‘No. Not at all. I was just thinking how I wished my father had the same vision as you.’
‘It’s the generation gap. He belongs to an era when bottle green and dark brown were the in colours, or sometimes blue if they wanted to be adventurous.’
Isabel was laughing in spite of her vow not to let Ross get through her defences, and on seeing it he said, ‘It’s nice to know I can still make you laugh.’
He was moving them onto shifting sands again, she thought. Harking back to how they’d been before. Ross didn’t realise that she’d locked all the hurt and humiliation away in her heart and had never expected to have to bring it out into the open again. And now here he was with his joking reminders.
‘And cry,’ she said evenly. Getting into the Mini, she left him to make of that what he would.
He was a fool, Ross was thinking as she drove off. He hadn’t been back five minutes and he was already reminding Izzy of the past. Why couldn’t he let it lie, as she seemed to have done?
* * *
That evening in the strangely silent surgery Ross was brisk and businesslike, listening intently to Isabel’s suggestions and nodding his approval most of the time. The only thing they disagreed on was the colour of the carpet. She was in favour of a lighter colour of honey than he was, but had to admit that with the amount of foot traffic upon it all the time, the darker shade was the wisest choice.
‘It will be lovely,’ she enthused. ‘I can’t wait to see it. The surgery has looked drab for years. I love light, bright colours.’
‘So you haven’t got bottle green and brown in your cottage?’
‘No way! I love that place. When I was doing it up I could please myself for the first time in my life, and I was in heaven.’
Her eyes were bright, her lips parted at the memory, and he thought that Izzy hadn’t had a lot in her life to be happy about. It was a shame that she’d lost her mother so young. Her dour father had done little to ease the pain.
‘Tomorrow I’ll get on to the decorator and show him all the sunshine colours we’ve decided on,’ he said decisively, ‘and then order the carpet and the chairs that you’ve chosen.’
‘Magic!’ she cried. ‘But you’ve let me do all the choosing. You haven’t come up with any opinions, apart from the shade of honey for the carpet.’
‘I’m easy. As long as the place is clean and bright, I don’t mind.’
He wasn’t going to tell her that her delight mattered more than the colours they’d chosen. He hoped that it was making up in a small way for him coming back into her life without warning.
As he was locking up Isabel said, ‘Sorting out the redecoration of the surgery is the second good thing that has happened today.’
‘And what was the first?’ he quizzed. ‘Let me guess. The news that Kate Arrowsmith’s illness was due to metoclopromide and that there is already a little improvement?’
‘Right first time. I’m so happy for her and her parents. They’ve had a terrible scare.’
‘Yes. Let it be a lesson to them. Dabbling with drugs of that nature can be life-threatening. And by the way, Aunt Sophie already knew what had happened when you dropped me off at the tea shop last night.’
‘How could she?’ Isabel asked in amazement. ‘We’d only just come from the farm.’
‘Yes, but the Arrowsmiths’ farmhand had got there before us. If you remember, he was there all agog when we were discussing the tablets with the farmer, and it would seem that he couldn’t wait to let the rest of the community know what was going on.’
She was smiling. ‘That’s the way it is with village life. Surely you remember that from before.’
‘Yes, I suppose I do. I have some news to impart myself.’
‘What?’
‘My mother came downstairs yesterday for the first time in weeks and was serving behind the counter for a little while. What do you think of that?’
‘Wonderful!’ Her eyes were sparkling. ‘Your coming home has lifted her out of the doldrums.’
‘It won’t have reduced the rheumatoid arthritis, I’m afraid, but maybe it has made her feel more positive. I should have come home sooner, Izzy,’ he said regretfully. ‘It took your father of all people to give me a shove in the right direction.’
She didn’t take him up on that. The events leading up to it and his arrival in the village after such a long absence were the last thing she wanted to discuss at that moment. So she just nodded briefly and said, ‘It’s late. I’m going. Goodnight, Ross.’
