressed from there, and she would still have wondered if he was using her.

  It had been a lovely day until he’d woken up on the beach and found them gone, he thought wretchedly. After that it had gradually lost its charm, especially when she’d reminded him that she and Marcus were not his responsibility.

  Not so long ago he would have agreed with that, been relieved to hear it, yet not so much now. His panic on the beach had woken him up to his true emotions concerning the Howard family. He knew now that he didn’t want to be on the outside of their lives any more—he desperately wanted to take care of them and be surrounded by the warmth of their love. But first he had to get the ordeal of the inquest over, and until he had closure from that he couldn’t ask Phoebe to marry him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THAT settles it, she decided in the quietness of the apartment after Marcus was asleep. She was going to have to leave The Tides Medical Practice, look for a district nurse’s position somewhere else.

  Bluebell Cove was enchanting. She would have loved Marcus to grow up there like Harry and Jenna had, but she could not endure living so close to the man who had turned her life upside down. She loved him with all her heart, but he was constantly letting her know that she wasn’t the woman of his dreams.

  She wasn’t sure where she would go, maybe somewhere up north, not too far away from Katie and Rob. Certainly not to London—that would always be first on her list of places she never wanted to see again because Darren lived there.

  This village was different, she loved the place. But she loved the man in charge of the practice more, and Harry was here for life. He hadn’t actually said so, but she could tell that being back in the place where he’d grown up was his only comfort after losing his wife.

  Where she, Phoebe, fitted into the jigsaw of his life she didn’t know. But one thing was clear: she was just a small insignificant part of it. If that was how it was going to be, it was a good enough reason for her and Marcus to move on.

  She could still see him recoiling from her and telling her harshly to be fair as if she’d stepped out of line and he objected to the familiarity.

  Put it out of your mind, she told herself firmly. Go to bed, get a good night’s sleep so that you are bright-eyed and on the ball at the surgery in the morning, and at the first opportunity start job hunting.

  It had sounded very positive put like that, but the moment her head touched the pillow the tears came and wouldn’t stop.

  Yet the next morning the determination was still with her until a wave of nausea had her dashing to the bathroom in the middle of giving Marcus his breakfast. When the retching had subsided Phoebe walked slowly to where she kept a calendar on the wall and her heart began to thump in her chest.

  Her period was late. It should have been three weeks ago. How could she not have picked up on that? she thought frantically. Yet the answer was simple.

  There had never been the necessity to check on monthly cycles since she’d had Marcus. She’d never slept with any other man since she’d left Darren. Hadn’t had the time, the inclination or the opportunity until Harry had come into her life. Ever since their untimely meeting on the landing on the night of his arrival in Bluebell Cove, she’d been living in a different world where she’d fallen in love with a real man.

  A man of honour and integrity, who was growing to love her son and had seemed to feel the same way about her. But there was a lot of hurt inside him and he clearly didn’t trust her not to make it worse, so what did she do now?

  Marcus was objecting to having his breakfast interrupted by banging his spoon on his plate and switching her thoughts back to the present she made sure he was fed, then, still in a daze, prepared to face the day ahead.

  In the late morning she bought a pregnancy testing kit. Returning quickly to the apartment in her lunch-break, she used it and it was positive. She was going to have another child.

  Panic was gripping her. Harry had to know, but when? Last night she’d had every intention of leaving Bluebell Cove but what now? Surely he wouldn’t leave her to cope alone, but would he offer marriage? Of one thing she was sure—despite her love for him, she wasn’t going to marry him just for the child’s sake, so where did that leave her?

  By the end of the day her mind was clear of the debris of confused thinking. She was still going to move on. She simply couldn’t bear his hot and cold treatment of her, it was too painful given how deeply she cared for him. When she was settled, she would tell him she was pregnant and hopefully they would be able to come to some amicable arrangement.

  Amicable, she thought miserably. Not joyful, tender or loving, just amicable.

  Situations she would never agree to were a marriage, or a liaison of convenience, or him having sole custody of their child, and with those sombre thoughts in mind she resumed the duties of the day.

  Phoebe was avoiding him, Harry thought as he climbed the stairs at half past six that evening, and could he blame her? He’d seen her three times during the day and on each occasion they hadn’t exchanged more than a couple of words.

  She’d been home in the lunch-hour, which wasn’t usual. He’d seen her whizzing up the stairs as if she hadn’t a moment to spare and had intended following her to apologise for the way he’d acted when they’d arrived back from the beach, but he’d been thwarted by Leo wanting a word in private and by the time he’d been free, she’d gone.

  It had been the same situation in the afternoon. When she’d returned to the practice to update her patient records, he’d just started afternoon surgery. But now he was free and as he knocked on her door wished he knew what he was going to say to heal the breach between them. She must be weary of his changing moods

  When he’d left her the night before, after bellowing at her when she’d touched him, he’d stood behind his closed door and shaken his head in disbelief. All day he’d been aching to hold her close, to kiss her, make love to her, yet had kept a tight hold on his feelings. But when she’d reached out and caressed his cheek, he’d felt himself weakening, and what had he done but behave like a prudish virgin! If Phoebe hadn’t already got him labelled as a head case he would be surprised. But there was no way he
could have been with Phoebe and felt completely at ease, not with Cassie’s inquest looming.

  He hadn’t told anyone how he was dreading going back to Australia for the inquest, except her. It would bring the memory of all the horror and grief of Cassie’s death back again, but he was also hoping for a feeling of closure. He knew he needed that if he was going to put his doubts and uncertainties to one side and ask Phoebe to marry him and make a new life together.

  There was no welcoming flinging wide of the door in answer to his knock, just a few inches with her observing him warily. It reminded him of the night of his arrival, and although they’d become much closer since then, tonight it was still just a crack that she was observing him through. He wondered grimly if they were so far apart that she was actually afraid of him.

  It would seem not. She was dredging up a pale smile and asking, ‘What is it, Harry? I’m just about to bath Marcus.’

  ‘And I’m not allowed over the threshold, is that it?’ he questioned dryly.

  ‘Yes, but only because it seems the sensible thing to do,’ was the reply. And because she couldn’t bear to see the look on Marcus’s face when he saw Harry. ‘He will only get too excited if you’re involved in his bath time.’

  He shrugged broad shoulders inside the business suit he wore for the surgery. ‘Okay. Fair enough. I just came to say sorry for being so edgy last night. It was unpardonable. Can you forgive me?’

  ‘Yes, I can, so just forget it,’ she told him. ‘I know you’re still traumatised by what happened to your wife.’ And thought there was more trauma to come that he didn’t yet know about. Would Harry feel that apologies were due on a much wider scale when he knew she was pregnant?

  ‘Yes, I am, to a degree,’ he said, ‘but even so that is no excuse for my…’

  ‘Like I said, it’s bathtime,’ she reminded him.