by Mandy Baggot
Three months later
‘You’re carrying a bedpan with a smile on your face. What’s happened? Won the lottery? Got an audition for The Wall?’ Gavin questioned, ripping off gloves and dropping them in the disposal bin. ‘Wait, wait… that radio competition to win a lifetime’s supply of hot chocolate.’
‘Nope,’ Lucie answered, dealing with the detritus.
‘What then?’
‘Well… the new doctor starts today, doesn’t he?’ Lucie said, still grinning.
‘And that’s good because the last consultant we had was a total shitshow and this one can’t possibly be worse?’
‘Gavin!’ Lucie said. ‘Are you kidding me? Haven’t you worked it out yet?’ She led the way into the break room. She really wanted the tiniest bit of something fizzy and alcoholic for this moment, but she was going to have to make do with a nice strong cup of coffee to celebrate while she was on duty.
‘You’ve lost me,’ Gavin said, grabbing a biscuit from the open selection pack on the table. ‘I’ve been finding that lately. Since I’m seeing slightly less of you now Simon and I are officially a couple, our best friend’s telepathy needs a software update.’
‘Well, we’re getting a new consultant and Michalis has been very cloak-and-dagger about his career options on FaceTime. He’s been very closed about interviews he’s had and he wasn’t like that at the beginning of his job search,’ Lucie stated like it was all complete fact. ‘He used to tell me every email he’d had from every hospital or care centre.’
‘Maybe he’s gone off you,’ The Other Sharon Osbourne suggested, appearing from nowhere with two mugs in each hand, slamming them down on the worktop. ‘My second husband was like that. He’d tell me exactly what he’d found underneath his toenails one minute and the next he wouldn’t even tell me if he’d had an asthma attack… not that I really cared by that stage.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Gavin said, hand on hip. ‘Are you telling me that you think the new consultant is Michalis?’
Lucie nodded, so excited she hadn’t stopped grinning all morning. Michalis was doing this for her, for them, as a surprise. They had talked about being closer to each other and with Michalis deciding not to return to Thessaloniki, it was obvious, wasn’t it? He was going to work here, at her hospital, on her ward sometimes. There was nothing she wanted more. She missed him so much. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s got to be.’
‘But, Luce, surely he would tell you. I mean, you don’t just decide to leap on a plane and apply for a job at your girlfriend’s hospital without telling them, do you?’
‘I’d batter someone if they did that,’ Sharon concluded. ‘Genuinely bash them up.’ Then, under her breath, ‘Or shave their eyebrows off.’
‘It’s not that crazy,’ Lucie said, a flicker of doubt arriving. ‘I mean we have talked about being together more and—’
‘Well,’ Sharon began. ‘I heard the new consultant was called Mr Fox.’ She sniffed. ‘I’m hoping for the silver variety. I’m going through a new Hugh Grant phase now he’s being mean and moody in that Sky series.’
Lucie’s humour dropped and she picked the coffee jug up, disappointed to find it completely empty.
‘Right,’ Gavin said, putting an arm around Lucie’s shoulders. ‘This calls for a visit to my man.’ Then he looked to Sharon. ‘Did you just say you would shave someone’s eyebrows off? I knew it was you! I knew it!’
*
Café Connexions was quite busy for a Monday and there was a queue to get to Simon’s station. Lucie wasn’t sure even the strongest bold Colombian was going to fix her mood now. She had been so certain. Perhaps she just should have asked Michalis outright, not made assumptions. Anyway, it had been a month since they had seen each other. She had managed another quick short break back in Corfu to take Meg to visit Petros. The two teenage-hood sweethearts were rekindling the romance of their youth and it was just beautiful to watch. Petros had been married, just like Meg, but his wife had passed away five years ago. It seemed that fate had put them in each other’s paths at exactly the right time again. Lucie also didn’t think it would be long before Meg was ready to box up her nan’s dolls for auction and put a ‘for sale’ sign on the Southampton house. Part of Meg’s heart had always been in Greece and Lucie hoped her aunt would embrace this second chance with everything she had.
