His Christmas Bride-To-Be (Medical Romance) Read online

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she admitted meekly. ‘It was a crazy thing to do but as the taxi was about to go past the church I had a sudden urge to check if any more flowers had been put on the grave. So I paid the driver and went to see.’

  ‘And?’ he questioned.

  ‘There was someone standing beside it in the moonlight, Glenn, but by the time I was near enough to see them clearly they’d gone. When I looked down fresh flowers had been put in the vases.’

  ‘And did you have time to see what gender this person was?’ he asked. ‘It’s unlikely a woman would be found in a churchyard after dark.’

  ‘No,’ she told him. ‘It is as I said. They’d gone by the time I got to the grave. Maybe they heard my footsteps on the flagged path.’

  ‘Has it made you nervous?’

  ‘A bit, I suppose, but it was my own fault.’

  The car was already pointing in the direction of Glenn’s house. Emma sat bolt upright in shock when he suddenly said, ‘I’m going to take you to my place for the night. I never feel easy about you being in that house on your own after dark, and just in case the person in the graveyard saw you, or already knows where you live, we aren’t going to take any chances.’

  ‘Do you have a spare room?’ she enquired faintly.

  ‘Yes, of course I have! I’ve got two, as a matter fact, and you’ll be quite safe in whichever one you prefer.’

  ‘You know that I’ll be green with envy while I’m inside your house, don’t you?’ she teased.

  ‘There’s no need to be,’ he parried back. ‘Like they say, a home is where the heart is and mine is in a place far away.’

  Glenn watched the light go out of her eyes and the colour drain from her face and wished he hadn’t been so clumsy.

  You are crazy to have brought her here, he told himself as he put his key in the lock when they arrived at the converted barn that appealed to her so much. Especially after the way the two of you were up there in the snowdrift. She’s beautiful and kind. For pity’s sake, don’t hurt her because you’ve been hurt. Emma has had enough sadness in her life already. Don’t get involved in promising her something that you aren’t able to give.

  When he turned to face her, though, he was smiling, and as she observed him questioningly he said, totally out of context, ‘The dress is lovely, Emma. Just so right for your colouring. I intended telling you that at the party but the opportunity didn’t present itself.’ Unaware of what had been in his mind just a few moments ago, she asked a question that he would rather not have had to answer.

  ‘What was your wife like, Glenn?’ she asked, and his smile disappeared.

  ‘I have her photograph in my bedroom. If you would like to see it I’ll bring it down,’ he volunteered.

  ‘Only if you want to,’ she told him. He went upstairs and brought the picture back, and as Emma observed the smiling golden-haired woman in the photograph she could understand his abiding affection for her. But if Glenn’s wife had loved him as much as he loved her, surely she would have wanted him to find happiness again with the right person?

  Her own track record of not being wanted meant that she certainly wasn’t at the top of anyone’s yearning-for list. She could only imagine that happening in her dreams.

  Emma was unaware that Glenn was watching her, taking in her every expression. He felt full of tenderness for her, but someone like Emma deserved better than him. Despite that, as he listened to her telling him gently that his wife had been very beautiful, for once he was more enraptured by a woman other than Serena.

  As Emma handed the photograph back to him Glenn said, ‘If you’d like to come upstairs I’ll show you the guest room. Feel free to get up whenever you like in the morning. It’s Sunday, so there’s no rush. Would you like a hot drink before you settle for the night?’

  ‘Er...no, thanks,’ she replied. ‘I had plenty to eat and drink at the party. Glenn, I’m sorry that I’ve caused you concern by my actions. It was stupid of me to go into the churchyard at that hour. I don’t know what possessed me,’ she added guiltily. ‘I won’t stay for breakfast. I’ll leave early so as not to cause further disruption of your organised life, and see you back at the practice on Monday.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Breakfast is part of the arrangement of you sleeping safe and sound beneath my roof for once.’

  * * *

  It had been a long day and Emma was tired, but sleep was evading her because the events of the day had been so strange. It seemed unbelievable to her that Glenn could be sleeping only feet away in the master bedroom of his converted barn. His last comment before he’d closed the door had been to tell her she would find a selection of nightwear in the dressing-table drawers.

  And now wearing a long chaste-looking nightdress of white cotton that seemed more like something that belonged to his mother than Glenn’s cherished wife, Emma was sleepless still because the very idea of being so near yet so far from him in every other way during the night hours was incredible. And in the morning there would be joy in her heart when she went downstairs and he was there.

  * * *

  Glenn’s bedroom door was wide open when Emma sallied forth fully dressed the next morning and she smiled at the thought of seeing him. It would be just two people getting to know each other, sharing their different joys and sorrows, she thought, and what could be wrong with that?

  What was wrong with it was that Glenn was nowhere to be seen anywhere in the house. She went from room to room with the minutes ticking by, but there was no sign of him. There was no kettle boiling or bacon sizzling to create a breakfast atmosphere.

