‘Who is she?’ he questioned, standing transfixed in the doorway.

‘She’s my daughter,’ Tessa told him. ‘Her name is Poppy.’

‘How old is she?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘Three.’

‘Is she mine too?’ he questioned after a pause, in barely a whisper as the colour drained from his face.

She shook her head and watched the dark hazel of his eyes become veiled.

‘Who is her father then?’ he choked as the small vision on the bottom step rubbed her eyes sleepily.

‘Poppy is my adopted daughter,’ she told him. ‘Her parents were killed in a car crash and we got to know each other when she was brought into Horizons with a bleed behind her eyes from the accident. She was with us for quite some time and we became close. I used to sit beside her whenever I got a spare moment and take her a little surprise every day. In the end I applied to adopt her and was successful. So there you have it. No cause for alarm.’

Turning, she scooped Poppy up into her arms and held her close.

As their glances met she told him, ‘Poppy has brought joy into my life.’

‘Yes, I’m sure that she must have,’ he said.

Dear Reader,

Hello once again. In this book, A Father for Poppy, I have left Heatherdale for a while and chosen another delightful place to set this story—namely, The Cotswolds, where in a famous eye hospital two people who have lost contact meet up again and make up for lost time as they find a deeper meaning to their relationship.

I hope that you will enjoy getting to know Drake and Tessa, with romance in the air once more.

Do you believe, as I do, that love makes the world go round?

Abigail Gordon

(From Marple Bridge, where the river bends …)

ABIGAIL GORDON loves to write about the fascinating combination of medicine and romance from her home in a Cheshire village. She is active in local affairs, and is even called upon to write the script for the annual village pantomime! Her eldest son is a hospital manager, and helps with all her medical research. As part of a close-knit family, she treasures having two of her sons living close by, and the third one not too far away. This also gives her the added pleasure of being able to watch her delightful grandchildren growing up.

A Father for Poppy

Abigail Gordon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my dear friend Jill Jones.

Table of Contents

Cover

Excerpt

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THEY HAD MADE love for the last time with the evening sun laying strands of gold across them. It had been as good as it had always been—sweet, wild and passionate. But there had been sadness inside Tessa because deep down she’d known it was the end of the affair, although neither of them were prepared to put into words that it was over.

It had been the agreement when they’d met—no commitments, take what life offered and enjoy it. Wedding rings were a joke, brushed to one side with babies and mortgages. Having spent her young years amongst her parents’ quarrelling, unfaithfulness and eventual divorce, she was wary of the kind of hurts that a gold band on the finger could bring.

So she’d kept her distance from the men she’d met until Drake Melford had appeared in her life and everything had changed. He hadn’t asked anything of her except to make love and when they had it had been magical. There had been no suggestion of any kind of commitment and in the beginning she’d been totally happy.

The attraction between them had been intense. So much so that when they’d been together at either of their apartments they’d made love on the rug, the kitchen table, and even once on a park bench in moonlight when the place had been empty, giving no thought to the future. Only the present had mattered.

So what had gone wrong? Something had changed the magic into doubt and misgivings, telling her in lots of ways that it was over, and whenever she’d wanted to ask Drake what was happening to them there had been the ‘no strings’ pact that had made the words stick in her throat.

Her only comfort had been in knowing that she wasn’t competing against another woman, that it was his career that was going to take him away from her, and ever since then Tessa had kept the memory of that time buried deep in one of the past chapters of her life.

But a fleeting glimpse of the back of a man’s neck and the dark thatch of hair above it as he’d got into a taxi outside a London railway station had been a reminder that anything as memorable as the time she’d spent with Drake Melford would never stay buried.

She brushed a hand across her eyes as if to shut out a blinding light. It wasn’t the first time she’d given in to wishful thinking, and she knew how hard she had to fight to keep sane once the raw and painful memories were allowed to intrude into the life she had worked so hard to build in Drake’s absence.

She groaned softly and an old lady next to her in the taxi queue asked, ‘Are you all right, dear?’

Managing a smile, Tessa told her that it was just a stitch in her side instead of a thorn in her heart.

It was a Friday. She was in London for an important meeting and at the moment of seeing the man at the front of the queue getting into the taxi her thoughts were on what lay ahead and any surprise announcements that might be made.

She’d travelled up from Gloucestershire, where she was employed for the yearly AGM that was held in the city, and intended on staying the night at a hotel and catching an early train back in the morning.

Horizons Eye Hospital was on the edge of the elegant town of Glenminster, with the green hills of the county looking down on it, and was renowned for its excellence in specialised treatment. Tessa was employed there in a senior management position and was deeply committed to every aspect of it.

She’d heard it said that the health service had more managers than doctors. Though she, of course, respected the fantastic work done by the medical teams, at least a doctor didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night when a patient who had arrived with valuables in their possession and asked that they be put in the hospital safe was unexpectedly being discharged and wanted their belongings returned to them. As the only key holder, this meant a deal of trouble for Tess.

It had also been said that she must wish that her position there was more connected with healing than organising. But Tess had always believed that a clean, healthy and efficient facility with good, wholesome food did as much for a patient’s recovery as the medical miracles performed there.

As her taxi pulled up outside the building where the meeting was to take place, she was remembering a veiled comment that the chairman of the hospital board had made to her.

The top consultant of the hospital was retiring, so would be saying his goodbyes at the AGM, and the chairman had remarked that, much as the hospital was already famous, the man who was to replace him was going to take it even higher on the scale of excellent ophthalmology. When she’d asked for a name he’d just smiled and said, ‘All will be revealed at the AGM.’

And now here she was, still too bogged down with the past to be curious about the present, until she walked into the conference room and realised that this time she hadn’t been wrong in thinking she’d seen him. Drake Melford was there, chatting to some of her colleagues in his usual relaxed manner. It was history repeating itself.

