Miracles in the Village. Josie Metcalfe

Kate frowned. ‘So maybe they just want to chat through the next stage in the process.’

      ‘What time are they coming? I could drop in if I’m free.’

      She gave a dry chuckle. ‘I think I can manage to counsel a couple trying for a baby rather better than you,’ she pointed out.

      ‘Why do you say that?’ he protested, bristling, and she gave him a wry look.

      ‘Because I spent six years trying to have a baby and so I know where they’re coming from?’ she said softly. ‘Because—correct me if I’m wrong—not one of your four children was planned or anticipated in any way, and infertility just doesn’t even cross your mind? And neither, apparently, does your fertility, so if it’s all the same with you, I’ll handle the Trevellyans my way. And if you’re very good, I’ll tell you what it’s all about.’

      She got up and walked out, his growl of frustration clearly audible, then his barked ‘Shut the door, then!’ followed her down the corridor.

      ‘Pretty please,’ she said, sticking her head back round it, and got a sour look for her pains.

      ‘I can’t believe you think I’d be so bad at this,’ he muttered, scowling. Oh, dear, poor Nick. He obviously felt insulted, but she didn’t care. Her feelings were all with Mike and Fran, and Nick was big enough and ugly enough to take care of himself.

      ‘Get over it,’ she advised, and shut the door.

      It was the longest week of Fran’s life.

      Well, no, it wasn’t. Waiting to hear that she was pregnant after their IVF at the beginning of the year had been dreadful. This, waiting for their appointment with Kate to find out when they could start the process again, was different, but she felt so impatient to be getting on with it that every day dragged.

      Mike was doing a bit more on the farm now, serving in the farm shop and doing the dreaded paperwork, but he didn’t start at stupid o’clock in the morning and he wasn’t coming to bed late, so they had plenty of time together to reinforce their new-found closeness.

      With his gentleness and passion he’d repossessed her body from the grip of the medical profession, and their relationship was stronger and better than it had ever been. And it would have been wonderful if it wasn’t for the suspense.

      A few things broke it up. Amber had her calf, and Sophie was there and saw it born, something Mike had no problem with and Kirsten was annoyed about.

      ‘It’s nature—she needs to know,’ he said when Sophie was out of earshot.

      ‘And I’m pregnant, and I don’t want all sorts of embarrassing questions!’ Kirsten protested. ‘I can hear them all now—Oh, God, I could kill you sometimes, Mike.’

      ‘Feel free to try,’ he said blandly. ‘She’s my daughter, too, and I grew up knowing where babies come from. It didn’t do me any harm. It was just one of those things. Better to know from the start than to be totally grossed out by the idea when you’re twelve or so.’

      ‘But to see it!’

      ‘It was lovely,’ Fran chipped in in his defence. ‘She was captivated. Believe me, Kirsten, I teach in a rural area, and the kids that see animals reproduce have a much greater acceptance of sexual matters and their parents’ subsequent pregnancies than those who don’t. They just accept it as normal and natural and part of everyday life.’

      ‘And what about my pregnancy? Did she say anything? Anything about my baby and where it’s going to come from?’

      ‘Actually, yes,’ Mike confessed, looking a little uncomfortable. ‘She asked if you’d stood up too when you had her, or if you were lying down, and what you’d do with the new baby.’

      Kirsten closed her eyes and made a tiny screaming sound. And?’

      ‘And I said people were all different, and it depended on how you felt at the time. I told her you walked round and round till the end then lay down to have her, but you might not feel like doing that with this baby.’

      She groaned. ‘Too much information, Mike. She doesn’t need it at her age.’

      Mike opened his mouth, then shut it, and Fran wondered if he’d thought better of telling Kirsten how fascinated Sophie had been with the afterbirth and the fact that Amber had eaten it. But then Sophie came back into the room with Brodie in tow and the subject was swiftly dropped.

      ‘All ready to go?’ Kirsten said, and Sophie nodded reluctantly.

      ‘I want to stay and see Amber’s calf some more. She’s really cute—she’s called Ama—something.’

      ‘Amaryllis,’ Mike supplied. ‘And she’ll still be cute when you come next time. Maybe cuter, because Amber will let you get closer. Right, come on, into the car. Your mother’s in a hurry and we’ve got to go out.’

      ‘Where are you going?’ Sophie asked.

      ‘The memorial service at the church in Penhally,’ Mike told her. ‘You remember, I told you about it. Lots of people died in a storm, and it was ten years ago today, so we’re all gathering together to remember them.’

      ‘That was four years before I was born,’ Sophie said, counting on her fingers. ‘That’s ages ago.’

      Not for the people who were still grieving, Fran thought, and wondered how Kate Althorp and the Tremayne family would be feeling. Had they moved on?

      ‘We’d better go,’ she said to Mike as soon as Kirsten and Sophie had gone.

      There was standing room only, and Kate would rather have been outside with the majority of the villagers than trapped inside the pretty little church. At least outside she could look out to sea and communicate with James somehow, instead of being trapped inside this box with thoughts and feelings that were too painful to contemplate in public.

      So she shut them down, sat quietly and still, and remembered him for the good man and loyal husband he’d been. She didn’t let herself think about Nick, sitting with the rest of his family in the pew to her right, there to remember his father and brother. And she certainly didn’t let herself think about that night ten years ago.

      Reverend Kenner was leading the service, and when he read out the names of those lost, Jem leant closer to her, his hand in hers. For comfort, or to comfort her? She wasn’t sure any more. He was growing up, turning into a fine young man, and James would have been proud of him.

      Except, of course, the boy who was here to mourn his father wasn’t that man’s son at all.

      Dear lord, it was so complicated. So sad and veiled in secrecy. She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back.

      Did he have the right to know who his real father was? She had no idea. No idea at all if it was better to mourn a man who had been a hero than to know that the man who really was your father was refusing to acknowledge your existence in his life.

      The service moved outside and down to the beach, and as she and Jem stood on the rocks and threw their wreaths into the water and watched them carried away, as James had been, she blinked away threatening tears and straightened her shoulders.

      They didn’t need Nick in their lives. They could manage without him.

      And if sometimes, at night, she still cried herself to sleep for the love of a man she had no business loving, that was between her and her maker.

      ‘Hello! Come on in and sit down. How are you, Mike?’

      He gave a dry chuckle. ‘Better than the last time you saw me,’ he said, and Kate laughed.

      ‘Yes, I think I’d probably agree. And Fran. How are you?’

      Fran smiled, not knowing quite where to start and what to say. ‘Um—good,’ she said in the end, because it was true. She felt good—a bit sick with nerves, because now they’d decided to go