The Village Nurse's Happy-Ever-After (14 page)

‘Just for a short time, yes.'

‘And what then?'

‘We'll be moving.'

‘Where to?'

‘With hope in my heart, I've bought Glades Manor for us and our children, my beautiful bride-to-be. I'm signing the contract tomorrow, the sale will be finalised soon afterwards. And now can we please spend a few moments making up for lost time?'

‘Yes,' she breathed, ‘and just think, Harry, we have the rest of our lives to do that!'

He placed his hand gently below her waistline, where his child lay safe and snug, and when their glances locked she saw something that hadn't been there before. The tranquillity that came with contentment.

 

When Katie returned some time later with Marcus, the scene before her was what she'd prayed for. One glance at the man who had come for his bride was enough to tell her that Phoebe had found her heart's desire at last.

‘Harry is taking us back to Bluebell Cove, Katie,'
she said. ‘We're going to be married as soon as we can. Thank you so much for your kindness, and we'd love you to be my bridesmaid if you will.'

‘Of course,' she said, and with a smile for the man who was going to give Phoebe the love she so much deserved, ‘Rob will be so sorry to have missed meeting you, Harry.'

‘We'll make up for it at the wedding, Katie,' he promised.

They were ready to leave, with Marcus strapped firmly into his car seat and Phoebe on the point of saying goodbye to Katie, but one thing was missing.

‘I brought something with me and don't want to forget it,' she told Harry.

‘It's in the garage.'

‘Okay,' he replied. ‘I'll go and get it. What is it?'

‘A gate,' she said laughingly. ‘Your first gift to me was a gate and I will treasure it for ever.'

T
HEY'D
stopped off a couple of times on the way back for refreshment and for Marcus to have a little play. Every time Phoebe saw the two of them together, it was as if all the dreams she'd ever dreamed were coming true because Harry loved her. And in the autumn, when grain was being harvested and leaves were turning to bronze and gold, there would be another child to cherish, born of the love he had for her.

She was going to suggest to him that if it was a girl they should call her Cassie, just so his bubbly and fiery first wife would never be forgotten.

 

When Leo stepped out of his new accommodation the following morning, he was amazed. If he'd had any doubts about whether Harry's search for Phoebe had been successful, proof was there in the sturdy gate fitted at the top of the stairs. That explained the sound of drilling at a late hour!

They'd slept in each other's arms with the contentment of lovers reunited after a long absence, as that was what the weeks of hurt and misunderstanding had felt like to both of them. Marcus was safely tucked up on
the sofa beside them and once the day was under way, they would go out to buy a cot.

When they'd made love before sleeping, there had been none of the doubts and uncertainties of before to trouble them. The way ahead was clear, the past was over, they loved each other totally, and what could be more wonderful than that?

On the way home they'd made plans for the following day in the form of a visit to the solicitor on the main street during Harry's lunch-break at the surgery. There he would sign the contracts for his purchase of Glades Manor and would request an early completion of the sale.

At the weekend they would shop for furniture and fittings to grace the elegant house where they were going to bring up their children and at the same time plan a wedding.

‘There are going to be some raised eyebrows when the surgery staff find out that I'm back and living with you in your apartment,' Phoebe said the next morning as they ate their first breakfast together.

‘So why don't we put up a notice announcing our forthcoming marriage and inviting them to be our guests when we've fixed a date?' Harry suggested.

On the way to the solicitor at lunchtime he said, ‘Janet gave me the letter first thing and, after reading it, I love you more than ever, Phoebe.'

‘It was my darkest hour when I wrote that,' she told him, ‘and my brightest when I opened the door of Katie and Rob's house to find you on the doorstep.

‘I'd been so sure of how I was going to plan the rest
of my life without you, yet putting it into practice felt like a knife in my heart. I was weak and wilting without you, but not any more, Harry, because you love me. I'm not just part of the package that comes with Marcus.'

‘You never were,' he said softly, pulling up at the roadside. ‘You were yourself, beautiful and kind, loyal and understanding, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life making you happy.' Oblivious of passers-by, he reached across and traced her lips with a gentle finger and then he kissed them.

