Wedding Bells for the Village Nurse

by Abigail Gordon

  On Monday morning Ethan announced that a report had come through from the hospital regarding the man with shingles who had been rushed to A and E straight from the surgery with severe chest pains.

  It said that tests had shown that his pain was due to a build-up of the pain he should have been having from the shingles and hadn’t. Where most patients had a lot of discomfort while the blisters were emerging and immediately afterwards, caused by inflammation of the nerve ends, in his case there hadn’t been any.

  It had been building up instead of coming to the surface and had ended in massive pain that he’d understandably mistaken for a heart attack. Now he was on medication for neuralgia rather than cardiac failure, and making a good recovery.

  ‘So what do you think of that?’ he asked Jenna, who had been there when the patient’s wife had brought him to the surgery, hoping that Lucas might be available to examine him.

  ‘I think that shingles is a strange illness,’ she replied. ‘When I was working abroad I once saw a case of it where the pain was acute but there were no blisters and they never did come out, yet it was definitely shingles.’

  As the morning progressed she kept remembering that Lucas had said he might have the day free, but each time she glanced across at his house there was no sign of him and she decided that he had either been delayed in Theatre or was having second thoughts after Friday night.

  Yet surely he wasn’t expecting her to mistake a kiss on the palms of her hands as a binding gesture. She would need more than that to convince her that he loved her as much as she loved him, but there was no time for daydreaming, there were patients to be seen.

  There were patients to be seen. Meanwhile, Ethan, looking pale and drawn, had just arrived back from a weekend in France with Francine and the children, and she shuddered at the thought of what was going on in their lives.

  With the head of the practice under such stress it was good to have Leo around with his breezy charm that was sometimes at odds with the competence he displayed in his dealings with the patients.

  He was still living at Meredith’s guest house but had been saying only that morning before surgery that he was house hunting. Bluebell Cove had cast a spell over him, and all those who’d heard him had understood because it was that sort of place, even in grey December.

  Lucas had slept at the hospital on Saturday and Sunday nights in the accommodation provided for staff unable to get home or, as in his case, who needed to be readily available should there be a crisis concerning a patient.

  The newborn baby that he’d operated on for a serious heart defect on Saturday might turn out to be one of those, and he’d felt that he owed it to the devastated parents to be there in case anything happened.

  The surgery had been a no-choice situation. If it hadn’t been performed the tiny one would certainly have died, and having to operate on such a young and premature baby with such a serious diagnosis had been the kind of nightmare he had encountered many times before. Each time it was no less horrendous.

  As he’d lain sleepless in the antiseptic atmosphere of the hospital he’d thought about Jenna and the children he wanted them to have, and silently berated himself for not having already asked her to marry him because she was in his every waking thought, in his blood, in his heart for ever.

  He’d been down to see the baby several times during the night and also on Sunday before and after the second of the two operations that had been postponed, and in the grey dawn of Monday morning gave a satisfied nod to the nursing team who had never left his side for a moment since the operation. The little one was breathing more easily, was a better colour, and Lucas thought that maybe later in the day he would be able to return to where his hopes and dreams lay for a while.

  The baby’s parents, who had been by their newborn’s side ever since the operation, were looking a little less tense and he asked them, ‘What are you going to call this little fighter of yours?’

  The father smiled a tired smile. ‘We thought of Lucas.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ he said laughingly. ‘There are better names than that.’

  ‘We don’t think so,’ his wife whispered, looking down at her child.

  It was the middle of the afternoon when he arrived back in Bluebell Cove, and knowing Jenna would be long gone from the surgery, he showered and changed his clothes before going to find her.

  He’d half expected her to have done the same thing as before and been waiting at The Old Chart House to bring cheer to his return, but as she hadn’t heard a word from him since they’d separated in the early hours of Saturday morning she was hardly going to have rolled out the red carpet. It was more likely that she’d given up on him, but if he remembered rightly she’d already done that.

  As far as she was concerned, she might have decided that Friday night was a one-off and if she had he would have to go back to square one, he thought soberly as he shaved off the stubble that had accumulated over the weekend.

  When he reached the headland every other thought was driven from his mind when he saw the orange flash of the lifeboat in the distance, surging across angry waters at full speed.

  A crowd had gathered on the beach below and an elderly fisherman told him, ‘Two youngsters have been blown out to sea in a dinghy and there’s a storm brewin’. It don’t look good.’

  As Lucas gazed up at a lowering sky he thought it was an understatement. There was grey sky, grey sea, waves as high as a house, and a frail dinghy out there somewhere.

  ‘Jenna Balfour’s gone out with the lifeboat,’ the old guy went on to say, and Lucas felt the cold hand of dread grip his heart. ‘The mother of one of the kids reckons he’s got a dicky heart and at the best is never well, so her being a nurse Jenna offered to go along.’

  He nodded bleakly. That was what it was all about. He’d done all he could for a helpless baby, now it was Jenna’s turn to be there for a couple of kids drifting somewhere out there, and he wasn’t going to breathe easily until they were all back on dry land.

