Swallowbrook's Wedding Of The Year

When she looked up at him from the protective circle of his arms it was as if she belonged there.

He was holding her for the first time ever—not flesh to flesh, more thick winter coat against thick winter coat—but it was where he wanted her to be, and as he looked down on her beneath the cold, starlit sky for the first time in years desire was warming his blood.

He didn’t want it to—especially remembering who she was—but it was there, the heat of it, and with her eyes pleading and her colour deepening Julianne reached up and kissed him on the lips. It was just a fleeting gesture, but its effect was far from lightweight.

He swung her off her feet and kissed her in return, and it went on and on—until she pushed him away, gasping for breath, and he came to his senses.

Dear Reader

We meet again with Julianne and Aaron’s story, which is the fourth and last of my books about The Doctors of Swallowbrook Farm. I have so much enjoyed writing them.

In it Aaron comes back to somewhere he has vowed never to return, and is dismayed to find that someone who witnessed his great humiliation on what should have been one of the happiest days of his life is going to be everywhere he turns in Swallowbrook. But as the days go by he discovers that Julianne has also got a cross to bear, and it is in the beautiful Lakeland valley that the two of them find the happiness that true love brings.

Until we meet again in my next story, happy reading!

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:

MARRIAGE MIRACLE IN SWALLOWBROOK** SPRING PROPOSAL IN SWALLOWBROOK** SWALLOWBROOK’S WINTER BRIDE** SUMMER SEASIDE WEDDING† THE 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

Swallowbrook’s

Wedding

of the Year

Abigail Gordon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

FOR GILL AND PHILIP AND CREATIVE WRITING

CHAPTER ONE

A TAXI had pulled up on the forecourt of the medical practice in the Lakeland village of Swallowbrook and as its driver unloaded baggage out of the boot, his passenger, a tall guy with russet hair bleached by a foreign sun and with a tan that spoke of long days beneath it, eased himself out of the vehicle and looked around him.

He could see a lake not far away with a backdrop of the rugged fells that were so much a part of the area where he had grown up and then five years ago had left in turmoil, vowing that he never wanted to see or hear of the place ever again.

That was how it had been until he’d phoned to have a chat with a colleague, Nathan Gallagher, who had worked at the same African hospital as himself and was now back in the UK.

When Nathan had arrived on a three-year contract at the hospital where he himself had already been established, they’d discovered that they had been born in the same English county and had grown up only a few miles from each other.

It had created a bond between them that hadn’t been broken when the other man, having completed his contract, had returned home, leaving himself with still a year to do. Now that year was up and, like his friend before him, he’d returned to the UK.

‘Aaron!’ a voice cried from somewhere behind him. ‘You’re here at last!’ As Aaron Somerton swung round to greet Nathan he saw that he had emerged as one of a group of people leaving a new building on the same plot of land as the Swallowbrook medical practice.

As they shook hands Nathan turned to a couple standing nearby and said, ‘Allow me to introduce Laura Armitage, our practice manager, and her husband, Gabriel, who is an oncologist and about to take over the running of the new building that you see beside you, which has only today been opened as an extension for cancer care in the area.’

‘So are you the lady who has found me that delightful cottage to live in?’ Aaron asked with a smile for Laura.

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘and if you would like to come to my office in the basement beneath the surgery I’ll give you the keys to The Falls Cottage, which, as the title suggests, is near a waterfall.’

Leaving Nathan and Gabriel chatting, Laura took him through the practice building to the office where she worked amongst the computers, and on observing that there were no staff to be seen on the premises he commented on the fact.

‘The surgery is closed this afternoon,’ she told him, ‘so that our staff could attend the opening of the clinic. Most of them are over there now, enjoying the refreshments that have been provided.’

When they rejoined her husband and Nathan, who was head of the practice, Aaron asked, ‘How soon do you want me on the job, Nathan?’

‘As soon as possible,’ he was told, ‘but take a couple of days to settle in first. Swallowbrook will no doubt seem strange to you after such a long absence from these parts, even though it is changeless in many ways.’

The taxi had gone and he said, ‘I’ll take you to the cottage as I’m sure you must be keen to see it, and by the way, Aaron, my wife, Libby, says if you would like to dine with us tonight, you are very welcome.’

Seated at a table by a window in the restaurant of the new clinic with the other two nurses from the surgery, Julianne Marshall had seen the taxi arrive outside the practice building and was watching its occupant emerge.

Why had he come back? she wondered with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. The last words she’d heard Aaron Somerton speak before he’d disappeared five years ago had been to declare that he never wanted to set eyes on the Lakeland valley where he’d lived, or the people in it, ever again, and he’d meant it. No doubt about that!

