A Summer Wedding at Willowmere

Abigail Gordon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

For David, with all good wishes

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.

CHAPTER ONE

LAUREL MADDOX groaned as the train pulled into the small country station that was her destination. She had two heavy cases to unload and there wasn’t a porter in sight. Just two deserted platforms and an unattended ticket office were all that were visible as the doors began to open.

For someone used to the big city where platforms and staff were many and varied it was a depressing introduction to the place that was going to be her home for some time to come. Yet all was not lost as she prepared to heave the cases out onto the platform.

A voice said from behind, ‘Can I help?’ and when she turned the man it belonged to didn’t wait for an answer. He moved past and swung the offending luggage out onto the platform, then turned and offered a firm clasp from a hand that was protruding from the cuff of a crisp white shirt.

As she thanked him Laurel was thinking that he was the only part of the scenery that she could relate to. Tall, tanned, trimly built, wearing a dark suit, he seemed more in keeping with the place she’d come from than the countryside that her aunt had described in such glowing terms.

‘I need a porter,’ she said. ‘Is there such a person in this place?’

‘Just one,’ he replied. ‘Walter does the job of porter, mans the ticket office, collects them when necessary.’ He gave a wave of the arm that took in the spotless platforms and the tubs of summer flowers gracing them. ‘And also keeps the place clean and attractive. Willowmere won the prize for best country station last year. But he does stop for lunch at this time of day.’

‘So what about a taxi?’ she asked wearily, obviously unimpressed by his description of the absent Walter’s devotion to duty.

‘There is one, but…’

‘Don’t tell me. Amongst all of that he drives the local taxi.’

‘No. His brother does that,’ he said with a smile of the kind not soon forgotten, ‘but it doesn’t look as if he’s around at the moment. I have a car and it’s parked just here. Can I give you a lift to wherever you’re going? I know we’re strangers, but I’m a doctor in the village surgery, if it helps.’ He showed her his ID, which proclaimed him to be Dr David Trelawney.

‘Well, OK. Thank you,’ she said, trying to smile despite feeling weary and irritable and wishing she hadn’t allowed herself to be persuaded to move to the Cheshire village of Willowmere. ‘So you must know my Aunt Elaine. I’m going to stay with her for a while.’

‘Elaine Ferguson, our practice manager? Yes, of course,’ he said in surprise, and bent to pick up her cases. ‘So you’ll be wanting Glenside Lodge, then. If you’ll follow me.’

As she tottered after him across the cobbled forecourt of the station on high-heeled shoes Laurel was feeling nauseous from lack of food and the journey. It had been a month since she’d been discharged from hospital and she was gradually getting stronger, but at that moment she felt as weak as a kitten and was wishing she’d stayed put in her own habitat.

‘There’s a vacancy coming up at the surgery for a practice nurse,’ Elaine had phoned to say. ‘Why don’t you give James Bartlett, the senior partner, a ring?’

‘You mean live in the country,’ Laurel had said doubtfully. ‘I’m not so sure about that. It just isn’t my scene, and I’m not sure I want to go back to nursing after what happened.’

Elaine was not to be put off. ‘The air here is like wine compared to the fumes in the city, and with some good food inside you it will help to complete your recovery. You’ve done so well, Laurel, and I’m so proud of you. Come to Willowmere and carry on with your nursing here. You are too good at it to give it up. A country practice is a much less stressful place than a large hospital…and I want to pamper you a little.’

Elaine was clearly looking forward to her coming to live in her beloved village and the thought of her waiting to welcome her with open arms had been too comforting to refuse. As well as that, her aunt made the best omelette she’d ever tasted and if there was one thing her appetite needed, it was to be tempted.

There was also the matter of the job at the practice. Laurel had eventually phoned the senior partner, and having explained that she was coming to live in Willowmere and was a hospital-trained nurse, he’d said that once she arrived he would be only too pleased to have a chat.

Returning to the present, Laurel thought that Elaine was going to be mad when she knew she’d come on an earlier train. She would have been there to meet her if she’d kept to the arrangements, but the opportunity had presented itself and she’d thought it better to get on a train that was there than wait for one that might not arrive.

‘Is she expecting you?’ David asked as he drove along a country lane where hedgerows bright with summer flowers allowed an occasional glimpse of fertile fields and their crops.

‘Yes and no,’ she told him. ‘Elaine knows I’m coming but not on the train I arrived on. I caught an earlier one.’

‘That explains it.’

‘Explains what?’

‘She won’t be at Glenside Lodge at this time. Elaine will be at the surgery. So shall I take you there instead?’

‘No!’ she said hurriedly. ‘She’s told me where to find the key. I’d like to go straight to her place if you don’t mind.’

‘Sure,’ he said easily. ‘Whatever you say.’

At that moment she slumped against him in the passenger seat and when David turned his head he saw that she’d fainted. Now it was his turn to groan. What had he let himself in for with this too thin, overly made-up girl in sheer tights and heels like stilts, wearing cotton gloves on a warm summer day…and with the appeal of a cardboard box.

He stopped the car and hurried round to where she was crumpled pale and still in the passenger seat. When he felt her pulse Laurel opened her eyes and sighed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said listlessly. ‘It’s just that I’m hungry and tired.’

‘And it made you faint?’ he questioned, but the main thing was she’d come out of it quickly and in a very short time they would be at Glenside Lodge.

‘So where is the key?’ he asked when they arrived at the end of a long drive that in the past the carriages of the gentry had trundled along.

‘Under the water butt at the back,’ she told him weakly, and he observed her anxiously.

The moment they were inside he was going to phone Elaine and get her over here as quickly as possible, he decided, and in the meantime he would keep a keen eye on this strange young woman who looked as if she’d stepped out of a back issue of one of the glossies.

When she got out of the car Laurel’s legs wobbled beneath her, and afraid that she might collapse onto the hard surface of the drive he put his arm around her shoulders to support her while they went to find the key and then opened the door with his free hand and almost carried her inside.

There was a sofa by the window and after placing her carefully onto its soft cushions he went into the kitchen to see what he could give her to eat and drink before he did anything else.

A glass of milk and a couple of biscuits had to suffice and while she was nibbling on them and drinking thirstily he phoned the surgery.

