Christmas In Bluebell Cove
Christmas In Bluebell Cove
Abigail Gordon
Christmas in Bluebell Cove
Abigail Gordon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u48d70ba6-db18-5a1d-8335-0f707e352395)
Title Page (#u16b00611-c838-5785-bb5c-27efe6b73b38)
About the Author (#uf91d7479-7bac-5be1-aded-93b7aaf2c52f)
Dear Reader (#ufabb359a-b21c-5b8a-8add-2e989af29543)
Chapter One (#u68d009e1-0afa-5148-97e1-ed6a14ee0377)
Chapter Two (#u1eda297c-b987-549e-9ec7-260d171e525b)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author
ABIGAIL GORDON loves to write about the fascinating combination of medicine and romance from her home in a Cheshire village. She is active in local affairs, and is even called upon to write the script for the annual village pantomime! Her eldest son is a hospital manager, and helps with all her medical research. As part of a closeknit family, she treasures having two of her sons living close by, and the third one not too far away. This also gives her the added pleasure of being able to watch her delightful grandchildren growing up.
Dear Reader
Welcome to the second and third of my books where coast and countryside combine to bring you the beautiful Devon village of Bluebell Cove. A place where doctors and nurses in the medical practice look after the health of the local folk and share their joys and sorrows, and in return have the respect and support of their patients when it is their turn to need a friend.
I live in a village in the Cheshire countryside myself, and it never ceases to amaze me how close is the bond between those who live here. When one of them hurts they all hurt. When one of them rejoices they all rejoice.
In CHRISTMAS IN BLUEBELL COVE, GP Ethan and his lovely French wife Francine discover that a Bluebell Cove Christmas, surrounded by the love of this warm community, is all that’s really needed to help them understand how to love each other and mend their marriage so that they can enjoy their lovely little family.
In THE VILLAGE NURSE’S HAPPY-EVER-AFTER nurse Phoebe Howard comes to the sanctuary of Bluebell Cove to find a home for herself and her baby boy. Romance is not on her agenda until she meets her gorgeous new boss.
If you have enjoyed reading about the folks there, do look out for Book Four. It will be coming along shortly.
So do let’s keep in touch, dear reader, as I write and you read about golden beaches, clotted cream teas, and romance in Devon—glorious Devon!
Abigail Gordon
Chapter One
IT HAD been a mistake coming back to Bluebell Cove for Christmas, Francine Lomax thought as she stood on the snow-covered path of the house that she hadn’t set foot in for months.
When she unlocked the door there was silence inside, no one to greet her, which wasn’t surprising as they hadn’t known she was coming. She bent and picked up a trainer left lying in the middle of the hall, putting it into a nearby cupboard. Then she gathered together the last delivery of mail before Christmas which was lying behind the door, and placed it on the hall table in a neat pile. There was a letter from Ethan’s solicitor amongst it and her insides trembled at its implications.
A doll belonging to Kirstie was sitting upright on the bottom step of the stairs and the choking feeling that she kept getting was back. It was all so familiar, yet she felt like a stranger in her own home.
Her baggage was still outside in the hire car that she’d picked up at the airport, and as she went to bring it in Francine was aware that there was music and laughter coming from somewhere not too far away, the sound of people enjoying themselves.
There might be silence in the house, but there were those out there who were making the most of the festive season and she was reminded of the vow she’d made to herself not to put the blight on the children’s Christmas by arriving without warning and bringing her melancholy with her.
When she’d carried her suitcases upstairs she put them in the spare room where she would be sleeping and then went down again to await the arrival of her husband and children.
She’d been missing Ben and Kirstie dreadfully and their father too because it had been so much longer since she’d seen him, but she had only herself to blame for that. The last thing Ethan had wanted was for her to go stomping off to live in Paris, in contrast to being just a frequent visitor as had been the case when her parents had been alive, and as Christmas had approached she’d begun to wish she hadn’t agreed to the children coming back to Bluebell Cove so early to spend it with their father.
Yet that was how it was going to have to be because of the rift between Ethan and herself that was getting wider all the time, so wide that the divorce she’d asked for was under way with wheels slowly turning in the background.
Bitterness had soured a marriage that had been happy and fulfilling until she’d lost her parents tragically in a coach crash while they had been holidaying in the Balkans. As a result she had inherited her childhood home in France, and ever since had been desperate to live there.
The marriage might have stood a better chance if tiny cracks hadn’t already been appearing in it ever since Ethan had taken over as head of The Tides Medical Practice that cared for the health and well-being of the inhabitants of Bluebell Cove. He had seemed prepared to put his commitment to his new position before everything else.
His acceptance of the responsibility had come about because of the early retirement due to poor health of the woman who had given her life to the practice and had felt that Ethan was the only person she could trust to continue the work there to the same high standards as herself.
But the niggles that had sometimes arisen because of that had been as nothing compared to his reaction to the heart-breaking homesickness that had overtaken her at the loss of her parents and swept her into the situation that now existed between them. So if the revellers out there were full of the Christmas spirit, she wasn’t.
She could still hear the music somewhere nearby and supposed it was possible that her family might be involved in whatever was happening out there on a snowy Christmas Eve.
Snuggling back into the winter coat that she’d travelled in and zipping up fashionable boots that had the stamp of Paris on them, she decided to go and see what was taking place in the direction of the square where a big spruce that was decorated and illuminated every year at Christmas time.
Standing in the shadows, she saw that those present were lined up in pairs behind a man and woman who looked as if they were dressed as bride and groom.
It was odd, to say the least, but sure enough Ethan and the children were there with Kirstie and Ben partnering each other for what was about to take place, her daughter bright eyed and excited in a stylish pink dress that she hadn’t seen before, and her son ill at ease.
Ethan was partnering a tall slender girl with brown hair, brown eyes and very pale skin. The last time Francine had seen Phoebe Howard she’d been pregnant, facing up nervously to the prospect of becoming a single mother, but she looked happy enough at the moment.
He was looking down at her, smiling at something she’d said, and Francine thought that if Ethan was finding comfort in the arms of another woman it wasn’t surprising. He’d had no joy in hers for many long months.
Neither he nor the children had noticed her, they were too engrossed in the moment, and she continued to stay out of sight, registering as she did so that the smiling bride was Jenna Balfour, the daughter of the woman who had been in charge of the village medical practice before Ethan had taken over. Incredibly her bridegroom was Lucas Devereux, of all people, her husband’s closest friend.
At that moment the local school’s band struck up and the two of them began to dance through the village in the direction of the headland overlooking the sea, with the rest of the revellers following behind.
Tears pricked Francine’s eyes. She’d been happy here for twelve years with Ethan and the children as they’d come along. Bluebell Cove was a beautiful place with countryside in abundance and the mighty Atlantic close by.
But ever since she’d inherited the house in France it had been there that she wanted to be, and although Ethan had understood, it hadn’t stopped him from reminding her frequently that he’d just taken on a huge commitment by becoming senior partner in the village practice.
That he owed it to Barbara Balfour to keep the faith. In other words, he didn’t intend to leave Bluebell Cove and move to France on the sudden whim of his grieving wife.
There had been no hint of what was to come on his part when she’d first suggested it. He’d been reasonable and understanding, promising they would have lots of holidays there. But as the months had gone by she hadn’t changed her mind about living there permanently, insisting he owed her that because hadn’t she spent twelve years in Bluebell Cove for his sake?
In the end he’d wearied of being told he was selfish and after one more heated exchange of words she’d gone, taking the children with her.
That had really tipped the balance of Ethan’s patience and concern. He loved them just as much as she did, he’d told her coldly, would expect to see them regularly, and all her hopes that he might relent and follow them had turned out to be futile.
For Kirstie and Ben there’d been no problem. They’d always liked visiting their grandparents in France, and as their parents had kept their disenchantment with each other from them as much as possible, going to live in the charming house on the outskirts of Paris had been an exciting interlude in their lives.
They’d settled in at the school where she’d enrolled them without any problems, having picked up the language over the years on their visits to their grandparents, and life would have been perfect if only Ethan had been there with them.
The headland was graced by another huge Christmas tree and those at the front of the line of dancers had already whirled around it and were on their way back to where they’d started from, which meant that in a very short time her family was going to become aware of her presence.
Kirstie was the first to see her as she and Ben drew near, and her delighted cry of ‘Maman!’ stopped her husband in his tracks and brought her children out of the ranks and into her waiting arms.
She could see above their heads that Ethan had started dancing again and was almost out of sight without even greeting her. Maybe it was to remind her that their life together was coming to its close, that she’d got what she wanted, a return to her roots that he wasn’t going to be part of.
When she looked up he was observing her above the heads of the now dispersing dancers and the choking feeling was there again. He was still the only man who made her pulse leap, with hair dark and crisply curling and eyes blue as the sea on a summer day as its tides came and went on the sandy beach below the headland.
He’d lost weight. They both had over past months, but tall and trimly proportioned he would still make heads turn when he walked past, His women patients who wished he had a more important role in their lives than that of G.P. wouldn’t be having any second thoughts regarding that.
There was no sign of Phoebe and she breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing they needed was an audience at their first meeting in months. She hadn’t expected it to be like this.
She’d imagined him opening the door of the house they’d once shared and being able to tell in those first moments of meeting just how pleased or otherwise he was to see her standing there, but this was nothing like that. Lots of folk they knew were milling around them in the snow-covered square.
As their glances met she felt tension pulling at her nerve ends. But in a grim sort of way it was as if her distaste for the circumstances of their meeting was being diverted by the sound of a woman’s voice asking anxiously from behind, ‘What’s the matter, Bradley?’ to be followed by a terrified plea of ‘Somebody help us, please!’
She swivelled round quickly and saw Bradley Somerton, the elderly organist who performed at the village church on Sundays, being supported by his wife, who was the one crying for help. He was gasping for breath with face purple, eyes bulging, and was choking. His mouth was wide open and she could see that his tongue was swollen and blocking the airway.
‘Go and fetch Dad!’ she cried to the children, and as they sprinted off she asked the organist’s wife what he’d been eating to cause such a situation. At the same time she took hold of him, pulled him upright, and from behind gave him the treatment for a choking fit, arms tightly locked at the top of the rib cage and a sudden strong compression. It often did the trick, but not this time. No food or anything else came shooting from his mouth.
‘He’s allergic to seafood!’ his wife cried, ‘but he didn’t eat anything like that at the wedding reception, which is where we had our last meal.’
A shadow fell across them and Ethan was there. ‘Help me to lay him flat, Francine,’ he said urgently, ‘and then find something to prop his feet on to raise them.’ He turned to the man’s horrified wife. ‘Has he got the emergency syringe of adrenaline with him that he’s supposed to carry at all times?’
‘Jacket pocket!’ she cried, and within seconds he was injecting the lifesaving medication into the limp figure lying in the snow.
‘It’s anaphylactic shock,’ he told Francine grimly, ‘and unless the injection relieves the constriction of the lungs and airways in the next few seconds, we’re going to lose him. We’ve been along this road once before, but the attack wasn’t as severe as this. I might have to go to the surgery to get further supplies of the adrenaline if he doesn’t respond. It’s fortunate that it’s just across the way. Can you ring for an ambulance? Even if he comes round all right from the one injection, I don’t want to take any risks.’
She’d been checking the man’s pulse and heartbeat, which were pounding out of control, and nodded at the request, explaining as she did so, ‘I didn’t get the chance before. Thank God you were near and knew his case history. But this kind of thing comes on almost immediately after eating food that the person is allergic to, so what has he been eating that his wife doesn’t know about?’
‘Bradley didn’t partner me in the dancing,’ his wife explained weakly. ‘So maybe he’s been to the stall that’s selling food and drinks over there.’
The two doctors were only half listening. Francine was making the phone call and Ethan was watching keenly as the choking began to slowly subside and the tongue began to go forward once more leaving the airways clearer.
He gave a sigh of relief. The whole incident had taken just a matter of minutes, seconds almost, but if he and Francine hadn’t been there…
She was switching her phone off and placing a comforting arm around the shoulders of the organist’s wife and he thought for a moment that it had been almost like how it used to be with the two of them caring for the folks in Bluebell Cove.
He was still doing that, but she wasn’t, and as he noted thankfully that the stricken man’s heartbeat and pulse had stabilised he wondered what had brought her back to the place where she’d once been happy and contented.
When the ambulance had left, the children had gone to seek out their friends and for Francine and Ethan the brief feeling of togetherness that the incident had created hung between them like a question mark.
She was pale and shaking after the urgency of the situation, the need to act fast because a life had been at stake, and he placed his arm around her shoulders, held her close for a second and said gently, ‘What a homecoming for you, Francine. Do you think that you and I deserve top marks for effort now that Bradley will live to see another day? We were right back on line like we used to be, weren’t we?’
