Swallowbrook's Winter Bride

by Abigail Gordon

  His jaw was set tightly. ‘Why don’t you come right out with it and tell me that I’m not forgiven for what I said at the airport that day?’ And have regretted ever since.

  This was laying it on the line with a vengeance, she thought, but was in no mood to bring her innermost feelings out into the open. She’d had a disastrous marriage since then and was older and wiser in many ways.

  ‘What you said long ago is in the past. I never give it a thought. We’ve both moved on after all,’ she said flatly. With a sudden weakening of her resolve, she added, ‘So why don’t we just get on with living next door to each other, working side by side at the practice, and leave it at that?’

  The line of his jaw was still tight, the glint still in his eyes, but his voice was easy enough as he said, ‘Fine by me. I’ll see you tomorrow, Libby.’ As she got to her feet he said, ‘Thanks for tidying the kitchen. I’ll do the same for you one day if I’m ever invited across your threshold.’

  Having no intention of taking him up on that comment, she gave a half-smile and, reaching out for the door handle, said, ‘I hope that Toby is as happy at school tomorrow as he’s been today.’ She stepped out into the gathering dark. ‘Goodnight, Nathan.’

  ‘Goodnight to you too,’ he said as he stood in the open doorway and watched her walk quickly down his drive and up her own.

  When he heard her door click to behind her he went back inside and wondered if him joining the practice would cause less tension or more between the two of them.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LIBBY tried not to keep looking at her watch the next morning as she waited for Nathan to arrive to start his first shift. In spite of her personal feelings she knew he would be as good as his word. The same as his devotion to Toby would not falter. With Nathan’s loving support he seemed to be settling well into his new life. Sadly the one thing he would need the most at his tender age was a loving mother and what his adopted father intended doing about that she didn’t know.

  But aware that the man in question still possessed the attractions that had drawn her to him, she imagined that there would soon be members of her sex queuing to play the mother role.

  Not that she was going to throw herself into the running, of course. She’d tried to make it clear once more last night that there could be nothing more between them, but he was the one who had raked up the past and caused her to put on an act regarding something she would never forget, and no way did she want it to happen again.

  She was going to be pleasant but aloof from now on—no more harking back to times past, if only because of the humiliation that came with the memory of them. Life had treated her badly so far with two unpleasant experiences that most women would never have to face in a lifetime, and since Ian’s death she was resolved never to let herself be hurt again in that way.

  Besides, now wasn’t the time to be thinking about Nathan—she had patients to see, starting with octogenarian Donald Johnson and when he appeared she asked, ‘What can I do for you today, Mr Johnson? Are you here about the tests I sent you for?’

  ‘Aye, I am,’ was the reply.

  ‘Yes, I thought so,’ she said, and told him, ‘I received a letter from the hospital this morning regarding the tests on your kidneys that I requested and was going to phone you. It would seem that one of them isn’t functioning and the other, although performing quite well, is not at full strength.’

  ‘I see. So one of my kidneys has had it and the other is limping along,’ he commented grumpily.

  She smiled across at him. ‘It isn’t such a gloomy outlook as it seems. Our kidneys do gradually deteriorate as we get older, but lots of people survive with only one. We hear of those who have given a healthy kidney to someone else to avoid renal failure and still live a good life with just the one, and although in your case the one that is still working is past its best, I feel sure that it will continue to do its job.

  ‘The hospital say that they will want to see you every three months, which means they are going to keep a close watch on them, so for the present I would put your worries to one side.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have had any worries if you hadn’t sent me for those tests,’ he protested.

  ‘It’s standard procedure for a GP to arrange for those sorts of procedures for the elderly,’ she explained. ‘It won’t have made your kidneys any worse, and now you will have regular checks, which can’t be bad, surely?’

  ‘Aye, I suppose you’re right,’ he agreed reluctantly, getting to his feet. ‘I’m going fishing at John Gallagher’s place this afternoon, that’ll cheer me up a bit, and John let slip that Nathan is back in the village and he has a young’un to care for too. Is he going to be doctoring in this place again?’

  ‘Yes, he starts later on this morning, once he’s dropped his son off at school.’

  ‘That is good news!’ he exclaimed. ‘It will be like old times.’

  Not exactly, she thought as he went to make way for the next patient on her list.

  ‘It was a stroke of genius, bringing Nathan Gallagher back into the practice,’ Hugo Lawrence said when he appeared in the doorway of her consulting room in the middle of the morning. ‘Being out of touch with the NHS for so long doesn’t seem to have affected his performance. He’s on top of the job from the word go by the looks of it.’

  She smiled at his enthusiasm, but couldn’t help pointing out that it had been more a case of Nathan taking it for granted he would be slotting back into the practice. There had been no inspired thinking on her part with regard to his arrival at dead on half past nine in a smart suit, shirt and tie and oozing cool competence.

  The fact that underneath it he was wary of making the wrong move where she was concerned would have amazed her if she had been aware of it. As it was, his presence was a cause for pain and pleasure in equal parts and she would be relieved when the first day of his return to the practice was over.