Tessa turned quickly and made her way to a powder room, where a face devoid of colour stared back at her from the mirror. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out what she’d seen out there, telling herself that she should have known it was Drake that she’d glimpsed at the taxi rank.

She’d caressed his neck countless times, pressing kisses on to the strong column of it, raking her fingers through the dark pelt of his hair … But the meeting was due to start any moment and the chairman would not be expecting her to be skulking in the powder room.

The hospital board was already seated around a big oval table when she went back into the room, with Drake, the chairman and the retiring consultant seated centrally. When he saw her, Drake felt his heartbeat quicken and wished that their meeting—after what felt like a lifetime of regret—had been a more private one. But a part of him knew it was better this way, as a casual meeting of old friends, rather than. Rather than what? he asked himself.

As she eased herself into a seat at the far end of the table, Tessa listened to what was being said as if it were coming from another planet.

The chairman was making a presentation to the retiring consultant, who was following it with a short farewell speech, and then Drake would be introduced to those who would be working with him at the famous hospital.

He received a warm welcome from the chairman, who described him as a local man, top of his field in ophthalmology, and who, having fulfilled his obligation to a Swiss clinic, had agreed to accept the position of chief consultant at the Horizons Hospital.

There was loud applause. Tessa joined in weakly. Then Drake was on his feet, speaking briefly about the pleasure of being back in the U.K. and how he was looking forward to being amongst them. For Tessa it was like a dream from which she was sure she would awaken at any moment.

After that, routine matters were discussed and soon the assembled members retired to a nearby hotel where an evening meal had been arranged for all those present.

So far the two of them hadn’t spoken, but when she was chatting to one of the members of the hospital board, Drake went past with some of the bigwigs and called across, ‘Hi, Tessa. You’re still around, I see.’

She made no reply, just smiled a tight smile at the thought of being referred to as part of the fixtures and fittings. It was hardly the reunion her fevered brain had imagined during all those nights of tossing and turning.

As the evening wore on it seemed that quite a few of those at the meeting were booked in at the hotel for the night, Drake amongst them. Every time she thought of him being under the same roof she had to pinch herself to believe it.

Leaving most of them settled in the bar after they’d eaten, she went to her room and tried to come to terms with the day’s events. The first time she’d met him had been mesmerising and today had been no different, though for a different reason, she thought, lying wide-eyed against the pillows.

The most mind-blowing thought was that after three years of being denied his presence, she would now be seeing him on a daily basis. How was she going to cope with that? Their agreement had made it easy for him to leave her when the opportunity for a promotion had landed at his feet, and there had been no word of any kind from him since he’d left. Not one. And now they would be colleagues again. Tessa groaned into her pillow.

Drake had gone to his hotel room shortly after her and there was no smile on his face now. When he’d received the offer to work in Switzerland everything else had faded into the background. It had been a chance to improve his expertise and he’d been so keen to get over there he had given no thought to what he and Tessa had shared, so obsessed had he been with his own affairs.

It had only been as the months had become years without her that he’d realised what he’d lost in his arrogance. Too much time had passed for him to get in touch with her again, and he had felt … what? Regret? Shame?

For all he knew, she might be married with a couple of little ones, he’d told himself whenever the desire to be with her had surfaced. He’d hoped it wouldn’t stop him from making amends if the opportunity ever presented itself, and almost as if the fates had read his mind had come news of the vacancy at Horizons Hospital. Discovering that Tessa was now a senior manager at the hospital was only an additional bonus, he told himself.

He’d been anticipating her arrival at the meeting and observed the dismay in her expression when she’d seen him. There would be no warm welcome or happy reunion.

Then, fool that he was, he had made it a certainty by the patronising manner in which he’d greeted her when the meeting was over, as if she had been stagnating while he’d been on top of the world. Some of the Swiss Alps had actually seemed like the top of the world, but he’d had no chance to explore them because he’d always been too busy fulfilling his contract. He could no longer deny that he had been hoping for a different homecoming, and was plagued by flashes of memory of how things had once been between them.

In her room just down the corridor Tessa was also remembering when she and Drake had first met. It had been at a hospital staff meeting when he’d come to talk about some advances he had made in his work.

She’d arrived not intending staying long as her job was in Administration, but had been curious to see the man who was making a name for himself in eye surgery.

He’d been chatting laughingly to a group of nurses who’d been hanging on his every word as they’d waited for the meeting to begin, and Tess had been struck by dark good looks.

Having seen her arrive, he’d stepped to one side to get a better look and from the way his glance had kindled she’d known that he’d liked what he’d been seeing. Slim, elegant, with hair the colour of ripe corn, and wearing a black suit with a white silk top, Tessa Gilroy had been used to the appraisal of the opposite sex, but had rarely allowed it to proceed further than that. Her job had taken up most of her time and she’d accepted that.

But the stranger, tall and straight-backed with eyes of warm hazel and a thick, dark pelt of hair, had seemed different from any man she’d ever met, and when he’d been introduced to her as Drake Melford she’d known why.

His name had been mentioned frequently in medical circles because he’d been new, different, with a vivid, unorthodox approach that had got results, and she was to find that his attitude towards her would be the same.

Their only contact on that occasion had been a brief handshake on being introduced, and when the meeting had ended she’d left, leaving him encircled once again by admiring medical folk.

Her doorbell had rung at six the next morning and she’d found Drake Melford on the step. ‘I couldn’t sleep for thinking about you,’ he said. ‘Can I come in?’

Barefooted in a white cotton nightdress, she nodded and stepped back to let him pass, as if welcoming a man she barely knew into her apartment at that hour was something she did all the time.

She made a breakfast of sorts and they ate without speaking, eyes locked over every mouthful of food, and halfway through he pushed his chair back, lifted her up into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

The first time they made love was rapturous. She was so in tune with his desires and the magic of his presence that it felt as if she had been waiting all her life for him to appear in it.

