Читать книгу A Cotswold Christmas Bride - Joanna Neil - Страница 8

‘COME on, ladies,’ Sophie called to the hens. ‘Feeding time.’ She scattered a mix of corn and pellets over the rough ground and immediately found herself surrounded by a huddle of excited, squawking poultry. Ferdie, the goose, preened himself, then thrust out his chest and paraded around the compound as if he owned the place, until it dawned on him that he was missing out because the hens were already busy tucking in.

Sophie threw down the rest of the feed and walked over to the gate. Suddenly, she felt a nudge from behind and was pushed forward against the fence, so that she had to put out a hand to steady herself.

‘Don’t do that, George,’ she said crossly, turning to reprimand the goat. ‘I’ve told you before, you mustn’t butt people. It isn’t polite. Wait your turn, and I’ll feed you, too.’ But George was taking no notice at all and nudged her again. She sighed. ‘Why can’t you be nice and placid like your mate, Jessie?’ she queried. ‘Look at her, she’s munching grass. She’s quite contented and she never gives me any trouble. Unlike you.’ It occurred to her, though, that Jessie was maybe a little too content with life on the farm. She was always eating and she seemed to be putting on quite a bit of weight.

Still, she didn’t have time to dwell too much on the animals’ welfare just now. She was running late. Her shift at the hospital started in around three quarters of an hour and she still had to top up the ponies’ hay and fill up the water troughs.

It was some twenty minutes later that she was finally ready to set off for the hospital. Glancing back at the lovely, stone-built farmhouse, where a late flush of roses clambered over the walls and mingled with lush, green ivy, she felt the familiar pang of loss as she drove away. It was a beautiful house, lovingly cherished by her parents, and she missed them dreadfully. This had been her home from as far back as she could remember, a place where she had always felt safe and secure, but now everything had changed. Her life had been turned upside down overnight after that fatal traffic accident.

Once she arrived at work, there was no time to settle into the day. ‘You’re wanted down in A and E,’ the duty nurse told her. ‘It’s a five-year-old with breathing difficulties. He was brought in by ambulance a few minutes ago, and the registrar’s asking for a paediatric consultation.’

‘Thanks, Hannah,’ Sophie said. ‘I’ll go down there right away. Is everything else going smoothly here?’

Hannah nodded. ‘I’m doing observations on the children who were admitted overnight. There aren’t any problems that I can see, so far, except that the boy with the congenital heart condition is still very weak. He’s probably going to need surgery before too long, according to Mr Burnley.’

‘I’ll look in on him as soon as I get back.’ Sophie shrugged into her white linen coat and took a stethoscope from her pocket before hurrying towards the lift.

‘The registrar called for me to look at the young boy with breathing problems?’ she said to the house officer when she arrived in Accident and Emergency a couple of minutes later.

‘That’s right.’ Debbie Logan, a pretty, newly qualified doctor with long, chestnut-coloured hair and grey eyes, led her to the treatment room where the little boy was lying in bed propped up by pillows. He was pale, and in obvious distress, with his breathing shallow and rapid. He was already attached to monitors that registered his pulse and respiratory rate and showed the activity of his heart.

‘His blood oxygen level is very low,’ Sophie commented. The child was being given oxygen through a face mask, but clearly it was Sophie’s job to find out what was causing his difficulties.

She greeted the child’s parents, who were sitting beside his bed looking extremely anxious. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Sophie Welland, the paediatrician. I understand that James was taken ill suddenly?’

‘He’s had a cough these last few days, and a bit of a wheeze,’ his mother said. ‘But it got worse in the early hours of this morning, and we were worried, so we called for an ambulance and he was brought straight to A and E.’

Sophie nodded. ‘I’ll listen to his chest, and we’ll do some blood tests and get an X-ray, so that we can see what’s going on.’

‘That’s what the other doctor said,’ Mrs Coleman told her. ‘He’s already ordered tests, but he was called away to another emergency. He said you’d be down to look at James.’