When Laura Armitage’s husband, the dishy Gabriel, had appeared on the scene she’d thought that he was going to fill the vacancy at the practice that had arisen when Nathan’s wife, Libby, also a doctor, had left to become a full-time mother.

Keen to know if she was right in her surmise, she’d questioned Nathan and been told that a guy called Aaron Somerton, who had been working in Africa for the last five years, was coming to fill the gap, and Julianne had thought she was going to collapse.

Now he was here, only yards away, and she was hoping desperately that he wouldn’t recognise her. She’d watched Laura take him into the practice building and thought if it hadn’t been for the opening of the clinic today she would have been a sitting duck, unable to avoid meeting him on his unexpected return to the area where it had all happened in what seemed like a lifetime ago. A lifetime that had been like serving a sentence for something she hadn’t done.

Yet if she didn’t meet him today, it was going to happen tomorrow. There was no way she could escape it, unless she rang in sick or disappeared off the face of the earth, like Aaron had done.

She watched Nathan drive off with him in his car and assumed that the head of the practice would be taking the new arrival to the cottage that had been rented for him by the side of the waterfall that, fed by streams and rainwater from the fells, surged endlessly downwards into the lake.

It would be a far more atmospheric residence than her apartment above the village bakery on the main street, but did that really matter? If Aaron Somerton recognised her, he wasn’t likely to be coming round for tea.

The cottage was exactly how Aaron had expected it to be.

Like almost every property in the area, it was built from Lakeland stone, which was charming in itself, but added to that was the fact that it was actually at the lake edge, only feet away from where the waterfall came dancing down from the fells.

It was described as a cottage, which brought to mind something small and cosy, but was far from that. The rooms were spacious and attractive, with huge windows looking out onto impressive views of the area, and thankfully the church didn’t appear in any of them. He would have had to draw the curtains if it had.

When he’d rung Nathan that night for a chat and his friend had suggested that he fill the vacancy at the Swallowbrook practice if he was intending to come back to the UK, nothing had been further from his mind, yet recklessly he’d taken him up on the offer, and ever since had been looking forward to returning to his roots, with all the bad memories firmly buttoned down at the back of his mind.

Both of his parents had died while he’d been at medical college so there had been no one close to him to share the most humiliating moment of his life, and the job in Africa had been heaven-sent as a means of escaping the notoriety that had been the result of him being jilted at the altar.

When sugar-sweet golden-haired Nadine Marshall had wanted to marry him, he had seen a future of heavenly bliss beckoning with the woman he loved and their children in time to come, and had had no idea that she’d been seeing someone else while the wedding preparations had been in progress.

On meeting up with Nathan in Africa there had been no mention about what had happened on his wedding day, so either the other man knew nothing about it or didn’t connect his caring, clever colleague with the time when Aaron had been hurt beyond belief by Nadine and had gone to work at the other side of the world to try to forget.

Now he was back in the land of his birth, amongst the lakes and fells that were as familiar to him as his own face, hoping that his rash decision to come back to Swallowbrook and the surrounding areas wasn’t going to turn out to be a step too far.

He needed food, he decided when he’d finished unpacking—bread, milk, cereals, butter, bacon and anything else that caught his attention in the village shops, which were near enough for him to reach on foot.

The bakery was his last stopping place and as he opened the door and stepped inside he saw a neat pair of ankles and legs that were long and shapely in sheer tights disappearing fast up a flight of stairs at the back of the shop. Someone was in a hurry and he wondered if the flash of a dark blue hemline belonged to a nurse.

As she hovered on an upstairs landing after her quick departure from the shop down below on seeing Aaron about to enter, Julianne was thinking dismally that it would have to come sooner or later, meeting him face-to-face.

If he didn’t recognise the woman she had become, Aaron would certainly remember her second name, if not the first, as she’d been a background figure during the time he had courted her elder sister, Nadine, with eyes only for her beauty.

But she was the one who was going to have to face him day after day, week after week from now on. Not the despicable Nadine, who had broken his heart and his pride, but the bridesmaid who since then hadn’t wanted to be anyone’s bride.

Because if her sister hadn’t loved Aaron Somerton, she had adored him from afar and had ended up as the whipping girl for his betrayal because he had decided that she’d been in cahoots with the woman who had left him standing before a church full of people, and his anger and disgust had remained like a festering sore on her life ever since.

Yet her dismay at Aaron’s return was not absolute. In a small corner of her heart there was warmth because whatever the cost in days to come, Aaron was where she could see him, observe him from a distance, and maybe in time he might come to feel that she wasn’t as bad as she’d been made to look.

