Abigail Gordon - Christmas in Bluebell Cove p.02

CHAPTER FOUR


SPRING had come to Bluebell Cove and the bluebells that the village was named after were already gracing the borders of the hedgerows and carpeting the woods in bright blue perfection.

Francine was still living at Thimble Cottage and flying to Paris each weekend, leaving the children with Ethan, and he was holding the surgery together during Leo’s frequent visits to Manchester to be with his sick mother.
She saw Ethan coming home quite late one Friday night and went across to ask if everything was all right at the practice. ‘It’s Leo,’ he said. ‘The guy has a lot on his mind. He has to keep going to Manchester, his mother is very sick. I did tell him when he first came not to worry if he had to be absent because of her ill health, that charity begins at home, but I can’t keep on like this. I’m going to have to get some extra help.
‘We’re at full strength with three practice nurses now that Jenna is back on the job part time, but it’s doctors we’re short of. It was handy when Lucas was around as he helped out, but now that he’s gone back to his consultant role at Hunter’s Hill Hospital he’s not available.’
‘Why don’t I come back part-time?’ she suggested. ‘The days are long once the children have gone to school, and during holidays I’m sure we can arrange some care for them at home with friends and so on.’
He was observing her thoughtfully. ‘Are you sure about that? You moved into rented accommodation to get away from me and now you’re suggesting an arrangement that would bring us closer together again.’
‘Yes. I am sure. Do you want me mornings or afternoons?’
‘Mornings are busiest.’
‘Mornings it shall be, then. Is Leo away at the moment?’
‘Yes, it could be for a while, and we’re still short of another member of staff, though we do have a temporary district nurse. Phoebe’s maternity leave won’t be up until next New Year.’
‘Where is she living? I haven’t seen her anywhere around in the village since you danced with her on Christmas Eve.’
He was smiling. ‘The reason for that is not because I stepped on her toes, I can assure you. It’s because she’s living with her sister in the town and rarely needs to come here for anything.’
‘That will change, of course, when she comes back to work. What arrangements she will make for the baby when the time comes I don’t know. But getting back to your offer of assisting at the practice, could you start on Monday?’
‘Yes. I don’t see why not.’
‘Good. That will be great.’ He was glancing towards the cottage and said, ‘It all seems very quiet over there. Where are the children?’
‘They’re both involved with sleepovers. Kirstie is staying at the vicar’s house. As you know, his daughter Jessica is one of her best friends. And Ben is taking part in a twenty-four-hour fast for charity in the community centre with some of his friends.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ he exclaimed laughingly. ‘He won’t last that long without food.’
‘We’ll have to see, won’t we?’ she replied, sharing his amusement.
His next comment took her by surprise. ‘I suppose you’re all geared up for an early night because you’re off across the Channel again in the morning.’
‘Not necessarily,’ she replied. ‘I’ve had my fill of early nights lately. Why do you ask?’
‘Once I’ve changed into something more comfortable than this suit, I’m going to go for a stroll along the beach, and as you don’t have to be here for Kirstie and Ben, do you fancy joining me?’
‘Er, yes, I suppose I could,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Have you eaten yet?’
‘Yes, I have. Maria went across to the bakery and got me some sandwiches before she went home.’
‘Give me a buzz when you’re ready, then,’ she suggested, and went back into the cottage.



As she waited for him to ring, Francine knew that she was letting down another of her defences by offering to help out at the surgery, but she couldn’t stand by and watch Ethan doing the work of two doctors and having the children at weekends as well. He wouldn’t have a moment to spare, while she would be relaxing in France with all the time in the world at her disposal.

And now, without barely a second’s thought, she’d agreed to go walking with him in the moonlight with the scent of bluebells all around them. She would have to keep a hold on her feelings and every time she felt she was weakening bring to mind the Paris house.
A little later, as they set off towards the headland and the beach below, she broke the silence that had fallen between them by asking, ‘Why didn’t Leo look for a position in general practice nearer Manchester if his mother is so ill?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ he replied. ‘I really don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing, I don’t want to lose him. He’s settled in well with the patients, is a good doctor, and there would be no problem if it wasn’t for his mother’s health.’
As they clambered down the cliffside to where the beach lay smooth and golden between the tides, to Francine it felt like how it used to be. A special place with the Devon countryside around it dotted with fertile farms, hotels and guest houses amongst sweeping green fields, all of which had been part of the magic of Bluebell Cove before they’d separated. It was the place they’d come to as newly qualified doctors and she’d thought she would be happy to stay there for ever.
But she’d reckoned without circumstances, without the meddling fates. A new horizon had opened out in front of her, the opportunity to live in the gracious house where she’d been born.



It was a haunting moment, the two of them on the beach in the spring dusk.

Before the children had been born they’d once made love down there in the warm night when the place had been deserted. She wondered if Ethan remembered. He turned to face her and she knew by his expression that he did.
She stepped away from him, knowing she had to break into the moment that was wrapping itself around them. Any future life-shattering decisions she made would have to be in cold blood from now on, not in anger and frustration as before, or in the heat of the passion that could arise between them so quickly if they would let it.
So she said casually, ‘Have you heard from your solicitor recently? Mine seems to be dragging her feet.’
Ethan had been content just to be with her, but not now, and his reply was in keeping with his expression. ‘Why did you have to spoil this short time together, Francine?’ he asked stonily. ‘Yes, I’ve heard from my guy and he tells me that everything is going ahead as planned. Just think, you’ll soon have what you’ve wanted, the freedom to live your life rattling around in that big house that was your parents’. Whoopee!’
‘You know very well that isn’t how I wanted it to be,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I wanted us all to live there, but it hasn’t worked out like that. I had a dream, Ethan, and am sure you’ll be pleased to know that it’s fading.’
He was looking around him. ‘I suggest we go. I’ve always loved it here down on the beach, but at this moment its appeal is missing.’ She didn’t move and he asked, ‘Did you hear what I said? I’m not leaving you down here in the dark, so let’s go, Francine.’ As if she’d suddenly tuned in to what he was saying, she nodded and without speaking went before him up the cliffside.
When they stopped outside their respective residences he said, ‘So, can I expect you at the surgery on Monday morning?’
‘Did I say I would be there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, then, that is where I’ll be. Goodnight, Ethan.’ And without further comment she opened the door of Thimble Cottage and went in, wishing that she’d let their awareness of each down on the beach take its course.



The weekend that followed began like all those that had passed since that first one in January when she’d returned to France without the children. But this one was even more depressing because the frail truce between her and Ethan had been broken when she’d brought him down to earth on the beach on the Friday night.

As she unpacked her weekend case the desire to phone him and make amends was strong. But how could she possibly put things right between them when neither of them was willing to give up whatthey thought was right, and with divorce proceedings under way?
She was about to make the effort to food shop when the bell rang at the front door and she frowned. Visitors were not part of life here in Paris, she didn’t know anyone that well, but it was ringing again, this time with an insistence to the sound, and she hurried downstairs.
When she opened the door her mouth was a round O of amazement.
Ethan and the children were standing in the porch, smiling at her expression.
‘We thought we’d come to keep you company, didn’t we, guys?’ he said. ‘So here we are. Aren’t you going to ask us in?’
Was she going to ask them in? She was indeed, and throwing wide the door she said, ‘You can rest assured of that! What a lovely surprise, Ethan.’ She put her arms around her son and daughter. ‘But why? You never said you were thinking of joining me here.’
‘The idea only occurred to me last night, and as your flight was fully booked we came on the next one.’ He was looking around him. ‘I have to say I’d forgotten just how lovely Paris is in the spring, and what an attractive house this is.’
‘Yes, it’s lovely,’ she agreed wistfully, ‘but a house like this needs people to fill its rooms, to make it come alive, active people, happy people.’
‘Do you mean to say that it’s got the one but not the other?’
Glancing upwards to where Kirstie and Ben were dashing upstairs to their bedrooms, she said, ‘It didn’t have either until a few moments ago, but you’ve put that right for a short time, Ethan, so shall we forget our differences for a while and enjoy this lovely surprise that you’ve sprung on me? Does your coming here mean that you’ve forgiven me for the argument last night down on the beach?’
‘There was nothing to forgive. You felt that we were asking for trouble, didn’t you, that no matter how much we were drawn to each by the old magic, things are not right between us, that I needed a reminder, and I’ve taken it on board. So let’s enjoy ourselves over the weekend,if we can remember how,’ he said with a quirky smile. ‘Which room do you want me in, Francine?’
‘You’ll have to share mine,’ she said awkwardly. ‘The children have the other two bedrooms. I use the big bedroom on the front, and the spare room is full of my father’s business equipment. It has been sold and is waiting to be taken away, but the people have not yet been to collect it.’
He was observing her with raised brows. ‘Are you sure?’
‘What? That they are coming to collect it?’
‘No. That you want me in your room.’
‘It is twin bedded Ethan.’
‘But of course,’ he said with assumed gravity, and followed the children upstairs, leaving her to rejoice at the sudden turn of events. Dare she begin to hope that he was going to change his mind about them making their home here? she wondered. And if he did, would she ever forget the scent of bluebells and the pounding of the sea on to a golden beach in Devon?



The four of them spent the afternoon in the city centre, strolling around the shopping areas and art galleries. In the early evening Ethan announced that he’d made a reservation for a dinner cruise along the river Seine through the centre of Paris.

‘How did you manage that?’ she asked.
‘I made it by phone after I’d booked the flight last night, and then it was just a matter of picking Kirstie up from the sleepover at the vicarage this morning and collecting a ravenously hungry Ben from the overnight fast at the community centre with a bag of sandwiches at the ready.’



It was magical, cruising along with a myriad lights illuminating famous landmarks and places of interest as they enjoyed the food. They’d done it a few times before but Francine thought it had never had more meaning than on this spring night with her husband. The husband who had refused to live in the beautiful city of her birth because of a promise to a demanding retired doctor.

But tonight they’d wiped the slate clean for a few hours. It was how they used to be, the four of them a happy family, and she hoped that somewhere in the ether her parents might be looking down on them and understanding how she was torn by her longing to be with her loved ones yet achingly homesick for Paris, even though today was the first time it had felt right being there.



The children were asleep, Ethan was watching sport on television, and Francine thought it was a good moment to end the day.

