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‘Some guy went berserk and attacked him when one of his family died during an operation that he was performing, and Lucas nearly lost his life as well.
‘I’ve also heard tales of a broken engagement round about that time, so it’s not surprising that he isn’t full of the joys of spring, or should I say summer.’
Before Jenna had time to digest the distressing facts that Lucy had just passed on to her, Ethan’s voice could be heard outside in the corridor. A moment later he appeared, smiling his pleasure to see her there, and she thought that here was a man who was always the same, no matter what life dealt out to him, and he’d had his own share of ups and downs in the not so recent past.
‘I’ve just spoken to Lucas,’ he told her, ‘and he says that the two of you have already met.’
‘Yes, we bumped into each other on the beach yesterday, and when I went for a stroll yesterday evening he was cutting the grass outside The Old Chart House, which he told me now belongs to him.’
‘Hmm, that is so,’ he said. He turned to Lucy. ‘Do you mind if I take Jenna away from you for a little while?’
The elderly practice nurse was smiling as she told him, ‘Of course not, Dr Lomax. Knowing that she’s back and is joining the practice has brightened my day.’
‘So are you really ready to come and join us here at The Tides?’ Ethan asked when they were seated in the office at the back of the surgery building.
‘Yes,’ she said firmly, ‘if you’re sure that you want me on the staff, but as I said this morning I want to help look after my mother too.’
‘Of course you do,’ he agreed, ‘but you are going to need some life away from the house, Jenna. You are young and bright and will liven up this place. The patients will love you and so will the staff.’
‘Oh, yes?’ she said doubtfully, with the memory of Lucas’s critical appraisal still very clear.
Ignoring the comment, he said, ‘So how about mornings, eight-thirty until twelve, and Monday and Thursday afternoons assisting Lucas in the heart clinic? Do you think you could manage that with your mother to care for as well?’
This is the moment to say I can manage the mornings but not the afternoons, she was thinking. Did she want to work in such close contact with Lucas Devereux?
‘I can certainly manage the mornings,’ she told him. ‘Mum is always up early. I can see to it that she is bathed and dressed before I leave and Dad will organise their breakfasts. Could I give the afternoons a trial before I commit myself on that?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said easily. ‘I haven’t mentioned it to Lucas yet so a trial it shall be, say, for a couple of weeks, and then we’ll have another chat.’
Unaware that he was the subject of their conversation, Lucas had just seen his last patient on their way and was thinking about his meetings with Jenna Balfour. Why couldn’t he have been more pleasant, he thought, instead of giving in to an insane urge to put out her light for no other reason than someone had extinguished his own?
When he’d seen her frolicking around with the lifeguard on the beach the day before, his lip had curled at the spectacle, but who was he to criticise the light-hearted actions of others because his heart lay heavy as a stone?
Taking his jacket off a hanger behind the door, he picked up his case and went into the outer corridor just as Jenna, having finished her chat with Ethan, was saying goodbye to Lucy.
‘Tell your mum I’ll pop round for a while this evening if she feels up to it,’ she was saying. ‘Give me a ring if she’s not, Jenna, and I’ll come some other time.’
The girl with hair like sunlight was smiling, but there was something wistful in her expression as she said, ‘Mum has always been happy to see you, Aunt Lucy.’
There were tears on her lashes as she gave the elderly practice nurse a parting hug and when she turned to go she found Lucas observing her once again with the unreadable dark hazel gaze that was becoming familiar.
At the main door of the surgery he was close behind and held the door for her to go through. She quickened her step to get away from him and he surprised her by saying, ‘So what arrangements have you made with Ethan?’
She came to a halt and turned slowly to face him, surprised that he was aiming the question at her instead of the head of the practice, in the light of his previous manner. Suddenly her pent-up resentment of his attitude towards her came to the fore and she said, ‘I’m not sure that you would want to hear it.’
Dark brows were rising as she went on, ‘It is quite clear that you disapprove of me, though heaven knows why as you hardly know me. Yet I suppose it is possible to feel an immediate aversion to someone right from the moment of meeting. That being so, maybe Ethan would be the best person to explain what his plans are for me.
‘I’m told that life has not been kind to you of late and I’m sorry to hear that,’ she told him without pausing for breath. ‘I saw the scar when we were on the beach and felt the injustice of it when I discovered from where it came. As for the inward hurts that come from broken relationships I’m sure that they too must be very painful, though I haven’t had that sort of experience myself.’
