His Christmas Bride-To-Be
His Christmas Bride-To-Be
Abigail Gordon
Wedding bells at Christmas?When Dr Emma Chalmers returns to her home town she doesn’t expect to fall head over heels for handsome new partner Dr Glenn Bartlett! He’s everything she’s ever dreamed of in a man…Glenn never expects to find love again after losing his beloved wife. But when Emma tumbles into his life at Christmas she shows him how to live and fills him with hope for the future. But first he has one very important question he needs to ask!
Praise for Abigail Gordon (#ulink_f6fcb568-78f6-56ed-a37a-3300fa258428)
‘From the first turbulent beginning until the final climactic ending, an entire range of emotions has been used to write a story of two people travelling the rocky road to love … an excellent story. I would recommend this story to all romance readers.’
—RT Book Reviews on Spring Proposal in Swallowbrook
Glenn’s spirits rose as he caught his first glimpse of Emma, coming out of the cloakroom having dispensed with her warm winter coat.
How could he not want her? Emma was special—dark-haired, with smooth creamy skin, curves in all the right places—and tonight she was bewitching, in a black dress with silver trimmings.
So why couldn’t he tell her he was sorry about what he’d said on the way home from being stuck in the snow? Why couldn’t he give them both a chance to get to know one another better?
Dear Reader (#ulink_d2ee19d7-d98b-5b17-8ab2-4525f006306d),
We are in Glenminster again, surrounded by the green hills of Gloucestershire. His Christmas Bride-to-Be is my second book in this series, in which I hope you will enjoy making the acquaintance of Glenn and Emma.
Both have known heartbreak, and both discover that love is waiting to bring joy back into their lives—as it so often does.
With best wishes for happy reading,
Abigail Gordon
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 close-knit 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.
His Christmas Bride-to-Be
Abigail Gordon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Glenn, Emma, and healthcare in all its many forms
Table of Contents
Cover (#u5d95df95-b625-5924-9898-b11eb544a68b)
Praise for Abigail Gordon (#ulink_e41d35d4-d43a-516c-a809-9e5d4158e22a)
Excerpt (#u629d673d-4ff1-5e0b-8448-561e6810ae4b)
Dear Reader (#u59716fb1-ef23-5d41-84b4-712e9453f6a3)
About the Author (#u6ed13274-5149-56f9-aaa4-2c67c926005e)
Title Page (#uee19cc45-06ef-5803-9df8-da2152bd6195)
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_309162ef-05ff-550f-a3df-9c04fbc80502)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_421c4928-6f04-573b-b53f-c7a6fab82b19)
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)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_9da83eec-a1cc-577e-aa65-a4ac91a9d359)
THE TAXI THAT had brought her from the airport had gone, and surrounded by the baggage that contained her belongings Emma took a deep breath and looked around her.
When she’d been driven through the town centre it had been as if nothing had changed while she’d been gone for what seemed like a lifetime. The green hills of Gloucestershire still surrounded the place where she’d been born and had never imagined leaving. Everywhere the elegant Regency properties that Glenminster was renowned for still stood in gracious splendour to delight the eye, while, busy as always, the promenades and restaurants had shown that they still attracted the shoppers and the gourmets to the extent that they always had.
All that she had to do now was turn the key in the lock, open the door and step inside the property that had been her home for as long as she could remember, and of which she was now the sole owner. The act of doing so was not going to be easy. It felt like only yesterday that she had fled in the night, heartbroken and bewildered from what she’d been told, as if the years she’d spent in a land far away had never happened.
During all that time there had been no communication between herself and the man she’d always thought was her father, and now he was gone. Since receiving the news that he had died, all the hurts of long ago had come back. What he had done to her had been cruel. He’d taken away her identity; made her feel like a nobody. Turned the life she’d been living happily enough for twenty-plus years into nothingness.
He had been a moderate parent, never very affectionate, and she’d sometimes wondered why. He’d provided the answer to that by telling her on the night she’d left Glenminster in a state of total hurt and disbelief that he wasn’t her father, that he’d married her mother to give her the respectability of having a husband and a father for her child when it was born as the result of an affair that was over.
Emma had directed the taxi driver to take her to lawyers in the town centre where the keys for the house had been held in waiting for when she made an appearance. Once she had received them she had been asked to call the following day to discuss the details of Jeremy Chalmers’s will.
She’d been informed previously that he’d left her the house, or she wouldn’t have intended going straight there on her return. She was uncertain if she would be able to live in it for any length of time after her father had disowned her that night long ago in such a cruel manner, but it would be somewhere to stay in the beginning while she slotted herself back into life in Glenminster.
Back in the taxi once more, having been given the house keys, she’d given the driver the directions for the last lap of her journey back to her roots and had thought grimly that it was some homecoming.
Gazing down at the keys, the memory was starkly clear of how she’d packed her cases and left the place that was dear to her heart that same night, intending to start a new life to replace the one that Jeremy Chalmers had shattered and made to sound unclean.
Her only thought as she’d driven out of the town that lay at the foot of the Gloucestershire hills had been to go where she could use her medical skills to benefit the sick and suffering of somewhere like Africa and start a new life as far away as she could get.
Until then they had been contained in the role of a junior doctor in a large practice in the place where she had been happy and content, but that night the urge to leave Glenminster had been overwhelming.
The last thing Emma had done before departing had been to drop a note off at the home of Lydia Forrester, the practice manager, to explain that she was about to do something she’d always wanted to do, work in Africa for one of the medical agencies, and that had been it without further explanation.
Time spent out there had been a lot of things, fulfilling, enlightening, exhausting and lonely. If she stayed and went back to work in the practice that she’d known so well in the busy town centre, would the memory of that night come crowding back, she asked herself, or would it be like balm to her soul to be back where she belonged and lonely no more?
Yet was that likely to be the case in the house where it had happened and which was just a short distance from the surgery where her stepfather had been senior doctor?
Emma had joined the staff there as soon as she’d got her degree in medicine and had been carefree and happy until that awful day. The job had absorbed her working hours and mixing happily with her own age group in her free time had made up for the atmosphere at home, where there had just been Jeremy Chalmers and herself, living in separate vacuums most of the time.
She’d lost her gentle, caring mother too soon and had been left with only him as family—a bridge-playing golf fanatic in his free time, and at the surgery a popular GP with an eye for the opposite sex. He had proved how much on the night when he’d told her that she was going to have to move out, find herself somewhere to stay, as he was getting married again and his new wife wouldn’t want her around.
‘Fine,’ she’d told him, quite happy to find a place of her own to settle in, but the way he’d said so uncaringly that he was going to replace her mother and that she was in the way had rankled and she’d said, ‘I am your daughter, you know!’
He’d been to the golf club and had told her thickly, ‘That is where you’re wrong. I married your mother to give her respectability and you a father figure. You’re not mine.’
‘What?’ she’d cried in disbelief. ‘I don’t believe you?’
‘You have to. You’ve no choice,’ he’d said, and added, turning the knife even more as he’d begun to climb the stairs, ‘She never told me who your father was, so you can’t go running to him.’
As the door swung back on its hinges at last, reality took over from the pain-filled past. Nothing had changed, Emma thought as she went from room to room. There had been no modernisation of any kind.
The new bride must have been easy to please. So where was she now that her father had died from a heart attack on the golf course? It was all very strange. Had the widow moved out at the thought of a new owner appearing?
It would be time to be concerned about that when she’d spoken to the person who had taken over the running of the practice after her father’s death. The absence of the new woman who had been in his life could be shelved until she, Emma, had been brought up to date with the present situation there.
But first, before anything else, there was the matter of arranging a suitable farewell for the man she’d thought, for most of her life, was her father. Jeremy had been well known in the town and there would be many wanting to show their respects.
The first she had heard about his death had been a month after the event, when the organisation she was working for had contacted her in a remote region of Africa to inform her of it and had explained that back in the UK her presence was required to organise the funeral as she was his only heir and would need to be the executor of his will.
It was a chilly afternoon, winter was about to take over from a mellow autumn, and having become accustomed to tropical heat Emma was grateful to discover that it was warm inside the house with the old-fashioned radiators giving out welcome heat.
Once her unpacking was finished hunger began to gnaw at her and when she looked in the refrigerator she found it was stocked with the kind of food that had become just a memory while working in the heat and dust of Africa.
It was a comforting moment. Someone had been incredibly thoughtful and had pre-empted her needs on arriving back home in such sad and gloomy circumstances, yet who had it been? There had been no evidence of anyone living there as she’d unpacked her clothes.
It was a Friday, and once she’d been to the law firm the following morning the weekend was going to be a long and empty affair until she’d got her bearings. With that thought in mind she wrapped up warmly, which wasn’t the easiest of things to do as all her clothes were for a hotter climate, and decided to walk the short distance to the practice in the town centre before it closed to see if there was anyone left on the staff that she knew.
The darkness of a winter night was all around Emma by the time she got there and the surgery was closed with just an illuminated notice board by the doorway to inform the public what the opening hours were and what numbers to ring in an emergency.
As she turned away, about to retrace her steps, a car door slammed shut nearby and in the light of a streetlamp and the glare coming from the windows of a couple of shops that were still open she saw a man in a dark overcoat with keys in his hand walking towards the practice door with long strides.
On seeing her, he stopped and said briskly, ‘The surgery is closed, as you can see. It will be open again at eight-thirty tomorrow morning and will close at twelve, it being Saturday. So can I help you at all?’
‘Er, no, thank you, I’m fine,’ she told him, taken aback by his manner and sudden appearance.
‘Good. I haven’t a lot of time to spare,’ he explained. ‘I just came back to pick up some paperwork, and after that have to be ready at any time to welcome back the prodigal daughter of our late head of the practice, which is a bind as I have a meal to organise when I get in.’
Emma was observing him wide-eyed. He was no one she recognised from the time when she’d been on the staff there and she thought he was in for a surprise.
‘I have no idea who you are,’ she told him, ‘but obviously you’re connected with the practice, so maybe I can save you one of the chores that you’ve just described. My name is Emma Chalmers. Does it ring a bell? I’ve returned to Glenminster to take possession of the property that my … er … father has left me and to find occupation as a doctor should I decide to stay.’
As he observed her, slack-jawed with surprise, she turned and began to walk back the way she’d come.
It was nine o’clock when the doorbell rang and Emma went to open the door cautiously because her knowledge of neighbours or local people was scant after her absence, so she slipped the safety chain into position before fully opening the door to her caller.
It was him again, the bossy man in the overcoat, on the doorstep and as she surveyed him blankly he said, ‘You will guess why I’m here, I suppose.’ She shook her head.
‘I’ve come to say sorry for being such a pain when we met earlier. My only excuse is that I have my father living with me and he likes his meals on the dot as eating is one of his great pleasures in life.’
‘Er, yes, I see,’ she said, ‘but why were you, as a stranger, going to be the one who welcomed me back? Surely there is someone still there who remembers me?’
‘Possibly, but I am filling the slot that your father left and so was chosen to do the honours. Everyone will be pleased to see you again, I’m sure.’
‘Hmm, maybe,’ she commented doubtfully, with the thought in mind that there was still the matter of the missing wife to be sorted.
‘We had a message from Jeremy’s lawyers a couple of days ago,’ he explained, ‘to say that you would be arriving tomorrow, so back there when we met it didn’t occur to me that you might be already here and installed in this place … which isn’t very palatial, is it?’