‘What?’ the practice manager exclaimed when he told her that her visitor had arrived and wasn’t feeling very well. ‘Laurel wasn’t due until later in the afternoon. I’ll be right there, David.’

With that she’d put the phone down and now he was waiting to be relieved of the responsibility that he’d brought upon himself by offering to help Elaine’s niece.

‘I’m not always like this, you know,’ she told him languidly as she drained the glass. ‘I’m known to be friendly and no trouble to anyone.’

‘You don’t have to explain,’ he told her dryly as the minutes ticked by. ‘I suggest that you see a doctor in case you’re sickening for something.’

She managed a grimace of a smile. ‘I’ve seen a doctor, quite a few of them over recent months, and lo and behold, now I’ve met another.’

Elaine’s car had just pulled up outside and she became silent, leaving him to wonder what she’d meant by that. Maybe she was already suffering from some health problem as she didn’t look very robust.

During the short time that he’d been part of the village practice David hadn’t known anything to disrupt the calm efficiency of its manager. A petite blue-eyed blonde in her late thirties, Elaine Ferguson had accountancy qualifications and controlled the administration side of it in a way that kept all functions working smoothly. But when she came dashing into the small stone lodge that had once been part of an estate high on the moors, Elaine was definitely flustered and the young woman he’d picked up at the station wasn’t helping things as on seeing her aunt she burst into tears.

‘Laurel, my dear,’ she cried. ‘Why didn’t you stick to the arrangements we’d made?’

‘I know I should have done,’ she wailed, ‘but it was so quiet in the apartment and I felt so awful. I just couldn’t wait any longer to be with you.’

David cleared his throat. Now that Elaine had arrived he wanted to be gone, but first he had to explain that her niece had fainted due to what she’d described as hunger and exhaustion and he was going to advise that she see a doctor at the surgery to be checked over.

‘I hope you will soon feel better,’ he said to the woebegone figure on the sofa who was sniffling into a handkerchief, unaware that her mascara had become black smudges around green eyes that looked so striking against her creamy skin and red-gold hair. The hair in question was quite short and shaggy looking and he presumed it must be the fashion back in London.

Elaine came to the door with him, still tense and troubled, but she didn’t forget to thank him for looking after her niece and it gave him the opportunity to say his piece.

She nodded when he’d finished. ‘I have quite a few concerns about Laurel and the first one is to get her settled here in Willowmere where I can give her some loving care. I’ve persuaded her to leave the big city for a while and come to where there is fresh air and good food.’

‘Your niece isn’t impressed with what she’s seen so far,’ he warned her whimsically. ‘A station with just two platforms and no porter to hand.’

‘So she didn’t notice the shrubs and the flowers that Walter tends so lovingly, but she will,’ she said with quiet confidence. ‘Laurel just needs time to get a fresh hold on life. I’m taking what’s left of today off and the rest of the week. I’d already arranged it with James so everything is in order back at the surgery.’

‘I can’t imagine it ever not being in order,’ he said as he stepped out onto the porch.

‘That could change,’ she said wryly, casting a glance over her shoulder at the slender figure on the sofa, and as he drove to the practice on the main street of the village David was wondering what Elaine had meant by that.

‘So you’ve met Elaine’s niece already!’ James Bartlett, the senior partner, exclaimed when he arrived at the practice. ‘How did that come about?’

‘I went by rail to collect the last of my things from St Gabriel’s,’ David explained. ‘I thought it would be quicker than driving there, and when the train pulled in at Willowmere on the return journey I saw this girl about to get off and she had two heavy cases. So I stepped in and lifted them down onto the platform for her.

‘She asked about a taxi but the one and only was nowhere in sight so I drove her to Glenside Lodge then rang Elaine and by that time she wasn’t looking very well.’

James nodded. ‘I know there is or was a medical problem of some kind. There was a period when Elaine was dashing off to London to see her whenever possible and it is why she has persuaded her niece to come and stay with her as they’re very close.’

‘I’m sorry for the delay on my part,’ David said. ‘I’d expected to be away only a short time.’

‘Don’t be concerned,’ James told him. ‘You couldn’t leave a damsel in distress and Ben was here until midday. He’s been on cloud nine ever since little Arran was born. It’s a delight to see him and Georgina so blissfully happy.

‘But getting back to practice matters, would you take over the house calls now that you’re back, while I have a chat with Beth Jackson? Our longest-serving practice nurse is champing at the bit to hang up her uniform.’

‘Sure,’ David agreed. ‘It’s a delightful day out there and a delightful place to be driving around in. I’ll get the list from Reception and be off.’

His first call was at the home of eighty-six-year-old Sarah Wilkinson, who had recently been hospitalised because of high potassium levels in her blood due to drinking blackcurrant cordial insufficiently diluted.

She was home now and due to have another blood test. Sarah had been quite prepared to go to the surgery for it, but they’d told her that the district nurse would call to take the blood sample.

Today his visit was a routine one. All the over-eighties registered with the practice were visited from time to time, and when it was Sarah’s turn there was always an element of pleasure in calling on her because outwardly frail though she was, underneath was an uncomplaining, good-natured stoicism that had seen her through many health problems of recent years.

One of them had been a sore on her arm that had refused to heal. It had resulted in visits to the surgery for dressings over a long period of time, but the old lady had never complained and of recent months a skin graft had finally solved the problem.

When she opened the door to him she said with a twinkle in her eye, ‘Can I offer you a drink of blackcurrant cordial, Doctor?’

David was smiling as he followed her into a cosy sitting room. ‘Do you intend to put plenty of water with it, Sarah?’

‘One can’t do right for doing wrong in this life,’ she said laughingly. ‘I thought by taking the cordial almost neat I was building myself up, but no such thing.’

‘I know,’ he soothed. ‘But we’ve sorted you out, haven’t we?’

‘Yes, you have and I’m grateful. So to what do I owe this visit?’

‘It’s a courtesy call. Just to make sure you are all right.’

‘I’m fine. I’m not ready for pushing up the daisies yet. I’m going to enter my home-made jam and Madeira cake at the Summer Fayre at the end of July just to prove it. Are you going to be there?’

