Swallowbrook's Winter Bride

He was gazing up at her innocently, waiting for an answer, so she said, ‘Yes, that would be lovely, Toby. When shall I come?’

Taking her hand in his, he tugged her towards him and said, ‘Now, Dr Hamilton.’ And having just been given her full title once again, she thought that if she and Toby were going to be seeing much of each other he must be allowed to call her something simpler than that.

‘We’re having fish fingers and ice cream, Toby’s choice,’ Nathan told her when she appeared hesitantly in the kitchen doorway, ‘to celebrate his first day at school,’ adding in a low voice that was for her ears only, ‘which he has enjoyed, thank goodness.’

‘I can imagine how relieved you are about that,’ she replied with her glance on the boy who had gone into the garden and was kicking a ball around while he waited to be fed.

He nodded sombrely but didn’t reply. Instead he asked, ‘How do you like my efforts to make it seem like a home to him?’

She looked around her. ‘Impressive. Just the right blend of luxury and cosiness.’

‘That is what I wanted to achieve. There wasn’t much of that about where I was based in Africa, and since I’ve become involved in adopting Toby we’ve been living in a rented apartment in London while I’ve been sorting out his parents’ affairs for him.

‘Now that we’ve crossed the hurdle of his first day at school and are settling into this place I’m hoping that we can put down some roots and become part of the community, the same as I was before.’

‘You can’t be a much bigger part of the community than serving them as a GP,’ she pointed out, ‘or have you changed your mind about tomorrow?’

‘No, of course not. I’m looking forward to it even if you aren’t.’

He watched the colour rise in her cheeks and thought that where she’d been beautiful before, now she was divine. Still, she’d made it quite clear that their relationship was to be purely professional and he supposed he deserved no more after the way they had parted.

But only he knew the truth of the affair that had ended in him going to work abroad. He still shuddered at the thought of it, and the fact that Libby had been dragged into its aftermath that day at the airport would always be on his conscience.

His broken engagement to Felice Stopford all that time ago had made him wary of romantic love. It was an emotion he’d felt he hadn’t fully understood, and it had come through in the way he’d been so dismissive when Libby had told him how much she cared for him.

To Felice ‘love’ had meant money and position, expensive gifts, wining and dining, holidays abroad in plush hotels, and he had begun to realise that she was not for him about the same time that Libby had joined the practice.

He’d met his fiancée at a charity luncheon where he had been asked to speak about health care in the area and she’d stood out amongst the soberly dressed audience like a beacon on a hilltop. Dark-haired, voluptuous and quite charming, she’d made a beeline for him when it had finished and introduced herself as an American fundraiser representing similar organisations back in the States.

Her invitation to lunch had been the beginning of a romance that had started on a high and finished on the lowest of lows because he’d gradually discovered that her values were not the same as his. He’d found her to be greedy and shallow as he’d got to know her better and been uneasy about her eagerness for them to marry.

When he’d called the engagement off she’d gone storming back to the States and shortly afterwards he’d discovered through a colleague of hers that she’d had a doting elderly husband back there that she’d been eager to unload to make way for someone like himself.

That item of news had sickened him, made him feel tarnished, and pointed him in the direction of working overseas, which was something he’d been considering before he’d got to know Felice and been sidetracked. It was into that state of affairs that Libby had opened her heart to him. Felice had made him suspicious of love and ultimately it was Libby who’d suffered. The least he could do for her now was to abide by her terms and respect her wishes where their relationship was concerned.

By the time they’d finished eating Toby’s eyelids were drooping and Nathan said, ‘It’s been a long day for him, Libby. If you’ll excuse us, I’ll get him tucked up for the night. There are magazines or the TV if you want to wait until I come down.’ And picking the sleepy child up in his arms, he carried him upstairs.

When they’d gone she went into the kitchen. He’d mentioned magazines and television but there was the tidying up after the meal that would be waiting for him when he came back downstairs. If there was one thing she could do for him it was that, then she would go as quickly as she had come while her resolve to be distant with him was still there.

The kitchen was immaculate and she was seated at the table, scribbling a note to say thanks for the meal, when he came down. As she swung round to face him he was observing her with raised brows.

‘I was about to go and was leaving you a note,’ she explained.

‘Making your getaway while I wasn’t around?’ he questioned dryly.

‘Yes, something like that,’ she told him with cool defiance.

He sighed. ‘Go ahead, then, Libby, don’t let me stop you. I can see it’s going to be a bundle of laughs at the surgery tomorrow.’

‘Not necessarily,’ she told him levelly, ‘as long as we both behave like adults.’

His jaw was set tightly. ‘Why don’t you come right out with it and tell me that I’m not forgiven for what I said at the airport that day?’ And have regretted ever since.

This was laying it on the line with a vengeance, she thought, but was in no mood to bring her innermost feelings out into the open. She’d had a disastrous marriage since then and was older and wiser in many ways.

‘What you said long ago is in the past. I never give it a thought. We’ve both moved on after all,’ she said flatly. With a sudden weakening of her resolve, she added, ‘So why don’t we just get on with living next door to each other, working side by side at the practice, and leave it at that?’

The line of his jaw was still tight, the glint still in his eyes, but his voice was easy enough as he said, ‘Fine by me. I’ll see you tomorrow, Libby.’ As she got to her feet he said, ‘Thanks for tidying the kitchen. I’ll do the same for you one day if I’m ever invited across your threshold.’