Emma ignored the comment and said, ‘I was fortunate when I arrived to find that the kind person with amazing foresight who had switched on the heating had also filled the refrigerator, as I was both cold and hungry after the journey and the change of climate.’
He was smiling. ‘Lucky you, then.’ Seeing her amazing tan, he asked, ‘How was Africa? I’m told that is where you’ve been. I’m behind on practice gossip as I’ve only taken over as head of the place since your father died.’
‘It was hot, hard work, and amazing,’ she said, and couldn’t believe she would be sleeping in the house that she had never wanted to see again after the night when Jeremy had removed the scales from her eyes in such a brutal manner.
Her unexpected visitor was turning to go and said, ‘I must make tracks.’ Reaching out, he shook her hand briefly and said, ‘The name is Glenn Bartlett.’
Taken aback by the gesture, Emma said, ‘Where do you live?’
‘In a converted barn on the edge of the town.’
‘Sounds nice.’
‘Yes, I suppose you could say that,’ he replied without much enthusiasm, and wishing her goodbye he went.
Driving home in the dark winter night, Glenn Bartlett thought that Emma Chalmers was nothing like her father if the big photograph on the practice wall was anything to go by. Maybe she’d inherited her dark hair and hazel eyes from her mother, although did it really matter?
He was cringing at the way he’d called her the ‘prodigal daughter’ as he knew absolutely nothing about her except that she was Jeremy Chalmers’s only relative, from the sound of things, and his moaning about how busy he was must have sounded pathetic. Would Emma Chalmers have wanted to hear the gripes of a complete stranger?
Yet they were true. Unbelievably, he’d made time that morning to switch the heating on for her, do a dash to the supermarket to fill the empty fridge in the house that she was coming to live in, and put a slow casserole in his oven for his and his father’s evening meal.
Back where he had left her, Emma had found some clean bedding in one of the drawers and was making up the bed that had been hers for as long as she could remember, while at the same time remembering word for word what the stranger who had knocked on her door had said.
It would seem that, apart from the father that he’d mentioned, there was no other immediate family in his life, and where had he come from to take over in Jeremy’s place? Whoever he was, he’d had style.
The next morning she awoke to a wintry sun outside her window and the feeling that she didn’t want the day to get under way because she had little to look forward to except the visit to the law firm in the late morning. Her instinct was telling her not to expect any good news from that, except maybe some enlightenment regarding the missing wife.
When she arrived there she was told that Jeremy’s car was hers for the taking in the scheme of things. She felt that explanations were due. It seemed that the man sitting opposite her in the office of the law firm was not aware that she wasn’t a blood relation to the deceased until she explained, and when she did so Emma was told that under those circumstances she wasn’t entitled to any of his estate, except the house, which he had willed to her when her mother had been alive.
‘The car was all that he had left,’ the partner of the law firm went on to say. ‘There were no financial assets. It would seem that our man Dr Chalmers was something of a high-flyer.’
It was at that point Emma asked if he had married again, as that was what he had been contemplating, and if so his new wife would be his next of kin.
Observing her with raised brows, he said, ‘Dr Chalmers didn’t remarry, as far as we are aware. Maybe his sudden death prevented him from accomplishing such a thing. So if no one else comes forward to claim the car, it will be yours if you want it.’
Emma left the office feeling weary and confused about life in general.
A time check revealed that the practice building only minutes away would still be open and she decided to stop by and say hello to whoever was on duty, admitting to herself that if Dr Glenn Bartlett was one of them it would be an ideal moment to see him in a different light after being taken aback by his unexpected visit the night before.
He wasn’t there, but there were those who knew her from previously and in the middle of carrying out their functions either waved or flashed a smile across until such time as they were free to talk.
As she looked around her Emma was aware that the place had been redecorated since she’d last seen it. The seating and fabrics were new and there was an atmosphere of busy contentment amongst staff that hadn’t always been there when Jeremy Chalmers had reigned.
‘Emma!’ a voice cried from behind her, and when she turned she saw Lydia Forrester, the practice manager, who ran the business side of the place from an office downstairs, was beaming across at her.
‘I hope you’re back to stay,’ she went on to say. ‘I’ve missed you and wasn’t happy about the way you disappeared into the night all that time ago. It was a relief to hear from your father’s solicitors that you’d been located and were coming home to arrange Jeremy’s funeral. He was very subdued for a long time after you left.’
‘Did he marry again?’ Emma questioned. ‘I’ve wondered who was going to be the bride.’
‘Marry!’ Lydia exclaimed. ‘Whatever makes you ask that?’ She looked around her. ‘How about us going down to my office for a coffee? They are too busy here to have time to talk. It will quieten down towards lunchtime, and then we can come back up.’
‘Yes, that would be great,’ Emma replied, and followed her downstairs.
Lydia was silent as she made the drink and produced biscuits to go with it, but once they were seated she said awkwardly, ‘I would have been the bride, Emma. Your father was going to marry me. We had been seeing each other away from the practice for a few months and when he asked me to marry him I said yes, never expecting for a moment that he would want to throw you out of the house. When he confessed that he’d told you to find somewhere else to live and that you’d gone that same night I was appalled and called the wedding off. So, my dear, you have the missing bride here before you.’
‘You!’ Emma exclaimed incredulously, with the memory of Jeremy’s hurtful revelations about him not being her father just as painful now as they’d been then. ‘You gave up your chance of happiness because of me? I wouldn’t have minded moving out, especially as it was you that he was intending to marry.’
She couldn’t tell Lydia the rest of it. Why she’d gone in the night, feeling hurt and humiliated, desperate to get away from what she’d been told, but holding no blame against her mother. She’d dealt with women and teenage girls in the practice in the same position that her mother had been in and had sympathised with their problems.
The practice manager was smiling. ‘Your disappearance saved me from what would have been a big mistake, marrying Jeremy. I’d never been married before. Had never wanted to, but as middle age was creeping up on me it was getting a bit lonely and … well you know the rest. But happiness doesn’t come at the expense of the hurt of others … and ever since I’ve looked upon it as a lucky escape.’
‘I’m so glad you’ve explained,’ Emma told her. ‘From the first moment of my return I’ve wondered why the house felt so empty and cheerless. I’ve felt that I couldn’t possibly live in it under those conditions, but now I might change my mind and make it fit to stay here.’
Feet on the stairs and voices were coming down towards them. It was twelve o’clock Saturday lunchtime, the practice had closed, and as friends of yesterday and newcomers she had to get to know crowded round her, for the first time it felt like coming home.
‘Where is Glenn this morning?’ she heard someone ask, and before a reply was forthcoming he spoke from up above.
‘Did I hear my name mentioned?’ he asked from the top of the stairs, and as he came down towards them he smiled across at her and asked the assembled staff, ‘So have you done anything about arranging a welcome night out for Dr Chalmers?’
‘We were just about to,’ someone said. ‘It’s why we’re all gathered below decks, but first we need to know if Emma would like that sort of thing.’
‘I would love it,’ she told them with a glance at Lydia, who had brought some clarity into her life and was smiling across at her.
‘So how about tonight, at one of the restaurants on the Promenade that has a dance floor?’ Mark Davies, a young GP trainee and a stranger to her, suggested. ‘Any excuse for food and fun.’
As the idea seemed to appeal to the rest of them it was arranged that they meet at the Barrington Bar at eight o’clock. As they all went home to make the best of what was left of Saturday, Emma felt that it was beginning to feel more like a homecoming, although she had no idea what to wear.
There had been no time or inclination to dress up where she’d been. It had been cotton cropped trousers and a loose shirt with a wide-brimmed hat to protect her face from the heat of the sun, and any clothes that she’d left in the wardrobe here would be reminders of the hurt that being told she had been living there on sufferance had caused. They would also smell stale.
So after a quick bite in a nearby snack bar she went clothes shopping for the evening ahead and found the experience exhilarating after the long gap of wearing attractive outfits. Her euphoria didn’t last long.
There was the arranging of Jeremy’s funeral that had to be her first priority after the weekend, and if she’d needed a reminder the amount of black outfits in the boutiques and big stores would have given her memory the necessary prod.
As she made her way homewards with a dark winter suit and matching accessories for the funeral, and, totally opposite, a turquoise mini-dress for the night ahead with silver shoes and a white fake-fur jacket, Emma was remembering that it was the new head of the practice who had prompted the staff to arrange the welcome-back occasion of the coming evening. Would he be there?
Glenn Bartlett knew her less than anyone and, having seen him in the smart black overcoat, she imagined that he would turn up well dressed.
He did come, looking more like an attractive member of the opposite sex than a sombre well-wisher, and suddenly the evening felt happy and carefree after her time of hurt and toiling in hot places.
For one thing, Lydia had solved the missing wife mystery that had been concerning Emma, and for another the surgery crowd, apart from a couple of newcomers, had been delighted to see her back in Glenminster. And to feel wanted was a wonderful thing.
The Barrington Bar, where they were gathered, was one of the town’s high spots as it boasted good food in a smart restaurant area beside a dance floor with musicians who were a delight to the ear, and as she looked around her the new head of the practice said from behind her, ‘So is it good to be back, Emma?’
‘Yes,’ she said, sparkling back at him, and he thought that the weary-looking occupant of what had been a drab, deserted house had come out of her shell with gusto. The dress, jacket and shoes were magical.
Some of the practice staff had brought partners with them but not so Glenn Bartlett. There was a look of solitariness about him, even though he was being friendly enough after their uncomfortable first meeting.
Did he live alone in the converted barn that he’d mentioned when he’d rung her bell last night? she wondered. Someone had said when they’d all been gathered at the practice earlier that he’d been taking his father with the big appetite home.
At that moment James Prentice, a young GP who had recently joined the practice, appeared at her side and asked if she would like to dance. As Emma smiled at him and took hold of his outstretched hand, the man by her side strolled towards the bar and once he’d been served seated himself at an empty table and gazed into space unsmilingly.
He’d been a fool to come, Glenn was thinking. The fact that he’d suggested a welcome homecoming for Jeremy Chalmers’s daughter would have been enough to add to switching on the heating and filling the refrigerator in that ghastly place, without turning out for a night at the Barrington Bar. It would have been a tempting idea at one time but not now, never again.
If it hadn’t been for the fact that Emma Chalmers had returned to the Cotswolds for a very sad occasion he would have left her to it, but common decency had required that he make sure she had food and warmth and the pleasure of tonight’s gathering to make her feel welcome because she’d looked tired and joyless on her arrival, which was not surprising after a long flight and a funeral to arrange as soon as possible.
Glenn finished his drink and, rising from his seat, told those of his companions who were nearest that he was leaving, going home to enjoy the peace that his father’s departure had restored.
Emma was still on the dance floor in her partner’s arms and as she glanced across he waved a brief goodbye and was gone.
Back home he sat in silence, gazing out into the dark night with the memory of Jeremy Chalmers’s last moments on the golf course starkly clear. He’d known him before stepping into the vacancy that his passing had left.
The then head of the practice and his father had met at university. Jeremy, who had been on the point of retiring, had invited his friend’s son, also a doctor, to stay for the weekend to familiarise himself with the running of the practice with a view to taking over as his replacement in the very near future after the necessary procedures had been dealt with.
They’d gone for a round of golf after lunch at the club and while on the course Jeremy had suffered the heart attack that had proved fatal. In intense pain he had managed to gasp out his last request and he, Glenn, working on him desperately as he’d tried to save him, had been stunned when he’d heard what it was.
