Welcome To The Cornish Country Hospital: The start of a BRAND NEW emotional series from the bestselling author of The Cornish Midwife, Jo Bartlett for 2024

By Jo Bartlett

Perfect for fans of Grey's Anatomy, a brand new series from bestselling author Jo Bartlett… Welcome to The Cornish Country Hospital!

A new start…

When Danni Carter moves to Cornwall from London, she hopes it will be the fresh start she so desperately needs. She’s nervous, but hopefully the change of scene will help her to finally forget her feelings for Lucas Newman, a man she can never be with, because he’s already engaged to Danni’s best friend, Esther.

An Impossible Dilemma…

But when Lucas and Esther decide to follow Danni to Cornwall, and both announce they will be working with her at the new St Piran’s hospital, Danni is thrown into turmoil again. She can’t lose Esther, but being near Lucas is getting harder to deal with. Will she have to give up her new life before it’s even started?

A chance to start again?

Throwing herself into work, Danni finds herself drawn to new patient, Connie Berrycloth, a woman Danni knows has dark secrets of her own. Secrets that are about to be revealed….

As the two women form a friendship, Danni begins to realise that letting go of her dreams might be the only way of holding on to the people she loves.

Praise for Jo Bartlett:

'Stunning setting, wonderful characters, and oozing with warmth. A triumph from Jo Bartlett.' Jessica Redland

'Perfectly written and set in the beating heart of a community, this story is a wonderful slice of Cornish escapism.' Helen J Rolfe

'I was drawn in from the first word, I’ve laughed and cried, what a really lovely story' ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Reader Review

'I would highly recommend this book for a bit of fantastic escapism and love conquering all.' ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Reader Review

'A heart warming tale which I enjoyed reading very much.' ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Reader Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Boldwood Books
• Release date: Nov 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781804839188

Jo Bartlett

Jo Bartlett is the bestselling author of over nineteen women’s fiction titles. She fits her writing in between her two day jobs as an educational consultant and university lecturer and lives with her family and three dogs on the Kent coast.

Book preview

1

If Danni could have stopped it from happening, she would have. If she’d had any say at all, she would rather have hated her best friend’s fiancé on sight than spent the last seven years falling more and more in love with him. But life didn’t play fair like that and, by the end of the year, the only man she’d ever loved would be walking down the aisle with the woman Danni thought of as her sister.

‘This was supposed to be a fresh start.’ Danni muttered the words as she headed up the coastal path on the cliffs above Port Kara. Brenda didn’t answer, but then basset hounds weren’t exactly famed for their ability to give relationship advice. The only thing Brenda was famous for was leaving trails of slobber that no cleaning agent in existence could remove.

‘I’ve taken a job I didn’t even want and spent every penny I had buying a house on the opposite side of the country, and what do they do?’ Danni kicked a patch of loose gravel on the path ahead of her. ‘They both take jobs at St Piran’s Hospital and buy a house half a mile away. Half a bloody mile!’

Brenda looked up, the sudden movement sending some of her trademark slobber through the air as her jowls swung from side to side. She’d heard all this from Danni a hundred times before, but she still gave her owner the same look of sympathy she’d given her every other time, those soulful eyes seeming like they wanted to say so much. It was just as well Brenda couldn’t speak; she’d probably have told Danni to pull herself together and get a grip. God knows Danni had looked in the mirror and told herself that often enough.

She didn’t want to be this person, someone who’d wasted 2,500 days praying for a miracle that involved Esther falling for someone who made her far happier than Lucas ever had. That revelation would be followed by a short interval, the bare minimum that decency dictated, before Lucas finally realised it had been Danni he loved all along. Then they’d all get on with the rest of their brilliant lives, their old friendships completely intact and with none of the complications that having an ex hanging around so often brought. It was like Danni was trapped in a romcom, except somehow, she’d ended up as a supporting character in her own life story.

Taking the job in A&E at St Piran’s Hospital had felt like a huge step backwards in her career. The seven years she’d spent secretly loving Lucas had been the same seven years the two of them had spent undertaking specialist training at a teaching hospital in London. When they’d both been offered jobs in their chosen fields at the same hospital, Lucas as an associate specialist trauma surgeon and Danni as a consultant in A&E, it had felt like a dream come true. They’d be working in parallel some of the time, with part of Lucas’s role involving assessing trauma patients in A&E.

