Summer Seaside Wedding

by Abigail Gordon

  He’d even found her an evening job down on the beach to keep them apart, which she’d referred to coldly. Yet he had known he wouldn’t be able to keep away from her even then. She was the best thing that had happened to him in years, but because he couldn’t forget the past he’d spoilt what they’d had.

  She’d already been hurt by lover boy across the Channel, and been cursed with parents who were never there for her. He longed to make up for those things, but whether he would ever be the right one for Amelie was another matter.

  He wasn’t wrong about her reaction when Harry said first thing on Monday morning, ‘You are on your own today with the home visits, Amelie. We’re passing on to you the ones that should be the least traumatic. Although one can never be sure of that. Some of the calls we receive asking for a visit don’t describe clearly enough the seriousness of the problem. Anyway, see how you get on. If you come across anything you can’t handle, give one of us a ring.’

  She managed a smile that was a cover-up for what she was really thinking, which was that Leo had to be behind her suddenly being seen as ready to work on her own.

  As if Harry had read her mind he said, ‘Having had you with him while he was doing house calls, Leo feels that you are ready to go solo.’

  There had been no sign of him so far and she said casually, ‘Where is Leo, Dr Balfour? I haven’t seen him since I arrived.’

  ‘Went out on an urgent call at eight o’clock and isn’t back yet,’ he said briefly, and went to sort out his own day.

  By the time Leo returned, Amelie was already dealing with her allocation of those in the waiting room, and as the morning progressed there was no time to dwell on anything but the problems of patients who had come for help and relief from the failings of the body.

  Jonah Trelfa was one of those. A strapping sixty-year-old farmer with snow-white hair and a ruddy complexion, he’d come with chest pains and breathlessness, which had set alarm bells ringing.

  Amelie had worked in a cardiac unit in the French hospital that she’d left in so much haste to catch her flight to the UK, and knew the signs of a heart problem.

  ‘Is it just indigestion, Doctor?’ he asked when she’d finished examining him, almost pleading for a reprieve.

  ‘I don’t think so, Mr Trelfa,’ she told him gently. ‘Your heart is not behaving itself at the present time and needs sorting. If you would like to come with me to the nurses’ room they will do an ECG and we’ll take it from there.’

  The results indicated that atrial fibrillation was present and before she sent for an ambulance Amelie went to seek out one of the other doctors to confirm that she was doing the right thing.

  Harry was with a patient but Leo had just returned from what had turned out to be a lengthy house call, and as their glances met she was relieved that their first meeting after the putdown of Sunday night should be about the needs of someone else rather than their own.

  When she’d explained about Jonah’s ECG she said, ‘Could you spare a moment to examine him first before I summon an ambulance?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he replied, and when he’d done as she asked said, ‘Send Mr Trelfa to the cardiac unit straight away. There are worse heart defects than atrial fibrillation, but no GP should hesitate to send a patient with that kind of problem to be checked out.’

  As he turned to go he asked in a low voice, ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Yes. Fine. Just doing my job and taking life as it comes,’ she told him lightly, then closed the door behind him and gave her attention to Jonah, who needed her more than Leo did. But the feeling that life in Bluebell Cove had lost its sparkle was still very much in her mind.

  She’d been totally content since arriving there with a place in the practice waiting for her, and with Leo, fantastic Leo, kind and supportive all the time. But now he wanted to opt out of their brief enchanted relationship for reasons that he understood…and she didn’t.

  By the time Jonah had departed in the ambulance to Hunter’s Hill Hospital, exhibiting a stoic calm for someone with newly diagnosed heart disease, Leo was closeted with his own patients and the morning progressed in the Tides Practice until it was time for a quick bite and then off into coast and countryside to visit the sick and suffering. So far the only time they had spoken had been the brief exchange of words about a patient.

  That was about to change. When Amelie went out onto the forecourt of the practice to acquaint herself with the car that had been provided for her, Leo was on the point of leaving but stopped when he saw her. Winding down the car window, he asked, ‘So are you au fait with the arrangements for today, Amelie?’

  ‘And what arrangements would they be?’ she asked coolly.

  ‘Doing the home visits on your own.’

  ‘Yes. I’m “au fait” with most things’, she told him. ‘I’ll phone if there is anything I am not sure of.’

  ‘Of course,’ was the reply, ‘but we are talking about the practice.’

  ‘Exactly,’ she agreed, and settled herself behind the wheel of the hire car with a determination that had a message of its own.

  Her first call was at the home of a smart middle-aged woman called Beverley McBride, who was much involved in village affairs, but not on this occasion.

  A week ago she had been operated on for the removal of her gall bladder by keyhole surgery and of the three incisions made in her chest and stomach, two were healing well, but the third was not.

  It had the redness of inflammation with a blueish tinge to it and Amelie prescribed antibiotics, along with a warning that if there was no improvement in a couple of days to contact the practice immediately.

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t go back to the hospital as that is the place where you could have caught the infection,’ she said when the patient was ready for off.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Beverley agreed, ‘but when I was discharged they said if I had any problems I must see my GP.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Amelie replied, unaware that she would be seeing Beverley McBride again very soon.