‘I have a daughter,’ he’d croaked between pain spasms, ‘and I upset her gravely some years ago, so much so that she left to go where I don’t know, except it wasn’t in this country. Emma is a doctor and most likely has gone to one of the hot spots where they need as many medics as they can get.’
‘Bring her home for me, Glenn, back to where she was happy until I told her some unmentionable things about me.’
His lips had been blue, his eyes glazing even as the sound of an approaching ambulance could be heard screeching towards them, and his last words had been, ‘Promise you will?’
‘Yes, I promise,’ he’d told him gravely, and then his father’s friend had died.
Now, sitting sombrely in the attractive sitting room of the property he’d bought on the occasion of taking over the practice, Glenn was remembering the time and effort he’d put in to discover the whereabouts of the missing daughter. He was upset to think that he hadn’t tuned in to who she was outside the surgery the night before.
Fortunately he’d made sure that the house that had been her home previously was warm and habitable a day early and had had food in the refrigerator. Then had gone the extra mile by suggesting that the folk from the practice make her welcome with an evening in one of Glenminster’s high spots.
Now just one thing remained regarding his promise to her father, and when that was done maybe he would be able to have a life of his own once again. The task of locating Emma Chalmers had been mammoth.
He would be there for her at her father’s funeral and once that ordeal was over he was going to step aside and let her get on with her life. The same way he intended to carry on with his own, which was empty of womankind and was going to stay that way.
Drawing the curtains across to shut out the night, he went slowly up the spiral staircase that graced the hallway of his home and lay on top of the bedcovers, his last concern before sleep claimed him being the stranger that he had reluctantly taken under his wing.
What was her story? he wondered. Had she been close to Jeremy and they’d rowed about something that had made her go off in a huff? From what he’d said in his dying moments, it had seemed that Jeremy had been the reason for Emma’s departure and whatever it had been he’d had cause to regret it.
Since coming back to her roots she had never mentioned him, which was not a good omen, and what about the mother that she’d lost not so long before her hasty departure? What sort of a marriage had she and Jeremy had?
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_9f9ea610-f8ab-59a1-9473-a374819006ae)
THERE WERE A few offers to see Emma home safely when the Barrington Bar closed at the stroke of midnight heralding the Sabbath, but Lydia forestalled them by saying, ‘I’m in my car, Emma, and haven’t been on the wine. Would you like a lift as I have to pass your place?’ And added to the rest, ‘That leaves two more empty places if anyone wants to join us.’
The offer was immediately taken up by older members of staff, one of the practice nurses and a receptionist, both of whom lived just a short distance away, and when they were eventually alone in the car Lydia said, ‘So how has your first full day back in Glenminster felt?’
‘Very strange,’ Emma told her, ‘and unexpectedly pleasant. But that feeling isn’t going to last long when I start making the funeral arrangements for Jeremy. He wasn’t my father. Did you know that, Lydia?’
‘No, I didn’t!’ she gasped ‘How long have you been aware of it?’
‘Just as long as it took him to let me see how little I meant to him—which was immediately after he’d said he wanted me gone, out of the way.’
The house was in sight and when Lydia stopped the car she said dejectedly, ‘And all of that was because he wanted to marry me? Surely he didn’t think I would allow him to hurt you so that he could have me. None of it brought him any joy, did it? Without even knowing about what he had said regarding him not being your father, I refused to go ahead with the wedding when he told me that he’d made it clear that you wouldn’t be welcome around the place once we were married. Sadly, by that time Emma, you’d gone and not a single person knew where you were.
‘Jeremy was with Glenn when he had the heart attack and made him promise to find you and bring you back to Glenminster to make up for all the hurt he’d caused you. So he did have a conscience of sorts, I suppose. Glenn, being the kind of guy who keeps his word, spent hours searching for you in every possible way until he finally located you. No doubt once the funeral is over he will be ready to get back to his own life, hoping that yours is sorted.’
Shaken to the core by what she’d been told about the man she’d been going to marry, Lydia was about to drive off into the night when Emma asked, ‘Was it Dr Bartlett who saw to it that there was heating and food in the house?’
‘Yes,’ she was told. ‘Glenn mentioned that he was going to deal with those things and you almost arrived before he’d done so by appearing a day early. Now, one last thing before I go—have you enjoyed tonight, Emma?’
‘It was wonderful,’ she said, ‘and would have been even more so if I could have thanked Dr Bartlett for all he has done for me, but as I didn’t know about it I shall make up for my lack of appreciation in the morning.’
Glenn was having a late breakfast when he saw Emma appear on Sunday morning, and as he watched her walk purposefully along the drive he sighed. What now? he wondered. He didn’t have to wait long for an answer as once he had invited her inside she told him, ‘I’m here to say thank you for all that you’ve done for me, Dr Bartlett. I had no idea until Lydia explained on the way home last night that my father had put upon you the burden of finding me, and that it was you who had made my homecoming as comfortable as possible with food and warmth. It must have all been very time-consuming.’
He was smiling, partly with relief because she wanted no more from him and because she was so easily pleased with what he’d done for her. At the beginning Emma Chalmers had just been a lost soul that Jeremy had asked him to find so that he could die in the hope that he, Glenn, would bring her back to where she belonged. Difficult as the process had sometimes been, he’d had no regrets in having to keep the promise he’d made.
Pointing to a comfortable chair by the fireside, he said, ‘It was in a good cause, Emma, and having now met you I realise just how worthy it was. Whatever it was that Jeremy had done to you it was clear that he regretted it. I could tell that it lay heavily on his conscience, and as my last involvement in your affairs, if you need any assistance with the funeral arrangements, you have only to ask.’
She was smiling but there were tears on her lashes as she said, ‘I will try not to involve you if I can, but thanks for the offer.’
As she rose from the chair, ready to depart, he said, ‘My parents will be at the funeral. They are a crazy pair but their hearts are in the right place and I love them dearly. It was my dad who told Jeremy that I was a doctor and had come to live in the village after leaving a practice up north. So that was how I came to be with him on the day he died.
‘Jeremy had been to see me and, having been told that I’d been doing a similar job to his in the place that I’d left, asked if I would be interested in replacing him at the practice in Glenminster as he was ready to retire. Once I’d seen it and been introduced to staff I was keen to take over, and that is how I come to be here.’
‘Going through the usual formalities with the health services and the rest took a while but I had no regrets, and now we have his daughter back with us, so hopefully he will rest in peace. You don’t resemble him at all, do you?’ he commented.
He saw her flinch but her only comment gave nothing away.
‘No,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’m more like my mother.’ Having no wish to start going down those sort of channels in the conversation, she said, ‘Thanks again, Dr Bartlett, for all that you’ve done for both me and him.’ On the point of leaving, she commented, ‘Your home is lovely.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose it is, and with the hills above and the delightful town below them, I am happy to be settled here.’
‘So do you live alone, then?’ she couldn’t resist asking.
There was a glint in the deep blue eyes observing her and Emma wished she hadn’t asked as his reply was short and purposeful, and to make it even more so he had opened the door and was waiting for her to depart as he delivered it. ‘Yes. I prefer the solitary life. It is so much easier to deal with.’
She smiled a twisted smile and told him, ‘I’ve had a lot of that sort of thing where I’ve been based over the last few years and to me it was not easy to cope with at all. Solitariness is something that takes all the colour out of life, so I’m afraid I can’t agree with you on that.’ And stepping out into the crisp Sunday morning, she walked briskly towards the town centre and the house on the edge of it that the man who hadn’t been her father had left to her for reasons she didn’t know.
There had been no generosity in Jeremy on that awful night and ever since she had needed a name that wasn’t his: the name of the man who had made her mother pregnant. Did he even know that he had a daughter?
Common sense was butting in, taking over her thought processes. So what? You had a fantastic mother who loved and cherished you. Let that be balm to your soul, and as for that guy back there, doesn’t every doctor long for peace after spending long hours of each day caring for the health of others? If you’ve never had the same yearning, you are unique.
Back at the property that Emma had admired, Glenn was facing up to the fact that his description of his home life must have sounded extremely boring. With a glance at the photograph on his bedside table he wondered what Jeremy’s daughter would think of him if she knew why he needed to be alone.
Serena was gone, along with many others, taken from him by one of nature’s cruel tricks, a huge tsunami, unexpected, unbelievable. Since then he had lived for two things only, caring for his parents and his job, and there were times when the job was the least exhausting of the two.
They’d been holidaying in one of the world’s delightful faraway places when it had struck. The only reason he had survived was because he’d taken a book with him to one of the resort’s golden beaches and had been engrossed in its contents, while Serena had been doing her favourite thing, swimming to a rock that was quite a way out and sunbathing there.
When the huge wall of water had come thundering towards them, sweeping everything out of the way with its force, they’d both been caught up in it. Glenn had been closer to land and had surfaced and managed to hold onto driftwood before staggering towards what had been left of the hotel where they’d been staying. But of Serena, his wife, sunbathing on the rock far out, she and others like her had disappeared and had never been found.
Weeks later, with all hope gone, Glenn had arrived back but had been unable to bear to stay where they’d lived together so happily. So he had moved to a new job and a new house in the town where his parents lived, telling the older folk that he didn’t want his affairs discussed amongst the residents of Glenminster, or anywhere else for that matter.
The only way he had coped after leaving the practice up north to join the one in the town centre had been by giving his total commitment to his patients, and when away from the practice shutting himself into the converted barn that he’d bought and in the silence grieving for what he had lost.
That day on the golf course had been a one-off. Jeremy had persuaded Glenn to join him there for a round or two much against his inclination because it would be interrupting the quiet time that he allowed himself whenever possible.
When the other man had collapsed with a massive heart attack in the middle of the game and hadn’t responded to Glenn’s frantic efforts as they’d waited for an ambulance, Jeremy had begged him with his dying breath to find his daughter and bring her home to Glenminster. Though aghast at the request, as it had seemed that no one had known where she was, he had carried out Jeremy’s wishes faithfully. Once the funeral was over Glenn was fully intent on returning to his reclusive evenings and weekends.
The fact that Emma, having only been back in her home town three days, had visited him on the third one had not been what he had expected. Neither was it what he was going to want once he began to live his own life again.
He’d seen to it that she was back home where she belonged and on a grey winter’s day had made sure she would be warm and fed when she arrived. He had even gone so far as to make sure that she received a warm welcome home from the practice staff at the Barrington Bar, of all places, which had not been the kind of thing on his personal agenda. Once his duty had been done he had been off home to the peace that his bruised heart cried out for.
Only to find that Emma had good manners. On the quiet Sunday morning she hadn’t picked up the phone to thank him for all that he’d done on her behalf, which until her chat with Lydia she’d had no knowledge of, but had come in person. So why was he feeling so edgy about it?
Was she going to want to come back into the practice? They needed another doctor. But was the daughter of chancer and man about town Jeremy Chalmers someone he would want around the place?
He spent the rest of the day clearing up fallen leaves in the garden and at last, satisfied that all was tidy, went inside when daylight began to fade and began to make himself a meal.
As he was on the point of putting a piece of steak under the grill the phone rang and when Glenn heard Emma’s voice at the other end of the line he sighed. She didn’t hear it, but his tone of voice when he replied was enough for her to know it would have been better to have waited until the following morning to report the conversation she’d just had with a funeral director.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you again, Dr Bartlett,’ she said. ‘It is just that I’ve been speaking to the funeral firm, who have been waiting for me to appear with regard to a date for the funeral that has been unfortunately delayed because of my absence, and they pointed out that as my—er—father was so well known in the practice and around the town, maybe a Sunday would be the most suitable day. Then all the staff would be free and more of the townspeople would be able to attend, it not being a regular working day for most people.’
