A Return, a Reunion, a Wedding

by Annie O'Neil

  He’d taken what she’d said at face value. As a slight, even. As if she’d been saying that living in Whitticombe equated to settling for second best rather than seeing it as he did—total life fulfilment. Whitticombe had everything the two of them had valued. Family, friends, a strong community that came together in time of crisis. There were hospitals nearby if Jayne wanted to pursue more advanced paediatric care. Research facilities in Oxford. But mostly...it was home.

  A community, family and friends Jayne had closed the door on when she would surely have needed them most.

  Had he been focusing on the wrong thing all these years? Had Jayne been running from the nightmare of her sister’s death rather than pursuing a dream?

  That look of pain in her eyes when he’d asked her whether she thought she deserved happiness... Had Jayne been punishing herself all these years?

  It had been an accident. Yes...an accident that she would be constantly reminded of every time she came home.

  Half of him wanted to pull Mrs Greenfield up into his arms and kiss her. The other half wondered why it had taken him so long to see something so obvious.

  ‘So...about this love theory of mine...’

  ‘Yes. Sorry, Mrs Greenfield.’ Sam scrubbed a hand through his hair, hoping it would release all the Jayne-centric thoughts and allow him to concentrate on his patient. ‘What’s this theory?’

  ‘Well...’ She threw him a coy look. ‘I have been enjoying visits from a certain gentleman caller lately.’

  Sam’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Oh?’

  Mrs Greenfield’s cheeks pinked up. ‘It’s nothing too racy, Sam. Don’t worry.’

  He wasn’t worried. He was delighted for her. If a bit surprised. He’d thought Mrs Greenfield to be a one-man kind of woman. The same way his father was and his grandfather before him had been. Crenshaw men seemed to pick a woman early on, set his heart at her feet and then get about the business of loving her for the rest of their lives.

  Sam gave his jaw a scrub. He obviously wasn’t quite as successful as his forebears. It probably worked better when the woman you loved was a willing participant.

  ‘So, who’s this fancy man of yours, then?’

  ‘Oh, Sam. He’s no fancy man!’ Mrs Greenfield chided. ‘He’s a gentleman.’

  The way her voice and features softened spoke volumes. She was in love.

  ‘And may I ask how you met this gentleman?’

  Her cheeks flushed a soft pink. ‘Oh! Well, we were sweethearts back in the day.’

  ‘What? I thought you and Daniel had been an item from the get-go.’

  ‘Oh, no. Not at all. I had what they used to call “a past”.’

  ‘Mrs Greenfield! You’re shocking me.’

  She batted at the air between them. ‘Oh, you... I am not. It was nothing, really. Just a flirtation in the school playground. It never amounted to anything. Not back then, anyway. Flirtations were definitely much more conservative back in those days.’

  Despite the patients waiting out in Reception, Sam’s curiosity overrode the ten-minute window he was supposed to have for each patient. ‘So...how did he go from being a bit of a playground Lothario to the gentleman who’s lowered your blood pressure?’

  ‘The Lothario’s name is Colin.’ Her gaze went a little soft focus and dreamy. ‘Colin was ambitious back then. Very ambitious. Big plans. Big dreams. He didn’t want to stay in the tiny little village where we’d grown up and I did. So...he went off to seek his fortune.’

  ‘And came back to Whitticombe to claim it?’

  ‘Something like that.’ Mrs Greenfield laughed. ‘It wasn’t Whitticombe. Smaller, if you can imagine. Anyway, Colin moved all over the world. Made his fortune. Lost it. And his family.’ She leant forward and explained, ‘His wife turned out to be a bit of a fair weather wife. She didn’t like Poor Colin as much as she liked Rich Colin. Anyway!’ She swept Colin’s past into the bin with a flick of her hand. ‘He’s started again. New business. New lifestyle choices. New girlfriend.’ She made a ta-da gesture with her hands.

