Caroline Anderson, Sara Morgan, Josie Metcalfe, Jennifer Taylor

by Brides of Penhally Bay Vol. 01 (lit)

‘Tip from Marco. He said that you’re useless in the morning unless you’ve had your coffee.’

  Memories of long, lazy mornings lounging in bed with Marco filled her brain and Amy felt the colour flood into her cheeks. She reached out a hand and buzzed for the next patient. ‘Right, well, thanks, Kate. I suppose I’d better get on. Is it always like this?’

  Kate laughed. ‘No, sometimes it’s busy.’

  Thinking of the number of patients she’d seen so far, Amy suddenly realised that Marco probably hadn’t been playing games when he’d said he didn’t have time for conversation.

  ‘Dr Avanti?’ A man hesitated in the doorway and Amy smiled, recognising him immediately. A face from her childhood.

  ‘Rob! How are you?’ She blushed and waved an apologetic hand. ‘Sorry. Obviously you’re not that great or you wouldn’t be spending your morning in the doctor’s surgery. How can I help you?’ It felt weird, sitting here, talking to someone that she’d known as a child. Rob, a trawlerman, was part of her childhood. How many hours had she spent watching him bring in the boat and haul in the catch?

  And how did he see her? As someone who was still a child?

  Or as someone who was capable of handling his medical problems?

  ‘My hand is agony.’ Without hesitation, he sat down and took off his coat. ‘Been like this for a few days. I thought it might settle but it’s getting worse and the rash is going up my arm.’

  Amy leaned forward and took a closer look at his hand, noticing the inflammation and the discolouration spreading up his arm. Her mind went blank and she knew a moment of panic. What was it? ‘Have you been bitten? Scratched?’ She lifted his hand, noticing that Rob flinched at her touch. ‘That’s tender?’

  ‘Very.’ He frowned thoughtfully down at his hand. ‘I don’t think I’ve scratched myself but you know what it’s like, handling fish. It’s pretty easy to get a cut from a fish spine or the bones. Then there’s the broken ends of warps—to be honest, we’re too busy to be checking for minor injuries all the time. Aches and pains and cuts are all just part of the job.’

  Fish. Of course. Amy studied his hand again, noticing the raised purple margin around the reddened area and the pus. Erysipeloid. For a moment she forgot Marco and the real reason that she was sitting in the surgery. She forgot all her own problems in her fascination of practising medicine. ‘I think that’s probably what has happened, Rob. You must have scratched yourself without knowing and that’s allowed an infection to get hold. Bacteria are easily carried into the wound from fish slime and guts.’ She ran her fingers gently over his arm, taking a closer look. ‘I’ll give you some antibiotics. Are you allergic to penicillin?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. So you’ve seen this before, then?’

  ‘Actually, no, but I’ve read about it.’ Amy turned back to the computer, hit a few keys and then scrolled down to find the drug she wanted. ‘Fishermen are particularly prone to infections of the hands and fingers because of the work they do. This particular infection is called erysipeloid. I’ll give you an antibiotic and that should do the trick, but prevention is better than cure, Rob. You should be spraying disinfectant over the surfaces where you work and using a hand wash after handling fish. Something like chlorhexidine gluconate would do the trick.’

  Rob pulled down his sleeve. ‘It’s there, but we don’t always use it. When you’re hauling in nets and fighting the wind and the waves, it doesn’t seem like a high priority.’

  Amy signed the prescription. ‘Take these, but if it gets worse, come back.’

  Rob stood up, his eyes curious. ‘Little Amy. I remember you when you were knee high.’ His voice gruff, he slipped the prescription into his pocket. ‘Every summer you visited your grandmother and stayed in that tiny cottage by the shore. Always on your own, you were. You never joined in with any of the local kids. You used to stand on the harbour wall and watch us bring in the catch. You were all solemn-eyed and serious, as if you were wondering whether to run away to sea.’

  Amy stared at him, unable to breathe.

  She had been wondering whether to run away to sea. Every morning she’d scurried down to the harbour and watched the boats sail away, all the time wishing that she could go with the tide and find an entirely new life. A better life.

