Buch lesen: «Country Doctor, Spring Bride»

CHAPTER ONE

THE longing to be back with someone who loved her was so strong that Kate Barrington could almost taste it as she drove through the last few miles of the countryside where she’d been brought up.

She wanted to feel her mother’s arms around her. To be back in her bedroom beneath the eaves of Jasmine Cottage so that she could weep away the anger and feeling of betrayal that had been with her over the past few days.

She was feeling as low as she’d ever felt in her life. Mentally because the wedding that she’d been dreaming of was not to be, along with the relationship that went with it, and physically because she felt ill.

It had come upon her the night before. Aching limbs, high temperature and vomiting, which had made her even more anxious to leave the southern counties where she’d been based for the last two years. There was nothing to keep her there any more. The job had folded at the same time as the wedding plans.

As she pulled onto the drive of the old stone house, loosely described as a cottage, with its four large bedrooms and spacious downstairs accommodation, Kate’s mood was lifting. Here she was hoping to shut out some of the unhappiness that had erupted into her life. Any second the door would be flung open. Her mother would be there with arms outstretched and nothing would seem quite so bad.

She’d left a message on the answering-machine the night before to say she was coming home, and thought if there wasn’t a fatted calf to greet her there would at least be some of the good home-cooked food that she’d missed so much while she’d been working away.

As she began to heave her cases out of the boot she saw that the door remained closed and the house had an empty look about it. Her heart sank. Where was her mother? she thought fretfully as her head throbbed and she shivered in the afternoon of a chilly autumn day.

If her mother had received her message she wouldn’t have budged an inch. She had been begging her to come home ever since she’d split up with Craig. But there’d been as much to do in cancelling a wedding as there’d been in organising one, and she’d only just finished tidying up all the loose ends.

The house felt cold when she went inside and Kate wondered if it was because the heating wasn’t on, or if it was the chill of disappointment that was getting to her. Whatever it was, the empty rooms were telling their own tale. Her mother was not there, and after coaxing the central heating boiler into life, Kate switched on an electric fan heater in the sitting room and lay on the carpet in front of it to get warm.

As she gradually thawed out, her eyelids began to droop and just as she had decided that the sensible thing to do was to go to bed with a hot-water bottle, fever and exhaustion took over and she fell asleep.

She awoke when the light was switched on and as she lay with her eyes closed against the sudden brightness, Kate heard a deep voice say in surprise, ‘So what have we here?’

It didn’t have her mother’s lighter tones, and with eyes bright and cheeks burning with a temperature that was still rising she sat upright and found herself gazing up into the dark hazel eyes of a man dressed in a smart suit, with shirt and tie to match.

‘Who are you?’ she croaked. ‘Where is my mother?’

He gave a quirky smile. ‘One thing I am not is the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper, so there’s no need to look so alarmed. Your mother is fine. That is presuming that you are the prodigal daughter. I’m Daniel Dreyfus and I’m staying here for the time being.’

‘As a guest or a lodger?’

‘I’m lodging here.’

‘But why? Mum isn’t in the habit of taking in lodgers.’

‘So I believe, but she took pity on me. I’ve recently moved into this area and am having a house built. I needed somewhere to stay until it’s ready to move into and there was nowhere available, so your mother made her kind offer.’

This was all she needed, Kate thought from her sitting position on the carpet. She was in no fit state to be coping with strangers. She’d come home seeking solace and had arrived with a virus of some sort. Her mother wasn’t there and this stranger was living in the house.

‘Where is my mother?’ she asked.

‘She’s been called away because of an urgent message yesterday afternoon to say that your grandma has been taken ill. She set off immediately and wasn’t here when you left your message last night. I only picked it up myself this morning, but you were already on your way when I tried to get in touch.’

‘What’s wrong with my gran?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Her heart, I think. Don’t worry, she is recovering well. Your mother and I didn’t have much time to talk. She phoned me at the surgery and asked me to hold the fort at this end. She had no idea that you were on your way.’

‘What were you doing at the surgery?’ she questioned, irritable now she was reassured that her mother and grandmother were OK. ‘Are you sick? I’m fighting off some sort of bug of my own, so I can do without any other germs coming my way.’

The quirky smile was back. ‘I work there. I’m the village doctor. Peter Swain, who was there before me, has retired. I took over the practice three months ago after a stint in the Middle East.’

What next? Kate thought wretchedly. Everything was going wrong. The really big catastrophe being Craig breaking off their engagement because he’d said he didn’t want to be tied down, and then her finding out he was having an affair with her flatmate. She supposed she’d been too trusting and should have seen it coming, but it didn’t hurt any less.