‘Yes, professionally maybe,’ she agreed stiltedly as panic took hold at the thought of him describing her presence back in his life as a homecoming, ‘Though I’m only here on a visit.’
‘Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?’ he asked, his voice tightening with disappointment.
‘It was on impulse, a last-minute thing. I felt I just had to be with the children at Christmas,’ she said awkwardly, knowing that she’d not kept to the arrangements they’d agreed on regarding who Kirstie and Ben should be with and when. ‘I’ve put my things in the spare room. I hope that’s all right.’
‘No, it isn’t!’ he gritted. ‘Take the master bedroom. I’ll sleep in the spare room. The house is still your home as far as I’m concerned. So shall we go there instead of making a spectacle of ourselves in front of what is left of the wedding party?’
‘Jenna and Lucas saw you trying to keep out of sight for some reason best known only to yourself and said to tell you that you’re invited to the evening reception, which starts in an hour at the Enderbys’ farmhouse.’
Kirstie and Ben weren’t far away and he went on to explain, ‘Needless to say, the children and I are going as I was best man for Lucas, and Kirstie was Jenna’s bridesmaid.’
He looked across at the children, who were engrossed in throwing snowballs, and said, ‘Don’t spoil their Christmas, Francine.’
She swallowed hard. Kirstie had been a bridesmaid and Ethan best man for his friend and she hadn’t been there, and now he was warning her not to spoil their Christmas. Was this what she’d come to? Was his opinion of her now as low as that?
Yet she’d had to tell herself the same thing, not to let the huge well of misery inside her loose on those she loved.
As they walked towards the house she said, to try and placate him, ‘I haven’t stopped loving this place, you know, Ethan.’
‘But not enough to live in it,’ he commented dryly.
‘I haven’t crossed the Channel to have all my shortcomings pointed out.’
‘No, you haven’t. Forget I said that.’
He wasn’t to know that now she’d got what she wanted and was living in the beautiful house near Paris that had been her home during her childhood and early teens, she felt as if the price she was paying to live there permanently was too high, and she’d get the feeling of choking and breathlessness that came with panic.
She hadn’t stopped to think things through properly when in hurt and anger she’d asked for a divorce, and now that it was under way and she was installed there, she was floundering instead of rejoicing, feeling that Ethan would never forgive her for the way she’d cared only about her own needs.
‘I don’t want us to change bedrooms,’ she told him when they arrived back at the house. ‘I’ll be fine in the spare room. I didn’t come to cause any upheaval and in keeping with that will give the wedding reception a miss, I think. Something tells me I won’t be flavour of the month amongst your friends and the surgery crowd. I left them in the lurch when I went chasing off to France, didn’t I, even though I was only a part-time G.P.?’
‘You’ve got to come, Maman,’ Kirstie pleaded. ‘There will be lots of nice things to eat and music and dancing.’
‘I will stay with Maman,’ Ben said quickly, as an escape from something he wasn’t looking forward to presented itself.
Ethan shook his head. ‘No, Ben. There will be plenty of time for you to be with your mother over Christmas. You have been invited and are going, just as you would have been if she was still in France.’
‘I’ll come,’ Francine said hastily, and as Ben’s expression brightened she thought it didn’t matter how people felt about her as long as the children were content.
Kirstie was keeping the pink dress on. She obviously adored it. Ben had changed into jeans and a sweater, replacing the suit he’d worn for the wedding, and Ethan was still in his outfit as best man.
It remained for her to find something to wear, Francine thought, which meant unpacking her cases or rummaging around to see what she’d left behind in the wardrobe when she’d departed all those months ago.
There was an evening dress there of pale turquoise silk that Ethan had always liked her in. Low cut with a hooped skirt, it fitted better than it had ever done because of the weight she’d lost, and at the same time emphasised the dark chestnut of her hair and her beautiful green eyes.
When she went downstairs to where the three of them were waiting for her Ethan said, ‘Did you have to wear that, Francine? The dress belongs to another life.’
‘Do you want me to take it off, then?’ she asked, with the feeling that so far she hadn’t done anything right.
‘No, of course not, we need to be off. I’m still in my role as best man until the evening is over.’
As he drove them along snow-covered lanes beside hedgerows touched by winter’s frosty fingers, to the big farmhouse where the afternoon reception had already taken place, Ethan was wondering what really lay behind Francine’s sudden appearance.
They’d agreed that the children should come to him from the middle of December until after New Year, and now she was here beside him looking pale and drawn with dark shadows under her eyes.
If only things had been different between them he would be holding his petite French wife close and wanting to put right what was wrong, but those days were gone for ever. The split was hurting beyond telling, and for his own part he was living with the knowledge that if he’d been prepared to leave the practice the two of them would still be together.
But torn two ways, he’d felt he owed it to Barbara Balfour to keep to the present arrangement. She had placed her life’s work in his capable hands. For as far back as anyone could remember she’d provided those who lived in Bluebell Cove with first-class medical care and was now a semi-invalid, barely able to walk and relying on him to carry on the good work.
He and Francine had met at university where they’d both been studying medicine. They’d fallen madly in love, had had a fairy-tale wedding in Paris, and for twelve years she’d seemed content living on the Devon coast in beautiful Bluebell Cove.
They’d joined the practice originally as newly qualified G.P.s and she’d taken time out to have the children, returning when they were older on a part-time arrangement.
He’d known that she’d been homesick sometimes and had understood, agreeing that they should spend holidays and weekends with her parents whenever possible, but homesickness had never been the big issue that it was now.
It had been losing them and their house becoming hers that had made Francine want to go back home to live at the very time when there was nothing to go back for, or so he’d thought, but he hadn’t taken into account the property on the outskirts of Paris.
Heartbroken, it had been her only comfort when those who’d lived in it had been taken from her. In the end it had won the struggle for her affection and he’d thought despairingly that he must be the only man living whose marriage had been destroyed by a house. Not because of adultery, or incompatibility, but by an attractive detached dwelling near Paris.
The farmhouse had just come into sight in a blaze of light, and as Ethan pulled up on the drive Francine thought this was what Bluebell Cove was all about, friends and neighbours looking out for each other, a caring community in a coastal setting that had welcomed her into its midst as a young French bride all those years ago.
The wedding couple were just inside the hallway, waiting to greet their guests as they arrived, and when Jenna saw Francine she beamed across at her in welcoming warmth and exclaimed, ‘Francine, how lovely to see you!’
From Jenna’s new husband there was just a cool nod and she got the message. Lucas would have seen what she’d done to Ethan and crossed her off his ‘people I like’ list, and she was prepared to accept that on the premise that maybe he’d never been so homesick he couldn’t think straight.
During the evening people came up and said how nice it was to see her there. No one asked any questions, but it was there in their manner, an awkwardness that came from curiosity unsatisfied and a desire to cause no embarrassment for the respected head of the village practice.
There was one person it didn’t apply to, however—the woman who had done the job for many years previously that Ethan was doing now. ‘So you’ve come back to us,’ Barbara Balfour said unsmilingly when they came face to face, ‘and not before time. I’m glad to see that you’ve found some sense.’
‘I’m just visiting for Christmas, Dr. Balfour,’ she told her politely. ‘I live in Paris now.’
‘I see!’ was the cold reply. ‘And you’ve taken the children with you. Ethan doesn’t deserve any of it.’
He wasn’t around at that moment. Her husband was dancing with his daughter. Only Ben was with her and his mind was on other things as he observed the banquet that would shortly be available to everyone.
‘Jenna is a lovely bride. I’m sorry I missed the service this afternoon,’ she said smoothly, as if she hadn’t just been taken to task. ‘And now if you’ll excuse me…’ Moving away, she hurried towards the cloakroom before the tears she was holding back began to fall.
When the dance was over Ethan and Kirstie went to where Ben was standing still transfixed by the food and his father asked, ‘Where’s your mother, Ben?’
‘Er, I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘She was talking to Dr Balfour and then she went.’
‘Went where?’
‘I don’t know.’
It added up, Ethan thought grimly. Francine talking to sharp-tongued Barbara and then disappearing. She must have gone home.
‘I won’t be long,’ he told them both. ‘I’m going to find her.’
As he hurried out into the lamp-lit gardens his step faltered. She was standing beside an ornamental pool, looking down into it sombrely, and he sighed. Francine had been right, he thought. It would have been better if she hadn’t come.
If he’d been there when Barbara had accosted her he wouldn’t have allowed it, but he hadn’t been and where everyone else had been pleasant enough, that wasn’t her style.
‘Do you want to go home?’ he asked when he reached her side.
She shook her head, ‘No, Ethan. I’m sure I deserved to hear what Barbara had to say. You told me not to spoil the children’s Christmas and I won’t. I just came out to get a breath of air, that’s all. Let’s go back inside.’
For the rest of the evening she was how she used to be. Smiling and relaxed. Dancing with the children in turn and laughing when Ben said, ‘I don’t mind dancing with you, Maman, but I don’t want to do it with soppy girls.’
‘What about you and Kirstie dancing all the way to the headland?’ she teased. ‘You didn’t mind that, did you?’
‘No, not really, but Dad said I had to because he wanted to dance with Phoebe.’
‘Oh, I see.’ And she felt she did.
Phoebe Howard was a lovely, uncomplicated girl who, the story went, had been deserted by her partner when pregnant. It was understandable that she might be attracted to someone like Ethan, and that he should be attracted to her after what she’d done to him over the last few months.
Yet Phoebe wasn’t there tonight and it wouldn’t be because she hadn’t been asked. Surgery staff would have been invited because the bride worked there and the district nurse would be included, but as Phoebe would still be on maternity leave and didn’t live locally, maybe she didn’t want to spend too much time away from the baby.
On the other hand, it could be that the young single mother had seen her when she’d danced back to the square with Ethan and had gone because she’d observed that his wife had turned up.
It was time to leave, the wedding couple were starting their honeymoon in the morning and Ethan was having a last word with Lucas before they left regarding him being in charge of his property while they were away.
On their return his friend would be bringing Jenna to The Old Chart House next door to theirs, which Lucas had bought and refurbished when he’d come to live in the village.
When Ethan joined them and the four of them went to where he’d parked the car there was silence amongst them. Kirstie and Ben were tired because it had been a long and exciting day. Ethan was contemplating the misery of spending the night with Francine in the spare room, and she was envying the wedding couple for the freshness and simplicity of their love.
Theirs had been like that for a long time, hadn’t lost the magic, until Ethan had taken charge of the practice and been so keen to make a success of it that she’d thought a few times that she and the children came second, just as Jenna and her father had come second to it during Barbara Balbour’s reign.
She’d been twenty-eight and Ethan thirty years old when they’d had a fairy-tale wedding in a church in Paris, and now the precious thing that they’d had was dying because neither of them would give way to the other.
The children were in bed and after making sure they were settled with no televisions being switched on or mobile phones being used, Francine came downstairs to find Ethan making coffee in the kitchen.
‘Thanks,’ she said awkwardly as he passed hers to her. ‘I’ll take mine upstairs if you don’t mind.’
He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. I’ll be going to bed myself soon. It’s been a long day, but I want to get the turkey in the oven first so that it will be almost cooked by the time I get up.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she murmured, feeling like an outsider in her own home, though it wasn’t her home, was it? She’d forfeited the right to call it that when she’d gone to live in France.
With her foot on the bottom step of the stairs he was about to remind her of that fact by calling, ‘The clean sheets are where they always were, though not as immaculately laundered maybe.’
As she lay sleepless between the sheets that he’d described she heard voices and laughter outside the window. In the next moment the beautiful words of a well-known Christmas carol were being sung and tears threatened again.
It was as if the fates were reminding her of what she’d thrown away by bringing to her notice every aspect of the enchantment of Bluebell Cove at Christmas. So far there’d been the dancing through the village, a Christmas wedding and now the carol singers.
In the middle of the night she could smell the turkey cooking quite strongly and wondered if the oven setting was too high. On impulse she crept downstairs in her nightdress to check on it.
It was a mistake. When she opened the kitchen door Ethan was there, basting the turkey. She turned to make a swift exit but he’d seen her and asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Er, nothing,’ she said hurriedly, ‘I just thought that it might be cooking too quickly.’
‘I see,’ he said evenly. ‘Well, you can sleep easy as I’ve just turned the heat down, so go back to bed, Francine. Remember you’re visiting. I’m in charge.’
She turned and went back up the stairs with the message crystal clear that she had overstepped the mark by butting into their Christmas.
‘I’m in the way, aren’t I?’ she said the next morning while the children were opening their presents. ‘I’ll go as soon as there is a flight. There should be some on Boxing Day.’
‘I thought you came because you wanted to be with Kirstie and Ben over Christmas and New Year,’ he said levelly. ‘There is no rush as far as I’m concerned. Just don’t get any ideas about taking over now that you’re here. As I told you last night, I’m in charge. I’ve had to be whether I wanted to or not.’