‘Have you quite finished?’ he asked dryly.
‘Er, yes,’ she said hurriedly, as the verbal floodgates that had opened suddenly closed. ‘And do please forgive me for being so intrusive. I don’t know what came over me. Feel free to tell me to mind my own business.’
Before he could reply she began to walk quickly towards the seashore and home, and it wasn’t until she reached the headland that she stopped for breath and stood cringing at the thought of how she’d behaved.
She couldn’t believe that she’d let someone she hardly knew get to her to such an extent. Maybe it was because she was desperate for him to like her…and he didn’t.
She hadn’t looked back. If she had she would have seen a grim smile on his face as he thought that she’d managed to refrain from saying, ‘Don’t take your misfortunes out on me,’ but it was quite clear that she’d thought it and who could blame her?
Lucy had come as promised and as she watched Jenna wandering restlessly from room to room in the warm summer night she said, ‘I’ll see to Barbara when she’s ready for bed if you want to go out.’
‘Would you, Aunt Lucy?’ she said gratefully. She was desperate to speak to Lucas Devereux again before the day ended, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to sleep if she hadn’t apologised for her incredible outburst. If he hadn’t liked her before he must detest her now, she kept telling herself, and not without good reason.
The same crowd as the night before was outside the pub as she went past but she hardly noticed them. She was praying that when she reached his house he would be there.
He was and when he answered her ring on the doorbell Lucas was wearing paint-splashed jeans, a shirt in a similar condition, and was holding a paintbrush. As he stepped back to let her in she said with the same kind of rush as when she’d said her piece the first time, ‘I’ve come to apologise.’
‘There is no need,’ he said levelly. ‘You are entitled to your opinion.’
She was observing him slack-jawed. Was this the sardonic stranger who had never been out of her thoughts from the first moment they’d met and was now climbing down off his pedestal?
‘It is generous of you to say so,’ she said gravely, ‘but none of us know when life will change for the better or for the worse. When I thought about it afterwards I realised that I must have sounded extremely smug and preachy.’
‘Forget it,’ he insisted in the same flat tone. He pointed to a can of paint. ‘What do you think of white for the paintwork in the hall? Everywhere in this place is so drab and dark colours are so depressing.’
‘Er, yes, you can’t go wrong with white,’ she said awkwardly, with the feeling that she’d stepped on to some sort of roller-coaster that was going in the wrong direction.
It was more nerve-racking to be on good terms with Lucas Devereux than bad. Had the man any idea how attractive he was? He made all other guys she’d ever met seem pale by comparison, but if she was going to have to work with him it would be a case of keeping her mind on what she was there for, and wondering what it would feel like to be in his arms would not be on the agenda.
She’d walked up from the headland in the summer dusk and now the daylight had finally gone. The moon was dominating the heavens in a cloudless sky and conscious that she’d interrupted what he’d been doing Jenna said, ‘I must go. I’ve left Aunt Lucy with my mum so she’s all right, but I don’t want to be away too long.’
He didn’t comment but gave her a strange look and then took her by surprise again by saying, ‘If you’ll hang on while I change my clothes, I’ll walk you home.’
‘There’s no need,’ she said hastily. ‘I know the way. I’ve done it a thousand times.’
‘Nevertheless, I am not going to let you walk home alone,’ he told her decisively. ‘Make yourself comfortable on the sofa in the sitting room. I will be just a couple of minutes.’
He was as good as his word. She sensed that he always would be and would have scant patience with anyone who wasn’t.
They’d been walking in silence for a few moments and out of the blue Lucas asked, ‘So where is your lifeguard friend tonight?’
Jenna swivelled to face him, eyes widening in surprise at the question ‘You mean Ronnie?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, if that’s his name.’
‘He will be down on the beach, or with his wife and family, I would imagine, but why do you ask?’ He didn’t reply and as light began to dawn she exclaimed in slow surprise, ‘Ah! I see! When we were larking about yesterday you came to the conclusion that there was more to it than just a laugh between friends, which was rather presumptuous on your part, don’t you think?
‘Ronnie has lived here all his life, just as I have. We were in junior school at the same time, though he was on the point of leaving when I started as there is a few years’ difference in our ages. He knows me best from me being on the beach. I’ve always used it a lot, and I’m godmother to one of his children.’
‘All right!’ he protested. ‘I get the picture, and you are correct in pointing out in a roundabout way that it is none of my business.’
