Hot-Shot Doc, Christmas Bride / Christmas At Rivercut Manor

by Joanna Neil / Gill Sanderson

  ‘Be careful, lad.’

  ‘I will.’ He dropped a kiss on Bethany’s head. ‘I’ve got too much to live for.’

  Where the hell was she?

  Chapter Twelve

  IT WAS going to be a whiter-than-white Christmas, thought Grace as she drove carefully along the snow-packed roads, blessing her new tyres. It was nice that Mike had phoned that morning, nice that he was concerned enough to forgive her interference yesterday, but right now the deserted landscape, the relentless wind and the whirling snow suited her mood. In her trusty vehicle she was the sheriff of the moors, with a hypodermic on each hip instead of a six-shooter. She brought comfort and reassurance. She kept the dreaded spectre of hospital in-patient wards at bay. She made it possible for her people to live the independent lives they wanted. And if the thought strayed across her mind that it would be nice to come home from all this to a warm house with a loving partner and a scamp of a little girl to cuddle, Grace ignored it. Mike needed to sort out his own life—she wasn’t going to get in the way of that again.

  She glanced at her watch—it was touch and go, but she thought she had time to squeeze in one last call. Nellie Farthing had mentioned that her foot was a bit sore, if Grace happened to be passing this way. Grace had decided to be ‘passing’ as soon as possible. Nellie was eighty-three and too tough for her own good. She lived with family who would soon ring if there was an urgent problem, but Grace wasn’t convinced Nellie always told them the ‘silly little things’ that bothered her.

  Because of the driving conditions it took longer than usual to get to Longsky farm. The place was well named. It stood on a hilltop, the highest point for miles. The views on a good day were entrancing. Today—with a sinking heart—all Grace could see were advancing stormclouds.

  Still, she was welcomed, told she was mad to come out in weather like this, given a mug of tea. Then she took the ever-cheerful Nellie into her bedroom for a quick examination. She was glad she had done so. Some time ago Nellie had had herpes zoster—shingles—and it had been painful. The pain had not quite disappeared. This was a condition known as post-herpetic neuralgia. Grace decided to give her more analgesics.

  There was another problem with the sole of Nellie’s left foot. She had developed an ulcer that would not heal—largely because she kept walking on it. Grace scolded, cleaned and dressed it, and obtained a promise that Nellie would spend less time standing and more time with her feet up. ‘I’ll be back in a week or so, but if your foot gets bad again, phone at once. I’m going to tell your son and daughter-in-law.’

  ‘I feel much better already,’ said Nellie. Grace thought that if this was true it would be a medical miracle—but she didn’t say anything.

  Nellie’s son was waiting for her at the front door. ‘Weather’s taken a turn for the worse,’ he said. ‘Look at that snow fly. And it’s falling dark too. I reckon you ought to stay the night.’

  She shook her head. ‘No need. Once I’m behind Kender Downfall I’ll be in a bit of a shadow. The wind and snow will be less there.’

  ‘Well, come back if there’s any trouble. Or phone me and I’ll come and fetch you on the tractor.’

  ‘I will, that’s a promise. Merry Christmas!’ She ran to her Land Rover.

  The weather was bad. Her windscreen wipers could only just keep the screen clear. The wind buffeted the car so it rocked, shaking her. The tyres had to fight for grip. A small voice in her head whispered that Mike might well have been right about her not going out on rounds today. Or at least cutting them short early. But she cheered herself by reflecting that Nellie at least had needed her. That ulcer on her foot could have got really nasty if left any longer. She drove on carefully, slowly, knowing that she would get home eventually.

  Coming down the steep slope into Kender Downfall was more like sledging than driving. But she made it, and progressed along the narrow road around the hill on the far side. And there with a jerk, she stopped—an inch from deep, piled snow. No way was she getting any further. There had been a mini-avalanche, the road was covered with loose snow to a depth of several feet. She sighed. This was what came of being awkward.