‘Yes, good thinking,’ he agreed, relieved that the final chapter of the sad episode on the golf course was to be soon for her sake as well as his. ‘Why not call in at the practice tomorrow so that I can help you with the rest of the arrangements?’
There was silence at the other end of the line for a moment and then Emma said haltingly, ‘Are you sure you don’t mind me butting into your time there? I’m afraid that I’ve been in your face a lot since I returned.’
Glenn thought that she’d picked up on his moroseness and his desire to be free of his commitment to a man he’d hardly known, so he told her, ‘No, not so. Once the funeral is organised and has taken place we can both get on with our lives.’ But as the steak began to sizzle and the vegetables he intended having with it came to the boil Emma had one last thing to say and he almost groaned out loud.
‘Just one thing and then I really will leave you to enjoy your Sunday evening. It is with regard to the food that you provided me with. How much am I in your debt?’
‘You’re not. You owe me nothing,’ he said abruptly. ‘It was part of the promise that I made to a dying man.’
Her response came fast. ‘So let me make you a meal after the practice has closed tomorrow evening. It would save me butting into your lunch hour to discuss the arrangements for next Sunday.’
His reply was given at a similar speed. ‘No! I’ve told you, Emma. You owe me nothing. I’ll see you tomorrow at midday.’ And as she rang off without further comment it was clear to her that he was more than eager for the role he had played during recent weeks to be at an end.
Glenn had been looking forward to the meal he’d cooked, but every time he thought about how uncivil he’d been when she’d wanted to thank him for what he’d done for her the food felt as if it would choke him.
Emma would have understood if you’d explained that you still mourn the loss of your wife under horrendous circumstances, he told himself, and that after a week at the surgery you want to be left in peace.
Pushing the plate away from him, he poured a glass of wine and went to sit in front of the log fire that was burning brightly in the sitting room. Gazing morosely at the dancing flames, Glenn admitted to himself that it was most unfair to transfer the pain of his shattered life to a stranger such as her.
He was behaving like a complete moron. Why in heaven’s name didn’t he explain the reason for his behaviour and try to get it in perspective? Otherwise people would start asking questions that he didn’t want to answer.
For one thing, Emma wouldn’t want to feel that his attitude was another dark chapter of her life to add to the fact that she had to attend the funeral of a man who had confessed to causing her great hurt.
With determination to atone for the rebuff he’d handed out when she’d wanted to make him a meal, Glenn decided that he would call at her house on his way home the following evening if she didn’t appear in the lunch hour, and do all he could to show Emma that he felt no ill will towards her. That his behaviour came from pain that never went away, so he needed to focus on work.
As his first appointment of the day arrived on the following morning he settled down to what he did best: looking after his patients.
The staff of the practice consisted of Lydia, the practice manager, six GPs with himself as senior, two trainee GPs, who were there to earn their accreditation after qualifying as doctors, and four incredible receptionists who held it all together.
Once the man who had been his predecessor had been laid to rest, the gloom that had hung over the practice might lighten. As a new era began, was Jeremy’s prodigal daughter going to want to join the practice, or had he put her off completely? he wondered.
Back at the house the night before Emma had been deep in thought as she’d cleared away after a solitary meal, and they had not been happy thoughts. Did she want to be in the first funeral car on her own? There was no one who should rightly be with her. Her mother had left no relations, neither had Jeremy—and she had no knowledge of who her birth father might be.
Maybe Lydia would join her. If she did it would help to take away some of the dreadful lost and lonely feeling that she’d had ever since she’d been told with brutal clarity that the man she had always thought to be her father, in fact, was not.
The other concern on her mind was the fact that she was having a bad start in getting to know the man who had replaced Jeremy in the practice. She was experiencing a kind and thoughtful side to his character that was contradicted by his brusque attitude on occasion.
It was clear that Glenn was not a good mixer. It would be interesting to find out what sort of a man he was if she joined the practice staff. She did want to feel happy and fulfilled back in Glenminster, if that was possible.
She didn’t want to return to the heat and endless toil of Africa until she had recharged her batteries in the place where she had grown up and where she’d had a job she’d loved until the bubble of her contentment had burst.
With those thoughts in mind she presented herself at the practice in the lunch hour. When Glenn’s last morning patient had gone, and before the afternoon’s sick and suffering began to arrive, he left his consulting room and went to see if Emma had come, as he’d asked her to. He was relieved to find her outside in the corridor deep in conversation with Lydia.
On seeing him the older woman suggested that Emma come down to her office for a coffee before she went, and left them together. So Glenn opened the door that he’d just come through and when Emma was seated on the opposite side of his desk at his invitation he asked, ‘So how are you this morning?’ He followed it with another question. ‘Are you any nearer to knowing how you want the funeral to be arranged?’
Emma was looking around her. The last time she’d been in the room Jeremy had been seated where Glenn was now. The memory of her last day in Glenminster came back so clearly it was making her feel weak and disoriented, although Jeremy hadn’t delivered the actual body blow until late that evening, when he’d been drinking and had been about to climb the stairs to sleep it off.
Glenn watched the colour drain from her face and came round the desk to stand beside her, concerned. But Emma was rallying, taking control of the black moment from the past. Managing a wan smile as he gazed down at her anxiously, she said, ‘I’m all right, it was just a memory of the last time I was in this room and what happened afterwards that knocked me sideways.’
Straightening up in the chair, she said, ‘In answer to your question, I’m fine. I’ve just asked Lydia if she will join me in the one and only funeral car that will be needed instead of my being alone. I have no relatives that I could ask to keep me company on such a depressing occasion. Obviously there will be other people following in their cars, but that is how it will be for me.’
‘And what did she say?’ he asked uncomfortably, knowing that he should have given some thought to Emma’s solitariness on the day instead of being so wrapped up in his own feelings.
‘She said yes, that she will be with me.’
‘Good. I hadn’t realised just how alone you are, Emma,’ he commented. ‘If Lydia hadn’t been able to do as you asked I would have volunteered. Though whether you would have wanted someone you hardly know with you on such an occasion seems unlikely.’
He glanced at a clock on the wall and commented, ‘I can only give you half an hour before my afternoon patients start arriving so what exactly do you want to discuss?’
‘I’m going to have an announcement in the local press, announcing that the funeral will be on Sunday at the crematorium at three o’clock, for the benefit of anyone wanting to take part in the service or just to watch,’ she told him, ‘and I’m arranging a meal for afterwards for the practice staff and any of his close friends.’
‘That sounds fine,’ he agreed. ‘What about flowers?’
‘No. Instead, I’d like donations to be made to the Heart Foundation, or locally to Horizon’s Eye Hospital, which is an amazing place. Do you think those kind of arrangements will be suitable?’ she enquired. She was ready to go and leave him to his busy afternoon, aware all the while that the time she had taken out of his lunch hour might leave no opportunity for him to have a snack or whatever he did for refreshment at that time of day.
But remembering Glenn Bartlett’s rebuffs of the previous evening, there was no way she was going to concern herself about that. He was the one who’d suggested a chat in the lunch hour, and in the days when she’d been employed there she’d often missed her lunch due to pressure of work.
‘Yes,’ he told her, unaware of the thoughts going through her mind. ‘Just one question. Am I right in presuming that it will all start from what is now your house?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she replied, the cold hand of dread clamping on her heart. Until the man she’d thought had been her father had been laid to rest she couldn’t even contemplate what she was going to do in the future if Glenn didn’t want her back at the surgery.
It was possible, taking note of his manner towards her, that he could be feeling that enough was enough. That having found her and brought her back to where Jeremy Chalmers had wanted her to be … and the rest of it, he’d had enough without her being forever in his sights.
Maybe after Sunday, in the relief that the slate had been wiped clean, she would be able to see everything more clearly. As far as she was concerned, it couldn’t come quickly enough. So, getting up to go down to Lydia’s office in the basement for the coffee that she’d suggested, Emma wished Glenn goodbye and left him deep in thought.
In the days that followed Emma felt as if she were in some sort of limbo. She wandered around the shops for suitable clothes to fill her wardrobe against winter’s chill, while trying to ignore signs of the coming of Christmas already on view in some of them.
It was the last thing she wanted to contemplate, spending Christmas in the house that had been left to her in its present state. It had always been basic and she’d often wondered why her mother had never complained, but now she understood. Maybe Jeremy had expected gratitude instead of requests for a brighter home from the woman he had married to save her name.
She supposed she could give the place a makeover or alternatively put it up for sale and move to somewhere smaller and more modern and not so near the bustle of the town, but until Sunday’s ordeal was over she couldn’t contemplate the future.
It was done. The event that Emma had been dreading had taken place and, with Lydia beside her and Glenn Bartlett hovering nearby, she had coped. There had been a good turnout, as she’d expected, and now the staff of the practice and a few of Jeremy’s golfing friends were gathered in a restaurant in the town centre for the meal she’d organised.
Emma was feeling that now the future was going to open out in front of her, though not as an exciting challenge. More as if it was hidden in a mist of uncertainty. As she caught the glance of the man who had brought her home from a foreign country to an uncertain future, she felt her colour rise at the thought of asking for a return to her previous position in the practice. He was so obviously wanting an end to their unwanted connection.
Did he ever smile? she wondered. If his expression was less closed and sombre he would be the most attractive man she’d ever met. His hair was dark russet, his eyes as blue as a summer sky—but always with no joy in them.
It seemed that he was unmarried, not in a relationship of any kind, and lived alone in his delightful property, with the occasional visit from his elderly parents.
Her smile was wry. It seemed as if neither of them was fulfilling their full potential. His life sounded almost hermit-like. Or was it that he had enough to think about with the job and being there for his folks? Although they sounded anything but fragile.
She was being observed in return. What was it that Jeremy Chalmers had done to cause his daughter the degree of hurt that he’d confessed to when he’d lain dying? Glenn asked himself. It had been enough to make her leave Glenminster and only be prepared to return in the event of his death.
Emma didn’t come over as the weak and whingeing type. Whatever it was, she didn’t carry her sorrows around with her, as he did. Maybe they weren’t as dreadful as the burden he was carrying, having Serena there one moment and the next gone for ever. If they’d had a child to remember her by he might be coping better.
The funeral party were getting ready to leave. He got to his feet and joined them and as Emma shook hands and thanked them for their time and their support, he waited until they’d gone and asked, ‘Do you want a lift home, Emma?’
She smiled. ‘No, I’m fine. Lydia is going to take me, but thanks for the offer. And also thanks once again for the way you have been there for me, a stranger, at this awful time.’ Her smile deepened. ‘I promise I will not cause any more hassle in your life.’
Before he could explain that his moroseness came from coping with terrible grief every moment of every day, she had gone to where the practice manager was waiting for her, leaving him to return to the empty house that he had turned into his stronghold against life without Serena. For the first time since he had gone to live there Glenn was reluctant to turn the key in the lock and go inside, and when he did so, instead of its comforting peace, a heavy silence hung over every room.