The legal business had been completed and they were driving back to the practice when Phoebe said, ‘When you mentioned Janet earlier, I intended telling you that her daughter is the new district nurse. Have you met her at all?'

‘Yes, briefly, and she seemed fine. So was that part of your plan when you decided to move to Manchester, fitting Janet's daughter up with a position here?' he asked quizzically.

‘Well, yes, I couldn't just pack up and go leaving the surgery short-staffed, could I? It would have made life difficult for you and that was the last thing I wanted.'

‘Life would have been more than difficult without you Phoebe, it would have been hell on earth,' he told her. ‘Why don't we call in at the vicarage on our way back and fix a date for the wedding?'

‘How about May Day if the vicar is free?' she suggested. ‘Saturday the first of May. We could erect a maypole in the garden at the house and after the wedding all dance around it with me wearing the Easter
Bonnet clothes! It will be as if your parents are there with us then, giving us their blessing.'

The church was in sight and everything else was forgotten in the need to get things moving in time for the first of May.

The vicar was able to grant their request for a wedding on that date. The solicitor had already promised a quick completion, and, unbelievably, when Barbara Balfour had phoned Ethan to tell him that Harry was marrying Phoebe, the young district nurse that he'd been so protective of while
he'd
been in charge of the surgery, he'd offered them his house in Bluebell Cove for the wedding reception and accepted Harry's invitation to be his best man. When the decision had been made to go to live in the place where Francine had been brought up they had decided to keep the house in Bluebell Cove for visiting the village whenever the urge came over them, and now it would be serving its purpose.

It also meant that the whole family would be coming over from France for the occasion, Ethan himself, Francine and their children, Kirstie and Ben.

Katie, as arranged on the day that Harry had proposed to her sister, was to be Phoebe's maid of honour, and Lucy had offered to look after Marcus on the great day, and so the arrangements proceeded.

Barbara Balfour was delighted at the prospect of seeing Ethan again and completely overwhelmed at the thought of having the two men that she loved like sons together again in Bluebell Cove.

Leo, whose love life was a flourishing but fleeting thing, was taking stock and wondering whether he was
missing out on something every time he saw Harry's contentment.

And, in the midst of everything, Phoebe had been for her first antenatal appointment at a birthing centre that had recently been opened adjoining Hunter's Hill Hospital in the town and been told that her pregnancy was coming along fine.

 

Glades Manor became legally theirs just before the wedding and while Harry was at the practice, Phoebe supervised the delivery and arranging of the furnishings they had bought. At the same time she watched two men from the village erect a maypole with bright ribbons streaming from it in the centre of one of the lawns adjacent to the house.

When Harry saw it he said, ‘You aren't really going to wear my mother's things when you dance around it, are you? You looked wonderful in them, but they are quite old-fashioned!'

‘But of course—just watch me,' she teased.

‘Watching you is my delight,' he told her softly as she moved into his waiting arms.

 

All the village had turned out for the wedding of the district nurse and their GP, and as the bells rang out over Bluebell Cove, the small church was filling up rapidly.

Harry had kept his promise to his lawyer and Jonas had just arrived straight from the airport. Ethan and his family had appeared a couple of days ago and those who knew them best thought how well and happy they
all looked after their traumas of the year before. It was good to know that moving across the Channel had been the right decision for them.

On a clear May morning, Katie's husband Rob walked Phoebe down the aisle to take her place beside Harry. In a wedding dress of heavy cream brocade that was stunning in its simplicity, and with a coronet of pearls on her head, she walked sedately down the aisle, linking one arm through her brother-in-law's and in the other carrying an arrangement of bluebells and lilies of the valley.

The man of her dreams was waiting and as their glances held, it was there in his eyes how much he loved her, and how much he was looking forward to their life together. But it was down to little Marcus, sitting in the front pew on Lucy's knee, to make their day truly perfect, as he spoke his favourite new words, ‘Mummy'
and
‘Daddy'!