  She considered her options. She shared the general country view of people who got into trouble through their own stupidity, blithely expecting others to sort them out. The first thing she must do was reassure anyone who might worry about her, but she certainly wasn’t going to ring Mike and tell him he’d been right! With the last of her phone battery she called surgery Reception instead, saying she wouldn’t be back that night because of the bad weather. She would stay at the pub on the main road. Would the receptionist tell anyone who asked?

  It was a likely enough story—the Drovers’ Rest a few miles away was constantly putting up marooned travellers—but Grace had no intention of going there. She had a full ‘stranded’ kit in her car—a sleeping bag, blankets, a complete set of winter clothing and Kendal mint cake. From time to time she could start the engine to warm the inside of the car. The thing to do was not to panic. In a way she was half enjoying herself.

  She kept the car engine running while she swiftly stripped off her nurse’s uniform and pulled on heavy walking gear. Most important, a woolly hat pulled right down over her ears. A quarter of the body’s heat could be lost through the head and neck. Then she reclined the passenger seat, wriggled into the sleeping bag (not as easy as survival handbooks made it look), wrapped blankets round herself for good measure, and lay down to sleep. She was just a bit disturbed by the snow piling up on the windscreen and tried the radio to see if there were any weather alerts. Sadly, the signal was so badly distorted as to be unrecognisable. And it was a nuisance getting her arm in and out of the sleeping bag.

  Grace dozed, and woke again with Mike’s image in her mind. Now, what was the point of that? But her subconscious didn’t know any better. To make sure it got the message, she said ‘I love Mike Curtis’ out loud. Then added the killer sentence. ‘But he doesn’t love me.’ The words formed a tiny cloud of condensation over her lips.

  Does it matter?

  Now, that was a revolutionary thought. Mike was attracted to her physically. He cared for her in a friendly way, felt responsible for her. Did it matter that he didn’t love her to the exclusion of all else?

  She dozed again, worrying away at the problem she’d set herself. Then she woke and frowned. The windscreen was solid with snow, but there was a small light bobbing up and down on the road outside. She struggled to get her arm free and wound down her side window, shivering at the blast of cold air and snow.

  A light was coming towards her. A small light and a darker shadow behind it. A light carried by a man. The light flashed onto her face. A moment later the shadow stopped beside the car. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ it said forcefully.

  Mike Curtis’s voice. Grace blinked, unable to take it in. Was she having hallucinations? Could one hallucinate a voice? ‘Um, sleeping,’ she said.

  ‘Is the driver’s door unlocked?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t expect many thieves down here tonight. And I took the ignition key out.’

  ‘Do you know there are times when you have too much to say?’

  He disappeared round to the other side of the car. She shut her window, adjusted the seat so that it was upright again. From outside she heard the sounds of a man brushing the snow from his clothes. Then the door was opened, a rucksack bundled in—landing heavily on her lap—and Mike followed.

  He sat in the driver’s seat, grunting as he adjusted it to make space for his legs. From out of the rucksack he took a Thermos, poured a drink and handed it to her. ‘Here. Drink this before we start arguing.’

  The smell of coffee filled the car. She thought just that would be enough to revive her, but the coffee itself was even more blissful. She had to say something. ‘Do you know, I could kiss you for this?’

  ‘I don’t make a practice of kissing people I’m about to have a flaming row with.’

  ‘It’s all right, it w
as just a figure of speech. Mike, why have you come out here when I sent a message saying that I was all right?’

  ‘Because I want to shout at you very loudly and you aren’t answering your damn phone! How stupid can you get, Grace? I found your message on my desk! I might not have known at all. You hadn’t even had the courage to ring me yourself. “The pub on the main road” indeed—anything less helpful would be hard to imagine. I worked out where you’d been and phoned everywhere along the route. Longsky farm said you’d left in dreadful weather, even though you’d been offered a bed for the night! Dad told me about the Drovers’ Rest, so I phoned them, intending to give you hell—and you weren’t there! So I guessed you were stuck. I put my faith in the sat nav and arrived on the other side of this snow-dump.’

  Grace finished her coffee, feeling better by the minute. ‘Only to find that I was well wrapped up and sleeping peacefully.’

  ‘You were shivering.’