  When she’d asked about Toby starting his second day at school he had said there’d been just a moment’s reluctance to go into lines in the schoolyard, as was the custom before the children went to their classes. But he’d seemed happy enough as he was trooping in with the rest of them.

  She’d sensed anxiety in him at that moment, although seconds later he’d been seeing his first patient as if he’d never been away from the place and she’d told herself to stop involving herself in his affairs or she would be asking for more heartache than she had already.

  ‘Do you want to do the home visits to reacquaint yourself with the area?’ she enquired when the three doctors stopped for their lunch break. ‘Or would you rather give it a few days to settle in before you do that?’

  He hesitated. ‘Maybe tomorrow, if you don’t mind. I would rather be around if the school should need to get in touch after the little episode this morning. I know it sounds as if I’m fussing, but…’

  Caring wasn’t fussing, she wanted to tell him as a lump came up in her throat, but hadn’t she just been telling herself to stay aloof from his affairs? So instead she replied coolly, ‘Yes, of course. I’ll do them, and leave Hugo and yourself to see the rest of the patients on the list here at the surgery.’

  As she drove towards the first of the house calls Libby had to pass the school and on seeing that the children were all out in the yard, on impulse she stopped the car and went to see if Toby was anywhere to be seen so that she could report back to Nathan.

  Sure enough, she saw his fair curly mop bobbing up and down as he chased around with another child of similar age, showing no signs of reluctance to be there.

  He’d seen her standing outside the railings and came running across breathless.

  ‘Are you all right, Toby?’ she asked gently.

  ‘Yes, Dr Hamilton,’ he gasped. ‘I’m having lots of fun.’ And off he went to find the other boy that he’d bee
n playing with.

  When she got back in the car she dialled the surgery and asked to speak to Nathan. When he came on the line she told him, ‘Don’t worry about Toby any more. The children were all in the playground when I was going past the school so I stopped the car and went across to see if I could see him. He was fine, running around with another small boy, and came across when he saw me. When I asked if he was all right he said he was having lots of fun.’

  There was silence for a moment, then with his voice deepening he said, ‘Thanks for that, Libby. It was kind of you to take the trouble.’

  ‘It was no trouble,’ she said lightly as if the pair of them weren’t in her every waking thought. ‘I’ll see you later.’ And rang off.

  The Pellows were a dysfunctional family who seemed to go from one crisis to another.

  Angelina, the mother, was an artist who, when the creative mood was on her, would disappear into her studio for days on end. No shopping would be done or tidying up of the shambolic old house down a lane at the far end of the village where she and her family lived.

  Her husband Malik was employed by the forestry commission and during her absences had to do the best he could in looking after their two children and things in general. He didn’t complain much because Angelina almost always sold what she’d painted, but there was relief all round when she surfaced again.

  The young ones always seemed robust and healthy enough, but not today, it would seem, with regard to one of them. Malik had phoned to ask for a visit to six-year-old Ophelia, who had recently been diagnosed with measles and now had a high temperature, was very dizzy, and was complaining that her ears hurt.

  When Libby arrived at the house she found that another of Angelina’s disappearances was in progress and Malik was busy making a lunch of sorts for him and the child, who was lying on a sofa in the sitting room.

  When she examined her ears with an otoscope it was evident that the eardrums were swollen and when she asked the little girl where they hurt she pointed weepily to the area where her cheekbone met the inner ear.

  ‘I suspect that Ophelia has got viral labyrinthitis,’ Libby told her father. ‘It’s an infection of the middle ear that affects balance and makes the ears quite painful. It sometimes occurs when measles is present and can take some time to clear. There are two kinds of the illness, viral and bacterial. Viral is the less serious of the two but not to be ignored by any means.

  ‘Your daughter needs to rest, and I’m going to prescribe a low-dosage antihistamine course of treatment because of her age, and an equally mild children’s pain-relief tablet.

  ‘I see that the measles rash has disappeared so that problem is obviously lessening. It’s unfortunate that in its wake has come labyrinthitis. Ring the surgery if any further problems appear, Malik, and I’ll come straight away.’

  She looked around her at the cluttered sitting room. ‘Do I take it that Angelina isn’t available?’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ he said morosely. ‘She’s having one of her artistic sabbaticals that can go on for days or even weeks.’

  A vision of his wife as she’d last seen her came to mind, dressed in a golden kaftan with beads and bangles everywhere, and Libby hid a smile.

  Angelina had looked more like a fortune teller than an artist.

  The rest of the house calls were soon dealt with and as she drove back to the practice Libby stopped for a few moments beside the lake that was only a short distance from the surgery, a stretch of water that was so beautiful it always took her breath away. The white sails of yachts were outlined vividly against its calm waters, and a house built from the pale grey stone of the area was clearly visible on a tree-covered island in the centre of it.