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Abigail Gordon
Wedding bells at Christmas?When Dr Emma Chalmers returns to her home town she doesn’t expect to fall head over heels for handsome new partner Dr Glenn Bartlett! He’s everything she’s ever dreamed of in a man…Glenn never expects to find love again after losing his beloved wife. But when Emma tumbles into his life at Christmas she shows him how to live and fills him with hope for the future. But first he has one very important question he needs to ask!
Praise for Abigail Gordon (#ulink_f6fcb568-78f6-56ed-a37a-3300fa258428)
‘From the first turbulent beginning until the final climactic ending, an entire range of emotions has been used to write a story of two people travelling the rocky road to love … an excellent story. I would recommend this story to all romance readers.’
—RT Book Reviews on Spring Proposal in Swallowbrook
Glenn’s spirits rose as he caught his first glimpse of Emma, coming out of the cloakroom having dispensed with her warm winter coat.
How could he not want her? Emma was special—dark-haired, with smooth creamy skin, curves in all the right places—and tonight she was bewitching, in a black dress with silver trimmings.
So why couldn’t he tell her he was sorry about what he’d said on the way home from being stuck in the snow? Why couldn’t he give them both a chance to get to know one another better?
Dear Reader (#ulink_d2ee19d7-d98b-5b17-8ab2-4525f006306d),
We are in Glenminster again, surrounded by the green hills of Gloucestershire. His Christmas Bride-to-Be is my second book in this series, in which I hope you will enjoy making the acquaintance of Glenn and Emma.
Both have known heartbreak, and both discover that love is waiting to bring joy back into their lives—as it so often does.
With best wishes for happy reading,
Abigail Gordon
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 close-knit 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.
His Christmas Bride-to-Be
Abigail Gordon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Glenn, Emma, and healthcare in all its many forms
Table of Contents
Cover (#u5d95df95-b625-5924-9898-b11eb544a68b)
Praise for Abigail Gordon (#ulink_e41d35d4-d43a-516c-a809-9e5d4158e22a)
Excerpt (#u629d673d-4ff1-5e0b-8448-561e6810ae4b)
Dear Reader (#u59716fb1-ef23-5d41-84b4-712e9453f6a3)
About the Author (#u6ed13274-5149-56f9-aaa4-2c67c926005e)
Title Page (#uee19cc45-06ef-5803-9df8-da2152bd6195)
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_309162ef-05ff-550f-a3df-9c04fbc80502)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_421c4928-6f04-573b-b53f-c7a6fab82b19)
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)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_9da83eec-a1cc-577e-aa65-a4ac91a9d359)
THE TAXI THAT had brought her from the airport had gone, and surrounded by the baggage that contained her belongings Emma took a deep breath and looked around her.
When she’d been driven through the town centre it had been as if nothing had changed while she’d been gone for what seemed like a lifetime. The green hills of Gloucestershire still surrounded the place where she’d been born and had never imagined leaving. Everywhere the elegant Regency properties that Glenminster was renowned for still stood in gracious splendour to delight the eye, while, busy as always, the promenades and restaurants had shown that they still attracted the shoppers and the gourmets to the extent that they always had.
All that she had to do now was turn the key in the lock, open the door and step inside the property that had been her home for as long as she could remember, and of which she was now the sole owner. The act of doing so was not going to be easy. It felt like only yesterday that she had fled in the night, heartbroken and bewildered from what she’d been told, as if the years she’d spent in a land far away had never happened.
During all that time there had been no communication between herself and the man she’d always thought was her father, and now he was gone. Since receiving the news that he had died, all the hurts of long ago had come back. What he had done to her had been cruel. He’d taken away her identity; made her feel like a nobody. Turned the life she’d been living happily enough for twenty-plus years into nothingness.
He had been a moderate parent, never very affectionate, and she’d sometimes wondered why. He’d provided the answer to that by telling her on the night she’d left Glenminster in a state of total hurt and disbelief that he wasn’t her father, that he’d married her mother to give her the respectability of having a husband and a father for her child when it was born as the result of an affair that was over.
Emma had directed the taxi driver to take her to lawyers in the town centre where the keys for the house had been held in waiting for when she made an appearance. Once she had received them she had been asked to call the following day to discuss the details of Jeremy Chalmers’s will.
She’d been informed previously that he’d left her the house, or she wouldn’t have intended going straight there on her return. She was uncertain if she would be able to live in it for any length of time after her father had disowned her that night long ago in such a cruel manner, but it would be somewhere to stay in the beginning while she slotted herself back into life in Glenminster.
Back in the taxi once more, having been given the house keys, she’d given the driver the directions for the last lap of her journey back to her roots and had thought grimly that it was some homecoming.
Gazing down at the keys, the memory was starkly clear of how she’d packed her cases and left the place that was dear to her heart that same night, intending to start a new life to replace the one that Jeremy Chalmers had shattered and made to sound unclean.
Her only thought as she’d driven out of the town that lay at the foot of the Gloucestershire hills had been to go where she could use her medical skills to benefit the sick and suffering of somewhere like Africa and start a new life as far away as she could get.
Until then they had been contained in the role of a junior doctor in a large practice in the place where she had been happy and content, but that night the urge to leave Glenminster had been overwhelming.
The last thing Emma had done before departing had been to drop a note off at the home of Lydia Forrester, the practice manager, to explain that she was about to do something she’d always wanted to do, work in Africa for one of the medical agencies, and that had been it without further explanation.
Time spent out there had been a lot of things, fulfilling, enlightening, exhausting and lonely. If she stayed and went back to work in the practice that she’d known so well in the busy town centre, would the memory of that night come crowding back, she asked herself, or would it be like balm to her soul to be back where she belonged and lonely no more?
Yet was that likely to be the case in the house where it had happened and which was just a short distance from the surgery where her stepfather had been senior doctor?
Emma had joined the staff there as soon as she’d got her degree in medicine and had been carefree and happy until that awful day. The job had absorbed her working hours and mixing happily with her own age group in her free time had made up for the atmosphere at home, where there had just been Jeremy Chalmers and herself, living in separate vacuums most of the time.
She’d lost her gentle, caring mother too soon and had been left with only him as family—a bridge-playing golf fanatic in his free time, and at the surgery a popular GP with an eye for the opposite sex. He had proved how much on the night when he’d told her that she was going to have to move out, find herself somewhere to stay, as he was getting married again and his new wife wouldn’t want her around.
‘Fine,’ she’d told him, quite happy to find a place of her own to settle in, but the way he’d said so uncaringly that he was going to replace her mother and that she was in the way had rankled and she’d said, ‘I am your daughter, you know!’
He’d been to the golf club and had told her thickly, ‘That is where you’re wrong. I married your mother to give her respectability and you a father figure. You’re not mine.’
‘What?’ she’d cried in disbelief. ‘I don’t believe you?’
‘You have to. You’ve no choice,’ he’d said, and added, turning the knife even more as he’d begun to climb the stairs, ‘She never told me who your father was, so you can’t go running to him.’
As the door swung back on its hinges at last, reality took over from the pain-filled past. Nothing had changed, Emma thought as she went from room to room. There had been no modernisation of any kind.
The new bride must have been easy to please. So where was she now that her father had died from a heart attack on the golf course? It was all very strange. Had the widow moved out at the thought of a new owner appearing?
It would be time to be concerned about that when she’d spoken to the person who had taken over the running of the practice after her father’s death. The absence of the new woman who had been in his life could be shelved until she, Emma, had been brought up to date with the present situation there.
But first, before anything else, there was the matter of arranging a suitable farewell for the man she’d thought, for most of her life, was her father. Jeremy had been well known in the town and there would be many wanting to show their respects.
The first she had heard about his death had been a month after the event, when the organisation she was working for had contacted her in a remote region of Africa to inform her of it and had explained that back in the UK her presence was required to organise the funeral as she was his only heir and would need to be the executor of his will.
It was a chilly afternoon, winter was about to take over from a mellow autumn, and having become accustomed to tropical heat Emma was grateful to discover that it was warm inside the house with the old-fashioned radiators giving out welcome heat.
Once her unpacking was finished hunger began to gnaw at her and when she looked in the refrigerator she found it was stocked with the kind of food that had become just a memory while working in the heat and dust of Africa.
It was a comforting moment. Someone had been incredibly thoughtful and had pre-empted her needs on arriving back home in such sad and gloomy circumstances, yet who had it been? There had been no evidence of anyone living there as she’d unpacked her clothes.
It was a Friday, and once she’d been to the law firm the following morning the weekend was going to be a long and empty affair until she’d got her bearings. With that thought in mind she wrapped up warmly, which wasn’t the easiest of things to do as all her clothes were for a hotter climate, and decided to walk the short distance to the practice in the town centre before it closed to see if there was anyone left on the staff that she knew.
The darkness of a winter night was all around Emma by the time she got there and the surgery was closed with just an illuminated notice board by the doorway to inform the public what the opening hours were and what numbers to ring in an emergency.
As she turned away, about to retrace her steps, a car door slammed shut nearby and in the light of a streetlamp and the glare coming from the windows of a couple of shops that were still open she saw a man in a dark overcoat with keys in his hand walking towards the practice door with long strides.
On seeing her, he stopped and said briskly, ‘The surgery is closed, as you can see. It will be open again at eight-thirty tomorrow morning and will close at twelve, it being Saturday. So can I help you at all?’
‘Er, no, thank you, I’m fine,’ she told him, taken aback by his manner and sudden appearance.
‘Good. I haven’t a lot of time to spare,’ he explained. ‘I just came back to pick up some paperwork, and after that have to be ready at any time to welcome back the prodigal daughter of our late head of the practice, which is a bind as I have a meal to organise when I get in.’
Emma was observing him wide-eyed. He was no one she recognised from the time when she’d been on the staff there and she thought he was in for a surprise.
‘I have no idea who you are,’ she told him, ‘but obviously you’re connected with the practice, so maybe I can save you one of the chores that you’ve just described. My name is Emma Chalmers. Does it ring a bell? I’ve returned to Glenminster to take possession of the property that my … er … father has left me and to find occupation as a doctor should I decide to stay.’
As he observed her, slack-jawed with surprise, she turned and began to walk back the way she’d come.
It was nine o’clock when the doorbell rang and Emma went to open the door cautiously because her knowledge of neighbours or local people was scant after her absence, so she slipped the safety chain into position before fully opening the door to her caller.
It was him again, the bossy man in the overcoat, on the doorstep and as she surveyed him blankly he said, ‘You will guess why I’m here, I suppose.’ She shook her head.
‘I’ve come to say sorry for being such a pain when we met earlier. My only excuse is that I have my father living with me and he likes his meals on the dot as eating is one of his great pleasures in life.’
‘Er, yes, I see,’ she said, ‘but why were you, as a stranger, going to be the one who welcomed me back? Surely there is someone still there who remembers me?’
‘Possibly, but I am filling the slot that your father left and so was chosen to do the honours. Everyone will be pleased to see you again, I’m sure.’
‘Hmm, maybe,’ she commented doubtfully, with the thought in mind that there was still the matter of the missing wife to be sorted.
‘We had a message from Jeremy’s lawyers a couple of days ago,’ he explained, ‘to say that you would be arriving tomorrow, so back there when we met it didn’t occur to me that you might be already here and installed in this place … which isn’t very palatial, is it?’
Emma ignored the comment and said, ‘I was fortunate when I arrived to find that the kind person with amazing foresight who had switched on the heating had also filled the refrigerator, as I was both cold and hungry after the journey and the change of climate.’