Sophie looked over the boy’s chart. The registrar had been thorough. The child had already been given antibiotics, and the doctor had ordered a nebuliser that would help widen the boy’s airways.

‘Ah, there you are. That was quick. I didn’t expect you to get here quite so fast.’ A strangely familiar male voice reached Sophie from across the room as she bent her head to carefully examine James a minute or so later. ‘I thought we should admit him, but I wanted your opinion as to whether we should put in an airway. I’d say he was a borderline case, but I’ll leave it to your judgement.’

Sophie withdrew the stethoscope from her ears and let the instrument dangle from around her neck. She turned to see who was speaking, and immediately the breath caught in her lungs and all at once her throat was unexpectedly tight.

‘Lucas,’ she said, her blue eyes widening. A prickle of awareness ran down the length of her spine. He was the devil incarnate, as fiendishly good-looking as ever, with glittering grey eyes that held her fast and that right now were registering every bit as much surprise as her own. ‘I didn’t realise—I mean, I hadn’t expected to see you here,’ she added under her breath.

Her voice must have had a salutary effect on him, because he seemed to snap out of his stunned reverie and his mouth curved faintly in acknowledgement. ‘That goes for me, too, Sophie,’ he responded huskily, keeping his voice low, as though he was all too aware of the boy’s parents close by. Not that they were paying any attention. They were watching the monitors and talking anxiously to one another.

‘I’d hoped I might see you again,’ Lucas said, ‘but I must admit I hadn’t expected it to happen quite so soon. Your friends were reluctant to give out your details, but all the same I felt sure I was pretty close to finding out where you lived.’ His gaze moved over her. ‘Somehow, I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind since the wedding.’

Her cheeks flushed with hot colour. No wonder he had given her that odd look when he’d left her hotel room the other day. He’d never intended to give up on trying to find her, had he? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

His shrewd smile told her he knew full well how he managed to get under her skin. Images of their last meeting filled her vision, causing a tide of heat to rush from her head to her toes and back up again. It was bad enough that he’d seen her half-naked, without adding to it that she’d given him her life history, and confided in him her worries about Nathan and the farm. She had always kept her private life to herself, but he had learned more about her in half an hour than anyone here had discovered in two years.

‘I’d no idea that you were a doctor,’ he said. ‘It’s great news to discover that we’ll be working together.’

Sophie winced. From her standpoint it didn’t bode well. ‘But I’ve worked at this hospital for some time,’ she said with a frown. ‘How is it that I haven’t seen you here before this?’

He gave a light shrug. ‘I only started working here last week. I was brought in to take over from Dr Friedman when he left for the States.’

‘Oh, I see.’ She was struggling to come to terms with the fact that he was going to be her colleague from now on. How would her credibility as a doctor hold up with him knowing that she was harassed and finding it difficult to cope? And it was especially galling that he knew that lately she had been prone to dizzy spells.

She pulled in a deep breath and turned her mind back to their patient. ‘I think we’ll postpone the intubation for a while,’ she said, doing her best to keep her manner professional. ‘James is still conscious and coping, albeit none too well, without an airway, but it could be a traumatic procedure for him, and one that I’d sooner avoid if possible. I think we should add steroids to his medication … and check the levels of potassium in his blood. If they’re too low, that could be adding to his problems. And of course we should admit him right away.’

‘My thoughts exactly,’ Lucas acknowledged. He gave a wry smile as though he knew just what was going on in her head. For her own part, she wanted to avoid even thinking about that night, but it stubbornly refused to go away. It stuck to her like a burr and irritated her just as much.

Lucas spoke to the child’s parents, while Sophie managed to escape the room by going off to make arrangements for James to be admitted to Paediatrics. She was saddened to see the little boy looking so ill. He was frail, not speaking, too wretched to do anything but lie there.