  There were about a thousand things Sam wanted to examine from Mrs Greenfield’s story. The childhood romance. The pursuit of dreams. The lessons learnt. The love that was given a second chance. The trust it must take to believe he’d stick around.

  Trust.

  There it was. The elephant in the room, standing between him and Jayne. He didn’t trust her to stay. She didn’t trust him to give her the life she wanted.

  A perfect impasse.

  Sam did his own version of flicking his romantic failures into the bin, opting to stick to his patient’s needs. He made a few notes and came to a decision. ‘I think we can thank Colin for this.’ He ripped up the prescription for more blood pressure pills he’d started making earlier.

  ‘Looks like it.’ Mrs Greenfield beamed, then patted his hand. ‘Do help Greta transport all those cakes and stews queuing up in Reception to your grandfather, won’t you?’

  Sam smiled and nodded. Village hospitality at its finest.

  He stood, and as he did so Mrs Greenfield said, ‘Sam, you know we’re all here for you, don’t you? In whatever way you need.’

  He did. But he wasn’t about to fall on his romance sword in front of the entire village again. Not with Jayne anyway. Maybe not ever again.

  * * *

  Butterflies were swooping all around her tummy as Jayne walked down the Victorian tiled corridor to the second door on the right, as Greta had instructed her. She’d come for entirely professional reasons, but everything about being home felt personal.

  Home.

  What a loaded word.

  She started as she heard that rich, all too familiar voice come through the door, then trickle down her spine like warm honey. Her fingers drifted up to her un-kissed lips and, despite trying not to remember just how much she had wanted it, she swept out her tongue to soothe the heat away.

  ‘Come on in, Maggie. Why aren’t you putting your feet—?’ Sam pulled open the door and stopped dead in his tracks when his eyes met Jayne’s. ‘Ah. It’s you.’

  Not quite the response she’d been hoping for, but she supposed it was a response she should get used to. He was moving on with his life...and she was a blip from his past.

  Sam crossed his arms over her chest. His lovely, warm, solid chest.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Okay. Someone’s bedside manner could do with a bit of work today.

  ‘I brought some cake for your grandad. Don’t worry. I didn’t make it.’

  ‘Jayne. It’s incredibly busy and you know you could’ve just brought it to the house. Why are you here?’

  Swallowing back a sharp retort that went something along the lines of I told you I would help but you refused in front of everyone, she said, ‘I wanted to go over Maggie’s notes with you, as she requested, but if you’re too busy I can just ring some nameless, faceless person at the hospital.’

  Sam ushered her in. ‘Apologies.’ He didn’t sound all that sorry. ‘I—The appointment was in Maggie’s name so I was surprised, that’s all.’

  He looked tired. He hadn’t shaved. The mix of gold and auburn stubble suited him, but she could tell by the way he scrubbed at it uncomfortably that he wasn’t used to it.

  ‘How’s your grandad?’

  ‘Good. Well, sore and bruised, and already driving my sisters batty, but... It’s a fracture in his wrist and a sprained ankle. He’ll be the size of a house if he eats all the cakes that have been flooding in.’

  Jayne stifled a laugh as she thought of Sam’s sisters flying round Ernest, tending to him with all the fuss and bother Sam’s mum had been so good at. They were a family of natural comforters. Unlike her own who—when tested—had discovered that they preferred to lick their wounds in private.

  Or maybe you sent yourself to purgatory and didn’t give
them a chance.

  She sat down in the chair Sam hadn’t yet suggested she sat in even though she was pretty sure that’s how the whole doctor-patient thing worked. Come in. Sit down. How may I help you?

  Sam let his chair accept his full weight and started tapping away on his computer. He had yet to meet her eyes again.

  Her heart split wide open for him. She got it. Having her show up out of the blue had to be awful for him. If the tables had been turned she probably would’ve run away.

  Just like you did after Jules died.