He was smiling. ‘Lucky you, then.’ Seeing her amazing tan, he asked, ‘How was Africa? I’m told that is where you’ve been. I’m behind on practice gossip as I’ve only taken over as head of the place since your father died.’
‘It was hot, hard work, and amazing,’ she said, and couldn’t believe she would be sleeping in the house that she had never wanted to see again after the night when Jeremy had removed the scales from her eyes in such a brutal manner.
Her unexpected visitor was turning to go and said, ‘I must make tracks.’ Reaching out, he shook her hand briefly and said, ‘The name is Glenn Bartlett.’
Taken aback by the gesture, Emma said, ‘Where do you live?’
‘In a converted barn on the edge of the town.’
‘Sounds nice.’
‘Yes, I suppose you could say that,’ he replied without much enthusiasm, and wishing her goodbye he went.
Driving home in the dark winter night, Glenn Bartlett thought that Emma Chalmers was nothing like her father if the big photograph on the practice wall was anything to go by. Maybe she’d inherited her dark hair and hazel eyes from her mother, although did it really matter?
He was cringing at the way he’d called her the ‘prodigal daughter’ as he knew absolutely nothing about her except that she was Jeremy Chalmers’s only relative, from the sound of things, and his moaning about how busy he was must have sounded pathetic. Would Emma Chalmers have wanted to hear the gripes of a complete stranger?
Yet they were true. Unbelievably, he’d made time that morning to switch the heating on for her, do a dash to the supermarket to fill the empty fridge in the house that she was coming to live in, and put a slow casserole in his oven for his and his father’s evening meal.
Back where he had left her, Emma had found some clean bedding in one of the drawers and was making up the bed that had been hers for as long as she could remember, while at the same time remembering word for word what the stranger who had knocked on her door had said.
It would seem that, apart from the father that he’d mentioned, there was no other immediate family in his life, and where had he come from to take over in Jeremy’s place? Whoever he was, he’d had style.
The next morning she awoke to a wintry sun outside her window and the feeling that she didn’t want the day to get under way because she had little to look forward to except the visit to the law firm in the late morning. Her instinct was telling her not to expect any good news from that, except maybe some enlightenment regarding the missing wife.
When she arrived there she was told that Jeremy’s car was hers for the taking in the scheme of things. She felt that explanations were due. It seemed that the man sitting opposite her in the office of the law firm was not aware that she wasn’t a blood relation to the deceased until she explained, and when she did so Emma was told that under those circumstances she wasn’t entitled to any of his estate, except the house, which he had willed to her when her mother had been alive.
‘The car was all that he had left,’ the partner of the law firm went on to say. ‘There were no financial assets. It would seem that our man Dr Chalmers was something of a high-flyer.’
It was at that point Emma asked if he had married again, as that was what he had been contemplating, and if so his new wife would be his next of kin.
Observing her with raised brows, he said, ‘Dr Chalmers didn’t remarry, as far as we are aware. Maybe his sudden death prevented him from accomplishing such a thing. So if no one else comes forward to claim the car, it will be yours if you want it.’
Emma left the office feeling weary and confused about life in general.
A time check revealed that the practice building only minutes away would still be open and she decided to stop by and say hello to whoever was on duty, admitting to herself that if Dr Glenn Bartlett was one of them it would be an ideal moment to see him in a different light after being taken aback by his unexpected visit the night before.
He wasn’t there, but there were those who knew her from previously and in the middle of carrying out their functions either waved or flashed a smile across until such time as they were free to talk.
As she looked around her Emma was aware that the place had been redecorated since she’d last seen it. The seating and fabrics were new and there was an atmosphere of busy contentment amongst staff that hadn’t always been there when Jeremy Chalmers had reigned.
‘Emma!’ a voice cried from behind her, and when she turned she saw Lydia Forrester, the practice manager, who ran the business side of the place from an office downstairs, was beaming across at her.
‘I hope you’re back to stay,’ she went on to say. ‘I’ve missed you and wasn’t happy about the way you disappeared into the night all that time ago. It was a relief to hear from your father’s solicitors that you’d been located and were coming home to arrange Jeremy’s funeral. He was very subdued for a long time after you left.’
‘Did he marry again?’ Emma questioned. ‘I’ve wondered who was going to be the bride.’
‘Marry!’ Lydia exclaimed. ‘Whatever makes you ask that?’ She looked around her. ‘How about us going down to my office for a coffee? They are too busy here to have time to talk. It will quieten down towards lunchtime, and then we can come back up.’
‘Yes, that would be great,’ Emma replied, and followed her downstairs.
Lydia was silent as she made the drink and produced biscuits to go with it, but once they were seated she said awkwardly, ‘I would have been the bride, Emma. Your father was going to marry me. We had been seeing each other away from the practice for a few months and when he asked me to marry him I said yes, never expecting for a moment that he would want to throw you out of the house. When he confessed that he’d told you to find somewhere else to live and that you’d gone that same night I was appalled and called the wedding off. So, my dear, you have the missing bride here before you.’
‘You!’ Emma exclaimed incredulously, with the memory of Jeremy’s hurtful revelations about him not being her father just as painful now as they’d been then. ‘You gave up your chance of happiness because of me? I wouldn’t have minded moving out, especially as it was you that he was intending to marry.’
She couldn’t tell Lydia the rest of it. Why she’d gone in the night, feeling hurt and humiliated, desperate to get away from what she’d been told, but holding no blame against her mother. She’d dealt with women and teenage girls in the practice in the same position that her mother had been in and had sympathised with their problems.
The practice manager was smiling. ‘Your disappearance saved me from what would have been a big mistake, marrying Jeremy. I’d never been married before. Had never wanted to, but as middle age was creeping up on me it was getting a bit lonely and … well you know the rest. But happiness doesn’t come at the expense of the hurt of others … and ever since I’ve looked upon it as a lucky escape.’
‘I’m so glad you’ve explained,’ Emma told her. ‘From the first moment of my return I’ve wondered why the house felt so empty and cheerless. I’ve felt that I couldn’t possibly live in it under those conditions, but now I might change my mind and make it fit to stay here.’
Feet on the stairs and voices were coming down towards them. It was twelve o’clock Saturday lunchtime, the practice had closed, and as friends of yesterday and newcomers she had to get to know crowded round her, for the first time it felt like coming home.
‘Where is Glenn this morning?’ she heard someone ask, and before a reply was forthcoming he spoke from up above.
‘Did I hear my name mentioned?’ he asked from the top of the stairs, and as he came down towards them he smiled across at her and asked the assembled staff, ‘So have you done anything about arranging a welcome night out for Dr Chalmers?’
‘We were just about to,’ someone said. ‘It’s why we’re all gathered below decks, but first we need to know if Emma would like that sort of thing.’
‘I would love it,’ she told them with a glance at Lydia, who had brought some clarity into her life and was smiling across at her.
‘So how about tonight, at one of the restaurants on the Promenade that has a dance floor?’ Mark Davies, a young GP trainee and a stranger to her, suggested. ‘Any excuse for food and fun.’
As the idea seemed to appeal to the rest of them it was arranged that they meet at the Barrington Bar at eight o’clock. As they all went home to make the best of what was left of Saturday, Emma felt that it was beginning to feel more like a homecoming, although she had no idea what to wear.
There had been no time or inclination to dress up where she’d been. It had been cotton cropped trousers and a loose shirt with a wide-brimmed hat to protect her face from the heat of the sun, and any clothes that she’d left in the wardrobe here would be reminders of the hurt that being told she had been living there on sufferance had caused. They would also smell stale.
So after a quick bite in a nearby snack bar she went clothes shopping for the evening ahead and found the experience exhilarating after the long gap of wearing attractive outfits. Her euphoria didn’t last long.
There was the arranging of Jeremy’s funeral that had to be her first priority after the weekend, and if she’d needed a reminder the amount of black outfits in the boutiques and big stores would have given her memory the necessary prod.
As she made her way homewards with a dark winter suit and matching accessories for the funeral, and, totally opposite, a turquoise mini-dress for the night ahead with silver shoes and a white fake-fur jacket, Emma was remembering that it was the new head of the practice who had prompted the staff to arrange the welcome-back occasion of the coming evening. Would he be there?
Glenn Bartlett knew her less than anyone and, having seen him in the smart black overcoat, she imagined that he would turn up well dressed.
He did come, looking more like an attractive member of the opposite sex than a sombre well-wisher, and suddenly the evening felt happy and carefree after her time of hurt and toiling in hot places.
For one thing, Lydia had solved the missing wife mystery that had been concerning Emma, and for another the surgery crowd, apart from a couple of newcomers, had been delighted to see her back in Glenminster. And to feel wanted was a wonderful thing.
The Barrington Bar, where they were gathered, was one of the town’s high spots as it boasted good food in a smart restaurant area beside a dance floor with musicians who were a delight to the ear, and as she looked around her the new head of the practice said from behind her, ‘So is it good to be back, Emma?’
‘Yes,’ she said, sparkling back at him, and he thought that the weary-looking occupant of what had been a drab, deserted house had come out of her shell with gusto. The dress, jacket and shoes were magical.
Some of the practice staff had brought partners with them but not so Glenn Bartlett. There was a look of solitariness about him, even though he was being friendly enough after their uncomfortable first meeting.
Did he live alone in the converted barn that he’d mentioned when he’d rung her bell last night? she wondered. Someone had said when they’d all been gathered at the practice earlier that he’d been taking his father with the big appetite home.
At that moment James Prentice, a young GP who had recently joined the practice, appeared at her side and asked if she would like to dance. As Emma smiled at him and took hold of his outstretched hand, the man by her side strolled towards the bar and once he’d been served seated himself at an empty table and gazed into space unsmilingly.
He’d been a fool to come, Glenn was thinking. The fact that he’d suggested a welcome homecoming for Jeremy Chalmers’s daughter would have been enough to add to switching on the heating and filling the refrigerator in that ghastly place, without turning out for a night at the Barrington Bar. It would have been a tempting idea at one time but not now, never again.
If it hadn’t been for the fact that Emma Chalmers had returned to the Cotswolds for a very sad occasion he would have left her to it, but common decency had required that he make sure she had food and warmth and the pleasure of tonight’s gathering to make her feel welcome because she’d looked tired and joyless on her arrival, which was not surprising after a long flight and a funeral to arrange as soon as possible.
Glenn finished his drink and, rising from his seat, told those of his companions who were nearest that he was leaving, going home to enjoy the peace that his father’s departure had restored.
Emma was still on the dance floor in her partner’s arms and as she glanced across he waved a brief goodbye and was gone.
Back home he sat in silence, gazing out into the dark night with the memory of Jeremy Chalmers’s last moments on the golf course starkly clear. He’d known him before stepping into the vacancy that his passing had left.
The then head of the practice and his father had met at university. Jeremy, who had been on the point of retiring, had invited his friend’s son, also a doctor, to stay for the weekend to familiarise himself with the running of the practice with a view to taking over as his replacement in the very near future after the necessary procedures had been dealt with.
They’d gone for a round of golf after lunch at the club and while on the course Jeremy had suffered the heart attack that had proved fatal. In intense pain he had managed to gasp out his last request and he, Glenn, working on him desperately as he’d tried to save him, had been stunned when he’d heard what it was.
‘I have a daughter,’ he’d croaked between pain spasms, ‘and I upset her gravely some years ago, so much so that she left to go where I don’t know, except it wasn’t in this country. Emma is a doctor and most likely has gone to one of the hot spots where they need as many medics as they can get.’
