The Doctors of Swallowbrook Farm

She almost dropped the flask when a shadow fell across her.

At the same second she heard Sophie cry ecstatically, ‘Daddy!’ and when she looked up Gabriel was there, observing her gravely for an incredible moment, until Sophie flung herself into his arms. As Josh followed suit he held them both close, and Laura saw the wetness of tears on his cheeks.

When the children had calmed down after lots of hugs and kisses, and were tucking into the food, she said in a low voice, ‘So you decided to come earlier?’

‘Yes, but I’m not staying.’

‘The children won’t like that! Don’t you think they’ve waited long enough to be with you?’

‘Yes, I do. But, Laura, my life has been on hold for long enough. I have things to sort out at the hospital. I want the way ahead to be clear with regard to my career, so that I know where I’m at, what I’m doing.’

The hurt inside her was beyond bearing as she listened to what he was saying, and it came forth in anger as she said tightly, ‘So nothing changes, Gabriel? It’s still career first and family second.’ And, with her glance on the children, who were out of earshot, ‘Well, don’t let us stop you…’

Dear Reader

Once again we meet between the pages of one of my books. This time it is the third story out of four about The Doctors of Swallowbrook Farm, and here we meet Gabriel, a doctor who has a great sense of dedication towards his profession, and Laura, his wife, who throws their lives into chaos quite unintentionally.

Their story is about the love and loyalty that binds them together at a time of great unrest in their lives, and how the strength of it finally brings back the happiness that they thought they had lost. I do hope that you will enjoy meeting them.

With very best regards

Abigail Gordon

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:

SPRING PROPOSAL IN SWALLOWBROOK** SWALLOWBROOK’S WINTER BRIDE** SUMMER SEASIDE WEDDING† VILLAGE NURSE’S HAPPY-EVER-AFTER† WEDDING BELLS FOR THE VILLAGE NURSE† CHRISTMAS IN BLUEBELL COVE† COUNTRY MIDWIFE, CHRISTMAS BRIDE*

**The Doctors of Swallowbrook Farm *The Willowmere Village Stories † Bluebell Cove

These books are also available in eBook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk

Marriage Miracle in Swallowbrook

Abigail Gordon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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For Stephen and Judith

who generously gave me their time

and their hospitality

while showing me Lakeland

CHAPTER ONE

A SUMMER sun was shining when Laura Armitage drew back the curtains in the master bedroom of the house that her uncle had given her. Its mellow golden rays were spreading far and wide from the ripening corn in distant fields to the shores of the tree-lined lakeside nearby, but to the woman at the window the brightness of the morning was blotted out by dark uncertainties about the future.

A month ago she and her children had moved into a spacious old house that she’d had renovated in the beautiful lakeland village of Swallowbrook. She’d been offered the position of practice manager at the medical centre in the village and, desperate to leave London, she’d accepted the opportunity to take up where her uncle, who had held the position before her, had left off. He had gone to spend his retirement in Spain and as a parting gift had given her his house.

The children, eight-year-old Sophie and six-year-old Josh, loved the place after the noise and bustle of London. The lake, beautiful in all weathers, was encircled by a bracelet of rugged fells that attracted walkers and climbers from far and wide all the year round, especially at this time, while down below them an assortment of craft of all types and sizes sailed the lake’s clear waters.

The children’s favourite pastime was when the three of them sailed to its far reaches on one of the pleasure launches that went to and fro all the time during the hours of daylight. But wherever they went, whatever they did, there was always the same question coming from Sophie, ‘Mummy, when is Daddy coming home?’

‘Soon,’ she would tell her gently. ‘He is just so busy looking after the sick people.’

As she gazed unseeingly out of the window Laura thought that she would love Swallowbrook as much as they did if only Gabriel was there with them. Without him life had no meaning. But a horrendous turn of events had taken him from them and until he surfaced again she had no idea if the light of a marriage that had already begun to fade had been extinguished completely.

He knew that she’d taken her uncle up on his offer of the house called Swallows Barn, and that she was now employed at the practice from nine o’clock in the morning to when the children came out of the village school in the afternoon.

When she’d told him about her uncle’s generosity he’d been less than enthusiastic, ‘Fine, if that’s what you want, Laura, but when I get out of here I intend to go straight to the town house.’ And with a bleak smile he’d added, ‘I take it that it’s still there? That it hasn’t been repossessed?’

‘No. of course not!’ she’d said steadily, holding back the tears that she had never shed in front of him on the nightmarish visiting days when they’d sat across from each other at a small table without touching and behaving like strangers.

