Summer Seaside Wedding

by Abigail Gordon

  Of course he would see her around, she thought glumly when he’d gone. They both worked at the practice, didn’t they? She would have that small comfort, if nothing else.

  When she arrived there on the Monday morning it was as if a cloud of sadness was hanging over the place because the woman who had served it so well for many years until her own health had brought her to a halt had succumbed to a massive heart attack.

  Lucy, who liked to chat before the day began, was white faced and silent. She had been Barbara Balfour’s one and only close friend, had known her faults and her failings just as well as she’d known the woman’s dedication to her calling.

  They’d called her ‘battling Barbara’ but Lucy knew that her battles had never been for herself. They’d been with the authorities when she’d thought they had been failing a patient, or with the hospital if she’d thought they had been dragging their feet regarding appointments.

  If Lucy had been close to her, so had Harry, especially during his young years. Phoebe had asked him if he would like their new baby daughter to be christened Barbara, but always one to call a spade a spade he’d said with a wry smile, ‘It’s a lovely thought, Phoebe, but I don’t want our innocent little one to be called after my aunt, even though I had the greatest respect for her.

  ‘She was a fantastic doctor, served her patients to the limit of her endurance, but when it came to her family, she fell far short. We both know loving families are what it’s all about, and while we’re on the subject I do not want to call our baby after Cassie either, as you once suggested.’

  ‘My life with her wasn’t a bed of roses by any means, so no to Cassie. The only name that warms my heart is yours, and if we can find one just as beautiful, that will be it.’

  Amelie had been treating Leo with cool politeness since arriving at the surgery and every time anyone mentioned the funeral looming up on Friday she wished herself miles away because he had said he would be there for her and she didn’t want him to feel it was something else she required of him on sufferance.

  In the meantime, the waiting room was filling up with those who had problems of their own to contend with and would be expecting her to pull a cure out of the hat, or at the least some relief from the ills of body and mind.

  Her first patient of the day was Martha Maguire, cook at the village school. She had itchy weals all over her skin, with yellowish white centres surrounded by inflammation.

  When asked the usual questions regarding eating different foods not usually part of her diet, changing to a different kind of washing powder or the possibility of garden hazards, there didn’t seem to be any answers to explain the rash.

  ‘It looks like urticaria,’ Amelie told her, ‘or nettle rash, as it is sometimes known, and is rarely serious, except in cases when other illnesses are present, such as lupus erythematosus or vaculitis. It usually clears up without too much fuss by using calamine lotion for the raised areas on the skin and antihistamine tablets for inward treatment of the irritation. I’ll give you supplies of both. Come back if there is no improvement during the next few days.’

  Martha was smiling. ‘Thanks, Doctor. Sounds like I made a fuss about nothing, but working in a school one is open to all the children’s illnesses. Some of the parents send them when they should be at home, and even though what I’ve got isn’t serious, I’m going to have to stay at home as they won’t want me to handle food with a rash, and I don’t blame them.’

  ‘You didn’t fuss over nothing, Mrs Maguire. It is always best to be sure when something strange happens to our bodies,’ she told her.

  Jonah Trelfa, who’d been a patient with a heart problem on her first day at the practice, followed the school cook. He’d come for a repeat prescription of the medication the hospital had put him on that day and was looking much fitter than he had done then.

  As he lowered himself on to the seat opposite he said, ‘I’ve just seen Dr Fenchurch going into the boutique. Is Georgina poorly?’

  ‘I’m afraid I have no idea, Mr Trelfa,’ she told him politely, acutely aware that Leo was giving his friend his full attention in whatever way she was demanding it. Yet she had to have a rethink when an ambulance came screeching along the road and stopped outside the shop. Seconds later paramedics came out with its owner on a stretcher and Leo by her side.

  He watched as it disappeared from sight, then turned and went back into the shop. He was at the surgery when the staff stopped for lunch, and when about to go to the baker’s across the way asked if he could bring her anything.