She added her notes to his chart and went in search of the young house officer. She found her a few minutes later, by the reception desk, chatting with Lucas. Debbie was clearly taken with him, and who could blame her? The man oozed charisma and from the whispering she’d heard amongst the nurses in the last few minutes, Sophie guessed the new registrar had scored a direct hit with all the female staff. She stiffened. Men were capricious at the best of times when it came to lapping up the attention of young women, and it seemed that Dr Lucas Blake was no exception. All the more reason for her to steer clear of him!

She left the boy’s chart with Debbie and started to head back towards Paediatrics.

Lucas caught up with her in the main corridor outside the treatment rooms. ‘Sophie, wait …’ He blocked her path, causing her to slow down and frown at him.

‘I’m in rather a hurry,’ she warned him. ‘I have to go and see to my patients.’

‘I understand … I know how busy you must be.’ He smiled, looking her over, taking in the sleek lines of the figure-hugging dress she wore beneath her white coat. ‘How is it that you always manage to look so good? Even a doctor’s jacket looks great on you.’

Her gaze locked with his. ‘I wouldn’t waste your time trying to sweet-talk me, if I were you,’ she told him. ‘Other men have been down that road and, I promise you, I’m immune.’

He shook his head. ‘So distrustful,’ he murmured. ‘Those men have a lot to answer for.’ He studied her. ‘I’m sorry if I took you by surprise back there—I was hoping we might meet under different circumstances. I’d planned on wining and dining you, and perhaps winning you round with soft lights and music.’

Her eyes narrowed on him. ‘It sounds as though you were very sure of yourself.’

‘Not exactly … but I wasn’t about to give up on seeing you again.’ He smiled. ‘I’d do anything to see you relax and lose that worried look. It can’t be right for you to be wound up quite so tightly.’

She pulled a face. He was probably right about her being wound up. Even now, she was stressed out. Her stomach was knotted, and there was a pain deep in her abdomen. Come to think of it, her hands ached, too. Weren’t those all the signs of burnout? She was too young, surely? She was still a good two years off thirty.

Perhaps she ought to go back to her GP, to find out if there was any news on the tests he’d done.

‘Problems?’ He was watching her, studying her features, as though he would learn everything there was to know about her.

She straightened her shoulders. ‘None at all.’

‘Really? You know, the only time I’ve seen you looking truly serene was when you were stretched out on the bed, back at the hotel, oblivious to everything. You were exquisite, and oddly vulnerable, and I had the strangest urge to protect you from whatever it was that was haunting you.’

Sophie’s composure began to falter. ‘On balance,’ she managed, ‘I dare say we should forget all about what happened the other day. I’d far sooner put it behind us.’

‘Of course.’ A faint smile played over his beautifully moulded mouth, and Sophie felt her stomach tighten all over again. He might as well have taken a photograph—she knew, and he knew, that her image was printed on his brain for evermore.

She stiffened her shoulders. ‘I really need to get back to Paediatrics, Lucas. I have to see a young patient with heart problems, and I want to be there when James arrives on the ward.’

He nodded. ‘Maybe we could meet up at lunchtime? I’d love to hear how you’re getting on at the farm. My parents are in the same line of business, so if you have any worries on that score, I might be able to help.’

‘I’m sure I’ll manage—unless …’ she gave a crooked smile ‘… you have any ideas on how to curb a playful goat who won’t stop butting people at inopportune moments? His horns are curved, but they can be quite tough, and I can tell you I’m getting quite sore.’

He laughed. ‘No wonder you’re feeling the strain.

I’d be the same way if I had to fend off an aggressive goat before work. A bit of padding down your jeans, perhaps? All I know is, it’s best to train them off the habit when they’re young.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, we tried that, but George is very stubborn. He thinks he rules the roost—along with the goose, who believes it’s his job to keep the hens in order.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Sorry, but I must go.’

‘I’ll see you at lunchtime, then? One o’clock, in the restaurant. My treat.’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘If I can get away.’ With any luck, she’d find a reason why she needed to be on the ward at one o’clock. Instinct warned her that she should steer clear of Lucas. He was keen to start up some kind of relationship with her, and that was the last thing she wanted. She’d been hurt before, and she wasn’t looking to go that way again.

