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‘Hello, there,’ he said. ‘We met earlier on the beach, if I’m not mistaken.’
‘Yes,’ she replied, and having no wish to give the impression that she’d seen it as a memorable occasion commented, ‘I’m surprised to find this place occupied. It has been empty for a long time.’
‘So I believe,’ he replied, resting his arms on the handle of the mower. ‘I rented it originally, but when I decided to stick around I wanted living in Bluebell Cove to be a more permanent thing, and have heard only today that my purchase of the property has gone through.’
‘Wow!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s a lovely house. Congratulations!’
‘What for?’ he asked dryly. ‘Buying a house that is far too big for me?’
‘So you live alone?’
‘Yes, where do you live?’ As if he didn’t know.
‘With my parents at the moment in the house on the headland called Four Winds.’
So he was right, Lucas was thinking. This was the Balfour girl, having changed the bikini for a blue cotton sundress that matched her eyes.
There might have been a time when he would have warmed to her attractions but after Philippa the mighty ocean not far away would freeze over before he made that mistake again. From what he’d heard this one had an eye to the main chance too, leaving her mother in the state she’d been in when he’d made the acquaintance of the staff at The Tides practice.
He had no family and envied those who had in whatever shape or form. His father had died while he’d been at medical school fifteen years ago, and as an only child he’d been very protective of his mother until she too had succumbed to inoperable cancer.
Philippa Carswell had been his second in command on the cardiology unit at Hunters Hill Hospital, with hair the colour of fire and the passion to go with it. He’d been in love with her and had believed she’d returned his feelings.
As well as being physically attracted to her, he’d admired her determination to get to the top of her profession, until he’d discovered that she had intended him to be a casualty on the way.
But she’d reckoned without friendship. He’d always had a good relationship with fifty-year-old Robert Dawson, head of the hospital trust at Hunters Hill, and one night when the two men had met up for a meal, which they did occasionally, his friend had warned Lucas that Philippa wanted his job and had told him that she would do anything to get it.
He might have doubted the truth of it coming from anyone else, but not from Robert, who was the soul of integrity. When he’d challenged her about it she’d laughed in his face and commented that all was fair in love and war.
It had been war all right from that moment on, and realising she’d gone a step too far she’d packed her bags and gone to work in America, leaving him with a jaundiced view of the opposite sex, beautiful ones in particular.
Discovering that he’d been just a rung on the ladder of her ambition had been the first life-shattering thing to happen to him, but the next had been far worse and he was always going to carry the scar from the stab wound he’d received that day.
It was one of the hazards of being a doctor, one he could have done without, but he’d forgiven the culprit and was trying to get on with his life in the slower, less fraught kind of way that Ethan had described by holding a twice-weekly heart clinic at the practice where the other man was in charge. He was also intending to open up a private consultancy shortly, in the house that was now his.
It was all very different from the life he’d envisaged for himself. With Philippa gone and the cut and thrust of the cardiac unit at the hospital no longer at his elbow all the time, whether he was going to be happy in it remained to be seen, but no doubt, as it always did, time would tell.
While his thoughts had been somewhere else Jenna had been observing him warily, keen to know who he was but not about to ask. She sensed something in his manner and as she’d never met him before until today it was strange. Her curiosity was increasing by the second.
It was not to be satisfied, however. He wasn’t quite as aloof as when they’d met on the beach, but no name or any other item of information was forthcoming from him. Only one thing was sure, he’d bought The Old Chart House so she would be seeing him around and that was a thought not to be treated lightly.
‘Bye for now,’ she said breezily into the silence that had fallen between them. ‘I hope you’ll be happy in your new home.’
‘Thanks,’ he replied, taken aback at receiving good wishes from a stranger, and as if he had to justify himself for some reason he went on, ‘I’m not sure about that, but I do admit that I’ve fallen in love with this place, the house, the beach, and the green fields of Devon stretching as far as the eye can see.’ His voice hardened. ‘Those kinds of things don’t change.’
‘Er, no,’ she agreed, not sure what to make of that, and turning to go back the way she’d come, she left him with a casual wave of the hand.