  ‘Because you opened the door! I would have been warm enough all night long otherwise.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  She decided not to argue. ‘Anyway, I do appreciate the coffee. And now I suppose you’re going to frogmarch me back to your car and take me home. Shall I bring the Kendal mint cake?’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking. Have you seen the weather out there? It’s evil! I’ve used up all my luck getting here—I’m not driving anywhere else tonight.’

  Grace looked at him blankly. ‘Then what was the point coming to find me?’

  ‘So I’d know you were safe! Look, I passed a barn a hundred yards or so back—that’ll be safer and warmer than sleeping in the car, won’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ She paused a moment and reluctantly added, ‘Thank you for coming to find me. It was good of you.’

  ‘I suspect you’d have done the same for me—if only to prove what an idiot I was. Come on, let’s go. What do you need to take from here?’

  ‘Everything. Have you got a sleeping bag?’

  ‘I’ve got the full kit. Following your example, remember?’

  ‘Right,’ she said gloomily. ‘I’ll put on my boots.’ She wasn’t exactly comfortable—but she was settled. Still, what he said made sense.

  It was freezing outside the car, the wind cut through all her layers of clothes. Mike hoisted his rucksack onto his back, helped her into hers, took her arm and led her through the snow. His torch flickered. Without a word she got hers out of her pocket and flashed it on.

  It seemed very hard work, pushing through the blizzard to the barn, but once inside the relief from the wind was immense. ‘Sit there,’ he said, and started hauling bales of hay to make a draught-proof wall.

  ‘Not a chance,’ she replied. She hung the torch on a convenient nail and did her share of dragging bales of hay together until they had constructed a small nest.

  ‘Cosy for the night,’ he said. ‘By the way, I never asked, you’re not wet, are you? No falling into streams or anything?’

  ‘I’m perfectly dry. Not even the snow has wetted me.’

  ‘Good. I wouldn’t want you to have to take your clothes off so I could warm you with the heat of my body.’

  ‘I’d rather freeze, thank you.’

  ‘Even if I bribed you with a sandwich and the rest of the coffee? Body heat is still something we have to conserve. I was going to suggest we zip our sleeping bags together and cuddle up to keep warm.’

  Grace scrutinised his face. Was he joking? Half joking? ‘Mike, we’ll be wearing all our clothes.’

  He looked unperturbed. ‘Of course. It would be stupid to do otherwise. It means we won’t notice the crumbs.’

  She laughed. ‘You’re impossible. Let’s do it. Boots off, though.’

  There was a surprising amount of room in the zippedtogether sleeping bags. They sat in them first of all, drinking the coffee and eating the sandwiches he had brought. Grace told him about Nellie Farthing, pointing out with only minor triumph that the old lady had indeed needed to see a nurse. It was odd—intimate in a strangely non-invasive way.

  Mike got out to turn off the torch, and she held her breath as he slid back in beside her. ‘Go to sleep,’ he said, his voice deep and comforting. ‘I’m not about to make advances.’

  Pity, she thought, and matched his chaste kiss on the cheek with one of her own. But it was no good, she couldn’t sleep. She loved him, and here he was lying next to her. And even if it had been unnecessary, he had come out in evil conditions to rescue her. It was bound to have an effect.

  She was surprisingly warm, much warmer than she had been in the car. Various layers of clothes, sleeping bag and then hay, they all warmed her. And Mike’s body heat, though he had rolled to the other edge of the sleeping bag.

  ‘You know, it’ll get colder,’ she murmured. ‘And to maximise our body heat we should be closer together.’

  ‘You mean it might be sensible to hug each other to keep warm?’

  ‘I think it could.’

  Well, of course, it made sense. They wriggled together. Grace found herself with one of Mike’s arms under her neck, the other round her waist. Their bodies were pressed together, one of his thighs was over hers. She buried her face naturally into his neck and felt his lips against her hair.

  ‘I’ve missed you so much, Grace,’ he breathed.

  He’d missed her? Grace pulled back in shock, straining to see his face in the irregular bars of moonlight. He’d missed her? Not Sarah? She made some sort of disbelieving, inarticulate sound.

  And then he kissed her.