For the rest of the time it was slower and more sensual, and when at last Drake lay on top of the silk coverlet with his arms behind his head, he said with a slow smile on his face, ‘Wow! I haven’t felt like this in years, Tessa. You are incredible.’

It was then that they made the pact, still drowsy with fulfilment but not so sated that they couldn’t think straight.

They would take it as it came, they agreed. No ties, no commitments, no promises. There would be no babies or mortgages…. An open-ended affair.

And when Drake got dressed after that last time and slung his things into a couple of suitcases Tessa watched him in mute misery, eyes shadowed, mouth unsmiling. She didn’t speak because there was nothing to say. It had been what they’d agreed from the start … no ties.

But one of them had discovered that they didn’t want it to be like that any more and it hadn’t been him. She’d fallen in love with him, totally and for all time, and to find him back in Glenminster and part of her working life was going to take some adjustment.

Whether Drake’s life had changed since then or not, she didn’t know. But hers certainly had, because now there was Poppy. Poppy was the small bright morning star that Tessa had adopted after getting to know her while she’d been in the children’s ward in Horizons. On the strength of that, Tessa had done two of the things that they’d vowed to steer clear of all that time ago: allowed a child into her life on a permanent arrangement and taken out a mortgage.

She had moved out of the apartment where she’d lived and loved so passionately, bought a cottage built of golden stone not far from the hospital and life had been good again because there’d been love in it. A different kind of love, maybe, but love nevertheless.

Drake was standing by the window of the hotel room, gazing out to where theatres and restaurants were sending out a blaze of light onto the main street.

In the background was the everlasting drone of the traffic that would be far more noticeable when daylight came, and was a far cry from the silence of the mountains and the soft white snows of Switzerland.

But his yearnings weren’t for those. He’d left Glenminster without a second thought three years ago with an easy mind, because Tess had seemed willing enough to keep to the pact they’d made on the night they’d met.

So why was it, he asked himself, that the moment his contract in Switzerland had come to an end he’d caught the first London flight available to be there for the meeting? And why had he hired a car to take him directly to the place where they’d lived and loved until his ambition had come between them?

It wasn’t like he’d been expecting Tessa to be all dewy-eyed and panting to take up where they’d left off three years before. If he had, she would have soon put that misconception right when she’d seen him at the meeting and observed him so joylessly that the attention he’d been receiving from everyone else had seemed claustrophobic.

If she was going straight home in the morning, would she let him give her a lift? he wondered. For all he knew, she might be turning the occasion of the AGM into a shopping trip or a theatre break and he could hardly go knocking on her bedroom door to question her plans after three years of silence and all that had passed between them …

He had planned on making an early start because he had to find somewhere to live when he got to Gloucestershire. He wanted to be settled into some kind of accommodation before appearing at the hospital in his new role on Monday morning. So it would seem that unless they met at breakfast their first proper encounter would be at work, under the eagle eyes of their colleagues. It was hardly ideal, but they were professionals and they would make the best of it.

It turned out that Tessa was already in the dining room amongst a smattering of other early risers when he went downstairs at six o’clock the next morning, and before he could give it another thought he stopped by her table and said, ‘I’ve got a hire car and will be leaving shortly. Can I give you a lift to Gloucestershire?’

‘No, thanks just the same,’ she told him levelly, in the process of buttering a piece of toast. ‘I have a seat booked on an early train. The taxi that I’ve arranged to take me to the station will be here soon.’

‘Are you still at the same address?’ he asked casually, letting the rebuff wash off him.

‘No, I’ve moved recently,’ was the curt reply, and then to his surprise she followed up with ‘If you haven’t got any accommodation arranged, there is the house in the grounds of the hospital that the retiring consultant has been living in.

‘The property was bequeathed to Horizons in the will of some grateful patient and is now vacant. I’m sure it could be made available to you if you wished.’

Drake was frowning. ‘I don’t want any fuss, Tessa, I’m here to work.’ He realised his tone had come across perhaps a little harshly, so he added, ‘But I suppose living so near work could be very useful.’

In truth, he was amazed. After her tepid reaction to his return he hadn’t expected her to do him any favours. He was the one who’d been a selfish blighter all that time ago and anyone observing them now would find it hard to believe they’d been lovers.

‘I will most certainly look into that,’ he assured her, dragging his mind back from the past.

Meanwhile, Tessa’s only thought was whether there would be anyone sharing the place with him if it was available.

It was an old house that its previous owner had cherished, with high vaulted ceilings, curving staircases and spacious rooms all furnished with antique objects, with its biggest benefit being that it was only a matter of minutes away from the hospital for the consultant in charge when needed.

‘Now that you mention it, I seem to remember something about being offered it when I accepted the position,’ he said, ‘but I had so much on my mind at the time I’d completely forgotten about it. So thanks for that, Tessa.’ Could he sound more like an idiot? Drake thought to himself.

She shrugged as if it were of no matter. ‘You would have heard about it sooner or later.’

‘Yes, well, thanks anyway,’ he told her, and as a member of the dining room staff came to show him to a table, added, ‘Until Monday morning, then.’

She nodded and turned back to her tea and toast, hoping that she hadn’t given any sign of the fast-beating heart that the turmoil inside her was responsible for. Having already settled her account, when her taxi arrived she left the hotel as swiftly as possible, and without a backward glance.

So far so good, Drake thought sombrely as he watched her go. At least they were on speaking terms and Tessa had taken the trouble to tell him that his accommodation arrangements might soon be solved. But who was it that she had moved house for?

She wouldn’t have left her beloved apartment for no reason, and he could hardly expect that her life had been on hold while he’d been away. She’d watched him leave that day without a murmur. Or could it have been that he hadn’t given her a chance to get a word in with his obsession about the job in Switzerland, and the opportunities for developing new techniques it had presented?

