The Village Nurse's Happy-Ever-After (7 page)

I won't forget that you are house hunting either, she thought glumly as she left the village behind and drove along the coast road to the first of her home visits.

Was it significant that it had happened the morning after she'd been so unapproachable and turned down
his offer of dinner? she pondered. Yet surely he hadn't set such store by her acceptance of the offer that he'd decided to move into somewhere more permanent when she'd refused.

One thing was sure, there was no way she was going to mention Glades Manor to Harry. He had no idea that Lucy had seen him viewing it when she'd been out walking her dog, and she felt he would take a dim view of it being surgery gossip that could end up on the village grapevine. If he didn't tell her she wasn't going to ask. It was as simple as that.

 

As the days went by, the house remained on the market and Harry and Phoebe were polite but distant when they met on the wooden staircase or on the landing.

He didn't knock on her door again as January shivered into February, and, as he'd reminded her they would, daffodils were nodding in golden perfection in small gardens and sheltered glades, with crocus blooming beside them less gracefully but just as beautiful.

 

Harry
had
been impressed by the small manor house, it had been beautifully restored by the present owner, but every time he thought about it, he felt that it was a house that needed a family. It needed parents with growing children and maybe more to come, not a wifeless, childless, empty vessel like him.

He was staying clear of Phoebe as much as possible in the evenings and at weekends because he felt that he'd been too pushy. Deep down, he knew that finding a permanent place to live
was
the thing to do, but
something was holding him back. As he lay sleepless, or at the best tossed and turned restlessly in his solitary bed, the reason why was just a few feet away behind a door that remained steadfastly closed against him.

 

Phoebe had no intention of attending the Valentine's Day ball that the village's social events committee was organising, until Lucy surprised her by offering to look after Marcus while she went.

‘It's time you got out and about more,' she said kindly, ‘and if you could bring baby Marcus across to Jenna and Lucas's house, where I've promised to babysit Lily, I can look after them both. So what do you think?' As Phoebe hesitated, she continued, ‘There will be a few there from the surgery. Even Harry has bought a ticket, though I doubt he'll make use of it.'

‘Yes, all right then,' Phoebe said. ‘I'd love to go. Marcus is always asleep by seven o'clock at the latest, so when its time to go I can carry him across wrapped in a warm blanket and settle him on the couch for the evening. Once he's in a really deep sleep he rarely wakes up so you shouldn't have any problems with him.'

 

When Harry heard Lucy telling Maria, the other practice nurse, that she was going to mind Lily and Marcus on the night of the ball, he stopped Phoebe one morning as she was leaving the practice and wanted to know why she hadn't asked him to take care of Marcus.

He said, ‘It seems to me that you're making heavy weather of something that could be so simple if you left me in charge of him.'

‘I was told that you've already bought a ticket,' she said, trying to conceal her surprise at his suggestion.

‘Yes, I have, but it doesn't say I'll be going, unless you're short of an escort.'

‘Do you have to make me sound so needy?' she snapped, irritated.

‘I'm not. I just thought you might be going with that Jake person.'

‘What?' she cried with increasing indignation. ‘Why him?'

‘Thought he had the hots for you, that's all.'

‘He might have had, but they soon cooled down when he found out about Marcus, and before you ask if I was upset, the answer is no.'

‘So you'll let
me
take you to this Valentine's Ball, then?'

‘If you intend on going, yes.' Still rattled by him taking her for granted, she went on, ‘It will be one step better than standing around the edges of the dance floor like a wallflower.'

Harry was taking in the sarcasm and trying not to smile. He hadn't
intended
doing anything of the sort until he'd discovered that she would be there, but now he was totally tuned in to the thought of dancing the night away with her in his arms.

She went out on the district then, still stunned by his offer to mind Marcus while she went to the ball but glad that Lucy's offer had come first. For the first time she was now looking forward to it, though she had no intention of letting Harry know that. Instead, like most
women with a special occasion in view, she was already debating what to wear.

Since splitting up with Darren, the only clothes she'd bought had been maternity wear, plus those in the department store on the Saturday when Harry had seen her on the way to the car park. Unless she could find time for another quick trip in to town before the ball, it would have to be one of the smart outfits she'd worn when she'd been married, which belonged to what she thought of as the days of wine and poses.