When she’d gone he stood without moving, staring grimly into space. What on earth had possessed him to start chatting to her? If she was out to scrape an acquaintance she’d chosen the wrong man. He might have been a fool once, but twice? Never!
When she awoke early the next morning Jenna could already hear the laughter of children down below and the deeper tones of parents, signalling that the tide was out. Further along on the headland someone had lit a fire and she could smell bacon cooking.
If only her mother was in better health she would be content, she thought as she watched them from her window. Their reunion had been less stressful than she’d expected and if she would let her help instead of hanging so tightly onto her independence she, Jenna, could combine a part-time job somewhere with looking after her.
As she was clearing away after breakfast she heard a familiar voice on the terrace where her parents were sitting in the sun, and when she went outside Ethan Lomax observed her in surprise.
‘Jenna!’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you come back to us, or is it just a visit?’
‘I’m back,’ she told him, smiling her pleasure at the sight of the good-natured doctor who had taken her mother’s place. ‘I haven’t discussed it with Mum and Dad yet as I only arrived yesterday, but I would like to combine looking after her with some sort of part-time nursing somewhere.’
‘I can manage…’ her mother started to protest.
Ignoring the protest, Ethan was smiling and saying, ‘You need look no further if you want a job. We need a part-time practice nurse to help with morning surgery, and for a couple of afternoons to assist Lucas in the cardiology clinic.’
‘Lucas! Cardiology clinic!’ she exclaimed. ‘Who might he be? And how long has the surgery been able to offer that kind of thing?’
‘Since a friend of mine needed a change of scene,’ he said with a smile. ‘So are you interested?’
‘Of course I am!’ she hooted, ‘just as long as Mum and Dad agree.’
‘You already know my views regarding you joining the practice,’ her mother said.
Her father commented gently, ‘It’s all right by me, but I don’t want you to feel that now you’re back you’re being hemmed in with our affairs, Jenna. You’ve got a top degree in nursing, remember.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she replied, ‘but a nurse is a nurse is a nurse wherever he or she may be. My stepping into that role here has been delayed, but I always intended to join the practice one day if there was a place for me. We Balfour women have to stick together.’
The saying of that sentiment would have stuck in her throat at one time, she thought, but there was something so sad in seeing her mother defeated by illness that she’d meant every word.
Ethan was checking his watch. ‘Must go,’ he said, ‘or they’ll be thinking at the surgery that I’ve got lost. So are we sorted, Jenna? You’re interested in coming to join us?’
‘Yes. Definitely.’
She would have agreed to sweep the streets, or empty waste bins, if it would have resulted in the same degree of happiness she was seeing on her mother’s face.
‘Call in this afternoon for a chat if you get the chance,’ he said as she walked to the gate with him. He lowered his voice. ‘It must have been a shock when you saw your mother. She was fine when you left, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes, she seemed to be,’ she told him sombrely. ‘I had no idea, and needless to say she didn’t tell me what was going on. That isn’t her way.’
‘I know,’ he agreed, ‘and it isn’t always the best.’
When he’d gone her father said by way of explanation, ‘Ethan calls every morning on his way to the surgery to make sure we’re all right. He’s a good guy.’
It was late afternoon before Jenna got the chance to call in at the practice and when she went through the main doors into Reception she was gripped by a feeling of unreality. This had been her mother’s domain and now here she was, another Balfour about to become part of The Tides practice.
There was a new face behind Reception and as Jenna moved across to explain why she was there, the door of a consulting room opened directly behind her. As she swivelled round, there he was again, the mystery man, surfer, property owner, and what else—patient, doctor, medical sales rep?
The questions crowding her mind were soon answered as with a swift glance in her direction he said to the elderly man about to depart, ‘I want to see you again next week, Mr Enderby, and if in the meantime the fast heartbeat or breathing problems return send for me immediately and we’ll take it further. The ECG you’ve just had didn’t show any cause for concern at the moment, but do remember that my heart clinic is here for your benefit.’
‘It was probably me getting so worked up about losing my sheepdog that caused me to be the way I was,’ the elderly farmer said awkwardly. ‘I’d had Jess for a long time.’
