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He didn’t comment but gave her a strange look and then took her by surprise again by saying, ‘If you’ll hang on while I change my clothes, I’ll walk you home.’
‘There’s no need,’ she said hastily. ‘I know the way. I’ve done it a thousand times.’
‘Nevertheless, I am not going to let you walk home alone,’ he told her decisively. ‘Make yourself comfortable on the sofa in the sitting room. I will be just a couple of minutes.’
He was as good as his word. She sensed that he always would be and would have scant patience with anyone who wasn’t.
They’d been walking in silence for a few moments and out of the blue Lucas asked, ‘So where is your lifeguard friend tonight?’
Jenna swivelled to face him, eyes widening in surprise at the question ‘You mean Ronnie?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, if that’s his name.’
‘He will be down on the beach, or with his wife and family, I would imagine, but why do you ask?’ He didn’t reply and as light began to dawn she exclaimed in slow surprise, ‘Ah! I see! When we were larking about yesterday you came to the conclusion that there was more to it than just a laugh between friends, which was rather presumptuous on your part, don’t you think?
‘Ronnie has lived here all his life, just as I have. We were in junior school at the same time, though he was on the point of leaving when I started as there is a few years’ difference in our ages. He knows me best from me being on the beach. I’ve always used it a lot, and I’m godmother to one of his children.’
‘All right!’ he protested. ‘I get the picture, and you are correct in pointing out in a roundabout way that it is none of my business.’
He wasn’t going to tell her that he was piqued because she was turning out to be different from what he’d expected, that he’d wanted her to be the laughing blonde in a bikini flirting with the handsome lifeguard, because it fitted in better with his present jaundiced views on beautiful women.
Next he’d be discovering that Jenna Balfour hadn’t really deserted her parents when she’d been needed—the kind of criticism he’d heard from some of the village folk who thought highly of her mother’s years of devoted care for the patients at The Tides.
They’d reached the headland. The lighted windows of Four Winds were shining out in the darkness and she said gravely, ‘Thank you for walking me home, Lucas, but before you go, can I ask you a question?’
‘Of course,’ he told her smoothly, half expecting what was coming next.
‘Do you always make a snap judgement on meeting someone for the first time?’
‘In my work, never!’ he replied, then, as Philippa drifted into his mind, he went on, ‘But I was guilty of that kind of thing not so long ago and paid a high price for my gullibility with regard to a beautiful woman. I apologise for letting my first glimpse of another equally beautiful woman cause me to form what now seems to be the wrong opinion, if that is what you want me to say?’
‘Only if it is really meant,’ she said coolly. ‘We haven’t got off to a very good start, have we? If we are going to be working together we need to clear the air so that when Ethan passes on to you his suggestion that I assist you in your Monday and Thursday afternoon clinics you will have had time to decide if you are prepared to be in such close proximity to me.’
‘It will depend on if you’ve had any experience of cardiology nursing more than anything else,’ he said dryly. ‘Have you?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I’ve worked on a coronary unit in France, but when Ethan suggested that I assist in your clinic I asked that I might give it a trial first.’
‘For what reason? You’ve just said that you have some experience.’
‘You were the reason. I sensed your antipathy towards me.’
‘And how do you feel about that now?’
She was smiling. ‘Better, I think, because it seems that you might be human after all.’
The sardonic smile was back. Most nurses he’d worked with had treated him with reverence and respect. But here was a free spirit amongst the nursing fraternity who wasn’t all that keen to work with him and there were all the ingredients of a challenge in that.
‘So I’ll see you on Thursday afternoon, then?’ he questioned as they stood looking down at the foamtipped waves lapping onto the beach in the moonlight.
‘Er, yes, if you’re going to agree to what Ethan wants.’
‘I’ve known him a long time. Ethan Lomax is a good friend,’ he told her sombrely. ‘He saved my sanity when he persuaded me to move to Bluebell Cove. His plans for the practice will be my top priority as long as I am involved in it so, yes, I’m going to agree to you working with me.’
‘Who is assisting you now?’
‘No one as yet. Today’s clinic was only the second one and we were still looking for a nurse. You appeared at just the right time,’ he told her, and hoped that she realised he was speaking from a medical point of view. As far as he was concerned, there would never be a right time for anything more personal.
As he walked back to his own place Lucas was thinking that from what he’d seen of her so far there appeared to be nothing devious about the beautiful Jenna Balfour, and added to that she had the personality, and hopefully the nursing experience, that he would require from her in the cardiology clinic.