‘Bring her home for me, Glenn, back to where she was happy until I told her some unmentionable things about me.’
His lips had been blue, his eyes glazing even as the sound of an approaching ambulance could be heard screeching towards them, and his last words had been, ‘Promise you will?’
‘Yes, I promise,’ he’d told him gravely, and then his father’s friend had died.
Now, sitting sombrely in the attractive sitting room of the property he’d bought on the occasion of taking over the practice, Glenn was remembering the time and effort he’d put in to discover the whereabouts of the missing daughter. He was upset to think that he hadn’t tuned in to who she was outside the surgery the night before.
Fortunately he’d made sure that the house that had been her home previously was warm and habitable a day early and had had food in the refrigerator. Then had gone the extra mile by suggesting that the folk from the practice make her welcome with an evening in one of Glenminster’s high spots.
Now just one thing remained regarding his promise to her father, and when that was done maybe he would be able to have a life of his own once again. The task of locating Emma Chalmers had been mammoth.
He would be there for her at her father’s funeral and once that ordeal was over he was going to step aside and let her get on with her life. The same way he intended to carry on with his own, which was empty of womankind and was going to stay that way.
Drawing the curtains across to shut out the night, he went slowly up the spiral staircase that graced the hallway of his home and lay on top of the bedcovers, his last concern before sleep claimed him being the stranger that he had reluctantly taken under his wing.
What was her story? he wondered. Had she been close to Jeremy and they’d rowed about something that had made her go off in a huff? From what he’d said in his dying moments, it had seemed that Jeremy had been the reason for Emma’s departure and whatever it had been he’d had cause to regret it.
Since coming back to her roots she had never mentioned him, which was not a good omen, and what about the mother that she’d lost not so long before her hasty departure? What sort of a marriage had she and Jeremy had?
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_9f9ea610-f8ab-59a1-9473-a374819006ae)
THERE WERE A few offers to see Emma home safely when the Barrington Bar closed at the stroke of midnight heralding the Sabbath, but Lydia forestalled them by saying, ‘I’m in my car, Emma, and haven’t been on the wine. Would you like a lift as I have to pass your place?’ And added to the rest, ‘That leaves two more empty places if anyone wants to join us.’
The offer was immediately taken up by older members of staff, one of the practice nurses and a receptionist, both of whom lived just a short distance away, and when they were eventually alone in the car Lydia said, ‘So how has your first full day back in Glenminster felt?’
‘Very strange,’ Emma told her, ‘and unexpectedly pleasant. But that feeling isn’t going to last long when I start making the funeral arrangements for Jeremy. He wasn’t my father. Did you know that, Lydia?’
‘No, I didn’t!’ she gasped ‘How long have you been aware of it?’
‘Just as long as it took him to let me see how little I meant to him—which was immediately after he’d said he wanted me gone, out of the way.’
The house was in sight and when Lydia stopped the car she said dejectedly, ‘And all of that was because he wanted to marry me? Surely he didn’t think I would allow him to hurt you so that he could have me. None of it brought him any joy, did it? Without even knowing about what he had said regarding him not being your father, I refused to go ahead with the wedding when he told me that he’d made it clear that you wouldn’t be welcome around the place once we were married. Sadly, by that time Emma, you’d gone and not a single person knew where you were.
‘Jeremy was with Glenn when he had the heart attack and made him promise to find you and bring you back to Glenminster to make up for all the hurt he’d caused you. So he did have a conscience of sorts, I suppose. Glenn, being the kind of guy who keeps his word, spent hours searching for you in every possible way until he finally located you. No doubt once the funeral is over he will be ready to get back to his own life, hoping that yours is sorted.’
Shaken to the core by what she’d been told about the man she’d been going to marry, Lydia was about to drive off into the night when Emma asked, ‘Was it Dr Bartlett who saw to it that there was heating and food in the house?’
‘Yes,’ she was told. ‘Glenn mentioned that he was going to deal with those things and you almost arrived before he’d done so by appearing a day early. Now, one last thing before I go—have you enjoyed tonight, Emma?’
‘It was wonderful,’ she said, ‘and would have been even more so if I could have thanked Dr Bartlett for all he has done for me, but as I didn’t know about it I shall make up for my lack of appreciation in the morning.’
Glenn was having a late breakfast when he saw Emma appear on Sunday morning, and as he watched her walk purposefully along the drive he sighed. What now? he wondered. He didn’t have to wait long for an answer as once he had invited her inside she told him, ‘I’m here to say thank you for all that you’ve done for me, Dr Bartlett. I had no idea until Lydia explained on the way home last night that my father had put upon you the burden of finding me, and that it was you who had made my homecoming as comfortable as possible with food and warmth. It must have all been very time-consuming.’
He was smiling, partly with relief because she wanted no more from him and because she was so easily pleased with what he’d done for her. At the beginning Emma Chalmers had just been a lost soul that Jeremy had asked him to find so that he could die in the hope that he, Glenn, would bring her back to where she belonged. Difficult as the process had sometimes been, he’d had no regrets in having to keep the promise he’d made.
Pointing to a comfortable chair by the fireside, he said, ‘It was in a good cause, Emma, and having now met you I realise just how worthy it was. Whatever it was that Jeremy had done to you it was clear that he regretted it. I could tell that it lay heavily on his conscience, and as my last involvement in your affairs, if you need any assistance with the funeral arrangements, you have only to ask.’
She was smiling but there were tears on her lashes as she said, ‘I will try not to involve you if I can, but thanks for the offer.’
As she rose from the chair, ready to depart, he said, ‘My parents will be at the funeral. They are a crazy pair but their hearts are in the right place and I love them dearly. It was my dad who told Jeremy that I was a doctor and had come to live in the village after leaving a practice up north. So that was how I came to be with him on the day he died.
‘Jeremy had been to see me and, having been told that I’d been doing a similar job to his in the place that I’d left, asked if I would be interested in replacing him at the practice in Glenminster as he was ready to retire. Once I’d seen it and been introduced to staff I was keen to take over, and that is how I come to be here.’
‘Going through the usual formalities with the health services and the rest took a while but I had no regrets, and now we have his daughter back with us, so hopefully he will rest in peace. You don’t resemble him at all, do you?’ he commented.
He saw her flinch but her only comment gave nothing away.
‘No,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’m more like my mother.’ Having no wish to start going down those sort of channels in the conversation, she said, ‘Thanks again, Dr Bartlett, for all that you’ve done for both me and him.’ On the point of leaving, she commented, ‘Your home is lovely.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose it is, and with the hills above and the delightful town below them, I am happy to be settled here.’
‘So do you live alone, then?’ she couldn’t resist asking.
There was a glint in the deep blue eyes observing her and Emma wished she hadn’t asked as his reply was short and purposeful, and to make it even more so he had opened the door and was waiting for her to depart as he delivered it. ‘Yes. I prefer the solitary life. It is so much easier to deal with.’
She smiled a twisted smile and told him, ‘I’ve had a lot of that sort of thing where I’ve been based over the last few years and to me it was not easy to cope with at all. Solitariness is something that takes all the colour out of life, so I’m afraid I can’t agree with you on that.’ And stepping out into the crisp Sunday morning, she walked briskly towards the town centre and the house on the edge of it that the man who hadn’t been her father had left to her for reasons she didn’t know.
There had been no generosity in Jeremy on that awful night and ever since she had needed a name that wasn’t his: the name of the man who had made her mother pregnant. Did he even know that he had a daughter?
Common sense was butting in, taking over her thought processes. So what? You had a fantastic mother who loved and cherished you. Let that be balm to your soul, and as for that guy back there, doesn’t every doctor long for peace after spending long hours of each day caring for the health of others? If you’ve never had the same yearning, you are unique.
Back at the property that Emma had admired, Glenn was facing up to the fact that his description of his home life must have sounded extremely boring. With a glance at the photograph on his bedside table he wondered what Jeremy’s daughter would think of him if she knew why he needed to be alone.
Serena was gone, along with many others, taken from him by one of nature’s cruel tricks, a huge tsunami, unexpected, unbelievable. Since then he had lived for two things only, caring for his parents and his job, and there were times when the job was the least exhausting of the two.
They’d been holidaying in one of the world’s delightful faraway places when it had struck. The only reason he had survived was because he’d taken a book with him to one of the resort’s golden beaches and had been engrossed in its contents, while Serena had been doing her favourite thing, swimming to a rock that was quite a way out and sunbathing there.
When the huge wall of water had come thundering towards them, sweeping everything out of the way with its force, they’d both been caught up in it. Glenn had been closer to land and had surfaced and managed to hold onto driftwood before staggering towards what had been left of the hotel where they’d been staying. But of Serena, his wife, sunbathing on the rock far out, she and others like her had disappeared and had never been found.
Weeks later, with all hope gone, Glenn had arrived back but had been unable to bear to stay where they’d lived together so happily. So he had moved to a new job and a new house in the town where his parents lived, telling the older folk that he didn’t want his affairs discussed amongst the residents of Glenminster, or anywhere else for that matter.
The only way he had coped after leaving the practice up north to join the one in the town centre had been by giving his total commitment to his patients, and when away from the practice shutting himself into the converted barn that he’d bought and in the silence grieving for what he had lost.
That day on the golf course had been a one-off. Jeremy had persuaded Glenn to join him there for a round or two much against his inclination because it would be interrupting the quiet time that he allowed himself whenever possible.
When the other man had collapsed with a massive heart attack in the middle of the game and hadn’t responded to Glenn’s frantic efforts as they’d waited for an ambulance, Jeremy had begged him with his dying breath to find his daughter and bring her home to Glenminster. Though aghast at the request, as it had seemed that no one had known where she was, he had carried out Jeremy’s wishes faithfully. Once the funeral was over Glenn was fully intent on returning to his reclusive evenings and weekends.
The fact that Emma, having only been back in her home town three days, had visited him on the third one had not been what he had expected. Neither was it what he was going to want once he began to live his own life again.
He’d seen to it that she was back home where she belonged and on a grey winter’s day had made sure she would be warm and fed when she arrived. He had even gone so far as to make sure that she received a warm welcome home from the practice staff at the Barrington Bar, of all places, which had not been the kind of thing on his personal agenda. Once his duty had been done he had been off home to the peace that his bruised heart cried out for.
Only to find that Emma had good manners. On the quiet Sunday morning she hadn’t picked up the phone to thank him for all that he’d done on her behalf, which until her chat with Lydia she’d had no knowledge of, but had come in person. So why was he feeling so edgy about it?
Was she going to want to come back into the practice? They needed another doctor. But was the daughter of chancer and man about town Jeremy Chalmers someone he would want around the place?
He spent the rest of the day clearing up fallen leaves in the garden and at last, satisfied that all was tidy, went inside when daylight began to fade and began to make himself a meal.
As he was on the point of putting a piece of steak under the grill the phone rang and when Glenn heard Emma’s voice at the other end of the line he sighed. She didn’t hear it, but his tone of voice when he replied was enough for her to know it would have been better to have waited until the following morning to report the conversation she’d just had with a funeral director.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you again, Dr Bartlett,’ she said. ‘It is just that I’ve been speaking to the funeral firm, who have been waiting for me to appear with regard to a date for the funeral that has been unfortunately delayed because of my absence, and they pointed out that as my—er—father was so well known in the practice and around the town, maybe a Sunday would be the most suitable day. Then all the staff would be free and more of the townspeople would be able to attend, it not being a regular working day for most people.’
