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‘So when is he moving in?’
‘Soon. He has an apartment near the university and is sorting out all the loose ends connected with that and the job. I imagine that he’ll move in here the weekend before he becomes part of the practice. You’ll like him, Megan. He’s great.’
‘Mmm, I’m sure I will,’ Megan said, trying to sound confident. “It’s going to be changes all round, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is,’ Sue agreed bleakly, and Megan thought that what was happening in her friend’s life made her own misgivings seem as nothing.
* * *
As she waited for Luke to arrive in the village Megan kept pondering over what Sue had said. That he’d been married once and it hadn’t worked out. Each time she thought about it she shuddered. Suppose he’d been married at the time she’d sent the Valentine card? He’d commented about roses being red and violets blue, but had had nothing to say about the rest of it, where she’d written, ‘And I have to admit I’m attracted to you.’ If he had been married at the time, he must have felt she’d had some cheek.
Another thought that kept haunting her was that she was happy working in the village practice. It had been part of her life as long as she could remember and she was apprehensive at the thought of someone who’d once been her dream man taking her parents’ place in her working life.
Why couldn’t he have been satisfied with running the market garden for Sue instead of applying for the vacancy in the practice? But even as she asked herself the question, the answer was there. Sue had her own staff to do that, village folk, long tried and tested. His function would most likely be the admin of the business, rather than nurturing seedlings and selling bedding plants, conifers and suchlike.
The two boys, Owen and Oliver, would be the biggest problem. They might have coped better with losing their father if they’d had some warning, but he’d been gone in seconds and they were lost without him. It would be a stroke of genius on their uncle’s part if he could bring them through such a terrible time, unscarred and well adjusted.
* * *
After seeing her parents off at the airport on a Sunday afternoon a month later, Megan returned to her cottage in sombre mood. For once the charm of the small stone house in its beautiful setting didn’t register.
The sign over the door said MEGAN’S PLACE, and that was what it was.
Everything inside it had been chosen carefully by her. Furniture, curtains, carpets, the lot, and every blade of grass in the small lawn outside was lovingly tended by her, but not today.
Life was changing. Her mum and dad had gone. She would be out on a limb from now on, and sitting on an opposite branch would be the man she’d once told she was attracted to him.
She could see Woodcote House from her back bedroom window and as she gazed downwards a big black car pulled into the drive, and in the same second Sue and the boys appeared in the doorway.
So he hadn’t changed his mind, she thought. The die was cast.
* * *
After she’d eaten Megan went to sit on a small terrace at the back of the cottage and watched the sun go down. It was a warm summer evening with the scent of flowers on the air. Lots of people would be out and about, in The Badger, the village pub, down by the river, or going more upmarket and dining at Beresford Lodge, a hotel just outside the village. While here she was, feeling lost and lonely with no inclination to do anything other than sit and mope.
Lost in her thoughts, she wasn’t aware of time passing until she heard the front gate click and sat upright. It was strange for someone to call at this hour. There was silence for a few seconds and then she heard footsteps on the stone path leading from the front of the cottage.
When he appeared he was silhouetted against the setting sun, but she could tell by his height and the trim build of him that it was the man who hadn’t been out of her thoughts since the day her parents had presented the new doctor to her.
As she rose to her feet he took a step forward and she saw that he was carrying a bottle of wine and smiling, and she wished she’d stayed seated as her legs felt weak.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ she asked in a voice that didn’t sound like hers, and knew it was a stupid question. Sue would have told him.
‘It wasn’t hard,’ he said. ‘Megan Marshall, the village doctor, is a household name. Actually, it was Sue who pointed me in the right direction. She’s in the middle of making a meal and after we’ve eaten the boys are going to show me around the place so that I can get my bearings for tomorrow.
‘But first I felt I wanted to see you. We only met briefly that day at the surgery and I got the impression that it was something of a shock and that you weren’t over the moon about it. So I’ve come to suggest that we drink a toast to our future relationship as village GPs. If that’s all right with you. I’ve also come…’
Here we go, she thought, stifling a groan. He’s going to mention the Valentine card. Wants to wipe the slate clean before we go any further. I wish the ground would open up and swallow me.
