A Wedding in the Village (18 page)

‘And so how are you feeling, Sonia?’ he asked her.

‘So much better I can hardly believe it,’ she said brightly.

‘Good. Megan will be pleased to hear that. Has she seen you since you got back?’

‘Yes, she called in last night on her way to her Aunt Izzy’s. She’s sleeping there at present, I believe.’ Sonia was observing him questioningly. ‘Have you told her that you’ve bought her portrait yet? Meg was miffed to find it had been sold so quickly, as she wanted it for herself.’

He shook his head. ‘No, not yet. The moment never seems right But I’m hoping the time will come. I’m involved in buying her aunt’s house and the portrait will hang perfectly in the sitting room there. You’ll still keep my secret, won’t you?’

‘Yes, of course, but try not to be too long. I’m not the world’s most patient person.’

When she’d gone to the nurse’s room to have a fresh set of blood tests taken, Luke thought wryly that patience was the name of the game. But the first move had to come from Megan, or always at the back of his mind would be the thought that he’d persuaded her to marry him against her better judgement.

* * *

They went late-night Christmas shopping on the Wednesday of that same week. With their weekends taken up at the garden centre and the practice to keep them occupied during the day, it was going to be their only opportunity, and the ball was on the coming Friday.

As they drove into the town Luke said, ‘So which do we do first, eat or shop?’

‘Shop, I think. They usually close about eight, which only gives us a couple of hours. Do you know what you’re going to buy for Sue and the boys?’

‘Hmm, I think so. Jewellery for my sister, and the latest strip of the football team they support for Owen and Oliver.’

Sitting beside him Megan laughed. ‘You make it sound so easy. Wait until we get into the dress departments of the stores.’

That part of it
was
easy, he thought. It was what was going to be his Christmas gift to the woman beside him that had him not thinking straight. She’d asked him to help her choose a dress. That could be his gift to her, but he wondered if she was aware that the request had a certain sort of intimacy about it. That a woman might only ask it of the man in her life, and he had a few doubts on that score.

While he shopped for Sue and the boys Megan bought gifts for her parents, Aunt Izzy and Sonia, and when they met up again she reminded Luke that they had to organise gifts for the staff at the practice.

‘Not now, I hope,’ he said as he looked around him. Everywhere they’d been had been thronged with shoppers. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. What is the procedure at the surgery at Christmas?’

‘We buy everyone the same gift, wine and chocolates, and have a celebratory drink and mince pies in the early afternoon of Christmas Eve before we close for the holiday. But we don’t have to shop for any of that. We have it delivered and the presents are already gift-wrapped.’

‘Good,’ he said as they went up the escalator taking them to designer labels and less expensive clothes for women. As they stepped off onto thick carpeting he said, ‘Have you any idea what you want?’

‘Not exactly, but I’ll know when I see it,’ she told him, letting the pleasure of having him with her on such an occasion wash over her. ‘There are some shades I just can’t wear with my colouring, like red, purple, some shades of blue, to name a few, so I usually go for green, cream or brown, and sometimes the occasional little black number.’

As she looked along the rails Luke sat and watched her. It was forty minutes to closing time. Would Megan have made a purchase by then? If she was anything like Alexis, she wouldn’t have, and that would have been with all the assistants dancing attendance on her.

She turned at that moment and held up two dresses for him to see, an off-the-shoulder cream evening dress and a black one with a plunging neckline and long sleeves. When he smiled his approval she disappeared into the cubicle.

Seconds later there was an announcement over the store’s public-address system. A voice was telling customers in measured tones that there was an emergency. Would everyone, please, leave the store in an orderly fashion by the staircases, as the lifts and escalators were not functioning.

Then the lights went out and there was only emergency lighting to see by, and as Megan swished back the curtains of the cubicle, resplendent in the cream dress, there was a mad rush for the staircases as someone shouted, ‘The store’s on fire!’

That had everyone moving. She turned back to take the dress off but Luke said, ‘Leave it, Megan. There’s smoke coming up from below. We need to get moving.’