  Happiness doesn’t just land in your lap, Amy, you have to chase it.

  Rob frowned. ‘You all right? You’re a bit white.’

  Tripped up by the memories of her grandmother, Amy somehow managed to smile. ‘That’s right. I loved staying here.’

  ‘She was a good woman, your grandmother. And she was so proud of you.’

  Feeling her poise and professionalism unravel like a ball of wool in the paws of a kitten, Amy swallowed. ‘She always wanted me to be a doctor.’

  ‘And didn’t we know it.’ Rob grinned. ‘Couldn’t walk past her in the village without hearing the latest story about her clever granddaughter.’ His smile became nostalgic. ‘She’s missed is Eleanor. But that young couple you sold the cottage to are very happy. The Dodds. They’ve got two children now.’

  ‘Good.’ Desperate to end the conversation, Amy rose to her feet and walked towards the door. ‘Come back to one of the doctors if you have problems with your hand, Rob.’

  He didn’t move, as if he sensed some of the turmoil inside her. ‘She wanted to see you married with children—would have loved to see you together, you and Dr Avanti. It’s good that you’re back. And it’s great for the practice. I know how much they’re struggling with Lucy going into labour so suddenly.’

  Back? ‘I’m not exactly—I mean, that isn’t why—’ She broke off and gave a weak smile. ‘It’s lovely to see you, Rob.’ There was no point in explaining that she wasn’t staying—that she should already have been back at the train station. They’d find out soon enough that her visit had been fleeting and she wouldn’t need to give explanations because she wouldn’t be here.

  Feeling a twinge of guilt that she was going to be leaving Marco to deal with still more gossip, Amy showed Rob out of the consulting room and then returned to her desk and sank onto her chair with her head in her hands, the lump building in her throat as memories swirled around her exhausted mind.

  ‘So—judging from the expression on your face, delivering patient care in Penhally isn’t any easier than it was in Africa.’ Marco’s smooth, accented tones cut through her misery and she jumped and let her hands fall into her lap.

  Even though she’d been longing to have the conversation with him, now the moment had arrived she wasn’t entirely sure she could cope with it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘MARCO. I—I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘Presumably because you were miles away.’ He pushed the door shut with the flat of his hand and strolled into the room, his cool control in direct contrast to her own nervous agitation. ‘You look pale. What’s the matter?’

  That was twice in five minutes she’d been told that she looked pale. Making a mental note to dig out a pot of blusher and use it, Amy gave a humourless laugh. ‘I would have thought it was obvious.’

  ‘Not to me. Any woman who finds it that easy to walk away from a marriage can’t possibly be daunted by the prospect of spending a few hours wandering down memory lane.’

  He had no idea.

  And that was her fault, of course, because she hadn’t wanted him to know the truth. She’d wanted to spare him a difficult decision. Wanted to spare them both the slow, inevitable destruction of their marriage. So she’d made the decision for both of them and gone for a quick, sudden end. She’d thought it would make it less painful in the long term.

  Now she wasn’t so sure. Could the pain have been worse?

  ‘It wasn’t easy for me, Marco.’ She didn’t want him thinking that and she looked at him, almost hating him for his insensitivity but at the same time relieved, because she knew that his anger made him blind. Anger would prevent him from delving deeper into her reasons for leaving. And she didn’t want him delving. �
�I did what was right for both of us.’

  ‘No, you did what was right for you. I wasn’t involved in the decision.’ He prowled across the consulting room to the desk where she was seated. ‘One minute we were planning a future, the next you decided that you were going to spend the future on your own. There was no discussion. You gave me no choice.’

  In a way, that was true, and yet she knew that the decision she’d made had been the right one.

  ‘Do you want to talk about this now?’ Strangely enough, even though she was the one who’d pushed, she just didn’t feel prepared to say what had to be said. In Africa she’d thought she’d resigned herself to the reality of her life, but one look at Marco had unravelled her resolve.

  ‘That was the reason you came, wasn’t it?’

