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  As she raised her eyes slowly a voice that she hadn’t heard in a long time, except in her dreams, said, ‘It’s Izzy, isn’t it? Izzy West?’

  ‘I’m Dr Isabel West, yes,’ she said stiffly, quite unable to behave naturally in the moment that had been thrust upon her. ‘How are you, Ross?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said easily, as if they’d only parted the previous day. ‘And you?’

  Isabel was recovering. Don’t let him see that you’re floundering, she told herself. You’re a busy GP, practising medicine in the place where your roots are. Who could have a string of dates if only you had the time. And, though the local talent might seem mediocre compared to the prodigal coming down the stairs, at least you won’t be making a fool of yourself over them.

  It had been seven years since Ross had gone to practise his medicine skills in whatever part of the world took his fancy, and had left a broken-hearted eighteen-year-old behind him. Now, incredibly, he was back.

  Abigail Gordon loves to write about the fascinating combination of medicine and romance from her home in a Cheshire village. She is active in local affairs, and is even called upon to write the script for the annual village pantomime! Her eldest son is a hospital manager and helps with all her medical research. As part of a close-knit family, she treasures having two of her sons living close by and the third one not too far away. This also gives her the added pleasure of being able to watch her delightful grandchildren growing up.

  Recent titles by the same author:

  HER SURGEON BOSS

  A SURGEON’S MARRIAGE WISH

  THE DOCTORS’ BABY BOND

  COMING BACK FOR HIS BRIDE

  BY

  ABIGAIL GORDON

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  WHEN Isabel West stopped her car in front of the Riverside Tea Shop on the main street of the village she had two things in mind. The first was to check on the physical well-being of one of its owners and the second was to partake of a pot of tea and one of the tea shop’s famous Eccles cakes before going back to the practice.

  She’d been out since midmorning, visiting those who were too sick to make the journey down to the surgery from the isolated farms and homesteads scattered around the peaks, and it was hot and thirsty work on a weekday in the height of summer.

  Often she was offered refreshment in the sprawling farm kitchens and would normally gratefully accept it, but of late there had never been time to dawdle. The pressure was on because they were a doctor short at the practice and her father, who ruled the roost there, didn’t seem to be in any hurry to find a replacement.

  Millie Maplin had been as well known in the village as Isabel’s father. She still was, but no longer as one of its GPs. After sharing the running of the practice with Paul West for many years, she’d bought one of the new apartments lower down the village beside the river Goyt and was enjoying her retirement to the full. Which had left Isabel, junior doctor at the practice, in a situation where there just weren’t enough hours in the day.

  Every time she asked her father when they were going to replace Millie he hummed and hawed, which wasn’t like him at all, and she ended up protesting that, much as she loved the job, she wouldn’t mind some time for socialising, too.

  ‘Be patient, Isabel,’ he’d said. ‘You are a natural for this job. Clever, resourceful…and kind. The village folk are tickled pink to have you back with them as their GP and I’m not asking anything of you that you aren’t capable of.

  ‘I deal with the more serious cases in the waiting room and do the most urgent home visits, so I’m not putting that burden onto you. I have the matter in hand and it will all sort itself out eventually.’

  That had been last week, Isabel thought as the doorbell of the tearoom tinkled to announce her arrival, and nothing had changed so far.

  Sally Templeton, a widow, and her unmarried sister, Sophie, owned the small spick-and-span establishment that attracted the many walkers who came to explore the beautiful surrounding countryside, and it was a visit to the elder of the two sisters that was Isabel’s last call of the day.

  Sally had been struck down with rheumatoid arthritis and Sophie was having to manage on her own until such time as her sister was able to be more mobile. But this morning it wasn’t Sally or Isabel’s usual pot of tea and Eccles cake that were Sophie’s concerns.

  As the young doctor approached the counter Sophie hissed in a stage whisper, ‘Himself is back!’ And pointed upwards to where the living accommodation of the tearoom was situated above them.

  “What?” Isabel questioned, not understanding either her manner or the comment.

  ‘Himself!’ Sophie repeated, with eyes rolling and finger still pointing upwards. ‘Ross is back!’

  ‘Ross!’ Isabel croaked disbelievingly. ‘Since when?’

  ‘Early this morning.’

  As she flopped down onto the nearest chair it was Isabel’s turn to fix her eyes on the ceiling.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said as her voice came back. ‘Why, after all this time?’

  The spare, elderly woman behind the counter shrugged narrow shoulders and Isabel thought, Surely she’s pleased to see her nephew back home? but Ross was closer to Sally. He was her son. The light of her life.

  ‘He just turned up out of the blue,’ was the reply. ‘He’d had a letter from your dad and in it he’d mentioned that our Sal wasn’t well, which was perhaps a good idea as she would never have told him herself.’

  So he hasn’t come back for me, Isabel thought, but, then, had she ever expected that he would.

  At that moment she heard a door open up above and footsteps on the landing outside the living quarters of the tea shop. As she raised her eyes slowly a voice that she hadn’t heard in a long time, except in her dreams, said, ‘It’s Izzy, isn’t it? Izzy West?’

