A Cotswold Christmas Bride

In the meantime, Nathan had imagined she could simply pull herself together and shake it off, and she’d tried, she’d done her best to get on top of it, feeling guilty for not pulling her weight in the relationship. In the end, as the illness had lingered, it had finished things off between them, and she was left wondering if perhaps she would never experience true love and marriage. There was something wrong with her, and maybe she couldn’t expect anyone to want her.

She looked up at Lucas. His expression was sombre, concerned, and she gave a ragged sigh. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this.’

‘I think perhaps you needed to get it off your chest. It sounds as though this has been building up inside you for a long time, until it became too much for you, and perhaps that’s why you fainted.’ He drew her hand into his, holding it between his palms as though to show her he cared.

It felt so natural, that small, intimate gesture. She’d never met him until this evening, but it was as though he knew exactly what she needed. He was offering her comfort and compassion … those things that had been sorely missing from her life of late. But instinct warned her that she shouldn’t read anything into it. She couldn’t place her trust in anyone. Not any more.

‘Perhaps I can help in some way,’ he said softly. ‘Even if you just need someone to talk to.’

She pulled in a quick breath. His offer filled her with temptation, but it wasn’t to be, was it? ‘Ah … there’s the rub … you and I aren’t likely to meet up again, are we? We’re just strangers passing through.’

‘It doesn’t have to be that way,’ he said. ‘I’d like to see you again, just to know how you’re getting along.’

He wasn’t suggesting that he felt anything more than friendly concern, but she was on her guard, all the same. She had been burned once, and she’d learned her lesson.

Besides, she had way too much on her plate right now for her to even think about getting involved with anyone.

She straightened up. ‘I’m all right now,’ she murmured. ‘I ought to get dressed. Where did you put my frock?’

He frowned. ‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps you ought to rest a little longer.’

‘I need to put in an appearance downstairs,’ she said. ‘My friends will be wondering what’s happened to me.’

His gaze wandered over her, but he must have realised that she meant what she said, because he got to his feet and strode across the room. A moment later he came back with her dress, and handed it to her.

‘Thank you,’ she said. She took the dress from him and held it in front of her. ‘If you don’t mind …?’

‘Of course.’ He hesitated, reaching into his jacket pocket. ‘I’ll give you my number,’ he murmured. ‘That way, if you need me, you can give me a call.’

She glanced at the number he’d scrawled on the hotel stationery.

‘Thanks,’ she murmured. ‘But, as I said, I’ll be fine.’ She lifted her chin. ‘Goodbye, Lucas. Thanks for your help.’

He sighed, then turned away from her and walked towards the door. ‘I don’t like goodbyes,’ he said, halting momentarily to give her a fleeting glance before walking out into the corridor. There was a glimmer of something in his eyes, something that Sophie couldn’t interpret.

The door closed behind him, and she sat for a while staring at the place where he had stood just a moment ago.

She had done the right thing, letting him go, hadn’t she? He was interested in her, that was for sure, but she was in no state to get entangled with anyone else. Her life was a mess, and right now she didn’t know whether she was coming or going.

Why, then, did it feel as though she’d just passed over something special?

CHAPTER TWO

‘COME on, ladies,’ Sophie called to the hens. ‘Feeding time.’ She scattered a mix of corn and pellets over the rough ground and immediately found herself surrounded by a huddle of excited, squawking poultry. Ferdie, the goose, preened himself, then thrust out his chest and paraded around the compound as if he owned the place, until it dawned on him that he was missing out because the hens were already busy tucking in.

Sophie threw down the rest of the feed and walked over to the gate. Suddenly, she felt a nudge from behind and was pushed forward against the fence, so that she had to put out a hand to steady herself.

‘Don’t do that, George,’ she said crossly, turning to reprimand the goat. ‘I’ve told you before, you mustn’t butt people. It isn’t polite. Wait your turn, and I’ll feed you, too.’ But George was taking no notice at all and nudged her again. She sighed. ‘Why can’t you be nice and placid like your mate, Jessie?’ she queried. ‘Look at her, she’s munching grass. She’s quite contented and she never gives me any trouble. Unlike you.’ It occurred to her, though, that Jessie was maybe a little too content with life on the farm. She was always eating and she seemed to be putting on quite a bit of weight.