She nodded and picked up her bag, ready to join the jostling throng heading for the stairs, but it wasn’t going to be that simple. A young mother with a baby in a buggy and two other young children was standing panic-stricken beside them. Stopping, they each swung a child up into their arms and followed the crowd.

It was like being swept along by the tide as they reached the stairs. The mother had left the buggy behind and was carrying the baby in her arms. Megan told her to go first, then followed close behind. When she turned to see where Luke was she couldn’t find him at first and then she picked him out some way back with the child in one arm and the other protectively around the shoulders of an old man who was wheezing from the smoke.

Then mercifully they were at ground level and the doors were open for them to stagger out into the fresh air with the clang of fire engines in their ears. But when she turned Luke wasn’t behind them.

Passing the child she’d been carrying back to its mother, she went back inside, scanning the faces of the downward-moving crowd for any sign of him.

A teenage lad had come into view, carrying the other child that Luke had picked up, and the old man was being assisted by someone else.

‘Where’s the man who passed the child to you?’ she asked urgently of the youth when he drew level.

‘You mean the doctor fellow?’ he gasped. ‘He went back. There were flames coming up around the escalator and some people had collapsed from the smoke. When he found out, he fought his way back to see what he could do.’

‘Move along, madam. You’re blocking the way,’ an official-sounding voice said at her elbow, and she turned to find a policeman there.

‘I’m a doctor,’ she cried. ‘We are both doctors, but my colleague has gone back to help those still inside. I need to go to him.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ he told her decisively. ‘The fire service are here and will get to him as quickly as possible. They’re putting their ladders up as the staircases are still full of people.’

‘What caused the fire?’ somebody shouted from the street outside.

‘We believe it is an electrical fault confined to the first and second floors, but it hasn’t been confirmed yet,’ he told them. To Megan he said in an even more decisive tone, ‘Will you, please, clear the way for those who are still evacuating the building, madam?’

She nodded mutely. They’d been so happy, the two of them in each other’s company. Making no demands of each other. Sauntering around the shops at peace with the world, and they’d walked into a nightmare.

She didn’t question why Luke had gone back. It would have been as natural as breathing for him to do so, as it would have been for herself if she’d been given the chance. But supposing she lost him and had never told him how much she cared?

The mother of the children had appeared at her side and with her bewildered brood looking on she said, ‘Thank you. I don’t know how I would have managed without you and your husband. They say he’s gone back in. That is some man you have there. He’s so brave.’

There was no point in explaining to this stranger that Luke wasn’t her husband, Megan thought, but, oh, how she wished he was. If he didn’t propose, she would, and as flames began to lick around the windows on the second floor, where they’d been when the announcement was made, she thought despairingly that she might not get the chance.

A paramedic, waiting nearby for casualties to be brought out into the cold December night, had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders as she was still wearing the evening dress she’d been trying on, and she managed a tearful word of thanks.

‘They’re bringing them out now,’ he said. ‘The fire chief has just said that the fire is under control and the building has been cleared. So your man should be coming out shortly.’

Would he, though, she thought desperately, and what state would he be in? Supposing it had been too late and Luke had gone for ever? They’d brought six people out and he wasn’t any of them, so where was he? She scanned the scene frantically.

It was at that moment that she heard his voice calling her name and her heart stood still. He was coming out of the store all in one piece, eyes red-rimmed, teeth shining whitely in a smoke blackened face. He was the most welcome sight she’d ever seen.

As she flew into his arms she was weeping out her thankfulness in great gulping sobs and he said gently. ‘I had to go back, Megan.’

‘Yes, I know you did,’ she choked, ‘but I thought I was never going to see you again and I’d never told you how much you mean to me.’

As she was about to pour out her heart to him he said, ‘So now you don’t have to worry. I’m here, safe and sound.’

She flinched. How could he be so casual? She’d been expecting this to be the moment when they opened their hearts to each other, but it seemed as if Luke had nothing to say.

The paramedic who’d given her the blanket was hovering and as she backed away he said, ‘I think you should come back to A and E to be checked over, sir. You were up there in the smoke for quite a while and I see you have a burn on your hand.’

