Читать книгу Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 1 - Sarah Morgan, Caroline Anderson - Страница 12

‘LUCY?’

‘Ben—hi. I take it you’ve seen Toby Penhaligan?’ Her voice was light, as if she was pleased to hear from him. He hadn’t been sure how she’d react once she’d had time to think about last night, but at least she wasn’t cool and distant, and he felt a surge of something he couldn’t quite analyse. Relief? No, more than that…

‘Yes. He had a simple undisplaced fracture of both radius and ulna. Were you worried about him, or thinking you could have treated him there with the right facilities?’

‘Oh, the latter. I thought he seemed just the sort of case I was talking about, and it was so frustrating that I had to send him to you.’

‘Absolutely. You know he did it yesterday, don’t you? But they were out all night and couldn’t get back until they’d hauled in the lines.’

‘And his father couldn’t bring him to you till the fish were unloaded and away, or they would have lost their money for the catch. It’s a tough life for our fishermen, and I wouldn’t want to be doing it in those rough seas, I’m not good on the water,’ she said, and then went on with a slightly self-conscious laugh, ‘That’s by the by. I wanted to know—so I can use it in an argument with the powers that be—what time he arrived, when he was seen and how long it took, so I can compare it to what would have happened if I could have put a cast on it when I saw him at eight forty-five this morning.’

Of course she did. All business. Ben forced himself to stop thinking about the sound of her voice and concentrate on her words. ‘Let me check the notes. Right, he arrived at the department at ten-fifty, was seen by the triage nurse and sent to wait until eleven twenty-five, then he was seen by one of the doctors, X-rayed and then a cast put on it at twelve-ten. He was discharged from the department at twelve forty-two. I got the staff to log it because I knew you’d want to know.’

He could hear the smile in her voice. ‘You’re a regular sweetheart,’ she said, then went on in a more businesslike tone, ‘So he had a wait for the doctor, a wait for X-ray, a wait for the doctor to confirm the diagnosis and a wait for the cast. And it took one hour fifty-two minutes.’

‘Yup. Which is pretty good for here. And then there’s the travelling time and parking—say another hour to an hour and a half.’

‘Three hours, then, on a good day, not to mention the added discomfort of the journey.’

‘And you could have done it in—what? Forty-five minutes?’

‘Something like that,’ she agreed. ‘So he would have been out of here and on his way home by nine-thirty, instead of one-thirty—four hours earlier—and his father wouldn’t have been taken away from his work. And, of course, if one of the nurses was trained to take X-rays, it would cut down the time I or one of the other doctors would be tied up as well. That’s fantastic. Thank you so much for all that information.’

‘My pleasure. I wasn’t sure if I’d catch you, actually,’ he added, trying to sound casual. ‘I thought you might have gone home for lunch.’

‘No, Kate nipped out and bought us all sandwiches from the bakery. I’m just eating them now.’

‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes. I’m in my consulting room.’

‘So—about tonight,’ he murmured, trying very hard not to think about what they’d done that morning and how very, very much he wanted to do it again. ‘How about supper?’

There was a slight pause, and his heart sank. She’s going to say no, he thought, but then she said, ‘That would be lovely, but can we make it early? I’m really tired. I could do with getting back for an early night.’

His heart, on the way up, sank again, but he told himself not to be selfish. She was pregnant. She needed her rest. ‘Good idea,’ the doctor and father in him said. ‘So are you coming to me, or shall I bring something to you, or are we ready to go public?’

She laughed softly. ‘You think coming to me isn’t going public? Dream on, Ben. This is Penhally.’

Of course. ‘So—where, then?’

‘Yours?’

‘Sure,’ he said, disappointed that he didn’t get to take her out and spoil her, but glad that he’d be seeing her anyway. ‘Want me to pick you up, or would you rather drive yourself?’

‘I’ll drive. Shall I come over as soon as I’ve finished?’

‘Good idea. Anything you particularly fancy?’

‘Fish,’ she said promptly. ‘Sea bass. There are some in the fridge here, courtesy of the Penhaligans. Shall I bring two?’