Still, she didn’t have time to dwell too much on the animals’ welfare just now. She was running late. Her shift at the hospital started in around three quarters of an hour and she still had to top up the ponies’ hay and fill up the water troughs.

It was some twenty minutes later that she was finally ready to set off for the hospital. Glancing back at the lovely, stone-built farmhouse, where a late flush of roses clambered over the walls and mingled with lush, green ivy, she felt the familiar pang of loss as she drove away. It was a beautiful house, lovingly cherished by her parents, and she missed them dreadfully. This had been her home from as far back as she could remember, a place where she had always felt safe and secure, but now everything had changed. Her life had been turned upside down overnight after that fatal traffic accident.

Once she arrived at work, there was no time to settle into the day. ‘You’re wanted down in A and E,’ the duty nurse told her. ‘It’s a five-year-old with breathing difficulties. He was brought in by ambulance a few minutes ago, and the registrar’s asking for a paediatric consultation.’

‘Thanks, Hannah,’ Sophie said. ‘I’ll go down there right away. Is everything else going smoothly here?’

Hannah nodded. ‘I’m doing observations on the children who were admitted overnight. There aren’t any problems that I can see, so far, except that the boy with the congenital heart condition is still very weak. He’s probably going to need surgery before too long, according to Mr Burnley.’

‘I’ll look in on him as soon as I get back.’ Sophie shrugged into her white linen coat and took a stethoscope from her pocket before hurrying towards the lift.

‘The registrar called for me to look at the young boy with breathing problems?’ she said to the house officer when she arrived in Accident and Emergency a couple of minutes later.

‘That’s right.’ Debbie Logan, a pretty, newly qualified doctor with long, chestnut-coloured hair and grey eyes, led her to the treatment room where the little boy was lying in bed propped up by pillows. He was pale, and in obvious distress, with his breathing shallow and rapid. He was already attached to monitors that registered his pulse and respiratory rate and showed the activity of his heart.

‘His blood oxygen level is very low,’ Sophie commented. The child was being given oxygen through a face mask, but clearly it was Sophie’s job to find out what was causing his difficulties.

She greeted the child’s parents, who were sitting beside his bed looking extremely anxious. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Sophie Welland, the paediatrician. I understand that James was taken ill suddenly?’

‘He’s had a cough these last few days, and a bit of a wheeze,’ his mother said. ‘But it got worse in the early hours of this morning, and we were worried, so we called for an ambulance and he was brought straight to A and E.’

Sophie nodded. ‘I’ll listen to his chest, and we’ll do some blood tests and get an X-ray, so that we can see what’s going on.’

‘That’s what the other doctor said,’ Mrs Coleman told her. ‘He’s already ordered tests, but he was called away to another emergency. He said you’d be down to look at James.’

Sophie looked over the boy’s chart. The registrar had been thorough. The child had already been given antibiotics, and the doctor had ordered a nebuliser that would help widen the boy’s airways.

‘Ah, there you are. That was quick. I didn’t expect you to get here quite so fast.’ A strangely familiar male voice reached Sophie from across the room as she bent her head to carefully examine James a minute or so later. ‘I thought we should admit him, but I wanted your opinion as to whether we should put in an airway. I’d say he was a borderline case, but I’ll leave it to your judgement.’

Sophie withdrew the stethoscope from her ears and let the instrument dangle from around her neck. She turned to see who was speaking, and immediately the breath caught in her lungs and all at once her throat was unexpectedly tight.

‘Lucas,’ she said, her blue eyes widening. A prickle of awareness ran down the length of her spine. He was the devil incarnate, as fiendishly good-looking as ever, with glittering grey eyes that held her fast and that right now were registering every bit as much surprise as her own. ‘I didn’t realise—I mean, I hadn’t expected to see you here,’ she added under her breath.

Her voice must have had a salutary effect on him, because he seemed to snap out of his stunned reverie and his mouth curved faintly in acknowledgement. ‘That goes for me, too, Sophie,’ he responded huskily, keeping his voice low, as though he was all too aware of the boy’s parents close by. Not that they were paying any attention. They were watching the monitors and talking anxiously to one another.