‘Yes, sure,’ he agreed, adding to Megan, ‘Will you drive the car back home for me, please? It’s insured for any driver.’

‘If you don’t want me with you, yes,’ she told him, stiffly, wondering if he had any idea of what she’d gone through during those moments outside the store.

Six people had been taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation and minor burns, and one of those that Luke had gone back to help had suffered a mild heart attack. But because the building had been evacuated sensibly no one had been crushed on the staircases, often the cause of the most casualties on such occasions.

He was taking off the leather jacket he’d worn for their outing. ‘Here, put this on, Megan,’ he said, ‘before you get frostbite in that dress. It smells a bit smoky but it will keep you warm.’ And before she could argue he stepped into the ambulance and was whisked away.

When she put the jacket on she could still feel the warmth of him inside it, and as she hugged its loose folds around her she thought bleakly that it had been some night, with a grand finale of Luke cutting her short as she’d been about to confess her love for him.

Thank goodness he’d stopped the outpouring of her feelings before she’d made a complete fool of herself, and, conscious that she must look somewhat quaint in a long evening dress and a man’s jacket that was far too big for her, she made her way to where they’d parked the car.

* * *

She hadn’t been back at the cottage long when Luke phoned to check that she’d arrived home safely. ‘I’ve had the burn on my hand dressed,’ he told her. ‘I got it from touching the side of the escalator. It was red-hot. They don’t seem to have any worries about my breathing. So I’m allowed home and am at present waiting for a taxi. Sleep tight, Megan, and don’t worry about a thing. I’ll pick my car up in the morning.’

Sleep tight? she thought when he’d gone off the line. Did he have to be so casual about the night’s events? But maybe casual was how he saw their relationship, and if that was what Luke wanted, he could have it, she thought angrily.

* * *

As he waited for the taxi outside A and E, Luke was thinking sombrely that if it took a trauma like tonight’s to make Megan feel she had to admit she cared for him, he didn’t want to know. It would have been so easy to take advantage of her fear and distress, but when she’d calmed down would she have regretted what she’d said?

If ever she became his, it would be when she was thinking clearly, not in a highly emotional state, and if that was going to tax his patience to the limit, it was how it was going to have to be.

* * *

When Luke went to pick up the car the following morning Megan looked as if she hadn’t been up long. She was still in her nightdress with a robe slung over it, and the bright halo of her hair was tousled from a miserable wakeful night when she opened the door to him with an expression that said if she looked a mess, so what?

There was a parcel on a chair near the door and she said, ‘I’ve been packing up the dress from last night, ready for it to go back to the store.’

He nodded. ‘We never did get our shopping finished, did we? What happened to the things we’d already bought?’

‘They got left behind in the chaos, but there are still two weeks to Christmas, and I’ll wear something I’ve already got to the ball.’

‘Are you sure? We can have another try.’

‘Yes. I’m sure,’ she said in clipped tones. ‘It would have been an extravagance in any case.’

‘You seem to have changed your mind on that. I thought you wanted it because it was going to be a special night.’

‘That might have been the case, but things change, don’t they?’

‘Only if we want them to,’ he said smoothly. ‘And are you intending turning up at the surgery? It’s only twenty minutes to starting time.’

‘Yes, of course I am.
If
you’ll stop delaying me,’ she told him in the same tone.

‘Only I did suggest that you take a few days off if you remember.’

‘I don’t need time off. The practice will always be my first concern.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said levelly. ‘I’ll see you there.’ His glance was on her night attire. ‘At whatever time you arrive.’

* * *

When Luke had gone Megan had a quick shower, brushed the tangles out of her hair, flung on one of the suits she wore for the surgery and set off down the hill, arriving triumphantly on the practice forecourt at exactly half past eight.

Unable to resist making the point, she posed in the doorway of Luke’s consulting room for it to register. He looked up from the paperwork in front of him and said, ‘A very praiseworthy effort. Except for the odd shoes.’