  Her next call was a routine one at the moment. A daily visit to yet another middle-aged woman who had just had a bone from a bone bank fitted in her hip socket in place of her own, which had crumbled away, and was being given regular injections in the stomach to stop infection at such a delicate stage of her recovery.

  It was all very exciting to be working on her own instead of being the onlooker that she’d been when out on the district with Leo, but it didn’t take away the hurt she’d been carrying around with her ever since the previous night.

  Having accomplished all the visits she’d been given to do, Amelie was driving back to the surgery when she was surprised to see Leo parked at the side of the road in the process of changing a flat tyre. When she would have driven past, he flagged her down.

  When they’d separated outside the surgery and he’d driven off in the opposite direction from her, he’d thought so much for last night’s diplomacy—a bull in a china shop would have been less clumsy.

  He must have been insane to be prepared to cancel out their attraction to each other because of what had happened long ago, but its effect on him was still there in the form of always avoiding any kind of commitment with the opposite sex, and he’d felt that was where they were heading.

  He’d never given much thought over the years to what those he met saw him as, had been carefree and popular wherever he’d gone, but had always been on his guard.

  Then along had come Amelie, younger than him and on her own due to the selfishness of others. He’d been jolted out of the life he’d led and was having to take a long, hard look at himself.

  He supposed meeting her might not have led to so much soul-searching if he hadn’t the example of Harry and Phoebe’s love for each other always in front of him, along with the other man’s comments about what he saw as Leo’s empty life, a situation that would have lingered on if he hadn’t met Amelie.

  So what had he done? He’d called a halt to the wond
erful thing that had been happening between them before it had had a chance to take hold because he was discovering that her happiness was very important to him.

  For her to be hurt again by him would be unthinkable if he couldn’t forget Delphine, so he’d been prepared to end it, hadn’t slept a wink afterwards, and the result was she hadn’t been prepared to stop on seeing him there by the roadside until he’d waved her down.

  He wasn’t to know that the desire to pull in beside him had been there but not the certainty that it was the right thing to do after what he’d said the night before, so she would have driven on if he hadn’t signalled for her to stop.

  When she went to stand beside him in a lay-by at the road edge, with a reluctance that didn’t go unobserved, he was almost done and ready to be off, but looking down at his hands, which were decidedly oily, it seemed as if it was the right moment to say, ‘I flagged you down to ask if you have any wipes with you to get my hands clean. I usually have some in the glove compartment but must have run out.’

  He’d been so desperate to have a moment alone with her that he’d come up with a trite excuse to get her to stop, and as she fished a packed out of her bag and handed it to him he thought that it had been all he could think of at that moment, and hoped that in the near future Amelie would have no reason to look in the place he’d described as being empty of them.

  As he wiped the grime off his hands the silence she was hiding behind continued, and wanting to end it he asked, ‘So how has it gone, doing the rounds on your own?’

  She spoke at last and her voice sounded stiff and formal. ‘All right, thank you. Dr Balfour explained it was on your advice that I was doing some of the rounds on my own, and I felt quite sure that it was all part and parcel of last night’s dumping.’

  ‘That’s an ugly word. I hate it.’

  ‘But you don’t hate what it stands for. You’d already put your plans into motion for getting rid of me with regard to our shared visits to the patients, and followed it up by preaching the gospel according to you. But as I’m used to the role of cast-off, it wasn’t such a shock. Though there is one thing that puzzles me, Leo.’

  ‘And what is that?’ he asked bleakly.

  ‘You’ve never made love to me or even kissed me. So why did you warn me off, unless you thought the nondescript French doctor at the surgery might fall in love with you and mess up your pleasure-loving private life? ‘If that was the case, you need no longer concern yourself. You are just one of those who have found me surplus to requirements, so fret not.’ And, wanting to make a statement, she strode across to her car with a graceful leisured step until, with her hand almost on the door handle, she was swung round and found her face only inches away from his.

  ‘Did you listen to a word I said last night?’ he demanded. ‘Or were you so full of your hurt that it didn’t register with you that I was trying to save you from more of the same kind of thing?

  ‘No, I’ve never kissed you, or made love to you, and you think it’s because I don’t want to, do you? Well, how about this for an introduction?’ Taking her face between his still oily hands, he kissed her, gently at first, then, as she became aroused, more demandingly, until she was limp in his arms.

  It took another motorist pulling up noisily in the lay-by to bring them back to reality. With cheeks bright red and the rest of her weak with longing Amelie moved out of his arms and as they faced each other he said huskily, ‘Now do you understand?’

  ‘No!’ she told him weakly. ‘I don’t. How can I?’

  Opening the car door, she eased herself into the driver’s seat and drove off into the summer afternoon, leaving him standing motionless, as if the last few moments had turned him into stone.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE next morning, with all three doctors closeted with their patients in the first surgery of the day, Amelie considered that for anyone else those stolen moments in the lay-by would have been the beginning of a tender, breathtaking romance, but not when she was the woman involved.