  Her reply was ‘No, thank you.’ And before she could ask about his friend, he nodded as if her refusal wasn’t unexpected and went on his way.

  By the time he came back there was no need to ask about the boutique owner. The news was filtering around the surgery that she had been taken into hospital with gastroenteritis.

  She’d just said ‘I see’ when he’d told her he’d been in the boutique most of the night. But it must have been the way she’d said it that had prompted him to tell her about the milk delivering farmer’s reaction when he’d seen him coming out of there.

  She wanted to tell him she was sorry, yet what had she done wrong?

  When he’d told her where he’d been during the night, she’d been too overwrought about the episode in the woods to take too much notice, and in any case did it matter?

  He kept making it clear that he didn’t want her, so why should he be blamed if he had a yearning for someone else, and in any case it hadn’t been like that, he’d gone to answer a cry for help in his capacity as a doctor.

  At the end of the day he caught her up as she was leaving and said casually, ‘Is it the beach again tonight?’

  ‘Er, yes,’ she replied, and before he could say anything else went on, ‘Have you heard how your friend is?’

  ‘Yes. She’s quite poorly. Last night it was severe stomach pains. I felt that she might have some degree of food poisoning that would clear itself, as it often does, but it was much worse this morning so I had her admitted to hospital.

  ‘Georgina’s mother is on her way from the Scilly Isles to be with her while she gets over this, so it should all end happily enough once she is clear of the infection, which is not always the case, is it, Amelie?’

  She was her usual direct self as she asked, ‘Are you referring to us?’

  ‘I might be.’

  ‘What happened on Saturday was my fault, Leo. It was stupid of me. Over the years I’ve learned never to take anything for granted. It helped a lot when Antoine dumped me for the red-haired nurse, but I didn’t bring caution into play when I let my feelings get the better of me while you were drying my feet. So will you accept my apology?’

  He groaned softly. ‘You have nothing to be sorry about, Amelie. I also let my feelings get the better of me, so we’re quits.’

  ‘I thought we were on the same wavelength until yesterday,’ she told him, ‘even though you do have reservations, but it seems as if I was way out.’

  They were at her gate. She was ready to do her quick skip up the drive, but he wasn’t going to let her do it this time, at least not until he’d said his piece.

  Gripping her arm, he swung her round to face him and said tightly, ‘Do you want it on the drive, in the sitting room, the bath, or more traditionally on the bed?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she cried.

  ‘Making love, of course. Surely I don’t have to spell it out.’

  The heat of anger was replacing the chill of the question she’d just asked. ‘Oh, yes, you do! Thanks for offering to oblige me, but, no, thanks.’

  She wrenched herself out of his grip and he made no move to stop her. Turning, he walked slowly towards the apartment, unlocked the door at the bottom of the wooden staircase and proceeded upwards, considering as he did so what he would have done if she’d taken him at his word.

  When he’d gone Amelie shut the door behind her and stood in the hallway with cheeks flaming and eyes sparking fire as it r
egistered that Leo had been telling her in a roundabout sort of way that he would do the asking if there was any to be done. Well, so much for that. He could ask until he was blue in the face from now on.

  Barbara Balfour took her last ride through Bluebell Cove in a glass-sided coach on four wheels pulled by black horses that tossed the plumes on their heads proudly as they passed the silent crowds lining the pavements.

  They were on the way to the private family service and Amelie, sitting next to Leo in one of the funeral cars, had a feeling that they were going to be paired off during both of the services that had been arranged.

  Every woman’s dream man and the nondescript French doctor as a twosome were bound to result in raised eyebrows in some quarters.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AMELIE’S surmise that she would be partnered with Leo had been correct and it had been a relief when the funeral was over and they had returned to the practice where a reduced staff had kept the place going during the absence of the three doctors and Lucy.