‘I’ll be up shortly,’ he said casually as she began to climb the stairs, and she nodded without speaking. They’d had a lovely day, the four of them, but what was coming next was awful, sleeping in the same room in separate beds, and she intended to be asleep by the time he put in an appearance.
But sleep was hard to come by and when he appeared in the bedroom doorway dressed in a robe that he must have found in one of the wardrobes, she raised herself on the pillows and picked up a book off the bedside table.
He made no comment, just slipped off the robe and lay on top of the covers in his usual nightly attire, a pair of boxer shorts, but after she’d stared at the same page for at least twenty minutes he asked casually, ‘Do you want a game of Scrabble as you’re having trouble sleeping?’
When she looked across at him he was laughing, dark eyes warm and tender in the face that she knew as well as her own, and then he was on his feet and coming towards her and Francine knew if she didn’t stop him now it would be too late, they would make love and the bliss of it would be wiped out by a feeling of bitter-sweetness because it could be the last time.
So why was she holding out her arms to him, throwing off the covers and letting him slip the straps of her nightdress off her shoulders? ‘It’s been so long, Francine,’ he said as he caressed her from top to toe, ‘we can’t go on like this. I haven’t stopped loving you for a second in spite of the arguments and misunderstandings, and pray that you feel the same about me.’
‘Yes, I do,’ she murmured as their arousal increased until she could think of nothing else but how she wanted him to bring her to the climax that she always achieved when they made love, and he did, until at last they lay content in each other’s arms.
Ethan was the first to speak and she smiled when he said, ‘I’m going to pull my bed across next to yours so that it’s the equivalent of a double. I want you close through the night without us being cramped. OK?’
‘Yes, OK,’ she replied dreamily, with the delightful feeling that at last all was well with her world. Ethan had come to France for the weekend without persuasion and had enjoyed every moment he’d been there with her. Was the nightmare going to end and her parents’ lovely home be filled with noise and laughter once more? She had a feeling that it was.



The flights for him and the children were for the Sunday night because it was school on Monday morning and he and Francine didn’t want them to be no sooner home than having to go straight to school without time to eat and change into their uniforms, so on the off chance of flying back with them she rang the airport and managed to change her ticket.

She’d been up in the clouds all day after spending the night with Ethan and every time their glances met, her heartbeat quickened. The two of them had gone sightseeing in the morning, cruising on the river again afterwards, and had finally had afternoon tea in a small restaurant near the Eiffel Tower that served excellent food, before collecting Kirstie and Ben who’d spent the day with a group of the friends they’d met at their French school. And all the time Francine was rejoicing inwardly because Ethan was coming round to her way of thinking.
When he commented that the children were not supposed to know anyone on this side of the Channel, she just smiled and told him, ‘Their reluctance to come here to live was mainly because you wouldn’t be here. They can cope with living with me in Thimble Cottage because it is only yards away from where you are.’



There’d been no time for any really in-depth discussion after that with Kirstie and Ben around, so the bubble didn’t burst until they were back in Bluebell Cove and the children were asleep. It was then that Francine went across to discuss the weekend’s happenings with Ethan.

She found him on the phone to Leo and when he’d replaced the receiver he said soberly, ‘No joy from that end. Leo could be absent for some time. You will be most welcome to join us at the surgery, Francine.’
‘Er—yes, I suppose so,’ she agreed doubtfully, ‘but in the meantime you will have to make some arrangements for when we’ve gone.’
He was observing her warily. ‘Gone where, Francine?’
‘To Paris, of course. That is what was behind you coming to join me, wasn’t it? The reason why we—’ Her voice trailed away and there was a sinking feeling inside her as she said slowly. ‘Did you make love to me just for the fun of it?’
‘Of course not!’ he exclaimed. ‘I would never do that in a thousand years.’
‘So why then? Not because you cared enough to make my dream come true obviously. It was just a one-off, was it?’
‘No. It was not. When I came into the bedroom last night you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and no matter what, you were still mine. That was why, not for any other reason. To sleep with you wasn’t why I’d followed you to France.’
‘It was because I felt bad about the way we’d separated down on the beach and didn’t want to have to wait until Monday before I saw you again. And with regard to me moving to France with you, how in the name of God can I? We’ve been through this a thousand times and it’s not going to change, Francine. I can’t do it.’
‘You could if you tried.’
‘Oh, yes? The practice in Bluebell Cove isn’t clinical and impersonal like those in town centres. It’s a place where friends meet friends, where they know their doctors, see them in the street and the pub, and are relaxed in their presence.
‘When Barbara Balfour retired there was no problem in finding a replacement. They knew me almost as well as they’d known her, but it wouldn’t be that simple ifI went.
‘Leo hasn’t been here long. He hasn’t enough experience of general practice to take over,and he’s bogged down with family commitments. There is no one else who would be suitable. Our patients wouldn’t take well to a stranger.
‘Maybe sometime in the future a solution will present itself, but for now I just can’t consider upping sticks and moving to France. I’m sorry, but that is how it is, Francine.’
‘Fair enough,’ she said flatly. ‘So it’s back to square one.’
‘I’m afraid so—and what about tomorrow?’
‘What about it? If you’re referring to me working part time at the surgery again, we’ve already had that discussion, Ethan. What time do you want me there?’
‘Eight o’clock, please.’
She was already turning to go and gave him a cool nod of agreement. before returning to the cottage to weep out her disappointment.



There were a few raised eyebrows amongst the staff when Dr Lomax’s chic French wife appeared the next morning with the news that she was about to join them in the capacity of part-time doctor.

When the man himself arrived looking somewhat frazzled after a sleepless night and having cut himself while shaving, she was already installed in the smallest of the consulting rooms after checking first that it wasn’t in use by anyone else. And now, after clearing the desk of a bit of clutter, Francine was seated behind it, waiting for Ethan to arrive.
Of the three practice nurses Jenna was delighted to see her installed at the surgery once more. Lucy, who had been at The Tides Practice for years and was as fiercely loyal to Ethan as she’d been to his predecessor, had been polite but not gushing, and young Maria, the trainee, had flashed her a shy smile when Francine had found the staff gathered in the surgery kitchen, drinking tea, until half past eight arrived when the doors would be opened and morning surgery would commence.
The first thing Ethan did was to look around him for any signs of his wife, and Jenna said, ‘Francine is already installed in the consulting room at the end of the passage, Ethan. What a nice surprise.’
‘Yes, it is, Jenna,’ he agreed. ‘We are desperately short of doctors.’ He smiled at Millie on Reception. ‘It’s just on half past you’d better open up, Millie.’ And with only one thing in mind he strode briskly down the passage to the small room at the end.
‘What kept you?’ Francine asked from behind the desk when he was framed in the doorway. ‘You aren’t usually late.’
‘True,’ he replied, ‘but having been awake most of the night, then dozing off just as I was due to get up—’ he pointed to a gash on his chin ‘—plus doing this while I was shaving, it meant that I was on the last minute. Did you sleep all right after last night’s misunderstanding?’
‘Yes,’ she said dryly. ‘Like a top.’
It wasn’t true, of course. She’d spent the night tossing and turning and the last thing she’d felt like doing in the spring dawn had been getting up to go and help at the surgery. But a promise was a promise and in spite of Ethan being around most of the time, it would help take her mind off the disillusion of the night before.
‘So what do you want me to do?’ she asked.
‘How about forgive me for upsetting you?’
‘I was referring to this place,’ she told him levelly.
‘Yes, of course you were,’ he agreed flatly. ‘I want us to share the morning surgery with you seeing as many patients as you feel possible. Obviously they will all have appointments with me as I’ve been the only doctor available of late, but I’m going to tell Millie to inform them when they arrive that they can see you if they wish and we’ll play it from there.
‘By having you to share the workload here, I’ll be able to start the house calls sooner and have a short break before afternoon surgery starts. At present there isn’t a moment to spare between the two.
‘It’s going to be a bit chaotic at first as Millie won’t be able to provide us with the patient’s notes until she knows which of us they want to see, but hopefully it will gradually sort itself out.’
She nodded. ‘It’s quite a while since I was here the last time. Is there anything different I need to know, apart from the fact that this place is ruling our lives?’
It was said without animosity, just as a statement of fact, because after last night’s discussion she’d finally given up the dream of them living in France. The cloud she’d been on since they’d made love had disappeared, leaving her in her usual state of limbo.



After observing the children’s pleasure at being with their French friends again she was convinced that their comments about not liking it there had been more of a youthful ruse to get Ethan and herself as near to each other as possible, instead of a dislike of life in France, and that knowledge, along with what had happened between him and her, had given her the confidence to start hoping again, only to be brought back down to earth once they were back on English soil.

She’d decided as she’d sat unmoving for hours after leaving him the night before that she wasn’t going to change anything with regard to Kirstie and Ben. They were settled back in the village, obviously felt secure regarding their home life, and liked the idea of Thimble Cottage. As for herself, she still had her lonely weekends in Paris to look forward to.
His reply to her comment about the practice ruling their lives had seemed to come from far away, so absorbed had she been in her own thoughts, but it registered just the same as Ethan said in a low voice. ‘It isn’t the time or the place to continue last night’s discussion, Francine. Can I leave you to start your first day back in another part of Bluebell Cove where you are needed badly?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m ready and waiting.’



They were filtering through, mostly women patients, some of whom she knew from before, others were new.

Mary Carradine was someone she hadn’t seen before and the smart elderly woman said on entering, ‘I’m so pleased to have the chance to speak to a doctor of my own sex. I don’t get embarrassed easily, I’ve been around too long for that, but I have got a little problem that I would rather discuss with you than a male doctor, basically because men don’t have my kind of problem as they haven’t got a cervix.’
‘I had a hysteroscopy a few weeks ago and though the gynaecologist at the hospital said the tissue around the cervix was amazingly healthy for my age, when I got a copy of the report that he’d sent here it said that I’d got chronic cervicitis, which seemed odd after what he’d previously told me.’
‘When I questioned it with the hospital I was informed that they would want to see me again in case they decided that a biopsy was needed with a view to cauterising the cervix. I’m due at the gynaecology clinic on Wednesday and felt I’d like to speak to someone here before I go.’
‘I can understand your concern,’ Francine told her. ‘Our copy of the letter you received is in your file and I read it before I called you in, Mrs Carradine. First of all may I explain that of the two descriptions, acute and chronic, that might be used to describe your problem, chronic is the least serious.’
‘In your case it means merely that the entrance to the cervix might need a gentle scrape. Maybe it requires a little tidying up. A scrape is more or less what it sounds like, it’s a brief scraping movement to remove any infection in the easiest possible way. So try not to worry too much. Hunter’s Hill Hospital has an excellent gynaecology department. You couldn’t be in better hands. I shall look forward to hearing from you shortly that you are all sorted and seen to,’ she said with a smile.
The patient got to her feet. ‘I’ll be glad when it’s over,’ she said wryly, ‘but you’ve taken a lot of the worry from me now that I know what is involved. Thank you.’ And off she went, a sprightly eighty-year-old who had been worrying about something she didn’t understand.
After that Francine was kept busy for most of the morning, only stopping briefly when Jenna brought her a mug of coffee for elevenses. Ethan appeared just before midday and said, ‘I’ve seen all my patients and am off on the home visits. There’s just one person waiting to see you and then feel free to go. Thanks, Francine, having you here has made all the difference.’
As he went to his car on the practice forecourt he was thinking that it really had made all the difference, not only with the workload. Having her back in the building that she’d been absent from for so long was pure joy, or at least it would be if there was a chance that it would stay that way.
He wished he knew what the future held for them. Of one thing hewas sure—he could not bear to lose her. Yet he doubted she felt the same way about him, especially after the way he’d allowed her to misunderstand his motive when he’d followed her to Paris and they’d slept together.
Sadly it hadn’t been because he was ready to move to France. The opportunity to do that just wasn’t going to present itself. He’d followed her there for the reason he’d given her, because of those moments on the beach on Friday night.
It had been like it used to be, the chemistry they’d created had been like an electric current moulding them into one. Because she’d felt it too, Francine had prevented what might have happened if they’d stayed down there with the comment about the divorce, and she couldn’t have chosen a better dampener to put out the fire than that!
Yet he’d known that the spark was still there, and all he’d been able to think about had been how much he wanted to be near her again to prove to himself that he hadn’t imagined it.
What had happened when they’d shared a room had been proof positive that he hadn’t, but he’d made a mess of it by giving her the impression he’d gone over to her way of thinking about living in France and it had turned sour.