Then she’d picked up this virus thing. She who was never ill from one year’s end to the next. Her gran was poorly too. It seemed as if it was her heart again. And to cap it all, this lodger person who was acting as if he owned the place was a doctor. She could do without that.

‘I hope you’re not using my room,’ she said ungraciously, and began to get unsteadily to her feet.

‘Of course not,’ she heard him say smoothly, and that was the last thing she remembered.

Daniel caught Kate as she crumpled and was immediately aware of the fever in her. When he swept her up into his arms she lay limp and unresisting and he thought that with her short, spiky blonde hair and over-bright blue eyes, which were now closed, Kate looked nothing like her mother.

He carried her upstairs and opened the door of a bedroom that had been shut ever since he’d moved in. Pushing it back with his foot, he walked across to the bed and laid her gently on top of the covers. Then he went to forage in the top of the wardrobe for a blanket to put over her.

Kate was coming out of her faint and found herself in the same situation as before, looking up at him from a horizontal position. ‘What happened?’ she asked weakly.

‘You fainted. So I carried you up here and laid you on the bed.’

She groaned. How embarrassing! What next?

‘I want to check you over as you are certainly far from well. I’m going to get my bag out of the car so don’t move,’ he ordered.

If she hadn’t felt so ghastly Kate would have argued. As it was she just lay there limply and waited for him to come back.

‘How long since you’ve eaten?’ he asked as he took her temperature.

‘Er…yesterday.’

‘No wonder you’re feeling weak.’

‘I kept vomiting.’

‘Mmm. I see. Have you had this sort of thing before?’

‘No. Never.’

‘All right. So if you can manage to get undressed and slide under the covers, I’ll go and sort out a hot-water bottle, a cup of tea and some toast. We’ll see if you can keep that down, and then we’ll try some paracetamol to bring your temperature under control.’

When he came back upstairs Kate was under the covers and shivering. She hugged the hot-water bottle to her thankfully. As she was sipping the tea and nibbling on the toast the phone in the hall downstairs rang and as he went to answer it she called after him, ‘If it’s my mother, don’t tell her that I’m sick. She will have enough to cope with, looking after my gran.’

It wasn’t her mother. The call was from Jenny Barnes, the mainstay of the reception desk at the surgery.

‘Is everything all right, Dr Dreyfus?’ she wanted to know. ‘The waiting room is full and Dr Platt keeps sighing.’

‘I’ll be there in a few minutes,’ he told her. ‘I came back to get a medical book and found someone here who is not at all well.’

‘You don’t mean Ruth?’

‘No. It’s her daughter, who’s arrived home unexpectedly and has a virus of some sort.’

‘You mean Kate is back?’ she exclaimed. ‘She was a locum here for twelve months before she moved into hospital work. She’s a sweetie.’

‘Not at the moment she isn’t,’ he told her dryly as it registered that they were both in the same profession and she hadn’t thought to mention it. In fact, she’d looked more put out than ever when he’d told her that he was in charge of the village practice.

‘I’m needed at the surgery,’ he told Kate when he went back upstairs and found her dozing after managing to get the tea and toast down. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can and in the meantime stay put. I’ve brought your mobile up and have put it on the bedside table so that you won’t have to get out of bed if your mother does ring.’

He paused in the doorway. ‘Have you taken the paracetamol?’

‘Yes,’ she said meekly, and wished he wouldn’t be so doctorish. Her heart was bruised and hurting. She didn’t want to be taken over and organised. She wanted to be comforted. But this Daniel Dreyfus person wasn’t to know that, and when he came back she would remember her manners and thank him for looking after her. Someone, somewhere must be on her case to have sent a fellow doctor to her in her hour of need.

A tear rolled down her cheek but he wasn’t there to see it. The man who’d taken over the village practice and moved in on her home ground was halfway down the stairs and wishing that Miriam Platt, the other GP at the surgery, would cheer up.

He’d inherited the fifty-year-old widow with the practice. Peter Swain, who was now retired, had asked him to keep her on, and he’d agreed to do so unless for any reason he found her unsuitable. She was a good doctor, but personality-wise she was depressing. The slightest thing to go wrong had her sighing and he wished she would lighten up.

Miriam worried him. He wished she would talk to him. Tell him why she was always in such low spirits. The practice revolved around the two of them and if she had any problems that he could help with, he would be only too pleased.

He was aware that they needed another doctor, that they were short-staffed, and that his absence this afternoon wouldn’t have gone down well with Miriam. But he couldn’t have left that poor girl in the state she was in. For one thing, he liked Ruth Barrington. She was a pleasant, kindly woman, and for her sake as much as anything he’d stayed to sort her daughter out.