She heard the shop door close down below and when she looked out of the window from the landing where she had taken refuge he was striding along the pavement below with his provisions, and as people passing observed him with interest she thought he was still an eye-turner like he had been in the past, but did he notice, did he care?

At that moment a horrible thought struck her. Supposing he had recovered from being jilted at the altar by a greedy and uncaring bride and had found himself a replacement while out in Africa? Supposing he had a family waiting for him at the cottage by the waterfall while he went to buy food for them?

Yet the memory of his arrival offered solace regarding that. He had been alone. The only baggage he’d brought with him had been of the suitcase kind.

Having made sure that he’d gone, Julianne went back downstairs to the bakery and middle-aged George, the baker, who kept a fatherly eye on his attractive tenant, enquired, ‘What sent you up the stairs so fast? I thought the guy buying the bread must be a vampire with a preference for young nurses or something.’

‘He’s the new doctor at the practice,’ she told him. ‘It will be soon enough to meet him when I have to, and you, George, wouldn’t know a vampire if one jumped up and bit you.’

‘Cheeky wench,’ he said affectionately, passing her the bread and cakes that she’d been on the point of buying when Aaron had appeared. ‘Don’t forget these. I don’t want you ringing my bell when you come home in the early hours because you’ve got nothing to eat.’

Julianne was smiling until she entered her apartment and then gloom descended. It was Tuesday, music night at The Mallard, the pub at the opposite end of the village, and there was always a band performing. She and her friends were regulars, wouldn’t miss it for anything, but today her anticipation was dwindling because of the day’s events.

Yet she thought it was ridiculous to let a brief sighting of someone she’d known in the past make her want to run away and hide. She was going to stick to the arrangements she’d made with her friend Kathy and really dress up for the occasion to give her morale a boost.

‘Wow! Who are you out to impress?’ Kathy asked when Julianne took off her coat on entering The Mallard and the dress beneath it was revealed.

It was bright scarlet, low cut, with an uneven hemline of long and short tails, and it fitted as if she’d been poured into it. Black patent-leather shoes with incredible heels and a matching bag made up the rest of her outfit.

From the moment of arriving at the noisy gathering Julianne had put Aaron Somerton’s presence in the village out of her mind for a few hours and was back to her usual self of the attractive party animal concentrating on enjoying herself with tomorrow hidden in mist.

Aaron had accepted Nathan and Libby’s invitation to dine with them that evening and as he’d walked the short distance to where they’d had two cottages made into one across the way from the surgery, he’d heard loud music coming from the pub that was a favourite haunt for the young and trendy amongst the locals and the many visitors who came to Swallowbrook.

He smiled a grim smile. The last time he’d been to anywhere like that had been with the woman he’d been going to marry and they’d danced non-stop.

A couple of weeks later Nadine had changed her mind and left him standing dumbstruck at the altar as she’d run down the aisle with the flowers of her bouquet scattering behind her, broken like the promises she’d decided she didn’t want to make.

He’d gone after her and had been just in time to see her clutching the folds of her dress and with her veil streaming out behind her, jump into a red sports car that was parked at the church gates with engine running.

The rest of it had been a blur—wedding guests commiserating awkwardly and then drifting off, the vicar offering gentle condolences and assuring him that he would be available for support at any time that he might need him. And he’d seen the young bridesmaid with eyes large in her face though not exactly dismayed, and wondered if she’d known anything about the sports-car guy and had been expecting his own public humiliation.

He’d never seen the sly young minx from that day to this after he’d taken her on one side and waltzed her into the church vestry, where he’d discovered on questioning that she’d tried to persuade her sister endlessly not to marry him; and must have eventually succeeded.

He hadn’t waited to hear any more. It had been clear that she was just as devious as Nadine. Whatever he’d done to either of them to deserve that treatment he didn’t know, and had declared that he never wanted to set eyes on the pair of them again as long as he lived.

But now, out of choice, he was back in Lakeland and ready to put his self-imposed absence behind him like a bad dream. He imagined that the bridesmaid would have found a husband of her own by now and moved on somewhere else, like Nadine had done, and if she had he hoped that she would treat him better than his treacherous bride had treated him.

With the position in Africa coming up, he’d packed his bags and gone, and had never laid his hands on another woman since, neither was likely to do so in the future. Money and glamour had been a better choice than love, he’d discovered where Nadine had been concerned, and he was never likely to tread that path again.

Nathan had offered to drive him back to The Falls Cottage after a very pleasant evening, but Aaron had assured him that he would enjoy the walk in the mellow darkness of a late autumn evening.