Danni had tried not to admit, even to herself, how relieved she’d been that they wouldn’t be working in different hospitals, and going out for a drink to celebrate the news had seemed the most natural thing in the world. It was the second bottle of champagne that had changed everything; she’d suddenly looked across at Lucas and realised that if she didn’t tell him now, she never would.

Halfway through that second bottle of champagne, she’d opened her mouth to say the words, but nothing came out. She sat there, not moving, with every fibre of her being screaming at her to just say it, to tell him she loved him before she lost him for good. But even in a haze of Veuve Clicquot, she couldn’t do it to Esther. Not to the woman who’d sent a congratulations bouquet to Danni that was so big she could hardly see over it. Or who’d taken her call just days before, when there’d been a young patient Danni’s team couldn’t save and she’d woken herself up sobbing at 3 a.m. Esther had let Danni cry on her shoulder so many times in the ten years they’d known one another and it was Esther who’d got Danni through when the training had felt like it was going to overwhelm her, or when her day had seemed tougher than she was.

Esther was the person Danni confided all her fears to, and all her secrets. All except one. Loving Lucas was something she hadn’t admitted to a soul. And, in that moment, staring across the table at him, in the corner of a noisy pub, she’d realised that she never would, because as much as she loved him, she loved Esther more. It was why she had to get away, because if she stayed she’d never be able to get over him. Any doubts she might have had disappeared when Esther had texted her later that night.

Oh my God, he’s finally asked me! Not like I’d imagined, but I don’t care. Apparently it was drinks with you that got him thinking and ‘the ring’ was something he made in the taxi on the way home, out of the wire from one of the bottles of champagne you two so rudely drank without me 😉 He’s promised there will be an upgrade, but I don’t care about that either. Let me know when you can do lunch and I’ll fill you in on all the rest. I promise not to be a bridezilla and you can wear whatever dress you want! Love you xx

Danni had wanted to get in her car and leave the moment she’d read the text, to just keep going until she could outrun her feelings. Instead, she’d sat there staring into the darkness of her empty flat. It was like being torn in two, wanting to feel happy for the kindest, most generous person she’d ever met, but finding it impossible when her heart felt like it had been ripped out of her chest.

When she’d told Esther she was turning down the job in London to go back to the same stretch of Cornish coast where she’d grown up, it had been her best friend’s turn to be heartbroken. She couldn’t understand what on earth would make her want to leave, or to reject a job in one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country to go and work in a tiny Cornish hospital, an eight-hour drive away from the people who loved her most. Especially as Esther knew it didn’t even feel like home to Danni, not any more.

Danni had been ten years old when she’d decided to become a doctor. The same age she’d been when her father, Trevor, had died from a massive heart attack at work. There’d been no one around to save him and Danni had vowed, then and there, that she’d learn how to bring someone back from the brink of death, to stop other families going through what hers had been forced to endure. Her mother, Nicola, had never been the same after that. She’d coped by trying to find solutions to her problems at the bottom of a bottle of gin, and by sending Danni and her brother to boarding school so she didn’t have to try to be there for them. School had been Danni’s solace and losing herself in books had been a refuge from the real world. It didn’t matter if it was the textbooks she clung to during the day, or the novels she read under the covers at night – those books, as well as the snatched days she got to spend with her brother, Joe, when their mother reluctantly had them back for the holidays, had been the only things that had felt like home since losing her father. Until she met Esther.

Esther had been just two weeks into her first full-time nursing job the day that Danni had started a two-year foundation programme at the same hospital, straight after finishing medical school. They’d clicked straight away and within three months they’d been sharing a flat. By that time, Joe had settled in Australia, where he’d gone for his post-university gap year. Her mother was living on a houseboat in Bristol, with her boyfriend, Paul, who she’d met on an art therapy course, eight years after her husband’s death. These days, Danni’s mother seemed content to scratch a living as a part-time artist, selling the paintings she and Paul did from the back of their boat. Danni was glad her mother had found some level of happiness, but Nicola still couldn’t cope with anyone’s problems but her own, so their relationship consisted of superficial conversations and meet-ups over lunch every couple of months or so.

