Swallowbrook's Winter Bride. Abigail Gordon

she needed from the shops after being away.

      There had been no sign of anyone from next door when she’d set off, but Nathan’s car had still been in front of the cottage, so either they were inside out of sight or had ventured out for the boy to see where they had come to live, and the man to reacquaint himself with the place where he had been brought up amongst people who had been his patients and friends.

      To make her way home she had to pass the park next to the school that strangely for a Saturday was empty, except for Nathan and the boy, who was moving from one amusement to another in the children’s play area.

      Don’t stop, she told herself. Nathan has had all morning to see you again if he wanted to, so don’t give him the satisfaction of thinking you’ve followed him here.

      The two of them looked lonely and lost in the deserted park. He was pushing Toby on one of the swings, but on seeing her passing lifted him off. Now they were coming towards her and she was getting a better look at the prodigal doctor than in her mesmerised state the night before.

      His time in Africa had taken its toll of him, she observed as he drew nearer. He was leaner, giving off less of the dynamism that had so attracted her to him over the years, but his hair was the same, the dark thatch of it curling above his ears, and his eyes were still the unreadable dark hazel that they’d always been where she was concerned.

      ‘I can’t believe you were going to go past without speaking,’ he said as they drew level.

      ‘Why?’ she asked steadily. ‘What is there to say?’

      ‘On my part that I was sorry to hear of Jefferson’s fatal accident, and for another—’

      He was interrupted by the child at his side tugging at his hand and saying, ‘Can I go on the slide, Uncle Nathan?’

      ‘Yes, go along,’ he replied. ‘I’ll be with you in a moment.’ As Libby observed him in a daze of non-comprehension he explained, ‘I’m in the process of adopting Toby. Both his parents are dead. They were lost when a ferry sank while they were touring Europe. Thankfully he was saved. His father was my best friend and I am the boy’s godfather.

      ‘I went out to bring him home when it happened and applied to adopt him as there were no other relatives to lay claim to him. The paperwork is going through at the moment and soon he will be legally mine.’

      ‘How do you cope?’ she asked as the heartache of thinking that Nathan had a family of his own began to recede.

      ‘It was difficult in the beginning because although Toby knew me well enough, naturally it was his mummy and daddy he wanted. He is adjusting slowly to the situation, yet is loath to ever let me out of his sight.’

      Poor little one, she thought, poor godfather … poor me. How am I going to cope having Nathan living next door to me with the memory of what he said that day at the airport still crystal clear? He has never been back to Swallowbrook since and now, as if he hadn’t hurt me enough then, he has chosen to live in the cottage next to mine.

      He was observing her questioningly in the silence that her thoughts had created, and keen to escape the scrutiny of his stare she asked, ‘How old is Toby?’

      ‘He’s just five, and the ferry catastrophe occurred three months ago. You might have read about it in the press or seen an account of it on television.’

      That was unlikely, she thought wryly. In the mornings it was a quick breakfast, then across the way to the practice, and in the evenings the day’s events had to be assimilated and paperwork brought up to date.

      ‘What will you do now that you’re here?’ she asked, trying to sound normal. ‘Enrol Toby at the village school?’

      ‘I’ve already done so and am not sure how he is going to react to yet another change in his life. I have to tread softly with his young mind. He soon gets upset, which is to be expected, of course.’

      She felt tears prick. It was all so sad that Nathan had been forced to take on such a responsibility and felt he had to return to Swallowbrook for the child’s sake if nothing else.

      As they went to wait for Toby at the bottom of a small slide the man by her side was smiling, which was strange, as given what he had just told her he hadn’t got a lot to smile about.

      CHAPTER TWO

      IT WAS a lot to take in. Only yesterday she had been flying home from two refreshing weeks in Spain with Melissa. Today she was in the park with Nathan and a child that he was adopting, and though she felt great sympathy for their loss she couldn’t help but feel relieved that Nathan hadn’t found himself a ready-made wife and family during his time in Africa.

      If she had known he was coming back to Swallowbrook in the near future she would have had time to prepare herself for meeting up again with the man who had made it so painfully clear on parting that he didn’t return her feelings. But instead it was as if she’d been thrown in at the deep end.

      She was bending to pick up the bag with her food shopping inside when he forestalled her by saying easily, ‘I’ll take that,’ and to Toby, who was coming down the slide for the umpteenth time, ‘Time to go, Tobias.’

      When the little one had joined them they walked back to their respective properties in silence. As they were about to separate Libby asked, ‘Have you been to see your father?’

      He nodded. ‘Yes, we went to see him yesterday in a gap between deliveries of furniture and other household goods, and before you came back from wherever you’d been.’

      ‘I’d been to Spain for a fortnight with a friend for a much-needed break,’ she said coolly, ‘and hope to be on top form at the practice on Monday.’

      ‘Ah, yes,’ he said vaguely, as if he had only a faint recollection of the place. ‘Dad told me he plans to hand the practice over to you.’

      ‘Yes. I’m delighted to have his trust. I think I love that place almost as much as he does. I couldn’t bear to see it close down with his retirement and said as much to him.’

      ‘So you’ll be a doctor short now that Dad’s gone,’ he commented as she fumbled around in her handbag for the door keys.

      ‘Yes. John and I have seen one or two hopefuls, but he was strangely reluctant to make a decision and now I see why. He’s been waiting for you to come home.’

      He nodded. ‘Possibly, but Dad has only just found out about Toby and now realises that it wouldn’t work. I need to be there to see him into school in the morning and to be waiting when he comes out in the afternoon.’

      ‘Part time?’

      ‘Yes, unless I was to employ a nanny, but he has had enough changes to put up with already without my putting him in the charge of a stranger.’

      She had the keys in her hand now, but before putting them in the lock had one thing to say that hopefully would end this strange moment.

      ‘Your father might want you back in the practice, Nathan, but I’m not sure that I do. I have my life planned and it doesn’t include working with you. At the moment the doctors in the practice are myself and Hugo Lawrence, who came to us from general practice in Bournemouth to be where he could give support to his sister and her children. She was widowed some time ago and isn’t coping very well.

      ‘There are three nurses, three part-time receptionists and Gordon Jessup is still practice manager from when you were there before, and with a district nurse and a midwife attached to the surgery we have an excellent team with just one more doctor needed to make it complete. I’m not enjoying the interview process much—it’s not really my area of expertise. Also it’s proving difficult to fill the vacancy. We face stiff competition from urban practices, lots of younger doctors seem put off by the remoteness of the community, but we don’t want anyone too near retirement either. The patients and the practice need stability. I’ve already heard a few rumblings from those concerned about