‘Because I thought you might be feeling a bit low after your parents’ departure,’ he was saying, and her eyes widened. ‘Also, I feel I should tell you that I won’t be pulling rank or anything like that. I will be relying on you to put me right if I make any mistakes.’
He’d come to sit on the seat beside her, still with the bottle in his hand, and she said in a low voice, ‘And is that it?’
He smiled. ‘Yes. I think so. I can’t think of anything else. So, are we going to drink a toast, Megan?’
She nodded, speechless with relief, and went inside to get a bottle opener and glasses. By the time she’d done that she’d found her voice and, standing in the kitchen doorway, she said, ‘Shall we drink it inside or out?’
He got to his feet. ‘Inside would be nice. I’d love to see what your home is like. It’s a beautiful place you have here.’
‘I think so,’ she said stiffly, still on edge, and stepped back to let him in. ‘Do make yourself comfortable. Though perhaps you should pour the wine first, as you’ve brought it.’
‘Whatever,’ he said easily and did as she’d suggested. ‘To us, Megan,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘To a good working partnership.’
As he took a sip of his wine, Luke wondered if she remembered sending him the Valentine card. When he’d behaved like a moron and left her red with embarrassment, instead of telling her why he hadn’t been ready to take her up on it. She had been the only one of his students that he’d ever taken note of. Small, dainty, with red-gold hair and green eyes, she’d moved like a dream.
But it hadn’t just been those things that had caught his attention. It had been the way she’d worked, steadily and with zeal, while some of the students had thought that university was a big joke. An opportunity to waste their parents’ money on living it up.
There had been a strange irony in discovering that half the class fancied him, including the girl sitting opposite him, when his marriage had crashed and he had been going through a bitter divorce.
He checked the time. ‘I must go, Megan. Sue will have the meal ready by now, and the boys will be raring to spend some time with me, as I’m the nearest thing they’re going to get to a dad.’
He sighed. ‘The poor kids are in a state at losing him, which is only natural. It’s the first time they’ve been this close to death, and are striking out against it in the only way they know how. They desperately want a father figure at the moment and I’m going to be there for them for as long as they need me. That applies to Sue as well. She’ll be all right when they are. So it’s going to be taking one day at a time.’
‘They’re fortunate to have you looking out for them,’ Megan said awkwardly.
He shrugged. ‘I just wish I could have been here sooner. Anyway, I really must go. It’s been a pleasant evening, Megan, so thank you.’
As Megan showed him out, he paused in the doorway. ‘How long have you lived here?’
Megan shrugged. ‘Only a short time. When I knew that Mum and Dad were leaving the area I didn’t want to be living on my own in their house. It would have been too big for me. So I bought this place.’
‘A good choice,’ he said, and strode down the path. When he reached the gate he raised his hand in a brief salute and then drove off.
When he’d disappeared from sight Megan let out a deep breath and went back inside. He was the last person she’d expected to see appearing out of the summer dusk. It had been a nice gesture to suggest a toast, and an exquisite relief not to have been reminded of her youthful crush. Maybe he’d forgotten. If he had she would send up a prayer of thanks. But how was she to know? It could be that he remembered it very well and was saving the mention of it for a later date.
Nevertheless she went to bed in a happier frame of mind than she’d been in all day and it was due to Luke Anderson.
* * *
The house was still. Sue had gone to bed early with a headache and the boys were also asleep. They’d been great while they’d been showing him around the village, but at bedtime Oliver, who was eleven years old, had been awkward.
He’d wanted to stay up and watch television and wouldn’t get undressed until Luke had told him he had to as it was school in the morning, and on no account was he to disturb his mother. He’d done as he’d been told but with a scowl on his face. When Luke had gone to check on them, Owen, the thirteen-year-old had been fast asleep, and Oliver thankfully had been on the point of dozing off.
He’d gone to bed himself then and as he lay thinking about the day, the short time he’d spent with Megan was at the forefront of his mind. When they’d met a month ago at the practice he’d been as dumbfounded as she had been at meeting up again and in such circumstances.
When she’d sent him the Valentine card he’d been at his lowest ebb. His marriage to Alexis had just ended in divorce. He’d been feeling angry and betrayed. And even if Megan hadn’t been his student, the thought of another relationship hadn’t been bearable.