As he watched the colour drain from her face he was ashamed for letting his hurt manifest itself so clearly. Whatever Francine did, he would never stop loving her. He’d been just as inflexible in what he saw as his priorities as she’d been in hers when their difference of opinions had started to take a stranglehold on their marriage, so at least he should be civil.
At that moment Ben came dashing in, carrying the sledge that had been one of his father’s presents to him. ‘It’s great, Dad!’ he said. ‘Can I go and try it out?’
‘Yes, take Kirstie with you?’ he told him. ‘She’ll want to have a try.’
‘Not now she won’t. She’s too excited by what Maman has brought for her.’
‘And what might that be?’ Ethan asked.
‘Fancy boots and a necklace.’ He turned to his mother, ‘The telescope is great, Maman.’
‘And so are both of you, my darlings,’ she said softly as he went chasing off to try the sledge.
At that moment Kirstie appeared, still in her pyjamas and wearing the boots and necklace. They smiled at the vision she presented and it was almost like old times for a moment.
Francine had come down to breakfast in a robe and slippers, not wanting to miss the children opening their presents, and now, with the memory of having been made to feel surplus and in the way, she went back upstairs to get showered and changed.
It was a strange sort of day, alternating between happy moments with the children and long silences when Ethan and she were alone. She’d noted that the turkey was cooked to perfection and wished she’d not interfered the previous night, and in keeping with her general feeling of being in the way broke the silence between them at one point to ask, ‘Have you invited anyone round for Christmas dinner?’
‘Such as?’ he asked with dark brows rising.
‘Er, Phoebe and her baby perhaps?’
‘Phoebe Howard. Why would I do that? She does have family to be with, you know.’
‘She was your partner when everyone was dancing through the village.’
‘So? I had to find someone, and as she’s been to see me at the surgery with depression a few times I thought it might cheer her up if I asked her to join me.’
‘Ah! That is what Ben must have meant when he said you made him dance with Kirstie because you wanted to partner Phoebe.’
She saw his jaw line tighten and when he spoke again his voice was even colder than it had been in the kitchen in the middle of the night. ‘Do you honestly think I would consider replacing you after so short a time?’ he said. ‘I valued our marriage more than anything on earth—you were the one to cast it aside like an old shoe.’
‘Surely you see there was more to it than that, Ethan,’ she reminded him in a low voice. ‘Our differences of opinion were too big to ignore, and now that I’m here will you please let me help with whatever has to be done instead of shutting me out.’
‘All right.’ he agreed sombrely. ‘We’re both of the opinion that we don’t want to spoil the children’s Christmas so maybe it is best that you do help out.’
‘Thanks for that, and I’m sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusions about you and Phoebe. It was just that I thought you deserved someone special to fill the gap I’ve left and that she might be it.’
He didn’t reply. If he had done he would have told her that the gap she referred to would never be filled…that he didn’t want patronising. He knew what he deserved and it was her, back in his life where she belonged. But it was too late for that. The marriage would soon be over. The solicitor’s letter amongst the Christmas mail had confirmed that the divorce proceedings were progressing satisfactorily.
When she came downstairs later she was holding a gift-wrapped parcel and offering it to him said, ‘I didn’t want to give you this earlier as I was concerned that the children’s excitement might be spoiled if you refused to accept it.’
‘But it’s all right if I refuse it now, is it?’ he enquired quizzically.
‘I’d rather you didn’t, but it’s up to you,’ she said, and went back upstairs with the feeling that she’d made things worse again.
Yet there was light in the darkness. Shortly afterwards he came up after her, wearing the cashmere sweater she’d bought for him in Paris and been doubtful she would ever see him in it, and announced, ‘If you look in the top drawer of the dressing table in the master bedroom you’ll find a belated birthday gift and something for Christmas that have been waiting for you to show up, so that you might receive them in a less impersonal way than in the mail.’
‘And you can’t be bothered to give them to me personally?’ she asked as a lump came up in her throat.
‘Why, Francine? Would you want me to?’ he asked gravely, and thought he was punishing her again because even in the present circumstances to have her beside him in the flesh was bringing joy to his soul.
‘Yes, so either that or leave them where they are,’ she replied, and went to gaze out of the bedroom window.
When she turned she could hear him going back downstairs and when next she saw him he had his cook’s apron over the sweater and was preparing to serve soup and a sandwich for lunch to appease their appetites until the main meal in the evening.
Chapter Two
FRANCINE was whisking the cream to go on top of the dessert she’d made for the Christmas meal and keeping an eye on the vegetables at the same time when Ethan announced, ‘I’ve invited my parents for New Years Day. They’ve always come before and I don’t see any reason to alter the arrangement. When I made it I didn’t know you would be here.’
‘Fine by me,’ she told him with a sinking feeling inside. ‘It will be nice to see them.’
‘Yes, my mother maybe, but as you already know, my dad is a man who doesn’t mince words.’
‘I’ll go out for the day,’ she offered hastily.
He was frowning, ‘The children won’t want that.’
‘They won’t even notice. They’ll still be engrossed with what they’ve had for Christmas.’
‘Nevertheless I don’t see why you shouldn’t be there. Mum and Dad might feel hurt if you can’t be bothered to spend some time with them. After all, they are not to blame for this situation.’
‘And I am?’
‘We both are,’ he said grimly, ‘but it’s past. We’ve made our beds and must lie on them. To get back to what I was saying, it would do you no harm to see them. You’ve known them long enough. If Dad gets out of hand about the divorce, I’ll deal with him.’
He was asking her to be polite to his parents, Francine thought wretchedly, polite to the kind mother-in-law that she loved. Jean Lomax had only moved from northern England to the south when she’d married his father, but had known what homesickness was and had understood how much she’d wanted to live in Paris in the house that was the only thing she had left of her parents.
She’d been sympathetic and supportive, but she loved her son and had accepted that he had to support his family and keep to the promise he’d made when he’d taken over the practice. Like someone on the rack, Ethan had been pulled both ways and she knew that he had stood his ground with an aching heart,
Her father-in-law, more volatile than his wife, had been furious with the French daughter-in-law that he’d always adored, and made no bones about it. The thought of coming face to face with him again made a chill run down her spine, but she would cope somehow for Ethan’s sake.
‘All right, if that is what you want.’ she replied, wishing herself miles away. With tears threatening, she told him thickly, ‘I’m taking the children back to France the moment New Year is over. I should never have come. It was stupid of me to think it could be civil between us, and as I’m already here it will save you having to bring them back the following weekend.’
He’d been putting crackers on the table while she’d been busy at the stove and knowing she was close to tears was gripping the back of a chair to stop himself from going to her and taking her in his arms. What would it achieve if he did? It was all too late, he told himself as he’d already done countless times before.
Their marriage was on the slippery slope, had been for months because he’d made a commitment that he’d felt he was not in a position to back out of, and Francine, who was usually most understanding and logically minded, hadn’t been prepared to back him up on it.
When the four of them were seated around the table for what Francine was expecting to be a travesty of a Christmas dinner, Ethan produced the gifts that he’d told her about earlier, and with Kirstie and Ben watching intently she unwrapped them slowly.
The belated birthday present was a book that she’d once said she would like and she thought how achingly different it was from the lingerie that he usually chose with care.
There was an unwritten, unspoken message in the gift he’d given her and she understood it all too well. It was the same with the Christmas present, an exquisite gold bracelet decorated by a jeweller with tiny shells that he’d gathered from the beach. It was another reminder of what she was missing, she thought, beautiful Bluebell Cove with its golden sands and breathtaking countryside—and him.
‘Thank you Ethan,’ she said in a low voice and when Kirstie insisted on her wearing the bracelet she slid it
carefully on to her wrist.
That night, sleepless once more in the spare room, Francine’s mind was going over the day just gone and the strange mixture of it. The children’s pleasure had been the highlight, and the giving and accepting of gifts between Ethan and herself bizarre and hurtful when she thought of how it had once been. Yet she was still wearing the bracelet, couldn’t bear to take it off.
New Year’s Day was going to be strange too with the visit of Jean and Lawrence Lomax planned. At the beginning of the marriage break-up Ethan’s father had told her angrily that a wife’s place was with her husband and if this was where he earned his living it was where she should be prepared to stay.
The dread of meeting him again was still with her, but he was the last person she was going allow to tune into the state of panic-stricken indecision in which she was floundering.
In the meantime there was a week’s grace before she had to face them. She was going to keep a low profile where Ethan was concerned, spending all her time with the children or on her own. The feeling of panic was still with her, the choking sensation every time she thought of the years ahead without him.
If she were to tell him that she’d changed her mind and was going to forget about the house in Paris, would it make any difference? she wondered. The scars on their relationship were not going to heal overnight, if ever.
When she discovered that the children had been invited to the home of one of their friends for Boxing Day she decided to spend the time they were absent walking along the coast road and stopping off for lunch somewhere.
As soon as they’d left she went to get ready and came down within minutes dressed in a warm jacket, jeans and her boots. Ethan was reading a medical journal in the sitting room when she appeared and asked, ‘Where are you off to? There’s still a lot of snow around after the heavy fall on Christmas Eve.’
‘I’m going to walk along the coast road and will eat out at lunchtime.’
He nodded and went back to his reading. There had been a time when he would have been beside her, she thought, happy that they were spending some time alone together, but not now. He was probably feeling relieved that she was going to be out of his orbit for a while as her role in his life had changed from cherished wife to intruder.
Outside there was a cold wind that stung her cheeks and the snow that had been there on the day of her arrival in Bluebell Cove still lay thick and crisp beneath her feet. Down below she could see the beach and the cold blue expanse of the Atlantic surging in once more.
In past summers when Ethan had finished at the surgery they’d spent lots of time down there, with the children fishing in rock pools and playing in the sand, and all of them swimming when the sea wasn’t too rough.
It was far too cold for that sort of thing now, but she hoped he would still take Ben and Kirstie down there when they came to stay with him in the spring. The beach and the sea were two of the delights of Bluebell Cove, as was the enchanting village surrounded by the rolling green fields of the Devonshire countryside.
If she were to put all that on to one side of the scales of life, and on the other side place living in a house she owned on the outskirts of one of the most famous cities in the world and the place where she’d spent her childhood, but had sacrificed her life with Ethan because of it, which way would they tip? she wondered.
The wind continued to bite. She pulled her jacket more closely around her. What was the point of thinking those sorts of thoughts? She’d made her choice and her life was a mess.
It was going dark in the cold winter afternoon and Ethan kept looking at the clock. Where was she? he wondered, the pale and drawn-looking stranger who not so long ago had been happy to live with him here, and now incredibly was back as a visitor, sleeping in the spare room instead of next to him in the double bed they’d shared.
But, he thought bleakly, he wasn’t there to watch over her in Paris, so why get all steamed up because Francine was late from a walk that they’d done countless times before? Yet he couldn’t help himself.
When their marriage had started to collapse she’d been immovable in her desire to live in France and in the end he’d given up on her and after being stunned by her request for a divorce had agreed.
But she was different now, he thought, lost and vulnerable, but not so much that she hadn’t been quick to remind him when he’d seen her in the square on Christmas Eve and joy bells had rung in his heart that she was only over on a visit to see the children.
He was going to have to keep a tight hold on his emotions because she’d been the one who’d wanted to end it, not him, and the pain of knowing she didn’t love him enough to stay with him was unbearable.
He’d gone upstairs to find the sheepskin coat that he wore in this kind of weather, having decided that make of it what she would he had to check that no harm had befallen her, when through the bedroom window he saw her coming up the drive and hung the coat back in the wardrobe.
She was blue with cold and he thought it could only have been a desire to get away from him that had driven her out into the wintry weather for so long. What a fiasco Christmas was turning out to be, both of them wary as warring armies with undercurrents all the time instead of straight talking.
When he went downstairs she was in the hall, taking off her boots and jacket, and he said, ‘Go and sit by the fire. I’ll make you a hot drink.’
She was opening her mouth to refuse, he could tell. ‘Just do as I say, Francine,’ he said, and she obeyed meekly.
He left her slowly sipping a hot toddy and went into his study, deciding that she didn’t have to worry about him crowding her. It was the last thing he had in mind. He’d been dreading spending Christmas without her and now that she was here he didn’t know which was worse—having no communication at all or the stiff dialogue that was all they were left with.
Everything had always been clear and uncomplicated between them. They’d been in tune in every way, including fantastic sexual chemistry, until Francine had inherited the house in Paris and her overwhelming homesickness had shattered what they’d had.
The children had just been dropped off. Tired and happy, they were full of the day they’d spent with their friends. As they were about to go up to bed Ben said, ‘Maman, we want to stay here where all our friends are.’
‘Yes,’ Kirstie agreed. ‘We like it in France, but we have no friends there.’
Ethan watched the colour drain from Francine’s face and thought that the children were quite unaware that they’d just dealt their mother a body blow. How would she react?