‘The light is fading. I’ll walk you home,’ he suggested.
‘No need. I’ll be at the cottage within minutes, I am used to looking after myself and would prefer it to stay that way. There’s been no one to walk me home over the last seven years and I’ve no wish to change it now.’
‘Huh!’ he tutted. ‘Well, there should have been. What’s wrong with the men in this place?’
‘Nothing, as far as I know. For the biggest part of that time I wasn’t here, was I? I was away at college, obeying my father’s instructions to get a degree and behave myself.’
The old tartar! he thought. Sending her off into the unknown with those kinds of words ringing in her ears. Izzy had done nothing wrong. She’d just been seeking affection from the nearest source, and had been punished for it.
It wasn’t just the surgery premises that were like something out of the Dark Ages. Paul’s thought processes at that time must have been the same.
‘What do you do in your free time?’ he asked, loth to let her go.
‘I clean the cottage, do the garden and go food shopping.’
‘Doesn’t sound very exciting for somebody of your age.’
‘And at weekends I’m on call for Cave Rescue on a voluntary basis.’
‘Cave Rescue! That’s in a different league from domestic chores. How long have you been doing that?’
‘Since I joined the practice. It’s exciting and provides a service at the same time. If the paramedics who are on standby aren’t available, I’m there to assist.’
‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully, as another surprising facet to her character was revealed. The helpless one had become an independent woman of the world in spite of having come back to her rural roots, and wasn’t that how he’d hoped to find her?
So why was he feeling so rattled to know that Izzy didn’t need a man in her life, least of all him? And that she was involved in a tough and dangerous pastime into the bargain?
‘And how often have you been called out so far?’ he asked edgily.
‘Oh, a few times. There are lots of caves in the Castleton area and once we were called out to a group of cavers trapped by floods, but that doesn’t happen too often here. At Bakewell it’s a different thing altogether as some of the caves there are level with the water level of the river Wye.
‘We’ve been called out twice when someone has broken their ankle. There’s a lot of rubble from rockfalls in some of the caves and it’s just left there. On that sort of surface it’s easy to injure the feet, particularly the ankles. In the old days when the caverns were mines the miners used to build walls with the fallen rock, which kept the floors free of debris and helped support the place where they were working, but these days the rubble gets left and makes it treacherous underfoot.’
‘What does your father think about you being involved in such a dangerous pastime?’
Isabel shrugged.
‘As long as his patients are being looked after and there’s a nice meal waiting for him in the evenings at Millie’s place, he isn’t bothered about anything else.’
‘So it is as well that you are the self-sufficient person that you are,’ he said. ‘Otherwise you would be…’
‘Flapping? Floundering? I achieved my self-sufficiency the hard way, Ross, and nothing and no one is going to take it from me.’
It came over like a blunt warning, but she was smiling as she reminded him, ‘I’ve said goodnight once and I’m still here. I’ll see you tomor
row.’ And with a casual wave of the hand she disappeared into the gathering dusk.
* * *
With Tess lying peacefully on the carpet alongside her bed and Puss-Puss purring in the crook of her arm, Isabel lay sleepless in her small bedroom beneath the eaves. Before Ross’s arrival back on the scene she would have been out like a light almost as soon as her head had touched the pillow after the long, busy days that had been thrust upon her since Millie’s retirement, but that had changed.
Not the pressure of work. That was no different. What had changed was her ability to relax, shut her eyes and slide into sleep. Now when she went to bed, going round in her mind was what Ross had done, what he’d said, how he’d looked, all things that made oblivion hard to come by—and tonight was no exception.
He’d quizzed her about her private life while they’d been standing outside the surgery, made it clear that he thought it strange that she wasn’t in any kind of relationship, and as she’d walked home she’d wondered about him. Surely he hadn’t been without some kind of relationship during the time he’d been away. He was too striking to go unnoticed by women.