‘Have you heard that the new consultant is called Mr Fox?’ Lucie asked Gavin. She looked at her watch. Whoever it was was meant to be making an appearance on Abbington Ward in thirty minutes.
‘I haven’t heard anything about him or her,’ Gavin said. ‘And I can’t really believe Mrs O has either. We’re far too low in the pecking order to get early information like that.’
Now Lucie’s shoulders were starting to ache. Since she’d left the heat of Greece and Michalis’s healing hands, the tension was back. She’d have to try and teach Gavin the flick technique…
‘You should have bought some massage balls too,’ Gavin said, picking up a plastic tray and moving along the queue. ‘I can tell your back’s aching. Your shoulders are up by your ears. You need to chill a bit. When’s your next trip to our favourite Greek island booked for?’
That was another problem. She hadn’t got anything booked yet. Because Michalis had been a little elusive about his work plans. Maybe it wasn’t anything to do with a new job. Maybe he was having doubts about their long-distance relationship…
‘I… don’t have anything booked yet.’ She wished this queue would get a move on. She might have to indulge in a sausage roll as well as the coffee. She had been trying a lot of new things lately, including some supplements Michalis had suggested to help ease her back and shoulder tension. Perhaps she still wasn’t quite ready for max strength ibuprofen yet, but it was a start.
‘Aww look!’ Gavin said, thrusting his phone in front of Lucie’s face. ‘It’s Maria, Damocles and the twins! Look how much they’ve grown already!’
Lucie gazed at the photo of the happy family, all healthy and well, probably forever the only household formed in a swinging egg chair.
‘No names yet,’ he ploughed on. ‘I did suggest Gavin, but apparently they have to be named after their grandparents.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Probably another Spiros… oh, no, don’t look at that.’
A text had flashed up on screen and although Lucie didn’t catch any of the contents she had seen who it was from. Nyx.
‘Why can’t I look at it?’ Lucie asked Gavin, now a little suspicious about exactly what was going on with the Andino family.
‘Well, you might know this already, but she’s started painting. Some woman that gave her dad lessons is teaching her now and she keeps sending me pictures of the pictures.’ He shifted along the queue as slowly, but surely, they edged nearer to getting served.
‘And why can’t I see them?’
‘Believe me, I’m saving you from trauma here,’ Gavin said. ‘Every canvas looks like she’s spattered it with pig’s blood. It’s murderous but, you know, I figure she might be working through some anger issues and that can only be a good thing.’
Lucie looked ahead of them, the need for coffee deepening further still. She definitely wanted to be full of caffeine when this Mr Fox arrived and now she was worried that Michalis was hiding something else from her. Then she scrunched her face up. ‘No wonder there’s a queue. There’s someone new behind the counter.’
‘Christ, is there?’ Gavin asked, stretching his neck to look along the line and behind the terminal. ‘That means Simon will be in a grump later. I’ve found that the one thing he hates more than re-runs of Queer Eye is training people. That girl who started last month didn’t even make it to the second day.’
Lucie stepped past Gavin, taking his place in the line and bunching up as much as she could. There was something a little off, she just couldn’t put her finger on it.
‘It takes skill to be a barista, you know,’ Gavin told her. ‘Simon has a special coffee maker at his flat and honestly, I know I’ve
done all the nursing training, but it has more buttons than a life support machine. I cannot work it out.’
Lucie felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise as she got a better look at the person making drinks next to Simon. The red baseball hat was pulled low over his head but there was something about the curve of his shoulders and the shape of his hands…
‘Gavin,’ Lucie said, her voice cracking a little. ‘The new barista.’
‘Yes? Useless is he? Putting the milk in first on teas and last in macchiatos?’
‘No,’ Lucie said. ‘I think… I think it’s Michalis.’
Her heart was hammering in her chest now. This was crazy! It couldn’t be, could it? And had he really had a change of career?
‘You’re mad,’ Gavin stated with a laugh. ‘You’re so obsessed with the guy that you’re seeing him everywhere. Which is kind of good I guess. It means this is the real deal!’