She’d been warm and drowsy after the cold walk, curled up in a big chair in front of the fire, but what they’d said brought her wide awake. As she was about to speak he motioned for her be silent, and ushering the children towards the stairs told them gently, ‘It’s late. Let’s talk about it in the morning. Your mother has been for a long walk and is tired.’
He went up with them and waited until they were settled, and all the time he was thinking that he should be rejoicing at what they’d said. Francine wouldn’t take Ben and Kirstie back to France if they didn’t want to go. She wouldn’t see her children unhappy, but neither would she be able to exist without them if they weren’t under her wing. They would visit her, of course, like they did him, but he would have the most control over the situation, their roles would be reversed.
‘I’m getting what I deserve, aren’t I?’ she asked in a low voice when he went back downstairs. ‘I put my own needs before those of you and the children and am going to pay the price.’
There was no triumph in him, just sadness as he said, ‘You’ll find that Ben and Kirstie will have forgotten all about what they said in the morning. It was because they were on a high after spending the day with their friends.’
‘You must hate me, Ethan.’
‘Why would I do that? I’ve never had to live in a foreign land like you did, so I can’t pass judgement on that, but I’ve learned one thing and it is that no marriage is a rock. I thought that ours was and it proved to be on shifting sands. I won’t ever get married again, Francine.’ And with that announcement for her to mull over, he went to make them a late supper.
Ethan had been right, Francine thought the next morning as the four of them sat down to breakfast. There was no repeat of the comments of the night before and the children went off sledging on a snow-covered slope nearby the moment they’d finished eating, but as far as she was concerned the words had been said and she couldn’t ignore them.
It was the first time she’d heard anything of that nature, which could mean that the novelty of living in France was wearing off, and if that was the case, what was she going to do? She was feeling guilty enough already for what she’d done to Ethan. She didn’t want to spoil their lives too.
They knew that things were not good between their parents and that the separation was going to continue, but she and Ethan hadn’t explained about the impending divorce as yet. They’d been more concerned with showing them how much they loved them. Yet the day would have to come and she thought achingly that if only he hadn’t called her bluff when she’d taken them to live in France with her and had followed them, instead of letting it happen.
He was seated across from her at the dining table, waiting for any comments she might have, and she didn’t disappoint him.
‘Are you upset that the children didn’t pursue their request from last night?’ she asked.
‘Why? Should I be?’ he asked abruptly. He got to his feet, ‘I’m due back at the surgery this morning so I’ll see you whenever.’
It was like any day after a public holiday at The Tides Practice he thought as the morning progressed, made up of the regulars and people who had succumbed to various ills over the Christmas period.
The two nurses were being kept fully occupied as their third member, Jenna, the bride of Christmas Eve, was on her honeymoon. Lucy Watson, the elder of the two, had been a nurse at the surgery all her working life, and young Maria, a trainee, was the eldest daughter of one of the lifeguards down on the beach.
Leo Fenchurch, the new addition to the practice, wasn’t his usual bright and breezy self and Ethan wondered if it was because he had been partaking too much of the wine during the festive occasion, but that surmise proved to be far from right when the two doctors stopped for a quick bite at lunchtime.
It seemed that Leo’s lack of joviality was connected with something more serious than too much celebrating. His mother, who lived alone, was gravely ill and after a phone call on Christmas morning he’d been to Manchester and back in the last two days to be with her and to sort out a programme of care.
‘What’s the problem?’ Ethan asked.
‘Emphysema,’ was the reply. ‘Mum is only in her early sixties, but she might as well be ninety the way it’s restricting her life. I shall go each weekend to check on her and do what I can, but will make sure I’m back first thing every Monday,’ he promised. ‘I haven’t been here very long and don’t want to mess you about, Ethan.’
‘Look, Leo,’ Ethan said. ‘Do what you have to do for your mother—we’ll cope at this end. How does the saying go? Charity begins at home.’
As he went back to his consulting room to prepare for the afternoon surgery and to make a call to Hunters Hill Hospital for an urgent appointment for a patient, Ethan thought he was the wrong one to be quoting that particular pearl of wisdom. There hadn’t been much ‘charity’ over recent months in his home. Plenty of aggravation, but no charity.
The children had returned ravenous after sledging all morning and as Francine made them a hot lunch she put to them the question that she’d been debating all the time they’d been absent. It was asking for problems if she was going to risk a repeat of their disturbing comments of the night before, she’d kept telling herself, but she had to know for certain if they were unhappy away from Bluebell Cove.
Ethan had been right in his assumption that they wouldn’t mention it again.
So far they hadn’t, but she couldn’t face living on a knife edge, waiting to see if they would say the same thing again at some future time, how they felt about what was going on in their lives, as both of them were aware that a permanent split between their parents might happen one day.
It hadn’t been Kirstie and Ben who’d acted totally out of character because they’d been overcome by homesickness, she thought, and if it had been, it would have been this place they were pining for, not the Paris house.
Ben gave her a chance to introduce the subject by saying, ‘Grandma and Grandad are coming on New Year’s Day.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she told him, smiling across at her son, who had the same kind of dark thatch as his father and the bright blue gaze, while Kirstie had skipped a generation and inherited Francine’s mother’s fair colouring. ‘They’ll be longing to see you both, but we are going back to France the morning after New Year’s Day. OK?’
There was silence and she hoped it was because they were both tucking in to the food she’d just put in front of them, but it was not to be.
‘We don’t want to go,’ Kirstie said apologetically, almost as if she understood how much it was going to upset her, and Ben, with his head bent over his meal, mumbled his agreement.
‘Supposing I said you had to come with me? That you couldn’t please yourselves. What would you do then?’
There was no reply forthcoming and she went into the kitchen and stood gripping the edge of the worktop until her knuckles shone white. Kirstie came to stand beside her and said awkwardly, ‘We could still go to Paris for our holidays, Mum.’ To Ben, who had sidled in behind her, she added, ‘We would like that, wouldn’t we, Ben?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, as long as Dad is there too.’
‘So it’s all right if I go back without you, is it?’ Francine asked, and was rewarded by consternation on both their parts.
‘No! We want you to stay with us. Don’t go back to Paris,’ Ben begged.
‘Why didn’t you tell me before that you weren’t happy there?’
‘Well, we were at first. It was exciting, different, it was like being on holiday, but Bluebell Cove is where we want to live.’
Francine thought wretchedly that to a lesser degree than her own the children she adored had been made to feel homesick to satisfy her own longing. There was no way she could continue to inflict that on them, so what was the answer?
Go back to France alone? She couldn’t bear the thought of it. But if she didn’t do that, it would be a case of returning to Bluebell Cove defeated by her own shortsightedness, and Ethan wasn’t going to welcome her back with open arms, was he? She’d felt like an intruder from the moment of arriving.
Two pairs of eyes were watching her anxiously and she managed a smile.
‘All right,’ she said comfortingly. ‘I’ll think about what you’ve said and see what I can do, but why didn’t you tell me this before?’
Ben didn’t reply, he just stood looking down at the floor, but Kirstie had an answer for her. ‘Because you kept crying all the time, Maman, that’s why.’
They were off sledging again once their stomachs were no longer empty, with a strict warning to be back before it was dark. The moment they’d gone Francine put on her outdoor clothes and went into the centre of the village with a heavy heart, passing the surgery on her way and wondering what Ethan was going to say when he knew that she’d coaxed the truth out of the children.
He would have to be pleased, it went without saying. Only she was devastated by what Kirstie and Ben had said.
When she went into the estate agent’s the face behind the counter wasn’t that of anyone she knew, for which she was thankful. The doctor’s wife enquiring about rental property in Bluebell Cove when from all accounts she’d moved to France would have caused raised eyebrows, though no doubt it would soon get around no matter who attended her behind the mullioned windows that looked out onto the busy main street.
‘Do you have any properties for rent?’ she asked a smartly dressed young assistant.
‘If you’d asked that in summer, the answer would have been no,’ she was told, ‘but at this time of year we do have a few. Top of the list is thatched Thimble Cottage, detached, fully furnished, with three bedrooms, bathroom with shower, sitting room, dining room and kitchen. All beautifully set out to match the age of the property. It is centrally situated next to the church. Are you familiar with the village at all?’
‘Yes,’ she said flatly.
‘Thimble Cottage is available for twelve months. I’m not sure about afterwards,’ she was told. ‘Would you like to view it? I can take you now if you like.’
‘Yes, that would be fine,’ she agreed. ‘If I am interested, I would want to move in immediately.’
The young assistant nodded. ‘That would be no problem. Shall we go? I’ll lock up here for a while.’
Francine had seen Thimble Cottage many times over the years but had never been inside, and when she did her first thought was that the estate agent hadn’t been wrong in the way she’d described it. It was a very attractive property and might go some way towards lifting the gloom that had descended on her after talking to the children.
‘This will suit me perfectly,’ she said. ‘I’d like to rent it for the twelve months it is available, so can we go back to your office and get it sorted?’
When the children came up the drive they were smiling and rosy cheeked from their exertions, but when she opened the door to them the uncertainty was there again in their expressions and any doubts she might have had about what she was intending disappeared.
But it was not yet the moment to tell them. Ethan had to be told first and though she was expecting him to be pleased that she’d had to give up some of her original ideas, she wasn’t sure if he would be happy to have her back in the village, complicating their lives even more by living across the way from him.
When he came in it was half past six and she asked, ‘How was your day?’
‘Long and busy,’ he said evenly, and went upstairs to change.
The children had already eaten. They’d been too hungry to wait and so it was just the two of them sitting down to the food she’d cooked.
When the meal was over and he was relaxing by the fire, she said tentatively, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘I hope it isn’t that you’re planning to take the children back to France before New Year,’ he said immediately, ‘because I won’t allow it. Mum and Dad will be bitterly disappointed if they’re not here when they arrive.’
‘Do you honestly think I would do that, knowing that they are coming?’ she choked out.
His expression was bleak. Returning from a busy day at the surgery and finding her there would have been wonderful if the circumstances had been different. As it was, it had been bitter-sweet and he told her levelly, ‘I didn’t honestly think that you would ask for a divorce, Francine, but you did, so don’t blame me for being concerned about what you might spring on me next.’
‘What I have to tell you is the exact opposite to what you were thinking,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’m not taking them back to France at all, except maybe for the occasional holiday. Are you pleased?’
He was observing her in jaw-dropping amazement.
‘I might be if I knew why you’ve come to that decision, and then again, I might not. So what is going on, Francine? Is it because of what they said last night? Have they been on about it again?’
She shook her head, ‘No, not exactly. I asked them outright if it was true and they said it was. They want to stay here—and want me to stay here too.’
‘I see,’ he said slowly, ‘and what did you say to that?’
‘I didn’t say anything. Instead, I went out and did something. I’ve rented Thimble Cottage for twelve months and am going to live there with the children during the week, which is your busiest time, and will fly to Paris every weekend when they can stay with you. That way we will all be happy. Kirstie and Ben will be where they want to be, you will see a lot more of them. And I—’
‘You will be sacrificing your dream for their sakes and mine.’
‘I’ll still have some of it if I go to France every weekend.’
‘You could have done that in the first place Francine.’
Ignoring the comment, she begged, ‘Just tell me that what I’ve done is all right.’
‘Yes, I suppose so, except for one thing. Why rent the cottage? What is wrong with living here during the week before you go jetting off to Paris?’
She shook her head. ‘It will be easier for us all, doing what I suggest.’ She glanced towards the sitting room where Kirstie and Ben were watching television. ‘So shall we tell the children and put their minds at rest? They were both reluctant to repeat what they said last night, but wanted me to know that it was how they felt.’
‘Yes, all right,’ he agreed, ‘just as long as you are sure you want to do this.’
‘It was the only solution I could think of.’
‘Mmm. I suppose so,’ he said dryly, and thought there was another one that she obviously wasn’t going to consider. She could come back to him and tell him that it had all been a mistake.
But he knew that wasn’t how she felt and he wasn’t sure how he felt either. She’d been his love, the light of his life, and he’d lost her. Not to another man, but to a country and a house.
The children were slow to show their delight at the new arrangements until Francine held them close and told them that she was looking forward to living in Thimble Cottage, but would be going to Paris every weekend.
‘So, you see, the three of us will live in the cottage during the week, and when I’m away at the weekends you will stay here with Dad,’ she explained. Ben gave a whoop of delight, but Kirstie’s expression was still anxious.
‘We did like living in France, Maman,’ she said guiltily. ‘It was just as nice as here. What we didn’t like was Dad not being there with us, and you not with us when we’re here in Bluebell Cove. That’s what was wrong.’ A smile broke through. ‘But what you’ve arranged will be super because we’ll be near you both, and when you go over there at weekends we’ll know that it isn’t for long. So when can we go to see the cottage?’