For the first time in ages he was actually feeling cheerful as he climbed the stairs to the drab main bedroom of his newly acquired property, but he knew it wouldn’t last. He was surrounded by too many dark shadows and broken dreams.
‘Do you want to take the car?’ Keith asked when Jenna came downstairs the next morning looking trim and competent in the dark blue dress of the practice nurse that Lucy had brought for her the night before.
‘No. I’ll walk,’ she said. ‘You’ll need the car if you have to take Mum anywhere. The first chance I get I’ll sort out some transport of my own. Which reminds me, is my bike still in the outhouse?’
He smiled. ‘Yes, knowing how much you used to love the thing, I’ve taken great care of it while you’ve been away.’
She gave him a hug and her mother, seated nearby, nodded approvingly at the idea of Jenna cycling to the practice instead of walking. A feeling of rare contentment had come over her when she’d seen her daughter dressed for the surgery, and some of the pain of her own limitations had disappeared.
There’d been a lot of time to fill since she’d had to hand the practice over to Ethan, and she thought frequently that if she had to do it all over again, these two who loved her unconditionally would be first of all her priorities.
A promise she’d made way back to another loved one, long gone, had driven her through the years to a greater degree than she should have allowed it to, and now she was praying that she hadn’t left it too late to be the wife and mother she should have been.
Ethan was Lucas’s nearest neighbour, residing in a recently erected detached house that the builder had been inspired to grace the front of with an assortment of attractive pebbles from along the coastline.
It was only a few yards from the practice, which was a bonus as he and his wife had recently separated and the close proximity to his job made coping with the break-up a little easier. But nothing was going to take away the hurt of being apart from his children, Kirstie, eleven, and Ben, thirteen. They were living abroad with Francine, their French mother, and although he had access to them, the life of a busy G.P. didn’t allow for long absences from the practice.
The two men valued each other’s friendship and rarely mentioned the women who had once been in their lives and were now part of their pasts, but each was aware that the inward hurts of broken relationships were still there, and for his part Lucas was only too happy to be there for Ethan should he need him to help with practice matters.
Both at a loose end, they went to the pub that evening and as they chatted Lucas found the opportunity to question his friend about Jenna’s addition to the staff.
‘She’s a great girl,’ Ethan enthused, ‘and Barbara will be on cloud nine to know that another member of her family has joined the staff of The Tides. Jenna is going to work mornings and if you are agreeable will assist you in your clinic two afternoons a week.’
‘That sounds fine,’ he said immediately, omitting to mention that he’d already heard about it from the nurse in question. ‘When is she due to start?’
‘Tomorrow morning,’ Ethan informed him, ‘which will mean that instead of just having the faithful and very experienced Lucy at one end of the scale, and young trainee Maria at the other, we’ll have three practice nurses, which we’ve needed for some time.’
‘Sounds good,’ Lucas commented, and wanting to satisfy his curiosity further asked, ‘So why didn’t Jenna come into the practice when she graduated?’
‘She wanted some freedom away from her mother. There was a big fallout because she wouldn’t toe the line and off she went. But she would never have gone if her mother had told her how increasingly difficult it was to keep going with the rheumatoid arthritis progressing as it was. Some of the locals who feel Barbara Balfour can do no wrong were very critical of Jenna at the time, but those who knew and liked her understood.’
‘I see,’ he said dryly, as another of his suppositions went by the board. Yet he’d been half expecting it ever since he’d got to know the golden girl better.
As Lucas went for his paper the next morning to the busy general store at the far side of the surgery, Jenna was cycling towards him in the early morning sun, a smiling vision in her nurse’s uniform.
‘Hello, there!’ he said as she stopped beside him. ‘I’d forgotten that you are about to join the fray. How does it feel?’
‘Scary,’ she told him wryly. ‘I wasn’t exactly the most popular person around here when I went away. It would seem that a lot of people knew that Mum wasn’t coping, but no one thought to tell me, and of course Mum hid it from me, though I was so wrapped up in my own plans I wasn’t entirely blameless.’
‘So your father didn’t say anything?’
She smiled. ‘Dad less than anyone. He wanted me to get away for a while for reasons that I won’t go into, but not so much that he didn’t send for me when he thought it was time I knew what the situation was.’
The smile was still there and Lucas was surprised when she went on to say, ‘You see, I was brought up with one and a half parents.’ And before he had the chance to comment further she placed her foot back on the pedal and prepared to ride the last few yards to the practice with a parting comment of, ‘I’ll see you on Thursday afternoon, Lucas, if you still want me at the clinic.’
‘It is Ethan’s decision that you work with me, and you might find it hard to believe…but I don’t bite.’