‘That would be good. And I’ll make you something irresistible for pudding.’

She chuckled, and the sound did amazing things to his nerve endings. ‘Chocolate,’ she ordered, and he laughed.

‘How did I guess?’ There was a tap on his door and his specialist registrar stuck her head round it. Ben lifted a hand to keep her there. ‘Lucy, I’m sorry, I have to go now, but I’ll see you later,’ he said, and replaced the phone on its cradle. ‘Jo, thanks for coming by. I’ve got an appointment at twothirty. It’s only a few minutes away—fifteen at the most. Can you hold the fort?’

‘Sure. It’s pretty quiet at the moment.’

‘Don’t say that,’ he warned, and glanced at his watch. Five to two. Just time to catch up on some paperwork before he had to leave.

So this was it. Tregorran House, Lucy’s grandmother’s family home and the house of her dreams. Ben walked slowly up to the open back door and called out, and a young man in a suit appeared and strode towards him, hand outstretched.

‘Mr Carter? Come on in.’

He shook hands and went into what seemed to be a leanto scullery or boot room, and through to the dirty and desperately dated kitchen. ‘Sorry about the back door, the front door won’t open,’ the agent was saying. ‘They’re never used in this part of the world, and the key seems to have gone missing. It’s a shame because it’s a lovely way in and out, you get to see the views from there. Come on through and have a look around.’

It was smaller than he’d expected. Low ceilings, but here and there were old oak beams that hinted at a concealed structure crying out to be revealed. There was a huge granite inglenook in the kitchen, an ancient and filthy cream Aga fitting easily into the space once occupied by the range, and smaller, more functional granite fireplaces in the two living rooms that bracketed the front door. The rooms weren’t huge, but they were cosy, overlooking the garden, and he could imagine them with fires crackling in the grates.

Upstairs the fireplaces were boarded over, but he’d bet his bottom dollar there were pretty little cast-iron grates behind the boards, or there had been in the past.

But the outstanding thing about the whole property, once you got over the poor state of the decor and the fact that it clearly needed a serious cash injection, was the view. All the principal rooms faced west, looking down the coast towards the Atlantic Ocean, and the sunsets Lucy loved would be spectacular.

‘Does it go down to the beach?’ he asked, and the agent shook his head.

‘No. The plot’s quite small, just the half acre of garden the house sits in, but there isn’t really a beach here anyway, just a pile of rocks. You can get to the beach about half a mile away over the fields, though. They’re owned by the neighbouring farmer. It’s a lovely little cove and there’s quite a good road to it, too. It’s very pretty, and the path’s well maintained—it’s part of the Cornish Coastal Path—but, no, it hasn’t got beach access. Otherwise the guide price would be a great deal higher. There’s nothing the London buyers like more than their own private beach. And, of course, because the planners have ruled out any development of the site other than extension of the existing house within the realms of permitted development, that’s also going to keep the price a bit more accessible. That said, we’ve had quite a keen interest in the property,’ he added, as if he was worried he’d put Ben off. Or was it agent-speak for ‘This is highly sought after and you’d be foolish to miss it’?

Maybe.

Whatever, it was irrelevant to Ben. The house was awful at the moment, dingy and rundown and outdated, but it had the potential to be a lovely cosy family home, and it was Lucy’s dream. If he could get it for her without bankrupting himself into the hereafter, he’d do it.

‘I’m sorry to rush you, but I’ve got another viewing to get to. Could I leave you to go around the outside on your own?’ the agent asked, and Ben nodded.

‘Of course. I’ve seen all I need to.’ More than enough to make up his mind.

He spent a few minutes looking around the outside, checking out the structure and exploring the rundown and tangled garden that Lucy obviously remembered through rose-tinted specs, and then he headed back to the hospital.

To his relief Jo had coped without him, and it was still quiet, so he shut himself away in his office and rang his solicitor.

‘What’s the procedure for buying a house at auction?’ he asked. ‘Because I want you to do it for me. Friday, two o’clock, Tregorran House. And I don’t want to take any chances.’

‘Ah, Lucy. Got time for a chat?’