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Abigail Gordon
Christmas in Bluebell Cove
Abigail Gordon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u48d70ba6-db18-5a1d-8335-0f707e352395)
Title Page (#u16b00611-c838-5785-bb5c-27efe6b73b38)
About the Author (#uf91d7479-7bac-5be1-aded-93b7aaf2c52f)
Dear Reader (#ufabb359a-b21c-5b8a-8add-2e989af29543)
Chapter One (#u68d009e1-0afa-5148-97e1-ed6a14ee0377)
Chapter Two (#u1eda297c-b987-549e-9ec7-260d171e525b)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author
ABIGAIL GORDON loves to write about the fascinating combination of medicine and romance from her home in a Cheshire village. She is active in local affairs, and is even called upon to write the script for the annual village pantomime! Her eldest son is a hospital manager, and helps with all her medical research. As part of a closeknit family, she treasures having two of her sons living close by, and the third one not too far away. This also gives her the added pleasure of being able to watch her delightful grandchildren growing up.
Dear Reader
Welcome to the second and third of my books where coast and countryside combine to bring you the beautiful Devon village of Bluebell Cove. A place where doctors and nurses in the medical practice look after the health of the local folk and share their joys and sorrows, and in return have the respect and support of their patients when it is their turn to need a friend.
I live in a village in the Cheshire countryside myself, and it never ceases to amaze me how close is the bond between those who live here. When one of them hurts they all hurt. When one of them rejoices they all rejoice.
In CHRISTMAS IN BLUEBELL COVE, GP Ethan and his lovely French wife Francine discover that a Bluebell Cove Christmas, surrounded by the love of this warm community, is all that’s really needed to help them understand how to love each other and mend their marriage so that they can enjoy their lovely little family.
In THE VILLAGE NURSE’S HAPPY-EVER-AFTER nurse Phoebe Howard comes to the sanctuary of Bluebell Cove to find a home for herself and her baby boy. Romance is not on her agenda until she meets her gorgeous new boss.
If you have enjoyed reading about the folks there, do look out for Book Four. It will be coming along shortly.
So do let’s keep in touch, dear reader, as I write and you read about golden beaches, clotted cream teas, and romance in Devon—glorious Devon!
Abigail Gordon
Chapter One
IT HAD been a mistake coming back to Bluebell Cove for Christmas, Francine Lomax thought as she stood on the snow-covered path of the house that she hadn’t set foot in for months.
When she unlocked the door there was silence inside, no one to greet her, which wasn’t surprising as they hadn’t known she was coming. She bent and picked up a trainer left lying in the middle of the hall, putting it into a nearby cupboard. Then she gathered together the last delivery of mail before Christmas which was lying behind the door, and placed it on the hall table in a neat pile. There was a letter from Ethan’s solicitor amongst it and her insides trembled at its implications.
A doll belonging to Kirstie was sitting upright on the bottom step of the stairs and the choking feeling that she kept getting was back. It was all so familiar, yet she felt like a stranger in her own home.
Her baggage was still outside in the hire car that she’d picked up at the airport, and as she went to bring it in Francine was aware that there was music and laughter coming from somewhere not too far away, the sound of people enjoying themselves.
There might be silence in the house, but there were those out there who were making the most of the festive season and she was reminded of the vow she’d made to herself not to put the blight on the children’s Christmas by arriving without warning and bringing her melancholy with her.
When she’d carried her suitcases upstairs she put them in the spare room where she would be sleeping and then went down again to await the arrival of her husband and children.
She’d been missing Ben and Kirstie dreadfully and their father too because it had been so much longer since she’d seen him, but she had only herself to blame for that. The last thing Ethan had wanted was for her to go stomping off to live in Paris, in contrast to being just a frequent visitor as had been the case when her parents had been alive, and as Christmas had approached she’d begun to wish she hadn’t agreed to the children coming back to Bluebell Cove so early to spend it with their father.
Yet that was how it was going to have to be because of the rift between Ethan and herself that was getting wider all the time, so wide that the divorce she’d asked for was under way with wheels slowly turning in the background.
Bitterness had soured a marriage that had been happy and fulfilling until she’d lost her parents tragically in a coach crash while they had been holidaying in the Balkans. As a result she had inherited her childhood home in France, and ever since had been desperate to live there.
The marriage might have stood a better chance if tiny cracks hadn’t already been appearing in it ever since Ethan had taken over as head of The Tides Medical Practice that cared for the health and well-being of the inhabitants of Bluebell Cove. He had seemed prepared to put his commitment to his new position before everything else.
His acceptance of the responsibility had come about because of the early retirement due to poor health of the woman who had given her life to the practice and had felt that Ethan was the only person she could trust to continue the work there to the same high standards as herself.
But the niggles that had sometimes arisen because of that had been as nothing compared to his reaction to the heart-breaking homesickness that had overtaken her at the loss of her parents and swept her into the situation that now existed between them. So if the revellers out there were full of the Christmas spirit, she wasn’t.
She could still hear the music somewhere nearby and supposed it was possible that her family might be involved in whatever was happening out there on a snowy Christmas Eve.
Snuggling back into the winter coat that she’d travelled in and zipping up fashionable boots that had the stamp of Paris on them, she decided to go and see what was taking place in the direction of the square where a big spruce that was decorated and illuminated every year at Christmas time.
Standing in the shadows, she saw that those present were lined up in pairs behind a man and woman who looked as if they were dressed as bride and groom.
It was odd, to say the least, but sure enough Ethan and the children were there with Kirstie and Ben partnering each other for what was about to take place, her daughter bright eyed and excited in a stylish pink dress that she hadn’t seen before, and her son ill at ease.
Ethan was partnering a tall slender girl with brown hair, brown eyes and very pale skin. The last time Francine had seen Phoebe Howard she’d been pregnant, facing up nervously to the prospect of becoming a single mother, but she looked happy enough at the moment.
He was looking down at her, smiling at something she’d said, and Francine thought that if Ethan was finding comfort in the arms of another woman it wasn’t surprising. He’d had no joy in hers for many long months.
Neither he nor the children had noticed her, they were too engrossed in the moment, and she continued to stay out of sight, registering as she did so that the smiling bride was Jenna Balfour, the daughter of the woman who had been in charge of the village medical practice before Ethan had taken over. Incredibly her bridegroom was Lucas Devereux, of all people, her husband’s closest friend.
At that moment the local school’s band struck up and the two of them began to dance through the village in the direction of the headland overlooking the sea, with the rest of the revellers following behind.
Tears pricked Francine’s eyes. She’d been happy here for twelve years with Ethan and the children as they’d come along. Bluebell Cove was a beautiful place with countryside in abundance and the mighty Atlantic close by.
But ever since she’d inherited the house in France it had been there that she wanted to be, and although Ethan had understood, it hadn’t stopped him from reminding her frequently that he’d just taken on a huge commitment by becoming senior partner in the village practice.
That he owed it to Barbara Balfour to keep the faith. In other words, he didn’t intend to leave Bluebell Cove and move to France on the sudden whim of his grieving wife.
There had been no hint of what was to come on his part when she’d first suggested it. He’d been reasonable and understanding, promising they would have lots of holidays there. But as the months had gone by she hadn’t changed her mind about living there permanently, insisting he owed her that because hadn’t she spent twelve years in Bluebell Cove for his sake?
In the end he’d wearied of being told he was selfish and after one more heated exchange of words she’d gone, taking the children with her.
That had really tipped the balance of Ethan’s patience and concern. He loved them just as much as she did, he’d told her coldly, would expect to see them regularly, and all her hopes that he might relent and follow them had turned out to be futile.
For Kirstie and Ben there’d been no problem. They’d always liked visiting their grandparents in France, and as their parents had kept their disenchantment with each other from them as much as possible, going to live in the charming house on the outskirts of Paris had been an exciting interlude in their lives.
They’d settled in at the school where she’d enrolled them without any problems, having picked up the language over the years on their visits to their grandparents, and life would have been perfect if only Ethan had been there with them.
The headland was graced by another huge Christmas tree and those at the front of the line of dancers had already whirled around it and were on their way back to where they’d started from, which meant that in a very short time her family was going to become aware of her presence.
Kirstie was the first to see her as she and Ben drew near, and her delighted cry of ‘Maman!’ stopped her husband in his tracks and brought her children out of the ranks and into her waiting arms.
She could see above their heads that Ethan had started dancing again and was almost out of sight without even greeting her. Maybe it was to remind her that their life together was coming to its close, that she’d got what she wanted, a return to her roots that he wasn’t going to be part of.
When she looked up he was observing her above the heads of the now dispersing dancers and the choking feeling was there again. He was still the only man who made her pulse leap, with hair dark and crisply curling and eyes blue as the sea on a summer day as its tides came and went on the sandy beach below the headland.
He’d lost weight. They both had over past months, but tall and trimly proportioned he would still make heads turn when he walked past, His women patients who wished he had a more important role in their lives than that of G.P. wouldn’t be having any second thoughts regarding that.
There was no sign of Phoebe and she breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing they needed was an audience at their first meeting in months. She hadn’t expected it to be like this.
She’d imagined him opening the door of the house they’d once shared and being able to tell in those first moments of meeting just how pleased or otherwise he was to see her standing there, but this was nothing like that. Lots of folk they knew were milling around them in the snow-covered square.
As their glances met she felt tension pulling at her nerve ends. But in a grim sort of way it was as if her distaste for the circumstances of their meeting was being diverted by the sound of a woman’s voice asking anxiously from behind, ‘What’s the matter, Bradley?’ to be followed by a terrified plea of ‘Somebody help us, please!’
She swivelled round quickly and saw Bradley Somerton, the elderly organist who performed at the village church on Sundays, being supported by his wife, who was the one crying for help. He was gasping for breath with face purple, eyes bulging, and was choking. His mouth was wide open and she could see that his tongue was swollen and blocking the airway.
‘Go and fetch Dad!’ she cried to the children, and as they sprinted off she asked the organist’s wife what he’d been eating to cause such a situation. At the same time she took hold of him, pulled him upright, and from behind gave him the treatment for a choking fit, arms tightly locked at the top of the rib cage and a sudden strong compression. It often did the trick, but not this time. No food or anything else came shooting from his mouth.
‘He’s allergic to seafood!’ his wife cried, ‘but he didn’t eat anything like that at the wedding reception, which is where we had our last meal.’
A shadow fell across them and Ethan was there. ‘Help me to lay him flat, Francine,’ he said urgently, ‘and then find something to prop his feet on to raise them.’ He turned to the man’s horrified wife. ‘Has he got the emergency syringe of adrenaline with him that he’s supposed to carry at all times?’
‘Jacket pocket!’ she cried, and within seconds he was injecting the lifesaving medication into the limp figure lying in the snow.
‘It’s anaphylactic shock,’ he told Francine grimly, ‘and unless the injection relieves the constriction of the lungs and airways in the next few seconds, we’re going to lose him. We’ve been along this road once before, but the attack wasn’t as severe as this. I might have to go to the surgery to get further supplies of the adrenaline if he doesn’t respond. It’s fortunate that it’s just across the way. Can you ring for an ambulance? Even if he comes round all right from the one injection, I don’t want to take any risks.’
She’d been checking the man’s pulse and heartbeat, which were pounding out of control, and nodded at the request, explaining as she did so, ‘I didn’t get the chance before. Thank God you were near and knew his case history. But this kind of thing comes on almost immediately after eating food that the person is allergic to, so what has he been eating that his wife doesn’t know about?’
‘Bradley didn’t partner me in the dancing,’ his wife explained weakly. ‘So maybe he’s been to the stall that’s selling food and drinks over there.’
The two doctors were only half listening. Francine was making the phone call and Ethan was watching keenly as the choking began to slowly subside and the tongue began to go forward once more leaving the airways clearer.
He gave a sigh of relief. The whole incident had taken just a matter of minutes, seconds almost, but if he and Francine hadn’t been there…
She was switching her phone off and placing a comforting arm around the shoulders of the organist’s wife and he thought for a moment that it had been almost like how it used to be with the two of them caring for the folks in Bluebell Cove.
He was still doing that, but she wasn’t, and as he noted thankfully that the stricken man’s heartbeat and pulse had stabilised he wondered what had brought her back to the place where she’d once been happy and contented.
When the ambulance had left, the children had gone to seek out their friends and for Francine and Ethan the brief feeling of togetherness that the incident had created hung between them like a question mark.
She was pale and shaking after the urgency of the situation, the need to act fast because a life had been at stake, and he placed his arm around her shoulders, held her close for a second and said gently, ‘What a homecoming for you, Francine. Do you think that you and I deserve top marks for effort now that Bradley will live to see another day? We were right back on line like we used to be, weren’t we?’
‘Yes, professionally maybe,’ she agreed stiltedly as panic took hold at the thought of him describing her presence back in his life as a homecoming, ‘Though I’m only here on a visit.’
