Beneath Still Waters. Alex Archer

young guy’s mother had said. ‘Of the assistance you gave him and of how you had given up your Saturday to take those kids out into the countryside in place of someone who was sick.’

      ‘And we believe that you also work in the orthopaedic section of the hospital?’ his father commented.

      ‘Er, yes, that is so, although Dr Warrender and I have only recently started working together,’ she told him, though it seemed like for ever.

      * * *

      That afternoon Leonie took care in getting ready to attend the garden party that Melissa and Ryan Ferguson were having to celebrate the joining of their two houses and, even more delightful, the wonderful entwining of their lives.

      She’d got to know Melissa, who was a part-time doctor alongside her husband in the neuro unit of the hospital, when between them they had jointly brought back to health a young patient with a cerebral problem who had spinal problems from a fall. They had been firm friends ever since.

      * * *

      Callum had spent the morning up on his beloved moors, but had returned before lunch to get ready for the garden party. If the invitation had come from anyone other than Melissa and Ryan he wouldn’t be going.

      He’d gone to enough parties to last him a lifetime to please Shelley when she’d been around, and ever since the divorce he had toned down his social life until it was almost non-existent, which was going to the other extreme, he told himself sometimes. Today he was going to go through the ritual to please his friends and then would slope off somewhere.

      * * *

      As he parked outside the crescent of elegant town houses where Ryan and Melissa had joined theirs together on the occasion of their marriage, he could hear music and voices coming from the large garden at the back and hoped that his arrival was going to go unnoticed.

      Yet he could hardly shuffle in amongst those there without greeting his host and hostess and presenting their two children with the presents he’d brought them from America. Rhianna and Martha were special and he couldn’t help but envy Ryan and Melissa their family.

      A taxi pulled up at the kerb edge behind him and when he turned his eyes widened. Leonie Mitchell got out, looking fresh and relaxed in a pretty floral dress that matched her colouring exactly. When she straightened up and saw him standing there her face reddened.

      ‘Hello,’ she said uncomfortably. ‘I didn’t know that you would be here.’

      ‘Ryan and Melissa are friends of mine,’ he explained, and as two small voices from not far away called his name, ‘and Rhianna and Martha are delightful. They will be here in a moment, eager to see what I’ve brought them from America. Being around them makes up for a lot of things.’

      Leonie didn’t know what he meant by that but maybe she wasn’t supposed to. Just as he’d said they would, the two daughters of their hosts came rushing from the garden and threw themselves into his arms.

      ‘So how are my girls?’ he said laughingly. ‘Ready to see what I’ve brought you back from America?’

      ‘Yes!’ they chorused.

      As they delved into the gift bags he’d handed to them he told Leonie, ‘I’ve brought them both mini-cheerleader outfits, complete with pompoms.’

      Leonie observed him in surprise.

      He laughed. ‘I may not have any kids of my own but I see enough of them to know what to buy them.’

      ‘Yes, I can see that,’ she said.

      ‘We’d better go and say hello to our hosts, don’t you think?’ he suggested.

      * * *

      It looked as if they had come together, and as they followed the two girls to the garden, where there was a good smattering of hospital folk amongst the guests, he said to Ryan, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that my ward sister was coming so that I could have given her a lift?’

      ‘Sorry about that, Leonie,’ Ryan told her, and turning back to Callum said in laughing retaliation, ‘Why didn’t you warn us that we were going to have to provide loud music all the time for our two cheerleaders?’

      As they wandered around the gathering together Leonie was conscious of eyes upon her. She hoped their colleagues weren’t speculating too much about them.

      The more she saw of Callum the more she was beginning to like him, but past experiences had made her cautious, aware of the hurts that others could dish out to the unwary, and no way was she travelling down that road again.

      She knew Callum was divorced. For what reasons she didn’t know and didn’t want to, but it was pleasant to spend this sort of time with him in an easy atmosphere, away from the hospital, with no strings attached.

      To his surprise, Callum found that he was enjoying himself amongst the mixed gathering which was the only kind of socialising he’d involved himself in since Shelley’s departure.

      Whether the same applied to his companion was another matter.

      Leonie had seemed happy enough when they’d first arrived and later when she’d chatted to her friend Melissa, but as time passed he sensed an atmosphere of withdrawal about her that hadn’t been there before, and wondered where it was coming from.

      The party was due to finish around seven o’clock and he offered to drive her home.

      ‘It’s kind of you to offer,’ she told him, ‘but I don’t want to break into your evening. A taxi will be fine, thanks just the same.’

      She left the party soon after saying her goodbyes to Melissa and Ryan, and when she looked across at Callum he was on a small putting green with Rhianna and Martha.

      He was good with children, both inside and outside the hospital, but hadn’t any of his own, as far as she knew, which brought to mind one of the nursing staff saying that his wife had not been motherly-minded.

      So they had one thing in common—they’d both been deprived of one of the great joys of life, but under different circumstances. On that bleak thought she left the party and decided to walk home as the sun was still high in the sky.

      As she unlocked the door of the yurt Leonie glanced across to the other side of the river to where the luxury apartment complex where Callum lived was bathed in the last rays of the sun. A part of her wished that she’d let him bring her home instead of being so unsociable.

      But deep down inside she knew that to refuse had been the right thing to do. Gone were the days when she’d been like putty in the hands of a man, and she was being drawn towards Callum Warrender like he was a magnet as the days went by. It hadn’t been that long since she’d been drawn to another man with disastrous results and she was wasn’t going to fall into that pit of misery ever again.

      Her mouth softened at the memory of Callum’s rapport with Rhianna and Martha. He would make some child a loving father one day if he ever married again.

      As she slid beneath the bed covers at a time when most of the adult population were setting out to enjoy themselves on a Saturday night, Leonie’s last mind picture of the day before sleep claimed her was of Callum playing with Rhianna and Martha at the garden party.

      * * *

      When the party was over Callum drove around the small market town that held so much attraction for so many and faced up to the fact that Leonie was not yearning for his company, as other women were.

      She’d refused his invitation to dinner, taken a dim view of the praise he’d bestowed upon her in the hospital car park, and lastly had turned down his offer to drive her home. There would be no more gestures of friendship on his part. He had no intention of changing what he had vowed to stick with in life after Shelley. He was content in his solitary state and wouldn’t have given Leonie a second glance if it hadn’t been for the traumatic circumstances of their first meeting.