Meeting Esther really had felt like coming home for the first time in years, and through her she’d found a whole new family too. Esther’s parents and paternal grandparents had treated Danni as if she really was one of the family. Esther’s mother, Caroline, often told Danni she thought of her as another daughter. They were the family Danni had always wanted and, even if she didn’t love her best friend as much as she did, she’d rather have died than hurt any of them. Which was why she had to leave, and why she could never reveal the real reason for going.

‘Please stay. Nothing here is going to be the same without you. I know I’ve moved in with Lucas now, but he’s just a boy. I still need my girl around too.’ Esther had taken hold of both her hands. ‘I can’t for the life of me understand why you’d want to leave London and go down there. I know it’s beautiful, but there’s so much more scope for your career here. And, more importantly, you’ve got all of us.’

Everything Esther had said had made perfect sense, but she had no idea that seeing Lucas almost every day felt as if it was slowly killing Danni. She’d tried to tell herself at first that her feelings for him would pass and that the initial spark of attraction would die out. Then she’d got to know him and any hope she’d had that her feelings would just fizzle out had been lost. Danni and Lucas understood each other in a way no one else seemed to. They’d bonded during late-night shifts, sharing bleary-eyed conversations over hospital canteen coffee, cramming for assessments and talking about all the things they wanted to do with their careers. But most of all they’d bonded over both having lost parents at a young age, which no one else quite understood.

Sometimes, when the three of them were together, Danni wondered if Esther ever felt left out. If she did, she never showed it. She still invited Danni along to everything – meals out, movie nights, even on holiday, and the three of them laughed together over shared jokes no one outside their inner circle would have found funny. Despite the torture of watching Esther and Lucas’s relationship from the sidelines, Danni had accepted every invitation. Hoping that one day he’d show a side of himself that would make her fall out of love with him. But she was still waiting…

‘Cornwall is where all of my memories of Dad are.’ Danni’s eyes had filled with tears, but only partly because it had been true. ‘I need to be there for a while and work through some stuff that seems to be coming to the surface just lately. I buried it all when Dad died and just threw myself into schoolwork, then medicine. I need to do this, Essie, but I’m going to miss you all more than you’ll ever know.’

It had been one of the hardest conversations Danni had ever had and her throat had been raw with the effort of trying not to cry. The tears had come when she’d started packing up her stuff, photo frames where all her memories seemed to feature Esther and Lucas. She’d had a wobble the day before she’d been due to exchange contracts on the purchase of the cottage in Port Kara. When the former holiday cottage where they’d spent their last family break together, before her father had died, had come up for sale, Danni had been sure it was a sign. The cottage was in such an idyllic spot it couldn’t have felt more magical. It had also been the last place she remembered feeling happy, before her whole world had come crashing down.

But on the night before she was due to sign the final paperwork, and hand over almost every penny of the inheritance her father had left her, she’d felt nausea grip her stomach at the mere thought of leaving London. Danni didn’t want to go; she was suddenly as certain of that as she’d previously been about needing to leave. And then came the knock at the door.

‘Lucas.’ His name had caught in her throat, as he stood in the exact same spot he’d been standing on the first day they’d met, when he’d come to collect Esther for their date. She’d been terrified of her feelings for him even back then, but the impact of those feelings had turned out to be far worse than she’d ever have thought.

‘Don’t go, please. I’ve come to beg you not to.’ He’d moved past her, catching hold of her arms and spinning her around to look at him. Those dark eyes of his that were so often smiling, more serious than she’d ever seen them.

‘Did Esther send you?’ Danni had struggled to keep breathing and her whole body had felt as though it was pulsing with longing.

‘She doesn’t even know I’m here.’

In that moment, when he’d looked at Danni, she’d known for certain that she hadn’t been imagining it. The feelings she had for him didn’t go just one way and, if she’d moved even a fraction, he’d have kissed her. God knows what would have happened after that, because she’d have been powerless to stop it. So, instead, she’d stayed rooted to the spot; the only movement she made at all was to shake her head.