Since his marriage had ended, he hadn’t looked at another woman, and it might have stayed that way if he hadn’t met Megan again. But again the time wasn’t right. Then he’d been reeling from his divorce, and now he had his hands full with a distraught mother and her fatherless sons.
As a reminder of that fact he heard the creak of a bedroom window being opened in the next room to his, and when he went to investigate he found Oliver halfway out of the window and preparing to jump onto the roof of an outhouse down below.
When he saw him he hesitated and Luke said, ‘Don’t even think of it, Oliver.’And taking his arm, he helped him back into the room.
‘Where were you intending going?’ he asked quietly, dreading that he’d been on the point of running away.
‘Mothing,’ was the surly reply. ‘I meet my friend Mikey out on the lane at the back and we go into the fields with our nets.’
‘And does your mother know?’
‘No. She wouldn’t let me if she knew.’
‘I see,’ Luke said unsmilingly. ‘So how about we do a deal. If you promise to go back to bed and stay there, I’ll come with you and Mikey tomorrow night, and any other night for that matter, but you have to promise that you won’t sneak out again.’
‘What? You’ll come mothing with us, Uncle Luke?’ Oliver exclaimed with his good humour restored in the form of a wide smile. ‘I didn’t think grown-ups did that sort of thing.’
‘They don’t,’ Luke told him dryly, ‘but for you, Oliver, anything. And now I’m going to ring your friend’s parents to tell them to check on his whereabouts.’
‘He won’t have gone out yet,’ Oliver told him calmly. ‘Mikey always waits until he hears me whistle beneath his window.’
‘Is that so? Well, I’m going to phone them nevertheless, and now let’s have you back in bed, Oliver. I have my first day at the surgery tomorrow and don’t want to be half-asleep.’
‘OK. I get the message.’ Oliver grinned. ‘Goodnight, Uncle Luke.’
When he looked in on him a few moments later Oliver wasn’t pretending. He was fast asleep and as Luke closed the door quietly behind him, he decided that his own affairs were going to have to be put on hold for quite some time if tonight was anything to go by.
He’d taken on two big commitments, looking after his sister and her children, and the position at the practice, both requiring patience and stamina. Yet compared to living with Alexis they would seem like a holiday, and on that thought he turned on his side and slept.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN Megan awoke the following morning the first thing that came to mind was Luke appearing in the sunset with a bottle of wine. Thinking about it, she wished she could have been a bit less stilted in her manner, but surprise and unease had been responsible for that.
And in the light of day the unease was back. She wasn’t going to be able to cope with being on tenterhooks all the time in case the matter of the Valentine card came up, and she decided reluctantly that the best thing to do was take the bull by the horns and mention it herself.
That way it would be over and done with. She would be able to work alongside him more comfortably when she’d reassured him that the card had just been the result of a youthful crush. It was going to be the first thing she did when she got to the surgery, she decided. She would mention it casually, poking wry fun at herself, and it would be over.
She was using her mother’s room for consultations and Connie, the cleaner, had been asked to come in over the weekend to give the room that had been her father’s a good spring clean, ready for Luke’s arrival.
Megan had to smile when she saw it. Everywhere was immaculate. Connie had even put flowers on the window-sill and a fresh box of tissues for any patient who might be distressed during a consultation. All it needed now was the arrival of its new occupant.
It was a quarter past eight. In fifteen minutes the wheels would start turning and another day at the Riverside Practice would begin. Luke needed to get a move on. She wanted to introduce him to the staff and put him in the picture as to how the surgery was run before he settled himself behind the desk in the room that had been prepared for him.
He arrived just before eight-thirty, looking nothing like the man who’d toasted their partnership the night before. There was a tightness around his mouth and his tie needed knotting into place.
‘I am so sorry,’ he gasped. ‘I intended being here early, but while I was under the shower those lads started playing Sue up, and once I’d sorted them and they’d ambled off to school, she began to cry. I couldn’t leave her in that state, so I hung on until she’d calmed down.’
He flashed a wry smile. ‘Does it sound as if I’m whingeing? I’m sorry if it does. The process of helping them adjust to losing their dad is not going to be easy. I’ll tell you later what Oliver got up to last night.’