But he’d made his choice and paid the price. It had been over then and nothing had changed. It wasn’t like he’d returned to Horizons for her. He’d wanted the job—and to see her for old times’ sake, not to rekindle what had once been between them.

But that wasn’t to say that he’d forgotten the passion they’d shared, or how it had felt to lie in each other’s arms. So much so that he hadn’t slept with anyone since, hadn’t found anyone he’d wanted to share that with. Now that he had some distance, he could see that what they’d had was without equal—but he didn’t regret taking the Swiss job, which had developed his skills and offered him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Now, for better or worse, he was back and he couldn’t deny that a part of him was curious to see if there was anything left of it.

He could tell from Tessa’s manner that his return hadn’t sent her into raptures—far from it—but perhaps beneath her frosty reception she was as curious as he to see whether any of the old passion remained. The old Tessa certainly would have been.

On the train journey home Tessa rang her friend Lizzie, who was Poppy’s childminder and the only person she would entrust her adopted daughter to stay with overnight, and was told that she’d been fine. A little bit weepy at bedtime but a couple of stories had made her eyelids start to droop and then she’d slept right through the night.

‘I should be with you by lunchtime and will come straight to your place,’ Tessa told her, but Lizzie suggested bringing Poppy to the station to meet her, knowing how she would be longing to see her again. Tessa was anxious to hold her little girl in her arms again, and thanked Lizzie, who was mother to two cute little ones of her own. But when her friend asked if the meeting had justified the long journey and overnight stay in London, Tessa could only reply that it had been full of strange surprises.

She didn’t regret refusing Drake’s offer of a lift home, even though it would have been faster. The thought of being in close contact with him for three to four hours had been inconceivable.

Until yesterday he had been out of her life completely and now he’d come back into it with the same ease as when he’d appeared at her door at six o’clock in the morning an eternity ago, and now she was wishing him far away … Or was she?

With Drake back in her life he would no longer be a shadowy figure from her past. She would be able to see him and hear him, but would also have to keep him at a distance.

Her life had been transformed with Poppy in it. The little one had been in care, waiting to be adopted after losing her parents in a car crash, and when she’d been brought into Horizons soon after with a bleed behind her eye from the accident, Tessa had been drawn to the solemn little orphaned girl and had spent much of her free time beside Poppy’s bed.

‘You are just what the child needs,’ her social worker had said.

‘What! A single mother!’ she’d exclaimed. ‘Hardly! My life has never been planned to include children.’

But the seed had been sown and the more she’d thought about it the more she had known that she wanted to take care of Poppy. So the proceedings to adopt had begun, with every step along the way feeling to Tessa more and more that it was the right thing to do. If she needed any confirmation of it, the happy little child that Poppy had become was proof.

If Drake had any recollection of the pact they’d once made, he was in for a surprise, she thought, and as the train left the station on the last leg of her journey home she was wishing that he had stayed in the place that he’d been so eager to go to, because now she had her life sorted.

They were waiting for her on the station platform, Lizzie holding Poppy’s hand tightly as the train stopped, and when she saw her, the little one cried, ‘Mummy Two!’ It was the name that Tessa had taught Poppy to call her so that ‘Mummy One’ wasn’t forgotten, and as she held her little girl close her world righted itself.

‘So where are the boys?’ she asked Lizzie, whose twins were the same age as Poppy.

‘They are at home with their daddy. He’s taking a few days’ leave from work so I didn’t need to bring them,’ Lizzie explained, as she pointed to where her car was parked. As they walked towards it she asked, ‘So what went wrong while you were in London, Tessa? You didn’t sound very happy when you phoned.’

‘You aren’t going to believe it when I tell you,’ she told her. ‘Guess who is taking charge at Horizons from Monday?’

‘I haven’t a clue. Who is it?’ she asked.

‘Drake is to be the new chief consultant. Drake Melford!’

‘What?’ Lizzie cried. ‘He’s back here in Glenminster? How do you feel about that?’

‘Honestly, I’m shattered at the thought. My life is sorted, Lizzie. I’m happy as I am with Poppy and my job. They fill my days.’

‘Have you actually spoken to him?’

‘Yes. He’s on his way here in a hire car and offered me a lift, which I refused … needless to say.’

‘And he’s taking over on Monday?’

‘Yes, giving me no time to compose myself after our London meeting,’ Tessa replied, looking down at Poppy, who was holding her hand tightly, ‘but nothing is going to interfere with my life and Poppy’s. Drake will be in my working life—that I can’t help—but for the rest of it he will be just as much out of it as he has been during the years we’ve been apart.’

Her first thought on awakening on Monday morning was that she would be in the same place as Drake today. Indeed, it was a while before she could focus on anything else. For not only would she be in the same place as Drake today, she would be for the foreseeable future. While their professional goals would be aligned, she could imagine him making his entrance into the life of Horizons Hospital with his usual charm and confidence, while she would be struggling just to keep afloat.

But at least she wouldn’t be on the wards or in Theatre, where he would surely be. That would be intolerable, so if the chance came to stay in her office all day she would take it. Coward, she couldn’t help but think.

What about all the other days when she would be out there, arranging and improving the standard of care that the hospital provided for its patients? She couldn’t hide in her office every day.

She’d risen through the ranks because of her expertise, efficiency and professional manner. She had years of experience, having worked in a similar capacity on cruise ships, and wanting to revert to dry land for a change had gone into hospital administration. She couldn’t help but wonder how her life would have been different if she’d never met him, if she’d stayed on cruise ships perhaps.

But there was no point going over what couldn’t be changed. And, anyway, she could never regret the road that had brought her darling Poppy into her life.

