‘From what?’ she teased. ‘The elements or your unexpected return?’
‘Er, the elements, of course. Me coming back was just a matter of expressing my concern.’
‘Oh, I see,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m glad you’ve told me, and now I have to go as Ethan is rather frayed this morning. He’s upset because he says it should have been him going out in the lifeboat in that ghastly weather, but as I keep telling him he couldn’t have been in two places at once. He was in Plymouth at a meeting when the storm blew up.’
‘OK,’ he said easily. ‘He’s fraught enough at the moment, but just tell me one thing before you go—do they still serve cream teas around here at this time of the year?’
‘Yes. Maybe not at so many places as in the summer, but they serve them at the hotel with the thatched roof that we went to that night.’
‘So, I’ll pick you up at half-past four if that’s all right with you. I have a reasonably quiet day in front of me, so I should be free by then.’
‘Why?’
‘Why have I got a quiet day?’
‘No. Why do you want to take me out? You’ve already expressed your concern on my behalf last night. You don’t have to finish it off with a cream tea.’
‘Just be ready, will you?’ he said equably, as if speaking to a fractious child, and rang off.
The Mercedes pulled up at the front of the house at exactly half-past four in the dark winter afternoon and Jenna thought, This is farcical, going for a cream tea on such a day.
But she got into the car and threw him a pale smile as he said laughingly, ‘I was expecting you to have the black on in keeping with your sombre manner this morning, but I see you must have perked up.’
She was wearing a heavy knit winter suit of fine sapphire blue wool with a pale cream top and matching bag, and after the salt spray of the day before her hair hung clean and shining around the face that filled his every waking thought.
What he was going to do if she refused when he asked her to marry him didn’t bear thinking about. But he just couldn’t wait any longer. If after all these weeks Jenna still thought it was because he was on the rebound from his broken engagement to Philippa, he would not know where to turn next.
He’d booked a table at the hotel and after she’d seated herself he asked to be excused and went to speak to one of the waiters. While he was gone she looked around her, taking in the fact that the place was half-empty and thinking it wasn’t surprising in the depths of winter. She picked up the menu and at the same time Lucas came back to join her.
When she glanced up enquiringly he said smoothly, ‘I was asking them to let us know if there are any weather warnings while we’re dining as there have been a few today and I don’t want us to be stranded out here in the wilds.’
She looked around her and thought that he had a point, but why had they come here instead of going somewhere local? Maybe it was because it was the first place they’d been to together and in the middle of summer the Devonshire countryside had been at its most attractive, but it wasn’t the same today. It was, however, very cosy inside, with a big log fire burning in the grate.
They’d placed their order and were waiting for the food to be served. The few tables that had been occupied were now empty and it felt odd, just the two of them in the deserted restaurant, yet she could hear voices coming from somewhere nearby.
A waiter appeared, pushing a serving trolley towards their table, and on it was the wine they’d ordered and a small silver salver covered by a white napkin. He was smiling and bowed to each of them in turn and Jenna thought that he must be giving them the big welcome because they were the only customers present.
When the waiter poured a little of the wine for Lucas to taste and he’d expressed his approval, they were left alone. As they raised their glasses Lucas said softly, ‘To us, Jenna,’ and removed the napkin to reveal the circle of sapphires and diamonds that he had been longing to place on her finger.
He picked it up, watching the colour drain from her face as he did so, and said, ‘Will you marry me, Jenna?’ As the pink came flooding back into her cheeks he reminded her gently, ‘I did say that I would do the asking when the time came, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, you did,’ she breathed, ‘and the answer is yes. I’ve wanted you from the moment we met, when we almost collided on the beach that day. It was just sexual chemistry at first, but before long I knew that you were the only man I would ever love. I’ve prayed that one day you would say the words that you’ve just said, and, Lucas, you shall have the family that you long for, God willing.’
The next few moments were a blur as he slipped the ring onto her finger, took her in his arms and kissed her until she was breathless with the joy of it, and when finally they drew apart her eyes widened.
The restaurant was empty no more. While she’d been engrossed in her future husband it had filled up, filled up with those who cared about her and that she cared for in return.
Her mother was there, dabbing her eyes, with her father seated nearby. Lucy and young Maria were not far away, and there was Ronnie with the rest of his family. Ethan had just appeared and amazingly had his children Kirstie and Ben with him, and Leo was there, chatting to Jack Enderby, of all people, and his father George.
As she surveyed them all she cried laughingly, ‘What would all of you have done if I’d said no?’
‘Disowned you,’ her mother said with the kind of dry humour that was her style, and her father smiled across at his daughter with all his love for her clear to see.
‘What would I have done if you’d said no?’ Lucas murmured, with his arms around her. ‘I know I kept you at a distance, but I was so afraid you might think I was simply on the rebound from what happened before.’
Ethan was on his feet and silence fell on the gathered company as he began to speak.
‘We all know that if there is one thing that the people in Bluebell Cove like it’s a wedding, especially a Christmas wedding.’ He turned to Jenna and Lucas. ‘How would you both feel about that? Could you be ready in time?’
‘There are still a few weeks to go,’ Jenna said thoughtfully. ‘I’d love a Christmas wedding, but these days venues for receptions are in so much demand some are booked up years in advance, so that creates a problem straight away.’
‘Not if you have it at our place,’ Jack Enderby said. ‘You can have the big room that we use for the ball.’ He glanced at his father. ‘One good turn deserves another. And I’m sure that the firm who caters for the ball will sort you out if you tell them that the Enderbys have recommended them.’
‘Yes, oh, yes, please!’ she cried, and Lucas thought these people would be his people from now on, the same as they were hers. He would be blessed in every way, but most of all because Jenna was going to marry him.
