‘That was good teamwork, Phoebe,’ Harry said with one of his rare smiles when it had disappeared from sight.
It registered that he’d actually said her name, but there was no time for further thought as elderly George, the patient she’d originally come to see, appeared beside them looking distraught and decidedly unsteady on his feet.
‘I’ve kept out of the way,’ he said breathing heavily. ‘At my age I’m no good in a crisis. So what’s the verdict, Harry?’
‘Not too good at this moment, George,’ the doctor told him gently. ‘They will have to operate to control a brain haemorrhage. But she is still with us, so why don’t you let me make you a cup of tea while Nurse Howard changes the dressing on your leg? Or would you prefer a brandy under the circumstances?’
‘Yes, I would,’ he replied. ‘My heart isn’t too good and the last thing my son needs is me cracking up at a time like this.’ He was gazing out at the immaculate farm buildings and the land that belonged to them stretching as far as the eye could see. ‘All of this is great, Harry,’ he said brokenly, ‘but it means nothing when a life is at stake.’
Harry nodded understandingly. The Enderbys were obviously very wealthy, but the old guy had his priorities right.
‘Can I leave you to see to George?’ he asked Phoebe. ‘I left patients waiting to see me when I dashed over here.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she told him, adding as he turned to go, ‘It was great working with you.’
The reluctant smile was back and she thought if he kept it up, he might actually manage a laugh one day. To her amazement he replied, ‘It was good to have you assisting me, Nurse Howard.’ And then he was gone to face the sighs and fidgets of those awaiting his presence in the surgery.
Having dealt with George’s dressing and left him in the charge of the farm’s housekeeper, Phoebe continued her home visits. When she arrived back at the surgery late in the afternoon, keen to see if the rapport between herself and Harry was still there or just a momentary thing, she found him closeted with one patient after another and it was still so when she left to pick Marcus up at the nursery.
With the tooth now through, he was back to his usual state of contentment, greeting her with a big smile and a happy gurgle, and in that moment the other part of her life took over. He was all she had, and if that was how it was always going to be, she wasn’t going to complain. She’d made her choice when she split up with Darren and had no regrets about that.
CHAPTER THREE
WHILE Phoebe was feeding and bathing Marcus before settling him down for sleep, it was the same as the night before—she was listening for footsteps on the stairs to let her know that Harry’s day at the practice was also over. This time she didn’t have long to wait.
She heard him come up just as her baby’s eyelids were closing, his dark lashes sweeping downwards and his small chest rising and falling steadily. Ridiculously, this time she wanted Harry to knock on her door so that she could see if the time they’d spent together with Pamela Enderby had really been as satisfying for him as it had been for her. His unexpected presence last night had also shown her another side to him that she wanted to see again.
Disappointed when she heard his door close behind him, she began to clear up after bathtime and was debating whether to get out the paint cans and brushes once more when the sound she’d been hoping for finally came.
While he’d been putting a ready meal in the oven to heat up, Harry had been debating whether it would be pushing it too far if he called on Phoebe again. Yet he felt he had to. It was going to be a frosty night and while her apartment had been warm enough the night before, it definitely was not as warm as his, and there was a spare mobile heater in his hall that he wanted to give her just in case. He wouldn’t be able to settle if he hadn’t offered it to her on such a cold night.
The last thing he’d expected when he’d told Ethan he’d like to move into one of the apartments had been the presence of a young single mother and child only a few feet away. The solitude that he’d sought wasn’t materialising, but for some reason he didn’t mind as much as he’d anticipated. As he crossed the landing with the heater, to his enormous surprise he even found himself hoping that he might get a glimpse of the smallest of the other apartment’s occupants.
When Phoebe opened the door to him she was smiling, and it hit him again how unusually beautiful she was, with her clear, pale skin and wide hazel gaze that was observing him questioningly.
‘Come in,’ she said, stepping back while he humped the heavy appliance into her hall. As he straightened up to face her, she asked, ‘What is that?’