He watched her walk away, and she felt his gaze scorching into her back as she went through the wide glass doors and out into the corridor. He was persistent, that was for sure.

On the paediatric ward, Sophie went to see Marcus, her little patient who was suffering from heart problems. He was four years old, a generally bright, happy child, but he was back in hospital right now, suffering from shortness of breath and trouble with his blood pressure. He was receiving oxygen through tubing that fitted into his nostrils.

‘Hello, Marcus,’ she greeted him. He had dark, tousled hair, and mischievous brown eyes that sought her out whenever she was close by. Now he was concentrating hard on a jigsaw puzzle, his tongue thrust out over his lower lip as he searched for the right piece. ‘How are you getting on with the puzzle?’

Marcus frowned. ‘Can’t find pussycat’s ear,’ he said. ‘I had it, but then my leg hurt and jumped up and it made me knock the puzzle over. It went … whoosh.’ He waved his arms in a wide arc to show Sophie what had happened.

‘Oh dear … so now you’ve had to start all over again?’

He nodded.

‘That’s a shame … but you seem to be doing very well, all the same. You’ve done half of it already.’

It was worrying that he’d started having leg cramps again—it was a sign that the circulation to the lower half of his body was weak, one of the symptoms of his condition. He had been born with a narrowing of the aorta, the main blood vessel of the heart, and that could only be corrected by surgery.

She looked around. ‘I wonder if any of the puzzle pieces fell on to the floor?’ Bending down, she searched the area around his bed, and came up triumphantly a moment later with two pieces of puzzle. ‘Aha … I think we’ve found the kitten’s ear,’ she said with a smile, handing them over. ‘Perhaps you could put them in place, and then I’ll check your blood pressure?’

He nodded obligingly. He was a good-natured boy, and it tore at Sophie’s heart that his body let him down.

She left him at work on his puzzle a few minutes later, and went to speak to the nurse. ‘I’m going to alter his medication,’ she told Hannah as she wrote instructions on his chart. ‘We’ll give him a slightly higher dose to strengthen the contractions of the heart. That should help ease the leg cramps. Did Mr Burnley say when he was hoping to operate?’

Hannah shook her head. ‘He’s talking to the parents now. He wants to do an echocardiogram so that he can see how the heart is working. He’s scheduled it for tomorrow morning.’

‘Good.’ It was a simple, non-invasive procedure, using ultrasound to transfer images of the heart in action on to a computer screen, and it wasn’t something that would upset Marcus in any way. ‘Let’s hope the medication does the trick. The sooner we can get him stabilised, the sooner he can have surgery.’

Sophie spent the rest of the morning tending to the other patients on the ward. One o’clock came and went, and it was only when Lucas startled her by coming onto the ward that she remembered she was supposed to have met up with him. Seeing him stride briskly into her territory filled her with unease. What would it take for him to realise that she really didn’t want to get to know him better?

‘Since you didn’t come to the restaurant for lunch,’ he remarked, walking to where she stood by the nurses’ station, writing up her notes, ‘I thought I’d better bring lunch to you.’

He was holding two sturdy, waxed carrier bags, and she frowned, wondering what on earth he had brought with him. ‘Um … we’ve been really busy here this morning,’ she murmured.

‘Of course. It’s like that down in A and E all the time. The only difference is we encourage staff to take their breaks whenever possible, otherwise they’ll begin to flag before the day is out.’

He glanced around the ward. ‘Everything looks fairly peaceful here at the moment. Dare I hope that you might come and share some food with me?’ He lifted a dark brow in invitation, wafting one of the bags in front of her nose. A delicious aroma of cinnamon, fruit and pastries filled the air, and in spite of herself Sophie’s mouth began to water.

‘I take it you haven’t already eaten?’ he queried.