‘Dragan—hi. I’ve been meaning to catch up with you.’ She sat back in her chair and stretched out the kinks in her neck. ‘How’s Melinda?’

‘Oh, fine. Thank you both so much for sorting her arm out.’

‘Pleasure—well, hardly, but you know what I mean,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I’m sorry you missed our meeting. How’s the dog?’

He smiled. ‘Really sweet. She’s got a broken leg and a huge laceration on her side, but nobody’s come forward yet to report her missing. Melinda’s set the leg and she’s looking after her for now.’

‘No more biting?’

He shook his head and smiled again. ‘No. She’s a sweetheart. She was just scared. Anyway, this meeting…’

‘Yes—really useful. Ben thinks we could do it. If we could build on out the back as we’d discussed, then he thinks it’ll be fine. Maybe reorganise upstairs a bit and have downstairs as a fracture clinic, essentially.’ She ran through the key points of their discussion. Dragan nodded at intervals, and then she sat back and stretched again and sighed.

‘You OK?’

‘Oh, Dragan, I’m so tired. Just the thought of another six or eight weeks before I can give up is enough to send me to sleep!’

He frowned in concern. ‘Lucy, you shouldn’t be overdoing it. You should be resting now. We can manage.’

‘You’re sounding like my father,’ she pointed out, and he gave an embarrassed laugh and sat back.

‘OK, it’s not my job, but I care about you. We all do.’

She flapped her hand at him, touched but still not having any of it. ‘I’m fine. I think we ought to have a meeting. Kate was talking about setting something up with the local NHS trust architect and Ben here on site, but Dad’s so anti.’

‘Don’t worry about him, Lucy. He wants what’s best for the patients.’

‘He’s just so blinkered,’ she said, thinking not only of the forthcoming meeting but also of the news she yet had to give her father—news that couldn’t possibly make the situation any easier.

‘I take it he doesn’t know?’

She jerked her head up and met his eyes, her mouth already opening to deny everything, and saw the gentle understanding in Dragan’s eyes. She swallowed and looked away. ‘No. He doesn’t know.’

‘That will be hard.’

‘It will be impossible,’ she said softly, ‘but it has to be done.’ She sucked in a breath and straightened up. ‘Right, I have to get on. I’ve got a clinic in a minute. If you let Kate know when you’re free for this meeting, she’ll try and organise it.’

‘I’ll do that,’ he said, and got to his feet, then hesitated. ‘Lucy, if there’s anything I can do…?’

He left it hanging, and with a fleeting smile he went out. He was so kind and thoughtful. So was Marco. The two of them fussed over her like a couple of clucky old hens. It was only her father she had a problem with.

And she was going to have to deal with it.

Ben cooked the sea bass beautifully.

Outside, on a charcoal barbeque with the lid shut, in the bleak and windy garden, and then brought them into the house with the skin lightly charred and the inside meltingly tender. He’d prepared a green salad and hot jacket potatoes, and then he produced the wickedest hot chocolate sauce pudding she’d ever seen in her life.

‘It’s a fabulously easy recipe—my mother taught it to me,’ he said with a grin, and put a big dollop of it on a plate and handed it to her. ‘Here, you need this,’ he said, and gave her a dish of clotted cream.

‘Define need,’ she said wryly, and he chuckled.

‘You have to have some treats. Anyway, it’s probably full of vitamin D.’

‘You don’t have to talk me into it,’ she said, plopping a generous spoonful onto the top of the chocolate goo and then tasting it.

‘Mmm,’ she said, and then didn’t talk any more for a few gorgeous, tastebud-melting minutes. Conversation would have been sacrilege.

‘Good?’ he asked when she’d all but scraped the glaze off the plate, and she laughed and pushed the plate away and arched back, giving her stomach room.

‘Fabulous,’ she said emphatically. ‘Assuming I don’t just burst. Thank you.’

‘My pleasure. Coffee?’

‘Mmm—thanks. Can I help wash up?’

‘No—the dishwasher’ll do it all. You can go and sit down in the sitting room and put your feet up.’

‘Is that an order?’ she asked, and he tipped his head on one side and studied her closely.