Maybe the next time she saw him she would ask. So far all the curiosity had been on his part. She hadn’t asked him a thing about what he’d been doing while he’d been away. The shock of his reappearance had been enough to cope with, but once she’d adjusted to that she might come up with some questions of her own.
Eventually she went into a restless doze, only to be awakened when Tess jumped up and began to bark. When she checked the time it was five o’clock, and just becoming light enough to see. She padded across to the window and peered out over the river, but all was still. Not even a leaf or a blade of grass moved. Yet something had disturbed Tess.
Her bedroom was at the back of the cottage and, still curious, she walked barefoot across the small upstairs landing to peer through the front window. As she looked down into the lane below her eyes widened. Standing stolidly on her small front lawn was a cow, big, brown and enjoying a leisurely breakfast from the fresh green grass of the turf that she’d laid when she’d moved in.
That was surprising enough, but even more unexpected was the sight of Ross, trying to persuade it to go back to where it had come from with words of quiet determination and a stick.
When she opened the window he looked up and sighed. ‘I was trying to get rid of your hungry visitor without disturbing you and before she’s eaten all your grass, but the lady’s not for moving.’
‘I wonder which farm she’s from,’ she said sleepily. ‘I’m not averse to her eating a few blades of grass, but I don’t want the lawn churned up with those hooves. How do you come to be here at this hour?’
‘My mother was having a bad night and Sophie phoned me. I’d got her settled and was on my way back to the hotel when I saw the animal trotting down the road in this direction and followed it. Some farmer will be wondering where one of his cows is when he comes to start the milking.’
‘The nearest farm is Michael Levitt’s,’ Isabel told him, still hanging out of the window, ‘and he can’t afford to have any of his animals lost or injured. He’ll be panicking when he finds that the cow is missing.’
At that moment there was the sound of a vehicle approaching along the dirt track that led to the cottage and, sure enough, the man she’d just mentioned was behind the wheel. When he saw Isabel at the window, with Ross down below, and the cow calmly grazing beside him, he was out of the farm truck in a flash.
‘I’m sorry about this, Isabel,’ he said apologetically. ‘I’ll pay for any damage to your garden. This one has the wanderlust.’
‘It’s all right, Michael,’ she told him. ‘Don’t worry about it. Just as long as no harm has come to her.’
‘I’ll get her back into the pasture and then come back for the truck, if that’s all right with you,’ he said, then turned to Ross. ‘I’d heard that you were back with us, Dr Templeton. It’s lucky that you were on hand to stop Patsy from going any further. Sorry to have disturbed you both.’
When the farmer had gone, with the escapee trotting along in front of him, Ross looked up to where Isabel was still at the window. He was somewhat red-faced.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘The farmer jumping to the wrong conclusions. I suppose he can be forgiven for putting two and two together and making five after seeing you in your nightdress and me on the premises at this hour.’
‘And you are the one who is going to tell him that he was mistaken, aren’t you?’ she said sweetly.
‘If you say so,’ he agreed blandly, ‘and as it looks as if I’m not going to be invited in for an early breakfast after all my efforts, I’ll be on my way. I’ll see you at the practice, Izzy, and don’t be late.’
‘Huh!’ she snorted and went back to bed, but again not to sleep. The farmer must have wondered what the situation was between her and Ross when he hadn’t been back in the village for more than a few days. But after finding him in her garden at that hour, she supposed it was natural to come to the wrong conclusion.
She watched the sun come up as she snuggled beneath the sheets, and she felt a sudden surge of happiness. She’d opened doors, looked through windows a thousand times, but Ross had never been there. Yet this morning had been different. She’d looked down into her front garden and there he’d been. And for the first time since he’d come back into her life she’d been glad to see him.