  There was a world of longing in that kiss. And it felt so right, so very right. Had he come all this way, in this weather, to kiss her? And to do other things, judging by the way his hand had bypassed several layers of clothes in order to tug her vest out from the waistband of her trousers? There had been no need to bother, he could have…

  This was a pain! If she hadn’t known before why people got undressed before they went to bed, she certainly knew now. But with an excess of fumbling it was possible to loosen this and that, to unzip, to ease these down a bit…

  To feel suddenly flooded with heat. To cry out with desire. To experience his banked-up passion.

  Mike gave a low laugh. ‘I never thought I’d ever make love to a woman with woollen socks on up to my knees, whilst wearing a bobble hat.’

  ‘And I never thought I’d have a vest, T-shirt, shirt and sweater tucked under my chin and the bobble of his woolly hat tickling my nose.’

  ‘Sexy, isn’t it? We ought to write an extra chapter for one of those sex manuals. How to make love in a sleeping bag in freezing conditions whilst fully dressed.’

  Grace chuckled. ‘I’d love to see the diagrams. Oh, Mike…Oh, yes…No…Oh!’

  Outside there was the howling of the wind, the banging of a loose plank, the weight of the ever-falling snow. But inside they had made their own little world and they were happy in it.

  Afterwards they tenderly pulled together various bits of loosened clothing and hugged each other warm again. Grace snuggled into Mike’s side. ‘I feel warm and happy and content. But shouldn’t we talk?’

  ‘No,’ he said drowsily. ‘Not now. For now let’s just be.’

  So she slept. Tomorrow would come soon enough.

  In the morning, bright sunshine shone through various cracks in the barn walls and there was the clanking of a tractor outside. Grace blinked her eyes open. Heavens above! What time was it? She kissed the forehead of a stillsleeping Mike, wriggled out of bed, pulled on boots, zipped her anorak hastily over the haphazardness of her loosened clothes and went to look at the day.

  The storm had blown itself out. It was noticeably warmer. Mike’s car was parked outside the barn and Tom Farthing had just broken through the snowfall on his tractor.

  ‘Want to move your car down next to the doctor’s, Grace?’ he called. ‘Then I can clear the road properly.’

  ‘Um, yes. Yes, of course.’ She hurried to the Land Rover, fumbling for her keys. Was she bl
ushing?

  ‘That’s grand,’ shouted Tom over the noise of his engine, and chugged on his way.

  Grace returned to the barn. Mike was sitting up in the sleeping bag, rooting around in his rucksack. ‘Aha!’ he said, and drew out a second flask. He waved it at her. ‘Breakfast,’ he said.

  ‘Is that more coffee? Mike, you’re a marvel!’

  ‘Now and again. Was that the rescue brigade outside?’

  ‘Only Tom Farthing, clearing the road. But I think our cover is blown.’

  ‘Ah, well.’

  He didn’t say any more and Grace didn’t push it, just drank her coffee, more lukewarm than hot. He’d talk when he was ready.

  He slid out of the sleeping bag and they tidied up in a nearly companionable silence. ‘It’s very Swallows and Amazons, all this,’ he remarked. ‘I used to love the books when I was a boy. Sailing and camping and surviving in tough conditions.’

  She laughed. ‘And everyone living happily ever after.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his face sobering. ‘That’s the rub, isn’t it? Children’s stories always have happy endings. The burglars get caught, the horses escape the fire, the kids survive. Life isn’t always like that.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said. ‘But sometimes enough good things happen that you can pretend it is.’

  Had she said enough? She desperately hoped that he was going to open up to her. Surely after last night he’d have to admit they had the ability to make each other happy? It would do as a beginning.

  But instead he hoisted his rucksack and took it out to his car. ‘Grace, isn’t it lovely here?’

  The two of them looked around in silence. It was truly beautiful, the curves of the hills outlined by the sparkling white of the snow.

  ‘Yes, it is lovely,’ she agreed. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.’

  Another pause, the chance for him to say something more. ‘Do you want to follow me back?’ he said.

  ‘Mike!’

  He sighed. ‘I know, Grace, I know. Listen—yesterday, for the first time in over a year, I didn’t think about Sarah all day. I was too wound up thinking about you instead.’