Coming Back For His Bride

by Abigail Gordon

  She glanced across to where the men of the fire service already had their hoses playing onto the burning building. ‘There’s nothing else we can do here. They’ll have to break the news to Brian’s mother and the girls, should they return while we’re gone, and once we get to the hospital I will have the unenviable task of telling Jean that he probably tried to burn the place down. She isn’t going to feel exactly guilt-free when she hears that, I’m afraid, as she had no intention of leaving Brian. She was just letting him think that to teach him a lesson.’

  ‘What a mess,’ he croaked. ‘He was all set for staying up there. I don’t know what I would have done if the smoke hadn’t got to him.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she said gently as she helped him across to the ambulance. ‘I have never been so terrified in my life as I waited to see if you would come out of there alive.’

  He managed a smile. ‘Not as terrified as I would have been if I hadn’t got there in time to stop you from going in.’ He became serious again. ‘You were right with your ideas of out-of-hours surgery care. I should have realised earlier that Derwent was on the edge, that he needed counselling. That was why I happened to be here when you arrived. I’d come to have a chat with him and was going to suggest he make an appointment to see me at the surgery for some antidepressants. When I asked him where the children were he said they’d gone out with his mother and wouldn’t be back for a while.’

  ‘He asked if I’d like a coffee, which I thought was a sign that he wasn’t feeling quite so aggressive, and went off into the kitchen. But while I sat there like a fool, waiting for him to make it, he must have slipped out of the back door and run across to the barn. It would have taken just a few slurps out of a petrol can and a lighted match for the fire to get going.’

  ‘It could have been worse, I suppose,’ Isabel said glumly. ‘It could have been the farmhouse that went up in flames. At least they’ll have somewhere to live.’

  The paramedics were ready for them and once they were all settled inside the ambulance it was off, with Brian lying on one of the stretchers, being given oxygen. His breathing was too laboured for him to be able to speak and if he had been able to she wouldn’t have wanted to hear what he had to say. If this man was supposed to love his family he had a funny way of showing it, she thought grimly.

  The only good thing about the afternoon’s horrendous happenings was that he hadn’t taken the children into the barn with him.

  Anger was rising in her. Ross had risked his life to get him out of there. She hoped Brian would realise that once he was in a calmer state of mind.

  As the ambulance pulled up outside Accident and Emergency, Jean, her mother-in-law, and the children were coming out of the main entrance and making their way towards the car park.

  They stopped in surprise when Isabel called across to them, and her mouth went dry at the thought of what she had to tell Jean as she went over to them.

  ‘They’ve got Brian in the ambulance,’ she said.

  ‘Why? What’s wrong? Has he had an accident?’ Jean asked anxiously.

  ‘He was all right when we left the farm earlier,’ his mother said in alarm.

  Isabel took a deep breath. Ross had said that he thought she was right to be there for her patients whenever the occasion arose, be it in the practice or outside of it, but she could do without moments like this.

  ‘We think he tried to kill himself,’ she told the two women. ‘It looks as if he set fire to the barn while he was inside. Dr Templeton was there and he got him out in the nick of time. You were just a few hours too late with what you had to tell him, Jean.’

  ‘The crazy fool!’ his mother said frantically, but Jean wasn’t there to hear. She was halfway across the hospital forecourt to where her husband was being lifted out of the ambulance, her face white with horror.

  * * *

  The two doctors were back at the practice. Ross had been checked over for smoke inhalation and been allowed home, and Isabel had insisted on going back to his place to keep an eye on him for what was left of Sunday.

  Brian had been kept in for observation. He would be seeing a psychologist the following day, and would be receiving a visit from the police to ascertain what had happened.

  They’d got a taxi home as both of their cars were still at the farm and during the journey the day’s events, all of them crystal clear, had gone through Isabel’s mind, starting with her visit to Jean in the early afternoon, then taking the botanist home, followed by the awful sight of flames in a summer sky.

