A Return, a Reunion, a Wedding

by Annie O'Neil

  An image of Sam’s dubious expression popped into her head. She quickly shook it away.

  Six weeks. She could do just about anything for six weeks.

  She pushed through the door, determined to make a better go of it, and bashed straight into a chest. A chest that smelt of grass and wood and a kick of grapefruit as the perfect olfactory chaser.

  In other words it was a chest that smelt of Sam Crenshaw.

  Couldn’t a girl get five minutes on her own to wrestle with her past?

  Trying to keep her voice light—fun, even—Jayne looked up into those green eyes of his and joked, ‘Look, Sam, I know I don’t have a great track record in sticking around, but I’m pretty sure you can count on me not to climb out through the window of the ladies’ loo.’

  He tilted his chin to the side and gave her a confused look. ‘I was just checking that you were all right. You looked upset.’

  Score one to Sam for still being able to read her emotional barometer.

  But she couldn’t accept sympathy from him. Not with her yo-yoing emotions.

  ‘Aw... You wanted to make sure my heart wasn’t breaking because you’re on a date? Don’t you worry. I’m not jealous.’

  Sam’s arched eyebrow made a reappearance.

  Oh, sugar. She was totally jealous.

  If Jayne could have thrown herself into the world’s deepest pool of quicksand she would have done it. Immediately.

  She pulled her ponytail across her eyes, unwilling to read what was going on in Sam’s. ‘Sorry...sorry. I’m happy for you. Of all the people in the universe, you deserve happiness.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  She dropped her ponytail and felt it swish between her shoulder blades as her eyes met Sam’s.

  Now, that was a loaded question.

  His eyebrow dropped back into place. His tight smile softened. He lifted his hand up and swept the backs of his fingers against her cheek.

  Against everything her brain was screaming at her to do, she leant into them. A cardinal sin if ever there was one.

  Sparks flooded her bloodstream and her heart bashed against her ribcage so hard she was sure the unicorn on her T-shirt looked as if it was galloping. Not that she could tear her eyes away from his and check. It might have been raining diamonds at this very moment and she wouldn’t have noticed.

  ‘Miss me?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Yeah...’ She only just managed to deadpan. ‘Something awful.’

  She did actually. Always had. More than she’d ever admit. To him anyway. Each Christmas at the pub she’d seek out his dog, Elf, and whisper it into his ear. Elf always licked her nose as if he got it.

  Sam took a step closer towards her.

  ‘How much?’

  Her heart skipped a beat. And then quite a few more. She hadn’t been this close to Sam in years. Being touched by him...her body wanting nothing more than to be just that little bit closer...they were just the beginning of a myriad reasons why coming home had never been on her to-do list.

  She felt the space between the two of them diminish.

  Maybe it was the failed surgery. Maybe it was seeing him with another woman. Maybe it was the simple fact that she’d loved Sam Crenshaw for near enough her entire life and being here with him and not touching him was next to impossible.

  They were going to kiss. She could see it in the angle of his chin. Feel it in his fingers on hers. Her heels lifting off the ground so she could reach his mouth.

  Just as her feet felt as if they were going to begin floating Sam pulled back. He scrubbed his hands through his hair and looked about as confused as she felt.

  What had that been about? Another test?

  If it had been an experiment to see if there were still a few sparks flying between them, Jayne was pretty sure they had the answer to that.

  ‘I’m guessing that wasn’t meant to happen.’ Jayne made a couple of comedy noises to show Sam she was willing to pretend it had never happened if he was.

  He cleared his throat and rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. ‘Right, um...’

  Sam didn’t seem to know which way to look. Anywhere but at her seemed to be working for him.

  ‘I was just on my way to put some orders in at the bar. Want anything?’

  ‘No, I’d better not. I’m driving Maggie and the children back.’

  When he turned around she skimmed her fingers across her lips, as if they had actually been bruised by the kisses that never came, then scraped the sensation away with her nails.