 

There was a new patient on her list that morning. The surgery had sent her to evaluate what kind of care and assistance was needed by the local plumber, who had just been unexpectedly diagnosed with a form of inoperable stomach cancer that was terminal.

Expecting to see a very sick man, she was amazed to see him painting the outside of his bungalow on one of the lanes leading from the village's main street with every appearance of good health. When he assured her that he was fine, she left him to it, knowing that soon he was going to need the special care of a hospice, but for now she was content to leave him to enjoy a task that he might not be able to do for much longer.

Back at the surgery Harry was too busy to think any further about the strange conversation they'd just had, or the outcome of it. It was one of those mornings when one crisis was following another.

The first was parents bringing in their seriously unwell five-year-old daughter. The moment he saw the child Harry realised that she was showing signs
of meningitis—the light was hurting her eyes, she was running a temperature, had an inflamed throat and, most worrying of all, the red rash of the illness that was one of its most easy to recognise symptoms.

He was amazed that they hadn't taken their child straight to hospital, yet was aware that where most parents were swift to panic, others were slow to grasp the seriousness of a situation. Within seconds he was phoning for an ambulance and emphasising the extreme seriousness of the little girl's condition.

The response to his call was fast and soon she was on her way to hospital with sirens screeching and paramedics and her stunned parents watching over her.

As he'd watched them go he had prayed they would get there before the infection took its terrible toll. If the child was treated quickly there would be a chance, but modern medicines and the Almighty would be equally responsible for the outcome.

The next person to give grave cause for concern was Lorraine Forrest, who controlled the school crossing as lollipop lady. A pleasant thirty-year-old with twin boys in the juniors section, she'd been knocked down outside the surgery while doing her job by a car driver who had collapsed at the wheel. A member of the public had come rushing inside to inform the doctors.

Harry and Leo were out and running in a flash to find the young mother lying on the crossing with a crowd beginning to gather around her and the local policeman frantically redirecting the traffic.

The driver was still slumped over the wheel and passers by had just managed to get the car door open
when the two doctors appeared, so Leo went to check him out while Harry knelt beside Lorraine.

She was semi-conscious, with one of her legs bent awkwardly beneath her and bleeding from the temple where she must have hit the road or come into contact with the car bonnet.

When he checked her heartbeat it was erratic, which was not surprising under the circumstances, and she was beginning to go into shock. She was cold and shaking as if with ague and needed warmth to help ward off the effects. For goodness' sake, where were Lucy and Maria, the practice nurses?

‘Has anyone sent for an ambulance?' he bellowed above the noise of the traffic and the voices all around him.

‘Yes, I've asked for two,' the policeman said, pausing in his task for a moment.

This is hellish, Harry thought. Where
were
the rest of his staff? He couldn't leave the injured woman but she desperately needed blankets over her and any other kind of heating they could rustle up in the surgery.

He was about to tell one of the onlookers to go and find a nurse when Phoebe's small runabout pulled up at the kerb beside him. Thank God, he thought to himself.

She was out of the car in a second and he cried, ‘Blankets and anything else you can find to keep her warm. Lorraine is in shock and we can't move her because she has what looks like a serious leg fracture.'

She turned and was gone, returning seconds later with a pile of blankets and a hot-water bottle that she'd
found. As they did their best to wrap the blankets around the injured woman and placed the hot-water bottle at her feet, he gave a tight smile and said, ‘Is it history repeating itself, do you think?'

She smiled back. ‘It might be. If you are wondering what's happened to Lucy and Maria, Lorraine's mother was in the waiting room and she collapsed when someone came in with the news that her daughter had been hit by a car. She's only just coming round because she banged her head on a radiator as she fell.'

He groaned. ‘What a mess! Leo is doing his stuff with the old guy who caused all this. We don't know yet what made him collapse at the wheel but as soon as the ambulances arrive, our two casualties—or perhaps I should say three, including Lorraine's mother—need to be taken to A and E fast.'

Leo came across at that moment and informed them, ‘The guy who is responsible for all this appears to have had a heart attack. He's alive and is conscious now, but there would have been nothing he could have done to avoid the accident. He's still in the car. I thought he would be warmer there.' Without waiting for any comments from the senior partner and the district nurse, he hurried back to his patient.