  Then it had all speeded up into a nightmare. The blazing barn, the man standing up in the hayloft and Ross appearing out of nowhere and dragging her back when she would have gone in.

  It had been horrendous enough up to then, but when Ross had gone inside the burning building sheer terror had taken over at the thought that she might lose him.

  That she hadn’t was something she would be grateful for to her dying day and if he never wanted her as she wanted him she would accept it in that same spirit of gratitude.

  ‘I’m going to make a meal,’ she said as soon as they got in, resisting the urge to hold him close and never let him go. ‘I’m starving.’

  Ross was on the point of heading for the shower to get the grime from the smoke off him and he nodded. ‘Good idea. I’m feeling peckish myself. Fire rescue must give one an appetite.’

  ‘Don’t,’ she said with a shudder. ‘That foolish man has really messed things up for all of them. It’s surprising how some people can take any amount of stress and others just can’t cope with it at all.’

  ‘It was bizarre, Jean being on the point of leaving the hospital when we got there, wasn’t it?’ he commented. ‘We almost missed her.’

  ‘She wasn’t supposed to be going home until tomorrow,’ Isabel told him, ‘but because of what I’d said about Brian, she’d persuaded them to discharge her a day early. Yet sadly she didn’t get there in time to put his fears to rest, and look what she has facing her now. Knowing what he’s like, I’m surprised she let him think she was going to leave him. But the damage is done.’

  ‘At least he made sure that no one but himself was going to be at risk.’

  ‘Except you!’

  ‘Yes. But he didn’t ask me to go in after him, did he? Though now he knows that his wife had no intention of leaving him, he might be glad that I did. What would you have done if I’d perished in there?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Not spent the rest of your life grieving, I hope.’

  He knows, she thought! Ross knows that I love him and is telling me in a roundabout sort of way that I need to get over it.

  She laughed and it sounded shrill to her ears.

  ‘I wouldn’t have gone into a convent, if that’s what you mean, but I would have remembered you always as someone very brave,’ she said lightly, and hoped that it sounded convincing.

  If she hadn’t been so flustered at the way the conversation was going she might have thought he looked disappointed, but to hide her confusion she’d turned her attention to the meal she’d promised him and was investigating the contents of the fridge.

  By the time that Ross had reappeared looking scrubbed and clean, she was ready to take steaks from under the grill and serve the vegetables to go with them. When they sat down to eat, they were back on safe subjects, such as when the decorator was due to finish and what kind of furniture Ross was going to replace her father’s old stuff with.

  As the sun sank below the horizon and night drew in, Isabel felt mental and physical exhaustion begin to take its toll. It had been a day that she would never forget, and once she’d tidied the kitchen after the meal and made sure that Ross wasn’t having any worrying after-effects from the fire, she told him that she was going home.

  ‘I’m very tired,’ she told him, ‘and Tess and Puss-Puss will be waiting to be fed. They will be thinking I’ve deserted them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t imagine that you’ve ever deserted anyone or anything,’ he said quietly. ‘Which is more tha
n some of the rest of us can say. Sleep well in your pretty cottage, Izzy.’

  He knew that she had no idea how much he would like her to stay, snuggled up against him through the night. But just because once again they’d been brought together in circumstances connected with other people, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to carry on with the waiting game that he’d played for so long.

  ‘How can you expect me to sleep with the problems of the Derwent family going round in my mind?’ she protested tiredly.

  ‘When I said that I’d changed my ideas and understood you looking after the concerns of our patients outside surgery hours, it didn’t include you lying sleepless all night on their account. That will achieve nothing for either you or them.’

  ‘Easier said than done,’ she said, her hand on the door latch.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ he said, ‘and once I’ve seen you safely inside I won’t be long out of bed myself. And, Izzy…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t want to be reminded that you are quite capable of seeing yourself home. That you’ve done it a thousand times and nobody cared a damn.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  He put a finger over her lips.