‘I’d hoped I might see you again,’ Lucas said, ‘but I must admit I hadn’t expected it to happen quite so soon. Your friends were reluctant to give out your details, but all the same I felt sure I was pretty close to finding out where you lived.’ His gaze moved over her. ‘Somehow, I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind since the wedding.’

Her cheeks flushed with hot colour. No wonder he had given her that odd look when he’d left her hotel room the other day. He’d never intended to give up on trying to find her, had he? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

His shrewd smile told her he knew full well how he managed to get under her skin. Images of their last meeting filled her vision, causing a tide of heat to rush from her head to her toes and back up again. It was bad enough that he’d seen her half-naked, without adding to it that she’d given him her life history, and confided in him her worries about Nathan and the farm. She had always kept her private life to herself, but he had learned more about her in half an hour than anyone here had discovered in two years.

‘I’d no idea that you were a doctor,’ he said. ‘It’s great news to discover that we’ll be working together.’

Sophie winced. From her standpoint it didn’t bode well. ‘But I’ve worked at this hospital for some time,’ she said with a frown. ‘How is it that I haven’t seen you here before this?’

He gave a light shrug. ‘I only started working here last week. I was brought in to take over from Dr Friedman when he left for the States.’

‘Oh, I see.’ She was struggling to come to terms with the fact that he was going to be her colleague from now on. How would her credibility as a doctor hold up with him knowing that she was harassed and finding it difficult to cope? And it was especially galling that he knew that lately she had been prone to dizzy spells.

She pulled in a deep breath and turned her mind back to their patient. ‘I think we’ll postpone the intubation for a while,’ she said, doing her best to keep her manner professional. ‘James is still conscious and coping, albeit none too well, without an airway, but it could be a traumatic procedure for him, and one that I’d sooner avoid if possible. I think we should add steroids to his medication … and check the levels of potassium in his blood. If they’re too low, that could be adding to his problems. And of course we should admit him right away.’

‘My thoughts exactly,’ Lucas acknowledged. He gave a wry smile as though he knew just what was going on in her head. For her own part, she wanted to avoid even thinking about that night, but it stubbornly refused to go away. It stuck to her like a burr and irritated her just as much.

Lucas spoke to the child’s parents, while Sophie managed to escape the room by going off to make arrangements for James to be admitted to Paediatrics. She was saddened to see the little boy looking so ill. He was frail, not speaking, too wretched to do anything but lie there.

She added her notes to his chart and went in search of the young house officer. She found her a few minutes later, by the reception desk, chatting with Lucas. Debbie was clearly taken with him, and who could blame her? The man oozed charisma and from the whispering she’d heard amongst the nurses in the last few minutes, Sophie guessed the new registrar had scored a direct hit with all the female staff. She stiffened. Men were capricious at the best of times when it came to lapping up the attention of young women, and it seemed that Dr Lucas Blake was no exception. All the more reason for her to steer clear of him!

She left the boy’s chart with Debbie and started to head back towards Paediatrics.

Lucas caught up with her in the main corridor outside the treatment rooms. ‘Sophie, wait …’ He blocked her path, causing her to slow down and frown at him.

‘I’m in rather a hurry,’ she warned him. ‘I have to go and see to my patients.’

‘I understand … I know how busy you must be.’ He smiled, looking her over, taking in the sleek lines of the figure-hugging dress she wore beneath her white coat. ‘How is it that you always manage to look so good? Even a doctor’s jacket looks great on you.’

Her gaze locked with his. ‘I wouldn’t waste your time trying to sweet-talk me, if I were you,’ she told him. ‘Other men have been down that road and, I promise you, I’m immune.’

He shook his head. ‘So distrustful,’ he murmured. ‘Those men have a lot to answer for.’ He studied her. ‘I’m sorry if I took you by surprise back there—I was hoping we might meet under different circumstances. I’d planned on wining and dining you, and perhaps winning you round with soft lights and music.’

Her eyes narrowed on him. ‘It sounds as though you were very sure of yourself.’

‘Not exactly … but I wasn’t about to give up on seeing you again.’ He smiled. ‘I’d do anything to see you relax and lose that worried look. It can’t be right for you to be wound up quite so tightly.’