  Outside, the drive and gardens were also deserted, and Glenn’s car was nowhere to be seen. The only thing that was of interest were brochures about holidaying in Italy on the hall table, and she wondered if Glenn was planning a trip abroad.

  Surely he hadn’t already gone and in a rush to be off had forgotten she was there from the night before? It would fit in with how she saw herself as someone of little importance.

  Though why should she be so quick to expect that he had left her like that? Glenn was thoughtful and caring. But annoyance was building up inside her and in her confusion she was hurting because he had insisted on her staying the night and now he was gone and she didn’t know where.

  Reaching for her topcoat hanging up in the hall, Emma gathered the few belongings that she’d had with her from the staff party. Two could play at that game, she thought tearfully and stepped out onto the drive, intending to make her way home on foot. Only to be brought to a halt when Glenn’s car appeared. Within a matter of seconds he was out of it and observing her with a questioning smile that was the final irritation of the morning.

  ‘I’m sorry, Emma,’ he said. ‘You must think me very rude to have been missing when you came down for breakfast.’ She observed him in chilly silence. ‘I got my timing wrong, I’m afraid. My mother phoned me before daybreak to say that Dad wasn’t well. He’s got some sort of throat infection and has a temperature, so she asked me to go and examine him.

  ‘As there is rarely anything serious when they ring me on these occasions I went straight away, without disturbing you or leaving a message. I expected to be back within a very short time, only to get there and find him unwell with what seems like tonsillitis.

  ‘So I had to write out a prescription and go and pick it up at an all-night chemist. I have promised to call again later. Could I persuade you to come back inside for some breakfast?’

  She didn’t say yes or no, just asked tightly, ‘So why didn’t you wake me up or leave a note? I would have been only too willing to have gone with you and done anything to help that I could.’

  ‘What, after the day that you’d had?’ he protested. ‘Being insulted by that insolent Walsh fellow at the farm, and then caught in a snowdrift, followed by enduring my miserable comments o
n the way home?

  ‘I scare myself sometimes when reality hits me. It takes me out of my safe cocoon and reminds me that life has to go on, that I’m not the only one who lost someone they loved on that dreadful occasion.’

  He took her hand and drew her gently towards the door, wide open behind her, and once they were inside he unbuttoned her coat, slipped it off her shoulders and, holding her close, asked, ‘So what would madam like for breakfast?’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ she told him, stiffening in his arms. She wasn’t hungry, for food anyway, reassurance maybe, and Glenn was offering a plateful of that.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ he said gently, and planted a butterfly kiss on her cheek. ‘How about that for starters, followed by food, glorious food?’

  She was smiling now, the feeling of being left out in the cold disappearing, and when they’d eaten and she’d helped him tidy the kitchen Emma went with Glenn to visit his parents. She envied him the closeness of his small family.

  If there was just one person she could call family and give her love and affection to now that her mother was gone, she would be content. But there was no one.

  ‘You are so lucky to have your parents still with you,’ she told Glenn as he drove her home in the quiet Sunday morning. ‘I lost my mother some years ago and Jeremy wanted me gone as soon as he found someone to replace her.’

  Glenn didn’t comment but rage swept over him in a hot tide at the thought of what Jeremy had done to Emma. It wasn’t surprising he’d been desperate to go to his maker with a clean slate. As far as Glenn was concerned, the man had done him a favour by asking him to find her, wherever she might be.

  But his attraction to Emma was something new in his life and he was going to have to decide where he was going from this moment in time. Glenn would have liked to have spent the rest of the day with her, but once he had satisfied himself regarding his father’s condition Emma had explained that she was expecting the builder to call with regard to the alterations she was planning and wanted to be there when he arrived.

  ‘So, until tomorrow at the practice,’ Glenn said, as he braked the car in front of her house, and with colour rising Emma thanked him for his hospitality, kissed him lightly on the cheek and was gone, leaving him to go back to make sure that his father really was improving with the touch of her lips against his skin feeling like a combination of a promise and a goodbye.

  * * *

  The patient was feeling better, his temperature was down, the inflammation in his throat reducing. Typically Jonas was now in a more upward mood with his thoughts turning to the event he was planning for the old and lonely on Christmas Day and wanting to know if Emma was still available to keep her promise of assisting.

  ‘Yes, as far as I know,’ Glenn told him. ‘The surgery will be closed so she should be free, unless she has changed her mind.’

  ‘And is she still going to dine with us in the evening?’ his mother questioned.

  ‘I suppose the same applies,’ he said dryly, and left it at that, knowing that if Emma kept her promise and came to eat with them as arranged, whatever else there was between them it would be the best Christmas he’d had since he’d lost Serena. Which led him to wonder how was he going to make her aware of his feelings. He wanted to, needed to, because if nothing ever came of their attraction to each other, at least she had brought some joy into his empty life.

  * * *

  It was Monday morning and Emma was feeling miserable because the builder’s quote for her requirements had been far above what she could afford, but she was excited about something else.

