Swallowbrook's Wedding of the Year (The Doctors of Swallowbrook Farm) Read online

  ‘I help at the hospice, if you remember me telling you, on a weeknight and on Sundays for six hours. It is only a couple of miles away and when I’ve finished there I do my chores,’ she told.

  ‘Ah, yes, I remember,’ he said. ‘I told you to tell them that I would be willing to volunteer my services if they wanted them, didn’t I? Now, I really must be going or I’ll miss my phone call. I will see you on Monday, no doubt.’ And with a wave of the hand in the direction of those she’d left to come over to talk to him he went striding off into the night.

  The excuse he’d come up with to prevent him joining Julianne and her friends had been partly true. He was expecting a phone call from elderly Margaret Willoughby, who he had worked alongside in Africa, but it wasn’t as imminent as he’d made out.

  It was an arrangement they’d made before he’d left there that she would ring him tonight to hear how he was experiencing being back on his own territory, but it would be at least an hour before the call came through.

  He wasn’t happy with himself at the way he’d refused Julianne’s invitation, but he’d already seen her earlier when she stopped to give him a lift in the heavy downpour and that was as far as he’d wanted it to go.

  But, no, she’d been in his sights again in The Mallard, and it was going to continue, the constant being in each other’s company. More so at the practice, which he was adjusting to, but also socially, and he wasn’t happy about that for one good reason.

  The hurts of what had happened at the church that day were long gone. He had wiped out of his mind the humiliation of it, and having no desire to be twice bitten had not been involved in any relationships with women since.

  And then along had come the sister of his jilting bride and he’d been dumbstruck to find her living and working in the place he had come home to. It had brought back memories that he could certainly do without.

  He knew if he had met Julianne under any other circumstances as the person she was now he would have been attracted to her, but never as one of the unholy sisters with a little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth on his wedding day, whatever she might appear to be now there would always be the reminder of that every time he saw her.

  The phone call that he was expecting came through at the appointed time and afterwards, resisting the urge to go back to The Mallard and make up for his ungracious behaviour of earlier, he took a book up to bed and after leafing through it with little interest lay back against the pillows and decided to call it a day.

  * * *

  It was much later when Julianne decided to do the same. They had all stayed at The Mallard until past midnight and then had gone to eat at a nearby restaurant where they usually ended up on Saturday nights.

  For the first time ever she hadn’t enjoyed any part of the evening and it was all because of Aaron, who, it would seem, was still critical of her, wary as if she wasn’t to be trusted, and after his glib excuse for not joining her and her friends she had felt the sting of rebuff below the surface.

  * * *

  She worked at the hospice from ten until four on Sundays and after another restless night almost overslept, but a quick shower and an even more hasty breakfast found her setting off on time on a morning that was cold, clear and frosty.

  As she drove along the road that ran by the lake Aaron’s reminder that he would be willing to do the same kind of voluntary work was foremost in her thoughts. Would he follow the suggestion through? she wondered. If he did it would be another day of the week when they would be in each other’s company, another day of awkwardness and stress that she could do without.

  But there were patients in the calm and caring atmosphere of the hospice who would benefit from his skills and competence, and who was she to want to deny them that?

  When she appeared on the ward where she always worked her eyes widened and her heartbeat quickened. Not only had Aaron followed through his suggestion, he was there before her, being shown around the place by the one of the hospital’s management team.

  As she goggled at him he said smoothly, ‘Good morning, Nurse Marshall,’ and to his companion who was observing him in some surprise, ‘We both work at the Swallowbrook Medical Practice and it was Nurse Marshall who put the idea into my head of offering my services to the hospice.’

  The other man, smart-suited and fiftyish, said with a smile, ‘Well done, Nurse. Our patients look forward to Nurse Marshall appearing beside their beds on Sundays.’

  Still goggling, Julianne flashed him a weak smile in return and said, ‘If that is the case I had better not disappoint them.’ And leaving them to their tour of the hospice she went to do what she was there for.

  As he watched her go Aaron thought that he could have at least warned her of his intention, but as the idea to go and have a look round the hospice had only occurred to him in the moment of waking it would have been an imposition to disturb her at that hour, and when the curtains of the apartment had still been closed when he’d gone to get a newspaper at the village store, he had gone without informing her of his intention.

  The urge that had brought him there so soon after mentioning it the previous night had come from his reluctance to join her and her friends when he’d been invited, and the idea of meeting up with her at the place where he knew he would find her had been a sort of olive branch, a chance to let her see that he wasn’t as averse to her company as he was making out.

  He wasn’t intending to stay long as his joining the staff in the role of a volunteer doctor would have to be sanctioned by the authorities, but at least he had let Julianne see that he had accepted her presence in his life.

  He could easily have conveniently forgotten his suggestion that he also would be willing to help at the hospice, but instead he had acted on it immediately to show her that he wasn’t as keen to avoid her as she might think.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AS JULIANNE performed her duties for the terminally ill with the ready smile and gentle nursing that was the way of the hospice she put Aaron’s unexpected appearance to the back of her mind. It would be time enough to think about that when she was home in the silence of the apartment.

