Country Doctor, Spring Bride. Abigail Gordon

it was, didn’t I?’ This time he did go, down the stairs and into the kitchen.

      He was putting two plates of fish pie, peas and new potatoes on the table when she appeared hesitantly in the doorway, wearing a pink long-sleeved top and worn blue jeans, her blonde hair now dry. He had been feeling rather guilty about the way he had spoken to her upstairs and, seeing her now, looking so wary, he offered her a smile.

      ‘Come and sit down,’ he said, hoping he sounded more friendly. ‘Did your mother phone while I was out?’

      She relaxed a little, came in and sat down. ‘Yes. Just after you’d gone. She was surprised to know I’m back home and sorry she wasn’t here to greet me. Gran has had a quite severe angina attack and at the moment is in hospital. So Mum won’t be returning until she is sure that all is well with her, and if there is any doubt about it she’s going to bring her here to live. It’s handy, having four big bedrooms.’

      ‘Yes. Especially when one of them is being occupied by the lodger,’ he commented dryly. ‘Did you tell her that we’ve met?’

      ‘Er…yes. She seems to think very highly of you and even more so after I told her how you’d looked after me.’

      He nodded imperceptibly and for a while they ate in silence, both enjoying the tasty meal. Then Daniel spoke again.

      ‘So why didn’t you tell me that you’re in medicine too?’

      Kate shrugged. ‘At the moment that’s in the past. I was a doctor in A and E at a hospital down south. We both were. Craig, my fiancé, worked there too. But a few weeks ago the unit was transferred to another area where they had their own staff waiting to take over, which left some of us without jobs. I could have moved to another department, I suppose, like he did, but I left as a protest at the closure of a busy A and E centre.’

      ‘So it would seem that life hasn’t been treating you very well of late.’

      ‘No. It hasn’t. I wasn’t the one who called off the wedding. He had been the one keen to get married. Then suddenly he didn’t want to be tied down…to me, that was. He’d switched his affections to my flatmate.’

      ‘I’m sure that you must feel you’re well rid of him.’

      She smiled, showing even white teeth, and he thought how it transformed her face. So far she’d been scowling most of the time, but now he was seeing her as someone who would be quite something if she smiled more…in spite of the hairstyle.

      ‘I didn’t at first. That kind of thing makes one feel so unwanted and unlovable, but I’m getting there.’

      ‘I’m sure you are,’ he said with a smile of his own, and thought that this girl had some spirit. It was a shame that some low-life had tried to quench it. “Perhaps when you are fully recovered we can drink a toast to your continuing return to good health and a future spent with people who won’t let you down?’

      ‘Hmm. That would be lovely. So maybe you could tell me what’s happening at the surgery? Peter Swain has gone now, hasn’t he?’

      ‘Yes. But Miriam remains and I think she disapproves of me.’

      ‘Why, for goodness’ sake? Though thinking back to when I was there, it didn’t take much for her to start sighing and rolling her eyes.’

      He laughed. ‘Nothing has changed, except that I’m in charge now and as new people are moving into the area our list of patients is getting bigger all the time.’

      ‘Yes, it will be,’ she agreed. Suddenly a wave of tiredness swept over her. Getting to her feet, she said apologetically, ‘I think that maybe I left my bed a bit too soon. I’m not going to faint again,’ she told him as he eyed her in concern. ‘I just suddenly feel very tired.’

      ‘That will be the after-effects of you having had such a high temperature. Do go back to bed by all means and I’ll look in on you later to make sure you are all right. We can have the wine another time.’

      She nodded and got up from the table, pausing in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry I’m being such a drag, Dr Dreyfus,’ she said.

      He smiled. ‘The name is Daniel, and none of us can help being ill at some time or another, as we doctors well know, so don’t give it another thought. You’re probably run down after all the stress you’ve been under, and would have thrown the virus off at another time.’

      As she went slowly up the stairs, Daniel was again wishing he hadn’t been so brusque with her when he’d come back from the surgery. On closer acquaintance, Kate seemed all right.

      Before he settled down for the night himself he went to check on her and found her sleeping peacefully. Her forehead was cool, her pulse regular, and as he moved away from the bed she turned in her sleep and murmured the name of the man she’d been going to marry, which made him wonder if she really had written him out of her life.

      When he woke up the next morning he could smell bacon grilling and when he went downstairs Kate was setting the table for breakfast.

      ‘My turn,’ she told him as toast popped up in the toaster and the kettle came to the boil.

      ‘So am I to take it that you are feeling better?’ he asked.

      ‘Mmm. Much. I’m going to start unpacking when we’ve had breakfast and I’m going to put the washing machine on, so if you have anything that needs washing, leave it out.’

      ‘And what are you going to do after that?’

      ‘Take a wedding dress to the charity shop in the village.’

      ‘Surely someone else could do that for you. It’s bound to be painful. I’ll take it for you if you like.’

      She was staring at him in amazement, unaware that for him it would not be the first time. But on a previous occasion the dress hadn’t been despatched with such haste and it had been returned to the shop from where it had been bought.

      ‘I can’t let you do that,’ she protested. ‘Mrs Burgess, who’s in charge of the place, would have it on the grapevine almost before you’d left the shop that you had brought in a wedding dress. What interpretation she and her helpers would put on that, I shudder to think.’

      He was laughing. ‘So why don’t we set them a puzzle?’

      ‘If you’re sure.’

      ‘Sure I’m sure, but are you sure that you and what’s his-name, Craig, aren’t going to get back together?’

      ‘That’s not going to happen,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ve learnt my lesson. From this day forward I will only ever marry someone who can’t live without me, and I can’t live without him. And if I never find him I’ll stay single. I think I was in love with love more than I was with Craig.’

      ‘So where is the dress?’

      ‘Upstairs in a big box. I’ll go and fetch it.’

      He must be insane, Daniel thought wryly after she’d gone to get it. Offering to take her brand-new wedding dress to the second-hand shop. It would be like turning the knife in him again, and what would Ruth think when she came home? That he ought to mind his own business. Or that he should have suggested to Kate that she sell it, being currently unemployed.

      Why was he getting involved in her affairs anyway? They’d only met the previous day and hadn’t exactly hit it off to begin with. He had enough to concern himself about without worrying over a jilted bride. Running the practice and keeping an eye on the builders working on his house down by the river, for a start.

      But there was something about Kate that was reaching out to him and it wasn’t because she was his type. Far from it. Lucy had been his type, but the after-effects of a brain tumour had taken her from him only days before their wedding, so he did understand how it felt to have one’s future wiped away. In his case it had been the cruel fates that had broken his heart, not a cheating partner.

      Kate