She shook her head. ‘Not since I grabbed a cereal bar this morning. I should have stopped for a snack mid-morning, but you know how it is—something cropped up.’

He tut-tutted. ‘It won’t do, you know. Doctors have to take care of themselves. How else can they expect to be fit enough to take care of their patients?’ He looked around. ‘Is there somewhere we can go to sit and eat this?’

She frowned. It would be criminal to let that food go to waste. ‘The office is empty right now,’ she suggested. ‘There’s a kettle in there, so we can have a hot drink if you like.’

‘No need,’ he said, ‘unless you’d rather have tea. It’s all in hand. I brought coffee along with me.’

‘Okay.’ She showed him into the office, and then peered into the carrier bags that he set down on the desk. ‘Goodness! You thought of everything.’

His grey eyes crinkled. ‘I do my best.’ He began to take out packages, and Sophie watched as appetising dishes appeared one by one.

‘I’m overwhelmed.’ Sophie smiled as she surveyed the feast. ‘It’s everything I might have bought for myself.’

‘It just goes to show that great minds think alike,’ he murmured, setting out cutlery on the desktop. He sat down opposite her. ‘So, how come you only managed a cereal bar this morning? If that’s how you normally go on, it’s no wonder you have fainting attacks.’

‘Like I said, I’d really rather forget about that,’ she answered, frowning. ‘I told you I was stressed. It’s just that there’s so much to do, what with feeding the animals twice a day and making sure they’re clean and comfortable. Then there are the eggs to collect, and the fruit needs picking before it rots on the stems. We grow several different kinds of fruit on the farm—strawberries, raspberries, redcurrants and cranberries.’

She drew in a quick breath. ‘It’s late in the season, but a good many of the plants are still fruiting because they’re under cover in polythene tunnels. I should have started on it before this, but there’s been so much to do. It was okay when my parents were alive, because they took care of everything. I helped out when I could, but coping with all this on my own is a bit beyond me at the moment.’

Her expression was thoughtful. ‘The cranberries, especially, are ripe for picking. Every year I would help my mother gather them in, and then we would make cranberry sauce, jar upon jar of the stuff, ready for the Christmas season. She’d give it away to friends, neighbours, anyone who wanted it, really.’ She picked up her fork. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do this year. It won’t seem the same somehow. Christmas is going to be nothing like what it was before. How could it be?’

‘The first year will be the worst.’ He frowned. ‘I’m sure your friends will be keen to invite you to their places, though. After all, it’s a time when you should be with other people.’

‘Maybe. Or I could go and help out at a refuge, or somewhere.’

‘You have a while yet to think it through.’ He sprinkled cheese over his baked potato and dug in a fork. ‘In the meantime, maybe you should think of bringing in some help around the farm.’

She nodded, causing her honey-blonde hair to glide silkily over her shoulders. ‘I thought of asking around in the village. I put an advert in the local paper, but so far no one’s answered. There might be some teenagers looking for part-time work, though. I suppose I could put a notice in the newsagent’s shop. I already have people to help with the other crops—we grow vegetables and corn, but they aren’t really a problem. It’s just the animals that I worry about.’ She helped herself to salad, enjoying the crisp flavours and the sweet tang of mayonnaise.

She glanced at him. ‘You said that your parents have a farm. I suppose you must have been brought up there?’

‘Not exactly. It’s something they took up after they opted for early retirement, but they’ve taken to it surprisingly well. I suppose it’s what prompted me to move to the area. My sister and her family came over here to be near them, and I decided to follow suit. We’ve always been close as a family, and this part of the Cotswolds appealed to me—it’s really lovely. I worked at one of the hospitals in the surrounding area for a time, and then this post came up, exactly what I wanted, so I grabbed it with both hands.’ He swallowed a mouthful of coffee. ‘As to the farm, it’s more the kind of place where people can visit—children come to see the animals or play in the hay barn. And then there are trailer rides and a play area.’