Francine left the surgery at one o’clock. Ethan had phoned to say that he would be back shortly and for her to go whenever she wanted. Feeling the need of some time to herself away from her problems and those of others all morning at the surgery, she went across to the baker’s and bought a sandwich and a cold drink, and in the sunshine of the spring afternoon decided to walk to the woods that lay behind the village for a quiet lunch.

As she was leaving the road to take the path that would lead her to them she didn’t see Ethan’s car approaching in the distance because she was too taken up with the bluebells all around her, but he’d caught a flash of white from the blouse she was wearing with a smart suit and pulled up on the grass verge at the entrance to the woods.
When she heard a twig break somewhere behind her she turned quickly, startled at the sound, and he called, ‘Hi, Francine, it’s me. I caught a glimpse of you as I was coming up the road. What are you doing here? It’s a beautiful spot but a bit off the beaten track.’
‘I wanted some peace, some quiet time, so I’ve brought my lunch with me,’ she told him. ‘It’s such a beautiful day, too special to be inside when one doesn’t have to be. Areyou going to have time to eat?’
‘Just about. I picked up a slice of fruit cake at one of the farm restaurants and a carton of soup. A lot of farms are going into catering these days, and very successfully too.’
She was moving towards the shade of an old oak tree that was a mass of fresh greenery and settling herself on a wooden bench nearby waited to see what he would do.
The memory of how they’d made love in the master bedroom of the house that he wouldn’t agree to make his home was bitter-sweet. She would never come alive in any other man’s arms as she did in his, but she’d been misled, hadn’t she? Or maybe been too eager to believe what she’d wanted to believe.
It was an opportunity not to be missed, Ethan reflected. He had half an hour to spare before the afternoon surgery commenced so why not join her for lunch?
As if reading his mind, she said, ‘Won’t your soup be getting cold?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s in a special container that keeps it warm so I’m going to join you.’ He felt her stiffen beside him and said reassuringly, ‘To give you the chance to report on what you thought of the surgery this morning. I noticed that quite a few of our women patients drifted in your direction when they were told they had a choice.’
‘It was good,’ she told him as she munched on the sandwich. ‘The time went very quickly for one thing, which it hasn’t been doing of late, and being back on the job got the adrenaline going. Why don’t you let me do some of the house calls when I’ve got settled in properly?’
He was smiling. The bright blue of his gaze warmed her cold heart, yet those same eyes had been wary and unapproachable the night before when they’d had yet another of their fruitless discussions about moving to France.
‘Don’t tempt me.’ he said laughingly, quite unaware of the direction of her thoughts, and after that they ate in silence, as if the brief sharing of interest in the practice was all they had to talk about.
It was quiet in the woods, with only birdsong breaking the silence, and Francine wished she could stay there for ever, but Ethan was checking the time and saying he would have to get back, and when she would have stayed he said firmly, ‘I’ll drop you off at Thimble Cottage. It isn’t a good idea to stay here on your own.’
She sighed. ‘All right, but there is no one to fuss over me when I’m alone in Paris, is there?’
‘I’m well aware of that, and now the children aren’t with you when you’re there I don’t have a moment’s peace of mind. Can’t we keep the house just for holidays, and have you back here with us all the time? Surely you don’t enjoy spending every weekend on your own in that empty place.’
‘No, I don’t enjoy it as a matter of fact,’ she said soberly, ‘but as I’ve already given up most of my dream by living here during the week for the children’s sake, and now am helping you out at the surgery, which is a far cry from what I thought I would be doing when I inherited my parents’ house, I am not going to deny myself the short time that I spend there.’
‘Point taken,’ he said flatly. ‘And now, if you’ll please get in the car, I’ll drive you back.’














CHAPTER FIVE


AS THE weeks went by and a golden summer took its course, life fell into a routine that Francine was grateful for in a strange sort of way, with the surgery in the mornings, swimming down in the cove in the afternoons, or driving out into the countryside for a cream tea, and always being back in time for Kirstie and Ben being dropped off from the school bus.

Concerned after watching Ethan arrive home late from the surgery night after night, she’d suggested that he dine with them to save him having to start cooking when he got in, and he hadn’t needed to be asked twice as it created the family feeling that there was so little of between Francine and him in the bleak summer of their estrangement. The four of them sitting around the dining table, chatting about what the day had held for each of them, were times to be cherished.
There had been no further meetings like the one they’d had in the woods that day, or passionate nights that only led to further pain and uncertainty. They were both aware they had lawyers working in the background towards a divorce, and neither of them was on the point of changing their mind in spite of the fantastic chemistry between them that night in Paris.
After they’d eaten they would separate and wouldn’t see each other until the next morning at the practice, and Ethan would console himself with the thought that at least they’d all been together for a short time.



Kirstie and Ben were on holiday in Austria with the school for the first two weeks of the long summer break and Thimble Cottage felt empty without their lively chatter and constant music in the background.

Ethan still came across each weekday evening to eat at her invitation, an invitation that she was having cause to regret as she was feeling low in body and spirit—body especially.
He’d asked her a couple of times if she was all right and concealing her listlessness she’d assured him that she was fine, but the moment he’d gone she’d been curled up on the sofa asleep.
It wasn’t affecting her work at the surgery thankfully, but it occurred to her that it might have done if she’d been there to work a full day instead of just the morning. She put her lethargy down to her sadness and anxiety. It was so hard pretending to be indifferent to Ethan, watching him walk away from her every night when in reality all she wanted to do was give in to the temptation of curling up in his arms.
When Tom Appleby, the vicar’s teenage son, was passed on to her one morning when Ethan had been called out on an emergency, she was at her most competent in dealing with a serious chest and lung infection that required an immediate X-ray and strong antibiotics to avert pneumonia.
His mother had been with him, anxious and caring, intending to waste no time in taking her son to Hunter’s Hill to be treated when Francine had explained what was needed.
When they’d gone she’d thought supposing it had been Ben in that state and she’d been far away across the Channel? All right, Ethan would have been there for him, but they were equally responsible for their children and living separate lives wasn’t the ideal way of achieving that.
Her parents had always been there in togetherness forher, a united loving presence in her life. Would they want her to fall short of their example?
When Ethan returned from the callout she was in thoughtful mood but when she told him about young Tom Appleby, he put it down to that as she’d known him since he was a toddler.



It was on the day that Kirstie and Ben were due back from Austria that Francine faced up to the fact that she was pregnant. She’d begun to suspect she might be for a while. The signs had been lining up in front of her like soldiers on parade, a couple of missed periods, tiredness, tender breasts, and when nausea was absent, ravenous hunger, none of which could easily be described as symptoms of her underlying sadness over the state of her marriage!

They were all indications to a woman who had been pregnant before that she had conceived, and an early-morning urine sample had confirmed it.
When she’d discovered she was pregnant with Kirstie and Ben they had been moments of pure joy for Ethan and herself, but now it was going to be too complicated and upsetting for that kind of bliss. This precious child was going to be born into a shattered marriage because its mother had mistaken its father’s intentions and in her aching need for his love had given in to it on a balmy spring night in Paris.



Today was Saturday and she was giving her trip to France a miss because she hadn’t seen the children for two weeks. Ethan had suggested they all go out for a meal in the evening to celebrate their return and she’d agreed.

It would have been ungracious to refuse, but at the back of her mind would be the uncomfortable thought that she might start him thinking if she couldn’t face the food. As a doctor he would soon pick up on any physical changes in her if she wasn’t careful, and she didn’t want the pregnancy brought out into the open until she had adjusted to the new development in her life.
She couldn’t see there being any joyful celebrations this time and felt that if no one else in her family wanted to live in the Paris house with her, this new little one was going to, and Ethan was going to find out she’d fallen pregnant only when her condition was so obvious that she couldn’t deny it.



Ben and Kirstie were home and talking non-stop about the holiday. Ethan had been to meet them at the airport and having them home safe and well and their mother staying in Bluebell Cove for once over the weekend he would have been on top form if it hadn’t been for observing Francine’s listlessness when she thought no one was looking.

Surely she wasn’t missing her weekend in Franceso much? he thought hollowly. She’d been delighted to have the children back and had a smile for him when he’d arrived with them, so what was the reason for the lethargy?
Yet she seemed happy enough in the French restaurant out along the coast road where he’d booked the meal. The food was excellent and he hoped it would go a little way towards her not having been home, as he was having to accept that Paris was now where she felt her home to be, and it took some swallowing.
But at least tonight they were together as a family again, he thought, and happy or sad, tearful or joyful, Francine was the most beautiful woman in the place with the dark chestnut of her hair falling in a shining swathe on her shoulders and those beautiful green eyes meeting his in a glance that was giving nothing away. Did she remember that night in Paris when he’d shared her room, he wondered, and they’d made love like there was no tomorrow?
He wasn’t to know that she had every cause to remember it, remember it well. She was carrying his child, the child they’d created that night.



There were two more weeks to go of the summer break from school and the two younger members of the Lomax family were spending every moment on the beach or in the countryside while their parents were involved at the surgery.

Francine was still enjoying helping out in the mornings, but was hoping that Leo would soon be back as once Ethan knew about the baby she wasn’t sure what would happen. At three months pregnant she was showing no signs of what lay ahead, but that was going to change in the near future.
In a few weeks time he would know beyond doubt they were going to have another child, if she managed to keep the fact to herself that long, and should have no difficulty in recollecting the occasion that had brought it about.
She’d had a weak moment one evening when Jenna and Lucas had called to see Ethan and she’d been there dropping off the laundry that she’d done for him. The newlyweds had announced joyfully that they were expecting their first child and when they’d gone she’d weakened and wanted to tell him that he was going to be a father again.
But he’d forestalled her by asking if she’d heard anything recently from her solicitor, and with the divorce they were involved in brought sharply back into focus it had proved to be a deterrent on his part, just as that time on the beach when she’d pulled the plug on a special moment.



