A Return, a Reunion, a Wedding

by Annie O'Neil

  ‘My voice,’ Poppy said proudly, and then began to sing a catalogue of show tunes as Jayne eased off her shoe and looked at the very swollen toe. The nail was slightly ingrown, but not so badly she’d need to see a podiatrist. Unless she insisted upon wearing her favourite shoes non-stop.

  After Poppy had finished a remarkably skilful rendition of a song from Matilda, Jayne applauded. ‘That was great. Now... Here’s the good news. You don’t need an operation or to see a podiatrist.’

  Her mother heaved a visible sigh of relief.

  ‘What you do need to do, however, is give this toe a bit of extra TLC.’

  She wrote down a list of recommended treatments, talking through it as she did so, making sure her mother and Poppy understood. Kids were always smarter than a lot of adults gave them credit for, so it was best to include them in the conversation if at all possible.

  Poppy pulled a face. ‘You want me to put apple cider vinegar on my toe?’

  ‘No need to pour it straight on the toe. If you give it a soak in warm soapy water, or warm water with apple cider vinegar, it will help draw out the infection.’ She went on to explain that she would prescribe an antibiotic cream and that, despite Poppy’s desire to have a few practice runs in her closed-toe shoes, she’d probably be better off in flip-flops or something similar for the next week or so.

  ‘And if it gets worse?’ asked her mum.

  ‘Come back in and we’ll get you referred to a podiatrist. And let us know if she gets a fever. Then she’ll need a proper course of oral antibiotics.’

  The pair thanked her, and after that small triumph the rest of the day whooshed by. A bloodied nose from a scooter accident. A deep cut that required a few stitches. A little boy who was presenting with some pretty serious allergies... She referred him to a specialist unit at the nearby hospital.

  By the time the lunch hour rocked round she was feeling as though that little bit of her that had shut down the day Stella had died was starting to spring some green shoots.

  ‘Someone looks pleased with themselves.’

  Jayne reached out to take Sam’s empty coffee cup from him as she was already washing hers in the small kitchen at the back of the surgery. The building was an old house so it was a proper kitchen, with room for a table that had clearly seen its share of hastily eaten lunches.

  Sam reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a plastic container with a rice dish in it. He caught her looking and held it out. ‘Paella. My sister brought it by this morning. Want some?’

  ‘No, I was going to head back to Maggie’s and make her some lunch.’

  ‘Ooh...’ Sam sing-songed. ‘So she’s given you access to the kitchen, has she?’

  ‘Hey!’ Jayne protested feebly. ‘My cooking’s not that bad.’ There was no malice in Sam’s laugh so she conceded. ‘I told her I’d pop by the teashop. Dolly is making some bespoke sandwiches.’

  ‘I’m surprised Maggie hasn’t installed secret cameras in the teashop.’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ Jayne joked. ‘If she could, she’d have them over the whole village. The more pregnant she gets, the crankier she is about everyone’s follow-through. My inability to cook tops the list. I think we’ve eaten our way through every healthy café and takeaway in the village.’

  Sam laughed good-naturedly. ‘How about I come over one night and cook?’

  A rush of warmth flooded through her as their eyes met. A wink and then an offer to cook? Was this flirting?

  ‘Maggie would like that. And the children.’

  ‘And you?’

  It should have been a leading question. In some ways it was. For her, anyway. More proximity to Sam meant more chances that she’d fall right back in love with him and—

  Wait. What?

  She pulled her eyes away and began scrubbing the mugs a second time around. Of course there was a part of her that would always love Sam. And there had been some serious sizzle when they’d nearly kissed at the cricket clubhouse. But...in love? No. She couldn’t do that. There were too many demons and too much guilt swirling away in her soul to plonk on a man whose heart she’d already broken once.

  ‘I could make my roast chicken.’

  That got her attention. ‘The one with garlic?’

  ‘The one with tons of garlic.’