Her mouth curved. ‘It sounds wonderful. What did your parents do before they retired?’

He added salad to his plate. ‘My father was a GP and my mother worked as a health visitor. Even my sister, Ella, joined the profession. She was a nurse, but she gave it up when she and her husband started a family.’ He grinned. ‘It’s something she seems to be good at—she’s pregnant again. This will be her third child.’

Sophie thought about that for a moment. ‘I think it would have been good to be part of a family like that. I was an only child, but I often wished I had a brother or a sister.’ She lifted her shoulders briefly. ‘It wasn’t to be.’

‘It happens that way, sometimes. I was fortunate.’ He helped himself to a spiced fruit bun. ‘So how did you come to study medicine?’

She took a sip of coffee before she answered him. ‘I’m not sure when it began, but I’ve always known that I wanted to work with children. Perhaps it was because I had no brothers and sisters. I was around eleven years old when our neighbours’ children were taken ill with meningitis, and that had a profound effect on me. They were my friends and I was scared they might not get better, but our GP rushed them into hospital and when they came home a few weeks later, they were fine. I was impressed. I thought hospital work was something I might do later on.’

‘I think you chose the right career. You were very good with James earlier—tender, caring and professional at the same time. His parents are reassured that he’s in good hands.’

‘I’m glad they feel that way.’ She finished off her coffee. ‘He settled into the ward well enough, and he’s sleeping now, which is probably a good thing. I doubt he had much rest last night with all his breathing difficulties.’

He nodded, and then gave her a musing glance. ‘Does it ever bother you, working with children?’

‘Oh, yes.’ It was a heartfelt statement. ‘All the time. I’d defy anyone to be blasé about it. But it’s rewarding, too.’ She thought about young Marcus, with his engaging smile, and brightened. ‘Children take life as it comes and grab it with both hands. It’s lovely to see what a wonderland it is for them. Everything is new and exciting, and sometimes it’s refreshing to look at the world through their eyes.’

His gaze trailed over her. ‘I’m sure they love having you as their doctor.’

‘I hope so. I do my best.’ She wiped her hands on a serviette and surveyed the remains of their lunch. ‘We seem to have polished that off between us with no trouble at all. Thank you for that,’ she said, returning his gaze with real appreciation.

It was hard to imagine why he was going to so much trouble to feed her and get to know her, but it would have been churlish of her not to acknowledge his efforts. Perhaps he was more concerned about her fainting on him than she had realised, and that was the real reason he was keeping an eye on her.

There was a knock on the door, and Hannah looked into the room. ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said, ‘but Mr Burnley’s looking for you, Sophie. He wants a word with you before he goes off on his rounds.’

‘Thanks, Hannah.’ Sophie stood up. ‘I’ll go and find him.’ She glanced at Lucas. ‘I’m sorry to cut this short,’ she said, ‘but Mr Burnley’s our cardiac surgeon, and I wouldn’t want to keep him waiting.’

‘That’s all right, I understand.’ Lucas began to clear away the remains of their feast. ‘I’ll take the opportunity to go and look in on young James while I’m here, if I may.’ He gave the nurse a look that would have set fire to steel. ‘Perhaps Hannah would show me where he is?’

Flustered, Hannah stared at him, her mouth dropping open a little. ‘You want me to take you to him? Um … yes … yes, of course. I can do that.’ She pulled herself together, as though she realised she was babbling. ‘I was forgetting you’re new around here. He’s in the bay along the corridor. If you want to follow me, I’ll lead the way.’

‘Thank you.’ Lucas’s smile had an even more devastating effect on Hannah’s composure. He walked to the door, holding it open so that she could retreat into the corridor, and for just a second their fingers touched. Hannah looked as though her senses were in a whirl, and Sophie could see that she was trying desperately to get a hold on herself.

A wry smile edged Sophie’s lips. It was just as well she’d made up her mind to steer clear of Lucas. He was obviously pure dynamite, and she’d no intention of becoming his next conquest.