‘I’ve got to go, Lucas, you know I do.’ Even then, part of her had been desperate for him to touch her, seven years of pent-up emotion pounding in her chest, but somehow she’d taken a step back. ‘You need to leave.’

‘If things had been different, we could have been⁠—’

‘Don’t!’ She’d pushed him then, out of the door, slamming it behind him and leaning against it for good measure. It was only when she’d finally heard his footsteps as he walked away that she’d allowed herself to sink to the floor and the tears had come.

It had been the hardest thing she’d ever had to do, but it had driven her on, overriding any doubt she might have had about leaving. The next day she’d signed the paperwork and finished packing up her flat. She’d refused the offers of help from Esther and her family with the move down to Port Kara. And she’d started her new job, burying herself in work when she was on shift and escaping between the pages of a book at night. But, at first, even that hadn’t worked the way it used to and she’d rung Joe, just like she’d done when they were at separate boarding schools, hundreds of miles apart, and the longing for their beloved dad had got too much.

‘I’ve made a mistake moving to Cornwall.’ Her voice had been small, almost as if she was afraid to admit the magnitude of her error out loud.

‘No you haven’t.’ Joe hadn’t even asked why she thought that, and his tone had been so certain, somehow she immediately felt a bit better. ‘You’re just lonely that’s all, and you miss having someone to take care of.’

‘What do you mean? I’ve got just as many patients who need me here and⁠—’

‘I’m not talking about your patients.’ Joe’s voice had taken on an edge, the way it always did when a certain person’s name cropped up.

‘I know what you’re going to say, but I don’t look after Lucas. We’re colleagues and friends, and we’re on an equal level.’ She’d hesitated for a moment, concern about taking a step down in her career stabbing her all over again. ‘Or at least we were.’

‘No, you weren’t. You were his loyal cheerleader, always there to massage his ego. I bet he can’t stand the fact his number one fan is no longer around.’

‘You just don’t like him.’ Danni had sighed. Joe’s first meeting with Lucas, on one of his annual trips home from Australia, hadn’t gone well. Somehow, a couple of bottles of wine into the evening, the conversation had got on to the subject of their schooling. Esther was the only one who’d been to state school and Lucas had made some throwaway comment about that being obvious, given the jobs the three of them had ended up doing. Joe was a psychiatrist, with a practice in Melbourne, and a string of academic publications to his name.

‘There are three doctors at this table, so you can see the value of a proper education.’ Lucas had nudged Esther, and they’d both laughed, but Joe had felt the need to jump to her defence, telling Lucas he was condescending and a snob. Lucas had laughed again, explaining to Joe that he’d got it all wrong; what he’d been implying was, if Esther had been given a similar private education, she’d have been more than capable of being a doctor too. That had just seemed to inflame Joe even more and he’d argued that the best doctors he’d met in his career were those who’d had to work the hardest to get where they were, not the ones who’d been given every advantage. Lucas had said that they’d just have to agree to disagree about the value of a private education, because there was nothing that would dissuade him from making that the top priority for his own children when they came along.

‘I’d have traded my education to have the sort of family life Esther clearly did. That’s something money can’t buy.’ Joe had shot Danni a look at that point, and she allowed herself just the smallest nod. She hadn’t wanted to say out loud that she’d agreed with Joe, because she’d known Lucas hadn’t meant anything derogatory by what he’d said. The two men had just got off on the wrong foot, that was all, and she’d been convinced it was a blip they could quickly overcome. But, if anything, Joe’s view of Lucas just seemed to harden every time they met. So, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that her brother’s opinion of Lucas was still unfavourable.

‘You’re right, I don’t like him, but that’s beside the point.’ Joe’s voice had softened again. ‘I understand why you feel like you’ve made a mistake. It took me more than two years to stop feeling that way about living out here. Having Lucas and Esther to prop you up wouldn’t have lasted forever anyway. Once they get married and have a family, things are going to change. I think it’s brilliant that you were the one to walk away first and take the step to start making a life for yourself. It might not feel great now, but it will be worth it. Trust me. Just hold on for a bit, and fake it until you make it, like I did. Then, one day, you won’t have to pretend any more.’

