‘That I can well believe,’ he said with a smile that took the edge off her irritation. He bent to fasten the harness of the car seat around the baby and then slid into the passenger seat beside her and they were off.
They were silent for most of the journey, but it was clear Phoebe hadn’t forgotten what he’d said. As the village came into view, she continued their earlier conversation. ‘I suppose your comments earlier were also raising the question of how happy Marcus would be if anything happened to me, and if he was left all alone in the world. That might be a fair comment but, Harry, everything we do in life is a risk. To me, a bigger risk would have been to let Marcus be saddled with a father who didn’t want him. I think you might have been down a similar road to that so will understand what I mean.’
When she looked across at him his expression was sombre but he didn’t say anything. She wondered if his hurt went too deep to talk about it to someone he’d only just met.
They were back at the surgery and as Harry was lifting Marcus out of the car, he suddenly said, ‘Thanks for the lift, Phoebe. In return, I’ll cook dinner tonight if you like.’
Oh, yes, she would ‘like’ was her immediate reaction to the suggestion, but like many travellers on the sea of life they both had baggage. On her part a hurtful divorce that had not been about infidelity but about rejection and selfishness, and on his a recent bereavement that so far he hadn’t spoken of.
So was she going to accept the offer because attached to it was going to be some prime time with him? No, she wasn’t. It would be crazy to step any further into each other’s lives than they had done already.
She let him down gently. ‘No, thanks just the same. I’ve got our meal already organised for tonight,’ and with a final turn of the screw, ‘I’ll see you on Monday, Harry.’ Ashamed that she hadn’t had the nerve to tell him the truth—that the more she saw of him, the more time she wanted them to spend together—she took Marcus from him and slowly climbed the stairs to what was left of another lonely weekend.
He was pushing his luck with Phoebe, Harry thought as he followed her some seconds later. Why couldn’t he have been satisfied with meeting her in the town and being near her in the car during the lift home? Oh, no, he’d wanted more, and ought to know better.
When he’d left Australia, he’d just been beginning to get over the horror of the accident that had cost Cassie her life. He’d set off for home deciding that those who stay alone were less likely to get hurt, so what was he doing now? Hanging around the first woman he’d come into close contact with like a teenage Romeo, that was what.
If he didn’t back off, Phoebe was going to start feeling trapped up there with him continually butting into her life, and there was really only one answer to that. He had to do what he’d intended on coming back to Bluebell Cove—find a permanent place to live.
He had expected his house hunting to be a leisurely thing, with the apartment a base from which to view in his own good time. properties that were on offer. But then again, he hadn’t expected to be living in such closeness to a single mother whose solitariness was pulling at his heart strings.
So why not start house hunting today? he thought bleakly. There wasn’t anything to stop him. He was sure that Phoebe wouldn’t be sorry to see him go.
The village’s estate agent was open but doing little business because of the time of year, so the young guy behind the counter had all the time in the world to tell him about an impressive list of properties for sale. That would be much reduced in quantity and greatly increased in price during the summer months.
There was an attractively converted barn, a large period cottage down a wooded lane not far from the village centre, a luxurious apartment in a new complex on the coast road, and even a small manor house that he could probably afford if he pulled out all the stops, but he couldn’t see himself rattling around a place like that on his own.
As the estate agent expounded upon their delights and advantages, he found he couldn’t work up enthusiasm for any of them because he was seeing a flight of worn uncarpeted stairs, a landing with two old oak doors on it, and behind one of them was…what?
A mother and child that he couldn’t stop thinking about, and they were making his longing for solitude go to pot. That was why the brochures of the properties displayed in front of him were not gripping his imagination.
Yet maybe if he viewed a couple of them he might become interested, and if he wasn’t there would still be plenty of others to consider. So he made a lukewarm appointment to view the manor house and the converted barn on Sunday morning.
‘Guess what I saw when I was out walking my dog yesterday,’ Lucy, the senior practice nurse, said first thing on Monday morning, when all the staff—with the exception of Harry—were warming up in the kitchen as usual.
Phoebe had just arrived after depositing Marcus at the nursery and joined in the laughter when Leo suggested jokingly, ‘Naturists on the beach?’
‘No,’ she replied in hushed tones. ‘I saw Howard from the estate agent’s showing our leader around one of the nicest houses in the area, Glades Manor!’
‘Wow!’ Leo said, and Phoebe thought miserably wow indeed. So much for their short, thought-provoking acquaintance in the apartments above. She would still see Harry in the surgery, but if he moved out there would no longer be the comforting feeling of having him near when their day’s work was done.
Yet she thought she understood his reasoning. Despite his initial awkwardness, he’d been great with her and Marcus. Most likely because he’d found himself in such close proximity and had felt that being neighbourly was the least he could do, but Harry had his own life to lead, as she did. It stood to sense that he wasn’t going to want to be living in an average apartment for long if he had the means to purchase something as prestigious as Glades Manor, which stood in several acres among the green meadows of the Devonshire countryside.