Having no intention of taking him up on that comment, she gave a half-smile and, reaching out for the door handle, said, ‘I hope that Toby is as happy at school tomorrow as he’s been today.’ She stepped out into the gathering dark. ‘Goodnight, Nathan.’

‘Goodnight to you too,’ he said as he stood in the open doorway and watched her walk quickly down his drive and up her own.

When he heard her door click to behind her he went back inside and wondered if him joining the practice would cause less tension or more between the two of them.

CHAPTER THREE

LIBBY tried not to keep looking at her watch the next morning as she waited for Nathan to arrive to start his first shift. In spite of her personal feelings she knew he would be as good as his word. The same as his devotion to Toby would not falter. With Nathan’s loving support he seemed to be settling well into his new life. Sadly the one thing he would need the most at his tender age was a loving mother and what his adopted father intended doing about that she didn’t know.

But aware that the man in question still possessed the attractions that had drawn her to him, she imagined that there would soon be members of her sex queuing to play the mother role.

Not that she was going to throw herself into the running, of course. She’d tried to make it clear once more last night that there could be nothing more between them, but he was the one who had raked up the past and caused her to put on an act regarding something she would never forget, and no way did she want it to happen again.

She was going to be pleasant but aloof from now on—no more harking back to times past, if only because of the humiliation that came with the memory of them. Life had treated her badly so far with two unpleasant experiences that most women would never have to face in a lifetime, and since Ian’s death she was resolved never to let herself be hurt again in that way.

Besides, now wasn’t the time to be thinking about Nathan—she had patients to see, starting with octogenarian Donald Johnson and when he appeared she asked, ‘What can I do for you today, Mr Johnson? Are you here about the tests I sent you for?’

‘Aye, I am,’ was the reply.

‘Yes, I thought so,’ she said, and told him, ‘I received a letter from the hospital this morning regarding the tests on your kidneys that I requested and was going to phone you. It would seem that one of them isn’t functioning and the other, although performing quite well, is not at full strength.’

‘I see. So one of my kidneys has had it and the other is limping along,’ he commented grumpily.

She smiled across at him. ‘It isn’t such a gloomy outlook as it seems. Our kidneys do gradually deteriorate as we get older, but lots of people survive with only one. We hear of those who have given a healthy kidney to someone else to avoid renal failure and still live a good life with just the one, and although in your case the one that is still working is past its best, I feel sure that it will continue to do its job.

‘The hospital say that they will want to see you every three months, which means they are going to keep a close watch on them, so for the present I would put your worries to one side.’

‘I wouldn’t have had any worries if you hadn’t sent me for those tests,’ he protested.

‘It’s standard procedure for a GP to arrange for those sorts of procedures for the elderly,’ she explained. ‘It won’t have made your kidneys any worse, and now you will have regular checks, which can’t be bad, surely?’

‘Aye, I suppose you’re right,’ he agreed reluctantly, getting to his feet. ‘I’m going fishing at John Gallagher’s place this afternoon, that’ll cheer me up a bit, and John let slip that Nathan is back in the village and he has a young’un to care for too. Is he going to be doctoring in this place again?’

‘Yes, he starts later on this morning, once he’s dropped his son off at school.’

‘That is good news!’ he exclaimed. ‘It will be like old times.’

Not exactly, she thought as he went to make way for the next patient on her list.

‘It was a stroke of genius, bringing Nathan Gallagher back into the practice,’ Hugo Lawrence said when he appeared in the doorway of her consulting room in the middle of the morning. ‘Being out of touch with the NHS for so long doesn’t seem to have affected his performance. He’s on top of the job from the word go by the looks of it.’

She smiled at his enthusiasm, but couldn’t help pointing out that it had been more a case of Nathan taking it for granted he would be slotting back into the practice. There had been no inspired thinking on her part with regard to his arrival at dead on half past nine in a smart suit, shirt and tie and oozing cool competence.

The fact that underneath it he was wary of making the wrong move where she was concerned would have amazed her if she had been aware of it. As it was, his presence was a cause for pain and pleasure in equal parts and she would be relieved when the first day of his return to the practice was over.

When she’d asked about Toby starting his second day at school he had said there’d been just a moment’s reluctance to go into lines in the schoolyard, as was the custom before the children went to their classes. But he’d seemed happy enough as he was trooping in with the rest of them.

She’d sensed anxiety in him at that moment, although seconds later he’d been seeing his first patient as if he’d never been away from the place and she’d told herself to stop involving herself in his affairs or she would be asking for more heartache than she had already.

‘Do you want to do the home visits to reacquaint yourself with the area?’ she enquired when the three doctors stopped for their lunch break. ‘Or would you rather give it a few days to settle in before you do that?’

He hesitated. ‘Maybe tomorrow, if you don’t mind. I would rather be around if the school should need to get in touch after the little episode this morning. I know it sounds as if I’m fussing, but …’

Caring wasn’t fussing, she wanted to tell him as a lump came up in her throat, but hadn’t she just been telling herself to stay aloof from his affairs? So instead she replied coolly, ‘Yes, of course. I’ll do them, and leave Hugo and yourself to see the rest of the patients on the list here at the surgery.’

As she drove towards the first of the house calls Libby had to pass the school and on seeing that the children were all out in the yard, on impulse she stopped the car and went to see if Toby was anywhere to be seen so that she could report back to Nathan.

Sure enough, she saw his fair curly mop bobbing up and down as he chased around with another child of similar age, showing no signs of reluctance to be there.

He’d seen her standing outside the railings and came running across breathless.

‘Are you all right, Toby?’ she asked gently.

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