‘Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?’ he asked, his voice tightening with disappointment.
‘It was on impulse, a last-minute thing. I felt I just had to be with the children at Christmas,’ she said awkwardly, knowing that she’d not kept to the arrangements they’d agreed on regarding who Kirstie and Ben should be with and when. ‘I’ve put my things in the spare room. I hope that’s all right.’
‘No, it isn’t!’ he gritted. ‘Take the master bedroom. I’ll sleep in the spare room. The house is still your home as far as I’m concerned. So shall we go there instead of making a spectacle of ourselves in front of what is left of the wedding party?’
‘Jenna and Lucas saw you trying to keep out of sight for some reason best known only to yourself and said to tell you that you’re invited to the evening reception, which starts in an hour at the Enderbys’ farmhouse.’
Kirstie and Ben weren’t far away and he went on to explain, ‘Needless to say, the children and I are going as I was best man for Lucas, and Kirstie was Jenna’s bridesmaid.’
He looked across at the children, who were engrossed in throwing snowballs, and said, ‘Don’t spoil their Christmas, Francine.’
She swallowed hard. Kirstie had been a bridesmaid and Ethan best man for his friend and she hadn’t been there, and now he was warning her not to spoil their Christmas. Was this what she’d come to? Was his opinion of her now as low as that?
Yet she’d had to tell herself the same thing, not to let the huge well of misery inside her loose on those she loved.
As they walked towards the house she said, to try and placate him, ‘I haven’t stopped loving this place, you know, Ethan.’
‘But not enough to live in it,’ he commented dryly.
‘I haven’t crossed the Channel to have all my shortcomings pointed out.’
‘No, you haven’t. Forget I said that.’
He wasn’t to know that now she’d got what she wanted and was living in the beautiful house near Paris that had been her home during her childhood and early teens, she felt as if the price she was paying to live there permanently was too high, and she’d get the feeling of choking and breathlessness that came with panic.
She hadn’t stopped to think things through properly when in hurt and anger she’d asked for a divorce, and now that it was under way and she was installed there, she was floundering instead of rejoicing, feeling that Ethan would never forgive her for the way she’d cared only about her own needs.
‘I don’t want us to change bedrooms,’ she told him when they arrived back at the house. ‘I’ll be fine in the spare room. I didn’t come to cause any upheaval and in keeping with that will give the wedding reception a miss, I think. Something tells me I won’t be flavour of the month amongst your friends and the surgery crowd. I left them in the lurch when I went chasing off to France, didn’t I, even though I was only a part-time G.P.?’
‘You’ve got to come, Maman,’ Kirstie pleaded. ‘There will be lots of nice things to eat and music and dancing.’
‘I will stay with Maman,’ Ben said quickly, as an escape from something he wasn’t looking forward to presented itself.
Ethan shook his head. ‘No, Ben. There will be plenty of time for you to be with your mother over Christmas. You have been invited and are going, just as you would have been if she was still in France.’
‘I’ll come,’ Francine said hastily, and as Ben’s expression brightened she thought it didn’t matter how people felt about her as long as the children were content.
Kirstie was keeping the pink dress on. She obviously adored it. Ben had changed into jeans and a sweater, replacing the suit he’d worn for the wedding, and Ethan was still in his outfit as best man.
It remained for her to find something to wear, Francine thought, which meant unpacking her cases or rummaging around to see what she’d left behind in the wardrobe when she’d departed all those months ago.
There was an evening dress there of pale turquoise silk that Ethan had always liked her in. Low cut with a hooped skirt, it fitted better than it had ever done because of the weight she’d lost, and at the same time emphasised the dark chestnut of her hair and her beautiful green eyes.
When she went downstairs to where the three of them were waiting for her Ethan said, ‘Did you have to wear that, Francine? The dress belongs to another life.’
‘Do you want me to take it off, then?’ she asked, with the feeling that so far she hadn’t done anything right.
‘No, of course not, we need to be off. I’m still in my role as best man until the evening is over.’
As he drove them along snow-covered lanes beside hedgerows touched by winter’s frosty fingers, to the big farmhouse where the afternoon reception had already taken place, Ethan was wondering what really lay behind Francine’s sudden appearance.
They’d agreed that the children should come to him from the middle of December until after New Year, and now she was here beside him looking pale and drawn with dark shadows under her eyes.
If only things had been different between them he would be holding his petite French wife close and wanting to put right what was wrong, but those days were gone for ever. The split was hurting beyond telling, and for his own part he was living with the knowledge that if he’d been prepared to leave the practice the two of them would still be together.
But torn two ways, he’d felt he owed it to Barbara Balfour to keep to the present arrangement. She had placed her life’s work in his capable hands. For as far back as anyone could remember she’d provided those who lived in Bluebell Cove with first-class medical care and was now a semi-invalid, barely able to walk and relying on him to carry on the good work.
He and Francine had met at university where they’d both been studying medicine. They’d fallen madly in love, had had a fairy-tale wedding in Paris, and for twelve years she’d seemed content living on the Devon coast in beautiful Bluebell Cove.
They’d joined the practice originally as newly qualified G.P.s and she’d taken time out to have the children, returning when they were older on a part-time arrangement.
He’d known that she’d been homesick sometimes and had understood, agreeing that they should spend holidays and weekends with her parents whenever possible, but homesickness had never been the big issue that it was now.
It had been losing them and their house becoming hers that had made Francine want to go back home to live at the very time when there was nothing to go back for, or so he’d thought, but he hadn’t taken into account the property on the outskirts of Paris.
Heartbroken, it had been her only comfort when those who’d lived in it had been taken from her. In the end it had won the struggle for her affection and he’d thought despairingly that he must be the only man living whose marriage had been destroyed by a house. Not because of adultery, or incompatibility, but by an attractive detached dwelling near Paris.
The farmhouse had just come into sight in a blaze of light, and as Ethan pulled up on the drive Francine thought this was what Bluebell Cove was all about, friends and neighbours looking out for each other, a caring community in a coastal setting that had welcomed her into its midst as a young French bride all those years ago.
The wedding couple were just inside the hallway, waiting to greet their guests as they arrived, and when Jenna saw Francine she beamed across at her in welcoming warmth and exclaimed, ‘Francine, how lovely to see you!’
From Jenna’s new husband there was just a cool nod and she got the message. Lucas would have seen what she’d done to Ethan and crossed her off his ‘people I like’ list, and she was prepared to accept that on the premise that maybe he’d never been so homesick he couldn’t think straight.
During the evening people came up and said how nice it was to see her there. No one asked any questions, but it was there in their manner, an awkwardness that came from curiosity unsatisfied and a desire to cause no embarrassment for the respected head of the village practice.
There was one person it didn’t apply to, however—the woman who had done the job for many years previously that Ethan was doing now. ‘So you’ve come back to us,’ Barbara Balfour said unsmilingly when they came face to face, ‘and not before time. I’m glad to see that you’ve found some sense.’
‘I’m just visiting for Christmas, Dr. Balfour,’ she told her politely. ‘I live in Paris now.’
‘I see!’ was the cold reply. ‘And you’ve taken the children with you. Ethan doesn’t deserve any of it.’
He wasn’t around at that moment. Her husband was dancing with his daughter. Only Ben was with her and his mind was on other things as he observed the banquet that would shortly be available to everyone.
‘Jenna is a lovely bride. I’m sorry I missed the service this afternoon,’ she said smoothly, as if she hadn’t just been taken to task. ‘And now if you’ll excuse me…’ Moving away, she hurried towards the cloakroom before the tears she was holding back began to fall.
When the dance was over Ethan and Kirstie went to where Ben was standing still transfixed by the food and his father asked, ‘Where’s your mother, Ben?’
‘Er, I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘She was talking to Dr Balfour and then she went.’
‘Went where?’
‘I don’t know.’
It added up, Ethan thought grimly. Francine talking to sharp-tongued Barbara and then disappearing. She must have gone home.
‘I won’t be long,’ he told them both. ‘I’m going to find her.’
As he hurried out into the lamp-lit gardens his step faltered. She was standing beside an ornamental pool, looking down into it sombrely, and he sighed. Francine had been right, he thought. It would have been better if she hadn’t come.
If he’d been there when Barbara had accosted her he wouldn’t have allowed it, but he hadn’t been and where everyone else had been pleasant enough, that wasn’t her style.
‘Do you want to go home?’ he asked when he reached her side.
She shook her head, ‘No, Ethan. I’m sure I deserved to hear what Barbara had to say. You told me not to spoil the children’s Christmas and I won’t. I just came out to get a breath of air, that’s all. Let’s go back inside.’
For the rest of the evening she was how she used to be. Smiling and relaxed. Dancing with the children in turn and laughing when Ben said, ‘I don’t mind dancing with you, Maman, but I don’t want to do it with soppy girls.’
‘What about you and Kirstie dancing all the way to the headland?’ she teased. ‘You didn’t mind that, did you?’
‘No, not really, but Dad said I had to because he wanted to dance with Phoebe.’
‘Oh, I see.’ And she felt she did.
Phoebe Howard was a lovely, uncomplicated girl who, the story went, had been deserted by her partner when pregnant. It was understandable that she might be attracted to someone like Ethan, and that he should be attracted to her after what she’d done to him over the last few months.
Yet Phoebe wasn’t there tonight and it wouldn’t be because she hadn’t been asked. Surgery staff would have been invited because the bride worked there and the district nurse would be included, but as Phoebe would still be on maternity leave and didn’t live locally, maybe she didn’t want to spend too much time away from the baby.
On the other hand, it could be that the young single mother had seen her when she’d danced back to the square with Ethan and had gone because she’d observed that his wife had turned up.
It was time to leave, the wedding couple were starting their honeymoon in the morning and Ethan was having a last word with Lucas before they left regarding him being in charge of his property while they were away.
On their return his friend would be bringing Jenna to The Old Chart House next door to theirs, which Lucas had bought and refurbished when he’d come to live in the village.
When Ethan joined them and the four of them went to where he’d parked the car there was silence amongst them. Kirstie and Ben were tired because it had been a long and exciting day. Ethan was contemplating the misery of spending the night with Francine in the spare room, and she was envying the wedding couple for the freshness and simplicity of their love.
Theirs had been like that for a long time, hadn’t lost the magic, until Ethan had taken charge of the practice and been so keen to make a success of it that she’d thought a few times that she and the children came second, just as Jenna and her father had come second to it during Barbara Balbour’s reign.
She’d been twenty-eight and Ethan thirty years old when they’d had a fairy-tale wedding in a church in Paris, and now the precious thing that they’d had was dying because neither of them would give way to the other.
The children were in bed and after making sure they were settled with no televisions being switched on or mobile phones being used, Francine came downstairs to find Ethan making coffee in the kitchen.
‘Thanks,’ she said awkwardly as he passed hers to her. ‘I’ll take mine upstairs if you don’t mind.’
He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. I’ll be going to bed myself soon. It’s been a long day, but I want to get the turkey in the oven first so that it will be almost cooked by the time I get up.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she murmured, feeling like an outsider in her own home, though it wasn’t her home, was it? She’d forfeited the right to call it that when she’d gone to live in France.
With her foot on the bottom step of the stairs he was about to remind her of that fact by calling, ‘The clean sheets are where they always were, though not as immaculately laundered maybe.’
As she lay sleepless between the sheets that he’d described she heard voices and laughter outside the window. In the next moment the beautiful words of a well-known Christmas carol were being sung and tears threatened again.
It was as if the fates were reminding her of what she’d thrown away by bringing to her notice every aspect of the enchantment of Bluebell Cove at Christmas. So far there’d been the dancing through the village, a Christmas wedding and now the carol singers.
In the middle of the night she could smell the turkey cooking quite strongly and wondered if the oven setting was too high. On impulse she crept downstairs in her nightdress to check on it.
It was a mistake. When she opened the kitchen door Ethan was there, basting the turkey. She turned to make a swift exit but he’d seen her and asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Er, nothing,’ she said hurriedly, ‘I just thought that it might be cooking too quickly.’
‘I see,’ he said evenly. ‘Well, you can sleep easy as I’ve just turned the heat down, so go back to bed, Francine. Remember you’re visiting. I’m in charge.’
She turned and went back up the stairs with the message crystal clear that she had overstepped the mark by butting into their Christmas.
‘I’m in the way, aren’t I?’ she said the next morning while the children were opening their presents. ‘I’ll go as soon as there is a flight. There should be some on Boxing Day.’
‘I thought you came because you wanted to be with Kirstie and Ben over Christmas and New Year,’ he said levelly. ‘There is no rush as far as I’m concerned. Just don’t get any ideas about taking over now that you’re here. As I told you last night, I’m in charge. I’ve had to be whether I wanted to or not.’