The long light days of summer came and went with them eating together in the evenings and then Ethan leaving the three of them in Thimble Cottage to go back to his empty house, while at weekends Francine persisted in going back across the Channel to her own empty house.

It was a crazy set-up, Ethan considered as he took a solitary stroll into the countryside on one occasion after leaving the three of them doing their own thing back at the cottage. Yet Francine had met him more than halfway by finding somewhere to rent close by for the children’s sake, and at least they were behaving in a civilised manner towards each other.
Whether she was happy about the situation or not, his beautiful French wife had lost the frailty that had been there when she’d arrived so unexpectedly on Christmas Eve, and seemed to have thrown off the lethargy that he’d been concerned about. As the weeks went by she was positively blooming in the clear air of Bluebell Cove.



Francine was a great help in the surgery. Even elderly Lucy, who’d been dubious about her returning to the practice under the present circumstances, had fallen under her spell, and the women patients were making good use of the presence of someone of their own sex to voice their concerns to.

Charlotte Templeton, plump, good-natured, and doing an excellent job as headmistress of the village school, was one of those who’d made an appointment to see Francine about an infection of one of her nipples, and had been expecting to be told that a sore that wouldn’t heal, and itching and burning in the area was eczema.
When Francine had explained that she was going to arrange for a biopsy to be done as it could be something cancerous the teacher, who never flapped on the job, had gone completely to pieces.
‘There is a possibility that it could be Paget’s disease of the nipple, a form of breast cancer that can easily be mistaken for eczema,’ she’d told her. ‘It starts in the milk ducts and if not treated quickly can spread further into the breast.’
‘Oh, no!’ Charlotte had cried frantically. ‘I’m no good with illness. Never have been.’ With a wail of fear she added, ‘I don’t want to lose my breast.’
‘No one is saying that you will have to. This is just the first step,’ Francine had told her consolingly. ‘I will arrange an appointment for a biopsy to be taken at the hospital and from that we will get some answers.’ The distressed woman nodded tearfully and she said, ‘wipe away your tears, Charlotte. We cannot have those young ones who love their teacher so much seeing you weeping. The biopsy will be soon, and remember I may be mistaken, that it is eczema, but better to be sure, yes?’
‘Yes, of course,’ had been the reply, and with it had come an explanation for the distress. ‘My mother died from breast cancer.’
‘Not Paget’s disease?’
‘No. I hadn’t heard of it until today, but it was breast cancer.’
‘Don’t let us be crossing our bridges too soon,’ Francine had said gently. ‘Let us see what the biopsy has to tell us.’



She’d told Ethan about the head teacher’s problem that evening and he’d said, ‘So is it likely to be eczema?’

‘No, it is not,’ she told him. ‘I have seen it before. It is Paget’s disease, how serious I do not know. I have told the hospital the test is urgent.’
‘Hmm, bad news, then?’
‘Yes, but we must hope it is nottoo bad. And how did your day go?’
This was like old times he thought, discussing what the day had brought for them at the practice, but not quite. ‘Old times’ had included peace and contentment in their lives and there was not much of that around at present.
‘I had the results back on a fasting test that I requested for diabetes,’ he told her. ‘And they’ve come back positive. So Jack at the butcher’s is going to have to keep an eye on his fats and sugars, which he won’t like.’
‘He wasn’t keen on having to put his bacon and eggs on hold until he’d been to have blood taken first thing on an empty stomach, and the thought of having no sugar in his tea if it came back positive was taking on the mantle of a major catastrophe. I had to remind him that there are far worse things that some folk have to cope with than that.’
They were in the kitchen, tidying away after the evening meal as they’d been discussing the problems of their patients, and when they’d finished Ethan said, ‘I’m meeting Jenna and Lucas in the pub for a chat later. Do you want to come along? Though I must warn you the main topic of conversation these days is childbirth and babies.’
‘In that case, I think I’ll give it a miss,’ she said lightly. ‘I might have a stroll along the tops or go down to the beach. It’s too nice a night to be inside.’
‘Fine,’ he said levelly, taking on board the obvious fact that Francine was happy to tolerate his presence when Kirstie and Ben were around, or at the surgery where it was strictly impersonal, but when she had a choice she preferred him not to be around.
Where was it all going to end? he wondered. Not very happily from the looks of it, and how long was it going to be before some guy was attracted to a stunning French doctor who would soon be free from the shackles of her marriage, as that had to be the wayshe saw it?



How could she have endured talking about babies when she still hadn’t told Ethan that she was carrying their child? Francine thought as she walked slowly down to the beach where holidaymakers and local people were enjoying the last hour of sunlight before it turned to dusk.

As she looked around her she considered that most of those frolicking on the sand and challenging the incoming tide with surfboards at the ready would think her insane in wanting to leave Bluebell Cove.
But the house in France was all she had left of loving parents and a happy childhood, and though Ethan understood that, his loyalty to his commitments here in the village came first and he did not want to leave them for a life across the Channel.
As she looked down at the beginning of a thickening waistline the evidence was there that another commitment, a joint one, was on its way, and she was going to have to tell him about it before someone else picked up on it first.
She began to retrace her steps with sudden urgency, hoping he hadn’t already left to spend the evening with Jenna and Lucas. To her surprise, as she began to walk the short distance back to the village she saw him coming towards her, and she took a deep breath. Why not let this be the moment of truth? she thought.
Ethan would understand why she hadn’t wanted to listen to Jenna’s joyful mother-to-be talk when he knew.
‘Why aren’t you with Jenna and Lucas?’ she asked uncomfortably.
‘I was on my way and saw you in the distance.’
‘Oh. I see.’ Feeling as if her legs would give way beneath her, she sank down onto one of the wooden benches that were dotted along the cliff path and pointed to the space beside her but he didn’t take the hint.
‘We need to talk,’ she told him as he stood looking down at her. ‘Have you got a moment to spare?’’
He almost groaned out loud at the question. Was it a reminder that she still felt herself to be low on his list of priorities?
‘Yes, of course I have,’ he said abruptly. ‘What is it you have to say?’
‘I’m pregnant, Ethan.’
‘Wow!’ he breathed collapsing into the vacant place beside her.
‘Yes, and I’m sure you will have no difficulty in recalling how and when it came about.’
‘None whatsoever,’ he said huskily. His stunned acceptance of what she’d just told him had made his throat go dry. On a tide of rising joy he said what she’d been expecting him to say. ‘And you’ve waited until you are almost four months pregnant before telling me? Yet I shouldn’t have needed telling. Your listlessness and pallor during the first months and then a sudden blooming should have made me realise.
‘I presume that you kept it from me because I’d misled you about the reason for me being in Paris that weekend. Because you still think I was only there for the sex.’
‘You presume wrongly,’ she protested. ‘I didn’t tell you because I was devastated at the thought of us bringing another child into a marriage that would soon be over. Obviously you would find out sooner or later, but I kept putting the moment off because I wasn’t sure how you would react when you knew.
‘I realised it wouldn’t be long before you took a long hard look at me and tuned in to what was happening. No one else knows I’m pregnant. Even the children don’t know. It would have been unforgivable to tell them before I’d told you.’
‘I find it incredible that you had doubts about my reaction when I found out,’ he said with his expression softening, ‘and to set your mind at rest, here you have it.’
As she observed him warily he took her in his arms. ‘I’m delighted,’ he murmured with his lips against the soft chestnut hair, ‘and I’m going to cancel the divorce proceedings first thing tomorrow.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Don’t do it for that reason, Ethan. It would have to be because we are both of the same mind about the future that we call it off, and we’re not, are we?I don’t want this child to become a bargaining source between us. Do you understand?’
‘Only too well,’ he replied flatly, ‘but don’t make any plans about taking the baby to live in Paris permanently, Francine. Two of us were involved in creating this new life, and two of us are going to be involved equally in its future, divorce or not.’
He was getting to his feet and looking down at her, sitting unmoving and white faced, said, ‘I’ll walk you home, it will be dark soon.’ And without speaking she rose obediently and fell into step beside him.
No words passed between them as they walked the short distance to Thimble Cottage but their thought processes were working overtime and when they arrived he said, ‘You weren’t wrong when you said we have to talk and now is as good a time as any. Not here, though. We don’t want Kirstie and Ben to find out they’re going to have a new brother or sister from something they overhear in conversation. I’ll phone Lucas to say I can’t make it and if you come across in five minutes, we’ll have the house to ourselves.’
‘What have you done about antenatal care?’ was his first question when they’d settled themselves on opposite sides of the sitting room.
‘Hunter’s Hill has me booked in for the birth and I’ve been attending the clinic there, which fortunately hasn’t coincided with my working hours at the practice.’
‘And is everything proceeding to plan?’ he asked, feeling like a total outsider with regard to a momentous happening in his life
‘Er, yes, so far, though there is one important matter we need to make a decision on, but not tonight Ethan, I’m tired.’
He didn’t pursue that in the light of what she’d just said. Instead he referred to what they’d discussed earlier by asking, ‘And you say the children don’t yet know they’re going to have a little brother or sister?’
‘That is so,’ she informed him, feeling that his questions were being fired at her like bullets from a gun. ‘I want us to tell them together.’ She managed a smile. ‘At twelve coming on thirteen I expect Ben to be rather embarrassed, and at eleven Kirstie to want to be a second little mother to the baby, but we shall see, shall we not?’
‘I don’t know. Shall we?’ he said flatly. ‘It will depend on which of us is living where, I would think.’ He glanced across to where the lights were on in the children’s bedrooms. ‘How about we tell them tomorrow? If we tell them tonight they’ll be talking about it for hours, but it must be no later than that. I don’t want them to find out from an outside source.’
‘I know,’ she agreed abjectly. ‘I never seem to get anything right that concerns us these days.’
He couldn’t let her think that about the child she was carrying, he thought achingly, and patting her cheek gently said, ‘You can’t describe giving me another child to love as getting it wrong, Francine. Go back and rest now and tomorrow we’ll discuss our responsibilities to our surprise baby in more depth.’
She nodded and as exhaustion washed over her after the trauma of the last couple of hours she got to her feet, wished him goodnight and departed from the house she’d called home until the fates had presented her with an alternative residence—



They told Kirstie and Ben about the baby the following evening at the end of the meal and their daughter’s eyes were round pools of delight as she cried, ‘Really? Do you hear that, Ben? Mum is going to have a baby!’