‘So maybe it wasn’t surprising, then,’ he said with a sympathetic smile, and Jenna thought that it must just be her that he couldn’t take to. Yet why should this stranger want to get to know her? He might be living alone but there was nothing to say that he didn’t prefer it that way, or wasn’t already spoken for.
George Enderby halted in his tracks when he saw her standing there and exclaimed, ‘Jenna! How long have you been back in Bluebell Cove, my dear?’
‘Since yesterday,’ she told him with a wide smile.
‘And are you staying?’
‘Yes, I am, Mr Enderby. I’m going to be working mornings here and will be helping with the new heart clinic on two afternoons.’
‘That’s good news. I feel better already.’ He chortled and went slowly on his way, leaving her to adjust to the fact that the man on the beach was the Lucas person, the celebrity who was involved with the practice.
He was a new face there, just as the receptionist seemed to be, and she, Jenna, would be another when she joined the staff. Though she wouldn’t be a new face to everyone. To most folk she would be Barbara’s daughter.
Only that morning Ethan had referred to a cardiologist who had his own clinic there, and this just had to be him with a dark suit and smart shirt and tie replacing the swimming trunks of their first meeting and the sports shirt and shorts that had been his attire on the second.
The elderly farmer had gone and now the receptionist was on the phone to a patient and the man observing her with cool dark eyes said, ‘I’m presuming that you are Jenna Balfour here to see Ethan. He said to look after you if he wasn’t back from an urgent home visit he’s been called out on, but I’m sure that the receptionist will be only too pleased to make you a cup of tea when she comes off the phone.’
His tone implied that he didn’t want the responsibility of looking after her and she told him frostily, ‘I’ll be fine, thanks just the same. It seems as if you have quite rightly decided who I am, so how about introducing yourself?’
‘Lucas Devereux,’ he said evenly, ‘recuperating in the countryside and involving myself in medicine at a slower pace.’
She held out a smooth ringless hand and said, ‘Pleased to meet you, Dr Devereux.’
He hesitated for a second then took it in a firm clasp and instead of greeting her in a similar fashion merely said, ‘Nice of you to say so.’
The receptionist had replaced the phone and he didn’t waste a second in saying, ‘And now, if you will excuse me, I have a patient waiting.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and seek out someone that I know after I’ve introduced myself to this lady.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘JENNA! So you really are back! I didn’t believe Ethan when he told me he’d seen you this morning,’ Lucy Watson cried when she opened the door of the nurses’ room to her knock.
‘Hello, Aunt Lucy’ she said, hugging the sparse frame of her mother’s only friend and confidante. ‘Dad phoned to ask me to come home because of how Mum is, and I came as soon as I could. I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes when I went away or I would never have gone, and now that I’ve seen her I’m appalled.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you are,’ her mother’s friend said consolingly. She had been senior practice nurse for almost as long as Barbara had been in charge of the coastal medical centre. ‘I told your mother countless times that she should put you in the picture, but we both know what she’s like. Barbara will choke on her own pride one of these days.
‘But enough of the past. Let’s talk about the present. Ethan tells me that you’re going to join us part time and spend the rest looking after your mother. That is really good news. Your father has been coping wonderfully but Keith needs some help, so who better than his lovely daughter who is also a nurse?
‘Any problems will come from your mother’s side of the arrangement. She is so used to dealing with the sick and suffering that becoming one of them herself has been hard to accept, as you can imagine. What sort of a welcome did you get?’
Jenna smiled. ‘Reasonable enough. We actually had a laugh together.’
‘Wow!’ Lucy exclaimed. ‘Seriously, though, be patient with her, Jenna. Her life has changed unbelievably.’
‘I’m not short on patience,’ she said soberly. ‘One needs it in plenty to be a nurse. It’s my mum who has always been short on it, at least where Dad and I are concerned.’