She’d never wept in front of the children either, determined that nothing should spoil their youthful innocence. Her tears were shed in the long hours of the night in the big double bed that was bereft of the presence of the husband she’d adored.

‘I’ve taken the job in Swallowbrook to help pay the bills while you’re not around,’ she’d told him that day. ‘The gift of my uncle’s house clinched it with regard to moving there, but from what you’ve just said it would seem that you aren’t intending to join us. I thought you were desperate to see the children, Gabriel, knowing how much it must have cost you to refuse to let me bring them with me on days like today.’

‘I am desperate,’ he’d said grimly, ‘but first I want to get a decent haircut, and to be able to turn up looking the same as when they last saw me. Yet it doesn’t mean that every day I’m without them isn’t hell on earth.’

‘And what is every day without me like?’ she’d asked, stung by the lack of any mention of herself.

‘An exercise in accepting that I was never there when you needed me, and in the end for a fleeting moment I mistakenly thought you’d turned to someone else,’ he’d said in the same flat tone.

‘Yes, and when you came home early for once and found me in another man’s arms, you felt entitled to become judge and jury without providing the opportunity for any explanation, and nearly killed someone who did want my company,’ she’d parried, without raising her voice in the crowded visitors’ area.

They’d gone over the same ground countless times while they’d been waiting for the court hearing, and it was only the fact that he had resuscitated and brought back to life the man he had attacked when he’d found him holding her close that had saved Gabriel from a longer sentence than the one he was serving now.

He had dragged her free of his hold and with one fierce blow had sent Jeremy Saunders reeling backwards and his head had hit the big marble fireplace behind him with an ominous crack. When they’d bent over him they’d discovered that his heart had stopped beating and it had been then that Gabriel had come to his senses and his medical training had kicked in.

She turned away from the window and slowly made her way downstairs, the hurt of that conversation as raw as ever, and saw that it was time to look forward instead of back if the children were to get to school on time.

They had settled into life in the country as to the manner born, with Sophie her usual caring self where her small brother was concerned. She was like Gabriel in both looks and personality, dark hair, hazel eyes, quick thinking and determined when it came to life choices, even at such an early age.

Josh was more like her, or rather how she used to be. She was no longer steadfast and tranquil, wrapped around with the contentment of the joys that life had brought her in the form of a husband she adored and who adored her in return, and a small son and daughter to cherish.

They’d lived in one of London’s tree-lined squares, not far from where Gabriel had practised as a consultant oncologist working entirely within the NHS and very much in demand, so much so that over the last few years she had begun to feel like a one-parent family because he was never there.

Both of his parents had died of cancer when he’d been in his teens and on choosing medicine as a career he had decided to specialise in oncology. Every life he was instrumental in saving from the dreadful disease helped to make up a little for the loss of those he had loved.

She had always known and accepted that was the reason for his dedication to his calling, but as time had gone by the ritual of him arriving home totally exhausted in the early hours of the morning and being asleep within seconds of slumping down beside her on the bed that was so often empty of his presence had begun to tell.

Then it would be back to the hospital again almost before it was daylight and their physical relationship had become almost non-existent as it had seemed that his obsession with his career was going to drive them apart if he didn’t ease off a little to give them some time to be a family.

It had been of all things a swelling in her armpit that had brought everything to a climax. Gabriel had already left the house and been on his way to the hospital one morning when she’d been drying herself after coming out of the shower and had felt something under her arm that hadn’t been there before.

Immediately concerned, she’d phoned him to tell him about it and on the point of performing a major operation on a cancer patient he’d said, ‘Pop along to the surgery and get them to have a look at it, Laura. I’m just about to go into Theatre.’

She’d put the phone down slowly. No woman on earth would want to find a lump in the place she’d described, but she was the lucky one, or so she’d thought. Her husband was one of the top names in cancer treatment, so it was to be expected that anything of that nature with regard to his wife would have his full attention, but instead he’d told her to see her GP who, knowing who her husband was, had observed her in some surprise.

He had tactfully made no comment and after examining the swelling had told her, ‘It could be anything, Mrs Armitage, but we doctors never take any chances with this sort of thing, so I will make you an appointment to see an oncologist. Have you any preferences?’

‘Er, yes, my husband,’ she’d told him, and his surprise had increased, but it hadn’t prevented the appointment being made for the following day.

When she’d arrived at the hospital Laura had seated herself in the waiting room with the rest of those waiting to be seen and when a nurse had appeared and called her name she had followed her into the room where Gabriel was seeing his patients.