She was already moving off so he didn’t know if she’d heard the last bit, and he thought grimly if that was what she thought, he’d asked for it by being so smugly critical of someone he’d had no yardstick to measure by. There was Philippa, of course, who’d betrayed him, but to compare Jenna with her just because she was beautiful would be an insult that she didn’t deserve.
The morning was going too quickly. Lucy had greeted her with open arms, and Maria, the young trainee practice nurse, who was Ronnie’s eldest daughter, had flashed her a shy smile when Jenna had presented herself at the the nurses’ room.
Ethan had popped in for a moment to greet her in his usual pleasant manner and she’d felt that at least there was no criticism here. They were her friends, and even Lucas had been pleasant when they’d met unexpectedly outside the busy little store.
She’d watched while Lucy had treated the first few patients and noted that they were more concerned about their health than the fact that there was a newcomer amongst the practice nurses. When Lucy needed to go to the storeroom for supplies she said, ‘I’ll leave you to see to the next patient, Jenna. Maria will help you out with any surgery routine that you’re not sure of.’ And off she went.
In line with that comment the teenager went out on to the corridor where patients waited to be seen and came back to report that Mrs Waterson was there.
Jenna groaned inwardly as she picked up the patient’s records and saw that she’d come for a three-monthly B12 injection to keep anaemia at bay. Mildred Waterson had been a great admirer of her mother and rightly so as Barbara had treated her for various illnesses over the years, all of them serious, and she’d always made a good recovery due to her care. With everyone else Mildred was vinegary and critical and that side of her nature became evident the moment she saw Jenna smiling across at her as she entered the room.
‘So you’re back, I see,’ she said. ‘Waited until your mother had gone first, though, didn’t you, and now they’ve taken you on in the surgery. Well, I’ll wait for my injection until Lucy comes back from wherever she’s gone, if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I don’t mind, Mrs Waterson,’ Jenna said quietly. ‘She will only be a moment. Do take a seat.’
‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘I will. And how is your mother?’
‘As well as can be expected. I am working mornings mainly so that I can be with her in the afternoons.’
‘Yes, I should think so,’ was the acid reply.
At that moment Lucy appeared and immediately picking up on the atmosphere said smoothly, ‘Isn’t it lovely to have Jenna with us, Mildred?’
‘Mrs Waterson would prefer you to give her the injection, Lucy,’ Jenna said quickly, before any other bad vibes were put on display.
The elderly nurse said calmly, ‘Yes, fine, but in future there will be three nurses in attendance, Mildred, and it will be a matter of which one is free.’
The next patient was George Enderby, the elderly farmer who had been to Lucas’s heart clinic, and to Jenna’s relief there was a twinkle in his eye when he saw her standing there.
‘Hello, Jenna,’ he said heartily. ‘I saw you the other day, didn’t I, when I’d been to see that campanologist fellow?’
‘You’ve got that a little bit wrong, Mr Enderby,’ she told him. ‘Dr Devereux is a cardiologist.’
‘So what do those others do then, go camping?’
‘No, they are the bell ringers. The people in the bell tower who turn out for Sunday church services, weddings and funerals, and now we’ve got that sorted out I see that you’re here for a dressing on your leg, so if you’ll roll up your trousers we’ll have a look at it.’
The twinkle was still there in his eye as he did as she’d suggested and she said laughingly, ‘You were teasing, weren’t you? Wanting me to think you didn’t know that Dr. Devereux is a cardiologist.’
‘I might have been, yet it was worth it if it made you smile. But, then, you’d just had Mildred Waterson in here, hadn’t you? And with regard to the heart man, what a treat to have somebody like him here for us folks. The only thing is that his skills could be wasted in a place like this. I wonder what made him leave Hunters Hill Hospital to come and work in Bluebell Cove?’
‘I’m sure there must have been a good reason,’ she replied, as a vision of the awful scar across his chest came to mind, and she started to wonder what the effects of a physical attack and the failed romance she’d heard about could have had on him.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN Jenna left the practice at the end of the morning Lucas was in the garden once more, and after glancing quickly across to where she was mounting her cycle he didn’t attempt to make any eye contact, but what he had seen in that brief glimpse was enough to tell him that she wasn’t as happy as she’d been when they’d met outside the store earlier, and he wondered what could have made her look so downcast.
He wasn’t to know that although the farmer’s good-natured teasing had taken away some of the hurt that Mildred Waterson’s acid tongue had inflicted, the pain of being judged unfairly by some was taking away the pleasure of being back in Bluebell Cove.
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