She closed her eyes. Was she dreaming him up? Or could it be possible that he was here? She opened her eyes again and, this time, it wasn’t just her vision jumping to conclusions, it was her heart too.
‘It’s him, Gavin,’ she breathed, feeling a little unsteady. ‘I know it’s him.’
It was time to stop being British and forget the queuing. She needed to know for absolute certain. She grabbed her tray and rushed down the line towards the front.
‘Lucie!’ Simon greeted all smiles. ‘Sorry, there’s a bit of a wait. I’ll just serve Graham then I’ll do you something quickly if you’ve got to head back.’
Lucie frowned. ‘There was someone else here just a second ago. Someone helping you with the coffees.’
‘There was,’ Simon said with a sigh. ‘He’s not very good. To be honest I think he would be much better off taking another career path.’
‘Well, that sucks for both of you, I guess,’ Lucie answered. God, she really was seeing things. ‘I’ll have a hot chocolate. And a sausage roll.’
‘Shall I bring this to a table?’
Now a divine shiver ran the length of her back as that beautiful voice spiralled around her eardrums. Turning a one-eighty, Lucie’s jaw dropped open as there was Michalis standing right in front of her in baseball cap and matching red apron, the uniform of Café Connexions employees.
‘Oh my God! I can’t believe it! What are you doing here? When did you get here? When?’
Lucie got caught between jumping at him and remembering she was in the middle of the canteen so the move looked like something out of a Morris dance but with a plastic tray instead of handkerchiefs. She dropped the tray and tried again, launching herself into his arms and squeezing him to check he was truly flesh-and-blood reality. She inhaled, breathing in that musky scent and manliness that had always ravaged her senses.
‘Yesterday,’ he admitted. ‘Last night.’
‘What?!’ Lucie exclaimed, holding him away now and thinking about all the sexy things they could have been getting up to the night before. She felt bereft.
‘I wanted to give you a surprise,’ Michalis told her. ‘Did it work?’
She nodded, reaching for his hand. ‘Yes it worked. I can’t believe it.’ She frowned then. ‘But… what are you doing here? And why are you dressed in barista clothes? Did you forget to pack?’ And how long was he planning on staying?
Michalis shook his head then. ‘I have a suitcase.’ He gave her hand a squeeze. ‘And… a new job!’ He let her go then, spreading his arms out wide.
Wow. She knew not all his interviews had gone well but she hadn’t really expected him to be frothing frappuccinos.
‘You’re going to be working here?’ Lucie asked, still a little confused. Living here? He was going to be living here? She was going to get to see him all the time!
‘I am,’ he confirmed. ‘And I know that this is a change. A big change, for us. And I very much hope you will think it is a good change.’ He smiled. ‘Do not worry. I have my own place to stay for now so we can find out all the annoying things about each other before we commit to anything else but… oh, God, Lucie, tell me, please, that you are happy.’
He looked so incredibly nervous, but her heart really was bursting with nothing but the most concentrated feeling of pure joy. He was here. He was moving here for her. So they could become a couple without the distance between them.
‘Oh, Michalis, it’s the best thing! The most wonderful, lovely, fantastic thing in the whole world!’ She squealed then, uncaring for their audience and wrapped herself around him again to rapturous applause.
‘I know you,’ he said, the words tickling into her ear as he held her.
‘I love you,’ she said, the tears beginning to gather. ‘So much.’
And then all at once he let her go, dropping her back down and looking at his wrist.
‘Is that the time?’ he asked.
‘Is what the time?’
‘I have to be somewhere else. I am sorry,’ he apologised, taking off the red cap and throwing it across the counter where Simon deftly caught it. ‘We will have more time later, I promise.’
‘What’s going on?’ Lucie asked as Gavin arrived on the scene, a white bundle in his hands.
‘I have to be in another department,’ Michalis said, stripping himself of the red apron and giving her a flicker of that glorious ab show before he could tuck his shirt back in. ‘Somewhere called… the ward… Adrington? No, that’s not quite it… um—’
‘Abbington,’ Lucie stated, the word falling from her lips as her mouth dried up completely.
‘Dr Andino,’ Gavin greeted, holding out the bundle. ‘Your white coat.’