She pulled a face. He was probably right about her being wound up. Even now, she was stressed out. Her stomach was knotted, and there was a pain deep in her abdomen. Come to think of it, her hands ached, too. Weren’t those all the signs of burnout? She was too young, surely? She was still a good two years off thirty.

Perhaps she ought to go back to her GP, to find out if there was any news on the tests he’d done.

‘Problems?’ He was watching her, studying her features, as though he would learn everything there was to know about her.

She straightened her shoulders. ‘None at all.’

‘Really? You know, the only time I’ve seen you looking truly serene was when you were stretched out on the bed, back at the hotel, oblivious to everything. You were exquisite, and oddly vulnerable, and I had the strangest urge to protect you from whatever it was that was haunting you.’

Sophie’s composure began to falter. ‘On balance,’ she managed, ‘I dare say we should forget all about what happened the other day. I’d far sooner put it behind us.’

‘Of course.’ A faint smile played over his beautifully moulded mouth, and Sophie felt her stomach tighten all over again. He might as well have taken a photograph—she knew, and he knew, that her image was printed on his brain for evermore.

She stiffened her shoulders. ‘I really need to get back to Paediatrics, Lucas. I have to see a young patient with heart problems, and I want to be there when James arrives on the ward.’

He nodded. ‘Maybe we could meet up at lunchtime? I’d love to hear how you’re getting on at the farm. My parents are in the same line of business, so if you have any worries on that score, I might be able to help.’

‘I’m sure I’ll manage—unless …’ she gave a crooked smile ‘… you have any ideas on how to curb a playful goat who won’t stop butting people at inopportune moments? His horns are curved, but they can be quite tough, and I can tell you I’m getting quite sore.’

He laughed. ‘No wonder you’re feeling the strain.

I’d be the same way if I had to fend off an aggressive goat before work. A bit of padding down your jeans, perhaps? All I know is, it’s best to train them off the habit when they’re young.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, we tried that, but George is very stubborn. He thinks he rules the roost—along with the goose, who believes it’s his job to keep the hens in order.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Sorry, but I must go.’

‘I’ll see you at lunchtime, then? One o’clock, in the restaurant. My treat.’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘If I can get away.’ With any luck, she’d find a reason why she needed to be on the ward at one o’clock. Instinct warned her that she should steer clear of Lucas. He was keen to start up some kind of relationship with her, and that was the last thing she wanted. She’d been hurt before, and she wasn’t looking to go that way again.

He watched her walk away, and she felt his gaze scorching into her back as she went through the wide glass doors and out into the corridor. He was persistent, that was for sure.

On the paediatric ward, Sophie went to see Marcus, her little patient who was suffering from heart problems. He was four years old, a generally bright, happy child, but he was back in hospital right now, suffering from shortness of breath and trouble with his blood pressure. He was receiving oxygen through tubing that fitted into his nostrils.

‘Hello, Marcus,’ she greeted him. He had dark, tousled hair, and mischievous brown eyes that sought her out whenever she was close by. Now he was concentrating hard on a jigsaw puzzle, his tongue thrust out over his lower lip as he searched for the right piece. ‘How are you getting on with the puzzle?’

Marcus frowned. ‘Can’t find pussycat’s ear,’ he said. ‘I had it, but then my leg hurt and jumped up and it made me knock the puzzle over. It went … whoosh.’ He waved his arms in a wide arc to show Sophie what had happened.

‘Oh dear … so now you’ve had to start all over again?’

He nodded.

‘That’s a shame … but you seem to be doing very well, all the same. You’ve done half of it already.’

It was worrying that he’d started having leg cramps again—it was a sign that the circulation to the lower half of his body was weak, one of the symptoms of his condition. He had been born with a narrowing of the aorta, the main blood vessel of the heart, and that could only be corrected by surgery.

She looked around. ‘I wonder if any of the puzzle pieces fell on to the floor?’ Bending down, she searched the area around his bed, and came up triumphantly a moment later with two pieces of puzzle. ‘Aha … I think we’ve found the kitten’s ear,’ she said with a smile, handing them over. ‘Perhaps you could put them in place, and then I’ll check your blood pressure?’

He nodded obligingly. He was a good-natured boy, and it tore at Sophie’s heart that his body let him down.