‘Yes, now that you’ve told me about it. Although it’s a while off yet, isn’t it, as June is still bursting out all over. What time does it start?’

‘Eleven in the morning until four in the afternoon. The café and the judging take place in a big marquee that Lord Derringham lends us. He’s the rich man who owns the estate on the tops. One of your practice nurses is married to his manager and Christine Quarmby, who has that ailment with the funny name, is his gamekeeper’s wife.’

‘I can see that if I want to get to know what is going on in the village this is the place to come,’ he commented. ‘Do the people in Willowmere see much of His Lordship?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘No, keeps himself to himself, but on the odd occasion that he does appear he’s very pleasant and, like I said, he lets us use the marquee.

‘On the night before the Fayre we have a party in the park that runs alongside the river. There’s food and drink, and a band on a stage to play for dancing, with us women in long dresses and the men in dinner jackets. You must come.’

‘Why? Will you be there?’

‘Of course.’ She had a twinkle back in her eye. ‘Though I’m not into rock and roll. A sedate waltz is more in my line.’

‘So can I book the first one?’

‘Yes, you can.’

‘I’m impressed.’

‘Get away with you.’ She chuckled. ‘When the young females of Willowmere see you all dressed up, the likes of me won’t be able to get near you.’

David laughed. ‘Talking about young females, I gave one a lift from the station today.’

‘Oh, yes? And who would that be?’

‘She’s called Laurel and is the niece of Elaine the practice manager.’

Sarah smiled. ‘So that’s another one that’ll be in the queue.’

I don’t think so, he thought, and returned to more serious matters by changing the subject. ‘Right, Sarah. So shall I do what I’ve come for?’

He checked her heart and blood pressure, felt her pulse and the glands in her neck, and when he’d finished told her, ‘No problems there at the moment, but before I go is there anything troubling you healthwise that you haven’t told me about?’

She shook her silver locks. ‘No, Doctor. Not at the moment.’

He was picking up his bag. ‘That’s good, then, and if I don’t see you before I’ll see you at the party in the park.’

‘So tell me more about Dr Trelawney,’ Laurel said after David had gone. ‘He told me that he’s one of the GPs here.’

‘He joined us just a short time ago from St Gabriel’s Hospital where he was a registrar seeking a change of direction,’ Elaine explained. ‘David has replaced Georgina Allardyce, who has just given birth and tied the knot for a second time with the husband she was divorced from almost four years ago.

‘Georgina is on maternity leave at the moment and may come back part time in the future. In the meantime, we are fortunate to have David, who is clever, capable, and has slotted in as if he was meant to be part of the village’s health care.’

‘He was kind and I don’t think I behaved very well,’ Laurel said regretfully. ‘In fact, I was a pain. I’ll apologise the next time we meet, but I felt so awful. I’m a freak, Elaine.’

‘Nonsense, Laurel. You are brave and beautiful,’ her aunt protested. ‘The scars, mental and physical, will fade. Just give them time, dear.’

‘Everything is such an effort,’ she said despondently. ‘I’d put on my war paint and nice clothes to make a statement, but didn’t fool anyone, certainly not the Trelawney guy. He suggested that I see a doctor.’

‘And what did you say to that?’

‘That I’d seen plenty over the last few months and was about to tell him that I’m no ignoramus myself when it comes to health care, but you arrived at that moment.’

‘Right,’ Elaine said briskly, having no comment to make regarding that. ‘Let’s get you settled in. David said you fainted, so how do you feel now?’

‘Better. He gave me some milk and biscuits.’

‘Good. So let’s show you where you’ll be sleeping. Take your time up the stairs, watch your leg. I’ve put you in the room with the best view. It overlooks Willow Lake, which is one of the most beautiful places in the area.’

‘Really,’ was the lacklustre response, and Elaine hid a smile. Laurel was a city dweller through and through and might be bored out here in the countryside, but she needed the change of scene and the slower pace of life. Elaine wasn’t going to let her go back to London until she was satisfied that her niece was fully recovered from an experience that she was not ever likely to forget.

‘Is your fiancé going to visit while you’re here?’ Elaine asked after she’d helped bring up Laurel’s cases. ‘He will be most welcome.’

‘It’s off,’ Laurel told her as she peered through the window at the view that she’d been promised. ‘I’m too thin and pale for him these days…and then there are the scars, of course.’

‘Then he doesn’t love you enough,’ Elaine announced, and without further comment went down to make them a late lunch.

She was right, Laurel thought dolefully when she’d gone, but it hurt to hear it said out loud. Darius was in the process of making his name in one of the television soaps and had rarely been to see her while she’d been hospitalised, and less still since she’d been discharged. When she’d said she was going to the countryside to assist her recovery he’d thought she was out of her mind.

‘You’re crazy, babe,’ he’d said. ‘Why would you want to leave London for fields full of cow pats?’

If his visits had been sparse, not so Elaine’s. Her aunt had been to see her in hospital whenever she could and Laurel loved her for it. Other friends had been kind and loyal too. But Darius, the one she’d wanted to see the most, had been easing her out of his life all the time. In the end, dry eyed and disenchanted, she’d given him his ring back.

After they’d eaten Elaine said, ‘Why don’t you sit out in the garden for a while and let the sun bring some colour to your pale cheeks while I clear away?’

‘If you say so,’ Laurel agreed without much enthusiasm and, picking up a magazine that she’d bought before leaving London, went to sit on the small terrace at the back of the lodge. But it wasn’t long before she put it down. It was too quiet, she thought, spooky almost. How was she going to exist without the hustle and bustle of London in her ears?

For the first time since she’d arrived, she found herself smiling. What was she like! Most people would jump at the chance to get away from that sort of sound, yet here she was, already pining for the throb of traffic.

The silence was broken suddenly by the noise of a car pulling up on the lane at the side of the garden and when she looked up Laurel saw that the window on the driver’s side was being lowered and the village doctor that she’d met earlier was observing her over the hedge.

‘So how’s it going?’ David asked. ‘Are you feeling better?’

‘Er, yes, a bit,’ she said, taken aback at seeing him again in so short a time. ‘You didn’t have to come to check on me, you know.’

