His Perfect Bride?. Louisa Heaton

you leave it with me, Donald. Let me see what I can arrange.’

      When they got back in the car Olly looked at her questioningly. ‘What are you planning?’

      ‘I know someone who knows someone else. I think we can get Mr Maynard out and about and enjoying life again. Why should he be stuck at that farm with just memories? There’s life in the old dog yet.’

      He smiled. ‘He seemed to like you.’

      ‘He’s a nice guy.’

      ‘He is a nice guy. But I’ve been trying to get him involved with village life for years and he’s never budged from that chair.’

      She smiled mysteriously. ‘Perhaps he needs something more than just this village? Never underestimate the power of a good woman.’

      He looked at her askance. What was wrong with ‘just’ the village?

      Perhaps she bewitches her patients, too.

      The next morning Lula telephoned a colleague’s friend in Petersfield, who ran coach holidays, and told him about Donald Maynard. After a quick discussion they found a trip for Donald that they thought would suit him down to the ground. It was a tour of wineries in the Loire region of France, over three days, stopping off at some lovely B & Bs along the way and all at a greatly reduced price.

      Lula rang Mr Maynard and asked him if he could be ready in a week’s time to catch a bus, if it collected him from the end of his driveway.

      Donald was thrilled. ‘Chuffed to mint balls’ was his expression, and he couldn’t thank Lula enough. She put the phone down at her end, feeling delighted that she’d been able to help a wonderful old man who deserved to enjoy life, despite his years.

      She got herself ready for work. Determined to walk to the surgery, she rooted around for her wellies. With her woolly hat and scarf on, she was ready to go, and she opened her door, expecting to set straight off. She wanted to make a good impression on her very first day at the surgery.

      But someone had left a cardboard box on her doorstep.

      And inside something was crying.

       CHAPTER TWO

      LULA TOOK A sharp intake of breath in the cold morning air. There had been no more snow after their trip home from Mr Maynard’s farm last night, and the top layer had frozen to a crisp. The cardboard box was from a biscuit manufacturer, and the top had all four corners folded into each other, with some air holes punched through by something like a ballpoint pen.

      Lula almost couldn’t believe her eyes.

      This sort of thing didn’t happen twice in a lifetime …

      Kneeling down, she peeled back the corners and looked inside to see a newly born baby, swaddled in tight blankets and towels.

      ‘Oh, my God!’

      Lula scooped up the baby and stood up, holding it to her, undoing her coat buttons and scooting the baby inside her greatcoat. Beneath the baby there was a blue hot water bottle, and it was still quite warm, so Lula could only hope that the baby hadn’t been left outside in the cold for too long. With her free hand she picked up the cardboard box and brought it inside, kicking the door closed, then she went back over to the fire to add more logs and get it really going again.

      When that was done she picked up her phone and dialled the police. There was no police station in Atlee Wold itself, but there was one in the next village over—South Wold. She could only assume they’d send someone from there.

      She wanted to examine the baby, but the need to keep it warm and monitor its breathing overrode all other instincts. Next she called the surgery, assuming one of the receptionists would answer, but Olly did.

      ‘Atlee Surgery.’

      His voice was solid and reassuring to hear.

      ‘Oliver?’

      ‘Lula? What’s up?’

      ‘You need to come over.’

      ‘I’m about to start morning surgery.’

      ‘Can your father do it? I need you here. Now.’

      He paused for a moment, but he must have been swayed by the quiet desperation in her voice because he said, ‘I’ll be right over.’

      Lula paced the floor—back and forth, back and forth—humming tunes, gently jigging the baby up and down, trying to keep it monitored, checking on its breathing. She had no idea if it was a boy or a girl, or even if it had all its bits and pieces—there’d been no time to check. When Olly got there maybe they could check the baby together.

      Suddenly she remembered she ought to have asked him to bring his call-out bag, and hoped he’d have heard from her tone that it might be needed.

       Why didn’t I tell him it was needed? So stupid!

      Because the shock of finding the baby had been so great. It wasn’t what you expected to find when you went out through the front door in the morning. At the most you might expect a present from the cat, if you kept one, or perhaps a friendly offering from a night-time fox on your doorstep. But a baby …?

      No.

      She knew what would happen. The police would arrive, and they’d take everything. The baby, the blankets, the hot water bottle, the box. They’d try and trace its mother, but it would be difficult. There were never enough clues in this sort of situation, even if the mother left a note …

      She rummaged in the box.

      No note.

       Where’s the mother?

      More importantly, who was the mother? She had to have been desperate to do this. To leave her baby in a cardboard box, in the middle of winter, on the doorstep of a stranger. She couldn’t have known that the baby would be found early. Could she? What if Lula had been on a late shift? The baby would have frozen to death. It didn’t bear thinking about.

      It might be a teenage girl—someone afraid to tell her parents that she’d been pregnant. But how would you hide something like that? The baby looked a decent size—about seven pounds. It was obviously full term, so the pregnancy must have shown.

      Perhaps it was an older woman who’d had an affair, and then her husband had come back from Afghanistan, or somewhere, and she’d had to get rid of it?

      No, Lula, too far-fetched.

      Or was it?

      Finding a baby on her doorstep would probably have sounded too far-fetched yesterday.

      There was a hammering on her front door and she rushed over to open it, letting Olly in. He stopped and stared at the baby and she saw the puzzlement on his face.

      ‘It’s not mine!’

      ‘Where did it come from?’ He closed the door behind him, pulling off his jacket.

      She explained what had happened and they laid the baby on the rug in front of the roaring fire to examine it.

      She was newborn. Barely hours old. The umbilical cord was tied off with navy blue string and still fresh. Vernix—the grease that covered a baby in the womb, to stop its skin getting waterlogged—was in the armpits and creases of the baby, indicating that maybe she was a little before term.

      She was a little cold, but otherwise well.

      She was extremely lucky.

      ‘She can’t have been outside long,’ Olly said.

      ‘Perhaps she’d only just been left by someone?’

      ‘Did you see anyone when you went outside? When you opened the door?’

      Lula tried to think.