  She couldn’t say no to that. She put on her best doctor voice. ‘It’d be extra good for Maggie’s pre-eclampsia, wouldn’t it?’

  There were a list of other benefits for pregnant women in garlic. Garlic boosted baby weight, reduced mum’s cholesterol, helped prevent cancer and shielded them both from infections or colds.

  Sam took the mugs and began to dry them, to save them from yet another sousing. ‘I wasn’t suggesting it because of its medicinal properties, Jayne.’

  Their eyes caught and meshed as they both had the same memory. A glitter rush of sensation washed through her chest and her heart did another one of those insane dance moves inside her ribcage.

  Sam had made it for her the night they had first made love. His parents had been out of town. He’d been living in a little annexe flat above their garage. His sisters had all been out on dates. She and Sam been eighteen years old and on the brink of heading off to different unis.

  After giggling about kissing someone who’d had so much garlic, they’d both grown very serious. They’d promised they’d stay true to one another despite the distance. It was the night they had begun openly planning for a proper future together, here in Whitticombe.

  A bittersweet memory if ever there was one.

  ‘That’d be really nice, Sam,’ she heard herself say.

  He looked as shocked as she felt. ‘Oh! Great. Well...see you back here for the afternoon rush, then I’ll go shopping and meet you back at Maggie’s.’

  ‘Perfect.’ She gave him a smile and slipped out through the back door towards the towpath that led to Maggie’s cottage.

  Maybe this was how forgiveness began. Revisiting old history and offering it a fresh layer to weave into the fabric that made up their shared past. Baby steps.

  Her pace picked up at the thought. If she was able to make peace with her past, and all the people she’d hurt along the way, maybe then she could build some balance into her life. Balance she’d so obviously lacked the day she’d called Stella’s time of death.

  Patients weren’t stand-ins for her sister. They were individuals needing her utmost respect and care. Not the emotional fallout from a loss she’d experienced so long ago. Look at Sam. When she’d come back to town he might easily have refused to be as open and kind as he had been. He was rising above what had happened between them and was truly making an effort to start afresh.

  With that thought in mind, she vowed to start saying yes a bit more. To Sam. To the friendships she’d let fade. To life. Even if it was scary. Even if it meant testing the limits of her heart.

  * * *

  Sam looked out of the window and smiled. He was one of the only people he knew who liked a good summer rainstorm. Not so much because of the rain, but because of what came next. The rich flush of growth that came after it.

  Or...maybe he was smiling because he had a date with Jayne tonight.

  He checked himself. Definitely not a date. And it was also with Maggie, Connor and Cailey.

  He gave his freshly shaved jaw a scrub as he ran through the details of his final patient of the day before calling her in.

  He’d shaved. Was it a date?

  The conversation he’d had with his sister poured ice on that thought. The last thing he should be doing was putting a romantic spin on time spent with Jayne. He had offered a fresh start for friendship. So he should play by the rules. But just one day of working together had teased away years of tension.

  Medicine had always been a shared love of theirs. As teens they’d used to do odd jobs for his grandfather and the n
ow long-retired doctor who’d used to work with him. They would fill up all the supplies. Restock cotton buds. Bandages. Make sure all the white rolls of sanitary paper for the exam beds were replenished. Simple jobs that had made them feel important.

  A knock sounded on his door.

  ‘Sam? It’s Jayne. I think you’d better come quick. Greta’s calling an ambulance.’

  Jayne’s tight tone had him up and out of his chair in a flash. Three long-legged strides and he’d caught up to her as she jogged back towards the waiting room.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Mrs Maynard from the greengrocers. It looks like she’s having a stroke.’

  His heart sank. Mrs Maynard had been to him a couple of times over the past few months, complaining of symptoms that sounded a lot like TIAs. Transient ischaemic attacks weren’t as bad as a stroke, but they were indicators that a stroke might be lurking on the horizon. He’d referred her to the hospital, but perhaps she’d been stuck in a backlog of appointments.