He’d been seated at the desk with head bent, having been about to read the notes that he’d just taken from the top of the pile to acquaint himself with the medical history of his next patient. When he’d looked up she’d watched his jaw go slack and dark brows begin to rise as he’d asked, ‘What are you doing here, Laura? Can’t you see that I’m busy?’

‘I need to see you,’ she’d said implacably.

‘Whatever it is, surely this is not the right place to discuss it,’ he’d protested. ‘Can’t you wait until I come home?’

‘No, I can’t, that’s why I’m here, Gabriel. You’re never there, and it isn’t anything domestic I want to discuss. I’m here as a patient.’

‘What!’ he’d exclaimed. ‘Why? What’s wrong with …?’ His voice had trailed into silence as for once his quicksilver mind hadn’t been working at top speed, and then realisation had come. ‘The swelling in your armpit? You’ve been to see the GP?’

‘Yes,’ she’d told him woodenly. ‘He managed to conceal his surprise at me consulting him when I’m married to one of the country’s leading oncologists and made me an appointment. I’m surprised that my name didn’t register with your secretary, but she wouldn’t be expecting me here as a patient, I suppose.’

‘Let me see it,’ he’d said as remorse washed over him in shock waves, and as he’d felt around the swelling they were both acutely aware that it was the first time he’d touched her in months and it had to be for something like this.

‘It’s difficult to say,’ he’d announced as she’d replaced the top that she’d taken off. ‘It could be hormonal, or muscular strain, even a benign tumour, so don’t let’s jump to any conclusions until we’ve done the necessary tests, which I’ll set up for tomorrow. Okay?’

‘Yes,’ she’d said, and without further comment was about to depart.

‘If you will hang on for a few moments, I’ll run you home,’ he’d offered contritely, but she’d shaken her head.

‘No, thanks. I’ll be fine.’ And before he could protest, she’d gone.

Amongst the uncertainties of her life, the position that Laura had taken up in the medical practice at Swallowbrook was like a calm oasis in spite of the pressures of a busy surgery and enough paperwork to keep her fully occupied.

There were four doctors in the practice, husband and wife Nathan and Libby Gallagher, and Hugo Lawrence, newly married to Ruby Hollister, who had joined them some months previously as a junior doctor. But soon they would be down to three again as Libby was pregnant and about to become a full-time mother to her new baby and Toby, their six-year-old adopted son. Laura had been working in hospital administration when she’d met Gabriel Armitage and the attraction between the clever oncologist who had a dark attractiveness that made him stand out amongst other men, and the serene golden haired vision behind a desk in the office had been an instant thing.

It had been at the hospital’s Christmas ball they’d met and the romance had progressed from there with wedding bells not long after, and until Gabriel had become one of the area’s leading experts on cancer and in huge demand, they had been a united happy family with their two children.

But the end of that had come on the day when he had arrived home early for once and along with his anguished regret for letting a situation develop where his wife had been forced to make an appointment to see him, he’d brought flowers, a huge bouquet made up of all the blooms she loved the most.

But no one on the staff at the surgery knew much about her, and for the moment she was happy to keep things that way. As far as they were concerned, she had taken up the job on Gordon Jessup’s recommendation.

Though she’d carefully kept details of her private life to herself it seemed as if her new colleagues assumed that her marriage had suffered a split, and it was altogether easier to let them continue to think this, at least until she had some idea herself of where things were going with Gabriel.

Still, her new workmates had been very welcoming. The two Gallagher doctors had invited Laura and the children round for afternoon tea one Sunday as a welcoming gesture and Toby and Josh, of a similar age, had hit it off immediately, while Sophie, who was the proud owner of a pink mobile phone, had received a call and chatted non-stop to the caller on a bench in the garden while the boys kicked a ball around close by.

‘That was Daddy,’ she’d said with cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling as they’d walked home, unaware of her mother’s heartache because Gabriel hadn’t had anything to say to her. How could they ever hope to mend their marriage if Gabriel wasn’t even prepared to talk to her? Or for him was it simply too late? Did he want out of the marriage once he got out of prison?

They’d gone in the ambulance to A and E on that dreadful day, with Gabriel and paramedics watching over Jeremy Saunders, and she huddled beside them in a state of shock brought on by what had happened to him and the knowledge that Gabriel, who had been her joy and her life no matter how much he was absent from it, had thought her capable of infidelity.

If he’d arrived just a few seconds later he would have seen her pushing the other man away and sending him packing, but after what had happened earlier in the day he’d been in no state for coherent thought after his wife had come to see him as a patient who might or might not have cancer because she hadn’t been able to get his attention any other way.