  No. She hadn’t run away. She’d changed. Doggedly poured her energies, her determination... her grief...into becoming the best paediatric cardio surgeon she could. One who could do transplants, so that the next time she was in a seemingly impossible situation she could do something about it.

  A sick feeling washed through her as she thought of Stella’s grief-stricken parents. The loss they must be feeling because of her.

  The organ didn’t take. It wasn’t your fault.

  She desperately wanted to talk it out with someone. And not just any anyone. She wanted to talk it out with Sam. He would get it. When they’d started out in med school they’d used to talk on the phone for hours about just that very thing. The cruel randomness of illness. The limits of medicine. The power of talking things through.

  He doesn’t want to talk to you.

  Sam tapped his desk. Presumably so that she would get on with it. She closed her eyes to regroup and opened them just in time to see him lick his lips.

  Damn, the man was sexy. She crossed her legs again and sat up straight.

  His eyes flicked up to the wall clock. ‘Jayne...? There’s a waiting room full of patients—what do you want?’

  She pulled a notebook from her tote bag. ‘I wanted to get your take on everything Maggie’s been experiencing. I’ve read the hospital notes, but I thought you’d know better than her part-time doctor there.’

  ‘Or her part-time friend?’

  Ouch!

  The barbed words had hit their mark. This definitely wasn’t going to be the breezy chit-chat about Maggie’s health she’d been hoping for.

  ‘We text. And email.’

  Sam’s lips thinned.

  Fine. She could have been a better friend. Come home more regularly. Not counted on pure happenstance to put her in Maggie’s path when she needed her most.

  Questions flooded in where she should have had answers.

  What if she’d stayed? What if she’d finally opened up to her parents, Sam—everyone—and admitted what she and she alone knew. That she was responsible for her sister’s death.

  If she had stayed...and by some miracle been forgiven...she might be married now. To Sam. Maybe even have children of her own. But that was a big if. Before forgiveness must come the courage to admit her failures. Failures that gnawed at her conscience every single day.

  She was alive. Her sister wasn’t. And there was no one else in the world who could make her sister’s dreams come true.

  She pressed her hands to her face and peeked at Sam through her fingers. If only she was brave enough to tell him her deepest, darkest secret.

  She rubbed her fingers along her closed eyes and saw flashes of light where she usually saw her sister, flying round the corner from their small lane to the larger one...a mane of jet-black hair flying in her wake...the oncoming rush of a yellow sports car.

  If she was going to do this—stay here, help Maggie, not fight with Sam—she was going to have to fall on her sword.

  ‘Sam...’ She dropped her hands, trying to control the waves of emotion ricocheting around her insides. ‘I know I hurt you—’

  He huffed out a humourless laugh. ‘I’m not the one we’re talking about here.’

  ‘I think we are,’ she countered. ‘If you don’t trust me to do what’s best for Maggie then this is going to be really difficult.’

  His eyes flashed bright. She knew what they were saying. He didn’t trust her. He was braced for her to be difficult. He was braced for her to leave again.

  Something deep inside her—something so deep she rarely let herself acknowledge it—surged into her heart. Longing. A longing to bring about that soft look that used to pour through his features when he turned and saw her. The complicit wink he’d used to throw her way that only she had understood. The smile she knew was especially for her.

  Her fingers instinctively moved to her lips and shifted across them.

  ‘Can you not do that, please?’ Sam shifted uncomfortably in his chair and looked away.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Touch your lips like that.’

  ‘Well, then you shouldn’t have almost kissed me,’ she snapped, instantly regretting it.

  His features hardened. ‘I think it was the other way round, actually.’

  She was the one who’d gone up on tiptoe. He was the one who’d sought her out in the first place.

  Doing her best not to sound defensive, she looked Sam straight in the eye. ‘Let’s focus on Maggie, shall we? I’m here today. I will be here tomorrow. And the next day and the next. I will be here right up until Maggie has those babies. Longer if need be.’

  Sam shook his head and waved his hands for her to stop. ‘Jay...’