‘It’s a heater,’ he said in the brisk manner he used when not sure of himself. ‘It is going to be a very cold night and I thought it might be welcome.’
‘Where has it come from?’
‘My place. I don’t need it as my heating is excellent, and I noticed last night that yours is not so good. It just needs to be plugged into the electricity. So can I leave it with you?’
‘Yes,’ she said slowly, completely taken aback that her new boss should take the trouble to make sure that she and Marcus were warm enough on a bitter winter night. There was a lump in her throat and for an awful moment she felt she was going to weep in front of him, but she fought back the tears.
He wasn’t to know that his small act of kindness had broken through the armour of self-sufficiency that she wore to protect herself from any more of the hurts that life might have in store for her.
‘So where do you want it?’ he was asking, observing her curiously.
‘Here in the hall, I think,’ she told him, desperately scrabbling for some composure. ‘When I go to bed I’ll leave all the doors open so that the extra heat can circulate.’ Hoping that her surprise wasn’t making her appear short on gratitude, she asked, ‘Can I offer you a drink while you’re here Dr Balfour? A glass of wine, perhaps, or something hot?’
‘A glass of wine would be nice,’ he said smoothly, much preferring a beer but feeling that it wouldn’t be quite as suitable to the occasion. ‘But I can’t stay long. I have a meal in the oven.’
She nodded understandingly as she produced a bottle of white from the fridge, and as she was pouring it asked, ‘Have we had any news on Pamela Enderby?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I rang the farm just before I came up and George said that she’s in Theatre, having a huge haematoma drained. So far she’s coping with it, but it is a serious situation and sadly I feel she will be lucky to come through it.’
Silence fell between them as they drank the wine, both lost in their own thoughts as they contemplated the strain that the Enderby family would be under tonight. In what seemed like no time at all he was getting to his feet and saying, ‘I must go, Phoebe. And by the way, when we’re not in the surgery it’s Harry, OK?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll remember. And thanks again for the loan of the heater…er…Harry.’
Her obvious discomfort broke through the sadder thoughts about Pamela, and Harry found himself actually laughing. ‘It will become easier as you keep saying it,’ he promised. Then, on the point of leaving, he casually asked, ‘Is Baby Bunting asleep?’
It was her turn to laugh. ‘Need you ask?’ she said, and added, amazing herself, ‘Do you want to see for yourself?’
‘Er…yes,’ he replied hesitantly, ‘just as long as you don’t think it will disturb him.’ Phoebe mentally kicked herself. Clearly he didn’t want a repetition of last night, or maybe just a repetition of Marcus in general.
‘No. Marcus never wakes up during the first few hours after going to sleep,’ she informed him stiffly. ‘It’s in the middle of the night when he sometimes makes his presence felt, and that’s only when he’s teething. But the tooth that was bothering him is through now, so you should be spared any further nightly disturbances for a while.’
‘What a beautiful child,’ he said slowly as he turned away from the cherub in the cot, then almost as if he was speaking to himsel
f, ‘But they come with a lifetime’s responsibility of caring, don’t they? Always there is the fear in the mind of the loving parent that they might lose their child to illness or accident.’
Phoebe was observing him in surprise, shocked by his words and the desolation with which he’d uttered them. ‘That’s a rather downbeat way of looking at family life, isn’t it?’ she exclaimed. ‘Surely you can’t be speaking from experience?’
‘No, of course not,’ he said flatly. ‘I was just expressing a point of view that I’m sure you don’t agree with.’
His bitterness sparked off Phoebe’s anger. ‘You’re right. I don’t. There are always risks in loving someone, whoever it might be. It can end in pain and despair, or it can be the most joyful thing in one’s life, giving it a magical sense of purpose. And that is exactly what Marcus has given me.’