‘How do you come to be here, Phoebe?' Harry asked as the church clock struck twelve.

‘I came to get something to eat as lunchtime was drawing near and found myself in the middle of this. Do we know who the man in the car is?'

‘Yes. I heard someone in the crowd say he's an artist who has only recently moved into Bluebell Cove. His
name is Adrian Docherty and he has a history of cardiac problems.'

He was checking Lorraine's heartbeat and pulse again, observing her anxiously. He commented, ‘I hope they keep the children inside until the ambulances have been. It would be dreadful if her boys should see their mother like this.'

‘Charlotte Templeton is headmistress and she's no fool,' she told him.

‘They'll be having their school dinners at the moment and probably be kept inside the big hall afterwards until this catastrophe is sorted.'

She was tucking the blankets more closely around the injured woman and said quietly, with her head bent to the task, ‘I dread that one day something like this might happen to me, because apart from Katie and Rob I'm the only family that Marcus has got.'

‘There's his father surely.'

‘He has forfeited the right to be called that.'

‘That sounds a bit strong.'

‘Not without just cause.'

‘So do you want to tell me about it when we have our three casualties safely on the way to A and E?'

She shook her head. ‘No, I don't think so, Harry. Just as you wouldn't want to talk about losing your wife.'

Or would he? she thought when she saw his expression. Having introduced an awkward moment, Phoebe wished she hadn't. Thankfully the emergency services arrived at that moment and all else was put to one side.

I
T WAS
early afternoon and the surgery was back to its normal well-organised routine after the distressing events of the morning. Phoebe had gone to carry out the rest of her house calls and the two doctors were having a quick bite before setting out on
their
home visits, which were going to be much later than usual due to the accident on the crossing.

As Harry drove along the coast road to answer a request for a visit from the husband of a patient with dementia, he was intending to stop off at his aunt and uncle's house on the way back. The results had come through from the hospital for the prostate check-up he'd arranged for Keith and he wanted to pass them on to him as soon as possible.

The day had started on a high, he was thinking, with the promise of taking Phoebe to the Valentine's Ball, but before he'd had the chance to feel any pleasure at the prospect there had been a series of lows. His thoughts went out to the three people whose lives had come unstuck in the surgery area in a matter of minutes.

Thankfully, what he had to tell Keith was not in the same category. The tests had shown that his prostate
count hadn't risen any more. It had steadied and for the present there was no cause for alarm. But he would have to pass on the good news in private as Barbara hadn't known that there
was
a problem, so the least said to her the better.

But first he had to see what was wrong at a big detached house overlooking the sea, where the sadness and frustration of dementia ruled the lives of its two occupants.

‘Harry!' Peter Drummond exclaimed as the two men shook hands.

‘I didn't know you were back with us until I rang the surgery this morning. Deborah and I seem to live such isolated lives these days. We rarely get to the village, or anywhere else for that matter.

‘She gets frightened if I want to take her anywhere and only feels safe inside the house, so that is where we spend most of our days. It's hard to believe that she was once the life and soul of every party, but that's how it is.'

The Drummonds had been newly retired from the hotel business when Harry had left Bluebell Cove and they'd been at the centre of every social event for miles around before that. It was only after he'd gone that Deborah had begun to show signs of the deterioration that came with the illness.

‘So what's the problem?' he asked as Peter showed him into a large sitting room overlooking the sea, where just as immaculate as she'd always been, his wife was staring into space.

‘A chest infection of some sort.' he replied. ‘Deborah
has been coughing most of the night and her breathing isn't good.'

Harry sounded her chest and coaxed her to let him look down her throat, and when he'd finished he said, ‘You are right about that. I'll drop a prescription off at the chemist and arrange for it to be delivered to you, Peter. What about the flu jab? Has Deborah had that…and the once-only pneumonia injection?'

He nodded. ‘Yes. Phoebe, the district nurse, has given her them both.'

‘That's good then, and make sure that Deborah takes the full dose of the antibiotics I've prescribed, won't you, Peter?'

As he was on the point of leaving he asked, ‘How often does the district nurse visit?'

‘Three times a week. She helps with Deborah's bathing, offers feeding suggestions and is generally most helpful. Although my wife doesn't know who she is from one week to the next, she is always more tranquil when Phoebe has been.'