The days were passing and the wedding plans taking shape. Jenna and her mother, with Kirstie, who was to be bridesmaid, and Lucy tagging along for support, had been to a wedding boutique in the town.
There Jenna had chosen a dress that all of them thought was perfect. It was white lace with a tight-fitting bodice, three-quarter sleeves, and a long train that her young attendant would hold as she walked up the aisle with her father.
For Kirstie, who was dark-eyed and dark-haired, it was a pretty pink dress with lots of twirls in it, and as the two older women had observed the bride and her bridesmaid in their dresses it had been handkerchiefs out, even for Barbara.
Ethan’s children were in Bluebell Cove on an extended stay to include Christmas. Their mother had agreed to it, but had refused to come herself. He was so happy to have them home he was on cloud nine, or would have been if Francine had wanted to come with them.
But as it was, he didn’t intend letting it spoil their time together and had been delighted when Jenna had asked if Kirstie could be her bridesmaid. He had arranged for them to attend local schools again while they were over and after the first few days of adjustment they’d settled in happily.
The wedding was to take place on the day of Christmas Eve. The caterers had agreed to provide the food for the wedding meal in the afternoon and for the evening buffet, which was relieving the festivities committee of the task of catering after the dancing between the two Christmas trees.
It had been arranged that the newlyweds would lead the long line of dancers through the village for the kind of event that would be wonderful if it was a fine night and not too cold, and a catastrophe if it wasn’t. But the idea had gripped everyone’s imagination and, hail, rain or snow, they were not to be put off.
For Jenna the days of waiting were filled with wonder. Soon they would be together in the house that Lucas had made so attractive after years of neglect. When the alterations had been finished and a consultancy for private patients created, he was going to take two afternoons away from the hospital each week to see them, and Jenna would be his assistant as she’d been before.
There was joy in knowing that they would still be in Bluebell Cove with the surgery nearby and her mother and father not far away in the house on the headland, near enough if they needed her, and with Lucas adoring her every moment they were together, and even when they were apart, her happiness was complete.
Lucas’s tiny namesake was home at last and gradually making up for lost time, and Thomas with the laidback father and over-fussy mother had been seen by Lucas and had tests that had shown he was free from any heart defect, which had brought a smug smile to his father’s face and relief to his mother’s.
On a Sunday afternoon in the middle of December Jenna and Lucas went with a crowd of others to the beach to watch the nativity play that was being performed that afternoon while the tide was out, and they exchanged smiles when Ethan’s son Ben appeared, leading one of the donkeys that was usually occupied in giving children rides.
A girl of a similar age was seated on it dressed in blue with a doll in her arms, and as they moved along slowly until they came to a big rock that had been dressed up to look like an inn, Jenna thought affectionately that young Ben was getting his turn to be on view. He’d scorned being a page-boy at the wedding but wasn’t averse to taking part in the play, and she wished that Francine might have been there to see him.
When Jenna awoke on the morning of the twenty-fourth of December her first thoughts were that it was her wedding day and that the night just gone was the last time she would sleep in that room.
No more would she crouch on the window seat for a glimpse of Lucas driving along the coast road. For the rest of her life he would be there beside her when she awoke and it would be heaven on earth.
It was a cold, clear morning with blue skies above and a faint breeze blowing in from the sea. Would it stay that way, she wondered, for the most important day of her life? Snow had been forecast and it was cold enough for it, but so far there was no sign, which was a shame as a white wedding in a snow-covered village would be so beautiful.
But there were things to do before the wedding, like helping her mother to get dressed, and holding her father close on her last day of living in Four Winds House.
She would be around for them both all of the time, but after today she would belong to Lucas, and part of the happiness that it brought would be because her parents were so delighted for her. And if some of her mother’s approval came from her daughter marrying a heart surgeon, what did it matter?
To her, Jenna, he was simply the man she loved more than words could express, and she was going to spend the rest of her life making him happy.
When she arrived at the church on her father’s arm the incredible was happening. Snow was falling and already a white carpet was forming at their feet. It was going to make her perfect day even more perfect, she thought joyfully, and when she stood in the open doorway and the sound of the wedding march rang up into the rafters, the tall figure waiting at the altar with Ethan by his side turned, and as their glances met she knew that for ever and always he would be hers.
It was evening and as was often the case after a snowfall it was warmer, and as those with dancing feet assembled in the square, the snow now lay thick and white on the ground.
Taking his new wife, who was still in her wedding dress, into his arms, Lucas said, ‘May I have this dance, Mrs Devereux?’
At that moment the village school’s band began to play and they began to dance a sedate waltz instead of the brisk polka that had been planned before the snow had fallen, and as the tree on the headland came into her line of sight and the lights of a ship out at sea twinkled across the water Jenna said, ‘Everything I love is here, Lucas. The sea, the sand, my old home with my parents in it, the village just behind us, and you, the one I love most of all.’
It was the end of the most wonderful day of his life, Lucas thought as he stood by the bedroom window, looking out onto the winter wonderland that had graced his wedding day.
He was waiting for Jenna to come to him and suddenly she was there, standing before him, more beautiful than he could ever have imagined, and as his senses leapt and his heart rejoiced he hadn’t forgotten that he’d said he would do the asking and he said softly, ‘When we’ve made love will you want to sleep in my bed with me, Jenna?’ He pointed to the jagged scar that ran across his chest. ‘Next to this?’
She was reaching out for him, gently caressing the reminder of one of the worst days of his life, and as he gazed down at her she said tenderly, ‘Yes, of course I will, Lucas. I will consider it a privilege. I’ve wanted to hold you close ever since I first saw it.’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5692-1
WEDDING BELLS FOR THE VILLAGE NURSE
First North American Publication 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Abigail Gordon
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Wedding Bells for the Village Nurse Page 15