He wasn’t sharing her enthusiasm and asked, ‘Are we going to have those nappy things all over the place and be woken up at night by its crying?’
As his parents exchanged amused glances Ethan told him laughingly, ‘I’m afraid so. It will be just the same as when you and Kirstie were babies, except that you always cried the loudest.’
When they’d gone to meet their friends with instructions to be back before darkness fell Francine said on a more serious note, ‘The implications of what we’ve told them haven’t sunk in yet, but they will, and Kirstie will be the first wanting to know what the arrangements are going to be family-wise. In her own way she worries about what is going on between us.’
‘The solution to that is inyour hands,’ he told her. ‘You know my feelings. I certainly know yours, so it’s stalemate. But it isn’t fair to have Kirstie being insecure because of what is going on.’
‘I’m renting Thimble Cottage as one means of preventing that, and no longer take the children with me when I go to Paris,’ she reminded him.
‘And you think that is enough?’
‘I don’t know!’ she cried. ‘Yet there is one thing that I do know.’
‘And what might that be?’
‘Your conscience doesn’t seem to trouble you as much as mine does me.’
‘So that is what you think, is it?’ he said flatly. ‘As every day goes by I’m seeing my dedication to the practice here in this beautiful place as a millstone around my neck instead of it being the satisfying and fulfilling job it used to be. The more we entangle ourselves in the mess we’re making of our lives, the more I wonder if we ever loved each other as much as we like to think we did.’
‘How can you say that?’ she protested wretchedly. ‘Surely you haven’t forgotten that night in Paris?’
He didn’t take her up on that. Instead he asked, ‘So am I right in thinking that the discussion you mentioned last night was with regard to whether we go down the amniocentesis road and let them take some of the amniotic fluid to check for abnormalities or not?’
‘Yes,’ she replied gravely. ‘In the past I’ve always sympathised with older pregnant mothers faced with that decision because of there being some slight risk to the baby in having the test. Now I’m one myself and at sixteen weeks into the pregnancy we need to decide.’
‘And what did you usually advise those other women?’ he asked with equal seriousness.
‘That they take the test for their sake and that of the baby.’
He nodded. ‘I’ve always said the same, Francine, so I suggest we make an appointment. I will be there with you, needless to say.’
He almost said that it would be helpful if it was in the afternoon as the morning surgery, which was the busiest, would be over, and if she could cope with the last hour of it on her own he could fit in what home visits had been asked for before noon.
But it was an occasion that put everything else into perspective and as if she’d read his mind Francine said, ‘I’ll ask for an afternoon appointment if possible as that would be less disruptive for the surgery.’
‘It would be good if you could,’ he said softly, ‘but don’t let them delay it because we have other commitments. The sooner the better for the test, Francine.’
They were going to have another child to love, he thought, and though he couldn’t have it for her, he was going to be with her every step of the way, no matter what the future held for their marriage.



The appointment was made for the following Monday afternoon and the speed and the time of it were most acceptable. They held hands until her name was called to see the obstetrician and his staff, and as they presented themselves Francine knew just how much she needed Ethan there.

The ultrasound scan and withdrawing of the fluid didn’t take long and when it was over they were told that the results would be through in a few days.
After she’d rested for a while they were ready to go, and as they were leaving Ethan said soberly, ‘All we have to do now is wait and pray that the baby hasn’t been harmed and the scan comes up clear.’ Holding tightly to his arm, she managed a wan smile.
Their prayers were answered with a phone call to Thimble Cottage on the Friday afternoon to say that all was well. The baby was unharmed and the fluid had shown none of the danger signs they’d been testing for. As soon as she’d put the phone down Francine went round to the surgery to tell Ethan the good news.
He was on the point of seeing off a patient and when he saw her he observed her anxiously until she smiled, and then he was smiling too, and Millie on Reception was also beaming at the obvious happiness of the head of the practice and his wife.



On a Saturday in late September there was always a special event in Bluebell Cove where those who made their living from the land and the sea, or the turf and the surf as it was sometimes called, gathered to display the results of their labours and to compete for the honours bestowed on those whose efforts were judged to be the best.

It was held at Wheatlands Farm, the Enderbys’ place, and like the Christmas ball they hosted every year for the people of Bluebell Cove, the show was always well attended.
This year would be no different. On a mellow autumn day they would come to compete for the top prizes in the different categories on display around the room.
George Enderby, the oldest member of the farming family, would judge the entries. Ethan had been nominated to chair the proceedings and Francine to present the prizes.
To complete the family foursome Kirstie would be helping in the café, which was always a great success, with George Enderby’s daughter-in-law in charge, and Ben had been given the job of going round to check that the exhibits were not suffering from the warmth of the early autumn sun.
When Ethan and Francine had been asked to take part many months ago they had each expected that by the time the autumn show came round once more they would have either found a solution to the problem that was tearing them apart or would be divorced.
So far neither of those things had happened and they’d been wishing they weren’t committed to being seen together in public on such an occasion, with the necessity of putting on a front for friends and acquaintances.
But as Ethan drove the four of them to Wheatlands Farm on the day the sheer pleasure of being together as a family on such an occasion was wiping away regrets and embarrassment, especially for Francine when out of the blue Kirstie said, ‘Can we give our baby a lovely French name like yours,Maman?’
Oh, you blessed child! Ethan thought as they drove between high hedgerows that had been bedecked with the glittering frost of winter the last time they’d been to the Enderbys’.
Today the hedgerows were warm and colourful with the last flowers of summer, and beside him his wife was smiling at what her daughter had said. His spirits were lifting. How could they not, with such a thoughtful young peacemaker in his family?
Kirstie was only eleven years old but possessed the wisdom and understanding of someone much older. As she matured she would be just as attractive as her mother, but in a different way as she’d inherited the golden colouring of her maternal grandmother.
‘And what names would you suggest?’ Francine was asking
‘I don’t care,’ Ben said with his attention on the sleek sports car in front of them, but Kirstie was quick to reply and again Ethan sent up thanks for his daughter.
It was with Francine’s parents in mind that she said, ‘How about Germaine, likeGrand-mère, or Henri if it is a boy, like Grand-père?’
‘I would like that,’ Francine said softly, reaching over to the back seat to pat her daughter’s cheek gently. Aware that Ethan hadn’t spoken, she asked, ‘As the baby’s father, what do you have to say, Ethan?’
‘I have to say it’s a lovely thought and fine by me,’ he replied, and thought did it matter where they lived as long as his family were happy?



They’d been coming with their entries all the day before, the long, the short and the tall, bringing flowers, fruit, vegetables, hams and bacon from the pig farms, cheeses from the dairy herds, and many other home-produced commodities. All of them prize specimens.

That had been yesterday. Today the fishermen would come with the best exhibits from their catch that morning, and those in charge of the show would be spending the morning arranging the entries in their various sections.
At two o’clock precisely Ethan would announce the proceedings open to those who had come from far and wide with their exhibits, and also to those who were there just to enjoy the spectacle of the fruits of land and sea. All of them entrenched in the community spirit that was always present on such occasions.
As he took his place on the podium Ethan thought there might be a few there who thought he had a charmed life. That he’d taken Barbara Balfour’s place at the practice and was as well liked and respected as she had been, had a stunning French wife, two well-adjusted children, and lived in the big detached house across the way from the surgery that he’d had built by some artistic builder who had decorated the front of it so beautifully with pebbles from the beach.
If thatwas what they thought, they would be wrong. He did have all those blessings in his life and was humbly grateful for them. But the charmed life that people might think he had was a myth because his wife didn’t want to live in Bluebell Cove any more and he was hurting every moment of the day.
Those who didn’t know the circumstances might think him even more fortunate when they discovered he was about to become a father again and that it stood to reason his would be the bonniest baby in the village, just like the other two had been when they’d been small.
Yet as he looked at those assembled there he felt a moment of happiness. It might be short-lived, but Francine was beside him on the podium. Kirstie was down there with the rest of the kitchen staff, wearing a white apron over the pink bridesmaid’s dress that came out on every occasion, and Ben was lounging nonchalantly nearby, holding a watering-can. With a smile and a few well-chosen words he opened the show and the proceedings commenced.
As he watched Francine presenting the awards with grace and style, giving no inkling of the pressures she was under, Ethan was aware of Barbara Balfour in the front row of spectators and when all the awards had been given out and it was time for a traditional clotted-cream tea to be served, she called him across to where she was seated at a table with her family and said in her usual forthright manner, ‘Did you know that we are going to be grandparents, Ethan?’
‘Er, yes, so I’ve heard,’ he said, grateful that Francine wasn’t with him at that moment to hear the announcement. It would have been a reminder thather parents wouldn’t be around for the birth of their new grandchild.
But Jenna was smiling her bubbly smile, Lucas had got to his feet and was taking a bow, and the moment passed in good humour with even his friend’s mother-in-law managing a laugh.
He and Lucas had talked seriously about their respective wives’ pregnancies one night when they’d gone for a walk along the cliff path together, and when Lucas had asked Ethan, ‘How are things between the two of you?’ he had sighed.
‘I wish I knew,’ he’d said. ‘The future is blurred. I can only cope with the present these days. Needless to say, we’re both happy about the baby, but would be much more so if we had a clearer picture of each other’s true feelings regarding the chaos our lives are in.’
‘Francine does have a point, you know,’ Lucas had said. ‘One can’t help having deep feelings about their childhood home, especially if it is in another country. I was grieved and angry on your part when she first went away, but she is doing her best now for you and the children, the way I see it.’
Ethan had groaned. ‘Do you think I don’t know that? If it wasn’t for the practice I would do what she asks. But you worked there for a short time and saw what it’s like. The people of Bluebell Cove feel blessed with the health care they receive.’
‘And you still think no one can do it as well as you?’
‘No. I’ve told you. I don’t think that!’ he’d cried. ‘But a promise is a promise.’
‘I know,’ Lucas had agreed contritely. ‘I only want you to get things in perspective.’
When they’d separated later Ethan had thought that wedding vows were promises too, some of the most important promises a person ever made, so what about those? But he wasn’t the only one involved—did Francine ever consider that?



On Monday morning it seemed strange to Francine not to be touching down at the airport after the weekend in France and having to get to Bluebell Cove with all speed in time to have a quick bite before presenting herself at the surgery.

