A Summer Wedding At Willowmere

By Abigail Gordon

Willowmere in summer is a breathtaking sight. But nurse Laurel Maddox barely notices the carefully tended gardens, pretty stone cottages and patchwork fields. All she wants is to hide away from the past and the scars it has left on her – both emotionally and physically. Local GP Dr David Trelawney is intrigued by his new colleague, and despite his own wariness of relationships he longs to see Laurel blossom in the warmth of Willowmere. Before summer is out, this handsome village doctor will make her his bride!

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jan 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781742927107

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

LAUREL MADDOX groaned as the train pulled into the small country station that was her destination. She had two heavy cases to unload and there wasn’t a porter in sight. Just two deserted platforms and an unattended ticket office were all that were visible as the doors began to open.

For someone used to the big city where platforms and staff were many and varied it was a depressing introduction to the place that was going to be her home for some time to come. Yet all was not lost as she prepared to heave the cases out onto the platform.

A voice said from behind, ‘Can I help?’ and when she turned the man it belonged to didn’t wait for an answer. He moved past and swung the offending luggage out onto the platform, then turned and offered a firm clasp from a hand that was protruding from the cuff of a crisp white shirt.

As she thanked him Laurel was thinking that he was the only part of the scenery that she could relate to. Tall, tanned, trimly built, wearing a dark suit, he seemed more in keeping with the place she’d come from than the countryside that her aunt had described in such glowing terms.

‘I need a porter,’ she said. ‘Is there such a person in this place?’

‘Just one,’ he replied. ‘Walter does the job of porter, mans the ticket office, collects them when necessary.’ He gave a wave of the arm that took in the spotless platforms and the tubs of summer flowers gracing them. ‘And also keeps the place clean and attractive. Willowmere won the prize for best country station last year. But he does stop for lunch at this time of day.’

‘So what about a taxi?’ she asked wearily, obviously unimpressed by his description of the absent Walter’s devotion to duty.

‘There is one, but…’

‘Don’t tell me. Amongst all of that he drives the local taxi.’

‘No. His brother does that,’ he said with a smile of the kind not soon forgotten, ‘but it doesn’t look as if he’s around at the moment. I have a car and it’s parked just here. Can I give you a lift to wherever you’re going? I know we’re strangers, but I’m a doctor in the village surgery, if it helps.’ He showed her his ID, which proclaimed him to be Dr David Trelawney.

‘Well, OK. Thank you,’ she said, trying to smile despite feeling weary and irritable and wishing she hadn’t allowed herself to be persuaded to move to the Cheshire village of Willowmere. ‘So you must know my Aunt Elaine. I’m going to stay with her for a while.’

‘Elaine Ferguson, our practice manager? Yes, of course,’ he said in surprise, and bent to pick up her cases. ‘So you’ll be wanting Glenside Lodge, then. If you’ll follow me.’

As she tottered after him across the cobbled forecourt of the station on high-heeled shoes Laurel was feeling nauseous from lack of food and the journey. It had been a month since she’d been discharged from hospital and she was gradually getting stronger, but at that moment she felt as weak as a kitten and was wishing she’d stayed put in her own habitat.

‘There’s a vacancy coming up at the surgery for a practice nurse,’ Elaine had phoned to say. ‘Why don’t you give James Bartlett, the senior partner, a ring?’

‘You mean live in the country,’ Laurel had said doubtfully. ‘I’m not so sure about that. It just isn’t my scene, and I’m not sure I want to go back to nursing after what happened.’

Elaine was not to be put off. ‘The air here is like wine compared to the fumes in the city, and with some good food inside you it will help to complete your recovery. You’ve done so well, Laurel, and I’m so proud of you. Come to Willowmere and carry on with your nursing here. You are too good at it to give it up. A country practice is a much less stressful place than a large hospital…and I want to pamper you a little.’

Elaine was clearly looking forward to her coming to live in her beloved village and the thought of her waiting to welcome her with open arms had been too comforting to refuse. As well as that, her aunt made the best omelette she’d ever tasted and if there was one thing her appetite needed, it was to be tempted.

There was also the matter of the job at the practice. Laurel had eventually phoned the senior partner, and having explained that she was coming to live in Willowmere and was a hospital-trained nurse, he’d said that once she arrived he would be only too pleased to have a chat.

Returning to the present, Laurel thought that Elaine was going to be mad when she knew she’d come on an earlier train. She would have been there to meet her if she’d kept to the arrangements, but the opportunity had presented itself and she’d thought it better to get on a train that was there than wait for one that might not arrive.

‘Is she expecting you?’ David asked as he drove along a country lane where hedgerows bright with summer flowers allowed an occasional glimpse of fertile fields and their crops.

‘Yes and no,’ she told him. ‘Elaine knows I’m coming but not on the train I arrived on. I caught an earlier one.’

‘That explains it.’

‘Explains what?’

‘She won’t be at Glenside Lodge at this time. Elaine will be at the surgery. So shall I take you there instead?’

‘No!’ she said hurriedly. ‘She’s told me where to find the key. I’d like to go straight to her place if you don’t mind.’

‘Sure,’ he said easily. ‘Whatever you say.’

At that moment she slumped against him in the passenger seat and when David turned his head he saw that she’d fainted. Now it was his turn to groan. What had he let himself in for with this too thin, overly made-up girl in sheer tights and heels like stilts, wearing cotton gloves on a warm summer day…and with the appeal of a cardboard box.

He stopped the car and hurried round to where she was crumpled pale and still in the passenger seat. When he felt her pulse Laurel opened her eyes and sighed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said listlessly. ‘It’s just that I’m hungry and tired.’

‘And it made you faint?’ he questioned, but the main thing was she’d come out of it quickly and in a very short time they would be at Glenside Lodge.