He wasn’t going to tell her that he was piqued because she was turning out to be different from what he’d expected, that he’d wanted her to be the laughing blonde in a bikini flirting with the handsome lifeguard, because it fitted in better with his present jaundiced views on beautiful women.
Next he’d be discovering that Jenna Balfour hadn’t really deserted her parents when she’d been needed—the kind of criticism he’d heard from some of the village folk who thought highly of her mother’s years of devoted care for the patients at The Tides.
They’d reached the headland. The lighted windows of Four Winds were shining out in the darkness and she said gravely, ‘Thank you for walking me home, Lucas, but before you go, can I ask you a question?’
‘Of course,’ he told her smoothly, half expecting what was coming next.
‘Do you always make a snap judgement on meeting someone for the first time?’
‘In my work, never!’ he replied, then, as Philippa drifted into his mind, he went on, ‘But I was guilty of that kind of thing not so long ago and paid a high price for my gullibility with regard to a beautiful woman. I apologise for letting my first glimpse of another equally beautiful woman cause me to form what now seems to be the wrong opinion, if that is what you want me to say?’
‘Only if it is really meant,’ she said coolly. ‘We haven’t got off to a very good start, have we? If we are going to be working together we need to clear the air so that when Ethan passes on to you his suggestion that I assist you in your Monday and Thursday afternoon clinics you will have had time to decide if you are prepared to be in such close proximity to me.’
‘It will depend on if you’ve had any experience of cardiology nursing more than anything else,’ he said dryly. ‘Have you?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I’ve worked on a coronary unit in France, but when Ethan suggested that I assist in your clinic I asked that I might give it a trial first.’
‘For what reason? You’ve just said that you have some experience.’
‘You were the reason. I sensed your antipathy towards me.’
‘And how do you feel about that now?’
She was smiling. ‘Better, I think, because it seems that you might be human after all.’
The sardonic smile was back. Most nurses he’d worked with had treated him with reverence and respect. But here was a free spirit amongst the nursing fraternity who wasn’t all that keen to work with him and there were all the ingredients of a challenge in that.
‘So I’ll see you on Thursday afternoon, then?’ he questioned as they stood looking down at the foamtipped waves lapping onto the beach in the moonlight.
‘Er, yes, if you’re going to agree to what Ethan wants.’
‘I’ve known him a long time. Ethan Lomax is a good friend,’ he told her sombrely. ‘He saved my sanity when he persuaded me to move to Bluebell Cove. His plans for the practice will be my top priority as long as I am involved in it so, yes, I’m going to agree to you working with me.’
‘Who is assisting you now?’
‘No one as yet. Today’s clinic was only the second one and we were still looking for a nurse. You appeared at just the right time,’ he told her, and hoped that she realised he was speaking from a medical point of view. As far as he was concerned, there would never be a right time for anything more personal.
As he walked back to his own place Lucas was thinking that from what he’d seen of her so far there appeared to be nothing devious about the beautiful Jenna Balfour, and added to that she had the personality, and hopefully the nursing experience, that he would require from her in the cardiology clinic.
For the first time in ages he was actually feeling cheerful as he climbed the stairs to the drab main bedroom of his newly acquired property, but he knew it wouldn’t last. He was surrounded by too many dark shadows and broken dreams.
‘Do you want to take the car?’ Keith asked when Jenna came downstairs the next morning looking trim and competent in the dark blue dress of the practice nurse that Lucy had brought for her the night before.
‘No. I’ll walk,’ she said. ‘You’ll need the car if you have to take Mum anywhere. The first chance I get I’ll sort out some transport of my own. Which reminds me, is my bike still in the outhouse?’
He smiled. ‘Yes, knowing how much you used to love the thing, I’ve taken great care of it while you’ve been away.’
She gave him a hug and her mother, seated nearby, nodded approvingly at the idea of Jenna cycling to the practice instead of walking. A feeling of rare contentment had come over her when she’d seen her daughter dressed for the surgery, and some of the pain of her own limitations had disappeared.
There’d been a lot of time to fill since she’d had to hand the practice over to Ethan, and she thought frequently that if she had to do it all over again, these two who loved her unconditionally would be first of all her priorities.
A promise she’d made way back to another loved one, long gone, had driven her through the years to a greater degree than she should have allowed it to, and now she was praying that she hadn’t left it too late to be the wife and mother she should have been.
Ethan was Lucas’s nearest neighbour, residing in a recently erected detached house that the builder had been inspired to grace the front of with an assortment of attractive pebbles from along the coastline.