Lucie couldn’t believe this. She had been right all along! But all she could do was spill out more tears of delight as her Greek boyfriend slipped that too-small white coat over his shoulders and turned into the village doctor she first fell in love with.
‘These are happy tears?’ Michalis asked, putting a finger to one of the teardrops and swiping it away down her cheek. ‘For the new geriatric consultant here at the hospital?’
She both shook her head and then nodded, unable to say anything.
He smiled. ‘What can I say? With all my experience with one of the oldest populations in Europe, I was top of the shortlist I think.’ He whispered. ‘They have even promised me my own skeleton for my office.’
Lucie held Michalis close and let the moment sink right down into her bones as the applause around them continued. Here was her fresh beginning, right here in the canteen of her hospital. It was time to jump heart first into a brave new world and now her gorgeous, kind, loving Greek was going to be right by her side, every step of the way.
‘Can I ask you one thing?’ Lucie asked, lifting her head away from him.
‘Anything.’
‘Are you Greek Orthodox?’
He smiled. ‘Not practising. Is there—’
She muffled his words with another fierce kiss and secretly wondered if one day she might be back in that big, fat, Greek wedding dress…
Acknowledgements
As always I have plenty of people to thank for keeping me sane and motivated during the writing of this book. People that deserve all the gratitude are:-
Tanera Simons and all the Darley Anderson team
Hannah Smith and all the Aria Fiction team
My lovely Bagg Ladies
The members of The Mandy Baggot Book Club on Facebook
Sue Fortin
Rachel Lyndhurst
Angela White and Michelle Terrell – forever bonded by Greek travel tweets!
I went to some fantastic places in Corfu last summer and have included many of them as locations in this book. Special mentions to some of my Corfu friends I got to spend so much time with given all the restrictions:-
Harry from Harry’s Taverna, Perithia – for keeping me in swordfish
Mairi and Polymeros from the cafeneon, Perithia
Agelos and all the Dimitras family at Jelatis Taverna, Perithia
Sofia and Manthos, Villa Corfu
Panorama, Perithia
Theotoky Estate, Ropa Valley – for the amazing wine tasting experience
Dear reader,
I love a big, fat, happy ending, don’t you? Well, there was never any doubt, was there? I loved writing Lucie and Michalis’s story and I really hope you enjoyed every single word of Staying Out for the Summer. I hope it’s made you long for your own Greek getaway!
Now, Sortilas is a fictional Greek village but Villa Psomi (Villa Bread) – where Lucie and Gavin stayed (with the tortoises!) is heavily inspired by my new Greek home! Yes, during a global pandemic, Mr Big and I thought it would be the ideal time to purchase a new house on Corfu! Given the situation with worldwide restrictions, it finally became ours just before Christmas 2020 and we are itching to move in as soon as we can! It’s not the first time the house has featured in a book either! It was formerly owned by James Chatto and is written about in his memoir – The Greek for Love: Life, Love and Loss in Corfu. After I fell in love with the house, I fell in love with the book too and would highly recommend it for a real taste of Greek life.
If you enjoyed Staying Out for the Summer I would love it if you would leave a review on Amazon. I read every single review and reviews – even a few words – inspire new readers to buy and try a Mandy Baggot novel. Your review could help someone discover my stories for the very first time!
Don’t forget you can visit my website to sign up to my monthly newsletter (always with a chance to win) and follow me on social media and keep up to date with all my news!
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Happy reading and get ready for Christmas…
Mandy xx
About the Author
MANDY BAGGOT is an international bestselling and award-winning romance writer. The winner of the Innovation in Romantic Fiction award at the UK’s Festival of Romance, her romantic comedy novel, One Wish in Manhattan, was also shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romantic Comedy Novel of the Year award in 2016. Mandy’s books have so far been translated into German, Italian, Czech and Hungarian. Mandy loves the Greek island of Corfu, white wine, country music and handbags. Also a singer, she has taken part in ITV1’s Who Dares Sings and The X-Factor. Mandy is a member of the Society of Authors and lives near Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK with her husband and two daughters.