  Back at The Falls Cottage, he was doing the opposite, reliving the moment when she’d appeared on the ward and found him already there.

  Once the management had checked him out, what might have been a future of empty Sundays would soon be filled with caring for the sick.

  If she was willing to give up part of her weekends, so was he, and there was nothing to indicate that they would be working together as it was a large complex.

  As she drove home in the late winter afternoon Julianne was thinking about when she’d first met him. She’d been used to Nadine always having a man in her life. None of them lasted very long, but her sister wasn’t happy unless she was admired and lusted after.

  They had come and gone, and until the night that Aaron Somerton had appeared, Julianne hadn’t taken much notice of any of them, but he had been different, so different it had taken her breath away.

  With their parents never around, she and Nadine had been sharing a flat in the town centre and the arrangements had been that when she had a new man in her life her young sister had to keep out of the way, which hadn’t usually been any hardship.

  But with Aaron it had been attraction at first sight for her. She’d felt weak and breathless at the sight of him. His attractions had been many, as had been her sister’s, and at nineteen and of average appearance she had wanted to run away and hide from them both.

  He had been tall and athletic with thickly waving russet hair and hazel eyes in a face that had become fixed in her mind from the first moment of seeing him, and for some inexplicable reason he had been attracted to her mercenary sister.

  She had never been attracted to anyone since because no man had ever had the appeal that he’d had for her, and th
ough those feelings were long dead, and his coming back into her life was by accident rather than by design, it had brought a glimmer of joy that she was going to have to ignore if she didn’t want it to become the aching longing of before.

  Monday morning came all too soon and it was hectic after a weekend of awkward meetings that hadn’t brought much pleasure for either of them.

  Patients were still attending to have flu vaccinations as well as make the usual day-to-day demands of the practice nurses, and Helena was missing. She’d had a fall while out walking her dog over the weekend and had twisted her ankle badly, so it was all systems go in their part of the surgery.

  Aaron was aware of the pressure that Julianne was under and was impressed with the calm composure she was displaying in the circumstances. Apart from a brief greeting on arrival they hadn’t spoken, so there was no way that he knew what she’d thought of his unexpected appearance at the hospice.

  Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be much to his credit, he’d thought as he’d driven past the bakery on his way to the practice. It was she who had given him the idea of voluntary work and he’d acted on it without the courtesy of informing her of what he was intending.

  Totally out of nowhere had come the wish that her appeal wasn’t so heart-stopping, that the sister in the shadows of five years ago had stayed there after letting him see whose side she was on.

  Yet when he’d asked after Nadine she had made it clear that they didn’t communicate, being quick to point out that they had never been as close as he’d thought they were.

  When he’d met up with her soon after his arrival in the village he’d thought that Julianne had certainly come out of her shell, that she’d appeared to be just as pleasure-loving and wanting to be seen as the woman who had turned him into a permanently single guy, but he’d been wrong.

  The nurse, crisply efficient, who was coping with the large Monday morning influx of the population of Swallowbrook was nothing like that in reality. It was no use denying it any more. If she’d been anyone else but Julianne he would want to be with her every possible moment instead of keeping her at a distance.

  Ruby, Hugo’s young wife, had noted the pressure that the two nurses were under and was helping every time she wasn’t in consultation with a patient. If she hadn’t been able to assist he would have offered his own assistance.

  But the smile that Julianne had flashed at Ruby when she’d appeared would have made any welcoming of his assistance seem pale by comparison.

  He wanted to talk to her, laugh with her, flirt with her, he was so aware of her, but Julianne wasn’t just anyone, she had seen him brought low when he should have been on a high and had appeared to be happy rather than appalled by it.

  When he had seen all his own patients he went to the nurses’ room and found her taking blood from a woman in her late fifties for ESR testing to check for inflammation of the muscles, and when she had finished he asked, ‘I’m going across to the bakery for a sandwich, can I get either of you anything while I’m there?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said gratefully. ‘We’re going to have to work through the lunch hour and I’m already famished as I didn’t have breakfast this morning.’

  ‘Why was that?’ he asked in a low voice out of the patient’s hearing.

  She stared at him in surprise. Was he really interested in why she’d skipped breakfast? She wasn’t used to anyone being concerned about her well-being to that extent and said flippantly, ‘I had a restless night and then slipped into a sound sleep when I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Ah, I see,’ he said, without further comment about her working so hard on an empty stomach, and followed it by, ‘So what do you want me to get for you at the bakery?’

  ‘A sandwich and a pastry, please. If you tell George that it’s for me, he knows what I like.’

  With a glance at the communicating door between the two nurse’s rooms he wanted to know, ‘And what does Gina usually have for lunch?’

  ‘She brings it with her. Gina is better organised than I am when it comes to food, probably because she has a young family and there are always hungry mouths waiting to be fed.’

  Was there envy in her voice? he wondered. If her parenting skills were anything like her nursing ones, she would make a lovely mother, but for some reason that must be a road she wasn’t yet ready to travel along. Freedom must have the greater appeal.