Her friend Lizzie lived on the other side of the hospital, at the edge of a town that was endowed with the beautiful architecture of bygone days and wide shopping promenades. It was an arrangement that suited both mothers. As well as putting Tessa’s mind at rest, knowing her little adopted daughter was cared for by someone she could trust during working hours, it provided Lizzie with an income of her own and gave the two friends an excuse to see each other very often.

Tessa had to drive past the hospital to get to Lizzie’s and as she took Poppy to be dropped off she saw what must have been the hire car that Drake had indicated when he’d been offering her a lift at the London hotel.

It was parked amongst other staff cars and she wondered where he had stayed over the weekend, and how she could possibly be so disinterested after the way she’d adored him. Had her feelings eventually turned to pique because she’d been discarded so thoughtlessly for a promotion and a trip to Switzerland?

When she arrived at her office, which was part of the hospital’s administration complex, her secretary, middle-aged Jennifer Edwards, was already there and eager to inform her that the new senior consultant had called to say hello on his way to the wards and what did she think of that?

‘I don’t think his predecessor even knew we existed,’ Jennifer said in a tone of wonder, and Tessa’s hopes of a busy day in the office without sightings of Drake began to disappear. But Jennifer went on to say that he’d stopped by to explain that he was calling a meeting of all staff who were free to attend at five o’clock that afternoon and hoped that the two of them would be there.

‘But will you want to stay behind?’ she asked Tessa, knowing that normally she would be setting off to collect Poppy at that time.

It was a tricky question. Her dedication to her job demanded that she be there to support the new head consultant, and deep down she knew that if it wasn’t Drake she would be phoning Lizzie to explain that she would be a bit late. She’d already been away from her little one for part of the weekend on hospital business and felt that she had given enough of her free time, but Tessa knew that was just an excuse. It would be worse if Drake thought she was being difficult because he had come back into her life unexpectedly—perhaps she should go to the meeting just to show him that he was fine. Stop it, Tessa, she told herself severely.

She was free of the spell he had cast over her. And she wasn’t going to the meeting. If they didn’t speak today she would explain tomorrow that she’d had another commitment that had been equally important.

It had been a hectic day, Drake thought, as he made his way to the main hall of the hospital at five o’clock, but it was to be expected with patients and staff all new to him … with the exception of one.

Would Tessa be there when he spoke briefly to his new team? He hoped so. There was no way he would want to cause her pain or embarrassment, but they were adults—and professionals, for goodness’ sake—and could surely behave that way.

If his restlessness and discontent while he’d been in Switzerland had been because he’d made a big mistake by not cementing their relationship, there was nothing to indicate so far that she’d been missing him. If she was now living with someone else, he had only himself to blame.

He was crossing the hospital car park to get to where the meeting was being held and caught a glimpse of her in the distance, about to drive off into the summer evening. He quickened his step but she was pointed in the opposite direction and as the car disappeared from view he had his answer.

She had better things to do, it would seem, than stay behind to hear his few words of introduction to the staff. It was going to take more than just showing up, or his charm, to get to know her again. Did he even want that?

Minutes later he faced a varied assembly of the workforce and with complete sincerity assured them that every aspect of the day-to-day challenges that Horizons Hospital was confronted with would have his full attention. Relieved that the meeting at the end of their working day had been brief yet reassuring, most of them went on their way, leaving just a few who wanted to meet the new chief consultant.

CHAPTER TWO

AFTER THE LAST of the staff members had left Drake’s thoughts turned to food.

He was starving, and the thought of relaxing over a meal in a good restaurant in the town centre had no sooner surfaced than he was on his way there.

He had to pass a park on the way and happened to cast a glance at a certain bench that had memories of a time that was as clear in his mind now as it had been then. Did Tessa remember? he wondered. Did she think of it each time she passed this spot?

As he drove along a country lane not far from the hospital he unexpectedly found his curiosity satisfied about where she had moved to. It was in the porch of a cottage by the wayside that he saw Tessa, and he almost ran the hire car into the hedgerow in his surprise.

She was chatting to a guy of a similar age to himself and as he drove past Tessa reached out and hugged him to her. Drake’s first thought was that this had to be the man who had replaced him in her heart. His second thought, which took a while to summon up, was, So what? But at least he knew now where she was to be found out of working hours.

As for himself, he’d wandered into the house in the hospital grounds that she’d mentioned, after remembering the keys on his desk and the chairman’s note offering him the use of it, and thought it wasn’t his type of place. It was too drab and he thrived on light and colour. But he had already decided that its proximity to Horizons would be perfect in an emergency, so was going to take advantage of the offer. He’d look for something else when he had time.

The food was fine when he found a restaurant that was his type of place; it battened down his hunger with its goodness, but Drake hardly noticed it. He’d got the job of a lifetime back in his home town and a place to sleep that plenty would die for, yet he wasn’t happy.

It had been a mistake to come back to where he and Tessa had been so besotted with each other, so right for each other in every way. He’d had three years to realise in slow misery that he’d thrown away a precious thing without a second thought to satisfy his ambitions, and would have been even more selfish if he’d expected that time might have stood still where she was concerned.

She was just as beautiful now as she’d been then, but there was no warmth in her towards him, and as the night was young—it was barely seven o’clock—he decided to call on her on the drive back. If possible, he would wipe the slate clean by apologising for his past behaviour and assure her of his intention to stay clear, with the exception of their inevitable coming face to face sometimes in a professional capacity at Horizons.

When Tessa opened the door to him the shock of what he was seeing rendered him speechless. Standing behind her on the bottom step of the stairs and observing him unblinkingly was a small girl in a pretty flowered nightdress with hair dark as his own and big brown eyes.

‘Who is she?’ he questioned, standing transfixed in the doorway.

‘She’s my daughter,’ Tessa told him. ‘Her name is Poppy.’

‘How old is she?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘Three.’