  To Leo’s amazement, Keith Balfour had taken him to one side after the service in the church and asked if he’d meant what he’d said to Jenna about buying his house.

  He’d been the patient and loving husband of a difficult woman for many years and was now a changed character, already making plans for a world cruise with the intention of coming back from it to a newly built apartment on the coast road.

  ‘Yes, I was serious,’ Leo had told him. ‘Four Winds is in a fantastic position. Whenever you feel ready, I will be only too pleased to discuss buying it. There is no rush,’ he’d assured the older man with a dismal reminder of Amelie’s closed countenance during the two services.

  The only time it had lightened had been when she’d stood in front of the mourners in the old Norman church and reverently done what had been asked of her by the Balfour family, reciting in her precise English the reading they had chosen.

  He’d been near while she’d done it, as he’d promised he would be, but he might as well have been invisible for all the notice she’d taken of him, and if he hadn’t been so keen to buy Four Winds House he might have been less enthusiastic when its owner had brought up the subject.

  ‘I’m off on my world cruise in a few weeks,’ Keith had told him in reply to him saying there was no rush, ‘and would like it to be settled before I go, if that’s all right with you.’

  He’d assured him that it would be, even though his original interest had not been from the point of view of living there alone.

  Autumn was on the brink, he’d thought as he’d returned to the surgery after the funeral. Days were shortening, harvests were being brought in, and even with a ready-made buyer for his property Keith Balfour wasn’t going to have contracts signed before he went, but surely they could trust each other?

  Amelie was back before him and already seeing a patient, but Harry had gone back to the hospital with Marcus to be with Phoebe and the baby, so there would be his patients to add to their lists today and some catching up to do as well.

  When surgery was over at last, he put aside his longing to be with Amelie and drove to the hospital to bring Georgina and her mother home. The boutique owner was due to be discharged in the early evening and that would be one less worry on his mind.

  She was just a friend who would have liked to have been more, but he’d made it clear that his feelings didn’t match hers. His concern over her had been just that of an acquaintance, the kind of thing he would do for anyone in distress, and now that her mother had arrived he could step back and let her take over.

  Amelie watched him drive off and felt the melancholy of the day increase.

  Leo hadn’t spoken to her since the funeral. Keith had buttonholed him and by the time he’d been free she’d been back at the surgery, trying to catch up from her absence earlier.

  It would seem that he’d gone to visit Georgina, she thought miserably. She understood the other woman’s need of his presence, yet he could have said something, if only goodbye, before he’d gone.

  Maybe he felt he’d seen enough of her for one day, and on that thought she went back to the house, had a quick bite, and went down to the beach to keep the amiable Ronnie company.

  Storm clouds were gathering when she got there and those present were hurriedly packing up their belongings and getting ready for the off before there was a deluge. Ronnie followed them soon after, not expecting to be needed after the general exodus, and Amelie was about to do the same when she was halted in her tracks by the appearance of an anxious mother who announced that they couldn’t find their youngest child, a four-year-old boy called Freddie.

  ‘I thought he was with his dad up in the front of the bus and he thought he was with me at the back with our twin girls,’ she said frantically, ‘and we can’t find him. He is a little wanderer if he gets the chance.’ She looked around her anxiously. ‘The tide is going out, isn’t it?’

  She didn’t get a reply. Amelie had gone round a bend on the rocky part of the shore to see if the child was playing in the next inlet, but the strip of sand was bare of anyone, especially a small child. Yet as she scanned the foam-tipped waves that were surging back to where they’d come from she saw a small blond head above them, rising and falling with each movement of the sea as it departed.

  She called to the child’s mother just once, then flung herself into the water and was immediately aware of the pull of the current beneath her. It was then that her swimming prowess came to her aid. Gathering up all her strength, she grabbed the little boy and began to fight her way back to shore, but with every stroke she slid further out and the child she was holding began to struggle and scream.