  She watched as he strode swiftly to the bar, taking note of all the waves and back-slaps and hellos he received on the way. Just like his father and grandfather before him, he was a valued member of the community. Someone people respected. Someone people loved. Someone they’d protect...

  All of the sudden the low hum of activity from the playing field burst into cries of dismay, quickly followed by loud calls for Sam.

  * * *

  Sam ran as fast as he could. Faster when he saw it was his grandad lying stretched out at the far end of the cricket pitch.

  Calls to clear the area and to give Ernest some air wrapped round him as he knelt down by his grandfather, who was trying to push himself up to seating.

  ‘It’s all right, Sammy. It’s just a sprained ankle.’

  Sam knew his grandad wasn’t critically injured, but the wince and the quick breaths he was taking told him the seventy-eight-year-old had taken a proper fall.

  Ernest gave his wrist a tentative back-and-forth bend which indicated that would need a look as well. If he’d been looking up into the air for the cricket ball, then tripped and stumbled, he definitely would’ve used his wrists to blunt the fall.

  Sam sat back on his heels and grinned. ‘What sort of stunt move was it this time, Grandad? Did you think you were playing for England today?’

  His grandfather waved him off and reached out to pull up his trouser cuffs. His knees weren’t stained green, which meant they hadn’t taken any of his weight either. At his age there were also his hips to think about. Bone infection if there was a break. Nerve or blood vessel damage. Arthritis.

  It was a long list.

  Sam was just about to start in on the stream of questions that followed an injury like this when he felt rather than saw Jayne kneeling by his side and sliding a first aid kit into place between them.

  His grandad’s eyes brightened.

  Despite the intense moment they’d shared earlier, Sam found it strangely reassuring to have her there. Sure, it wasn’t a critical injury, but Sam had cared for his mother whilst she was dying of cancer and that had been tough. A blunt reminder of exactly why doctors treating their own family was not a good thing.

  It made his heart stop for a moment as he reminded himself that Jayne had been all on her own when her sister had been struck by that sports car. She must have been absolutely terrified. He’d been over and over the scenario a million times and it always ended the same way. With a diamond ring in his hand.

  Had he been so blinded by the way she’d shut him out that he’d genuinely not realised how helpless she’d felt?

  His family had drawn even closer together during his mother’s illness. The opposite had happened to Jayne’s. As if the injuries Jules had sustained had had a ripple effect. Little wonder... They’d had no time to prepare.

  As awful as it had been to see his mother so ill, they’d had time to prepare. To attack her bucket list. To say they loved her and to say goodbye. Jayne and her parents hadn’t had any of that. The world as they’d known it had changed in the blink of an eye.

  ‘Jayne? What on earth are you doing here?’ Ernest dropped her a wink, then winced. ‘They didn’t drop you in from some sort of helicopter ambulance, did they?’

  ‘Oh, no—that’s the sort of thing my sister would—’ She stopped
and gave her head a short shake. ‘I’ve brought along the cricket club’s first aid kit. Someone mentioned a stretcher and they’re having a dig around for that.’ She made a quick scan though the medical kit. ‘I’m guessing we should start with some ice packs.’ She held one out to Sam. ‘Shall I play nurse to your doctor?’

  It should have been a loaded question. She was a surgeon. He was a GP. In this scenario this kind of injury was his proverbial bread and butter. But Sam knew Jayne wasn’t pulling any sort of rank. Injuries like this needed to be treated quickly.

  Sam’s grandad might have been born and raised in the heart of World War II—and might be the poster boy for stiff upper lips—but he was going pretty pale. It was easy to see they needed to get him to hospital for a thorough check.

  ‘Are we going to go straightforward P-R-I-C-E on this one?’

  Sam nodded. Protect, rest, ice, compress and elevate. The easiest and most effective guidelines for a minor soft tissue injury. ‘There are no obvious breaks. Not from what I’ve seen. Want to double-check his ankle for me?’

  ‘I hope you two aren’t forgetting I am actually a doctor,’ Ernest piped up.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Jayne. ‘You’re the reason I wanted to become one in the first place.’