  Above the lake the fells towered in rugged magnificence, but all those who lived in the area knew that they could be dangerous too, that they sometimes asked a grim price from those who loved to climb them. The mountain rescue services were kept busy all the year round on behalf of those caught in bad weather up on the tops, or with others who lacked the experience to stay safe while climbing them.

  Nathan had been involved in mountain rescue when he’d lived in Swallowbrook before. An experienced climber, he’d often been called out when the need had arisen, but she couldn’t see that happening now, not with Toby to care for. It was often a risky undertaking bringing to safety those who had succumbed to the dangers of the fells, and poor Toby had already been orphaned once.

  As she pointed the car homewards it was a strange feeling to know that when she arrived back at the surgery he would be there, closeted in the consulting room that had been his father’s, and along with Hugo further along the corridor would be dealing with the afternoon surgery until, in a matter of minutes, it would be time for him to pick Toby up from school.

  As she was about to take his place he said, ‘It is so good to be back here at the practice, Libby. You have no idea how much I missed it while I was away.’ She stared at him disbelievingly. ‘What? Do you think I don’t mean it?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she replied. ‘Once you’d gone to Africa you never came back to visit, did you, and you were eager enough to be gone in the first place?’

  It was a moment to tell her that he had come back all right, but no one had known about it, and the memory of seeing her as a bride smiling up at Jefferson surfaced from the dark corners of his mind once again. The frustration and dismay of that catastrophic dash halfway across the world to hear from her own lips that Libby had put behind her the hurt he’d caused her was something he wasn’t likely to forget.

  So it was just the practice that he’d missed, she thought bleakly, not any of those he’d left behind—certainly not her.

  But she hadn’t waited, had she? She’d done a stupid thing during the long empty weeks after his departure. Let the feeling of rejection that he’d been responsible for cause her to make a wrong decision that had been second only in foolishness to letting herself fall in love with him. They had been two great errors of judgement and she wasn’t going to let there be a third.

  During that first day of his return they had spoken mainly about practice matters, but Libby had been so aware of him she’d felt relieved when he’d finished for the day and gone to pick Toby up from school.

  When she arrived home at a much later hour she was hoping to be able to go in, shut her door and relax with no further sightings of him. It had seemed that her wish might be granted until a ring on the bell when Swallowbrook was bathed in autumn gloaming had her tensing.

  It reminded her of the night of his arrival as she went slowly to the door, and sure enough it was her new neighbour standing in the shadowed porch.

  ‘I know you must have seen enough of me for one day,’ he said apologetically, ‘but on the point of going to sleep Toby has just told me that it’s the harvest festival at the school tomorrow morning and he’s expected to take something, and I haven’t got anything that would be suitable.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said steadily. ‘It is the usual procedure for the school children at harvest-time. They bring fruit, vegetables, flowers, and the person who has been chosen to receive their gifts presents them with a harvest loaf, fashioned in the shape of a sheaf of corn. There is a short service afterwards and then they go to their classrooms.’

  ‘I see,’ he said slowly. ‘I do wish he’d told me sooner.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ she told him with the feeling that the fates were not playing fair. They were determined that she wasn’t going to avoid Nathan’s presence in her life again. ‘I have a tree in my back garden that’s loaded with apples, and next to it a plum tree burdened likewise.

  ‘If you’d like to come back when I’ve had my meal and bring a ladder, we should be able to solve your problem.’ But it won’t go any way to solving mine, she thought glumly.

  He was smiling. ‘Thanks for the suggestio
n. So far I’m making the grade with Toby, but it wouldn’t have gone down too well if he’d been the only kid without something for the harvest, and with regard to your evening meal have you started preparing it?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not so far. I’m going to have a shower first to wash away the germs of the day from the practice, but I know what I’m having and it won’t take long to prepare.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘An omelette, some crusty bread and a glass of wine.’

  ‘I’m quite good with omelettes and I’ve got the wine, so if you’ll bring the bread I’ll have a meal ready for us both by the time you come out of the shower. It’s the least I can do if you’re going to get me off the hook with the harvest. How long before you’ll be ready?’

  ‘Er, twenty minutes,’ she replied weakly, with the feeling that she was being manipulated and ought to refuse the gesture.

  He was turning on his heel. ‘All right, Libby. I’ll see you then.’ And off he went, back to where Toby was sleeping, totally innocent of being the cause of any embarrassment to him.

  Libby didn’t linger under the shower. In the stipulated time she needed to dry her hair and brush it into some semblance of order, apply some make-up, and find something in her wardrobe that would put the finishing touches to her appearance.

  She chose an attractive summer dress of soft blue cotton that clung to her slender curves in all the right places, but as she was on the point of zipping it up the voice of reason was asking, Are you insane? Dressing up for the man who gave you the brush-off all that time ago and is showing no signs of having changed his mind? You need old jeans and a cotton top for climbing ladders and getting the message over that the days of you wanting him are long gone.

  So old jeans it was and an average T-shirt to go with them and off she went, carrying the bread that she’d bought at the bakery in her lunch hour.