  The second he saw her being propped up in a chair by her niece, Deanna, he knew Jayne was right.

  F-A-S-T pinged into his head. Face. Arms. Speech. Time.

  From the confused expression, and the odd way Mrs Maynard was holding her body, Jayne was right to have asked Greta to call an ambulance.

  He gave a reassuring smile to Deanna and knelt in front of Mrs Maynard. ‘Mrs Maynard? How are you feeling?’

  She tried to answer but her words were slurred, and one side of her face was now visibly drooping.

  Deanna spoke at a rate of knots. ‘We were coming in for her regular blood pressure appointment and to check on her diabetes when she started acting a bit funny. Said she felt a bit nauseous. Then she stumbled as if she was having a dizzy attack. Luckily we were only a few steps away, and by the time we got to the waiting room...’ Deanna made a helpless gesture. ‘Is she going to be all right?’

  Sam’s gut instinct was to assure her that everything was going to be fine, but strokes were peculiar territory. Some were minor and others put people in comas. Or worse.

  ‘It looks like she might be having a stroke. It’s difficult to tell how serious it is, but help is on the way.’ He refocused his gaze on Mrs Maynard. ‘Try as best you can to answer my questions. No stress. No pressure.’

  She gave a half-nod and then her hand slipped off her lap as if it was a dead weight, indicating possible paralysis.

  ‘Can you smile for me, Mrs Maynard?’

  She did so, and the droop that was apparent in her face became even more pronounced.

  ‘How about putting your hands out in front of you on an even plane? Can you do that?’

  She lifted one arm, but the one that had slid off her lap remained where it was. A hint of panic entered her eyes.

  Sam gave her shoulder a gentle rub. Poor woman. Blood-flow to part of her brain was being cut off or reduced, and ensuring she didn’t go into panic mode was essential.

  Jayne appeared by his side. ‘Here’s some aspirin and some water.’

  ‘Brilliant—thanks.’ Aspirin within the first forty-eight hours of a stroke always helped. ‘Do you think you can take this without being unwell?’

  Mrs Maynard nodded her head and with a bit of help was able to take the pill.

  He took her blood pressure, which was high, but not off the charts. Her blood sugar level was a bit on the low side. Not so good. What she really needed was a CT scan, to determine if there was any active bleeding in her brain. And if there was she’d need medication. And fast. Within three hours of the stroke was the recommended timeline.

  About ten minutes later they heard the sound of approaching sirens, and shortly afterwards the paramedics were loading her on to a wheeled gurney.

  Sam took the lead in rattling through the patient’s symptoms and the handful of stats they had to hand. What she needed was a neurologist and an emergency centre. When Deanna explained she needed to collect her children from school Sam volunteered to go along with Mrs Maynard to the hospital.

  ‘I’ll sort out Maggie’s children—get them something to eat—then come and pick you up.’

  Jayne was standing just outside the ambulance. She looked in complete control. A woman who dealt with high-pressure situations on a daily basis. The kind of doctor you’d want treating you when the ground seemed to be slipping out from beneath your feet.

  ‘That’d be great. Tell Deanna I’ll text with updates.’

  She nodded and smiled. The hum of connection felt magnetic, and even as the doors of the ambulance closed between them Sam knew he’d been right when he’d thought of their dinner together as a date.

  Because everything he did with Jayne Sinclair involved his heart.

  How he dealt with it was going to be another story.

  * * *

  Having been informed that Mrs Maynard had only suffered a minor stroke, Jayne arrived at the hospital a few hours later—and her jaw literally dropped at the sight of the cottage hospital’s lush surroundings.

  The facility had been built since she’d lived in the area and she’d not yet visited it.

  To call it a cottage hospital wasn’t entirely fair. According to the website she’d searched to get the address, the recently refurbished facilities might look old-fashioned, but inside the three traditional Georgian buildings they housed all the bells and whistles a doctor could dream of.