‘I’m not,’ he told her dryly. ‘There are plenty of others who will actually be glad to see me. I’m in the middle of my house calls so I won’t disturb you further.’

She’d given him the impression that she thought him interfering, Laurel thought glumly as he drove off. What a pain in the neck he must think she was.

Elaine appeared at that moment with coffee and biscuits on a tray and as they sat together companionably, she asked, ‘Did I hear a car?’

‘Yes. It was your Dr Trelawney.’

‘David?’

‘Yes, on his home visits. He saw me out here and stopped for a word. He doesn’t look like a country type. How does he cope with it, I wonder?’

‘The job?’

‘No, the silence.’

‘You ungrateful young minx,’ Elaine declared laughingly. ‘Lots of people would give their right arm to live in a place like this.’

‘Yes, but what do you do for fun?’

Still amused, she replied, ‘Oh, we fall in love, get married, have babies, take delight in the seasons as they come and go, count the cabbages in the fields…’

‘You haven’t done that, though, have you?’

‘Counted the cabbages? No, but I’ve been in love. Sadly I was never a bride. I lost the love of my life before our relationship had progressed that far.’

‘Yes, and it’s such a shame,’ Laurel told her. ‘You would have been a lovely mum. That’s what you’ve been like to me, Elaine.’

‘You are my sister’s child,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve tried to make up for what she and your father lacked in parenting skills, but they did turn up at the hospital to see you, didn’t they?’

‘For a couple of hours, yes, because they’d read about me in the papers, but they were soon off on their travels again.’

‘That’s the way they are,’ Elaine said soothingly. ‘Free spirits. We’ll never change them and they do love you in their own way.’

‘I’ve lost my way, Elaine,’ she said forlornly. ‘I used to be so positive, but since it happened I feel as if I don’t know who I am. My face isn’t marked, for which I’m eternally grateful, but there are parts of the rest of me that aren’t a pretty sight.’

‘That won’t matter to anyone who really loves you,’ she was told. ‘Like I said before, you’re brave and beautiful.’

‘I wish,’ was the doleful reply.

David Trelawney was house hunting. Since moving to Willowmere he’d been living in a rented cottage not too far from the surgery and Bracken House, where James Bartlett lived with his two children.

So far it was proving to be an ideal arrangement. It wouldn’t have been if his high-flying American fiancée had wanted to join him, but that was not a problem any more.

They’d called off the engagement just before he’d accepted the position at St Gabriel’s, and though it had left him with a rather jaundiced attitude to the opposite sex, his only regret was that he’d made an error of judgement and would be wary of repeating it.

Yet it wasn’t stopping him from house hunting. He didn’t want to rent for long, but so far he hadn’t made any definite decision about where he was going to put down his roots in the village that had taken him to its heart. He told himself wryly that he’d made a mistake in his choice of a wife and wasn’t going to do the same thing when it came to choosing a house.

He’d spent his growing years in a Cornish fishing village where his father had brought him up single-handed after losing his wife to cancer when David had been quite small, and once when Caroline had flown over to see him he’d taken her to meet him.

‘Are you sure that she is the right one for you, David?’ Jonas Trelawney had said afterwards. ‘She’s smart and attractive, seems like the kind of woman who knows what she wants and goes out to get it, but I know how you love kids and somehow I can’t see her breast feeding or changing nappies. Have you discussed it at all?’

‘Yes,’ he’d said easily, putting from his mind the number of times the word ‘nanny’ had cropped up in the conversation.

He’d met her on a visit to London. She’d been staying in the same hotel with a group of friendly Texans who, on discovering that he had been on his own, had invited him to join them as they saw the sights.

She’d made a play for him, he’d responded to her advances, and the attraction between them had escalated into marriage plans, though he’d had his doubts about how she would react to the prospect of living in a town in Cheshire, as at that time he’d been based at St Gabriel’s Hospital.

It was going to be so different to the glitzy life that he’d discovered she led when he’d visited her in Texas. Yet she hadn’t raised any objections when he’d said that he had no plans to leave the UK while his father was alive. But he was to discover that the novelty of the idea was to be short-lived as far as Caroline was concerned.

His uneasiness had become a definite thing when he’d been expecting to go over there to sort out wedding arrangements and she’d put him off, saying that she had the chance to purchase a boutique that she’d had her eye on for some time and didn’t want any diversions until the deal was settled.

‘I would hardly have thought our wedding would be described as a diversion,’ he’d said coolly, and she’d told him that she was a businesswoman first and foremost and he would have to get used to that.

‘I see, and how are you going to run a boutique in Texas if you are living over here?’ he’d asked, his anger rising.

There was silence at the other end of the line and then the dialling tone.

She phoned him again that same day at midnight Texas time. It sounded as if she was at some sort of social gathering if the noise in the background was anything to go by, and as if wine had loosened her tongue Caroline told him the truth, that she didn’t want to be a doctor’s wife any more in some crummy place in Britain and wanted to call off the engagement.

As anger came surging back he told her that it was fine by him and coldly wished her every success in her business dealings.

He discovered afterwards that there’d been more to it than she’d admitted that night on the phone. A certain senator had appeared on her horizon and she’d used the boutique story as a get-out.

In his disillusionment David decided to make a fresh start. His father had once told him that his mother had come from a village in Cheshire called Willowmere, and shortly after his engagement to Caroline had ended he met James Bartlett’s sister Anna in the company of a doctor from the village practice. They’d been involved in a near drowning incident in a village called Willowmere and the way they described the place made him keen to find where the other part of his roots belonged.

When he’d found his mother’s childhood home the discovery of it pulled at his heartstrings so much that he decided he wanted to live in Willowmere, and as if it was meant he was offered a position in the village practice.

What was left of the house stood in the centre of a field on the way to Willow Lake, a local beauty spot, and as he’d stood beside it he’d felt that this was where he wanted to be, where he wanted to bring up his children if he ever married, and at the same time contribute to the health care of those who lived there.

All that remained of it was four stone walls, the roof having long since fallen in, and he remembered his father telling him how his mother had left it as a bride and gone to live with him in Cornwall where his home had been.