As he strolled back the way he had come he had to pass The Mallard again and this time it didn’t bring back memories of times when he hadn’t known his happiness was in the balance. It was just a rather noisy place where people were enjoying themselves, and why not?

It was late and he had to sidestep to avoid a group that had just left the place and were chatting on the pavement. His glance rested for a second on a girl in a red dress, slim, dark haired, dark eyed, who had turned away as he’d approached, and he wondered why.

He didn’t sleep well that first night. The noise of the waterfall was something he was going to have to get used to, he thought as he went to stand beside it as it hurtled down in the moonlight.

The memory of the folks coming out of the pub happy and carefree was still there. He had almost forgotten how to enjoy himself since the body blow he’d received from his faithless fiancée had destroyed any inclination he might have had towards that sort of thing, and the work he had gone to do amongst the heat and endless health problems of a far country, though rewarding and challenging, had not helped to make him feel any less joyless.

Yet as he turned to go back inside he found he was smiling, his spirits lifting. He had done the right thing in coming back to this beautiful Lakeland, he told himself. The past was done with. He was not going to allow it to intrude into the future. He had survived what Nadine had done to him and from now on intended to be happy and carefree in his new surroundings.

He could see the shops on the main street in the distance and saw that late as it was there was a light on in the rooms above the bakery, so he wasn’t the only one still up.

Back in her flat, Julianne was staring into space. The last thing she’d wanted had been to come face-to-face with Aaron outside The Mallard amongst the noise and laughter of its patrons at the end of an evening of dancing and drinking, and after the first moment of unexpected recognition she’d turned away, wishing that she was dressed in a colour less memorable than red.

If he had recognised her he would no doubt have seen scarlet as the right colour for any woman associated with Nadine. But he hadn’t, and if she could escape any scrutiny that brought recognition when they came face-to-face at the surgery, she would be relieved beyond telling. If she didn’t, then what? Leave and look for a position somewhere else?

Yet she would hate to have to do that as the only people in her life were the few casual friends she’d made since joining the practice. Her parents were divorced—her mother married for a second time and living in Australia, and her father spent his days as steward and general factotum on a luxury yacht that its owners spent their time sailing around the world in, so he only appeared rarely in her life.

As for her Nadine, she hadn’t seen her since the day she’d left Aaron devastated at the altar and she had no wish to do so in the future. If he’d given her the chance during those moments when they’d been alone in the vestry she would have explained that her only reason for not being horrified at what her sister had done to him had been because she’d had a youthful crush on him and wished she could have been his bride instead.

She would have squirmed in the telling of it because compared to Nadine she’d been like an ugly duckling next to a beautiful swan in her teenage years and gauche with it.

But Aaron hadn’t given her the chance and in a sick sort of way she’d been relieved to be saved the embarrassment of admitting such a thing to a man who barely knew she existed.

The only time they’d had any conversation before that had been once when he’d been waiting for Nadine to get ready to go partying. It had been at the flat that she and her sister had shared in the town centre as Nadine was no lover of the countryside, and she’d been forced to listen to how fortunate he felt he was to have someone so beautiful wanting to marry him.

At the time she’d been reminded of men who had tried to chat her up as a means of getting to know her golden-haired sister and how she’d sent them packing, but tongue-tied in his presence she’d refrained from offering a word of warning because she’d known that the envy of other men would only make Nadine more desirable in his eyes.

It had been a rich man who had used his wealth to tempt Nadine away from the altar that day. The thought of him waiting out there with all that he could give her had made her choose possessions before love.

Julianne had known that she was seeing someone else, and had begged her not to marry Aaron if she didn’t love him, but Nadine’s reply to that had been that she did love him, but Howie was very rich and he adored her.

With the selfishness that was so much a part of her, she had waited until Aaron had actually been at the altar before making her decision, and the hurt she’d caused had been indescribable.

With that bleak thought to end the day Julianne undressed and once beneath the covers tried not to think about what the future held. She was used to laughing a lot, playing a lot, should have been on the stage as most of it was acting a part. What sort of a performance was she going to have to put on working alongside Aaron Somerton?

When he’d disappeared into the unknown she’d never expected to see him again and part of her had been relieved, but for the rest there had been a yearning that had never gone away and now, unbelievably, he was back in her life, here in Swallowbrook!

Nathan had told him to take a couple of days to settle in before taking his place in the practice but Aaron felt the urge to be back practising medicine on his home soil, and when the staff began to arrive at the surgery he was amongst them, tall, tanned and white shirted, ready for the fray.