It was always a relief to know that on such occasions Ethan had seen to breakfast for the children and made sure they were in time for the school bus when they weren’t on holiday.
She’d given Paris a miss because of the show on Saturday and was at the surgery bright and early to see her first patient, who happened to be Charlotte Templeton, the headmistress of the village school that she’d sent to have tests for suspected Paget’s disease.
Francine had received a report from the hospital the previous Friday and was not surprised to see that she had booked an appointment to see her today.
When Charlotte came in she was pale but composed and as she seated herself opposite her first words were, ‘I’ve had the tests that you asked for and have been given the results.
‘They’ve told me that it is cancer but in its early stages. I’m going to have either chemo or radiotherapy, which should halt its progress and hopefully get rid of it, and am having my first treatment on Wednesday.
‘That I can cope with, it was the thought of a mastectomy that threw me when I came to see you with the breast infection. I am deeply grateful that you picked up on it, Dr Lomax. My job at the school means everything to me and I don’t want to let the children down.
‘I’m rather like your husband, dedicated to the job. He gives his all to health care for the folks in Bluebell Cove, and I’m happily in charge of the education of our young ones.’
‘From what they’ve said at the hospital I’m going to live to take another lesson, reassure another anxious parent, and at the worst pick up another piece of chalk, so that will do me for now.’














CHAPTER SIX


AUTUMN had arrived with its changing colours. The new school year had begun for Kirstie and Ben, and for the young ones in the village their headmistress was in control as always, with not a word to anyone regarding what was happening in her private life.

There were signs that Leo would soon be back where he wanted to be and where Ethan also wanted him to be. His sister was over from Canada, offering to relieve him of the burden of care by taking their mother back home with her to live.
In the very near future he would be taking up residence once more at the Mariners Moorings guest house on the coast road, where he’d stayed before.
‘Do you want to finish at the surgery when we have him back on board?’ Ethan asked when he told Francine the good news.
‘Not unless you want me to,’ she replied. ‘I’m enjoying being back on the job while I have the chance, and it won’t be for long in any case. I will want to ease off by November as I’ll be seven months pregnant by then and the baby is due in the new year so I will have to be making plans by that time.’
‘We will have to make plans,’ he said dryly, ‘and I don’t intend they should include you taking the baby to Paris with you every weekend when he or she arrives.’
What had started out as a harmonious discussion was beginning to fray around the edges.
‘You’ve made your point,’ she told him. ‘At this moment I don’t know what I want to do. The sensible thing would be forget about the house in France and take up where we left off when I inherited it, but I don’t feelsensible, Ethan. I’m homesick and sad and want to wrap the only family I’ve got left around me like a warm blanket. Yet when I go there only emptiness awaits me.
‘Because of the manner in which the house became mine it was all crystal clear where I wanted to be in the beginning.I desperately wanted to live in France, but that was before I’d heard what you thought of the idea, and in my mind there has been confusion ever since.
‘For instance, my life now isn’t very different from what it was before. I’ve already lost the battle because I’m here for the biggest part of each week to please the children, and am back in my old slot at the practice. I visualised a clean break with all of us moving across the Channel, but it hasn’t worked out like that, has it?
‘With regard to my moving into the cottage, I think I was manipulated a little by Kirstie and Ben on the matter of them not being happy in France. When the three of you surprised me by coming to join me that weekend, I noticed that they were off looking up their French friends the moment they arrived.
‘It was as if they’d never been away, so I feel it was more a case of them wanting us all to be together in the same place rather than not liking life over there.’
‘So you are saying that nothing has changed much here,’ he said levelly. ‘Am I to take it that living in separate houses and no longer sleeping in the same bed doesn’t warrant a mention, and that the feeling of treading on eggshells all the time should be ignored, when before we were like one being?
‘If your parents had known this would happen when the house became yours, I’m sure they would have given it to charity. But getting back to what we were discussing, I would be most pleased for you to carry on at the surgery for as long as you feel up to it.
‘Our women patients are most happy to be able to consult you, and the staff like having you around again. What is more, I might find time to do my own thing occasionally with both Leo and yourself to ease the load.’
They were in the garden at Thimble Cottage where he’d found her cutting the grass before the evening meal and had immediately taken over. Curious about what his ‘own thing’ might be, she asked, ‘So what would you do if you had some free time?’
‘Go to see Phoebe,’ he said promptly. ‘I feel bad that I haven’t been more supportive towards her over past months since she had little Marcus. She is a member of my staff, even though she works on the district, and life hasn’t been easy for her this past year.
‘It would be simpler to keep in touch if she was living here in Bluebell Cove during her maternity leave, but she seems close to her sister who lives in the town and will have needed all the help she can get over past months.’
‘So who is the father of her baby, do we know?’
‘No. I haven’t a clue. She doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. Her leave will be up in the new year so that will be another valued member of staff returning. The only time she’s been back here in public was when I asked her to be my partner on Christmas Eve when we all danced through the village.
‘Phoebe wasn’t sure she could make it at first, but when her sister offered to mind the baby she came, though she didn’t waste any time when it was over. She was off like a shot.’
He was putting the mower away, unaware that Francine was thinking how thoughtful he was towards the young single mother, yet Ethan wouldn’t move to France forher sake.



When he’d helped her clear away after the meal and the children were engrossed in their homework, he walked slowly back to the house in sombre mood.

Back there in the garden Francine had opened her heart to him more than she’d ever done since the split and deep down inside he knew they couldn’t go on as they were. The situation had been complex enough before she’d fallen pregnant, but now—it really was like treading on eggshells.
Her surmise that Kirstie and Ben had pulled some strings of their own to get their parents at least living in the same country was heart-breaking to say the least. How could he and Francine bring this kind of uncertainty into their youthful lives? There had to be a solution that suited them all and it was up to him to find it.



On her way to the surgery on the morning after their discussion in the garden Francine saw Mary Carradine doing an early shop at the butcher’s. As they exchanged smiles the elderly villager said, ‘They didn’t do what I was expecting when I went to the hospital, Dr. Lomax. It seemed that I’d been worrying without cause. The gynaecologist said he was satisfied there was nothing seriously wrong with my cervix and I was discharged, which was wonderful news.’

Francine nodded and told her, ‘He has informed me of his decision, Mrs Carradine, and I’m sure you must be relieved to know that is the end of it.’
‘I am indeed!’ she said with feeling, and trotted into the butcher’s with a lighter step than on the day when she’d been to the surgery to discuss her anxieties.



Leo was back, as bright and breezy as ever. Only a very close look at his fair countenance brought into focus the stress lines that caring for his sick mother had brought around eyes and jaw line.

Ethan told him what he needed was some good fresh air in his lungs, clear and unpolluted straight from the sea, along with some good Devon food, and the new addition to the practice said laughingly, ‘Surely I don’t look so bad?’
‘No, of course you don’t,’ he said reassuringly, ‘and even if you did, the food that Meredith serves at the guest house will soon put you right.’
‘Yes, I’m sure it will,’ he agreed, ‘but what I really need to get me back on line is this chance to express to you my sincere thanks for keeping the place here open for me. It can’t have been easy.’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ Ethan told him, ‘but Francine has helped out in the mornings and we managed. It’s a shame that you missed the summer here in Bluebell Cove though. We’re well into autumn now, but the place still holds many charms!’



In her small consulting room at the other end of the passage Francine was thinking along similar lines but with regard to herself rather than Leo Fenchurch.

When she’d been pregnant with Ben and Kirstie, nine months had seemed like for ever, but with this baby it felt as if the waiting time was going too fast because nothing was clear cut in her mind about the future. The days seemed to be rushing past at breakneck speed.
Soon she would have to do some baby shopping and now that Ethan wasn’t so pressured workwise she knew he would want to go with her. Only that morning he’d said that from now on he was going to attend the antenatal clinic at the hospital with her, and the announcement had left her with mixed feelings of pleasure and uncertainty.
‘So have you chosen some names for your baby, Dr. Lomax?’ one of the antenatal nurses had asked the last time she was there.
The question had brought with it the memory of Kirstie suggesting they should call it after one of the parents that she’d lost so tragically and her young daughter’s thoughtfulness and perception had been like balm to her aching heart.
She’d smiled. ‘Yes, we have. Germaine for a girl, after my mother, and Henri for a boy, which was my father’s name.’
‘Those are lovely names,’ the young nurse had said.
‘Yes, they are,’ she’d agreed softly, and wished that Ethan had been there to share the moment.





She was back in France again for the weekend and in the solitude of the house Francine was moving from one familiar room to the next deep in thought.

Would she have wanted to come back to live in Paris under different circumstances? If her parents hadn’t died and the house hadn’t become hers?
The truth was that she’d become obsessed with the idea of moving here, so much so that even the reality of her pregnancy hadn’t really changed her mind.
She knew that the major part of her yearning to be back was because of the way her parents had been taken from her in a matter of minutes on a steep winding road in a foreign country. Coming to live in their house was the only way she could think of to ease the pain and at the same time celebrate their lives, but in the meantime what was she doing to her family? To Ethan?
Taking away the pleasure and satisfaction he got from the efficient running of the practice was one thing she was denying him, and another was depriving him of a proper home life.
He’d already announced that the baby wasn’t going to be shuttled around to suittheir requirements, and it would do Kirstie and Ben’s education no good if they were involved in changing schools all the time.
She stopped in front of the wardrobes in the main bedroom of the house in her restless pacing. They were still full of her parents’ clothes because she hadn’t been able to face disposing of them. On a sudden impulse she began to take them out, placing the contents in neat piles on the big double bed.
Next she turned to the dressing table and started to empty the drawers with the same precision. Beneath an assortment of lingerie she found a long white envelope addressed to her in her mother’s hand writing.
She stood looking down at it for a long moment and then opened it slowly. Her mother had written in a fine sloping hand.

To our dearest daughter,
We hope it may be long before you have need to read this, but when the time comes we want you to know that we will leave this earth content because you have a husband who will always cherish you, two precious children, and are living in beautiful Bluebell Cove.

With eyes wide and astonished, fixed on the words in front of her, throat dry and legs wilting beneath her, she read the letter again, taking in the date at the top of the page. Her mother had written it the night before they’d left for the holiday in the Balkans, which was very strange, almost as if she’d had a premonition.
What about, though? That ill would befall them? That their daughter would need reassurance regarding her own life in the days to come?
She was shaking with the shock of finding what seemed like an answer to all her heart searching, and lifting the bed covers she crawled beneath them with the letter she’d found at the bottom of the drawer still clutched in her hand.
It hadn’t been amongst all the legal papers she’d had to deal with in the first instance after the accident. Instead it was as if her mother had been driven to write it and then with the holiday departure so near had put it out of sight.
At that moment the baby moved inside her, another reminder of where her responsibilities lay, and she thought that this unborn child must not be brought up between two homes, yet when she’d written the letter her mother would not have reckoned on her being totally overwhelmed by homesickness after losing them.



The weekends in Paris were never what she wanted them to be. They would be if Ethan and the children were with her, but as they weren’t they seemed long and lonely and as a taxi dropped her off outside Thimble Cottage at half past five on Monday morning Francine was thinking that this last one had been in a class of its own with the sadness of finding her mother’s letter and its contents creating even more confusion regarding the future.