She gentled her tone, wondering how to explain to him that love was always worth the risk, no matter how scarred he felt by his past. ‘I imagine that you are still hurting at the loss of your wife, Harry, and I can’t tell you how sorry I was to hear about her death. But while you may think it’s easy for me to talk, I really do believe what I’ve just said, and I’m sad for you that you don’t feel the same.’
‘Maybe we could discuss it another time.’ he said abruptly. ‘I’d better go. I can smell my meal burning from here. Goodnight, Phoebe.’ And before she could reply he’d gone.
As he ate his solitary meal Harry was thinking that the woman across the landing must think him pathetic, hovering around her like Social Services and burbling on about the downside of family life.
His marriage to Cassie had been good in parts, but something of a roller-coaster ride. She’d been an extrovert, a risk-taker who’d thrived on excitement. Motherhood had never been high on her agenda, just as fatherhood had been low on his.
Maybe he should make it clear to Phoebe that his concern on her behalf was simply neighbourly, that he would have done the same for anyone he felt the heater would benefit. The fact that she had a child in her not-so-warm apartment had just made it seem the sensible thing to do.
But he’d come back to Bluebell Cove like a wounded animal to its lair, not to fraternise with the locals, and a staff member at that. So maybe he should play it cool with Phoebe from now on, and make sure he avoided bringing up such topics as love and family, which they clearly had wildly different opinions about.
Harry was nice under that brusque exterior, Phoebe thought as she felt the boost that the heater was giving to her very average central heating system. And her heart bled for the grief he’d suffered, and was clearly still struggling with.
Suddenly, instead of wishing that the other apartment was still unoccupied, she felt she was going to enjoy having Harry for a neighbour, but there was no way she would want him to think she saw him as anything other than that.
The responsibility of becoming a single mother had been frightening while she’d been carrying Marcus and even more so during the first weeks after his birth. But with the help of Katie and Rob, who had been fantastic, and her own determination not to falter in the life she had chosen for herself, she was coping.
Every time she looked at the baby asleep in the next room, she knew she’d done the right thing. If it had been up to Darren, their child wouldn’t have existed. The mere thought of that always brought her up with a jolt, especially when she was tired or discouraged at the end of a long day faced with a never-ending list of chores to do once Marcus was asleep.
But she wasn’t so wrapped up in her restricted ‘mother and child only’ existence that she didn’t recognise an attractive man when she saw one, and Harry was certainly that!
When she stepped onto the landing the next morning with Marcus in her arms, his door opened simultaneously and with a friendly smile she said, ‘We stayed beautifully warm through the night, Harry. Thank you so much.’
There was no answering smile coming her way and she felt the colour rise beneath the smooth pale skin of her face as he said flatly, ‘It was there, hanging about doing nothing, so don’t feel indebted.’
Chastened, she increased her hold on Marcus and prepared to descend the stairs. In the same flat tone he said, ‘Watch your step.’
She’d thought he might offer to carry Marcus down for her, or have a pleasant reply to her greeting, but instead it felt as if she’d entered some sort of cold zone and she didn’t know why.
Unaware of his musings of the night before, she thought bleakly that it must be a double-edged warning—to watch her step on the stairs, and at the same time watch her step in her dealings with him, especially if she thought that the offer of the heater the night before had been an invitation to be all chummy. Was Sir Galahad going to turn out to be a Dr-Jekyll–Mr-Hyde sort of person just when she was warming to him?
Automatically reacting to his remote manner she said coolly, ‘I’ve managed to do that so far without mishap,’ and began to descend the steep staircase carefully with Marcus gazing around, wide eyed.
Once at the bottom she didn’t linger for further downbeat comments. As soon as Marcus was strapped into her car’s baby seat, she drove the short distance to the nursery. Handing him over reluctantly to the excellent Beth, she then returned to the surgery complex to sort out her calls for the day.
As usual, she found the staff gathered in the kitchen with their mugs of tea, except for Harry who apparently had taken his into his consulting room. Crossly, she hoped he would stay there until she’d set off on her rounds.