  Her heart leapt to her throat. He hadn’t called her plain old Jay in years. ‘Yes?’

  When he met her eyes again she caught a glimpse of all the heartache she had caused, and then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone. ‘Look. You’re partly right. About “the moment” yesterday.’

  At least he was admitting it was a moment.

  He looked down at his desk and continued. ‘I shouldn’t have come after you. You looked upset. Gut instinct kicked in. But... I should’ve let you be. You’re your own boss now.’

  A lead weight hit her gut like a wrecking ball. Wow. That stung. She was too late even to win his friendship. Had something happened between yesterday and today that had turned him so hard?

  Yes, you idiot. The moment.

  ‘Why did you do it? Follow me?’

  ‘I wanted to see if anything was still there.’

  It was about as honest an answer as a girl could ask for.

  From the look on his face, he regretted the admission. As they were being so blunt she decided to get the whole truth, whether she liked his response or not.

  ‘And was there?’

  Sam scrubbed his hand across his chin, then fixed her with a look she would never forget. It was hard, unforgiving and set in stone.

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  Then he turned to his computer, printed out a few contact numbers at the nearby hospital in Oxford, handed the piece of paper to her and suggested she call Maggie’s obstetrician in future.

  Well, then, she thought numbly as she left his office, at least she knew where she stood.

  * * *

  Three days later Sam was still kicking himself for being so awful to Jayne.

  Sure. She’d broken his heart back in the day. She had also apologised. Countless times. None of them had ever stuck because he’d never truly believed she was following her heart.

  Maybe it was time to believe it. It had been seven years. If the medical journals he’d accidentally-on-purpose pored through were to be believed, she’d hit some stellar professional heights. You didn’t work at the London Merryweather because you were in a slump. You worked there because you had a dream. Of being the best.

  An image of the hurt lancing through Jayne’s eyes popped into his head so vividly he sucked in a sharp breath. Emotion had got the better of him. He’d needed to make a point. Re-draw that line in the sand.

  But there had been no need to be so cruel. Or to lie.

  He’d felt something. Of course he’d felt something. That same old surge of flame licking at everything that made him a man had hit hard
and fast the second her lips were within centimetres of his own. And it had hurt. He had wanted to feel nothing.

  But no amount of hurt should reduce him to lashing out at a person for a nanosecond’s pleasure. And he hadn’t even got that. If anything, the hurt he’d caused her had only made him feel worse.

  Which was why he was standing outside Maggie’s house with a basketful of truce croissants. Jayne’s favourite. At least they had been back in the day.

  He rang the bell and half considered leaving them on the stone doorstep, before reminding himself that grown men didn’t run away from self-made conflict. Grown men took calculated risks...with a bit of a buffer if they needed a quick escape.

  Offer gift. Apologise. Agree to move on. Go back to surgery where there’s a ton of paperwork to tackle. Get on with life.

  Easy-peasy.

  The second Jayne opened the door he instantly knew his plan had flaws. The Jayne standing in the doorway of the chocolate box cottage was the Jayne he’d fallen in love with.

  Her inky black hair was falling free from a pair of messy topknots. Her bright blue eyes were made up all smoky and mysterious. Her nose was painted black and she had a full set of cat whiskers fanning out across her cheeks, as well as a pair of bright red lips. A curve-hugging cat suit with a zipper that sat just below that delicious divot at the base of her throat and ran right the way down to her belly button completed the outfit.

  ‘Interesting look.’ Not really the opening gambit he’d been going for, but...

  She looked confused for a minute, then realised he was referring to her face. ‘Ha! Yes. Um...the kids and I were having a bit of a practice session this morning and I got distracted. Did you know having children in the house equals about nineteen times the amount of laundry I’m used to?’

  She looked nervous. Bracing herself for a repeat of their last fractious encounter, no doubt.

  ‘Are you planning on spending the summer as a house cat?’