Leaving the staff still chatting about the comings and goings of Ethan Lomax’s successor, she went into Reception where the list of calls she had to make would be waiting for her. There she found the man on her mind leaning on the counter and chatting to Millie.
Harry was observing her keenly as she approached and deciding that Phoebe wasn’t well or something had upset her. Unaware of what was being talked about in the kitchen at the end of the passage, he hoped it wasn’t anything to do with him.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked in a low voice as the phone rang at that moment and Millie was occupied.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she lied. ‘I’m just about to sort out my day and then I’m off. Rory doesn’t need me any more, but George Enderby’s leg needs watching and my patient with the insulin injections is still not feeling too confident about giving them to himself.
‘Then there is old Jeremy Davenport, who has developed a bed sore after being confined to bed for so long in hospital with a difficult leg fracture. He’s home now but still incapacitated and the bed sore hasn’t completely gone, so it’s been passed to me.’
He was nodding gravely. ‘That sounds enough to keep you occupied but, Phoebe, if you get the chance, take note of snowdrops in cottage gardens. The daffodils and crocus won’t be long either. They are some of the things I missed while down under, as well as women with pale unblemished skin that the sun hasn’t tanned. It was the first thing I noticed about you.’
Was he paying her a compliment or hinting that she looked wishy-washy? she wondered, and in the next moment thought she had the answer as he went on to say dryly, ‘Just as long as you’re not anaemic.’
She was picking up her bag and about to head for the door. ‘I’m not. My mother’s skin was the same.’
‘And where is she now?’
‘She died shortly after I was married. We lost my father when I was small. Luckily my sister and her husband filled the gap when my marriage broke up. Katie and Rob were there for me every step of the way, and it made all the difference. Rejection slowly turned into revival.’ As the rest of the
staff came filing in from the kitchen, Phoebe wished she hadn’t opened up to him about her past so much, and said briskly, ‘I’m off, Dr Balfour, and I won’t forget about the snowdrops.’
I won’t forget that you are house hunting either, she thought glumly as she left the village behind and drove along the coast road to the first of her home visits.
Was it significant that it had happened the morning after she’d been so unapproachable and turned down his offer of dinner? she pondered. Yet surely he hadn’t set such store by her acceptance of the offer that he’d decided to move into somewhere more permanent when she’d refused.
One thing was sure, there was no way she was going to mention Glades Manor to Harry. He had no idea that Lucy had seen him viewing it when she’d been out walking her dog, and she felt he would take a dim view of it being surgery gossip that could end up on the village grapevine. If he didn’t tell her she wasn’t going to ask. It was as simple as that.
As the days went by, the house remained on the market and Harry and Phoebe were polite but distant when they met on the wooden staircase or on the landing.
He didn’t knock on her door again as January shivered into February, and, as he’d reminded her they would, daffodils were nodding in golden perfection in small gardens and sheltered glades, with crocus blooming beside them less gracefully but just as beautiful.
Harry had been impressed by the small manor house, it had been beautifully restored by the present owner, but every time he thought about it, he felt that it was a house that needed a family. It needed parents with growing children and maybe more to come, not a wifeless, childless, empty vessel like him.
He was staying clear of Phoebe as much as possible in the evenings and at weekends because he felt that he’d been too pushy. Deep down, he knew that finding a permanent place to live was the thing to do, but something was holding him back. As he lay sleepless, or at the best tossed and turned restlessly in his solitary bed, the reason why was just a few feet away behind a door that remained steadfastly closed against him.
Phoebe had no intention of attending the Valentine’s Day ball that the village’s social events committee was organising, until Lucy surprised her by offering to look after Marcus while she went.
‘It’s time you got out and about more,’ she said kindly, ‘and if you could bring baby Marcus across to Jenna and Lucas’s house, where I’ve promised to babysit Lily, I can look after them both. So what do you think?’ As Phoebe hesitated, she continued, ‘There will be a few there from the surgery. Even Harry has bought a ticket, though I doubt he’ll make use of it.’
‘Yes, all right then,’ Phoebe said. ‘I’d love to go. Marcus is always asleep by seven o’clock at the latest, so when its time to go I can carry him across wrapped in a warm blanket and settle him on the couch for the evening. Once he’s in a really deep sleep he rarely wakes up so you shouldn’t have any problems with him.’
When Harry heard Lucy telling Maria, the other practice nurse, that she was going to mind Lily and Marcus on the night of the ball, he stopped Phoebe one morning as she was leaving the practice and wanted to know why she hadn’t asked him to take care of Marcus.
He said, ‘It seems to me that you’re making heavy weather of something that could be so simple if you left me in charge of him.’
‘I was told that you’ve already bought a ticket,’ she said, trying to conceal her surprise at his suggestion.
‘Yes, I have, but it doesn’t say I’ll be going, unless you’re short of an escort.’
‘Do you have to make me sound so needy?’ she snapped, irritated.
‘I’m not. I just thought you might be going with that Jake person.’
‘What?’ she cried with increasing indignation. ‘Why him?’
‘Thought he had the hots for you, that’s all.’
‘He might have had, but they soon cooled down when he found out about Marcus, and before you ask if I was upset, the answer is no.’