  ‘I’m Dr Isabel West, yes,’ she said stiffly, quite unable to behave naturally in the moment that had been thrust upon her. “How are you, Ross?’

  As she fixed her gaze upon him a hot tide of colour was creeping up her neck. Was he remembering their last meeting when she’d sobbed and begged him to take her with him? She had told him distractedly that she would love him for ever, no matter where he went, what he did.

  She must have been a total embarrassment, with her schoolgirl crush so obvious, she thought as the flush deepened. No wonder Ross hadn’t been able to get away quickly enough.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said easily, as if they’d only parted the previous day. ‘And you?’

  Isabel was recovering. Don’t let him see that you’re floundering, she told herself. You’re not a soppy kid now. You’re a busy GP, practising medicine in the place where your roots are. Who could have a string of dates if only she had the time. And though the local talent might seem mediocre compared to the prodigal coming slowly down the stairs, at least you won’t be making a fool of yourself over any of them.

  It had been seven years since he’d gone to practise his medical skills in whatever part of the world took his fancy and had left a brokenhearted eighteen-year-old behind him. Now, incredibly, he was back, with a tan the colour of nutmeg, lines around his eyes and displaying a trimmed-down sort of physique that spoke of a vigourous lifestyle.

  ‘Couldn’t be better,’ she told him breezily. ‘I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do. I got my degree in medicine and I’m working in the practice with my dad. I love it,’ she told him, w
ith just the slightest hint of defiance, ‘but it’s a bit hectic at the moment as we’re a doctor short.’

  ‘Yes. Millie Maplin has retired, hasn’t she?’

  ‘You seem to be up to date with local affairs.’

  ‘I do get to hear the odd snippet.’

  ‘’Who from?’

  ‘Oh, you know, your dad, my mother. He wrote and told me that she wasn’t well so I decided to come and see for myself how things were.’

  ‘And what do you think now that you’ve seen her?’

  ‘’I’m concerned. She’s in constant pain and has lost a lot of her mobility. With regard to this place she tells me that it gets very busy and I feel that Aunt Sophie shouldn’t have to cope on her own as she is doing at present. I’m amazed they haven’t brought in some extra staff.’

  The tearoom had been filling up while they’d been talking and Sophie, who was taking orders and serving at the same time, hadn’t heard that, but she would have had something to say if she had.

  The two women had worked the place up from nothing and now their home-made cakes and freshly cut sandwiches were famous along the part of the Goyt valley that encompassed the village.

  ‘They are too hard to please,’ Isabel said in a low voice. ‘Assistants come and go. They haven’t found the right one yet.’

  ‘Nothing changes with my mother and aunt,’ he said laughingly, ‘but that’s not true about you, Izzy. You’ve changed.’

  ‘What did you expect?’ she asked coolly. ‘That I would have stayed in some sort of teenage time warp?’

  ‘I didn’t expect anything. I was merely commenting, that’s all,’ he told her blandly, and as if he’d decided that was enough on that subject he asked, ‘Are you here to see my mother?’

  ‘Yes,’ she told him, equally happy to talk about something else. ‘I call in a couple of times each week to see how she is, although she is my father’s patient, as I’m sure you are aware. But Sally likes to have a chat and Sophie supplies me with tea and cake to revive me after I’ve finished my rounds.’

  He nodded and then asked, ‘Are you still living above the practice with your father, or have you branched out into a more self-sufficient lifestyle?’

  What was that supposed to mean? she wondered. Was it a reminder of what she’d been like before—a hysterical adolescent?

  ‘I live in a cottage down by the river,’ she told him.

  ‘On your own?’

  ‘Yes, on my own.’

  ‘Sounds a bit lonely.’

  ‘Not at all. You’re forgetting that I’m a country girl. I’ve got Tess, a Labrador, for company and a stray cat that I’ve adopted called Puss-Puss.’

  ‘Mmm. That’s original,’ he remarked laughingly, and though she was still in a state of complete shock Isabel laughed with him, and thought that was how it had always been before, during the long hot summer when she’d been waiting to go to medical school and had been helping out at the surgery.

  Ross had been a partner in the practice at the time and he had always been teasing her and making her laugh. Tall, lean, and dark-haired, with twinkly brown eyes, next to him the village boys hadn’t stood a chance. For the first time in her life Isabel had been in love.

  It had been doomed from the start. She’d realised afterwards that to Ross she’d just been a kid with a crush that he’d tried to ignore. To her father she’d been a daughter whose lifelong desire to go into medicine had been in danger of being sidetracked because her hormones had been all haywire.

  Between them they’d put out the fire that had burned so brightly in her youthful heart, with Ross suddenly resigning from the practice and announcing that he was going to travel the world and her father accepting his resignation with almost indecent haste.

  Unaware of undercurrents, she’d begged him to take her with him and had been devastated when he’d told her abruptly that he couldn’t. That she should concentrate on her studies and forget him. Before she’d had time to get her breath he’d gone, leaving her broken-hearted and her father grimly satisfied.

  ‘I’m neglecting my patient,’ she told him with a tight smile as she moved towards the stairs. ‘Your mother will know I’m here and will be wondering where I’ve got to. Bye for now, Ross.’ And before he could reply she began to move.