As she put the key in the lock she ached to have Ethan’s arms around her and his voice telling her that it was going to be all right, even though she knew it wasn’t.
She went upstairs and undressed slowly, intending to sleep before surgery to blot out the tangle of her thoughts, if only for a couple of hours. About to get under the covers, she looked across at the house where she’d once lived. The place where her husband and children were sleeping, and almost as if some unseen force was controlling her she reached for a robe, went back downstairs, and then like a fleeting shadow moved swiftly across the distance that separated the two houses.
She unlocked the door and then just as swiftly and silently went up the stairs, pausing for a moment to look in on the children in their respective rooms, and then opened the door of the master bedroom where Ethan was sleeping amongst tangled covers.
Sliding into the empty space beside him, she huddled into the curve of his back and as she did so he turned over drowsily, but was wide awake in seconds, observing her in amazement when he saw her.
Raising himself up on to his elbow, he looked down on her and asked urgently, ‘What’s wrong, Francine? Is it the baby?’
‘No. I just came for comfort, Ethan, that’s all. Not for any other reason.’
‘So come here, then,’ he said softly, cradling her to him, ‘and tell me what it’s all about.’
‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I just want you to hold me.’
‘All right,’ he murmured, stroking her hair with gentle hands. As she moved closer he felt the baby move and sent up a prayer of thanks for the moment that had brought the three of them together, if only for a little while.



When it was time to rouse the children for school and get breakfast on the go, Francine was fast asleep. Warning them to be quiet, Ethan pointed to their mother in the bed where she belonged. As usual Ben had no comment to make but there was a big smile on his face, and Kirstie, once again the spokeswoman, said, ‘Dad, is everything going to be all right again?’

‘I don’t know,’ he told her. ‘Your mother came because she was exhausted and distressed but wouldn’t say why, so we need to keep our fingers crossed.’



Francine awoke to a room full of pale sunlight and the clock saying that it was half past ten. There was a note on the bed side table that said, ‘You are to take the morning off, doctor’s orders. Bacon and eggs in oven on low setting. Ethan.’ As she sat on the edge of the bed, holding it in her hand, the memory of another piece of paper came to mind and with it the thought that anyone reading her mother’s letter would assume that she would take note of it. Shewould in normal circumstances, but normality was in short supply.

After she’d eaten she tidied everywhere generally and collected all the washing that needed laundering, then went back to the cottage and spent what was left of the morning arranging for a charity shop not far from the house near Paris to collect all the clothes and other items that needed to be removed when she returned the following Saturday.
Ethan came in the lunch-hour and observed her keenly when she opened the door to him. ‘Are you feeling better?’ he asked as they went into the sitting room.
‘Yes, thanks,’ she replied awkwardly,
‘So what was wrong?’
She couldn’t lie, but neither did she want to tell him the truth. Not now anyway.
‘I found a letter my mother had written to me in the event of their deaths just before the accident.’
He was frowning. ‘That’s strange. What was in it?’
‘It was a farewell message to be read whenever the occasion arose.’
‘So are you going to show it to me?’
‘It was just the kind of letter that is left to comfort the bereaved,’ she said, avoiding further truths. ‘So?’
‘I didn’t bring it back with me.’
The frown was deepening. ‘I can’t believe you would leave something so precious behind in that empty house. Are we so far apart that you feel you can’t show it to me, Francine?’
She shook her head determinedly. ‘No, Ethan, we are not. It is because what is in it makes life even more complicated for me. I don’t want to raise any false hopes.’
‘Why, is Germaine telling you to stay where you belong, or something along those lines?’
‘I’m not ready to discuss it yet.’
Sighing with frustration, he turned to leave. ‘Fair enough. Hopefully I’ll still be around when you are.’
‘Why, where else are you likely to be?’ she asked tightly.
He was smiling and she thought he deserved a medal for putting up with her whims and fancies, yet in truth they were more than that, much more. So why did no one understand?
‘I might be with a rich widow on a cruise, or go into a home for tired doctors,’ he said whimsically, unable to be at odds with her for long. Anger and bitterness were long gone. They had been there in the early months of the break-up, but now it was a matter of being civil and trying not to hurt each other any more, which in some ways was a more depressing state of affairs because it was like giving up, waiting for the divorce to come through without trying to mend the wounds.
‘I have to go. It’s almost time for the late surgery. Don’t bother with cooking tonight, Francine. I’ll stop off for fish and chips at the Happy Fryer in the village when the surgery is over.’ He was still smiling. ‘The children will like that.’
‘Yes, I’m sure they will,’ she agreed with a watery smile of her own, and recalling the night before how he’d held her close and stroked her hair when she’d crept into bed beside him, she wondered how she could go on hurting him any more. Why not just give in and forget the dream? Even her mother was telling her to stay in Bluebell Cove. Not a single person understood how she felt.



Ethan was curious to know what was in the letter that Francine didn’t want him to read, but not desperate. She would show it to him in her own good time and until then he would let it lie.

She was carrying their child and he wanted her to be stress-free as much as possible. But in the present state of their affairs stress was the name of the game and when they’d eaten the fish and chips that evening he said with a view to lightening up their lives, ‘We’ve been invited to a cocktail party at the Enderbys’ farm.’
‘When?’ she asked in surprise. ‘And why?’
‘Saturday night. It’s to celebrate their daughter’s engagement. So do you want to go? It will mean another weekend that you’re away from your dream house.’
‘Yes, of course I do,’ she replied. ‘Kirstie and Ben have got sleepovers arranged with their friends so the night is ours.’ She would have to put her plans for the collection of her parents’ belongings by the charity shop on hold for another week, but for now she needed to mend some bridges with her husband. It was time they had some fun if there was ever any chance of them having a future together.
I wish, he thought, thinking back to the days when time together had not just been an occasional thing. Yet a tiny seed of hope had taken root in his heart. It had appeared because she’d come to him to be comforted, huddled in his arms as if she’d lost the way and didn’t know what to do.
Obviously her mother had unknowingly said something in the letter that had upset her daughter and it must have hit home, but next to the seed of hope was a thorn. The thorn of Francine rejecting his offer to cancel the divorce when he’d discovered she was pregnant.



It was a mild evening for late October and when they arrived at Wheatlands Farm there were lots of folk there that they knew. Jenna and Lucas were present, so happy that Francine envied them again the uncomplicated nature of their love and hoped that nothing would ever come along to take the magic from it.

She and Ethan had been like that once upon a time, but she didn’t want to think about it tonight. He’d told her she was the most beautiful woman in the room as he’d looked around him on arriving and she’d pulled a face and looked down at her spreading waistline.
‘I mean it,’ he’d said in a low voice as his glance had taken in the flowing black silk coat she was wearing over a low-cut cream dress. ‘I’ve not seen the outfit before. Is it new?’
‘Yes. Does it say Paris? It ought to.’
‘You both say Paris,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I don’t think anyone here would disagree with that. But the trouble is when they look at me they see Bluebell Cove.’
His tone was light but she shook her head. ‘Don’t let’s start making comparisons, Ethan. Let’s just be happy for once.’
Since reading her mother’s letter calm was descending upon her gradually. There had been no great moment of decision, just a slowing down of the chaos of mind that she’d been living with for so long, and for the present she wanted to handle it with care. It was a frail and precious thing.



Their usual hospitable selves, the Enderbys had pulled out all the stops for their daughter’s betrothal to a young vet. There was a DJ in charge of the music, a local band to entertain, and an abundance of delicious food.

While Ethan had gone to find them both something non-alcoholic to drink, Davina, the young bride-to-be, approached Francine and said shyly, ‘I love your outfit, Dr Lomax, is it from Paris?’
‘Yes, it is,’ she replied with a smile for the girl that she’d treated for various things as she’d been growing up and who had always been interested in medical matters.
Her fiancé had appeared by her side and Davina introduced them. ‘This is Rob, my fiancé, Dr. Lomax. He is going to be looking after sick animals, and I will be looking after sick people. I’m in my second year at medical school.’
Ethan was back with the drinks and he said, ‘I remember your grandfather telling us that when you were young you were always taking his temperature and bandaging him up.’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ Davina said laughingly. ‘My poor dolls didn’t have much of a life either, they were always ill beneath their blankets.’
Bringing the moment to a more topical level, he said, ‘Our sincere congratulations to you both. May you have a long and happy life together, as Francine and I hope to have for ourselves.’
When Davina and Rob had moved on to chat to other guests Ethan said, ‘I suppose that last sentence didn’t go down too well with you.’
She didn’t reply. Instead, taking his arm, she said, ‘Let’s dance, and if you hold me close enough you might feel this child of ours doing its own little dance. It is never still.’
‘Hmm, so maybe we have a footballer, a rugby player, or even a sprinter.’
‘Or it might be a little ballerina or a gymnast,’ she reminded him.
‘Of course,’ he agreed, ‘and that would be just as delightful.’



Barbara Balfour sat in her wheelchair at the edge of the dance floor, watching Ethan dance with Francine. She was alone. Her husband was chatting to a friend not far away and she had the moment to herself.

She would never admit it to anyone, but to her Ethan was the son she’d never had. Honourable, hard working, loving husband and father, extremely attractive, a man who stood out amongst his counterparts, and for months she’d observed his unhappiness and done nothing about it because she wanted him near her, not far away across the Channel.
Tonight he looked happy enough, she thought, but his wife blew hot and cold in the marriage. Maybe this was one of their better nights, but next weekend Francine would be off to France again, doing her own thing.
When she’d been so weak and ill the year before he’d called at their house every morning to check on her and Keith on his way to the surgery while in the background his marriage had been failing. Francine had taken the children off to France with her, leaving him alone in the big detached house that he’d had built for them.
At that time Jenna hadn’t yet come back from abroad and it had been Ethan’s visits that had helped her to get through the day. When their daughter had come home after becoming aware of her mother’s ill health, Ethan had offered her a job in the practice that fitted in with looking after her.
She knew that the biggest part of Ethan’s reluctance to do what Francine was asking of him came from the promise he’d made to her when he’d taken over from her that he would keep up the standard of care that she had always maintained, no matter what.
Little could he have expected that his dedication to his work would threaten his marriage and take him to the brink of divorce.She herself had sacrificed family life on the altar of healing the sick, and of late had thought if she’d had the chance to do it again she would have done it differently. So was she going to sit by and watch while Ethan did the same to a more serious degree?
Her train of thought was interrupted by Keith appearing at her side with food and drinks, and as she smiled at her long-suffering husband the moment passed, but would not be forgotten.
Unaware of the direction of Barbara’s thoughts, Ethan and Francine passed by amongst the dancers and waved. She waved back and wished she still had the use of her legs so that he didn’t have his promise to her clouding his judgement.