‘That’s a loaded question,’ he retorted after a moment, a grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. ‘I don’t think I’ll answer it.’

Chuckling to herself, she went into the sitting room and curled up on the sofa, not because he’d told her to but because she wanted to anyway. She’d had a busy day, starting with Tony Penhaligan and ending with an overrunning surgery, and she’d hardly had a minute to herself in between. So she was more than happy to sit down, and after a moment she stretched her legs out, rested her head back and closed her eyes.

There was a gorgeous smell of fresh coffee drifting from the kitchen, and she sniffed it appreciatively. It would set off the chocolate pud to perfection. She heard him come in, heard him set the tray down and felt the end of the sofa dip under his weight.

‘White, no sugar,’ she murmured, and he chuckled and rubbed her feet affectionately before pouring the coffee.

‘Here—sit up and open your eyes,’ he said, and she did as she was told, watching him over the rim of the mug as she sipped it.

‘Thank you for cooking for me,’ she said, wriggling her toes under his thigh.

He smiled. ‘My pleasure. Thank you for the sea bass.’

‘I’ll pass it on to the Penhaligans. Good day?’

His eyes flicked away, his attention turning to his coffee. ‘Yes. Very good. Busy. How about you?’

‘Oh, busy, too. I phoned you during the afternoon to try and set up a time for this next meeting with the architect, but they said you were out of the department.’

‘Mmm—I had a meeting,’ he said, but he didn’t elaborate. Not that he had to tell her everything about his life, of course he didn’t, and if he started poking about in her life she’d be less than impressed, but somehow she felt excluded, and she didn’t like it. She wanted, she realised with some surprise, to be entitled to know who he’d met with and why. Probably someone on the hospital management committee, the chief exec or something, nothing interesting at all—but it would have been nice if he’d told her, or if she’d had the right to ask.

Which was just plain silly. They hardly knew each other. Just because they had an unfortunate tendency to end up in bed every time they met, it didn’t mean they were part of each other’s lives!

And then he said, ‘Stay with me tonight,’ and she felt an overwhelming urge to do just that. To go to bed with him, to curl up in his arms and sleep, just as she had last night. She hadn’t slept so well in ages, but she couldn’t let herself be lured into it so readily. It would be all to easy to let it become a habit, and until her father knew…

‘I can’t,’ she said, with genuine regret, and he sighed and smiled ruefully.

‘I knew you’d say that.’

‘It’s just…’

‘Difficult? I know. Lucy, if you want me there when you tell him—’

‘No!’ she said quickly, sitting up so fast she nearly slopped her coffee. ‘No,’ she said again, more calmly this time. ‘I just need to find the right moment.’

He nodded, then looked down at her feet, giving them undue attention. ‘I do love you, you know. I wasn’t just saying it this morning.’

She put the coffee down, very carefully, on the table that was conveniently in reach, and stared at him. ‘You do? But you hardly know me.’

‘Rubbish. You haven’t changed. We spent six months together when you were on your A and E rotation.’

‘And you had a girlfriend!’

‘Not for all of it. I ended it because she wasn’t what I wanted. I hadn’t known that until I met someone who was, and then it gradually dawned on me that I was with the wrong woman. And because I wanted to be sure, I gave us time, because I felt that this could really be it—the once-in-a-lifetime thing. Then you got to the end of your rotation, and shortly after that—’

He broke off and looked away again, and she finished for him, ‘My mother died, and it all went horribly wrong.’

He nodded, and for a moment neither of them spoke, then she said softly, ‘Ben, what if I’ve changed? What if I’m not the woman you think I am? What if time’s altered your perception of me and I can’t live up to your mental image?’ She swallowed, facing her fears head on. ‘And what if you don’t live up to mine?’

He glanced over, a quick frown pleating his brow, and he searched her face. ‘So we’ll take it slowly,’ he suggested at last. ‘Give ourselves time to get to know the people we are now. But to do that, we need to spend time together, so we have to find a way to do that.’