There was a pause. ‘Is she mine too?’ he asked in barely a whisper as the colour drained from his face.

She shook her head and watched the dark hazel of his eyes become veiled. ‘Who is her father, then?’ he choked, as the small vision on the bottom step rubbed her eyes sleepily.

‘Poppy is my adopted daughter,’ she told him. ‘Her parents were killed in a car crash and we got to know each other when she was brought into Horizons with a bleed behind her eyes from the accident.

‘She was with us for quite some time and we became close. I used to sit beside her whenever I got a spare moment and take her a little surprise every day. In the end I applied to adopt her and was successful. So there you have it. No cause for alarm.’

Turning, she scooped Poppy up into her arms and held her close. As their glances met she told him, ‘Poppy has brought joy into my life.’

‘Yes, I’m sure that she must have,’ he said flatly, turning to go. But then thought that before he did he might as well ask another question that could have a body blow in the answer. ‘So is the guy I saw leaving earlier her new daddy?’

‘No, of course not,’ she replied, her voice rising at the question. ‘There are just the two of us and we’re loving it. The man you saw was the husband of my friend Lizzie who minds Poppy while I’m at work. When I picked her up this evening we left her doll behind, and he brought it, knowing that she would be upset without it.’

‘Ah, I see,’ he said, and added, with a last look at the child in her arms, ‘I’ll be off then, to let you get on with the bedtime routine and maybe see you somewhere on the job tomorrow.’

‘Yes, maybe,’ she replied.

She was relieved to see him go. Her heartbeat was thundering in her ears, her legs were weak with the shock of his surprise call, and she didn’t know how she was going to cope with having Drake so near yet so far away in everything else. He probably thought she was crazy to be taking on the role of mother to someone else’s child.

As he walked down the drive to his car she couldn’t let him go without asking, ‘Did you find somewhere to stay?’

He turned. ‘Er, yes. The keys for the mausoleum, along with a welcoming note to use it if I so wished, were waiting for me, and as it’s so near where I’m going to be working, and I didn’t feel like looking for anywhere else, I took advantage of the offer.’

‘You don’t sound too keen on the accommodation,’ she commented.

‘It’s a roof over my head, I suppose, but it’s rather dark and dreary. I’m more into light and colour, if you remember.’

She remembered, all right, remembered every single thing about him from the moment he’d knocked on her door early one morning until the day he’d packed his bags and left. But the memories had been battened down for the last three years and she wanted them to stay that way.

He had his hand on the car door and as he slid into the driving seat and waved goodbye, she carried a sleepy Poppy up to the pretty bedroom next to hers. Looking down at her, the feelings that being near him had brought back disappeared as her world righted itself again.

Tessa didn’t sleep much that night. She usually went to bed not long after Poppy to recharge her batteries for the next day, but not this time. Her moments of reassurance when Drake had gone and she’d carried Poppy up to bed hadn’t lasted.

She kept remembering how his face had changed colour from a healthy tan to a white mask of disbelief when he’d thought that Poppy was his, and when she’d told him that she wasn’t, she could tell that he’d thought she was crazy to adopt a child. Clearly nothing had changed with regard to what he saw as his priorities, and they obviously didn’t include parenthood.

Why did he have to come back into her life and disrupt her newfound contentment? she thought dismally as dawn began to filter across the sky.

In her role as health and safety manager Tessa went round the wards each week, chatting to patients at their bedsides about what they thought of the food, cleanliness and general arrangements of the famous hospital, taking note of any comments that were made. The morning after Drake’s surprise visit it was down as her first duty of the day.

As she made her way to the children’s ward, where it would be parents she was chatting to rather than the small patients, one of the nurses who had been there when Poppy had been admitted caught her up on the corridor and asked when she was going to bring her in to see them.

The plight of her small adopted daughter had pulled at all their heartstrings when she’d been admitted frightened and hurt after the car crash that had taken the lives of her parents. But Tessa had experienced a strong maternal feeling towards the little orphan that had made the promises she and Drake had made to each other seem selfish and immature.

At that time she’d had few expectations of ever seeing him again, but she’d been wrong and thought guiltily that she should be happy for the hospital’s sake that he had taken over, instead of complaining about the effect he was having on her life.

‘I’ll bring Poppy the first chance that comes along,’ she told her. ‘It is just that the days seem to fly.’

On the point of proceeding to wherever she was bound, the nurse said, ‘What about Drake Melford? Wow! If I wasn’t so fond of my Harry I’d be tempted. That man is every woman’s dream!’

He was certainly that, Tessa thought, and when she looked up the man himself was moving quickly along the corridor in their direction and the nurse made a swift departure.

She felt her shoulders tensing, but then reminded herself it was Drake the surgeon coming towards her, not the dream lover of the past, and with a brief ‘Hello, there,’ he was gone.

Drake had driven the short distance back to the hospital car park the night before in a state of amazement. The scene he’d just been confronted with at Tessa’s cottage had revealed that the person she’d moved house for was a parentless child, a small girl without a father. He could hardly get his head around what was certainly the last thing he’d expected to find on his return to Glenminster.

A husband and a child of her own wouldn’t have been too much of a surprise, but the dark-haired little tot at the bottom of the stairs had been nothing less than a shock to his system, and after seeing Tessa in the corridor just now, he had to admit that he was still reeling.

She had done the rounds of patient appraisals and been closeted with the laundry manageress for the rest of the morning. Then, after a bite of lunch, she’d spent the rest of the day in her office, dealing with the demands of the busy eye hospital, and it wasn’t until Tessa was leaving at the end of the day to go to collect Poppy that she saw Drake again on his way to Theatre. He nodded briefly in her direction, but instead of accepting thankfully that it was a sign he was keeping the low profile that she wanted from him, Tessa was filled with sudden melancholy.