Ruth had been asked by her old friend Peter if she could accommodate the new doctor until his house was ready. She’d agreed and he was enjoying some good food and the pleasure of living in Jasmine Cottage for the time being.

He’d known that Ruth had a daughter somewhere and had sensed that she was concerned about her in some way, but she hadn’t said why and he hadn’t expected her to confide her anxieties to a stranger.

And now the daughter had appeared. Whether she was back for good, or just visiting he didn’t know. But Kate hadn’t been overjoyed to find him established in her mother’s house, even though he’d explained that it was a temporary arrangement.

He was approaching the surgery where Miriam was moaning and patients were waiting to be seen, so she was going to have to sort herself out until his working day was over.

‘So is Kate all right?’ Jenny asked the moment he appeared.

‘No. Not really,’ he told her. ‘I would say that it’s some sort of virus she’s got, and as we all know it is usually a case of keeping the temperature down and letting it run its course.’

‘Does Ruth know she’s poorly?’ Jenny asked, not letting go until she had the full story.

‘She’s at her mother’s in Newcastle-on-Tyne. The old lady has been taken ill, too. So I’m in charge at this end.’

As she passed over the notes of those who had come to consult him, Jenny said, ‘Is there anything I can do to help with Ruth being away?’

He smiled, admiring how the villagers were always ready to rally round when needed. No one would be left to suffer alone in this place. He was amazed at the community spirit, but he had a feeling that on this occasion the patient would want to be left alone.

‘Er…no, not at the moment. Thanks just the same,’ he told her. ‘Kate just seems to want to sleep.’ With that, he went into his room and buzzed for his first patient before Miriam had a chance to cast her frowns upon him.

As he waited, he recalled how the local people had been wary of him at first. Peter had been their doctor for as long as some of them could remember. But they’d had time to get to know him and now they had his measure, knew him to be competent and briskly kind.

If any of the women patients wondered why such a presentable member of the opposite sex had arrived in their midst with no obvious family ties, they were left to ponder. Daniel was like his landlady. He kept his own counsel in matters close to his heart.

Patients came and went, some only mildly suffering, and others in dire distress. Now Millie from the chemist’s was sitting opposite him. She was fighting breast cancer and needed a mastectomy because it had come back in a more serious form after a long remission.

‘Would I have a better chance if I had them both removed?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Only the oncologist can advise you on that, Millie,’ he told her gently, ‘and remember there is a chance that having the one mastectomy might be sufficient to give you a clean bill of health for a long time, maybe even permanently.’

‘And it might not,’ she reminded him. ‘I’d rather go the whole way now, instead of wishing I had.’

‘Have they given you a date?’ Daniel asked.

‘No. Not yet, but they’ve told me it will be soon. I wanted a word with you first before I approached them about a double mastectomy.’

‘It is a difficult decision for you to make.’

She shook her head. ‘Not really. If it gives me a few more years, it will be worth it.’ She gave a watery smile. ‘At least I won’t feel lopsided.’

‘So what does your husband say, Millie?’

‘All he cares about is that I get better.’

‘So have a word with the oncologist and see what he says.’ Daniel advised patiently.

‘It’s a she,’ Millie explained.

‘Fine. You may find it easier to explain your feelings to another woman.’

As the numbers in the waiting room dwindled and the clock ticked on, Daniel wondered how his patient at Jasmine Cottage was feeling. She was far from well and somewhat disgruntled, but he sensed that her disappointment at finding her mother missing was mostly to blame for her lack of cordiality, as well as discovering that she hadn’t got the house to herself.

But she couldn’t have it both ways. At least he’d been there to look after her when she’d fainted and afterwards. And if she wasn’t happy about him staying at Jasmine Cottage, he would have to keep a low profile while she was there and hope that it wouldn’t be for long.

‘I’m sorry I was delayed earlier,’ he said to Miriam as they were clearing up at the end of the day. ‘Ruth’s daughter arrived home unexpectedly and she wasn’t at all well. She fainted and I couldn’t leave her until I was sure she would be all right.’

‘I see,’ she said distantly. ‘It was just that we were rather busy.’

‘Yes, I know. We need another doctor and I’m going to sort it the first chance I get.’

He didn’t know how at that precise moment, but there were always young graduates keen to go into general practice, or more experienced doctors needing to relocate for family or other personal reasons.

It had been hectic since he’d taken over, but now everything was settling down and with another doctor in the practice he might find time to explore the Cheshire countryside.