  Leo had asked her if she understood after setting her senses on fire but there was no way she could have said she did.

  It was as if what had just taken place between them had been an ending rather than a beginning. She was bewildered by what was happening to them. Yet one thing had been made clear. Now she knew that given the chance she could love Leo with heart, mind and body, if he ever gave her the opportunity.

  He was passionate, mind-blowingly attractive and kind. But there was no way she was going to let those things sweep her into a situation where she was going to be hurt again. Leo had got it right about that. A man with fewer scruples would have led her on, but not him.

  It might work for someone else, a tougher woman, less vulnerable than she was, but not for her. If she was on her own for the rest of her life, it would be better than making a mistake now, so she was going to do as Leo had asked and stay away from him in every way except at the practice, where she would try to avoid him as much as possible.

  Right now she had to focus on her patients, and she was surprised to see that her next one was Beverly McBride, her gall-bladder patient.

  She had given her a supply of antibiotics to clear the infection and now she was back to say that the inflammation was disappearing, but during the night a clear water-like substance had started to come from the wound and it hadn’t been just a dribble.

  Needless to say, it was causing concern and when she’d examined the source of it and taken note of the much-improved state of the infected area, Amelie asked. ‘Did it smell at all?’

  The answer was no and she explained that it would be some sort of aftermath of the operation. That sometimes air and fluids are pumped into the area where that kind of surgery was to take place.

  ‘It doesn’t always happen,’ Amelie told her, ‘but I’ve seen it a few times. It is drainage, which is a good omen rather than a bad one. But on the other hand, if it occurs again I suggest that you ring the hospital just to be sure.’

  ‘They told me not to get in touch with them if I had any problems,’ Beverly reminded her.

  ‘Yes, maybe they did, but one thing they didn’t tell you was that this might happen, so I feel you are entitled to put the ball in their court if they refuse to see you.’

  When she’d gone, only partly reassured with instructions to ring the hospital, preferably, or otherwise the surgery if it happened again, Maria, the young practice nurse, came in with coffee. She paused for a second to say, ‘My dad thinks you are a fantastic swimmer. He’s looking forward to you giving him some help in the evenings down on the beach.’

  Amelie smiled across at her from behind the desk and told her, ‘I’m looking forward to it as well, Maria.’ She added wistfully, ‘From what he has told me, it sounds as if you are part of a very happy family.’

  ‘Er, yes, I suppose I am,’ she agreed, surprised at the comment but having no cause to disagree. ‘Mum and Dad are fantastic. He’s great with us kids and with those he meets on the beach.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure he is,’ Amelie said with a vision of brief visits to a chilly chateau coming to mind and years of birthday and Christmas gifts sent by mail order.

  Breaking into her sombre memories, Maria said, ‘Have you seen Dr Fenchurch with the children who are brought to the surgery? He is fantastic too. Has lots of patience, makes them laugh, yet doesn’t let a single thing escape him medically. Parents with a sick child nearly always ask to see him.’

  Amelie swallowed hard. What Maria had said described him exactly. Leo was another man who would make a good father from the sound of it, but he seemed to have doubts about the rest of married life or he would have been spoken for long ago.

  It was all becoming just too confusing and when Maria had gone back to the nurses’ room she called in her next patient and so the day progressed.

  At six-thirty Leo was still ensconced in his consulting room so she made a quick departure and went back to the house for a snack and a change of clothes before go
ing down to the beach to renew her acquaintance with Ronnie the family man once more.

  A short time later, with his day at the practice over now, Leo saw her leave from the window of his apartment and thought that Amelie must feel she had seen and felt enough of him for one day. His presence on the beach this evening would be about as welcome as a rip tide, and, going into his kitchen, he began to make himself a leisurely meal.

  A couple of hours had passed and the sun was still high in the sky. He’d been watching for her return and so far it hadn’t materialised. He hoped that Ronnie had sorted something out about getting her employed in the proper sense of the word as a temporary lifeguard and not as a voluntary performer. Giving in to the urge to go and find out, he set off for the headland.

  When Amelie had arrived there earlier the beach had been packed with families and teenagers enjoying the sun and the sea as white-tipped breakers surged back to where they’d come from, but now the numbers were lessening as folks went to eat in the café at the top of the causeway, in a restaurant in the village or just went back home for whatever was on offer, and he saw her sitting on a rock, gazing out to sea as she ate an ice-cream cornet.

  He smiled. Just seeing her again was making him feel better and he went striding down from the headland to join her, not sure of his welcome but chancing it nevertheless, and noting as he did so that there was no sign of Ronnie anywhere.

  As if she sensed he was near, Amelie turned and her heartbeat quickened at the sight of the golden man who had captured her heart and was wishing he hadn’t. Why was he there? she wondered. To carry on where they’d left off in the lay-by yesterday?

  ‘Hi,’ he said when he drew level. ‘Where’s Ronnie?’

  ‘Gone back home for a well-earned meal.’

  ‘So what sort of arrangement is this going to be?’ he questioned. She was so amenable he wasn’t going to allow anyone to take advantage of it, himself included.