She nodded and thought, So much for putting the Valentine episode to bed. It would have to wait.
‘I’ll introduce you to the staff first,’ she told him, ‘and then a quick run through procedures. I’m sure the patients won’t mind waiting a few moments longer.’
There were three receptionists, all efficient middle aged women, and after they’d smiled their welcome, Megan took him into the nurse’s room where Pat Howarth, heading for retirement and dreading it, ruled the roost. Working alongside her was Kath Storey, a young mother of two little girls, who showed a less dominant attitude towards staff and patients.
The practice manager was Anne Faulkner, a quiet woman with accountancy qualifications, who rented the apartment above the surgery.
Connie, the cleaner, was absent. After her labours over the weekend Megan had told her to take the day off.
While the introductions were being made Luke was pleasant and friendly, but he didn’t miss a thing. He’d smiled when he saw the flowers on the window-sill and said, ‘You didn’t have to do that, Megan.’
‘I didn’t,’ she told him. ‘It was Connie, the cleaner. She came in over the weekend to make the place spick and span for you.’
‘Really? That was very thoughtful. Was it her idea?’
‘No, it was mine.’ Connie wasn’t going to get all the praise, she decided. ‘How about I start morning surgery while you wander round and watch us in motion? Maybe you could have a word with Anne, the practice manager, who can answer any questions you might have on the admin side. Then when I’ve finished we could join up for the house calls.’
‘Sure,’ he said easily. ‘Whatever you say. And I promise that by tomorrow I will be up to speed.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ she told him, and left him to it.
* * *
When they met up just before midday Megan said, ‘I suggest that we do the visits together for a few days. It will give you the opportunity to find your way around and meet some of the people in the village.’
Megan was driving, and as they headed along quiet roads lined with old stone cottages, their gardens full of colour, she told him about their first patient. ‘Our first stop today is going to be at the home of my aunt, Isabel Chambers. And I feel I must warn you that she has a sharp tongue and doesn’t wrap up her words. She’s in her early seventies and has diabetes. But she’s a strong woman. She’s been on her own since her husband died forty years ago. They never had any children.’
She turned right up a leafy lane. ‘I call to see her every Monday, just to make sure that she’s all right, and that nothing regarding her health is going haywire. It’s the house next to the old water mill on Rabbit Lane. We’ll be there in a moment.’
As they walked up the path that led to the front door of a large stone house Luke saw that it was unlatched and a voice called from inside, ‘Come in. Megan.’ It belonged to a small grey-haired woman sitting facing them in a rocking chair and as bright eyes looked him up and down she said, ‘So you’ve brought the new doctor to see me, Megan.’
‘Yes, I have, Aunt Izzy. This is Luke Anderson. He and I are going to be running the practice from now on.’
‘I see,’ she said, and held out her hand for him to shake. ‘You look all right to me,’ she told him, taking in the height of him, and added to Megan, ‘But I can see you getting a crick in your neck having to keep looking up.’
‘I’m sure we’ll manage,’ she said quickly, dreading what was coming next.
She had cause to. ‘Have you brought a wife and some young ’uns with you?’ she asked Luke, and he shook his head.
‘I’m afraid not,’ he told her. ‘I’ve come to look after some young ’uns but they aren’t mine.’
‘Dr Anderson is related to Sue Standish,’ Megan told her aunt. ‘He’s come to give her some support.’
‘Hmm. I see,’ she said, then turned her sharp eyes on Megan. ‘And who’s going to look after you, lass? I told your mother and father they’d no right leaving you like that.’
Concealing her mortification Megan said, ‘I don’t need minding, Aunt Izzy. I’m twenty-nine years old.’
‘Maybe,’ the old lady said crustily, ‘but you’ve been left with the practice to see to and a stranger to deal with.’
Megan saw Luke turn away to hide a smile and thought, enough is enough. ‘I’ve come to check on your health, Aunt Izzy,’ she said firmly. ‘So let’s see what the diabetes has been up to. I’m going to test your blood pressure, and see what your blood-glucose levels are. And while I’m here I’ll have a quick look at your feet.’