  This particular building was the critical care unit. Another housed a maternity and paediatrics unit. The third offered cancer and hospice care. The place where she imagined Sam’s mum would’ve received care in the end.

  She squished away the feelings that came with that. The fact that she hadn’t been brave enough to come back and say goodbye, to thank her for all the love and support she’d given her through the years, had always been a thorn in her side.

  She sighed and thought of the long list of regrets that festered away in her Dark Place. Being outside London was actually giving her the emotional breathing room she needed to look at her life with a clearer perspective. She appreciated there was nothing she could do to change the past, but maybe she could start making steps to change her future...

  She parked the car and strode inside.

  Sam was leaning against a central reception desk, speaking with a couple of doctors in blue scrubs. They were laughing at something he’d said. She enjoyed seeing him this way. At ease. Not with that little hitch in his shoulders he pretended didn’t exist when she entered the room.

  He turned at the sound of the doors opening and smiled. It was the first genuinely relaxed, peaceful smile she’d had from him in years, and it filled up her heart with squishy, gooey good things.

  He said something else to the doctors, then waved goodbye.

  ‘Friends of yours?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘Sort of. In this neck of the woods we all get to know each other one way or another.’

  She scanned the brightly lit waiting room, complete with a children’s play area filled with soft toys. There were the obligatory rooms off to each side, where loved ones often received the worst sort of news. She’d sat in a room like that with Stella’s family. She’d sat in a room like that when the emergency doctors had asked her parents if Jules was an organ donor.

  Though she tried to turn away, she knew Sam had seen the inevitable sheen of the tears she couldn’t seem to keep at bay these days glossing her eyes.

  Much to her surprise, he put his arm round her shoulder and gave her a gentle squeeze. His hugs were like a cosy duvet on a winter’s day. Perfect.

  ‘You did well today. Calling the ambulance. Seeing the signs immediately. I’m just sorry that we’re going to have to take a rain-check on that garlic chicken. I never got the chance to go and buy the ingredients.’

  ‘Well... It was standard protocol.’ She turned her fingers into pistols and did a quick draw. ‘Y
ou gotta act fast!’

  They both laughed, and Sam’s hand dropped from her shoulders, then rested briefly on the small of her back as they left the waiting area and went out into the warm summer evening air. The rain had disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

  Jayne was still missing the warmth of his touch when he suddenly spread his arms wide and inhaled deeply.

  ‘Don’t you just love it?’

  ‘What exactly are we loving?’

  His eyes met hers and his smile softened. And just like that it appeared. That look she’d thought she’d never see again.

  Butterflies took flight in her belly. Did this mean Sam was feeling what she was? The inevitable draw of attraction coupled with a deep, mutual respect?

  ‘The summer, of course,’ he said, his eyes still glued to hers. ‘Don’t you love it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Very much.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MAGGIE LET OUT a roar of frustration. ‘If I sterilise the washing up gloves, could you reach in and pull these babies out?’

  ‘Is that what you would advise me to do if I’d had a cake in the oven for only three-quarters of the baking time?’ Jayne replied evenly.

  When her friend made a ‘gah!’ noise, pushed herself up and stomped off into the garden, to languish on a cushioned bench in the shade, Jayne knew that the baking analogy had had the desired effect. Leave well enough alone!

  As Jayne stuffed yet another load of laundry into the washing machine, and caught a glimpse of a brightly coloured canal boat loaded with happy holidaymakers drifting past outside on the river, she had to admit she couldn’t blame her for feeling so frustrated.

  The weather was lovely. Everyone was out and about. Maggie would normally be scurrying around the village, organising about a zillion activities. Not to mention kitting out the seating area outside her tearoom with bunting and her annual display of sunflowers. Just last night Maggie had sobbed for a good two hours about the shop’s impending demise.

  ‘Balderdash!’ her business partner—the rather fabulous Dolly Johnson—had cried when she’d come round with a basket of butterfly-themed fairy cakes. ‘It’s doing better than ever.’