As he watched the colour drain from her face he was ashamed for letting his hurt manifest itself so clearly. Whatever Francine did, he would never stop loving her. He’d been just as inflexible in what he saw as his priorities as she’d been in hers when their difference of opinions had started to take a stranglehold on their marriage, so at least he should be civil.
At that moment Ben came dashing in, carrying the sledge that had been one of his father’s presents to him. ‘It’s great, Dad!’ he said. ‘Can I go and try it out?’
‘Yes, take Kirstie with you?’ he told him. ‘She’ll want to have a try.’
‘Not now she won’t. She’s too excited by what Maman has brought for her.’
‘And what might that be?’ Ethan asked.
‘Fancy boots and a necklace.’ He turned to his mother, ‘The telescope is great, Maman.’
‘And so are both of you, my darlings,’ she said softly as he went chasing off to try the sledge.
At that moment Kirstie appeared, still in her pyjamas and wearing the boots and necklace. They smiled at the vision she presented and it was almost like old times for a moment.
Francine had come down to breakfast in a robe and slippers, not wanting to miss the children opening their presents, and now, with the memory of having been made to feel surplus and in the way, she went back upstairs to get showered and changed.
It was a strange sort of day, alternating between happy moments with the children and long silences when Ethan and she were alone. She’d noted that the turkey was cooked to perfection and wished she’d not interfered the previous night, and in keeping with her general feeling of being in the way broke the silence between them at one point to ask, ‘Have you invited anyone round for Christmas dinner?’
‘Such as?’ he asked with dark brows rising.
‘Er, Phoebe and her baby perhaps?’
‘Phoebe Howard. Why would I do that? She does have family to be with, you know.’
‘She was your partner when everyone was dancing through the village.’
‘So? I had to find someone, and as she’s been to see me at the surgery with depression a few times I thought it might cheer her up if I asked her to join me.’
‘Ah! That is what Ben must have meant when he said you made him dance with Kirstie because you wanted to partner Phoebe.’
She saw his jaw line tighten and when he spoke again his voice was even colder than it had been in the kitchen in the middle of the night. ‘Do you honestly think I would consider replacing you after so short a time?’ he said. ‘I valued our marriage more than anything on earth—you were the one to cast it aside like an old shoe.’
‘Surely you see there was more to it than that, Ethan,’ she reminded him in a low voice. ‘Our differences of opinion were too big to ignore, and now that I’m here will you please let me help with whatever has to be done instead of shutting me out.’
‘All right.’ he agreed sombrely. ‘We’re both of the opinion that we don’t want to spoil the children’s Christmas so maybe it is best that you do help out.’
‘Thanks for that, and I’m sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusions about you and Phoebe. It was just that I thought you deserved someone special to fill the gap I’ve left and that she might be it.’
He didn’t reply. If he had done he would have told her that the gap she referred to would never be filled…that he didn’t want patronising. He knew what he deserved and it was her, back in his life where she belonged. But it was too late for that. The marriage would soon be over. The solicitor’s letter amongst the Christmas mail had confirmed that the divorce proceedings were progressing satisfactorily.
When she came downstairs later she was holding a gift-wrapped parcel and offering it to him said, ‘I didn’t want to give you this earlier as I was concerned that the children’s excitement might be spoiled if you refused to accept it.’
‘But it’s all right if I refuse it now, is it?’ he enquired quizzically.
‘I’d rather you didn’t, but it’s up to you,’ she said, and went back upstairs with the feeling that she’d made things worse again.
Yet there was light in the darkness. Shortly afterwards he came up after her, wearing the cashmere sweater she’d bought for him in Paris and been doubtful she would ever see him in it, and announced, ‘If you look in the top drawer of the dressing table in the master bedroom you’ll find a belated birthday gift and something for Christmas that have been waiting for you to show up, so that you might receive them in a less impersonal way than in the mail.’
‘And you can’t be bothered to give them to me personally?’ she asked as a lump came up in her throat.
‘Why, Francine? Would you want me to?’ he asked gravely, and thought he was punishing her again because even in the present circumstances to have her beside him in the flesh was bringing joy to his soul.
‘Yes, so either that or leave them where they are,’ she replied, and went to gaze out of the bedroom window.
When she turned she could hear him going back downstairs and when next she saw him he had his cook’s apron over the sweater and was preparing to serve soup and a sandwich for lunch to appease their appetites until the main meal in the evening.
Chapter Two
FRANCINE was whisking the cream to go on top of the dessert she’d made for the Christmas meal and keeping an eye on the vegetables at the same time when Ethan announced, ‘I’ve invited my parents for New Years Day. They’ve always come before and I don’t see any reason to alter the arrangement. When I made it I didn’t know you would be here.’
‘Fine by me,’ she told him with a sinking feeling inside. ‘It will be nice to see them.’
‘Yes, my mother maybe, but as you already know, my dad is a man who doesn’t mince words.’
‘I’ll go out for the day,’ she offered hastily.
He was frowning, ‘The children won’t want that.’
‘They won’t even notice. They’ll still be engrossed with what they’ve had for Christmas.’
‘Nevertheless I don’t see why you shouldn’t be there. Mum and Dad might feel hurt if you can’t be bothered to spend some time with them. After all, they are not to blame for this situation.’
‘And I am?’
‘We both are,’ he said grimly, ‘but it’s past. We’ve made our beds and must lie on them. To get back to what I was saying, it would do you no harm to see them. You’ve known them long enough. If Dad gets out of hand about the divorce, I’ll deal with him.’
He was asking her to be polite to his parents, Francine thought wretchedly, polite to the kind mother-in-law that she loved. Jean Lomax had only moved from northern England to the south when she’d married his father, but had known what homesickness was and had understood how much she’d wanted to live in Paris in the house that was the only thing she had left of her parents.
She’d been sympathetic and supportive, but she loved her son and had accepted that he had to support his family and keep to the promise he’d made when he’d taken over the practice. Like someone on the rack, Ethan had been pulled both ways and she knew that he had stood his ground with an aching heart,
Her father-in-law, more volatile than his wife, had been furious with the French daughter-in-law that he’d always adored, and made no bones about it. The thought of coming face to face with him again made a chill run down her spine, but she would cope somehow for Ethan’s sake.
‘All right, if that is what you want.’ she replied, wishing herself miles away. With tears threatening, she told him thickly, ‘I’m taking the children back to France the moment New Year is over. I should never have come. It was stupid of me to think it could be civil between us, and as I’m already here it will save you having to bring them back the following weekend.’
He’d been putting crackers on the table while she’d been busy at the stove and knowing she was close to tears was gripping the back of a chair to stop himself from going to her and taking her in his arms. What would it achieve if he did? It was all too late, he told himself as he’d already done countless times before.
Their marriage was on the slippery slope, had been for months because he’d made a commitment that he’d felt he was not in a position to back out of, and Francine, who was usually most understanding and logically minded, hadn’t been prepared to back him up on it.
When the four of them were seated around the table for what Francine was expecting to be a travesty of a Christmas dinner, Ethan produced the gifts that he’d told her about earlier, and with Kirstie and Ben watching intently she unwrapped them slowly.
The belated birthday present was a book that she’d once said she would like and she thought how achingly different it was from the lingerie that he usually chose with care.
There was an unwritten, unspoken message in the gift he’d given her and she understood it all too well. It was the same with the Christmas present, an exquisite gold bracelet decorated by a jeweller with tiny shells that he’d gathered from the beach. It was another reminder of what she was missing, she thought, beautiful Bluebell Cove with its golden sands and breathtaking countryside—and him.
‘Thank you Ethan,’ she said in a low voice and when Kirstie insisted on her wearing the bracelet she slid it
carefully on to her wrist.
That night, sleepless once more in the spare room, Francine’s mind was going over the day just gone and the strange mixture of it. The children’s pleasure had been the highlight, and the giving and accepting of gifts between Ethan and herself bizarre and hurtful when she thought of how it had once been. Yet she was still wearing the bracelet, couldn’t bear to take it off.
New Year’s Day was going to be strange too with the visit of Jean and Lawrence Lomax planned. At the beginning of the marriage break-up Ethan’s father had told her angrily that a wife’s place was with her husband and if this was where he earned his living it was where she should be prepared to stay.
The dread of meeting him again was still with her, but he was the last person she was going allow to tune into the state of panic-stricken indecision in which she was floundering.
In the meantime there was a week’s grace before she had to face them. She was going to keep a low profile where Ethan was concerned, spending all her time with the children or on her own. The feeling of panic was still with her, the choking sensation every time she thought of the years ahead without him.
If she were to tell him that she’d changed her mind and was going to forget about the house in Paris, would it make any difference? she wondered. The scars on their relationship were not going to heal overnight, if ever.
When she discovered that the children had been invited to the home of one of their friends for Boxing Day she decided to spend the time they were absent walking along the coast road and stopping off for lunch somewhere.
As soon as they’d left she went to get ready and came down within minutes dressed in a warm jacket, jeans and her boots. Ethan was reading a medical journal in the sitting room when she appeared and asked, ‘Where are you off to? There’s still a lot of snow around after the heavy fall on Christmas Eve.’
‘I’m going to walk along the coast road and will eat out at lunchtime.’
He nodded and went back to his reading. There had been a time when he would have been beside her, she thought, happy that they were spending some time alone together, but not now. He was probably feeling relieved that she was going to be out of his orbit for a while as her role in his life had changed from cherished wife to intruder.
Outside there was a cold wind that stung her cheeks and the snow that had been there on the day of her arrival in Bluebell Cove still lay thick and crisp beneath her feet. Down below she could see the beach and the cold blue expanse of the Atlantic surging in once more.
In past summers when Ethan had finished at the surgery they’d spent lots of time down there, with the children fishing in rock pools and playing in the sand, and all of them swimming when the sea wasn’t too rough.
It was far too cold for that sort of thing now, but she hoped he would still take Ben and Kirstie down there when they came to stay with him in the spring. The beach and the sea were two of the delights of Bluebell Cove, as was the enchanting village surrounded by the rolling green fields of the Devonshire countryside.
If she were to put all that on to one side of the scales of life, and on the other side place living in a house she owned on the outskirts of one of the most famous cities in the world and the place where she’d spent her childhood, but had sacrificed her life with Ethan because of it, which way would they tip? she wondered.
The wind continued to bite. She pulled her jacket more closely around her. What was the point of thinking those sorts of thoughts? She’d made her choice and her life was a mess.
It was going dark in the cold winter afternoon and Ethan kept looking at the clock. Where was she? he wondered, the pale and drawn-looking stranger who not so long ago had been happy to live with him here, and now incredibly was back as a visitor, sleeping in the spare room instead of next to him in the double bed they’d shared.
But, he thought bleakly, he wasn’t there to watch over her in Paris, so why get all steamed up because Francine was late from a walk that they’d done countless times before? Yet he couldn’t help himself.
When their marriage had started to collapse she’d been immovable in her desire to live in France and in the end he’d given up on her and after being stunned by her request for a divorce had agreed.
But she was different now, he thought, lost and vulnerable, but not so much that she hadn’t been quick to remind him when he’d seen her in the square on Christmas Eve and joy bells had rung in his heart that she was only over on a visit to see the children.
He was going to have to keep a tight hold on his emotions because she’d been the one who’d wanted to end it, not him, and the pain of knowing she didn’t love him enough to stay with him was unbearable.
He’d gone upstairs to find the sheepskin coat that he wore in this kind of weather, having decided that make of it what she would he had to check that no harm had befallen her, when through the bedroom window he saw her coming up the drive and hung the coat back in the wardrobe.
She was blue with cold and he thought it could only have been a desire to get away from him that had driven her out into the wintry weather for so long. What a fiasco Christmas was turning out to be, both of them wary as warring armies with undercurrents all the time instead of straight talking.
When he went downstairs she was in the hall, taking off her boots and jacket, and he said, ‘Go and sit by the fire. I’ll make you a hot drink.’
She was opening her mouth to refuse, he could tell. ‘Just do as I say, Francine,’ he said, and she obeyed meekly.
He left her slowly sipping a hot toddy and went into his study, deciding that she didn’t have to worry about him crowding her. It was the last thing he had in mind. He’d been dreading spending Christmas without her and now that she was here he didn’t know which was worse—having no communication at all or the stiff dialogue that was all they were left with.
Everything had always been clear and uncomplicated between them. They’d been in tune in every way, including fantastic sexual chemistry, until Francine had inherited the house in Paris and her overwhelming homesickness had shattered what they’d had.
The children had just been dropped off. Tired and happy, they were full of the day they’d spent with their friends. As they were about to go up to bed Ben said, ‘Maman, we want to stay here where all our friends are.’
‘Yes,’ Kirstie agreed. ‘We like it in France, but we have no friends there.’
Ethan watched the colour drain from Francine’s face and thought that the children were quite unaware that they’d just dealt their mother a body blow. How would she react?