She left him at work on his puzzle a few minutes later, and went to speak to the nurse. ‘I’m going to alter his medication,’ she told Hannah as she wrote instructions on his chart. ‘We’ll give him a slightly higher dose to strengthen the contractions of the heart. That should help ease the leg cramps. Did Mr Burnley say when he was hoping to operate?’

Hannah shook her head. ‘He’s talking to the parents now. He wants to do an echocardiogram so that he can see how the heart is working. He’s scheduled it for tomorrow morning.’

‘Good.’ It was a simple, non-invasive procedure, using ultrasound to transfer images of the heart in action on to a computer screen, and it wasn’t something that would upset Marcus in any way. ‘Let’s hope the medication does the trick. The sooner we can get him stabilised, the sooner he can have surgery.’

Sophie spent the rest of the morning tending to the other patients on the ward. One o’clock came and went, and it was only when Lucas startled her by coming onto the ward that she remembered she was supposed to have met up with him. Seeing him stride briskly into her territory filled her with unease. What would it take for him to realise that she really didn’t want to get to know him better?

‘Since you didn’t come to the restaurant for lunch,’ he remarked, walking to where she stood by the nurses’ station, writing up her notes, ‘I thought I’d better bring lunch to you.’

He was holding two sturdy, waxed carrier bags, and she frowned, wondering what on earth he had brought with him. ‘Um … we’ve been really busy here this morning,’ she murmured.

‘Of course. It’s like that down in A and E all the time. The only difference is we encourage staff to take their breaks whenever possible, otherwise they’ll begin to flag before the day is out.’

He glanced around the ward. ‘Everything looks fairly peaceful here at the moment. Dare I hope that you might come and share some food with me?’ He lifted a dark brow in invitation, wafting one of the bags in front of her nose. A delicious aroma of cinnamon, fruit and pastries filled the air, and in spite of herself Sophie’s mouth began to water.

‘I take it you haven’t already eaten?’ he queried.

She shook her head. ‘Not since I grabbed a cereal bar this morning. I should have stopped for a snack mid-morning, but you know how it is—something cropped up.’

He tut-tutted. ‘It won’t do, you know. Doctors have to take care of themselves. How else can they expect to be fit enough to take care of their patients?’ He looked around. ‘Is there somewhere we can go to sit and eat this?’

She frowned. It would be criminal to let that food go to waste. ‘The office is empty right now,’ she suggested. ‘There’s a kettle in there, so we can have a hot drink if you like.’

‘No need,’ he said, ‘unless you’d rather have tea. It’s all in hand. I brought coffee along with me.’

‘Okay.’ She showed him into the office, and then peered into the carrier bags that he set down on the desk. ‘Goodness! You thought of everything.’

His grey eyes crinkled. ‘I do my best.’ He began to take out packages, and Sophie watched as appetising dishes appeared one by one.

‘I’m overwhelmed.’ Sophie smiled as she surveyed the feast. ‘It’s everything I might have bought for myself.’

‘It just goes to show that great minds think alike,’ he murmured, setting out cutlery on the desktop. He sat down opposite her. ‘So, how come you only managed a cereal bar this morning? If that’s how you normally go on, it’s no wonder you have fainting attacks.’

‘Like I said, I’d really rather forget about that,’ she answered, frowning. ‘I told you I was stressed. It’s just that there’s so much to do, what with feeding the animals twice a day and making sure they’re clean and comfortable. Then there are the eggs to collect, and the fruit needs picking before it rots on the stems. We grow several different kinds of fruit on the farm—strawberries, raspberries, redcurrants and cranberries.’

She drew in a quick breath. ‘It’s late in the season, but a good many of the plants are still fruiting because they’re under cover in polythene tunnels. I should have started on it before this, but there’s been so much to do. It was okay when my parents were alive, because they took care of everything. I helped out when I could, but coping with all this on my own is a bit beyond me at the moment.’

Her expression was thoughtful. ‘The cranberries, especially, are ripe for picking. Every year I would help my mother gather them in, and then we would make cranberry sauce, jar upon jar of the stuff, ready for the Christmas season. She’d give it away to friends, neighbours, anyone who wanted it, really.’ She picked up her fork. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do this year. It won’t seem the same somehow. Christmas is going to be nothing like what it was before. How could it be?’