David found no reason to regret his decision to move to the Cheshire countryside. He was totally happy there, but supposed it might not be everyone’s choice. For instance, there was the girl he’d met at the station, he thought as the day took its course. She’d taken a dim view of the place.

So far he hadn’t found a property that appealed to him and knew it was because every time he went back to the ruins of his mother’s home the idea of restoring it was there.

Laurel and Elaine had had an omelette for their evening meal with chips and fresh green runner beans out of the garden, and when she’d placed the food in front of her niece she’d said, ‘I know it’s not exactly the fatted calf but it’s something that I know you like.’

‘I love your omelettes,’ Laurel told her. ‘I used to dream about them when I was in hospital.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you did,’ Elaine said laughingly. ‘You must have had better things to think about than my cooking.’

‘It was the only thing that cheered me up,’ Laurel insisted. ‘Darius was in the process of ditching me slowly, the skin grafts weren’t a bundle of joy, and neither was my leg that they’d had to pin all over the place.’

‘I know, my dear,’ Elaine said soothingly. ‘I tisn’t surprising that you’re feeling low with all that has happened to you but, Laurel, it could have been so much worse.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she said flatly, ‘and I really do want to like it here and get fit again. I look such a sight.’

‘Not to me you don’t.’

‘Maybe, but your Dr Trelawney kept looking at me as if I was some peculiar specimen under the microscope. I wish my hair would grow more quickly.’

‘Have patience, Laurel,’ she was told. ‘What has grown so far is still the same beautiful colour.’

‘Yes, the colour of fire,’ she said with a shudder as she ate the food beneath the watchful gaze of her hostess.

‘I think an early night would be a good idea,’ Elaine suggested when they’d tidied up after the meal, ‘but how about a breath of good country air first? Perhaps a short walk through the village, past the surgery where David and I spend our working lives, and where you might be joining us when you feel like going to see James.’

‘Yes, sure,’ she agreed, ‘and if that is where he works, where does he live?’

‘David lives in a small cottage nearby. He’s staying there until he finds a property to buy. I know that he’s house hunting quite seriously but hasn’t mentioned finding anything suitable so far.’

‘And will he be living alone when he does?’ Laurel asked.

‘Yes, as far as I know, unless he has a wife tucked away somewhere, and I doubt that.’

David was returning from his usual nightly stroll to gaze upon his mother’s old home when he saw them coming towards him. Elaine, trim as always in slacks and a smart top, and the strange young woman he’d met at lunchtime still in the same outlandish garb as before that looked totally out of place in the setting.

‘Hello, there,’ he said when they drew level. ‘Have you been showing your niece the sights of Willowmere, Elaine?’

‘Yes, some of them,’ she replied, ‘such as the surgery and your spacious accommodation.’

He smiled. ‘It’s all right for one, two at the most.’

‘And are you still house hunting?

‘Er, yes, sort of. I’ve got something in mind but it won’t be a fast solution.’

He was aware that Elaine’s companion hadn’t spoken at yet another unexpected meeting and thought that maybe now she was established in the village she was keeping a low profile, but he was to discover there was nothing wrong with her vocal cords.

‘I don’t remember thanking you for coming to my rescue when I was getting off the train,’ she said in a less abrupt manner than the one she’d used then.

‘Think nothing of it,’ he said easily, as if the whole episode had been a pleasant break in the day. ‘The main thing is how are you feeling now?’

She smiled and David was struck at the transformation.

‘Improving,’ was the reply, ‘and once Elaine has shown me the lake it’s off to bed for me. It’s been a long day, but not as long as some have been recently.’

As they moved off in opposite directions David was thinking how pale she was. James had said there was a health problem of some kind regarding Elaine’s niece, and he wondered what it was.

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN Laurel awoke the next morning she found herself looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling dappled by a summer sun and for the first few seconds couldn’t think where she was, but not for long.

She was in Elaine’s quiet backwater, she thought, with birdsong the only sound breaking the silence. Recalling how she’d asked her aunt what they did for fun in Willowmere, she wondered why she’d brought up the subject. That kind of thing wasn’t going to be on her agenda with a broken engagement behind her and some unappealing scarring.

But now here she was and glad of it in spite of her lack of enthusiasm for country life. As sleep had stolen over her the night before she’d vowed she was going to make an effort to fit in and if she got the job at the surgery at least she wouldn’t be moping around all day.

‘Does anyone in Willowmere know what happened to me?’ Laurel asked of Elaine as they ate a leisurely breakfast out on the sunny patio.

Her aunt shook her head. ‘No. At the time I was too distressed to talk about it, my beautiful niece caught up in the stupidity of others, and if anyone around here saw it in the papers they wouldn’t see any connection.

‘Right from the start I’ve felt it would be an invasion of your privacy to discuss you with others even though I’ve been bursting with pride every time I thought of what you did. But as far as I’m concerned, that is how it will stay, Laurel. If you should want to tell anyone, that is a different matter.

‘And now what would you like to do today? If you’re not over the moon with our lovely village we can go into the town and shop if you like, but I would rather we saved that sort of thing for when you’ve had some rest and relaxation, which could be in short supply when you’re working at the surgery.’

‘You mean if I’m working there. I’m not exactly spectacular at the moment with a gammy knee that sometimes lets me down and hair that looks as if it’s been cut with a knife and fork.’

‘Nonsense,’ Elaine soothed gently. ‘Your hair is growing back nicely and you’re beautiful with your green eyes and lovely, curvy mouth.’

‘And my rough red hands,’ Laurel reminded her with dry humour. ‘I wear the gloves all the time so that I won’t be mistaken for a domestic drudge.’

‘Get away with you,’ was the response. ‘People around here are very kind and if they knew how you’d got the scarring they would acclaim your courage and dedication to the job. But, as I’ve just said, that is entirely your affair, and as to how we are going to spend your first day away from London, what is it to be, the town or the village?’

‘The village, I think,’ Laurel replied. She would have preferred to go shopping but she knew how much Elaine wanted to show her Willowmere and they could always shop another day.

‘So how about a leisurely stroll and then we’ll have lunch at the Hollyhocks Tea Rooms? It may not be as upmarket as the places where you usually eat, but they won’t be able to beat the food that Emma and her husband serve to their customers.