The other woman sighed. ‘Yes, I agree, but knowing your father, Keith won’t let you take on too much of the burden. The situation is that now Barbara needs a woman’s care. The fact that you are home and will be around and are about to join us here at the practice is wonderful news.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Jenna said wryly, ‘but I’ve just had a lukewarm reception from the cardiologist who is now part of the practice and Ethan wants me to assist him with his clinic on the two afternoons that he’s here. We’ve already met briefly on two occasions and I get the feeling that he disapproves of me for some reason so he won’t be laying down the red carpet for his new assistant.’
Lucy smiled. ‘Don’t be put off by his manner. Lucas Devereux is quite something in the medical world in these parts. Until recently he was top cardiologist at Hunters Hill Hospital and we couldn’t believe it when he agreed to move here at Ethan’s suggestion. It seems that the two of them are friends from way back.’
‘Even so, why lower his sights to that extent if he was top dog at The Hill?’
‘Some guy went berserk and attacked him when one of his family died during an operation that he was performing, and Lucas nearly lost his life as well.
‘I’ve also heard tales of a broken engagement round about that time, so it’s not surprising that he isn’t full of the joys of spring, or should I say summer.’
Before Jenna had time to digest the distressing facts that Lucy had just passed on to her, Ethan’s voice could be heard outside in the corridor. A moment later he appeared, smiling his pleasure to see her there, and she thought that here was a man who was always the same, no matter what life dealt out to him, and he’d had his own share of ups and downs in the not so recent past.
‘I’ve just spoken to Lucas,’ he told her, ‘and he says that the two of you have already met.’
‘Yes, we bumped into each other on the beach yesterday, and when I went for a stroll yesterday evening he was cutting the grass outside The Old Chart House, which he told me now belongs to him.’
‘Hmm, that is so,’ he said. He turned to Lucy. ‘Do you mind if I take Jenna away from you for a little while?’
The elderly practice nurse was smiling as she told him, ‘Of course not, Dr Lomax. Knowing that she’s back and is joining the practice has brightened my day.’
‘So are you really ready to come and join us here at The Tides?’ Ethan asked when they were seated in the office at the back of the surgery building.
‘Yes,’ she said firmly, ‘if you’re sure that you want me on the staff, but as I said this morning I want to help look after my mother too.’
‘Of course you do,’ he agreed, ‘but you are going to need some life away from the house, Jenna. You are young and bright and will liven up this place. The patients will love you and so will the staff.’
‘Oh, yes?’ she said doubtfully, with the memory of Lucas’s critical appraisal still very clear.
Ignoring the comment, he said, ‘So how about mornings, eight-thirty until twelve, and Monday and Thursday afternoons assisting Lucas in the heart clinic? Do you think you could manage that with your mother to care for as well?’
This is the moment to say I can manage the mornings but not the afternoons, she was thinking. Did she want to work in such close contact with Lucas Devereux?
‘I can certainly manage the mornings,’ she told him. ‘Mum is always up early. I can see to it that she is bathed and dressed before I leave and Dad will organise their breakfasts. Could I give the afternoons a trial before I commit myself on that?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said easily. ‘I haven’t mentioned it to Lucas yet so a trial it shall be, say, for a couple of weeks, and then we’ll have another chat.’
Unaware that he was the subject of their conversation, Lucas had just seen his last patient on their way and was thinking about his meetings with Jenna Balfour. Why couldn’t he have been more pleasant, he thought, instead of giving in to an insane urge to put out her light for no other reason than someone had extinguished his own?
When he’d seen her frolicking around with the lifeguard on the beach the day before, his lip had curled at the spectacle, but who was he to criticise the light-hearted actions of others because his heart lay heavy as a stone?
Taking his jacket off a hanger behind the door, he picked up his case and went into the outer corridor just as Jenna, having finished her chat with Ethan, was saying goodbye to Lucy.
‘Tell your mum I’ll pop round for a while this evening if she feels up to it,’ she was saying. ‘Give me a ring if she’s not, Jenna, and I’ll come some other time.’
The girl with hair like sunlight was smiling, but there was something wistful in her expression as she said, ‘Mum has always been happy to see you, Aunt Lucy.’