The police had been waiting at the hospital when they’d got there, having been notified by the ambulance crew of the circumstances of the emergency they were bringing in, and while the injured man was being treated Gabriel had been arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm.

She would have gone to the police station with him but he had insisted that she stay with their neighbour, who lived alone and as far as they knew had no close relatives, and there had also been the matter of their children due out of school soon.

‘Phone the school, Laura,’ he’d instructed, as, still in shock, she had stood by white faced and trembling. ‘Ask them to keep the children there until you can pick them up.’ As he’d been led away she’d nodded mutely and done as he’d said.

In the early evening, with Gabriel still at the police station, his secretary had phoned to say that his solicitor had been on the phone with a message from his client to say that her husband was insisting that she keep the appointments that had been made for her the following day and that he would be back as soon as possible.

‘Whatever is wrong, Mrs Armitage?’ Jenny Carstairs had asked, mystified at the unusual turn of events.

‘It is something that we got involved in this afternoon, Jenny,’ she’d told her, ‘and knowing how Gabriel likes to have all ends neatly tied he’s sending me a reminder about the scans, that’s all.’

As soon as the secretary had gone off the line she’d rung the hospital to check on Jeremy’s condition, knowing that if it had been someone other than Gabriel who had struck him he might not have survived the terrific blow to the head on the marble fireplace.

Jeremy was responding to treatment, she’d been told, there was no bleeding inside the head but he had sustained a skull fracture that was being dealt with, and his heart was being monitored all the time.

So it had seemed that Gabriel’s quick response to what he’d been responsible for had probably saved the other man’s life and she’d had to be satisfied with that, knowing that her husband was in police custody because of his angry reaction at finding her in the arms of another man.

Jeremy had seen her arrive home in tears and had been quick to step in to offer the comfort of his arms to his attractive neighbour in her moment of weakness. He’d been holding her close and stroking her hair, and at the moment that Gabriel had arrived he had been taking advantage of the situation and kissing her, and Gabriel had misunderstood what was happening.

As he put his key in the lock of the London house, the feeling of unreality that had been there all the time he’d been serving his sentence didn’t lift. He was free of the punishment he’d received for loving his wife too much, he thought grimly, but what now? He looked around a hall that smelt musty from the lack of fresh air, and as he opened a window wondered if maybe that was how he smelt, for the same reason.

Would Laura ever forgive him for doubting her? She’d visited him dutifully while he’d been in that place but every time he’d seen her he’d known that the bonds that had always held them together had been broken and it had been due to his neglect.

After her appointment as a patient on that never-to-be-forgotten day almost a year ago, he’d sat staring into space as the reality of what was happening to their marriage had hit him. The woman he loved had been reduced to consulting him as a member of the general public. They’d lived in the same house, slept in the same bed, yet that was what she’d had to do to bring his attention to something that could have been serious.

Laura hadn’t known at that moment that he’d passed all his appointments for the day to his second in command when she’d left and in the early afternoon had gone home with the intention of telling her that in future his dedication to the sick and suffering wasn’t going to take over his life as much as it had been doing, that they were going to be a proper family again.

With that in mind he had arrived to find her being kissed and cuddled by the guy who lived next door, who was the laziest devil he’d ever come across and considered himself to be irresistible to women. Of independent means, he spent his days socialising with the city ‘jet set’ while he, Gabriel, was often operating for twenty-four hours non-stop, and in those first few seconds of rage it had seemed to him as if the sloth from next door had turned his attentions to Laura.

When his case had come up in court he’d been sentenced to nine months in prison for grievous bodily harm and been told it would have been twelve if it hadn’t been for the fact that as well as endangering the other man’s life he had also saved it in those first few moments of realising the horror of what he’d done, otherwise he might have been facing a charge of manslaughter. The marble fireplace had played its part, but he had been the one who’d struck the blow and his life and Laura’s had never been the same since.

In the weeks prior to his case coming up they had slept in separate rooms, discussed only household matters and the children’s welfare, and though he was no weakling mentally or physically the thought of being shut away from her and the children for any length of time had been agony. The only bright spot had been that Laura’s test results had come back negative for cancer. The swelling was benign.

The first thing he did in the silent house was strip off and wash away the smell of where he’d been, and then got dressed in some of his own casual clothes that had hung unworn over the months.

When he opened the fridge it was well stocked and he wondered when Laura had found time to drive up to London to do that. He had the answer when a few seconds later the phone rang and Jenny, his secretary, was on the line, welcoming him home and asking if the food she’d bought him was all right.