  When a head of damp golden fairness bobbed up beside her she was overwhelmed with relief, and when the voice she’d been longing to hear bellowed above the crashing waves, ‘Let him go, Amelie. I’ve got him,’ together they fought their way back to the shore with Leo holding the protesting child.

  ‘Where is Ronnie?’ Leo spluttered angrily as he bent over the child, who was lying limply on the wet sand and whimpering softly. ‘You could both have been drowned. The currents out there had a mind of their own tonight. He needs to be checked over in A and E and neither of us have a phone handy. Where are his parents?’

  ‘Here they are,’ she said as Freddie’s frantic parents came running across the sand. ‘His mother came back down here after they’d left to avoid the rain that was threatening because they couldn’t find him and had left his father searching for him at the top.’

  She observed Freddie, who was now sitting up. ‘Shall we give them back their precious little one?’

  A crowd had been watching their endeavours from the cliffs and Freddie’s parents, with arms outstretched and cries of relief and gratitude, were running towards them to claim their child.

  ‘Have either of you got a mobile with you?’ Leo asked as Freddie’s mother wrapped him in a dry towel and hugged him to her, and his father turned anxiously to make sure their daughters were where he could see them.

  ‘Yes, I have,’ he said.

  ‘Then may I?’ Leo asked. ‘I’m going to ring for an ambulance to take your child to A and E to be checked over. Fortunately his head was above the water most of the time so we can hope that he hasn’t swallowed too much salty seawater, but he hasn’t spoken since we rescued him so there could be some extent of trauma, and bruising where we had to hold him so tightly.’

  ‘What brought you to the beach?’ Amelie asked when there was just the two of them left beneath a golden harvest moon that had replaced the storm clouds.

  ‘You, of course, I’ve just brought Georgina and her mother home from the hospital and wanted to tell you how beautifully you read the lesson this afternoon.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me then?’ she enquired perversely.

  ‘With the temperature at zero, I think not.’

  She was shivering now in her wet bathing suit and he said quickly, ‘Why don’t we go back to either your place or mine
and have a shower, followed by a glass of wine to celebrate bringing young Freddie safely on to dry land?’

  There was no immediate reply to the suggestion. Amelie was imagining what she looked like and deciding it would take more than a shower and a glass of wine to rectify her appearance after her recent battle against the currents, yet what did it matter? There’d already been one demise in Bluebell Cove in recent days. Thank goodness they’d prevented another and a child’s at that.

  ‘Yes, all right,’ she agreed, and went on to say, ‘Better if we go to the house. There is a shower in the main bathroom and another in the master bedroom.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said easily, ‘and how about when we’ve cleaned ourselves up I go for fish and chips?’

  ‘Mmm, that would be nice,’ she agreed weakly.

  When she’d showered and shampooed the salt out of her hair Amelie put on a cotton robe with a tie belt and after fastening it at the waist got a man’s equivalent out of the wardrobe, which Ethan had left behind. Knocking on the bathroom door, she called to Leo that she would leave it outside on the landing for him.

  ‘It’s all right, I’m decent. You can bring it in,’ he replied, and she pushed the door back slowly to reveal him standing barefoot wrapped in a towel. He was a sight to see, six feet, trimly built, with broad shoulders rising above the towel and a scattering of golden hair across his chest.

  They stood facing each other without speaking for what seemed an eternity then he took a step forward and loosened the ties around her waist, and with the release of them the smooth, perfect, lines of her nakedness were revealed. His glance went over them and he let the towel that was covering him fall to the floor.

  The heat of the attraction they had for each other was like a bright flame engulfing them, willing them to let it consume them. He felt ready to put down the burden of grief that he had carried for so long, and be the person he’d once been. He had the beautiful woman in his arms to thank for that and as he bent his head to kiss the cleft between her breasts she stroked his hair gently. She was melting with the desire he was arousing in her and when he lifted his head and their glances held, he said softly, ‘Maybe this will make up for what didn’t happen in the woods.’