CHAPTER SEVEN


WHEN they arrived back at their separate residences on a high after a very enjoyable evening Ethan suggested, ‘Why don’t we spend the night together? You might recall that I do a very nice line in comforting.’

She smiled across at him in the shadowed light of the car. It would be easy to say yes to the suggestion, but she didn’t want any more confusion with regard to her feelings. She was only just beginning to see the way ahead more clearly, and passion and the desire they aroused in each other could interfere with the process.
She shook her head. ‘No, thanks just the same, Ethan.’
‘So are we back to playing mind games again?’ he asked disappointedly. ‘You’ve been like you used to be all the time we were at the Enderbys’, but once more in our own environment it’s back to square one.’
‘Don’t be angry,’ she pleaded. ‘I’ve had a wonderful evening. Please don’t spoil it, Ethan.’
‘OK,’ he said equably, and kissed her cheek fleetingly. ‘I’ll see you safely inside. I suppose tomorrowis another day. If I ever get used to this arrangement, you’ll see a flag flying over the house we once lived in together.’





When she awoke the next morning Francine lay wide-eyed, looking up at the ceiling, and thought thankfully that the calm was still there. A sense of purpose hadn’t presented itself so far but she knew it would come and when it did she would be ready.

The curtains were still drawn across the way and, remembering how Ethan had cooked her breakfast after she’d gone to him for comfort when she’d arrived home after reading her mother’s letter, she dressed quickly and went across to where it seemed he was still sleeping.
Before she started making breakfast she took a quick peep into the bedroom and, sure enough, he was asleep with the dark thatch of his hair stark against the whiteness of the pillow and his shoulders exposed above the covers.
It would be so easy to do a repeat of that other time and slide in beside him, she thought, but after the rebuff of the night before he might not want her presence so, resisting the enticing male magnetism of him, she went quietly back downstairs and into the kitchen.
The kettle was whistling and she was lifting the food she’d cooked out of the frying pan when she saw him framed in the kitchen doorway just as he’d rolled out of bed.
‘What’s this, then?’ he asked drowsily. ‘The calm before the storm, a sweetener before you tell me something I don’t want to know?’
‘No,’ she told him steadily. ‘It is in return for you making my breakfast the other day, that is all. So shall we eat?’
‘Yes, by all means, when I’ve put some clothes on,’ he replied, and disappeared.
The clothes he’d referred to turned out to be just a pair of jeans and as they ate the food she’d prepared he said, ‘This is nice. I can’t remember when last we had breakfast together in this house.’
‘It wasn’t all that long ago,’ she reminded him. ‘There was the short time between my arriving unannounced on Christmas Eve and my moving into Thimble Cottage when we breakfasted together. Which reminds me, the rental period will be up in a couple of months.’
He was putting his knife and fork down slowly. ‘And what do you intend to do?’
‘Arrange to rent it for another six months. I spoke to the lettings person at the estate agent’s a while back and she said it would be free, so it’s just a matter of signing the agreement and paying the rental.’
‘I can’t believe it!’ he said tightly. ‘This farce seems to be going on for ever.’ He was getting up from the table, pushing his chair back and heading upstairs again. Moments later she heard the shower in the en suite running and when he came down again he was dressed in smart clothes. She was impelled to ask, ‘Where are you off to?’
‘I’m going to do what I promised myself I would do when I had the time. Something I should have done before—check that Phoebe is all right.’
‘Lucky Phoebe,’ she said in a low voice.
‘Well,you don’t need me around here, do you? You’ve got everything nicely planned, with weekends in France, your own place just across the way, the children with you all the time on weekdays, while I get my slot just when it suits you.’
As he slammed the door behind him a picture fell off the wall and as she bent to pick it up the baby moved as if to remind her that her responsibilities didn’t end there.
Like a lot of good-natured people who are rarely angry, when Ethan lost his temper there was no mistaking it. He had to be pushed beyond reason to be so angry, and she couldn’t blame him.
He hadn’t given her time to explain that she wasn’t expecting to be in Thimble Cottage for another six months, or even six weeks, but if she didn’t rent it again she could be left with a situation where she might have to move back here before she was ready to do so.
There were bridges to mendand cross, legal matters to deal with, and the birth of their child drawing nearer all the time. The two of them were not going to slip back into an easy relationship so smoothly.
The church bells were pealing out over the sleeping village as she walked back to the cottage in the peaceful Sunday morning, and expecting that it would be around lunchtime before Kirstie and Ben surfaced she went inside for a jacket and set off for a walk along the coastal path.
It was chilly with a cold wind blowing in from the sea. Down below the tide was coming in, surging onto the sand with its own special kind of magnificence and putting into perspective all her uncertainties and yearnings with the infinity of the scene.
When she looked up Ben and Kirstie were coming towards her with eyelids drooping from lack of sleep and looking as if they’d slept in their clothes, but when they saw her they came running towards her, tiredness forgotten in the pleasure of meeting, even though they’d only been apart from her since the night before.
At the same time Ethan pulled up alongside on the road that ran beside the path and she thought, These are my family, my loved ones, and as long as I have them nothing else matters.
As the three of them piled into the car she said, ‘You haven’t been gone long. Did you manage to find Phoebe?’
‘Yes. I only stayed a short time, though. She’s all right and little Marcus is coming along fine. She confirmed that she’ll be back in the new year and when she said she’ll be looking for somewhere to rent in Bluebell Cove I offered her one of the apartments over the surgery. They’re both vacant at the moment and it occurred to me that if he can tear himself away from Meredith’s cooking, Leo might be interested in the other one.’
‘And what did Phoebe say when you suggested it?’
‘Accepted on the spot, so that is sorted.’ He glanced at the sleepover pair in the back seat, ‘As we’re all together how about we go somewhere for Sunday lunch, or maybe Sunday brunch if you haven’t had any breakfast?’
It seemed that Kirstie and Benhadn’t had any breakfast, so brunch it was beside a big log fire in a farmhouse out in the countryside that had a restaurant.
Francine said little during the meal. Instead she listened to Ethan and the children chattering about various things and kept her thoughts to herself. He observed her curiously from time to time yet made no comment, but when they were driving home he said in a low voice, ‘Are you all right? You’ve hardly spoken since I picked you up on the coast road. Is it because of my bad temper at breakfast-time when I went storming off?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I’m fine. I’ve just been relaxing, that’s all.’
The time wasn’t yet right to tell Ethan she was relinquishing the dream. She was expecting him to be delighted, but over-confidence never did anyone any good and neither did taking things for granted. Suppose when she told him he was dubious after all the aggravation she’d caused?



On Monday morning the weather took a turn for the worse, with driving rain and gale-force winds reminding the residents of Bluebell Cove that winter was stating its case and that November, one of the dreariest months of the year, would soon be upon them.

The month that was the forerunner to December and Christmas did have one redeeming feature, though. It brought with it Bonfire Night on the fifth, and already preparations for the event were under way on the headland,



Francine was due at the antenatal clinic at the hospital in the afternoon and once again Ethan intended to be there when she saw the gynaecologist.

When he came to pick her up he said, ‘The weather is worsening. I hope Kirstie and Ben have the sense not to hang about when the school bus drops them off, otherwise they’ll be drenched.’



She had been given a clean bill of health regarding her pregnancy and when the gynaecologist had asked if they’d been told the sex of the baby they’d smiled at each other and shaken their heads.

‘We don’t want to know,’ Ethan had told him. ‘We will be delighted whatever it is, won’t we, Francine?’ And for a heavenly moment she’d felt as if they were just like any other expectant parents, with the safe arrival of their child the only thing to concern themselves about.
Living in separate houses with a divorce pending hardly put them in that category, but for a fraction of time she was going to forget that, push the downside of their lives to the back of her mind.
As they were leaving the clinic Ethan suggested they go for a coffee in the hospital restaurant and so, tranquil and relaxed, she agreed.
They were enjoying the drink in the middle of the winter afternoon with no feeling of urgency when an item of local news flashed onto a television screen close by and changed all that.
It said there had been an accident on a side road approaching Bluebell Cove. A school bus had been hit by a falling tree brought down by high winds coming in from the sea, and as they looked at each other aghast Ethan said, ‘There are lots of buses on the roads at this time of day, Francine, so don’t—’
His voice trailed away as further information was released to the effect that the quick thinking of one of the pupils on the bus, Ben Lomax, had averted what could have been a terrible disaster and he was hero of the hour.
The tree had smashed into the driving compartment and the driver had been knocked senseless, slumped over the wheel with the vehicle out of control and the young passengers being thrown all over the place, until Ben had rushed to the front and found the brakes.
The announcement went on to say that he had refused to be interviewed because his younger sister had been hurt and he wanted to be with her in the ambulance, and as if to add to the horror of the moment the two doctors heard the sirens of several ambulances screeching onto the forecourt outside A and E.
They were on their feet and running before the noise had stopped. The fact that Francine was almost seven months pregnant did not come into it at that moment. Kirstie was hurt! Her children had been in grave danger while she and Ethan had been having a leisurely coffee at the hospital.
He was ahead of her and called over his shoulder, ‘Take it easy, Francine. We’re going to have enough on our hands if Kirstie’s injuries are serious, so save your strength for then.’
She nodded and slowed down, and by the time she reached the first ambulance Ethan was standing by the doors with his arm around a white-faced Ben as the paramedics lifted the stretcher that held their daughter carefully onto the tarmac.
Kirstie was semi-conscious with a large gash on the side of her head where it must have struck something inside the bus when it had gone out of control, and as Francine took her limp hand in hers and hugged Ben to her with the other one, the ambulance crew began to wheel the stretcher through the main doors of A and E, with the three of them hurrying alongside.
Behind them was a procession of other young casualties on stretchers, some with parents and others, whose families didn’t yet know about the accident, being comforted by nurses.
The most seriously injured was Dennis, the bus driver. He had taken the full impact of the falling tree inside the driver’s cab and although now conscious was being X-rayed for a possible fractured skull and severe arm and shoulder injuries.
When the doctors had told him what Ben had done, he’d said weakly, ‘It’s a good job young Lomax was on board. What that kid doesn’t know about auto engines isn’t worth knowing.’
The doctor who came to see Kirstie arranged that X-rays be done of her head to check for a haematoma or brain damage, and for a fracture of her forearm. Ethan’s face was grim as he listened to what the doctor had to say.
He could see Francine holding tightly onto Ben out of the corner of his eye, ashen with shock as she looked down at their precious daughter, and it felt like a lifetime since they’d been dawdling over their coffee.
It was a godsend that they had, otherwise they would have been on the way home while the ambulance had been bringing Kirstie to the hospital. What had happened to her and the other unfortunate youngsters on the bus made the problems that he and Francine had encountered over recent months seem as nothing by comparison. The welcome news about her continuing state of good health regarding the pregnancy had been blotted out by this.