He did, and as she drove along the coast road to the shop by the harbour to check on Rory’s injured leg once again, she couldn’t help thinking how typical it was. The first man she’d had any social contact with in ages had the kind of looks and the background that appealed to her, but clearly he also had a dual personality!
He’d given her the heater of his own free will. It wasn’t as if she’d asked him for it. She wanted favours from no one, was her own woman, and intended to stay that way. Nevertheless, it had given her a nice feeling inside to know that he’d tuned into her needs twice in two days.
So hang onto the memory of it, she warned herself. It isn’t going to happen again, and if by some strange chance it should, don’t go all gooey-eyed, just be pleasant but aloof.
She had to pass a side turning to the Enderbys’ farm on her way to the harbour and stopped off to enquire how Pamela was progressing.
George was there by himself again and informed her that his daughter-in-law had come through the surgery, and had been taken to the high-dependency unit.
‘It was a miracle the way you and Harry Balfour saved her life,’ the old man said huskily. ‘We are fortunate to have him with us again as I’m told that he was doing greater things in Australia than running a village practice.
‘But his Aunt Barbara is a great one for getting people to do what she wants and it was she that persuaded him to come home. Though I don’t think he needed much coaxing after what happened to him out there. That Cassie was a fiery madam, but it seems as if she took on more than she could handle when she tried to overtake a big truck without warning.
‘It’s a pity he didn’t come back to us in the spring when the bluebells out in their glory, the skies so blue and the sea a joy to behold, instead of on a grey day in January.’
‘It won’t be long before that happens,’ she consoled. ‘This month is almost out, then February is the shortest one on the calendar, and when it is gone, Easter won’t be far away.’ Feeling that she needed to be on her way, and reeling slightly from discovering the awful manner in which Harry’s wife had died, she said goodbye to George and drove off in the direction of the fishing-tackle shop.
Rory’s leg was definitely on the mend and when she’d changed the dressing once more, Jake said, ‘We’re going to see his Mum and Dad this afternoon. Knowing that the leg is clear of the infection will be one thing less for them to worry about, thanks to you, Nurse.’
‘I’m just doing my job.’ she told
him as she prepared to leave uncle and nephew to their own devices. Then, given his reaction of the previous day to discovering she was a single mum, she was surprised when Jake said, ‘We’re going out in the boat on Saturday and the invitation is still there if you can manage to come.’
‘What sort is it?’ she asked warily. ‘Has it got a cabin?’
‘Yes, of course,’ was the reply. ‘It’s not the Queen Mary but she’s a nice little craft.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ she told him to avoid refusing outright. Sailing on the open sea in the middle of winter with Marcus was not something she was going to contemplate. Maybe if the invitation was still there in the spring, but not now. Although, if she was honest, she couldn’t see herself ever considering going sailing with Jake—she just wasn’t that interested in spending more time with him, however nice he was.
As the day took its course, the man on her mind was not the amiable Jake. It was the cool reception she’d received earlier from a more mature member of the opposite sex that kept intruding into her thoughts.
Had he thought when she’d wished him a friendly good morning up on the landing that his concern on the night before had encouraged her to be over-familiar? She shuddered at the thought. From now on she would be so distant he might want his heater back to cope with the drop in temperature.
Harry had watched her from the window of his consulting room as she’d driven off, clearly offended, and told himself he was crazy. He was the one who’d crossed the divide between stranger and acquaintance. It hadn’t been Phoebe who’d made the gestures that he was now halfway to regretting, but neither did he have to upset her by trying to re-establish a sense of distance between them.
Then he reminded himself that he wouldn’t have been able to sleep easily with a crying baby so close, and it had been the same with the heater. It was essential that in January’s chill mother and child should be warm. Perhaps he should simply embrace being neighbourly?
The Village Nurse's Happy-Ever-After Page 4