She’d been warm and drowsy after the cold walk, curled up in a big chair in front of the fire, but what they’d said brought her wide awake. As she was about to speak he motioned for her be silent, and ushering the children towards the stairs told them gently, ‘It’s late. Let’s talk about it in the morning. Your mother has been for a long walk and is tired.’
He went up with them and waited until they were settled, and all the time he was thinking that he should be rejoicing at what they’d said. Francine wouldn’t take Ben and Kirstie back to France if they didn’t want to go. She wouldn’t see her children unhappy, but neither would she be able to exist without them if they weren’t under her wing. They would visit her, of course, like they did him, but he would have the most control over the situation, their roles would be reversed.
‘I’m getting what I deserve, aren’t I?’ she asked in a low voice when he went back downstairs. ‘I put my own needs before those of you and the children and am going to pay the price.’
There was no triumph in him, just sadness as he said, ‘You’ll find that Ben and Kirstie will have forgotten all about what they said in the morning. It was because they were on a high after spending the day with their friends.’
‘You must hate me, Ethan.’
‘Why would I do that? I’ve never had to live in a foreign land like you did, so I can’t pass judgement on that, but I’ve learned one thing and it is that no marriage is a rock. I thought that ours was and it proved to be on shifting sands. I won’t ever get married again, Francine.’ And with that announcement for her to mull over, he went to make them a late supper.
Ethan had been right, Francine thought the next morning as the four of them sat down to breakfast. There was no repeat of the comments of the night before and the children went off sledging on a snow-covered slope nearby the moment they’d finished eating, but as far as she was concerned the words had been said and she couldn’t ignore them.
It was the first time she’d heard anything of that nature, which could mean that the novelty of living in France was wearing off, and if that was the case, what was she going to do? She was feeling guilty enough already for what she’d done to Ethan. She didn’t want to spoil their lives too.
They knew that things were not good between their parents and that the separation was going to continue, but she and Ethan hadn’t explained about the impending divorce as yet. They’d been more concerned with showing them how much they loved them. Yet the day would have to come and she thought achingly that if only he hadn’t called her bluff when she’d taken them to live in France with her and had followed them, instead of letting it happen.
He was seated across from her at the dining table, waiting for any comments she might have, and she didn’t disappoint him.
‘Are you upset that the children didn’t pursue their request from last night?’ she asked.
‘Why? Should I be?’ he asked abruptly. He got to his feet, ‘I’m due back at the surgery this morning so I’ll see you whenever.’
It was like any day after a public holiday at The Tides Practice he thought as the morning progressed, made up of the regulars and people who had succumbed to various ills over the Christmas period.
The two nurses were being kept fully occupied as their third member, Jenna, the bride of Christmas Eve, was on her honeymoon. Lucy Watson, the elder of the two, had been a nurse at the surgery all her working life, and young Maria, a trainee, was the eldest daughter of one of the lifeguards down on the beach.
Leo Fenchurch, the new addition to the practice, wasn’t his usual bright and breezy self and Ethan wondered if it was because he had been partaking too much of the wine during the festive occasion, but that surmise proved to be far from right when the two doctors stopped for a quick bite at lunchtime.
It seemed that Leo’s lack of joviality was connected with something more serious than too much celebrating. His mother, who lived alone, was gravely ill and after a phone call on Christmas morning he’d been to Manchester and back in the last two days to be with her and to sort out a programme of care.
‘What’s the problem?’ Ethan asked.
‘Emphysema,’ was the reply. ‘Mum is only in her early sixties, but she might as well be ninety the way it’s restricting her life. I shall go each weekend to check on her and do what I can, but will make sure I’m back first thing every Monday,’ he promised. ‘I haven’t been here very long and don’t want to mess you about, Ethan.’
‘Look, Leo,’ Ethan said. ‘Do what you have to do for your mother—we’ll cope at this end. How does the saying go? Charity begins at home.’
As he went back to his consulting room to prepare for the afternoon surgery and to make a call to Hunters Hill Hospital for an urgent appointment for a patient, Ethan thought he was the wrong one to be quoting that particular pearl of wisdom. There hadn’t been much ‘charity’ over recent months in his home. Plenty of aggravation, but no charity.
The children had returned ravenous after sledging all morning and as Francine made them a hot lunch she put to them the question that she’d been debating all the time they’d been absent. It was asking for problems if she was going to risk a repeat of their disturbing comments of the night before, she’d kept telling herself, but she had to know for certain if they were unhappy away from Bluebell Cove.
Ethan had been right in his assumption that they wouldn’t mention it again.
So far they hadn’t, but she couldn’t face living on a knife edge, waiting to see if they would say the same thing again at some future time, how they felt about what was going on in their lives, as both of them were aware that a permanent split between their parents might happen one day.
It hadn’t been Kirstie and Ben who’d acted totally out of character because they’d been overcome by homesickness, she thought, and if it had been, it would have been this place they were pining for, not the Paris house.
Ben gave her a chance to introduce the subject by saying, ‘Grandma and Grandad are coming on New Year’s Day.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she told him, smiling across at her son, who had the same kind of dark thatch as his father and the bright blue gaze, while Kirstie had skipped a generation and inherited Francine’s mother’s fair colouring. ‘They’ll be longing to see you both, but we are going back to France the morning after New Year’s Day. OK?’
There was silence and she hoped it was because they were both tucking in to the food she’d just put in front of them, but it was not to be.
‘We don’t want to go,’ Kirstie said apologetically, almost as if she understood how much it was going to upset her, and Ben, with his head bent over his meal, mumbled his agreement.
‘Supposing I said you had to come with me? That you couldn’t please yourselves. What would you do then?’
There was no reply forthcoming and she went into the kitchen and stood gripping the edge of the worktop until her knuckles shone white. Kirstie came to stand beside her and said awkwardly, ‘We could still go to Paris for our holidays, Mum.’ To Ben, who had sidled in behind her, she added, ‘We would like that, wouldn’t we, Ben?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, as long as Dad is there too.’
‘So it’s all right if I go back without you, is it?’ Francine asked, and was rewarded by consternation on both their parts.
‘No! We want you to stay with us. Don’t go back to Paris,’ Ben begged.
‘Why didn’t you tell me before that you weren’t happy there?’
‘Well, we were at first. It was exciting, different, it was like being on holiday, but Bluebell Cove is where we want to live.’
Francine thought wretchedly that to a lesser degree than her own the children she adored had been made to feel homesick to satisfy her own longing. There was no way she could continue to inflict that on them, so what was the answer?
Go back to France alone? She couldn’t bear the thought of it. But if she didn’t do that, it would be a case of returning to Bluebell Cove defeated by her own shortsightedness, and Ethan wasn’t going to welcome her back with open arms, was he? She’d felt like an intruder from the moment of arriving.
Two pairs of eyes were watching her anxiously and she managed a smile.
‘All right,’ she said comfortingly. ‘I’ll think about what you’ve said and see what I can do, but why didn’t you tell me this before?’
Ben didn’t reply, he just stood looking down at the floor, but Kirstie had an answer for her. ‘Because you kept crying all the time, Maman, that’s why.’
They were off sledging again once their stomachs were no longer empty, with a strict warning to be back before it was dark. The moment they’d gone Francine put on her outdoor clothes and went into the centre of the village with a heavy heart, passing the surgery on her way and wondering what Ethan was going to say when he knew that she’d coaxed the truth out of the children.
He would have to be pleased, it went without saying. Only she was devastated by what Kirstie and Ben had said.
When she went into the estate agent’s the face behind the counter wasn’t that of anyone she knew, for which she was thankful. The doctor’s wife enquiring about rental property in Bluebell Cove when from all accounts she’d moved to France would have caused raised eyebrows, though no doubt it would soon get around no matter who attended her behind the mullioned windows that looked out onto the busy main street.
‘Do you have any properties for rent?’ she asked a smartly dressed young assistant.
‘If you’d asked that in summer, the answer would have been no,’ she was told, ‘but at this time of year we do have a few. Top of the list is thatched Thimble Cottage, detached, fully furnished, with three bedrooms, bathroom with shower, sitting room, dining room and kitchen. All beautifully set out to match the age of the property. It is centrally situated next to the church. Are you familiar with the village at all?’
‘Yes,’ she said flatly.
‘Thimble Cottage is available for twelve months. I’m not sure about afterwards,’ she was told. ‘Would you like to view it? I can take you now if you like.’
‘Yes, that would be fine,’ she agreed. ‘If I am interested, I would want to move in immediately.’
The young assistant nodded. ‘That would be no problem. Shall we go? I’ll lock up here for a while.’
Francine had seen Thimble Cottage many times over the years but had never been inside, and when she did her first thought was that the estate agent hadn’t been wrong in the way she’d described it. It was a very attractive property and might go some way towards lifting the gloom that had descended on her after talking to the children.
‘This will suit me perfectly,’ she said. ‘I’d like to rent it for the twelve months it is available, so can we go back to your office and get it sorted?’
When the children came up the drive they were smiling and rosy cheeked from their exertions, but when she opened the door to them the uncertainty was there again in their expressions and any doubts she might have had about what she was intending disappeared.
But it was not yet the moment to tell them. Ethan had to be told first and though she was expecting him to be pleased that she’d had to give up some of her original ideas, she wasn’t sure if he would be happy to have her back in the village, complicating their lives even more by living across the way from him.
When he came in it was half past six and she asked, ‘How was your day?’
‘Long and busy,’ he said evenly, and went upstairs to change.
The children had already eaten. They’d been too hungry to wait and so it was just the two of them sitting down to the food she’d cooked.
When the meal was over and he was relaxing by the fire, she said tentatively, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘I hope it isn’t that you’re planning to take the children back to France before New Year,’ he said immediately, ‘because I won’t allow it. Mum and Dad will be bitterly disappointed if they’re not here when they arrive.’
‘Do you honestly think I would do that, knowing that they are coming?’ she choked out.
His expression was bleak. Returning from a busy day at the surgery and finding her there would have been wonderful if the circumstances had been different. As it was, it had been bitter-sweet and he told her levelly, ‘I didn’t honestly think that you would ask for a divorce, Francine, but you did, so don’t blame me for being concerned about what you might spring on me next.’
‘What I have to tell you is the exact opposite to what you were thinking,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’m not taking them back to France at all, except maybe for the occasional holiday. Are you pleased?’
He was observing her in jaw-dropping amazement.
‘I might be if I knew why you’ve come to that decision, and then again, I might not. So what is going on, Francine? Is it because of what they said last night? Have they been on about it again?’
She shook her head, ‘No, not exactly. I asked them outright if it was true and they said it was. They want to stay here—and want me to stay here too.’
‘I see,’ he said slowly, ‘and what did you say to that?’
‘I didn’t say anything. Instead, I went out and did something. I’ve rented Thimble Cottage for twelve months and am going to live there with the children during the week, which is your busiest time, and will fly to Paris every weekend when they can stay with you. That way we will all be happy. Kirstie and Ben will be where they want to be, you will see a lot more of them. And I—’
‘You will be sacrificing your dream for their sakes and mine.’
‘I’ll still have some of it if I go to France every weekend.’
‘You could have done that in the first place Francine.’
Ignoring the comment, she begged, ‘Just tell me that what I’ve done is all right.’
‘Yes, I suppose so, except for one thing. Why rent the cottage? What is wrong with living here during the week before you go jetting off to Paris?’
She shook her head. ‘It will be easier for us all, doing what I suggest.’ She glanced towards the sitting room where Kirstie and Ben were watching television. ‘So shall we tell the children and put their minds at rest? They were both reluctant to repeat what they said last night, but wanted me to know that it was how they felt.’
‘Yes, all right,’ he agreed, ‘just as long as you are sure you want to do this.’
‘It was the only solution I could think of.’
‘Mmm. I suppose so,’ he said dryly, and thought there was another one that she obviously wasn’t going to consider. She could come back to him and tell him that it had all been a mistake.
But he knew that wasn’t how she felt and he wasn’t sure how he felt either. She’d been his love, the light of his life, and he’d lost her. Not to another man, but to a country and a house.
The children were slow to show their delight at the new arrangements until Francine held them close and told them that she was looking forward to living in Thimble Cottage, but would be going to Paris every weekend.
‘So, you see, the three of us will live in the cottage during the week, and when I’m away at the weekends you will stay here with Dad,’ she explained. Ben gave a whoop of delight, but Kirstie’s expression was still anxious.
‘We did like living in France, Maman,’ she said guiltily. ‘It was just as nice as here. What we didn’t like was Dad not being there with us, and you not with us when we’re here in Bluebell Cove. That’s what was wrong.’ A smile broke through. ‘But what you’ve arranged will be super because we’ll be near you both, and when you go over there at weekends we’ll know that it isn’t for long. So when can we go to see the cottage?’
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Abigail Gordon
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Christmas In Bluebell Cove, электронная книга автора Abigail Gordon на английском языке, в жанре современные любовные романы