 

When he arrived back at the practice, after bringing light into his uncle's life when he'd gone to the door with him to say goodbye, there was news from the hospital regarding the casualties of the morning.

Lorraine was conscious and was waiting for them to operate on her knee, where some of the bones were shattered and would need pinning together. Her husband had been informed about the accident and had taken the children out of school so that they could all be together,
and the family was now waiting for her to be taken to theatre.

Her mother was being kept in overnight, but was due to be discharged in the morning, and the artist—the unintentional cause of the disastrous events—was in Coronary Care, where he was in a serious condition.

Phoebe had arrived as Lucy was in the middle of regaling Harry with the bulletin from the hospital. Although he thought she looked cold and tired, she had a smile for him and he had to look away and grip the corner of the desk that he was perched on to control the wave of longing that washed over him.

When he looked up she was gone again, this time to collect Marcus from the nursery, and she hadn't come back by the time he was ready to ascend the wooden staircase at the end of his working day, which was strange.

It was half past six, two hours since she'd gone to pick Marcus up, and he was watching the fingers of the clock like someone hypnotised. Surely nothing else could go wrong, he thought desperately. But she and her little one were out there somewhere in the dark February night and he was pacing around his apartment like an anxious expectant father, a role that he'd never visualised playing.

When he heard her car pull up on the forecourt down below, his relief was swamped by annoyance and he went down the stairs two at a time. ‘Where the dickens have you been?' he cried. ‘I've imagined all sorts of things having happened to you!'

She was bending inside the car, undoing the straps
on the baby seat, and as she stretched up with Marcus in her arms she said mildly, as if dealing with a fractious child, ‘I've been shopping,' making him feel even more frazzled.

‘Shopping! What on earth for, after working all day? Surely nothing could have been that important. And what about this little guy's meal? He looks happy enough, but he must be starving.'

Suddenly her calm deserted her. ‘I've been shopping for something to wear on Friday night so that I won't show you up,' she said hotly, and as he observed her in mute astonishment she continued, ‘So will you please stop shouting so loudly that the whole village can hear you.'

Turning her back on him, she began to march up the stairs with a parting shot over her shoulder to the effect that she and Marcus had already eaten in a little bistro, and all he was going to need was his bedtime bottle.

‘I'm sorry,' he said stiffly as he followed her up. ‘If you had just said what you intended doing, I wouldn't have been so tensed up.'

‘I'm not used to anyone being concerned on our account, except for Ethan when
he
was here,' she said, calming down as he drew level with her. ‘Perhaps I ought to have let you know what I had in mind, and as a fitting finale to a dreadful day I didn't find
anything
to wear.'

She was putting her key in the lock with tears threatening. In a second she had the door open and was gone, closing it behind her with a decisive click.

 

Would he ever get it right with Phoebe? Harry wondered as he made himself a belated meal. He'd ranted and raved down there on the practice forecourt as if he had the right and in the process had insulted her by presuming that she hadn't put her child's needs first, all because she hadn't told him where she was going.

Of course Phoebe wouldn't let Marcus be hungry while she tried on clothes in some department store. As well as the beautiful mother, he was letting the beautiful child get to him, he thought wryly, remembering his concerns for Marcus when she'd finally put in an appearance,
and
when he'd offered to baby-sit on the night of the ball and been pipped at the post by Lucy's offer.

He should have just been happy to see that no harm had befallen the two of them and left it at that. His face was tender at the thought of her going all that way, at the end of a long and tiring day, to buy something to wear for his sake. Although, if he was to tell her that he didn't care what she wore, that just being with her would be enough, that would probably be the wrong thing to say as well!

Maybe later he would risk another rebuff by doing the thing he'd been trying so hard not to do over past days—knock on her door and try to make amends for his churlishness. But first he had to give her some breathing space, let her see Marcus settled for the night and give her time to unwind before he barged into her life again.

He wasn't to know that Phoebe was fighting the urge to open the door that she'd been so quick to shut in his
face and rush across the landing to tell him how sorry she was for causing him so much anxiety, and that she understood his annoyance.

It was true what she'd said about not being used to having anyone so concerned about her, but that didn't mean she'd had to snap at him, especially when it had become clear how worried he'd been.