So she’d followed Joe’s advice, surviving and getting through life a day at a time. Then things had started to change, just like he’d said they would. Adopting Brenda from a rehoming service had been a huge part of finally making it feel like she was starting a new life, rather than just escaping from the old one. She’d formed some friendships at the hospital and was particularly close to one of the nurses, Aidan, who made her miss Esther just a tiny bit less. Things were going well, and her boss had suggested it wouldn’t be long before a consultant’s post came up, and had told her he’d support her in going for it. Everything Joe had promised was happening and eventually her feelings for Lucas would fade too. Not seeing him every day would make that so much easier. She’d been so certain of it… until she’d got the voicemail.

‘Hey, anyone would think you were screening my calls!’ The sound of Esther’s voice had immediately made Danni feel homesick. ‘You’re not going to believe this, but we’re moving to Cornwall! Mum, Dad, Nan and Pops have been talking for ages about all getting a place together and they found the perfect house down there a few weeks ago. I didn’t want to say anything, but it got me and Lucas thinking. There’s no way we want to be hundreds of miles away from everyone we love, so we contacted St Piran’s Hospital to see what jobs might be coming up and it was like everything falling into place. We’ve found somewhere to rent in Port Kara and we’ll be moving down as soon as we’ve worked our notice. Now ring me, Haggage, and tell me just how excited you are that we’re coming down! Love you.’

Esther’s laugh had still been ringing in Danni’s ears when the voicemail came to an end. They’d always shown their affection by calling each other silly names. Danni’s nickname had come from the day she’d gone out in the drizzle and had come back with hair like Hagrid, which no amount of anti-frizz serum had been able to tame. In turn, she called Esther Nugget, after her friend had been on a date – before she’d met Lucas – with a guy whose idea of a romantic night out was ordering a sharing box of chicken nuggets from the McDonald’s drive-through. Esther had been too nice to tell him she didn’t even like nuggets and, after managing to eat one or two, had hidden the rest of her share in the pockets of her coat. The nuggets had then fallen out all over the floor of their flat, when she’d chucked her coat over the arm of the sofa after she’d got back from her disastrous date.

Danni has missed all of that familiarity, the sound of Esther’s laugh, and most of all her friendship, even more than she’d thought she would, but the voicemail had still filled Danni with dread. She’d called Esther straight back and tried every argument she could think of to persuade her that moving to Cornwall was the worst idea in the world, including that Danni might well be moving again herself soon, but none of it had made any difference. Esther had made her mind up and nothing Danni said was going to stop her.

She’d thought about phoning Lucas and telling him to do something, but she hadn’t spoken to him since the night he’d turned up at her flat. And now Esther and Lucas were moving into their new house and, in twenty-four hours’ time, they’d be starting their first shifts at St Piran’s Hospital too.

‘You’d think he’d have put a stop to it, wouldn’t you?’ Danni looked at Brenda again, who was sniffing a damp patch of unknown origin, when a text suddenly flashed up on her phone.

Major incident reported on the A3689 Port Tremellien to Port Kara Road. Multiple casualties. All available critical care staff to contact the major incident team leader.

‘Come on, Bren. I’m really sorry, girl, but we’ve got to go.’ Clipping the lead onto the dog’s collar, Danni pulled the reluctant basset hound back down the track as fast as she could, scrolling through the contacts on her phone to find the team leader’s number at the same time. There were people out there who needed her help and for once, as the call connected, Lucas was the last thing on her mind.

2

Connie craned her neck to try and see over the high bank, which was topped with hedgerow, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the sea. But this was Cornwall, and the tall hedgerows were as much a characteristic of the landscape as the coastline itself. It was all coming back to her now. Whenever she’d thought of Port Kara, as she had so many times in the thirty-eight years since her last visit, all she’d pictured was the seemingly endless stretch of sand. Back then, if she’d gone there at the right time of day, the only trace of human life existing would have been two sets of footprints. Hers and Richard’s.

‘This driver wants to slow down a bit. If a tractor comes round the corner with him going at this pace, one of us is going to get run off the road.’ The woman sitting next to Connie jabbed her in the side with her elbow as though they were old friends, rather than total strangers who just happened to be crammed in next to each other on the only bus heading to Port Kara from the station at St Ives. It was a single decker that had already been three-quarters full when they’d left the station, but by the time they were twenty minutes into the journey, it was standing room only.