  * * *

  The amiable George knew exactly what she liked to eat and Aaron felt a twinge of irritation at what he saw as his smug hold over her. But it disappeared quickly when the baker said, ‘Julianne has parents that she never sees and a sister that she once told me left a fantastic guy at the altar because some old moneybags was beckoning. So much for family life, eh?’

  Yes, indeed, Aaron thought as he made his way back to the practice. So much for the fantastic guy that she’d told George about. The description didn’t fit in with what she’d said to him in the vestry.

  Back at the surgery the nurses were still busy and, appearing briefly, he told her, ‘The food is on the table in the surgery kitchen.’

  She flashed him a smile and said with gentle mockery, ‘You are so kind, Dr Somerton.’

  ‘Don’t overdo the meekness, it doesn’t suit you,’ he said dryly. ‘I recollect you more as a behind-the-scenes manipulator.’

  ‘Do you?’ she flared when the patient she’d just been attending had gone. ‘And I remember you as the bully who dragged me into the vestry to be given the third degree and passed judgement on me without giving me any chance to explain!’

  Wow! There was a world of hurt in what she’d just said. He’d been under the impression that he had been the only one to suffer from what Nadine had done to him. What did Julianne mean? Yes, he had questioned her angrily that day and with cool cheek she’d told him that she’d been in the background, trying to persuade her sister to call off the wedding.

  He’d never got around to asking her why. It had been the last straw. He’d slammed out of the church and out of her life, and now he was back in it and she was back in his, and it was turning the homecoming he had so looked forward to into a maze of confused feelings.

  Julianne had patients outside in the corridor, who were watching the clock. It was not the moment for this sort of discussion. ‘Maybe another time you will explain what you meant by that,’ he said, and left her wishing that she hadn’t brought painful memories back at such a moment, or at any moment for that matter. With a smile that was not as bright as before she called in the next patient.

  When she found a few moments in the quietness of the surgery staffroom to eat the food that Aaron had brought, Nathan came seeking her out and said, ‘Helena hopes to be back with us tomorrow, Julianne. I’m sorry that today has been so hectic. If for any reason she doesn’t make it, I’ll get a bank nurse to come and help out. OK?’

  She nodded, and observing her thoughtfully he asked, ‘Is everything all right with you? You haven’t seemed your usual happy self of late, which seems to coincide with Aaron joining us. Are you and he getting on all right?’

  ‘Yes, we’re fine,’ she told him, perking up for his benefit. It was obvious that Nathan didn’t know they’d met before and under what circumstances, and there was no way she was going to embarrass Aaron by mentioning to anyone what had happened to him on what must have been one of the worst days of his life. Her part in it of a devastated onlooker had been bad enough, but for him it must have been appalling.

  Over the years she’d convinced herself that her feelings for him then had been the youthful crush of a nineteen-year-old girl for a man a few years older who had been the personification of her dream man. Yet why did her heart beat faster and her legs still turn to jelly whenever he was near?

  ‘That’s good,’ Nathan said, adding on the point of departing, ‘Did you know that he’s an expert on tropical diseases
? I wouldn’t be surprised if his stay with us is short and he moves on to a consultant’s position somewhere abroad again.’

  When he’d gone she sat gazing into space with the food untouched. She’d lost her appetite. What Nathan had just said had wiped out all her determination not to fall in love with Aaron again because nothing had changed, her feelings for him had been just put on hold for the last five years.

  She’d convinced herself that they were dead and they weren’t. If he was going to be here today and gone tomorrow she wouldn’t be able to bear it, and her being around constantly might make him feel that the sooner he was gone the better.

  At the end of the day she decided to walk home, leaving her car at the practice overnight. She was tired, it had been a busy day, but there were always those and she took them in her stride.

  It had been dark since four o’clock and there was the nip of frost in the air, yet she felt as if she couldn’t breathe, felt weak and listless, and that maybe the short walk home would liven her up and bring back her confidence, because it was as if there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide from the revelation of her true feelings for the man who’d call her a manipulator.

  When his car stopped beside her she felt no surprise. Aaron would have to take the same direction as she was taking to get to The Falls Cottage. He wound the window down and his first words were, ‘What’s the matter with your car? Wouldn’t it start?’

  ‘That isn’t the reason why I’m on foot,’ she told him. ‘I felt that I needed some air to clear my head of all the happenings of the day.’

  ‘Any happening in particular?’ he wanted to know. ‘And are you going to get in and let me drive you the rest of the way? I’m going to eat out tonight instead of cooking. Do you want to come along?’

  He’d just rattled off three questions, all tricky to answer, and she answered the second one by seating herself in the passenger seat next to him. With regard to the first there was no reply forthcoming, and for the last she looked down at the dark blue nurse’s dress that she’d worn at the surgery and instead of telling him she would love to have a meal set in front of her that someone else had prepared said, ‘I’m hardly dressed for dining out, but thanks just the same.’