‘Then if you like I’ll take you to the surgery and introduce you to James. He will want to arrange a time to interview you. Beth Jackson, who is leaving, wants to go as soon as possible. She and her husband are opening a business next to the post office and if you feel the need, by all means wear the gloves, though I do think that you have no call to be so self-conscious about your hands.’

Laurel wasn’t sure about visiting the surgery. ‘Don’t you think that David Trelawney might feel that since arriving here I’ve been continually in his line of vision?’ she said dubiously. ‘At the station, in the garden, when he was driving past on his way to house calls, and at sunset last night.’

‘He’ll be seeing much more of you than that if you’re working at the same place,’ Elaine said laughingly. ‘And how do you know he won’t feel that he can’t get too much of a good thing?’

Laurel couldn’t bring herself to share in Elaine’s amusement. How long, if ever, was it going to be before she felt desirable once more? Each time Darius had visited her in hospital it had been clear that he wasn’t keen on the damaged version, and as she’d fought her way through the pain it had been with her confidence at a very low ebb.

As they walked along the main street Elaine was greeted by everyone they met and Laurel was aware that some curious glances were coming her way, which was not surprising as she was wearing a high-necked sweater, a hat and gloves on a hot summer day.

This is so different from city life, she was thinking as she took in the friendliness of the people. She and her fellow nurses had often commented that in London people were always rushing about, and getting to know one’s next-door neighbour was a rare event, but in Willowmere life seemed to be lived at a slower pace, as if each moment was to be cherished rather than passed quickly by.

It had always been Elaine who had been her visitor before this, staying at the apartment and enjoying every moment with the niece that she loved like a daughter, but now it was Laurel’s turn to leave her natural habitat for a while.

And now here she was, happy to be with the one person who loved her unconditionally, yet feeling totally out of her depth amongst quaint limestone cottages and shops that had an individuality all their own.

‘We passed the surgery last night if you remember,’ Elaine said, indicating a large stone building across the way from where they’d just had an excellent lunch. Noting Laurel’s lack of enthusiasm, she added, ‘Are you sure you want to meet the people who work there?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said with assumed heartiness, deciding that she may as well get it over with. At least it was only a place for local people with their ailments. There would be no rows of beds or doctors with sombre expressions looking down at her, and nurses treating one of their own with sympathy and efficiency.

She’d been introduced to the two receptionists, both of them middle-aged, pleasant and organised, met the two practice nurses and discovered that it was a delicatessen that Beth Jackson and her husband were going to open very soon at the other end of the main street.

At that moment the door of the nearest consulting room opened and an attractive, dark-haired woman was framed there, holding a baby in her arms. The doctor she’d been consulting was close behind and as she was about to leave he bent and kissed her tenderly.

Laurel’s eyes widened and as Elaine steered her in the opposite direction she explained, ‘That is baby Arran Allardyce come to see his daddy. Ben is helping out while Georgina, his wife, who is one of our regular doctors, is on maternity leave.’

‘I see,’ Laurel said, and wished that she had a man in her life to kiss her like that and a beautiful baby to go with it. Day would turn into night before that ever happened in the light of recent events.

James Bartlett, the senior partner, was all that Elaine had described him to be, pleasant, handsome, a very likeable man with two lovely children if the photograph on his desk was anything to go by, and when they’d been introduced her aunt left them to get acquainted.

She’d removed the hat by then, deciding that if she was going to be employed there it was only fair that the man sitting opposite should see what she really looked like, yet she needn’t have worried. James didn’t seem to see anything too odd about the young woman that Elaine had brought to the surgery. ‘When could you come for an interview, Laurel?’

‘Whenever,’ she replied. ‘My time is my own at present.’

‘Then how about on the afternoon of the day that Elaine returns from the leave that she arranged in honour of your arrival? Say two o’clock?’ As she got up to go he shook her hand and said, ‘We’ll look forward to seeing you then.’

She was missing nursing, but until Elaine had suggested she work at the practice had felt it would be too painful to go back to it. But there was something about this pleasant village health care centre that was reaching out to her…and of course there was David Trelawney. Where was he today?

Yesterday she’d been too frazzled to really register the man who’d come to her rescue when she’d been getting off the train, but now she was curious to see if he was as presentable as she’d thought. It would be nice to see him again now that she was in residence, so to speak, and it would give her the opportunity to express further gratitude for his assistance, but it seemed that it was not to be on this bright summer day, and it did rather take the edge off it.

If she and Elaine had walked a little further she would have had the answer to her question. David’s car was parked outside the village hall. He’d been about to start his home visits when a call had come through and he’d gone straight there to find the chairlady of the Women’s Institute, who were holding their usual monthly meeting on the premises, looking far from well.

She was experiencing severe chest pains, perspiring heavily, and her lips were blue. Before he’d even sounded her heart David was phoning for an ambulance and telling her gently, ‘I’m sending you to hospital, Mrs Tate.’

She nodded. Maisie Tate was no fool. She wouldn’t be chairlady of Willowmere’s branch of the Women’s Institute if she was. She could tell that the new doctor at the practice had her down for a heart attack and she didn’t think he was wrong.

But if that was the case, who was going to look after her husband? Barry always had kippers for tea on a Thursday and she wasn’t going to be able to call at the fishmonger’s on her way home today.

David had finished examining her and as another stab of pain ripped across her chest he said reassuringly, ‘The ambulance will be here any moment, Mrs Tate, and they’ll take you straight to hospital when I’ve had a word with the paramedics.’

The rest of the Women’s Institute was hovering around her anxiously and one of them, who must have known her routine, said, ‘Don’t worry, Maisie. I’ll get your Barry his kippers.’

She nodded and David thought incredulously that this was the age group who’d been brought up to have a meal ready for the man of the house when he came in from work. But surely when he knew what was happening to his wife the absent Barry wouldn’t have any appetite.

As he drove along the main street of the village on his way to the delayed calls he was surprised to see Elaine and Laurel walking slowly along the pavement ahead of him, and as he pulled up alongside them he saw that the short skirt, high heels and sheer tights had been replaced by jeans and sandals.