She nodded, knowing he was right. Marriage was for life, as the saying went, not just for Christmas, and she wasn’t sure if they knew each other well enough yet for such a huge commitment. But if everything was right between them by then, she’d much rather they were married when the baby was born, old-fashioned though it might be. Some things, she thought, were meant to be old-fashioned. And if they were to get to know each other, they had to spend time together, despite her father complicating the issue.

‘This weekend?’ she suggested. ‘I’m off from Friday after my morning surgery until Monday morning.’

‘Sure. That would be good. I’m on call tomorrow night, but I’ve got the afternoon off on Friday. I’ve got things to do but we could meet up when I’m done. I’ll book us a table somewhere for dinner on Friday night—perhaps in Padstow—and then we can come back here and chill for a couple of days. Go for a walk, toast crumpets, whatever—what do you think?’

She nodded again, even the thought enough to make her feel more relaxed. ‘Sounds blissful,’ she said with a smile. ‘And now I really ought to go home so I don’t fall asleep at the wheel.’

Or succumb to the seductive charm of those gorgeous blue eyes…

He helped her up, held her coat for her, tucked it around her to keep her warm and kissed her lingeringly before waving her off, then went back inside.

What if I can’t live up to your mental image? And what if you don’t live up to mine?

He felt a tense knot of something strangely like fear in his chest. Please, God, by the weekend he’d have something good to tell her. Something that hopefully would help a little with the mental image she had of him?

Oh, hell. What if it didn’t? What if it was just nostalgia for the house and not a real urge to live there? And what if he didn’t get the house after all? What if, despite all his preparation, despite getting the money sorted, pinning his purchaser down to a date, getting his solicitor to bid for him over the phone and sort out the paperwork—what if, despite all that, he was quite simply outbid at the auction? If the price just went up and up and up until it was out of his reach?

Lucy stared out of her consulting-room window across the car park to the sea beyond the harbour wall, her emotions torn.

He loved her. He’d said it as if he really meant it, not in a moment of passion, not as a passing farewell like before, but quietly, thoughtfully.

And she so, so wanted to believe him, but there was a bit of her that was afraid he was talking himself into it because of the baby. Because he wanted to create the image of the perfect family, and that was the first step, the cornerstone.

Maybe he genuinely believed he did love her, but she was too scared to believe it.

Her phone rang, and it was Hazel, the head receptionist, to tell her that her first patient had arrived. Even the thought exhausted her. She’d been busy yesterday, and no doubt today would be the same. She hoped not, because otherwise she’d be too tired by tomorrow to enjoy her long weekend with Ben. But putting it off any longer wouldn’t make it go away.

As she’d expected, the day was hellish, and she fell into bed exhausted at eight o’clock. She heard the phone ring in the sitting room, but she’d forgotten to bring it into her bedroom because she wasn’t on call, and by the time she’d decided she ought to get up, it had stopped ringing.

Oh, well, if it was important they’d ring again, she thought, but whoever it was didn’t. She could dial 1471 and check, she thought, or see if there was a message.

She fell asleep again, then had to get up in the night because the baby was wriggling around on her bladder, and on her way back to bed she checked the answering-machine and found a message from Ben.

Damn. She should have got out of bed and taken the call, and really wished she had. She played the message, sitting in bed with the phone, listening to his voice and wishing she was with him.

She played it again. ‘You aren’t there, or maybe you’re having an early night. It’s not important. I just wanted to talk to you. It seems odd not seeing you two nights running. Take care. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Then a pause, then, ‘Love you.’

She looked at her bedside clock. Two-thirty in the morning—too late, or too early, to ring. Except he was on call—so either he was working or he would be asleep. Either way, she couldn’t really disturb him, and he wouldn’t ring again.

She sent a text to his mobile.

‘Thanks for message. Early night. Looking forward to w/e. Lucy.’ And then, for good measure, ‘X’. She nearly put ‘Love you’ like he had, but it seemed too massively important to risk getting it wrong, and when she did tell him, if she ever did, she wanted to see his face.

Suddenly the afternoon seemed much, much too far away…

Ben didn’t want to be at the auction.