Not because she was afraid of the cow. Strays were not unknown in the village. But because he’d been uppermost in her mind all the time that sleep had eluded her and then, magically, he’d been there and she’d known in that moment it was what she wanted, Ross back in her life. No matter what complications his return might bring, she was willing to endure them as long as she could see him, hear him and, if she got lucky, touch him.
* * *
It was the Saturday at the end of Ross’s second week back in the village and the official day of takeover—Paul’s last day at the surgery. A notice had been put up a few days previously to say that refreshments would be served during the morning for anyone wishing to send Paul on his way with their good wishes, and a steady stream of patients had been arriving almost from the moment of opening.
He still hadn’t had an invitation into her cottage and was getting the message that she wasn’t prepared to mix business with pleasure. That was if having him inside her own cherished little sanctum would be seen by her as pleasure. But he could wait. However long it took, there would be no comparison to that other wait of seven long years.
When the throng of well-wishers had gone, and her father with them, eager to get into his new home, Isabel and Ross began to clear up, both of them aware that from now on Ross would be on the premises permanently in the drab flat above the surgery.
Isabel also knew that the moment the decorator had completed the last brushstroke on the surgery, Ross would have him engaged on another urgently needed facelift, but in the meantime he would have to endure.
With Millie’s help her father had bought new furniture for his apartment and Isabel had viewed it in continuing amazement. Was this the same man who had always preferred to save rather than spend? she kept asking herself. From where had this new zest appeared?
Yet he hadn’t changed in every way. His living habits may have altered, but he was still the same secretive old autocrat that he’d always been. The way he’d offered Ross the practice without telling her was proof of that.
‘So this is it, then,’ Ross said as he dried the last glass. ‘The die is cast. You’ve got me forever on your doorstep, whether you like it or not.’
‘That is if I stay here.’
His hands became still. ‘What is that supposed to mean? Don’t tell me that me coming back to the village is going to drive you out of it.’
She had no intention of leaving the river and the rural paradise that surrounded it, and had said what she had to see how he would react. Now she was wishing that she hadn’t been so flip about something
so important. But instead of reassuring him, she made matters worse by saying, ‘You flatter yourself if you think that you taking over the practice concerns me to that extent.’
‘So you aren’t planning on leaving?’ he questioned.
‘No, of course not,’ she told him. ‘I was here first, remember.’
‘Yes, you were, which I suppose gives you sovereign rights,’ he said whimsically. She glanced at him sharply, expecting to see mockery in his glance, but it was amusement rather than mockery that was there as he went on to say, ‘If I remember rightly, you pointed out not so long ago that you were the one who had been “loyal” and I was the one who had “strayed”. I realised then that you didn’t know why I’d gone.’
‘I did know,’ she told him flatly, ‘and I lived with the embarrassment of it for a long time. You went because I was becoming a nuisance, always drooling over you and wanting your attention, proclaiming that you were the love of my life.’
‘And you think that’s why I left,’ he said slowly.
‘Well, isn’t it?’
He couldn’t tell her that he’d gone because of what her father had been prepared to do. That would have crushed her spirit for ever.
‘Yes, it was something like that,’ he said levelly, and knew he was bringing back her hurt of long ago by letting her think he’d wanted to get away from her because she’d been an embarrassment. ‘But don’t start going back over the past, Izzy,’ he coaxed. ‘My departure gave you the chance to get back to your studies. You wouldn’t be where you are now if I’d continued to be the unwelcome distraction that your father saw me as. You’ve achieved a lot with not much love and encouragement to back you up. For what it’s worth, I’m proud of you.’ And placing his arm around her shoulders, he kissed her gently on the brow.
She stiffened. ‘Don’t do that, Ross,’ she said in a low voice, and when she looked up it was as if the years had rolled away. Gone was the calm confidence of the woman of the world. The uncertainty that a loveless upbringing had brought was there in the beautiful violet eyes raised to his, and he wanted to hold her closer and tell her that it was going to be all right. That he would never hurt her again, no matter what.
Coming Back For His Bride Page 6