  Feeling vulnerable next to his superior height, she rose to her feet and their eyes locked. ‘All right, let’s have this discussion and then we can both get on with our lives. I ended our marriage, yes, that’s true.’

  ‘You left without talking it through with me.’

  ‘I did talk to you!’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I told you I was unhappy. We should never have moved back to Penhally. It was a mistake.’ She sank back into her chair because her legs just wouldn’t hold her any longer. ‘I didn’t feel the way I thought I was going to feel.’

  ‘You underwent a complete personality transformation!’ Anger shimmered in his eyes. ‘One moment you were lying in my bed, planning our future, and the next thing you were packing your bag so quickly you almost bruised yourself running through the front door. It didn’t make sense.’

  It would have made perfect sense if he’d known what she’d discovered.

  ‘I didn’t have a personality transformation,’ she said stiffly. ‘I just changed my mind about what I wanted. People do it every day of their lives and it’s sad, but it’s just one of those things. The reason you’re angry is because you felt that you weren’t part of the decision and you always have to be in control.’

  ‘Control?’ He lifted an eyebrow in cool appraisal. ‘You saw our relationship as a power struggle, amore?’

  Unsettled by the look in his eyes and the sheer impact of his physical presence, she left her chair and walked to the window, keeping her back to him. ‘It’s time to be honest about this. We made a mistake, Marco. We never should have married. I mean, it was all far, far too quick! Three months! Three months is nothing!’ She fixed her gaze on a point in the distance and recited the words she’d rehearsed so many times. ‘How can anyone know each other in three months? Yes, there was chemistry, I’m not denying that. But chemistry alone isn’t enough to bind a couple together for a lifetime.’

  There was an ominous silence and when he finally spoke his voice was clipped. ‘You’re describing hormonal teenagers. We were both adults and we knew what we wanted.’

  ‘Adult or not, the chemistry was still there. The relationship was fine, but marriage—that was a stupid impulse.’ A fleeting dream that had been cruelly snatched away. She could feel his gaze burning a hole between her shoulder blades and this time it took him almost a full minute to reply.

  ‘At least have the courtesy to look at me when you reduce our relationship to nothing but a sordid affair.’ There was a dangerous note in his voice and she took a deep breath and turned slowly, struggling to display the calm and neutrality that she knew she needed in order to be convincing.

  ‘Not sordid, Marco,’ she said quietly, hoping that her voice was going to hold out. ‘It was amazing, we both know that. But it was never going to last. We shouldn’t have tried to hold onto it or make it into something that it wasn’t. We wanted different things.’

  He watched her for a moment, his eyes intent on her face as if her mind were a book and he were leafing through every single page, searching for clues. ‘Until we returned to Penhally, I wasn’t aware that we wanted different things. We’d made plans for the future. I was going to work with Nick in the practice and you were going to stay at home and have our babies until you decided to return to work. It was the reason we chose the house.’

  She inhaled sharply, unable to stifle the reaction. She couldn’t even bear to think about the house. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t keep my end of the bargain. I’m sorry I decided that I wanted a career instead of a family.’

  He looked at her as if she were a complete stranger and then he muttered something in Italian that she didn’t understand and Amy looked at him helplessly.

  ‘If this conversation is going to have any hope of working then you at least have to speak English so that I can understand you.’

  ‘You are speaking English and I don’t understand you at all! The complexities of this situation appear to transcend the language barrier.’ He raked long bronzed fingers through his glossy dark hair. ‘You talk about wanting a career, and yet when we first met you talked about nothing but family and children. You were soft, gentle, giving. Then we moved to Penhally and suddenly, whoosh…’ He waved a hand expressively. ‘You underwent this transformation. Soft, affectionate Amy became hard, distant Amy. And distant Amy suddenly became career Amy. It was as if the woman I was with suddenly reinvented herself. What happened? What happened to change everything?’

  She stared at him blankly, teetering on the edge of confession. It would have been so easy. So easy to tell him exactly what had happened.

  But that would have made things so much more complicated and they were already more complicated than she could comfortably handle.