  ‘Shush! From now on, when you are with me and it is dark, I take you home. Understood?’

  As he looked into her face he saw tears in the beautiful eyes looking up into his and he asked gently, ‘What’s wrong? The last thing I want is to upset you.’

  ‘You’re making me feel as if I matter,’ she said, forcing back the tears, ‘and it feels strange and unsettling.’

  It’s something you are going to have to get used to, he thought, and one day I will tell you why.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WHEN Isabel called in at the post office on her way to the surgery the next morning, Jess said, ‘It’s all around the village that Brian Derwent set his barn on fire yesterday. That he was trying to commit suicide and that Ross Templeton saved him.’

  ‘Yes, Ross went into the barn and brought him out safely,’ she said uncomfortably, making no comment about the rest of what Jess had said as she had no wish to fill in the details of the tragic circumstances for the benefit of the locals. ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Ross went round to his mother’s late last night to let her and Sophie know what had happened. He didn’t want them hearing it from another source and being anxious on his behalf. It seems like a sad state of affairs at the Derwents’,’ the postmistress went on. ‘If he was having money worries, there would always have been someone in the community who would help tide him over.’

  ‘It was more because Jean was ill that Brian got himself in a state,’ Isabel explained. ‘I think the fire was due more to carelessness than anything else. That he lit a cigarette and didn’t put it out properly, and because he had so much on his mind when the hay began to blaze he just stood there, rooted to the spot.’

  ‘Oh! So that’s what happened,’ Jess said, her interest waning as Isabel’s not-strictly-true version of events gave the story a new slant. ‘Well, whatever it was, that fellow has always been a loser.’

  ‘Not in everything,’ Isabel reminded her. ‘He has a loving wife and two beautiful children. Jean will get him through this. She may not be the stronger of the two physically, but she has more stamina mentally.’ And on that more positive note she made a speedy departure before she was forced to be sparing with the truth again.

  Ross was already there when she got to the surgery, sporting his singed hair and eyebrows and a slightly redder than usual complexion, but apart from that he seemed all right.

  ‘So did you sleep?’ he asked when she appeared at the door of his consulting room.

  ‘Yes, surprisingly,’ she told him. ‘Did you?’

  ‘Mmm, after a fashion, with a few nightmares thrown in. The police have just been on the phone to say they’ll be coming to ask some questions later.’

  ‘I told Jess at the post office that it was an accident from a lighted cigarette, which I suppose was a stupid thing to do.’

  He shook his head. ‘I shall have to tell them the truth, but will emphasise that I’d gone to see him because of his mental state. That he was suffering from acute depression and would not have been responsible for his actions. It might mean him going into psychiatric care for a while, but otherwise that should be all.’

  ‘But who will look after the farm while that is happening?’ she said anxiously.

  ‘I don’t know, but it will be an ideal opportunity for the local community to rally round if they are as supportive as you say they are. And by the way, what was the result regarding Jess’s suspected saliva duct blockage? I’m taking it that it’s been sorted. I was in the post office the other day and the swelling was no longer visible.’

  ‘It turned out to be what I suspected,’ she told him. ‘She was in hospital for the day while they did a minor op to remove the blockage. Hopefully that will be the last of it. If it isn’t, I’ll have to refer her back to them.’

  ‘I wish that one of my patients this morning had something so easily fixed,’ he said sombrely, with his glance on the surgery clock. It was coming up to half past eight.

  ‘Why? Who is it?’

  ‘The young lad whose parents own the Pheasant. Do you know the family?’

  ‘No. I’m afraid I don’t. They only took over recently. What is wrong with the child?’

  ‘Young Jake is as bright as a button, an adorable kid, but he was born with a severe facial deformity. His jaw bone was damaged at birth and it’s a source of great anxiety to his parents. So far no one has come up with any solutions and the poor kid has to eat through a straw, has difficulty talking and cleaning his teeth and has a permanently fixed expression.