  When he thought of the ring he’d bought he prayed that he might be given the chance to put it on her finger. The thought of her being out there in such conditions was horrendous. If only he’d got back earlier, he could have gone in her place.

  The lifeboat had disappeared and silence had fallen on the crowd. It lasted until they heard the drone of a helicopter in the sky above, indicating that the coastguard station had been on to Air Sea Rescue, and desperate as he was for news Lucas knew he had to look after Barbara and Keith. Her heart was not as good as it might have been, far from it, and if they knew what was going on out there it could trigger an attack.

  When Keith opened the door to him he was pale and shaken and told him, ‘I’m worried sick about Jenna and those boys, but Barbara is cool as a cucumber. You’ll find her in the sitting room.’

  She was as he’d said when Lucas found her, and he didn’t know whether to feel angry or sad at the extent of her calmness.

  She smiled and it was as wintry as the weather outside. ‘She’s my daughter, Lucas,’ she told him, ‘and so I know she will cope. I’ve done what Jenna is doing a few times over the years and it is no picnic, believe me.

  ‘But it is what we’re paid for, what we’re here to do on this planet, save the sick and suffering. You might not think it, but I am proud of her, so very proud. So do go back to the beach and don’t come back until you have our girl with you, as you’re the first person she’ll want to see.’

  ‘I’m not sure about that,’ he said grimly.

  ‘You should be. Jenna loves you very much.’

  ‘Has she said so?’

  ‘No, she doesn’t need to. If you’re not sure, ask her.’

  ‘I’ve got to get her back first and at this moment that is all that matters. Whether she loves me or not can come later,’ he told her, and with an urgency inside him to a degree that he would never have believed possible he went striding down amongst the rocks on the cliff side, all the time scanning the ocean for the retur
n of the lifeboat and its occupants.

  The light was fading. The winter afternoon had run its course when a shout went up amongst those waiting on the beach. The noise of the helicopter could be heard in the low clouds above them and on the horizon the lifeboat was ploughing its way through the rampant sea.

  Knowing that it would go straight to the harbour where it was housed, there was a general exodus in that direction, with Lucas slowing down to let the car with the parents of the two boys in it speed past.

  Jenna was there on the quayside with her hair hanging limply around a face blue with cold when he arrived, and joy bells rang in his heart. She was safe. When he got to her she was helping in the transfer of the two lost boys into a waiting ambulance while paramedics were wrapping them in space blankets to bring up their body heat and giving one of them oxygen.

  When it pulled away with their parents beside them he handed her his phone and said softly, ‘Ring your parents, Jenna, to let them know that everyone is safe, including yourself, and then I’ll drive you to my place, where you can dry out and get warm again.’

  She shook her head. ‘One of the boys is said to have a heart problem and they’re both in shock and very cold,’ she said anxiously. ‘Can we follow the ambulance? I need to be sure they’re going to be all right. It was touch and go, you know, they were clinging onto the dinghy for dear life.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll take a look at the one with the heart trouble myself if need be.’

  ‘I love you for that,’ she said softly. ‘What time did you arrive back from the hospital?’

  ‘About the same time that I discovered you were out there in the lifeboat.’

  She was stripping off the protective clothing that the lifeboat crew had kitted her out in before they’d set off on their rescue mission, and when she was free of it and had handed it back he said, ‘So let’s be moving, and when we get there I’ll show you the tiny scrap that I operated on Saturday night. It was a life-and-death affair of a newborn with a heart defect and thankfully when I left earlier this afternoon the little one was still holding onto life.’

  They were driving along the main highway into the town now and as what he was saying sank in she said, ‘So you’ve been working all over the weekend. Didn’t you come home to sleep?’

  ‘I could have done, but stayed at the hospital as I thought I might be needed during the night. As it happened, I wasn’t, but I was up and down all the time, checking on my small patient and trying to provide reassurance to his parents.’

  ‘And now I’m dragging you back there,’ she said apologetically.

  He flashed her a smile that was so tender she felt herself go weak at the message it was conveying, and then throwing her into even more chaos he said, ‘You can drag me anywhere you like. Just to have you safe beside me is all I ask at this moment.’

  It was true, but before this eventful day had run its course there was something he still had to do—connected with a certain ring.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE two boys were still very shaken when Jenna and Lucas saw them at the hospital, and treatment for hypothermia was being continued in the form of hot baths and warm drinks.

  ‘I believe that your son has a heart problem,’ Lucas said to the parents of the boy whose mother had mentioned it when the alarm had been raised. ‘What exactly is it? I’m a heart surgeon, so it is of interest to me.’

  Before his wife could reply, the father said, ‘Thomas had suspected rheumatic fever when he was small and the doctor told us it could leave him with something called myocarditis, which affects the heart valves.

  ‘But when they tested him for it he hadn’t got anything like that and it was never very clear if he’d actually had rheumatic fever, but ever since then his mother has been convinced that he has something wrong with his heart and mollycoddles him all the time.’

  As his wife snorted indignantly Lucas said, ‘Why not make an appointment for me to see him and we’ll settle the matter once and for all? If there is anything wrong we can get it seen to, and if there isn’t you will be able to put any further anxiety from your minds.’