  She’d noticed during her stay at Glenn’s house that the one next to his was for sale and she’d gone home with an idea. It was of a similar design, though smaller, but just as attractive, and when the builder had left without an order Emma had rung the estate agents who were handling the sale and had discovered that it would cost less to buy it than do the extensive amount of work that her own property would need.

  With excitement mounting, she’d asked the estate agents if they would be interested in selling hers as well. If things worked out, she hoped she would be able to buy the house next to Glenn’s, which was empty at present.

  It would be heavenly to live in a place like that. She’d been unable to stop thinking about it for what was left of the weekend. But would she be able to sell her own monstrosity? And, more importantly, would Glenn want her as a neighbour?

  * * *

  ‘How did you find your father when you checked on him again yesterday?’ was Emma’s first comment when they met up on Monday morning in the passage outside their respective consulting rooms.

  ‘Much better,’ Glenn replied. ‘And to prove it he was asking if you are still available to help with his Christmas Day event. My mother also wanted to know if you will be joining us as planned later in the evening.’

  ‘The answer to both those questions is yes,’ said Emma. ‘I’m looking forward to both very much.’

  ‘How did you fare with the builder?’ he wanted to know, concealing the pleasure that her reply had given him. ‘Did he go away with a big order?’ When she shook her head Glenn asked in surprise, ‘Why ever not? I thought you were all set for a big face-lift for your house?’

  ‘His quote was too high,’ Emma explained, ‘and I’ve had a change of plan over the weekend.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘I’ve put my house up for sale and I’m going to buy the one next to yours if it is still on the market when I’ve sold mine.’

  ‘I see,’ he said in a monotone. ‘And where has that idea originated from?’

  ‘I’ve liked where you live from the word go, and something small but similar would be just right for my requirements.’

  ‘And what if yours is still unsold when a buyer turns up for the one next to mine?’ he asked in the same flat tone. ‘What do you do then?’

  ‘I’ll worry about that when and if it happens,’ Emma said, and called in her first patient of the day without further discussion.

  CHAPTER SIX

  EMMA’S FIRST PATIENT the next day was Anna Marsden, who had been in recently for her yearly check-up and was now back to have a chat about the results.

  Newly retired from the position of manageress of Glenminster’s largest womenswear boutique, Anna and her husband had been looking forward to a stress-free retirement. So Emma was not relishing having to let her know that the tests had shown that Anna had a type of blood clotting that showed signs of leukaemia and was going to need further investigation and treatment.

  Anna’s reaction to the news was typical of her. She listened to what Emma had to say and then responded calmly, ‘Where do I go from here?’

  ‘You have an appointment next Monday at the hospital,’ Emma told her. ‘Once you’ve chatted to the doctors there, you will have a clearer idea of what is involved.’

  The woman seated across from her in the small consulting room smiled a twisted smile. ‘Yes, of course, and at least I’ll be able to have a lie-in when I feel like it now that I’m retired.’

  When Anna left, the morning took its usual course of a steady flow of the sick and suffering coming and going. It gave Emma no time to question Glenn’s reaction to the possibility that she might one day be living in the house next to his.

  But in the lunch hour when Emma had a moment to spare and think about it properly, it became clear to her that although they’d spent some quality time together over the weekend he was still living in the past. There was no way she wanted to be in the background, chipping away at his love for the wife he had lost.

  Yet it wasn’t going to stop her from buying the house next to his if the opportunity presented itself. If Glenn was going to resent having her so near in his free time as well as being around constantly at the practice she would just have to accept the fact and
get on with her life.

  Glenn had just returned from visiting a patient who lived at the other end of the church graveyard from where the practice was. He popped in to inform her briefly that while there had been no sign of anyone hanging around the grave in the light of day, there had been fresh roses in one of the vases. Emma’s niggling feeling of unease came flooding back.

  * * *

  With Christmas just a week away and her rash promise to spend some of the time with Glenn and his family hanging over her, Emma went to shop for the event on her way home that evening with little enthusiasm. She would be dining on one of the special nights of the year with people she hardly knew and could see it being an ordeal.

  The daytime activity she’d volunteered for was different because she would be doing something useful in helping Glenn’s father to bring some light into the darkness of other folks’ lives. She wondered what his son would be doing while they were so employed. Putting up a fence between his house and the one next door?

  * * *

  Jonas had asked her if she could be at the community hall in the town centre for eight o’clock on the morning of Christmas Day as there were turkeys to be cooked in its spacious kitchens, along with all the other trappings. Within minutes of arriving Emma was at work along with a group of other volunteers who were mostly known to her from the practice, plus a couple of strangers. Glenn’s father introduced her to one of them. His name was Alex Mowbray and he had lived in Glenminster many years ago before going to live abroad with his sick wife.

  ‘I never wanted to leave this place,’ Alex said, ‘but my wife had a long-term serious illness. She wanted to move where it was warmer so I had no choice but to take her to live abroad.

  ‘She died recently and my yearning to come back to Glenminster clocked in. So here I am, getting to know old friends who are still around and remembering with sadness those who are not.’