‘Yes, good thinking,’ he agreed, relieved that the final chapter of the sad episode on the golf course was to be soon for her sake as well as his. ‘Why not call in at the practice tomorrow so that I can help you with the rest of the arrangements?’
There was silence at the other end of the line for a moment and then Emma said haltingly, ‘Are you sure you don’t mind me butting into your time there? I’m afraid that I’ve been in your face a lot since I returned.’
Glenn thought that she’d picked up on his moroseness and his desire to be free of his commitment to a man he’d hardly known, so he told her, ‘No, not so. Once the funeral is organised and has taken place we can both get on with our lives.’ But as the steak began to sizzle and the vegetables he intended having with it came to the boil Emma had one last thing to say and he almost groaned out loud.
‘Just one thing and then I really will leave you to enjoy your Sunday evening. It is with regard to the food that you provided me with. How much am I in your debt?’
‘You’re not. You owe me nothing,’ he said abruptly. ‘It was part of the promise that I made to a dying man.’
Her response came fast. ‘So let me make you a meal after the practice has closed tomorrow evening. It would save me butting into your lunch hour to discuss the arrangements for next Sunday.’
His reply was given at a similar speed. ‘No! I’ve told you, Emma. You owe me nothing. I’ll see you tomorrow at midday.’ And as she rang off without further comment it was clear to her that he was more than eager for the role he had played during recent weeks to be at an end.
Glenn had been looking forward to the meal he’d cooked, but every time he thought about how uncivil he’d been when she’d wanted to thank him for what he’d done for her the food felt as if it would choke him.
Emma would have understood if you’d explained that you still mourn the loss of your wife under horrendous circumstances, he told himself, and that after a week at the surgery you want to be left in peace.
Pushing the plate away from him, he poured a glass of wine and went to sit in front of the log fire that was burning brightly in the sitting room. Gazing morosely at the dancing flames, Glenn admitted to himself that it was most unfair to transfer the pain of his shattered life to a stranger such as her.
He was behaving like a complete moron. Why in heaven’s name didn’t he explain the reason for his behaviour and try to get it in perspective? Otherwise people would start asking questions that he didn’t want to answer.
For one thing, Emma wouldn’t want to feel that his attitude was another dark chapter of her life to add to the fact that she had to attend the funeral of a man who had confessed to causing her great hurt.
With determination to atone for the rebuff he’d handed out when she’d wanted to make him a meal, Glenn decided that he would call at her house on his way home the following evening if she didn’t appear in the lunch hour, and do all he could to show Emma that he felt no ill will towards her. That his behaviour came from pain that never went away, so he needed to focus on work.
As his first appointment of the day arrived on the following morning he settled down to what he did best: looking after his patients.
The staff of the practice consisted of Lydia, the practice manager, six GPs with himself as senior, two trainee GPs, who were there to earn their accreditation after qualifying as doctors, and four incredible receptionists who held it all together.
Once the man who had been his predecessor had been laid to rest, the gloom that had hung over the practice might lighten. As a new era began, was Jeremy’s prodigal daughter going to want to join the practice, or had he put her off completely? he wondered.
Back at the house the night before Emma had been deep in thought as she’d cleared away after a solitary meal, and they had not been happy thoughts. Did she want to be in the first funeral car on her own? There was no one who should rightly be with her. Her mother had left no relations, neither had Jeremy—and she had no knowledge of who her birth father might be.
Maybe Lydia would join her. If she did it would help to take away some of the dreadful lost and lonely feeling that she’d had ever since she’d been told with brutal clarity that the man she had always thought to be her father, in fact, was not.
The other concern on her mind was the fact that she was having a bad start in getting to know the man who had replaced Jeremy in the practice. She was experiencing a kind and thoughtful side to his character that was contradicted by his brusque attitude on occasion.
It was clear that Glenn was not a good mixer. It would be interesting to find out what sort of a man he was if she joined the practice staff. She did want to feel happy and fulfilled back in Glenminster, if that was possible.
She didn’t want to return to the heat and endless toil of Africa until she had recharged her batteries in the place where she had grown up and where she’d had a job she’d loved until the bubble of her contentment had burst.
With those thoughts in mind she presented herself at the practice in the lunch hour. When Glenn’s last morning patient had gone, and before the afternoon’s sick and suffering began to arrive, he left his consulting room and went to see if Emma had come, as he’d asked her to. He was relieved to find her outside in the corridor deep in conversation with Lydia.
On seeing him the older woman suggested that Emma come down to her office for a coffee before she went, and left them together. So Glenn opened the door that he’d just come through and when Emma was seated on the opposite side of his desk at his invitation he asked, ‘So how are you this morning?’ He followed it with another question. ‘Are you any nearer to knowing how you want the funeral to be arranged?’
Emma was looking around her. The last time she’d been in the room Jeremy had been seated where Glenn was now. The memory of her last day in Glenminster came back so clearly it was making her feel weak and disoriented, although Jeremy hadn’t delivered the actual body blow until late that evening, when he’d been drinking and had been about to climb the stairs to sleep it off.
Glenn watched the colour drain from her face and came round the desk to stand beside her, concerned. But Emma was rallying, taking control of the black moment from the past. Managing a wan smile as he gazed down at her anxiously, she said, ‘I’m all right, it was just a memory of the last time I was in this room and what happened afterwards that knocked me sideways.’
Straightening up in the chair, she said, ‘In answer to your question, I’m fine. I’ve just asked Lydia if she will join me in the one and only funeral car that will be needed instead of my being alone. I have no relatives that I could ask to keep me company on such a depressing occasion. Obviously there will be other people following in their cars, but that is how it will be for me.’
‘And what did she say?’ he asked uncomfortably, knowing that he should have given some thought to Emma’s solitariness on the day instead of being so wrapped up in his own feelings.
‘She said yes, that she will be with me.’
‘Good. I hadn’t realised just how alone you are, Emma,’ he commented. ‘If Lydia hadn’t been able to do as you asked I would have volunteered. Though whether you would have wanted someone you hardly know with you on such an occasion seems unlikely.’
He glanced at a clock on the wall and commented, ‘I can only give you half an hour before my afternoon patients start arriving so what exactly do you want to discuss?’
‘I’m going to have an announcement in the local press, announcing that the funeral will be on Sunday at the crematorium at three o’clock, for the benefit of anyone wanting to take part in the service or just to watch,’ she told him, ‘and I’m arranging a meal for afterwards for the practice staff and any of his close friends.’
‘That sounds fine,’ he agreed. ‘What about flowers?’
‘No. Instead, I’d like donations to be made to the Heart Foundation, or locally to Horizon’s Eye Hospital, which is an amazing place. Do you think those kind of arrangements will be suitable?’ she enquired. She was ready to go and leave him to his busy afternoon, aware all the while that the time she had taken out of his lunch hour might leave no opportunity for him to have a snack or whatever he did for refreshment at that time of day.
But remembering Glenn Bartlett’s rebuffs of the previous evening, there was no way she was going to concern herself about that. He was the one who’d suggested a chat in the lunch hour, and in the days when she’d been employed there she’d often missed her lunch due to pressure of work.
‘Yes,’ he told her, unaware of the thoughts going through her mind. ‘Just one question. Am I right in presuming that it will all start from what is now your house?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she replied, the cold hand of dread clamping on her heart. Until the man she’d thought had been her father had been laid to rest she couldn’t even contemplate what she was going to do in the future if Glenn didn’t want her back at the surgery.
It was possible, taking note of his manner towards her, that he could be feeling that enough was enough. That having found her and brought her back to where Jeremy Chalmers had wanted her to be … and the rest of it, he’d had enough without her being forever in his sights.
Maybe after Sunday, in the relief that the slate had been wiped clean, she would be able to see everything more clearly. As far as she was concerned, it couldn’t come quickly enough. So, getting up to go down to Lydia’s office in the basement for the coffee that she’d suggested, Emma wished Glenn goodbye and left him deep in thought.
In the days that followed Emma felt as if she were in some sort of limbo. She wandered around the shops for suitable clothes to fill her wardrobe against winter’s chill, while trying to ignore signs of the coming of Christmas already on view in some of them.
It was the last thing she wanted to contemplate, spending Christmas in the house that had been left to her in its present state. It had always been basic and she’d often wondered why her mother had never complained, but now she understood. Maybe Jeremy had expected gratitude instead of requests for a brighter home from the woman he had married to save her name.
She supposed she could give the place a makeover or alternatively put it up for sale and move to somewhere smaller and more modern and not so near the bustle of the town, but until Sunday’s ordeal was over she couldn’t contemplate the future.
It was done. The event that Emma had been dreading had taken place and, with Lydia beside her and Glenn Bartlett hovering nearby, she had coped. There had been a good turnout, as she’d expected, and now the staff of the practice and a few of Jeremy’s golfing friends were gathered in a restaurant in the town centre for the meal she’d organised.
Emma was feeling that now the future was going to open out in front of her, though not as an exciting challenge. More as if it was hidden in a mist of uncertainty. As she caught the glance of the man who had brought her home from a foreign country to an uncertain future, she felt her colour rise at the thought of asking for a return to her previous position in the practice. He was so obviously wanting an end to their unwanted connection.
Did he ever smile? she wondered. If his expression was less closed and sombre he would be the most attractive man she’d ever met. His hair was dark russet, his eyes as blue as a summer sky—but always with no joy in them.
It seemed that he was unmarried, not in a relationship of any kind, and lived alone in his delightful property, with the occasional visit from his elderly parents.
Her smile was wry. It seemed as if neither of them was fulfilling their full potential. His life sounded almost hermit-like. Or was it that he had enough to think about with the job and being there for his folks? Although they sounded anything but fragile.
She was being observed in return. What was it that Jeremy Chalmers had done to cause his daughter the degree of hurt that he’d confessed to when he’d lain dying? Glenn asked himself. It had been enough to make her leave Glenminster and only be prepared to return in the event of his death.
Emma didn’t come over as the weak and whingeing type. Whatever it was, she didn’t carry her sorrows around with her, as he did. Maybe they weren’t as dreadful as the burden he was carrying, having Serena there one moment and the next gone for ever. If they’d had a child to remember her by he might be coping better.
The funeral party were getting ready to leave. He got to his feet and joined them and as Emma shook hands and thanked them for their time and their support, he waited until they’d gone and asked, ‘Do you want a lift home, Emma?’
She smiled. ‘No, I’m fine. Lydia is going to take me, but thanks for the offer. And also thanks once again for the way you have been there for me, a stranger, at this awful time.’ Her smile deepened. ‘I promise I will not cause any more hassle in your life.’
Before he could explain that his moroseness came from coping with terrible grief every moment of every day, she had gone to where the practice manager was waiting for her, leaving him to return to the empty house that he had turned into his stronghold against life without Serena. For the first time since he had gone to live there Glenn was reluctant to turn the key in the lock and go inside, and when he did so, instead of its comforting peace, a heavy silence hung over every room.
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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: Wedding bells at Christmas?When Dr Emma Chalmers returns to her home town she doesn’t expect to fall head over heels for handsome new partner Dr Glenn Bartlett! He’s everything she’s ever dreamed of in a man…Glenn never expects to find love again after losing his beloved wife. But when Emma tumbles into his life at Christmas she shows him how to live and fills him with hope for the future. But first he has one very important question he needs to ask!