  When she got to the top of the stairs Isabel turned for a last look at the man who had just walked back into her life, and her eyes widened. Ross had found himself a clean white apron and was positioning himself behind the counter of the tea shop, with his Aunt Sophie watching open-mouthed from a distance.

  ‘So you’ve seen Ross,’ Sally said when Isabel appeared in the doorway of the small chintzy sitting room where Sally had spent most of her time since the onset of the rheumatoid arthritis.

  ‘Yes. It was a surprise to find him here,’ Isabel said smoothly, as if it wasn’t the understatement of the year. ‘Did you know he was coming home?’

  The woman in the chair opposite shook her head.

  ‘No. I didn’t. It was your father’s doing. He wrote and told him that old age had caught up with me and he took the first flight home.’

  ‘You must be glad to see him, Sally,’ Isabel said uncomfortably, with the feeling that maybe Ross’s mother felt that she and her father had done enough interfering in her son’s life.

  ‘Of course I am,’ she said staunchly, ‘but I don’t want Ross dashing back home on my account. I’m a long way off dying yet.’

  I’d be over the moon if he’d come ‘dashing’ home on my behalf, Isabel thought, and surprised herself as she’d been sure that she was well and truly over her feelings for Ross Templeton.

  ‘He’s serving behind the counter downstairs at this moment,’ she told his mother with a quick change of direction.

  ‘Really! That sister of mine won’t be able to believe her eyes. Ross working in the Riverside Tea Shop.’

  ‘How long is he here for, Sally?’

  ‘He tells me that he’s come back to stay. Though what he’s going to do with himself in a place this size I don’t know.’

  ‘He’s here to stay!’ Isabel repeated in slow shock as the implications of that item of news sank in.

  ‘That’s what he said earlier.’

  ‘He’ll probably commute to one of the big hospitals in Cheshire, or even as far away as Manchester,’ she said, trying to adopt the tone of the casual observer.

  ‘Yes, but where is he going to stay? This place is only big enough for Sophie and myself.’

  ‘There’s hospital accommodation.’

  ‘Aye, I suppose so,’ Sally said, ‘but he says he wants to be near in case I need him.’

  Isabel swallowed hard. Seeing Ross had taken away her appetite, so missing out on the pot of tea and the cake didn’t matter. But the thought of seeing him all the time in the small community of which she was a vital part was turning a day that had been no different from any other into a whirlwind of emotions, and amongst them trepidation and uncertainty outweighed pleasure.

  If Ross intended being around all the time from now on, how was she going to act? Friendly but guarded? Or maturely aloof beneath her newly acquired doctor’s mantle?

  However she behaved, it wasn’t going to be easy when every time she saw him there would be reminders of the lovesick teenager that she’d been that other time.

  ‘I’m not staying,’ she told Sally. ‘I know that Dad came to visit you yesterday, and I also know you’ll want to be alone with your son…and Sally. Don’t be so independent. If Ross has come home to look after you, let him.’

  The invalid smiled.

  ‘I feel better already just for seeing him.’

  ‘Bye, Ross. Nice to see you again,’ Isabel said, unconvincingly, when she went downstairs.

  As he took his attention off the coffee-machine for a moment their glances held, and Isabel thought gloomily that this was how it was going to be from now on…embarrassment with a capital E.

  She hoped that Ross would find himself a niche
in health care somewhere not too near the village yet near enough for him to be there for his mother if she needed him. As for where he was going to stay, there were plenty of guest houses and a smattering of hotels in the area where he would be able to find accommodation, and for the rest of it she would just have to avoid him as much as possible.

  * * *

  When she got back to the surgery Isabel went straight to her father’s room, where he was usually to be found resting between surgeries at that time of day. It hadn’t always been like that. He’d always been energetic and resourceful until the last few months, and once or twice Isabel had thought that since Millie had retired her father had slowed down instead of speeding up to fill the gap.

  She knew the moment their eyes met that he had guessed why she was there, but Paul West had always been a man of few words and he was leaving it to her to speak first.

  ‘Did you know that Ross was coming home?’ she asked without preamble. ‘You’ve been in touch with him, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I knew he was coming home, and, yes, I wrote to him recently. Am I to take it that you’ve already met?’ he asked.

  ‘He was at Sally’s when I called round. You might have warned me.’

  ‘Why? So you could run a mile? I wanted you to meet him naturally.’

  ‘Naturally?’ she cried. ‘Some hope of that when he appeared in front of me like a blast from the past. I would have thought that you would be the last one to want him back in the village after all the fuss you made the last time.’

  ‘Maybe I’m sorry and want to make amends.’

  ‘Don’t be. I’m well and truly over all that.’

  ‘That’s good as Ross is on his way here at this very moment.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll speak to you later. I have some patients’ notes to write up.’

  ‘No. Don’t go,’ he said quickly. ‘You need to be here when he arrives.”

  ‘I don’t,’ Isabel said, with the annoyance still there. ‘What could he and I possibly have to say to each other? We’ve just done the polite “How are you? Nice to see you” scenario.’