  Sam smiled and accepted a stretchy bandage to wrap round his grandad’s wrist.

  He remembered when Jayne’s mum had used to bring bright flushes of red to her daughter’s cheeks as she told the story of Jayne bringing a cloth dolly to the doctor’s surgery as a little girl. She and Jules had become embroiled in a tug of war and the doll had been its victim. Her little cloth hand had been torn off and Jayne had been inconsolable. Ernest had taken the doll, put it on the exam table and asked it a few questions. Then carefully inserted an IV before pulling the curtain round him while he deftly stitched the hand back on and handed the doll to Jayne as good as new.

  He refocused on his grandfather’s wrist. ‘The way the swelling’s ballooning on your wrist, Grandad, I’m afraid you’re going to need an X-ray.’

  ‘The ankle as well,’ Jayne said apologetically as she gingerly lifted his grandfather’s foot.

  The exposed area between his trousers and his sock was already visibly swollen, and taking on some rather unnatural hues.

  ‘I’m just going to take your shoe off, if that’s all right?’

  ‘’Course it is! I’d do it myself if my grandson here would quit his fussing over my wrist. It’s only—ouch!’ He pulled his arm protectively to his chest. ‘Well...maybe an X-ray would be a good idea.’

  After a couple of men had shown up with the stretcher, and they’d rolled his grandfather on to his side to load him up, Ernest began grumbling—a good sign that his injuries weren’t too serious.

  ‘I have a load of patients on the roster tomorrow,’ he protested. ‘So the sooner we sort this the better.’

  Sam barked a laugh. ‘You’re not going anywhere near a patient for at least a week.’

  ‘What?’ Ernest squawked. ‘There is no chance you can run that surgery on your own.’

  Sam got ready to launch into a well-rehearsed speech about how he’d been getting himself up to speed for the past three years so he could do precisely that. He would leave out the part about how they had always meant for there to be two of them in the surgery. But before he could say anything Jayne’s voice filled a brief lull in the general hubbub.

  ‘I could help.’

  He felt as if the entire village had taken a collective breath. Of course it wasn’t true, but as most of the people here knew their history it felt that way.

  ‘You’ve already got Maggie to look after—and the children.’ If there was a grateful way to wave off an offer of help he hoped he was doing it.

  She shrugged. She clearly wasn’t going to push it.

  ‘Fair enough. But Maggie lives three doors down from the surgery. I’m pretty sure I could run down any time you need me.’ She pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket. ‘I think that’s what these are for.’

  Sam was about to protest again, but before he could say anything Jayne put her hands up.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Just saying... The offer’s there if you need it.’

  Then she walked away.

  It was a view he should be used to. And not in a sexy way as her thighs and bum swished against the fabric of her skirt, either.

  He never should have touched her. Feeling the soft skin of her cheek had brought back countless good memories when he should be focusing on the bad ones. The reasons they weren’t meant to be together.

  ‘It’s all right, Grandad. I can hold the fort for a few weeks if necessary.’ Before his grandfather could protest he added, ‘It’ll only be a week if they really are just sprains. Two at most.’

  His grandfather shook his head. ‘You’ve had an offer of help, son. You’d be a damn fool not to take it.’

  Sam knew what he was saying. It was hard to admit to needing help. But sometimes you simply had to do it.

  If only Jayne had accepted his offers accepting hers now would be a moot point...because she’d already be by his side.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A FEW HOURS into his work day and Sam was regretting refusing Jayne’s offer. His grandfather had sustained a fracture in his wrist and a sprain in his ankle. The fractured wrist meant he would be off work for a few weeks, whether he liked it or not. Their patients’ care was first and foremost and a doctor in a sling wasn’t ideal.

  Greta, the surgeon’s long-time receptionist, was run off her feet, trying to reschedule non-urgent patients and Sam was trying to dispense with the ‘take all the time you need’ philosophy he prided himself on.

  He jotted down a couple of numbers then turned to his current patient. ‘The blood pressure pills definitely seem to be doing the trick, Mrs Greenfield.’