‘So you’ll let me take you to this Valentine’s Ball, then?’
‘If you intend on going, yes.’ Still rattled by him taking her for granted, she went on, ‘It will be one step better than standing around the edges of the dance floor like a wallflower.’
Harry was taking in the sarcasm and trying not to smile. He hadn’t intended doing anything of the sort until he’d discovered that she would be there, but now he was totally tuned in to the thought of dancing the night away with her in his arms.
She went out on the district then, still stunned by his offer to mind Marcus while she went to the ball but glad that Lucy’s offer had come first. For the first time she was now looking forward to it, though she had no intention of letting Harry know that. Instead, like most women with a special occasion in view, she was already debating what to wear.
Since splitting up with Darren, the only clothes she’d bought had been maternity wear, plus those in the department store on the Saturday when Harry had seen her on the way to the car park. Unless she could find time for another quick trip in to town before the ball, it would have to be one of the smart outfits she’d worn when she’d been married, which belonged to what she thought of as the days of wine and poses.
There was a new patient on her list that morning. The surgery had sent her to evaluate what kind of care and assistance was needed by the local plumber, who had just been unexpectedly diagnosed with a form of inoperable stomach cancer that was terminal.
Expecting to see a very sick man, she was amazed to see him painting the outside of his bungalow on one of the lanes leading from the village’s main street with every appearance of good health. When he assured her that he was fine, she left him to it, knowing that soon he was going to need the special care of a hospice, but for now she was content to leave him to enjoy a task that he might not be able to do for much longer.
Back at the surgery Harry was too busy to think any further about the strange conversation they’d just had, or the outcome of it. It was one of those mornings when one crisis was following another.
The first was parents bringing in their seriously unwell five-year-old daughter. The moment he saw the child Harry realised that she was showing signs of meningitis—the light was hurting her eyes, she was running a temperature, had an inflamed throat and, most worrying of all, the red rash of the illness that was one of its most easy to recognise symptoms.
He was amazed that they hadn’t taken their child straight to hospital, yet was aware that where most parents were swift to panic, others were slow to grasp the seriousness of a situation. Within seconds he was phoning for an ambulance and emphasising the extreme seriousness of the little girl’s condition.
The response to his call was fast and soon she was on her way to hospital with sirens screeching and paramedics and her stunned parents watching over her.
As he’d watched them go he had prayed they would get there before the infection took its terrible toll. If the child was treated quickly there would be a chance, but modern medicines and the Almighty would be equally responsible for the outcome.
The next person to give grave cause for concern was Lorraine Forrest, who controlled the school crossing as lollipop lady. A pleasant thirty-year-old with twin boys in the juniors section, she’d been knocked down outside the surgery while doing her job by a car driver who had collapsed at the wheel. A member of the public had come rushing inside to inform the doctors.
Harry and Leo were out and running in a flash to find the young mother lying on the crossing with a crowd beginning to gather around her and the local policeman frantically redirecting the traffic.
The driver was still slumped over the wheel and passers by had just managed to get the car door open when the two doctors appeared, so Leo went to check him out while Harry knelt beside Lorraine.
She was semi-conscious, with one of her legs bent awkwardly beneath her and bleeding from the temple where she must have hit the road or come into contact with the car bonnet.
When he checked her hear
tbeat it was erratic, which was not surprising under the circumstances, and she was beginning to go into shock. She was cold and shaking as if with ague and needed warmth to help ward off the effects. For goodness’ sake, where were Lucy and Maria, the practice nurses?
‘Has anyone sent for an ambulance?’ he bellowed above the noise of the traffic and the voices all around him.
‘Yes, I’ve asked for two,’ the policeman said, pausing in his task for a moment.
This is hellish, Harry thought. Where were the rest of his staff? He couldn’t leave the injured woman but she desperately needed blankets over her and any other kind of heating they could rustle up in the surgery.
He was about to tell one of the onlookers to go and find a nurse when Phoebe’s small runabout pulled up at the kerb beside him. Thank God, he thought to himself.
She was out of the car in a second and he cried, ‘Blankets and anything else you can find to keep her warm. Lorraine is in shock and we can’t move her because she has what looks like a serious leg fracture.’
She turned and was gone, returning seconds later with a pile of blankets and a hot-water bottle that she’d found. As they did their best to wrap the blankets around the injured woman and placed the hot-water bottle at her feet, he gave a tight smile and said, ‘Is it history repeating itself, do you think?’
She smiled back. ‘It might be. If you are wondering what’s happened to Lucy and Maria, Lorraine’s mother was in the waiting room and she collapsed when someone came in with the news that her daughter had been hit by a car. She’s only just coming round because she banged her head on a radiator as she fell.’
He groaned. ‘What a mess! Leo is doing his stuff with the old guy who caused all this. We don’t know yet what made him collapse at the wheel but as soon as the ambulances arrive, our two casualties—or perhaps I should say three, including Lorraine’s mother—need to be taken to A and E fast.’
The Village Nurse's Happy-Ever-After Page 6
