Christmas at Willowmere Read online

  ‘What?’ He stared at her aghast. She said it like a well-rehearsed speech. ‘The last time we spoke you said you would be joining me soon. I understand why you can’t go to Africa, but we can change our plans. I can come back to work in Britain. We can live here where your family are, so that they have you near, but it doesn’t have to affect our relationship surely. What has made you have doubts about us?’

  Anna shook her head. ‘It’s no good, Glenn. I’ve fallen out of love with you. I’ve had time to step back and take a look at where I was heading and have changed my mind.’

  ‘Are you telling me in a roundabout way that there’s someone else?’ he asked harshly.

  ‘No. I’m just telling you that I want out. I’ve changed my mind.’

  ‘Because Julie has died?’

  ‘Partly, but not just because of that.’

  ‘So what else, then?’

  ‘I’ve told you, I’ve just had time to think about things. About us. It’s not going to work. Will you please go?’

  ‘Yes. I will,’ he said coldly, and followed it with, ‘I’m so sorry about what has happened. Give your brother my condolences. I’ll see myself out.’

  He went back to Africa the day after she’d demoralised him with her change of heart, and there had been no communication of any kind from her since the day she’d dumped him without the slightest warning. He’d thrown himself into his difficult and often dangerous work in an attempt to forget her and forced himself to move on.

  So why had he come back now? Gazing through the mullioned window of a pleasant chintzy bedroom beneath the eaves of The Pheasant later that morning, he knew it was need that had brought him here.

  For a long time he’d been bound by the needs of others. Now it was his own need that was driving him. He was drained mentally and physically after what he’d had to do and what he’d had to observe, and ached for Anna’s presence in his life once more, but when he recalled the way she had wiped out what they’d had together in just a few abrupt sentences he hadn’t any high hopes regarding that.

  He’d been lost for words when she’d told him of the passing of her father. What kind of a life had she been living during the years they’d been apart? he wondered. He could have helped make it easier if she’d given him the chance.

  Maybe the coming evening would bring a better understanding between them, but he wasn’t too hopeful. Getting to know Anna again was not going to be easy.

  Physically she hadn’t changed as much as he had. The red-gold of her hair was the same, although instead of hanging long on her shoulders, as it used to, it was now in a short, smooth bob framing a face that had no special claim to beauty other than big hazel eyes with long lashes and a kind mouth.

  Personality-wise it seemed a different thing, and he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Trying to fill the gap that their mother had left for those two children and being there for her father and brother must have left little time for her to pursue her own life.

  He had never experienced family closeness such as hers. His home life had been a poor thing by comparison and it was why he longed for children of his own, so that he could give them the love that he’d never had.

  After years of mayhem in war-torn lands, it had felt as if this beautiful village, which had always meant so much to Anna, had been beckoning him, and he’d decided to have one last sighting of her before he closed the pages of a book that was only half-written.

  So far he’d accomplished two things. He’d found her out there on the snow-covered street and she’d agreed to meet up with him later. With regard to anything else, he was prepared to wait and see.

  James was in Reception, talking to Elaine Ferguson, the practice manager, when Anna came through the main doors of the surgery, and he saw immediately that something was amiss.

  When he’d finished speaking to Elaine he followed her into the smaller of the two rooms where the nurses performed their functions and asked, ‘What’s wrong? You look like you’re in shock. You didn’t have problems getting the children to school, did you?’

  She managed a smile. ‘I encountered some reluctance to leave the snow behind, but once they were inside and settled they were fine.’

  ‘So what is it, then?’

  ‘I’ve just met someone I haven’t seen in years.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Glenn Hamilton.’

  ‘The guy you met at university?’

  ‘Yes. He’s back home for a while and looking up old friends.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing, I suppose. It was just a shock, seeing him here in Willowmere,’ she said, thinking how that was putting it mildly!

  At the time she’d broken up with Glenn the only things that had been registering with James had been his wife’s death, the needs of his children and his sister’s recovery from her injuries. What had been going on in her private life had been a blur, and in any case he’d never met Anna’s boyfriend.

  ‘So where has he been all this time?’

  ‘He’s a doctor and has been working with one of the aid organisations in Africa. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted to do but the accident put paid to that.’

  ‘I’ve never heard you say that before!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Why would I mention it?’ she said gently. ‘It belongs to the past. Though it is something I might do in years to come.’ And the thought was there that it wouldn’t be the same without Glenn beside her.

  ‘And he wants to see you again for old times’ sake, is that it?’

  She shrugged. ‘So it appears. Glenn has booked into The Pheasant for a few days and because I didn’t have time when we met to talk to him properly, I’ve agreed to meet him there tonight for a drink. You haven’t got anything planned, have you?’

  ‘No,’ he said immediately, ‘and if I had I would cancel it. Why don’t you ask him round for a meal? I’d like to meet him. Any friend of yours is a friend of mine, though I don’t recall you ever mentioning him much in the past.’