It came from the memory of strong passions and their fulfilment in a relationship that for her had been transformed into a love that was strong and abiding, and not according to the promises they’d made to each other when they’d first met. If she’d told Drake back then how she’d felt he would have seen it as not keeping to her part of the pact they’d made and so she’d stayed silent.

And now when he had finished for the day, whenever that might be, he would be alone in the huge house that he had reluctantly opted for, while she would be alone in her living room, Poppy asleep upstairs. It was a matter of minutes between their respective homes, but an unimaginable distance in every way that mattered.

Why couldn’t he have stayed away, she thought anxiously as she set off to Lizzie’s, instead of coming back to awaken memories from the past that she’d finally been able to put aside because her life had been made liveable again since she’d adopted her precious child.

She’d seen his expression when she’d explained who Poppy was, as he’d observed her at the bottom of the stairs, and he’d actually gone pale.

Yet there was no one better than Drake for bringing a smile to the face of a frightened young patient in the children’s clinic, having them laugh instead of cry while he was making a shrewd assessment of their problems.

They’d been in a similar professional situation when they’d first met. He’d been on the staff of a less famous place than Horizons but had been moving up the ladder fast, already a name that was well known in the profession, and she’d been employed as a mid-level manager where she was now, which had brought her into his line of vision when he’d been the speaker at Horizons that night.

His had been a personality that had drawn her to him like a magnet. From the moment of their meeting she had been enraptured, and, being just as much a free spirit as he was, had thought that the pact they had made would survive any hazards or setbacks.

But lurking in the background had been his ambition, his determination to be at the top of his profession, and he’d gone and left her to pick up the pieces, taking her silence on the matter as her acceptance of the open-ended arrangement they’d agreed on.

Tessa had been thankful they hadn舗t lived together, had each kept their own space, that there had at least been one aspect of his going that she hadn舗t been left to face.

As days had turned to weeks and weeks to months she had felt only half-alive until Poppy had become part of her life and her own unhappiness had seemed as nothing compared to what had happened to the little orphaned girl.

When she arrived at Lizzie and Daniel舗s to collect her after each working day, she felt joy untold to hold her close and know that she was hers.

‘So how has another day with Drake around the place gone?’ Lizzie questioned when she arrived.

Her friend had been there for her during the long months after his departure, and knowing how much Tessa had been hurting, she had admired her when she’d adopted the small girl that she was holding close.

‘Not bad’ was the reply. ‘I’ve seen him briefly a couple of times but not to talk, so I guess he’s getting the message.’

‘And are we sure that it is the right one?’ Lizzie questioned, raising an eyebrow.

‘Yes,’ she was told firmly.

‘Good for you, then. He hasn’t brought anyone with him … maybe a wife or fiancée?’

‘It would appear not,’ Tessa told her, and went on to say, ‘I haven’t told you, have I, that when Drake called last night and saw Poppy, he asked if she was his. Something that would never have been on his agenda, and he seemed quite overcome with relief to be off the hook when I explained that she wasn’t.’

‘So nothing changes, then?’

‘No, it would seem not. And now that he’s taken over at Horizons I’m just grateful that I’m not on the wards or in Theatre. With my job our paths won’t cross that much.’ She smiled and took a breath. ‘He’s living in the big house in the hospital grounds at present and not liking it all that much, which I can believe. He is too much of a socialising sort of person to enjoy living on his own in that sort of place, but once he gets into his stride we shall be seeing the real Drake Melford.’

Later that evening, sitting alone in the cottage garden with Poppy fast asleep upstairs, Tessa was watching the sun set over the hills that surrounded the town in a circle of fresh greenery and letting her mind go back to that other time when its golden rays had embraced her and Drake on their last night together.

She’d vowed then that never again would she leave herself open and vulnerable to that sort of pain and loss, and had kept to it, relying on a polite but firm refusal when other men had sought her company.

There had been no expectation in her to hear from Drake again so she hadn’t been disappointed. But a part of her was still hurt that he hadn’t even dropped her a quick line to let her know how the new job was going, if nothing else.

Then out of darkness had come light. Poppy had come into her life and she’d begun to live and love again, and nothing was going to interfere with that, she vowed as the sun began to sink beneath the horizon.

On Saturdays she took Poppy to see her maternal grandfather in the town centre. Tessa had met him at her bedside when the little girl had been brought into Horizons after the accident, and had been aware of his frustration at the thought of his granddaughter being taken into care because he was too old to look after her.

When Randolph Simmonds had heard some time later that the smiley blonde hospital manager loved Poppy and wanted to adopt her, he had been overjoyed and looked forward to their weekly visits.

He had an apartment in a Regency terrace overlooking one of the parks not far away from the town’s famous shopping promenades, and always on Saturdays insisted on taking them out for lunch and afterwards driving them up into the hills, where pretty villages were dotted amongst the green slopes.

Randolph was due for eye treatment soon in Horizons and his first question when they arrived on the Saturday was whether the new fellow had arrived yet, as he wanted Drake Melford to be in charge of any surgery that might be necessary.

‘Yes,’ Tessa told him. ‘He has been with us a week, but, Randolph, you need to be on his waiting lists, or do you have an appointment to see him privately? Drake is extremely busy.’

‘Oh, so it’s Drake, is it?’ he said, twinkling across at her. ‘You’re on first-name terms?’

‘I knew him way back before he was so much in demand, though he was already making a name for himself,’ she explained flatly. ‘I hadn’t seen him for quite some time until the other day.’ Then she steered the conversation on to a different topic. ‘Do you want me to sort out an appointment for you privately? Or you can see him through your optician or GP, if they think it is necessary.’

‘You could make me a private appointment if you would,’ he said immediately. ‘I’m getting too old to be shuffling around waiting rooms and clinics.’ With his glance on Poppy, who had gone out into the garden to play, he asked, ‘How is the little one? Does she still cry for them in her sleep?’