But the rest of her attire was still strange and he didn’t think it was what the fashion-conscious were wearing for the summer in London. A soft felt hat was completely covering the short red-gold hair and she was still wearing the white cotton gloves.

‘Hello, there, and what are you folks up to on this glorious day?’ he asked with a smile that embraced them both.

‘I’m showing Laurel around the village,’ Elaine replied. ‘We’ve just been to the surgery and she’s been introduced to everyone there. Where were you, though? You were the only one missing, David, although you’ve already met my niece, haven’t you?’

I have indeed, he thought, three times to be exact.

‘Yes,’ he replied with the smile still in place, and went on to explain with his glance on her so-far silent companion, ‘I was out on an emergency call.

‘And how are you this morning, Laurel?’ he said easily, wondering if she was anaemic or something of the kind to be wearing that sort of jumper in the heat of summer.

‘Much better, thank you,’ she said flatly, and he sighed inwardly.

He turned to Elaine. ‘I was called to the village hall where the Women’s Institute are having a meeting and found their chairlady with a suspected heart attack.’

‘Oh! No!’ Elaine exclaimed. ‘That would be Maisie Tate. Poor Maisie!’

‘Yes, it was,’ he replied, and thought he couldn’t imagine her companion having much interest in the ills and ailments of the Willowmere villagers. There was an aloofness about her today and he was curious to know what lay beneath it as he never could resist a challenge.

‘And so what do you think of our beautiful village?’ he asked Laurel.

‘I thought that you were a newcomer too,’ she commented dryly, while comparing his clear-cut attractiveness to the wavy dark hair and fashionable stubble of Darius, who’d not wanted her any more because he’d seen the scarring and been revolted…

It wasn’t a situation that would ever occur with this man, she thought with a rush of blood. There would never be an occasion when he saw her minus clothing and…where had such an idea come from anyway?

He was smiling at the comment and she thought how likeable he was as he said, ‘I am a newcomer in one way, yet I feel as if Willowmere has always been part of me. Sometimes we find the place of our dreams and are given the opportunity to live there and that is what I intend to do when I’ve found a house.’

There was no mention of a woman in his life, Laurel noticed, which was incredible, but the odds were that there would be one tucked away somewhere, or relegated to the past for some reason.

‘I must go,’ he said, unaware that she was surmising about his love life. ‘I have a few visits to make and am already late after the callout to Mrs Tate.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Elaine said, and to Laurel’s horror she went on, ‘Would you like to come over for dinner one evening so that I may show my appreciation for the way you looked after my niece yesterday?’

Ugh! Laurel thought, taken aback at the suggestion and its implications. It made her appear to be some sort of helpless, clinging vine, just as she’d been when they’d met at the station and afterwards. But she wasn’t usually like that. It was just unfortunate that David Trelawney had been an observer of her moments of weakness.

If she was taken aback, so was he, she thought, seeing his surprise, but he soon recovered his poise and said politely, ‘Er…yes…I’d love to.’ He glanced warily in her direction. ‘But please don’t feel that you owe me anything for yesterday. It was just a matter of common politeness.’

As Elaine nodded understandingly Laurel thought wistfully that it would be, wouldn’t it? The time was gone when she attracted admiring looks, or handsome men asked her out to dinner.

‘When would you like to come?’ Elaine was asking.

He gave a wry grimace. ‘I’m free most nights. I spend most of my time house hunting or dreaming of renovating an old house I’ve seen.’

‘And where would that be?’ she questioned curiously, while Laurel stood by silently once more.

‘It’s a derelict building in one of the fields beside Willow Lake.’

‘Ah! I know the one. It’s called Water Meetings House. Why that one, though, when there are lots of nice properties in the area? It would need huge restoration work to make it habitable again. It’s been like that for years.’

‘Mmm, I know, but I do have my reasons,’ he said, and without questioning him further Elaine returned to the subject of dinner.

‘So how about one night next week?’ she suggested. ‘Say Friday when there is no surgery the following day?’

‘Yes, fine,’ he replied. ‘What time?’

‘Sevenish, if that’s all right.’

He nodded and with a wave of the hand drove off.

As his car disappeared from view Laurel groaned openly and Elaine said, ‘I know what you’re thinking. That it is unkind of me to invite David to dinner when you want to keep a low profile, but Laurel, I’m not match-making. He is a stranger in the village, just as you are, and we in Willowmere are renowned for our hospitality.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said contritely as the moment of gloom disappeared. ‘The last thing I want is to become a me, me, me sort of person. Self-pity is a form of selfishness.’

‘It can be,’ Elaine agreed gently, ‘but not in your case. And now let’s take you home and put you to bed for a couple of hours and I guarantee that as each day passes you are going to feel more ready to face the world, and whatever you think of Willowmere you couldn’t be recuperating in a better place.’

‘You might be right,’ Laurel said with spirits still lifting as she thought that it was more likely to be the village’s inhabitants than its peace and fresh air that were going to help her take a hold on life again.

Yet as she looked out of her bedroom window before going to bed that night and saw a golden sun setting on the skyline, with the lake glinting in the distance amongst the drooping willows that had given it its name, it didn’t all feel quite so strange as it had the night before.

Within minutes of placing her head on the pillows she slept and for once there were no smoke and flames turning her dreams into nightmares.

Beth called at Glenside Lodge for a chat in her lunch hour the following day and as the three of them relaxed over coffee she said, ‘James must be feeling that it is one departure after another at the surgery. First it was Anna and Glenn going to work in Africa. Then Georgina and Ben had a blissful reunion, which resulted in them remarrying and her giving birth to Arran in the spring, so she is going to be missing for quite some time too, hence David’s most welcome appearance, and now I’m about to try a new slant on village shopping. You will be most welcome in the practice, Laurel, if you can sort something out with James, but are you happy that it might only be temporary?’

‘Yes, it would suit me fine,’ she replied. ‘I’m rather at a crossroads in my life at the moment, so it would give me a short breathing space before I make up my mind what I want to do and where I’m heading.’

Elaine was nodding in silent agreement. Laurel was improving physically, but it was the mental scars that worried her. Her niece had been a bright and trendy twenty-five-year-old when it had happened, totally dedicated to the career she’d chosen and enjoying life in the big city when she hadn’t been working, but now all of that had gone.