‘So where is the key?’ he asked when they arrived at the end of a long drive that in the past the carriages of the gentry had trundled along.

‘Under the water butt at the back,’ she told him weakly, and he observed her anxiously.

The moment they were inside he was going to phone Elaine and get her over here as quickly as possible, he decided, and in the meantime he would keep a keen eye on this strange young woman who looked as if she’d stepped out of a back issue of one of the glossies.

When she got out of the car Laurel’s legs wobbled beneath her, and afraid that she might collapse onto the hard surface of the drive he put his arm around her shoulders to support her while they went to find the key and then opened the door with his free hand and almost carried her inside.

There was a sofa by the window and after placing her carefully onto its soft cushions he went into the kitchen to see what he could give her to eat and drink before he did anything else.

A glass of milk and a couple of biscuits had to suffice and while she was nibbling on them and drinking thirstily he phoned the surgery.

‘What?’ the practice manager exclaimed when he told her that her visitor had arrived and wasn’t feeling very well. ‘Laurel wasn’t due until later in the afternoon. I’ll be right there, David.’

With that she’d put the phone down and now he was waiting to be relieved of the responsibility that he’d brought upon himself by offering to help Elaine’s niece.

‘I’m not always like this, you know,’ she told him languidly as she drained the glass. ‘I’m known to be friendly and no trouble to anyone.’

‘You don’t have to explain,’ he told her dryly as the minutes ticked by. ‘I suggest that you see a doctor in case you’re sickening for something.’

She managed a grimace of a smile. ‘I’ve seen a doctor, quite a few of them over recent months, and lo and behold, now I’ve met another.’

Elaine’s car had just pulled up outside and she became silent, leaving him to wonder what she’d meant by that. Maybe she was already suffering from some health problem as she didn’t look very robust.

During the short time that he’d been part of the village practice David hadn’t known anything to disrupt the calm efficiency of its manager. A petite blue-eyed blonde in her late thirties, Elaine Ferguson had accountancy qualifications and controlled the administration side of it in a way that kept all functions working smoothly. But when she came dashing into the small stone lodge that had once been part of an estate high on the moors, Elaine was definitely flustered and the young woman he’d picked up at the station wasn’t helping things as on seeing her aunt she burst into tears.

‘Laurel, my dear,’ she cried. ‘Why didn’t you stick to the arrangements we’d made?’

‘I know I should have done,’ she wailed, ‘but it was so quiet in the apartment and I felt so awful. I just couldn’t wait any longer to be with you.’

David cleared his throat. Now that Elaine had arrived he wanted to be gone, but first he had to explain that her niece had fainted due to what she’d described as hunger and exhaustion and he was going to advise that she see a doctor at the surgery to be checked over.

‘I hope you will soon feel better,’ he said to the woebegone figure on the sofa who was sniffling into a handkerchief, unaware that her mascara had become black smudges around green eyes that looked so striking against her creamy skin and red-gold hair. The hair in question was quite short and shaggy looking and he presumed it must be the fashion back in London.

Elaine came to the door with him, still tense and troubled, but she didn’t forget to thank him for looking after her niece and it gave him the opportunity to say his piece.

She nodded when he’d finished. ‘I have quite a few concerns about Laurel and the first one is to get her settled here in Willowmere where I can give her some loving care. I’ve persuaded her to leave the big city for a while and come to where there is fresh air and good food.’

‘Your niece isn’t impressed with what she’s seen so far,’ he warned her whimsically. ‘A station with just two platforms and no porter to hand.’

‘So she didn’t notice the shrubs and the flowers that Walter tends so lovingly, but she will,’ she said with quiet confidence. ‘Laurel just needs time to get a fresh hold on life. I’m taking what’s left of today off and the rest of the week. I’d already arranged it with James so everything is in order back at the surgery.’

‘I can’t imagine it ever not being in order,’ he said as he stepped out onto the porch.

‘That could change,’ she said wryly, casting a glance over her shoulder at the slender figure on the sofa, and as he drove to the practice on the main street of the village David was wondering what Elaine had meant by that.

‘So you’ve met Elaine’s niece already!’ James Bartlett, the senior partner, exclaimed when he arrived at the practice. ‘How did that come about?’

‘I went by rail to collect the last of my things from St Gabriel’s,’ David explained. ‘I thought it would be quicker than driving there, and when the train pulled in at Willowmere on the return journey I saw this girl about to get off and she had two heavy cases. So I stepped in and lifted them down onto the platform for her.

‘She asked about a taxi but the one and only was nowhere in sight so I drove her to Glenside Lodge then rang Elaine and by that time she wasn’t looking very well.’

James nodded. ‘I know there is or was a medical problem of some kind. There was a period when Elaine was dashing off to London to see her whenever possible and it is why she has persuaded her niece to come and stay with her as they’re very close.’

‘I’m sorry for the delay on my part,’ David said. ‘I’d expected to be away only a short time.’

‘Don’t be concerned,’ James told him. ‘You couldn’t leave a damsel in distress and Ben was here until midday. He’s been on cloud nine ever since little Arran was born. It’s a delight to see him and Georgina so blissfully happy.

‘But getting back to practice matters, would you take over the house calls now that you’re back, while I have a chat with Beth Jackson? Our longest-serving practice nurse is champing at the bit to hang up her uniform.’

‘Sure,’ David agreed. ‘It’s a delightful day out there and a delightful place to be driving around in. I’ll get the list from Reception and be off.’

His first call was at the home of eighty-six-year-old Sarah Wilkinson, who had recently been hospitalised because of high potassium levels in her blood due to drinking blackcurrant cordial insufficiently diluted.

She was home now and due to have another blood test. Sarah had been quite prepared to go to the surgery for it, but they’d told her that the district nurse would call to take the blood sample.

Today his