  ‘There was nothing to tell. He went working abroad and we kept in touch for a while and that was it. The Glenn I knew in those days was clever and caring in his approach to medicine. That was why he was so eager to help the world’s suffering.’

  ‘You weren’t in love with him then?’

  Her reply was evasive. ‘We were close at one time but it didn’t work out.’ She glanced around her. ‘And I’m here to work, aren’t I? Though surprisingly there doesn’t seem to be anyone needing to see a nurse at this moment.’

  ‘There soon will be,’ James promised, and putting to one side for the moment the discussion they’d just had he went to call in his next patient.

  But as the morning progressed and those who had come to consult him came and went, it kept coming back, and he thought, as he’d done a thousand times, that he owed his children’s wellbeing and his sanity to his sister.

  It had been she who had been there for him during days and months of despair after he’d lost Julie, and at the same time she’d helped look after the babies that had been left without a mother, while making a slow recovery from her own injuries.

  It concerned him constantly that she’d had to put her plans on hold for their father’s sake and his, yet every time he brought up the subject Anna always told him gently that she was fine and he would be the first to know when she wasn’t.

  He’d been able to tell from what she’d said that the Hamilton fellow had been a close friend. He remembered Anna saying that someone from university had called some weeks after the accident, but he’d been at the practice at the time and with so much on his mind it had barely registered.

  During Anna’s last year at university and when she’d come home at the end of it, he’d been so concerned over Julie’s difficult pregnancy and his father’s failing health that what had been going on in his sister’s life had passed him by.

  For instance, he hadn’t known until today that she’d wanted to work abroad when she’d q
ualified and had given up that idea because she’d been needed back home. They’d always been a close and loving family but Anna’s devotion had gone way beyond the call of duty.

  He supposed he should have married again, giving her back the freedom she’d so willingly forfeited. But the thought of replacing Julie was more than he could bear, and if he ever did meet someone who came near to her in his affections, would she want a widower with two young children for a husband? Anna adored Polly and Jolly just as much as he did, but his was the responsibility.

  There had been blood tests to do during the morning, along with injections, dressings to change and other duties that went with the job for Anna and Beth Jackson, the other practice nurse, and as always the time flew past. There was no opportunity to think about the evening ahead but when three o’clock came and it was time to pick up the children, seeing Glenn again was the thought uppermost in her mind…

  He is here in Willowmere, she thought incredulously as she waited for them to come out of school. I can see The Pheasant from my bedroom window just five minutes’ walk away and I may as well enjoy the thought while it lasts, as nothing will have changed by the time he is ready to leave. I just can’t blight his life. He deserves better than I can give him.

  When they arrived home Pollyanna and Jolyon played in the garden in the snow until the light faded and then she brought them in for a change of clothes and a warm drink, and all the time she was wishing that the hands of the clock would move faster.

  She dressed with care for the evening ahead in the colours that suited her best. Dark green trousers and a short cream jacket with a long scarf to match showed off the red-gold of her hair and the beautiful hazel eyes that once had been clear and cloudless.

  She’d changed a lot over recent years but tonight she wanted Glenn to see that she was still the same woman as before. There was no need for him to ever know what she’d given up for him, or feel sorry for the life she was leading now.

  It had been an act of love and if she sometimes felt she should have given him a choice, she put the thought firmly from her mind. He was the idealist and might have said it didn’t matter, which would have left her in a limbo state of always wondering if he regretted his decision. No, she had done the right thing.

  Anyway, he was here now, and maybe he didn’t hate her as much as she’d thought he would. He’d seemed friendly enough towards her, and she’d even sensed compassion in him when she’d told him about her father, but whatever his life was like now, she knew there would still be bitterness in him for the way she’d treated him, and she couldn’t blame him.

  But, she decided firmly, he had come to Willowmere of his own accord, so why not make the most of it for the short time he was there? Picking up her bag and keys she went out into the snowy night.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE accident had happened just as Anna had been ready to let Glenn know she was flying out to join him. The babies were a month old and it had seemed as if she might be no longer needed at Bracken House with Julie back to her normal self, the problem of the high blood pressure having disappeared once she’d given birth. And with James around to keep an eye on their father, the time had seemed right.

  Glenn had still been out of contact but was due back soon on the day that she’d driven Julie and the children to the hospital to have their feet checked by a paediatric consultant while James had held the fort at the surgery.

  Both babies had been born with feet slightly inward turning, due to being in a cramped position in the womb, and had immediately been put into tiny boots that would correct the problem. And on an icy winter morning she and Julie had taken them for a progress check.

  The report had been good. They’d told the anxious mother that it was a common enough thing and as it was being treated promptly it should soon right itself. They’d set off for home in good spirits and all had been fine until a car coming fast out of a minor road had skidded into them on the icy surface and hit the side where Julie had been sitting.