One of the best things to happen to him since he’d become part of the rural community had been staying at Ruth Barrington’s. He’d bought a piece of land down by the river and was having a detached house built on it. But it was going to be a matter of months before it was ready, and while that was going on he was happy and grateful to be based at Jasmine Cottage, or at least he had been until today.

It was half past six when he pulled up on the drive and as he let himself in there was no sound coming from anywhere in the house, so it seemed as if Kate might be asleep once more.

He knocked gently on her bedroom door and when there was no reply he pushed it open slowly. The bed was empty and he could hear the shower running in the en suite, so it seemed as if she was feeling better. But what had he advised? He’d told her to stay where she was. If she’d fainted in the shower it could have had serious consequences.

However, it appeared that she hadn’t as at that moment she appeared draped in a towel, with feet bare and hair flat and damp against her head.

When she saw him standing there she clutched the towel more tightly around her and said defensively, ‘I know what you said, but I felt so hot and sticky, and I’m not feeling so bad now. Whatever I’ve picked up must have reached its peak when I fainted.’

He shrugged. ‘If you say so, and as we are both in the same line of business, I’m sure you know what’s best for you, so I’ll leave you to it.’

‘Don’t go,’ she said quickly.

‘Why? I’m hungry. Your mother told me to help myself to whatever I found in the fridge or the freezer. So I’m about to investigate. You can join me if you like, but don’t feel you have to.’

‘Would you just let me get a word in?’ she protested, and he became silent.

‘I want to apologise for my rudeness when you found me asleep in front of the heater, and also to say thanks for looking after me when I fainted. I don’t usually behave in such a manner.’ She sighed. ‘My excuse is that I’ve just had to cancel my wedding. Over the last few weeks I’ve been going through the process of calling it off and it has been a distressing nightmare. But it is done now and I’ve come home to live for the time being.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said quietly, and wondered what she would say if he told her he knew the feeling. But there were lots of different reasons for calling weddings off, and he could bet that his wasn’t the same as hers. ‘Was it to take place here in the village?’

She shook her wet blonde head. ‘No. My fiancé wanted us to be married abroad in St Lucia.’

‘So a lot of your friends here would have been disappointed.’

‘Yes. It wasn’t my idea. But I was in love and…’ She tailed off.

‘Quite so,’ he said, and turned to go. The conversation was bringing back painful memories that he could only cope with when he was alone.

‘I’ll put some clothes on and join you shortly, if that’s all right,’ she said hesitantly, with the feeling that she’d said the wrong thing again, but this time she didn’t know what it was.

‘I said it was, didn’t I?’ This time he did go, down the stairs and into the kitchen.

He was putting two plates of fish pie, peas and new potatoes on the table when she appeared hesitantly in the doorway, wearing a pink long-sleeved top and worn blue jeans, her blonde hair now dry. He had been feeling rather guilty about the way he had spoken to her upstairs and, seeing her now, looking so wary, he offered her a smile.

‘Come and sit down,’ he said, hoping he sounded more friendly. ‘Did your mother phone while I was out?’

She relaxed a little, came in and sat down. ‘Yes. Just after you’d gone. She was surprised to know I’m back home and sorry she wasn’t here to greet me. Gran has had a quite severe angina attack and at the moment is in hospital. So Mum won’t be returning until she is sure that all is well with her, and if there is any doubt about it she’s going to bring her here to live. It’s handy, having four big bedrooms.’

‘Yes. Especially when one of them is being occupied by the lodger,’ he commented dryly. ‘Did you tell her that we’ve met?’

‘Er…yes. She seems to think very highly of you and even more so after I told her how you’d looked after me.’

He nodded imperceptibly and for a while they ate in silence, both enjoying the tasty meal. Then Daniel spoke again.

‘So why didn’t you tell me that you’re in medicine too?’

Kate shrugged. ‘At the moment that’s in the past. I was a doctor in A and E at a hospital down south. We both were. Craig, my fiancé, worked there too. But a few weeks ago the unit was transferred to another area where they had their own staff waiting to take over, which left some of us without jobs. I could have moved to another department, I suppose, like he did, but I left as a protest at the closure of a busy A and E centre.’

‘So it would seem that life hasn’t been treating you very well of late.’

‘No. It hasn’t. I wasn’t the one who called off the wedding. He had been the one keen to get married. Then suddenly he didn’t want to be tied down…to me, that was. He’d switched his affections to my flatmate.’

‘I’m sure that you must feel you’re well rid of him.’

She smiled, showing even white teeth, and he thought how it transformed her face. So far she’d been scowling most of the time, but now he was seeing her as someone who would be quite something if she smiled more…in spite of the hairstyle.