  ‘No!’

  Sam laughed. Denial wasn’t the usual response he got when something was going according to plan. He turned the blood pressure monitor towards his sixty-something patient. ‘See for yourself. Lowest blood pressure you’ve had in years.’

  ‘I can see it well enough, Sam. My eyesight’s never been the problem. Oops. Sorry. Dr Crenshaw.’ The grey-haired woman tittered at her mistake. ‘I’m still just so used to your grandfather being the only Dr Crenshaw in town.’

  ‘I’ve been your doctor for three years now, Mrs Greenfield,’ Sam reminded her playfully.

  ‘I know...but you’re also the same little boy who used to mow my lawn.’

  Sam grinned. ‘If memory serves, I’m still the same boy who mows your lawn.’

  Mrs Greenfield smiled. ‘Yes... You’ve been good to me since I lost my Daniel.’

  She gave a quiet little sigh and pressed her hands to her heart. Her husband had died some fifteen years ago and she still wore her... Wait a minute. Where was her wedding ring?

  As if she’d read his mind, Mrs Greenfield turned her focus to her hands as she wove her bare fingers together on her lap. ‘Dr Crenshaw, I’m curious. Do you think that, rather than the pills, love might have something to do with lower blood pressure?’

  ‘Love?’ This appointment wasn’t going in the direction he’d anticipated.

  Mrs Greenfield nodded, but didn’t meet his eye.

  Love as an antidote to high blood pressure? His blood pressure had just about shot off the scale when Jayne had walked into his office yesterday. Double that when they’d nearly kissed. He didn’t know what sort of divine intervention had pulled him back from that mistake, but... It was a path best left unexplored.

  ‘I’m taking it from your silence, Dr Crenshaw, that there is no scientific evidence to suggest that love might lower blood pressure?’

  ‘Apologies, Mrs Greenfield.’ He scribbled a few numbers on a notepad to make it look as though he’d been doing some calculations. ‘Your question caught me off g
uard.’

  ‘Made you think of romance, did it?’ Mrs Greenfield teased, and then she pushed the blood pressure cuff towards Sam. ‘Should we be checking out your stats? From what I hear, things were very lively at the cricket ground last night.’

  Sam suddenly saw where this was going and did his best to steer the conversation in another direction. ‘Jayne is back in town to look after Maggie. Nothing to do with me.’

  Mrs Greenfield’s looked perplexed. ‘Jayne? Jayne Sinclair’s back in town? I was talking about Greta’s niece—Nell. The shy one? Greta was telling me all about it before my appointment.’

  Terrific. Greta was the most proactive contributor to the Whitticombe grapevine. And Nell had clearly not passed on to her aunt the ‘I’m not really in the market for a relationship’ talk he’d had with her when she’d suggested they have a second drink. It had been a white lie on his part, but one he’d thought would protect them both.

  ‘Yes...well...it’s always nice to show someone new about town.’

  Mrs Greenfield sat back in her chair. ‘Ooh, Jayne Sinclair... Now, that takes me back to when I heard that awful screech of tyres just outside on the lane.’

  Sam didn’t need to ask for embellishment. Mrs Greenfield was talking about the day Jayne’s sister had been killed. Things like that didn’t happen all that often in Whitticombe, so when they did the scars ran deep. Too deep, in Jayne’s case. But he hadn’t been there. Didn’t know first-hand what she’d been through. He’d certainly treated enough retired servicemen to know that watching someone die wasn’t just something you forgot about.

  ‘Such a shame, that was,’ Mrs Greenfield continued. ‘Her poor parents... How they soldiered on here in Whitticombe is beyond me. I would’ve moved if I were in their shoes. Would never have been able to set foot in this village ever again.’

  A lightbulb pinged on in Sam’s head. A few months after Jules had died, Jayne had announced that she wanted to become a paediatric cardiologist. She’d said the only way to pursue her dreams was to live in London. He’d been utterly thrown, because she’d always wanted to be a GP and paediatrician right here in this very surgery.