Port Kara had become a lot more popular in the last ten years. Connie had seen it in her Sunday supplement, only the week before, in an article about the most popular locations for celebrity staycations and second homes. It was clearly drawing in the celebrity-spotters too and she’d heard two young women in the seat behind talking about Harry Styles being spotted there filming for a new movie. Apparently, it was why they’d simply had to get down to Port Kara before everyone else found out. Connie was just impressed with herself for knowing who he was. She had to google most of the celebrities her history students spoke about these days, but then they’d probably never heard of Led Zeppelin either. Years ago, Connie and her sister, Janice, had spent every bit of money they could scrape together trying to get to one of their gigs, and she’d been convinced she was going to marry Jimmy Page. Or Harrison Ford if she decided to go the movie star route. No one had come close to either of them – all through her uni years, or for a whole decade afterwards. But then she’d met Richard.

‘He’s driving like a lunatic; I’m going to tell him to slow down before he kills us all!’ The woman sitting next to Connie moved to get up, just as the bus lurched violently to the right, sending her crashing back down into her seat.

At the same time, a man at the front of the bus started shouting, ‘He’s collapsed. The driver’s collapsed!’

Suddenly everyone around Connie seemed to be screaming and all she could do was watch as a couple of the passengers at the front of the bus tried to get into the cab. Everything was happening so fast, but at the same time it almost felt as though the world was moving in slow motion. Connie looked down at her hands; she was gripping the bar of the seat in front of her so hard that her knuckles had gone white. But she still couldn’t scream.

For a few seconds the noise of metal scraping against a stone wall, as one side of the bus peeled open like someone had taken a can opener to it, was so loud it drowned out the sounds of panic. But then the bus left the ground, flipping in the air as if it were made from paper, and Connie finally let out an ear-piercing scream. By the time the bus landed, everything in her world had turned black.

3

The new hospital had developed its own definition of what constituted a major incident and protocols for dealing with such a situation, should one arise. Danni had been asked if she was willing to be part of the on-call pre-hospital critical care team, which allowed A&E doctors to be sent out to provide emergency care to patients, alongside paramedics, at the scene of an incident. It hadn’t even taken a moment for her to decide, even though the likelihood of anything major happening in Port Kara had seemed pretty remote. Now she was heading for Port Tremellien, with no idea how bad things were going to be when she got there, but it didn’t take long to find out.

‘Oh God.’ There was a sea of blue lights ahead of where Danni pulled into the layby. Poor Brenda had been shoved unceremoniously through the door of the cottage five minutes after the major incident alert, and Danni had changed into her uniform in a time that Wonder Woman would have been proud of. She had the on-call kit provided to every doctor in the pre-hospital critical care team. Anything else she needed would be provided by the paramedics.

For a moment it felt like she was back in London, where working with ambulance crews delivering pre-hospital care was something she’d done as part of her specialist training. She’d even had a stint working with the HEMS crew on the air ambulance for three months. But, in London, there was always the reassurance that specialist hospitals in every discipline were within relatively easy reach. Providing emergency care in rural Cornwall, and stabilising patients for long enough to get the specialist care they might need, was a whole different ball game.

There were two ambulances, an advanced paramedic vehicle and a fire engine already on scene. And, when Danni got out of the ambulance, she could hear the wail of more sirens approaching. As soon as she got closer, she could see it – beyond the fire engine – a single-decker bus with its side ripped open like an ugly scar. It looked so alien it was barely recognisable as the same sort of bus that stopped outside the hospital every day. The angry gaping hole exposing the inside of the bus looked almost aggressive, like a big ‘keep out’ sign.

The sounds of people shouting for help, and wailing in agony, carried on the still autumn air, the cloudless, almost turquoise sky making the scene below it seem all the more out of place. It was a beautiful September day, the Indian summer Port Kara had been having showing no sign of abating. As soon as Danni arrived, she checked in with the incident coordinator and was handed another pack containing some of the medication she might need. The coordinator told her the situation was changing so quickly the best thing Danni could do was get into the thick of things and find out who needed her