He was washing up after his scratch meal, with hands deep in warm suds, when he heard her knock. Without drying them, Harry was out of the kitchen, into the hall and opening the door before she had time to change her mind.

She'd changed out of her nurse's uniform and was dressed in the jeans and sweater she'd bought on the day when they'd met up near the open market. Her hair was tied back off her face in a ponytail, and this time, unlike earlier, she'd thrown off her tiredness, wiped away her tears and was about to say her piece.

He stepped back to let her in and as he did so asked, ‘Where's Marcus?'

She smiled. ‘I would have been disappointed it you hadn't asked, given your recent concern on his behalf. He is asleep in his own little dreamland. I wouldn't have come otherwise.'

He groaned. ‘Please don't remind me of my interference. I squirm every time I think about it.'

‘You mustn't,' she chided gently. ‘It was good of you to care, Harry.' Their glances met. ‘I've come to apologise for not telling you that I was going shopping after work. We are such close neighbours it was only fair that I should have let you know.

‘My sister and her husband have been the only ones there for me for a long time, so I'm afraid it takes a bit of getting used to when coming from another direction. I have never ever met a man like you before.'

They were only inches away from each other and she could feel a force reaching out between them, a heat that was making her bones melt. She wondered if he could feel it too, yet it didn't seem like it as he was making no attempt to get closer. In fact, it was as if he was rooted to the spot.

But when she reached out and touched his face with gentle fingers, he came alive. In an instant she was in his arms, his mouth was on hers, and the hard strength of his body was telling her without putting it into words how much he wanted her.

But it appeared their magical coming together was not going to go any further. He was loosening his hold and putting her away from him gently as he told her, ‘You deserve better than me, Phoebe. I came back to Bluebell Cove intending to steer clear of relationships after losing Cassie. Then I found you almost on my doorstep, and all the vows I'd made to myself were suddenly hard to keep.

‘I've always prided myself on my self control but twice this evening I've lost it, the first time in anger, the second in lust, and neither were fair to you. So go back to your child and maybe we can get to know each other all over again at a slower pace.'

So far Phoebe hadn't spoken but now she was finding her voice. It didn't sound like hers because it was cold
and clipped, yet it had to be because there was only the two of them there.

‘I'm sorry to hear you describe what happened to us a moment ago as lust,' she told him. ‘If it had been, we would have been in bed together by now, throwing caution to the wind.

‘But you clearly think I might see that as a sign of commitment, and you've just made it clear that you want to keep away from that kind of thing, so fret no further. I was content enough before we met and shall continue to be so without any assistance from you.'

And before he could think of a sensible justification for the further mess he'd just made of everything, she was gone and he made no attempt to follow her.

 

As Phoebe lay sleepless, the indignation that Harry had aroused in her was disappearing. In the short time that she'd known him she'd grown to care for him, but until now had never realised how much.

She was drawn to his rugged attractiveness and his integrity, and moved at the way he was with Marcus and how he coped with the world of baby care. Those moments in his arms, brief as they had been, had shown her that was where she wanted to be, but if he had his doubts about that kind of closeness, she would have to be patient.

As the fingers of the clock said that it would soon be daylight, she decided that she wouldn't refer again to what had happened between them, that magical moment when, for a few seconds, he'd ignored any reservations he might have and had reached out for her.

She'd known then that he had felt the same heating
of the senses that she had, and the same kind of pull, yet something had made him draw back and she'd been angry and confused. But now all she wanted was to be there for him when he needed her, and maybe one day…

On that thought she turned on her side and slept for what felt like a matter of minutes before Marcus was shaking his cot rails and wanting his breakfast.

Coming down the stairs the next morning, she met Harry returning from an early home visit. When she smiled across at him, she watched his jaw slacken in surprise, but he merely nodded and went to take off his coat in the privacy of his own room, while she began her usual morning routine of driving to the nursery.

Surely Phoebe wasn't going to forgive him for last night's fiasco, he thought as he seated himself behind his desk. He'd been like someone deranged ever since they'd met, behaving totally out of character.

Yet his attraction hadn't exactly been from their
first
meeting. He smiled to himself at the memory of a strange figure peering at him through a crack of the door on his first night in Bluebell Cove.