  The truth created a bad taste in her mouth and for a moment she just stood there, trapped by the secrets and lies that she’d used to protect him. ‘I suppose it was several things.’ With an effort, she kept her tone careless. ‘Penhally isn’t exactly the centre of the universe. There wasn’t enough to keep me occupied. I was bored. I missed medicine. I missed the patients.’ It was true, she consoled herself, she had missed the patients.

  ‘If that was the case, you should have said so and we could have found you work, if not in Penhally then at another surgery.’ Marco turned and paced across the surgery, as if he found the confined space intolerable.

  ‘It’s all history now,’ Amy murmured. ‘Going over it again is going to achieve nothing. It’s time to move on, Marco. Let’s just have the discussion that we need to have and then I’ll leave you in peace.’

  ‘Peace?’ He turned, his eyes glinting dangerously, his lean, handsome face taut. ‘Is that what you think leaving will give me when you walk out again? Peace? I haven’t known a moment’s peace since you left.’

  He hadn’t?

  Her heart gave a little lift and then crashed down again as she realised that his feelings made absolutely no difference to what she had to do. And anyway his feelings had more to do with injured pride and inconvenience than anything deeper. Marco Avanti was a man who knew what he wanted out of life and she’d temporarily derailed his plans—that was all.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly, telling the truth for the first time since she’d walked into Penhally. ‘Truly I’m sorry for any hurt I’ve caused.’

  He watched her, his eyes sharp on her face. ‘But you’re still asking me for a divorce?’

  For the space of a heartbeat she paused. ‘Yes,’ she croaked. ‘I am. It’s the only course of action.’

  ‘Not the only course.’ He strolled towards her and then stopped. ‘I never thought of you as a quitter, Amy, and yet you haven’t once mentioned trying again. Instead of abandoning our marriage, you could try and fix it.’

  She froze as he dangled temptation in front of her and her heart stumbled in her chest. Like an addict she gazed at him and then she remembered how far she’d come, how much she’d already suffered to get to this point, and shook her head. ‘It isn’t fixable.’

  ‘You don’t know that because you haven’t tried. And this time we’d be trying together. Talk to me, Amy, and we can fix it.’

  ‘You can’t fix something when the two halves don’t match. We
want different things. You want a family, Marco. You made that clear on many occasions. Women have been chasing you for years, but you never settled down with any of them because you weren’t ready to have children. But then suddenly that changed.’

  ‘It changed when I met you. The first thing I thought when I laid eyes on you was that you were the sexiest woman I’d ever seen.’ His voice was a soft, seductive purr. ‘You were wearing that little navy suit with a pair of high heels and your legs came close to being the eighth wonder of the world. You were serious and studious and didn’t stop asking me questions.’

  She felt the colour rush into her cheeks. ‘You just happened to be lecturing on an aspect of paediatrics that interested me.’

  ‘Then, when I stopped looking at your legs and your beautiful brown eyes, I realised how intelligent you were and how warm and kind. I knew immediately that you were the woman I wanted to be the mother of my children. I knew it in a moment.’

  The mother of his children.

  There was a long, tortured silence. Knowing that some response was required, Amy tried to speak but her voice just refused to work. Instead, she stooped, picked up her bag and yanked her coat from the back of the chair. Only once she’d slipped her arms into the sleeves and belted the waist did she find her voice.

  ‘I’m sorry I ruined your plans, but I can’t be the mother of your children, so it’s time you started searching for another candidate. And now I have to go.’ Before she collapsed in front of him.

  ‘I thought you wanted to talk to me?’

  ‘It’s not—I can’t…’ Needing fresh air and space, she stumbled over the words. ‘You’re just too busy. I shouldn’t have come, I see that now. I’ll leave you to see your patients and I’ll write to you again and perhaps this time you’ll reply. It’s the best thing for both of us.’ She moved towards the door but he caught her arm, his strong fingers biting through the wool of her coat as he pulled her inexorably towards him.

  ‘You came all this way to talk.’ He held her firmly. ‘And we haven’t finished. Last time you just walked out and you wouldn’t listen to me. You’re not doing that again, Amy.’