  ‘That would be great,’ the man said, and turned to his wife. ‘Wouldn’t it, Marge?’

  ‘Yes, it would,’ she agreed, and added, still indignant, ‘Not that you’ve ever lost any sleep over it.’

  Satisfied that the two boys seemed to be recovering all right from their ordeal, they left the ward and once in the corridor outside Jenna said, ‘I am so sorry that I got you involved in that. I wonder if Thomas’s parents know how fortunate they are to be given the chance to see someone like you without even having to wait in the queue.’

  ‘I’ll see them at home if they get in touch. I don’t want to breach any hospital rules or jump any waiting lists, and now do you want to see the baby I told you about? I need to check his progress.’

  ‘Of course I do,’ she said immediately. ‘Lead me to him.’

  When they appeared, the nurse who had been watching over him disappeared tactfully, and when Jenna looked down at the tiny infant that Lucas had brought back from the brink, she said softly, ‘Oh! Poor little mite! What was it?’

  ‘Septal defect, hole in the heart.’

  ‘He’s beautiful!’

  ‘He will be when we can remove some of the tubes,’ he volunteered, and looked around him. ‘It seems as if the parents might be having a break. They’ve never moved from his side since the moment he was born and they were told there was a problem, a big one.’

  He was reaching for the baby’s notes on the clipboard at the bottom of the bed and when he’d finished reading them he asked casually, ‘Do you want children, Jenna?’

  She stared at him blankly. ‘Yes, of course I do.’ Wanting to know what had prompted the question, she came up with one of her own. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I want a family of my own more than words can say,’ and thought, But only with you as their mother.

  The nurse was hovering and when he’d satisfied himself that all was well with his small patient he told her, ‘I’ll be in to see him again tomorrow, Nurse, and in the meantime I want to know about even the slightest problem should any arise. I don’t want any setbacks if they can be avoided.’ She nodded obediently and they left the sleeping child in her care.

  ‘Now, can I take you home?’ he asked as they left the hospital. ‘I’m sure that your parents would like to see for themselves that you’re safe. Your father was distraught when you’d gone with the lifeboat, but your mother was taking it all in her stride. Told me it was something that she’d had to do a few times in the past and that as her daughter she had no worries about whether you would be able to cope.’

  ‘Really! What could I have done to deserve that?’

  ‘She loves you in her own way, Jenna. And she respects you.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose she does,’ she agreed, ‘but it would choke her to say so.’

  Was she thinking that he would be the same? he thought. Little did she know that if it hadn’t been for the storm and the trauma of the lost boys he had been going to ask her to marry him today. But he could tell she was exhausted, would be upset if he asked her something so important to them both when she was too tired to embrace the moment.

  ‘Sleep well,’ he told her when he dropped her off.

  ‘Aren’t you going to come in for a moment?’ she asked disappointedly.

  ‘No, you’re tired. I’ll be in touch tomorrow. And, Jenna…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll be at Hunters Hill again in the morning and will check on those lads for you, so don’t rush off there the moment you’ve finished at the practice.’

  ‘All right, I’ll remember what you’ve said, but before you go tell me one thing, Lucas. What would you have done if I hadn’t come back out of the storm?’

  ‘Gone into a monastery,’ he said whimsically. ‘So you see what you’ve saved me from.’ And before she could reply the car
was on the move and he was waving goodbye.

  He would have gone insane if she’d perished out there in the roughest sea he’d ever seen, Lucas was thinking sombrely as he drove up the hill to the village. So why hadn’t he told her that instead of making light of it? On impulse he turned the car round and drove back to Four Winds House and when she opened the door said, ‘That was a stupid thing to say. Forgive me.’

  As she observed him wide-eyed, he reached out and kissed her, just once and fleetingly, but it was the same as before, like a dream becoming reality.

  Then once again he was gone and she went back inside, sank down onto the nearest chair and wondered if she would ever understand the workings of his mind.

  She understood the workings of her own only too well and when he’d asked her if she wanted children it would have been so easy to say, Yes, but only if they’re yours. But she’d been down that road once, been too eager, and the next time, if there ever was one, Lucas would have to do the asking.

  He rang her at the surgery in the middle of the next morning to tell her that the two youngsters were being discharged later in the day and to say that Thomas’s parents hadn’t forgotten the offer he’d made the day before.

  ‘As if they would!’ she exclaimed. ‘Let’s hope that you can give his mother peace of mind, and that if there is a problem his father will be able to adjust to the fact. And how is the little poorly one this morning? Has he got a name, by the way?’

  ‘He is still improving, I’m pleased to say, and his parents are insisting on calling him Lucas, which is embarrassing. It’s happened before and will probably happen again, but I wish they wouldn’t. There are much nicer names.’

  ‘Not many,’ she protested. Her voice softened. ‘That is lovely, Lucas.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he agreed, ‘and now, before I have Ethan after me for taking you away from your patients, how are you, Jenna? Have you recovered from yesterday?’