Her interest in the village surgery had been lukewarm when she’d taken Laurel there, as had been her interest in life in general, but she wasn’t going to sit by and let her stay in the doldrums. Her beautiful girl still had a lot to offer to those needing health care and to the man who would one day love her for who she was.

Willowmere in summer was a bright haven of colour. The new life that had come bursting through in fields and gardens in the spring was now established in abundant growth. Trees along the riverside, some of them hundreds of years old, were in full leaf, providing a background of fresh greenery against the flimsy craft of the canoe club as they sailed along on practice days, and bird life of every kind imaginable was to be found in cottage gardens and in the park that ran parallel with the river.

The charm of the village attracted walkers and visitors from miles around and as the days passed Laurel was aware that the Hollyhocks Tea Rooms were busy all the time with those seeking appetising meals to complement a summer day, and The Pheasant, its only pub, did much trade with others who had less discerning tastes but could guarantee a thirst.

Often it wasn’t until late in the evening that the quiet that she’d been so dubious about descended. It was on one of those occasions that she went for a stroll in the gathering dusk beside the lake that was visible when she looked through her bedroom window.

Elaine had gone to bed and she’d been about to do the same when the urge to go out into the gloaming had overtaken her. The sunset had been magnificent and now it was still and sultry with a yellow moon above.

She’d been wearing a sundress in the house and instead of changing into something less revealing threw a light cardigan across her bare shoulders and sallied forth, minus the gloves.

There were still a few people about loath to be inside on such a night, but they thinned out as she drew nearer to the lake, and by the time she was only a field away she was alone, and looming up in front of her in the moonlight were the ruins of a big stone house. Could this be the place that David Trelawney had mentioned? she wondered. If so, what a mess it was in, yet what a position, just a hundred feet or so from Willow Lake, and on the other side of the house, not far away, the place where the two rivers that flowed through the village met. There was a tattered sign on the fencing that separated the field from the road and as she peered at it she saw that it said appropriately ‘Water Meetings House.’ She shook her head in disbelief. Was the man insane? It would take forever to restore this place.

‘Hello, there,’ a voice said from behind her.

She turned slowly and he was there, the village doctor who was considering rebuilding the shell of what must have once been a gracious home.

‘Hi,’ she said lightly, pulling the cardigan tightly around her shoulders. ‘I came out for a stroll and stumbled upon this derelict house. It’s the one that you mentioned the other day, isn’t it?’

He was smiling. She could see his teeth gleaming whitely in the moon’s light. ‘Yes, it is. I expect you think I’m crazy to be considering restoring it.’

‘Yes, I do as a matter of fact,’ was the reply. ‘Yet I can see why. It’s in a fantastic position and so aptly named.’

She was a dedicated city dweller, but there was something about the moment with the two of them wrapped around by the silent night and the remains of the limestone house shining palely in the moonlight that was firing her imagination, and she thought whimsically that it was as if there were forces abroad that were out to entrance her, when she didn’t want to be entranced.

As he observed her bemused expression David was thinking along similar lines. It was weird that Laurel of all people should be so much on his wavelength about this place and the ruins of his mother’s old home. Meeting up with her out there in the moonlight was just as odd as on the other times they’d met.

It had come at the end of a very strange day. In the early afternoon he’d had a phone call from one of the Texan wives who’d been in Caroline’s group when he’d first met her in London.

He’d been surprised to hear from her and even more so when he’d heard what she had to say. She’d rung to tell him that Caroline had married the senator that she’d been seeing at the time they’d ended their relationship.

‘My Jerome said we should let you know,’ she’d said gently in a soft Texan drawl, ‘so that if you hear it from someone else it won’t be such a shock.’

He’d thanked her and after chatting briefly had finished the call with no feelings of regret. There’d been just the relief of knowing that the big mistake he’d almost made had reached its final conclusion, and it would be a long time before he made such an error of judgement again.

He’d picked up the phone again and rung his father, and when he’d told him about the call from America and that it was definitely over with his ex-fiancée Jonas had exclaimed, ‘Praise be! But I thought it already was?’

‘Yes, it was, but now there is closure, Dad,’ he said calmly.

‘And are you sure you’re all right with that?’

‘Spot on,’ he replied. ‘It would never have worked. We had a different set of values.’

‘One day you’ll meet the right woman and when it happens you will know beyond any doubt,’ Jonas said. ‘When I met your mother I knew she was the only one for me, and it will be the same for you.’

‘If you say so,’ he agreed dubiously, with the old proverb about once bitten, twice shy in mind.

With the feeling of contentment still there he went to the local estate agent’s while out on his calls and ended his uncertainties about the house by the lake by making an offer for it and the land it stood on.

In the summer twilight he’d gone to gaze upon what he hoped would soon be his and found that the strange day was not yet over. He’d found Laurel Maddox there, standing silent and alone in front of what had been his mother’s childhood home.

CHAPTER THREE

HER eyes looked huge in the light of the moon. She was still clutching her cardigan tightly around her, and once again he wondered what it was with this strange newcomer to the village.

She was different from any woman he’d ever met. There was a sort of touch-me-not aura about her and yet he sensed hurt and vulnerability there too.

‘I’ll walk you home,’ he suggested. ‘We don’t get much crime around here, but even so it isn’t a good idea to be out on your own in the dark.’ She didn’t reply, but as he began to move in that direction she fell into step beside him.

As they walked along the road that separated the house from the lake she tripped over a loose stone and his arm came out to steady her. He felt her flinch at his touch and let his hold fall away as soon as she’d regained her balance.

She was happy enough when she was with Elaine, he thought, and no one at the surgery had had any adverse comments to make about her after she’d been introduced to them, so maybe it was him that she didn’t care for.

Two in one day, he thought wryly. Caroline marrying her rich lover and Laurel behaving as if he’d got the plague, yet it didn’t prevent his concern about her increasing.

When they reached Glenside Lodge and stopped at the gate he said, ‘Take care, Laurel. If we don’t meet before, I will see you on Friday.’ Leaving her to go quietly up the stairs without disturbing Elaine, he strode off towards the village green and the cottage he was renting.

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