There were tears on her lashes as she gave the elderly practice nurse a parting hug and when she turned to go she found Lucas observing her once again with the unreadable dark hazel gaze that was becoming familiar.
At the main door of the surgery he was close behind and held the door for her to go through. She quickened her step to get away from him and he surprised her by saying, ‘So what arrangements have you made with Ethan?’
She came to a halt and turned slowly to face him, surprised that he was aiming the question at her instead of the head of the practice, in the light of his previous manner. Suddenly her pent-up resentment of his attitude towards her came to the fore and she said, ‘I’m not sure that you would want to hear it.’
Dark brows were rising as she went on, ‘It is quite clear that you disapprove of me, though heaven knows why as you hardly know me. Yet I suppose it is possible to feel an immediate aversion to someone right from the moment of meeting. That being so, maybe Ethan would be the best person to explain what his plans are for me.
‘I’m told that life has not been kind to you of late and I’m sorry to hear that,’ she told him without pausing for breath. ‘I saw the scar when we were on the beach and felt the injustice of it when I discovered from where it came. As for the inward hurts that come from broken relationships I’m sure that they too must be very painful, though I haven’t had that sort of experience myself.’
‘Have you quite finished?’ he asked dryly.
‘Er, yes,’ she said hurriedly, as the verbal floodgates that had opened suddenly closed. ‘And do please forgive me for being so intrusive. I don’t know what came over me. Feel free to tell me to mind my own business.’
Before he could reply she began to walk quickly towards the seashore and home, and it wasn’t until she reached the headland that she stopped for breath and stood cringing at the thought of how she’d behaved.
She couldn’t believe that she’d let someone she hardly knew get to her to such an extent. Maybe it was because she was desperate for him to like her…and he didn’t.
She hadn’t looked back. If she had she would have seen a grim smile on his face as he thought that she’d managed to refrain from saying, ‘Don’t take your misfortunes out on me,’ but it was quite clear that she’d thought it and who could blame her?
Lucy had come as promised and as she watched Jenna wandering restlessly from room to room in the warm summer night she said, ‘I’ll see to Barbara when she’s ready for bed if you want to go out.’
‘Would you, Aunt Lucy?’ she said gratefully. She was desperate to speak to Lucas Devereux again before the day ended, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to sleep if she hadn’t apologised for her incredible outburst. If he hadn’t liked her before he must detest her now, she kept telling herself, and not without good reason.
The same crowd as the night before was outside the pub as she went past but she hardly noticed them. She was praying that when she reached his house he would be there.
He was and when he answered her ring on the doorbell Lucas was wearing paint-splashed jeans, a shirt in a similar condition, and was holding a paintbrush. As he stepped back to let her in she said with the same kind of rush as when she’d said her piece the first time, ‘I’ve come to apologise.’
‘There is no need,’ he said levelly. ‘You are entitled to your opinion.’
She was observing him slack-jawed. Was this the sardonic stranger who had never been out of her thoughts from the first moment they’d met and was now climbing down off his pedestal?
‘It is generous of you to say so,’ she said gravely, ‘but none of us know when life will change for the better or for the worse. When I thought about it afterwards I realised that I must have sounded extremely smug and preachy.’
‘Forget it,’ he insisted in the same flat tone. He pointed to a can of paint. ‘What do you think of white for the paintwork in the hall? Everywhere in this place is so drab and dark colours are so depressing.’
‘Er, yes, you can’t go wrong with white,’ she said awkwardly, with the feeling that she’d stepped on to some sort of roller-coaster that was going in the wrong direction.
It was more nerve-racking to be on good terms with Lucas Devereux than bad. Had the man any idea how attractive he was? He made all other guys she’d ever met seem pale by comparison, but if she was going to have to work with him it would be a case of keeping her mind on what she was there for, and wondering what it would feel like to be in his arms would not be on the agenda.
She’d walked up from the headland in the summer dusk and now the daylight had finally gone. The moon was dominating the heavens in a cloudless sky and conscious that she’d interrupted what he’d been doing Jenna said, ‘I must go. I’ve left Aunt Lucy with my mum so she’s all right, but I don’t want to be away too long.’