He wasn’t sure if Nick Tremayne would be there, but he didn’t want to risk it. He didn’t know how the man would feel about him buying the house, but frankly he didn’t care. This wasn’t about Nick, it was about Lucy, and if he’d thought enough of the place to hold on to it for several years, then once he and his daughter had sorted out this glitch in their relationship, Ben was sure that keeping the house in the family could only be good for all of them.

But Lucy was his primary concern, and he had so much riding on it he felt sick.

He’d booked the time off, but now he wished he hadn’t. He couldn’t go home and sit there, though, just waiting for the phone to ring, so he drove to the house. Well, almost. He didn’t want to push his luck, tempt fate, whatever. So he sat in the car, just down the lane, and rang his solicitor.

He got his secretary, and asked her to get him to ring as soon as there was any news.

‘I’ll call you on another line,’ she promised, ‘while Simon’s bidding—that way he can talk to you at the same time, give you a chance to decide how you want to play it.’

He felt the tension ratchet up a notch. ‘OK. I’ll keep the phone free,’ he promised, and plugged in the charger. He wasn’t going to lose the house because of something stupid like a flat battery.

There was a woman up on the headland, leaning into the wind, her clothes plastered against her body and her hair streaming out behind like a figurehead on an old sailing ship. Except—this figurehead was pregnant. Lucy? Yes, Lucy—standing there, keeping vigil, saying goodbye while the house was sold out from under her.

Well, hardly, because she didn’t live there, but emotionally it must feel like that, he realised, and he felt the tension ratchet up yet again. He had to get it.

The phone rang, startling him, and he grabbed it.

‘Ben—it’s Simon. We’re on. I’ve got the auctioneer on hands-free so you can listen in and talk to me at the same time.’

‘Great.’

Except it wasn’t great, it was terrifying, and he realised that even in the grip of a major accident, when the hospital instituted its MAJAX plan, he’d never felt quite this scared that things would go wrong.

He could hear the bidding, hear the figures rising perilously close to his maximum. He’d still got the budget for the work in hand, but it needed that. He couldn’t use it all, but he could dip into it if he had to—

‘Ben?’

‘Another five thousand—in ones,’ he instructed, and listened as the price climbed slowly up, long pauses now between the bids.

‘The other bidder’s only gone up five hundred—he must be close to his limit,’ Simon said.

‘Call his bluff. Go up five thousand more, in one jump,’ Ben said, his heart pounding. ‘See if you can knock him out.’

There was a long, long silence, then he heard the auctioneer say, ‘Going once…Going twice…’ and the sound of the hammer coming down. But who—?

‘Congratulations!’ Simon said. ‘You’ve got yourself a house.’

Somehow Ben ended the call. He wasn’t sure what he’d said, what he’d agreed to do. It didn’t matter. He’d call Simon back later. For now there was a woman standing on the headland, and she needed his attention.

He drove up to the house—his house, or it would be soon—and turned in the gate. Her car was there, pulled up by the door, and he blocked her in just in case he missed her somehow.

He didn’t. She was still there, standing staring out to sea, and he went down the track by the side of the garden, across the field and walked up behind her.

‘Lucy?’

She turned slowly, and he could see the tears on her cheeks, dried by the wind.

‘It’s gone,’ she said woodenly. ‘The house. It’s gone. The sale was at two.’

‘I know.’

She hugged herself, her hands wrapping around her slender arms and hanging on, and he stood between her and the biting wind and cupped her face in his hands.

‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said softly. ‘Come back to the house with me.’

Her brow furrowed. ‘The house?’

‘Mmm.’

She turned, and he put his arm round her and led her carefully back over the field. At the gateway to the house he stopped and scooped her into his arms.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, startled.

‘It’s tradition,’ he said, ‘except it should be the front door, but I can’t do that because I haven’t got the keys and anyway the front door key’s missing.’

She stared at him blankly. ‘Tradition?’

‘To carry your woman over the threshold.’ He took a deep breath and walked through the gateway. ‘Welcome to your new home, Lucy.’

She stared at him for an age, then hope flickered in her eyes. ‘My new…?’

‘I bought the house—for you,’ he told her gently, and she burst into tears.