  ‘Naturally his parents are keen to do something about it, but no one has been able to suggest what. While I was staying at the hotel when I first came back here, I became aware of Jake’s problem and his parents and I got talking. I told them about an amazing new implant at present undergoing trials, which is already helping children like him.

  ‘It seems that a child in Russia has had the whole of a deformed jaw bone removed and the implant put in its place, and almost immediately she could eat, laugh and talk, where none of that was possible before.

  ‘The introduction of it has been a joint effort by British and Russian scientists. It’s made of a honeycomb-like polymer that bonds to the bone and the big advantages are that it’s light, flexible, tough and, believe it or not, cheap.

  ‘Needless to say, Jake’s parents were very interested in what I had to tell them and are coming in this morning to bring me up to date with what progress they’ve made regarding their son being given the implant.’

  ‘Poor child.’ she said softly. ‘It’s bad enough being plain, but to have that sort of disfigurement is awful.’

  Ross was out of his seat behind the desk in a flash, and before she could move he was gripping her by the forearms, his eyes, still red-rimmed from the fire, bright with irritation.

  ‘I could shake you, Izzy West!’ he hissed. ‘I am sick of hearing you complaining about your looks. What is it that you want? To be told all the time that you’re a raving beauty? Isn’t it more important that you’re clever and kind, and beneath the face that you are always complaining about are curves so much in the right places that the average male couldn’t help but want to see more of them?’

  She looked at him wide-eyed, amazed that a casual comment should have brought about such an irate reaction. He was still gripping her arms and she didn’t shake him off. She could feel the heat of his hands through the sleeves of the lightweight top she was wearing and, unable to resist the opportunity, she said coolly, ‘But you, it would seem, are not the average male.’

  ‘Oh, I’m that all right,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘but I’m also someone who has learnt by his past mistakes.’

  ‘And you think I haven’t.’

  It was there again, she thought. The warning that even if she w
as ready to try again, he wasn’t.

  There was a footstep outside in the passage. Freeing her from his grasp, he turned away and said, ‘Let’s get the day under way, shall we?’

  ‘By all means,’ she replied in the same cool tone. ‘Never let it be said that we talked about ourselves for a moment.’ And off she went.

  * * *

  As he called in his first patient Ross was thinking that he’d just behaved badly with someone that he had no wish to hurt ever again. Why hadn’t he told Izzy that to him she was perfect in every way, instead of ranting at her like a madman?

  In spite of the coolness that she wore like a protective cloak, he knew that she was still vulnerable because of past hurts bestowed upon her by her father and himself, and much as he would have liked to have kissed her until she understood that she was beautiful, he’d kept a tight hold on his feelings and stayed calm, even though the soft warmth of her beneath his hands had made it difficult.

  When he’d first come back and met the confident young doctor who amazingly wasn’t spoken for in any shape or form, he’d been on a high. He’d told himself that maybe their time had come but, remembering what had happened before, he’d been prepared to wait for as long as it took for Izzy to trust him again.

  But he hadn’t been prepared for her father taking a back seat in her life so soon after his arrival, which had simplified everything, and neither had he expected her to affect him so much that waiting was the last thing he wanted to do.

  He wanted to court her, cherish her, so that she might be as confident in her private life as she was in the career that she’d chosen. Maybe it was time he did that. He’d make a start by inviting Izzy out for the evening and take it from there.

  * * *

  ‘Mornin’, Doctor,’ old Sam Shuttleworth said as he lowered himself slowly into a chair. He’d been a lock-keeper in his youth on the canal that was the other well-loved waterway in the village, and now lived with his daughter behind her florist’s shop.

  As Ross returned his greeting he was observing the old man’s restricted mobility of movement and knew that a moment’s impatience had turned what had been a sprightly octogenarian into someone who needed a stick to make his laboured progress around the village.