It was only a few yards from the practice, which was a bonus as he and his wife had recently separated and the close proximity to his job made coping with the break-up a little easier. But nothing was going to take away the hurt of being apart from his children, Kirstie, eleven, and Ben, thirteen. They were living abroad with Francine, their French mother, and although he had access to them, the life of a busy G.P. didn’t allow for long absences from the practice.
The two men valued each other’s friendship and rarely mentioned the women who had once been in their lives and were now part of their pasts, but each was aware that the inward hurts of broken relationships were still there, and for his part Lucas was only too happy to be there for Ethan should he need him to help with practice matters.
Both at a loose end, they went to the pub that evening and as they chatted Lucas found the opportunity to question his friend about Jenna’s addition to the staff.
‘She’s a great girl,’ Ethan enthused, ‘and Barbara will be on cloud nine to know that another member of her family has joined the staff of The Tides. Jenna is going to work mornings and if you are agreeable will assist you in your clinic two afternoons a week.’
‘That sounds fine,’ he said immediately, omitting to mention that he’d already heard about it from the nurse in question. ‘When is she due to start?’
‘Tomorrow morning,’ Ethan informed him, ‘which will mean that instead of just having the faithful and very experienced Lucy at one end of the scale, and young trainee Maria at the other, we’ll have three practice nurses, which we’ve needed for some time.’
‘Sounds good,’ Lucas commented, and wanting to satisfy his curiosity further asked, ‘So why didn’t Jenna come into the practice when she graduated?’
‘She wanted some freedom away from her mother. There was a big fallout because she wouldn’t toe the line and off she went. But she would never have gone if her mother had told her how increasingly difficult it was to keep going with the rheumatoid arthritis progressing as it was. Some of the locals who feel Barbara Balfour can do no wrong were very critical of Jenna at the time, but those who knew and liked her understood.’
‘I see,’ he said dryly, as another of his suppositions went by the board. Yet he’d been half expecting it ever since he’d got to know the golden girl better.
As Lucas went for his paper the next morning to the busy general store at the far side of the surgery, Jenna was cycling towards him in the early morning sun, a smiling vision in her nurse’s uniform.
‘Hello, there!’ he said as she stopped beside him. ‘I’d forgotten that you are about to join the fray. How does it feel?’
‘Scary,’ she told him wryly. ‘I wasn’t exactly the most popular person around here when I went away. It would seem that a lot of people knew that Mum wasn’t coping, but no one thought to tell me, and of course Mum hid it from me, though I was so wrapped up in my own plans I wasn’t entirely blameless.’
‘So your father didn’t say anything?’
She smiled. ‘Dad less than anyone. He wanted me to get away for a while for reasons that I won’t go into, but not so much that he didn’t send for me when he thought it was time I knew what the situation was.’
The smile was still there and Lucas was surprised when she went on to say, ‘You see, I was brought up with one and a half parents.’ And before he had the chance to comment further she placed her foot back on the pedal and prepared to ride the last few yards to the practice with a parting comment of, ‘I’ll see you on Thursday afternoon, Lucas, if you still want me at the clinic.’
‘It is Ethan’s decision that you work with me, and you might find it hard to believe…but I don’t bite.’
She was already moving off so he didn’t know if she’d heard the last bit, and he thought grimly if that was what she thought, he’d asked for it by being so smugly critical of someone he’d had no yardstick to measure by. There was Philippa, of course, who’d betrayed him, but to compare Jenna with her just because she was beautiful would be an insult that she didn’t deserve.
The morning was going too quickly. Lucy had greeted her with open arms, and Maria, the young trainee practice nurse, who was Ronnie’s eldest daughter, had flashed her a shy smile when Jenna had presented herself at the the nurses’ room.
Ethan had popped in for a moment to greet her in his usual pleasant manner and she’d felt that at least there was no criticism here. They were her friends, and even Lucas had been pleasant when they’d met unexpectedly outside the busy little store.
She’d watched while Lucy had treated the first few patients and noted that they were more concerned about their health than the fact that there was a newcomer amongst the practice nurses. When Lucy needed to go to the storeroom for supplies she said, ‘I’ll leave you to see to the next patient, Jenna. Maria will help you out with any surgery routine that you’re not sure of.’ And off she went.
In line with that comment the teenager went out on to the corridor where patients waited to be seen and came back to report that Mrs Waterson was there.