‘I didn’t at first. That kind of thing makes one feel so unwanted and unlovable, but I’m getting there.’

‘I’m sure you are,’ he said with a smile of his own, and thought that this girl had some spirit. It was a shame that some low-life had tried to quench it. “Perhaps when you are fully recovered we can drink a toast to your continuing return to good health and a future spent with people who won’t let you down?’

‘Hmm. That would be lovely. So maybe you could tell me what’s happening at the surgery? Peter Swain has gone now, hasn’t he?’

‘Yes. But Miriam remains and I think she disapproves of me.’

‘Why, for goodness’ sake? Though thinking back to when I was there, it didn’t take much for her to start sighing and rolling her eyes.’

He laughed. ‘Nothing has changed, except that I’m in charge now and as new people are moving into the area our list of patients is getting bigger all the time.’

‘Yes, it will be,’ she agreed. Suddenly a wave of tiredness swept over her. Getting to her feet, she said apologetically, ‘I think that maybe I left my bed a bit too soon. I’m not going to faint again,’ she told him as he eyed her in concern. ‘I just suddenly feel very tired.’

‘That will be the after-effects of you having had such a high temperature. Do go back to bed by all means and I’ll look in on you later to make sure you are all right. We can have the wine another time.’

She nodded and got up from the table, pausing in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry I’m being such a drag, Dr Dreyfus,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘The name is Daniel, and none of us can help being ill at some time or another, as we doctors well know, so don’t give it another thought. You’re probably run down after all the stress you’ve been under, and would have thrown the virus off at another time.’

As she went slowly up the stairs, Daniel was again wishing he hadn’t been so brusque with her when he’d come back from the surgery. On closer acquaintance, Kate seemed all right.

Before he settled down for the night himself he went to check on her and found her sleeping peacefully. Her forehead was cool, her pulse regular, and as he moved away from the bed she turned in her sleep and murmured the name of the man she’d been going to marry, which made him wonder if she really had written him out of her life.

When he woke up the next morning he could smell bacon grilling and when he went downstairs Kate was setting the table for breakfast.

‘My turn,’ she told him as toast popped up in the toaster and the kettle came to the boil.

‘So am I to take it that you are feeling better?’ he asked.

‘Mmm. Much. I’m going to start unpacking when we’ve had breakfast and I’m going to put the washing machine on, so if you have anything that needs washing, leave it out.’

‘And what are you going to do after that?’

‘Take a wedding dress to the charity shop in the village.’

‘Surely someone else could do that for you. It’s bound to be painful. I’ll take it for you if you like.’

She was staring at him in amazement, unaware that for him it would not be the first time. But on a previous occasion the dress hadn’t been despatched with such haste and it had been returned to the shop from where it had been bought.

‘I can’t let you do that,’ she protested. ‘Mrs Burgess, who’s in charge of the place, would have it on the grapevine almost before you’d left the shop that you had brought in a wedding dress. What interpretation she and her helpers would put on that, I shudder to think.’

He was laughing. ‘So why don’t we set them a puzzle?’

‘If you’re sure.’

‘Sure I’m sure, but are you sure that you and what’s his-name, Craig, aren’t going to get back together?’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ve learnt my lesson. From this day forward I will only ever marry someone who can’t live without me, and I can’t live without him. And if I never find him I’ll stay single. I think I was in love with love more than I was with Craig.’

‘So where is the dress?’

‘Upstairs in a big box. I’ll go and fetch it.’

He must be insane, Daniel thought wryly after she’d gone to get it. Offering to take her brand-new wedding dress to the second-hand shop. It would be like turning the knife in him again, and what would Ruth think when she came home? That he ought to mind his own business. Or that he should have suggested to Kate that she sell it, being currently unemployed.

Why was he getting involved in her affairs anyway? They’d only met the previous day and hadn’t exactly hit it off to begin with. He had enough to concern himself about without worrying over a jilted bride. Running the practice and keeping an eye on the builders working on his house down by the river, for a start.

But there was something about Kate that was reaching out to him and it wasn’t because she was his type. Far from it. Lucy had been his type, but the after-effects of a brain tumour had taken her from him only days before their wedding, so he did understand how it felt to have one’s future wiped away. In his case it had been the cruel fates that had broken his heart, not a cheating partner.

Kate was back with the box that had the dress in it. Ashen-faced but determined. As he took it from her she said, ‘Thanks for taking it. I seem to have been putting on your good nature from the moment we met, and I know I’m pushing it, but I wonder if I could ask one more favour of you.’

‘It depends what it is.’

‘From what you were saying last night, it appears that you could do with another doctor in the practice. I have worked there before, and I do need a job.’