‘Not so much,’ she told him. ‘I’ve taught Poppy to call me &ldquo;Mummy Two&rdquo; so that your daughter isn’t forgotten, and she seems happy with that.’

‘And maybe one day there might be a &ldquo;Daddy Two&rdquo;, do you think?’ he questioned.

‘There might, but don’t bank on it,’ she told him. ‘The three of us are happy as we are, aren’t we?’

He sighed. ‘Yes, you were heaven-sent, Tessa.’

When they went for lunch to Randolph’s favourite restaurant Tessa was dismayed to see Drake seated at one of the tables. But, she thought, having already promised to speak to him on Randolph’s behalf, and not looking forward to any kind of one-to-one discussions with him, it seemed an ideal opportunity to put forward the old man’s request.

‘Isn’t that the man himself?’ Randolph exclaimed. ‘I saw his picture in one of the local papers.’

‘Yes, that’s him. I’ll introduce you while he’s waiting to be served and you could mention an appointment now if you like,’ she said, as they approached his table.

‘Yes, why not?’ he agreed.

Drake had seen them. He rose to his feet as they drew near and Tessa saw that his glance was on Poppy, who was holding onto her grandfather’s hand and looking around her.

‘This is a surprise, Tessa. I wasn’t expecting to see you here,’ he said, with a questioning smile in Randolph’s direction.

She ignored the remark and changed the subject by saying, ‘Can I introduce Randolph Simmonds, Poppy’s grandfather?’

As they shook hands the old man said, ‘We have just been discussing my need for a private appointment with you, sir, which Tessa was going to organise, and here you are.’

It was a table for four and Drake pointed to the three empty seats and said, ‘Why don’t you join me for lunch and tell me what it is that you want of me.’ Beckoning a nearby member of staff, he asked them to bring a child’s chair for Poppy.

Tessa felt her heartbeat quicken. This wasn’t what she’d expected, but there was nothing she could do about it now, and while Poppy’s grandfather was engaged in explaining his eye problems to Drake she talked to Poppy and pretended that she wasn’t shaking inside.

Until Drake’s voice said from across the table, ‘I’ve just been explaining to Mr Simmonds that I’m going to do as my predecessor did before me and use the same facilities that he had put in place for his private practice in the big house in the grounds. So, yes, I will ask my secretary to get in touch with him first thing on Monday morning, if that will be satisfactory.’

This is ludicrous, he was thinking. Across the table from him was the woman he’d once romanced and made love to in a torrent of desire and had had it returned in full, and they were behaving like strangers. But he’d forfeited the right to anything else and was now paying the price. It was hellish, making polite conversation when he’d adored every inch of her way back in what seemed like another life.

Fresh menus were being brought to the table for the extra diners and as Tessa gazed at the selection of foods available the print blurred before her eyes.

She would have the fish with the creamed potatoes and fresh vegetables, she told them when they came for her order, with a child’s portion for her daughter.

Once they had eaten they would go their separate ways, and this would all be over. But soon it seemed that, like everyone else who met Drake, the old man had fallen under his spell and wanted to chat.

Yet Randolph had no problems about them moving on when she made the suggestion at the end of the meal, but to Tessa’s dismay Poppy had. She had wriggled down off her chair and gone round to the other side of the table, and climbing up onto Drake’s knee was sitting there, sucking her thumb. After a moment of complete astonishment on his part, his arms closed around her.

This is madness, Tessa thought wildly. Not only was Randolph impressed by Drake’s easy charm, but her beautiful Poppy must be seeing in him something she hadn’t seen in any other man since she’d lost her father. It had to be him of all people, him, for whom babies and mortgages were no-go areas.

Drake was reading her mind as clearly as if she was speaking her thoughts, and putting Poppy gently back onto her feet he led her back to where Tessa was sitting and said softly, ‘Yours, I think.’

‘You think correctly,’ she told him levelly, ‘and now, if you will excuse us, Poppy’s grandfather always takes us up into the hills when we’ve had lunch, don’t you, Randolph?’

‘Er, yes,’ he replied uncomfortably, and turned to their host. ‘It has been good to meet you, Mr Melford. Maybe next Saturday we could take you for a meal, if you aren’t too busy.’

Tessa noted that he didn’t say either yes or no, just smiled, and she thought, Please, let it be a no when next I see him.

When they were clear of the restaurant Randolph asked curiously ‘So what is it with you and the man back there, Tessa? What have you got against him? I thought he was most pleasant. We butted into his mealtime with our requests and interruptions and he never batted an eyelid.’ He looked down at Poppy’s dark curls. ‘Whatever you might think of him, our young miss took to him like a duck to water.’

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I saw that. It is just that Drake and I had a misunderstanding a few years ago.’

‘And you still bear a grudge?’

Not a grudge, she thought. It was scars that she carried, mental and physical ones, but she wasn’t going to tell Randolph that, so she just let a shrug of the shoulders be the answer to that question, and he let the matter drop.

Randolph was very fond of both Poppy and Tessa, whose loving role of a second mother to his granddaughter took away some of the dreadful feeling of loss that he had to live with, and no way did he like to see her unhappy in any way.

But as he drove the last stretch homewards he was reminding himself that all he knew of her was what he saw now, in her early thirties and beautiful. There had to have been men in her life previously, if not at the present time, and it seemed that Drake Melford might have been one of them, though clearly not any more.

When the little family had left the restaurant after the uncomfortable moments when Poppy had been drawn to him, Drake sat deep in thought. It had been a mistake to come back to where his roots were, and where he’d had the mad fling with Tessa. Yet what was it he’d been expecting when he did? That nothing would have changed and Tessa would be waiting, patient and adoring, after the abrupt way their affair had ended?

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