  By some miracle, the babies hadn’t been hurt, but their mother had taken the full impact of a car much heavier car than theirs and by the time the emergency services had arrived she had died from severe head and spinal injuries.

  Anna had been found injured in the driver’s seat, not too seriously at first glance, but in great pain in the pelvic area.

  As a paramedic had bent over her she’d heard the babies crying and gasped through the pain and shock, ‘The babies!’

  ‘They seem all right,’ the paramedic told her. ‘They’re being lifted out of the car now.’

  ‘And their mother?’

  ‘We’re doing all we can,’ he said gently. ‘And now, before we move you, tell me where the pain is.’

  ‘Everywhere,’ she moaned weakly, ‘but worse around my pelvis.’ She’d drifted off into nothingness for a few moments and the next thing she knew she was being lifted carefully onto a stretcher before being put into an ambulance.

  She knew she’d lost Julie as soon as she saw James’s face in A and E. On the point of being taken to X-Ray she’d told him to go back to the babies, that she would be all right, though she wasn’t as confident as she sounded.

  Her life changed for ever when a gynaecologist stood by her bedside and said apologetically, ‘I’m afraid that the news isn’t good, Anna.’

  She’d had severe bruising of the chest and broken ribs, but the most attention was being given to the injuries to her pelvis and uterus, and his next words explained why.

  ‘I’m going to have to do a hysterectomy. Your uterus is too badly damaged for me not to do so.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ she groaned. ‘Not that. We wanted children!’ And as the tears had slid down her cheeks she could hear Glenn’s voice in her mind saying, Our children will be born into a loving family, Anna. What would he say when he knew there wasn’t going to be any?

  She cried and cried for what she and Glenn would never have and longed for him to be there to comfort her, but he was far away out of reach somewhere in Africa, and by the time he was due back she’d made her decision.

  Glenn wasn’t going to be put in the position of having to choose between her and a life with children, she’d decided. He would be spared that because she wasn’t going to tell him about the surgery she’d had to undergo. She loved him too much for that. When next they spoke she was going to finish it.

  When Anna appeared in the doorway of The Pheasant Glenn got to his feet immediately and came towards her, smiling his welcome, and she wondered if he’d forgiven her for what she’d done and the cold, abrupt manner with which she’d done it.

  It had been the only way she could make the break at the time because she’d been hurting so much. Losing Julie and knowing that the tender trap with James and the babies was opening up before her had been painful enough, but most of all she’d been hurting because when it came to children of her own, there wouldn’t be any.

  She’d often questioned if she’d been fair in not telling him what had happened to her. Glenn had been denied the opportunity to make his own decision, but it was all in the past and she’d done what she’d thought right at the time. Whatever the reason for his return, at least they could be friends, and she returned his smile with a beam of her own that made his eyes widen.

  ‘So tell me about it,’ she said when they were seated with drinks in front of them beside a glowing log fire.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Africa, of course.’

  ‘It was a fulfilling experience and one day I will go back,’ he said quietly, ‘but not yet. It was also dangerous, demoralising and exhausting, but I never had any regrets, except maybe one.’

  Anna didn’t ask what that was. She had a feeling that she knew, but it seemed that he was going to tell her anyway. ‘You weren’t with me.’

  ‘I would have been no use to you if I had been,’ she retorted quickly. ‘My mind would have been back here all the time, with James struggling with the children without Julie and myself, his family
all dead or absent.’

  Glenn wasn’t smiling now, his jaw taut. ‘If you remember, I told you at the time we could have got round it. You wouldn’t have called it off for just that. There had to be another reason.’

  ‘I don’t want us to spend our time harking back to the past while you’re here,’ she said, shying away from the moment. ‘Can’t we be like you said, old friends renewing their acquaintance after a long time? Though I’m surprised that you haven’t found someone else by now.’

  ‘Why? Have you?’

  ‘Er…no.’

  He shrugged. ‘So there you are.’ He decided a change of subject was called for. Anna had been lit up a moment ago and he wanted her to stay that way, though he didn’t flatter himself it was anything to do with him, unless she was out to show him that she wasn’t the Cinderella figure he might be seeing her as.

  After that they chatted generally. Glenn asked in detail about the surgery, said he’d never had any experience of a country practice, so she suggested he pop in and she would give him the guided tour. The evening moved along pleasantly enough until the landlord announced time.

  ‘I’ll walk you home,’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘No need. I can see my place from here.’ And because she was anxious to know, she asked, ‘How long are you intending staying in Willowmere?’

  ‘Just a few days. Why?’

  ‘Would you like to have dinner with us tomorrow?’

  She saw his face stretch and thought surely he didn’t think she wouldn’t offer him some hospitality.

  ‘I’d love to, if you are sure,’ he replied. ‘I’d like to meet your brother and Pollyanna and Jolyon.’