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Authors: Abigail Gordon

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BOOK: A Wedding in the Village
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When she looked up, Luke was walking towards her, eating a sandwich. He dropped down beside her on the grassy bank and asked, ‘So what river is this?’

‘The Goyt,’ she told him. ‘It joins the Etherow in the next village.’

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Whatever happens with Sue and the boys, I won’t want to be leaving this place in a hurry. It’s like another life, living here.’ His gaze was on the skyline. ‘Are you ever called out to visit patients up there?’

‘Yes. Though not too often, as there are only a few scattered farms and the odd cottage up on the tops. But if a call comes we go, and it can be scary if there is snow or high winds across the moors. You’ll need to keep a shovel in the boot of your car.’

‘I can see the sense of that. Have you ever been in difficulty up there?’

‘No, not really, but my dad once had a narrow escape when his car was stuck in a snowdrift for hours on end. It took the police and mountain rescue to bring him to safety.’

In contrast to what they were discussing, it was a golden day, but there was a nip in the air, and when she shivered Luke said, ‘Maybe we should make tracks.’

Taking her hand in his, he helped her to her feet and when they were facing each other he looked down on to the hand that lay in his and said, ‘No rings. No wedding band or engagement ring. I would have thought that the men around here would have been queueing up.’

‘A lot of men are nervous of women doctors,’ she said lightly. ‘They think if they marry one she’ll have them forever at the gym, on vitamin pills and eating lettuce all the time instead of steak.’

‘Rubbish!’he said laughingly. ‘I would expect your unmarried state to be more because you are hard to please.’

‘It might be,’ she conceded. ‘Whatever the reason, I’ll know when the time is right.’

‘I would hope so,’ he told her, and wasn’t quite sure what he’d meant by that.

* * *

Amongst those waiting to see Megan that afternoon was Tom Meredith, who owned the general store that housed the post office. It was a busy, friendly, place where nothing was too much trouble for its owner and his staff, but today Tom looked tense and tight-jawed.

In his late fifties and happily married to Sara, who looked after the post office side of things, he had two sons in their thirties. Josh, the elder, was suffering from alcohol-related acute liver failure. He needed a transplant desperately.

All the time that he’d been ill Tom and Sara had put on a brave front before their customers and staff, but today Tom looked like a man in deep despair. and what he had to say fitted in with that.

‘I wanted a word with you, Megan, before Sara and I approach the hospital,’ he told her. ‘Josh is going to die if a liver doesn’t become available soon. We’ve been wondering if part of one of our livers could be transplanted into him? We’ve heard of it being done successfully and we can’t stand by watching him like this any longer. What do you think the chances would be?’

Her expression was grave. ‘Under normal circumstances I would say it might be possible, Tom. But your circumstances are different, aren’t they? Josh is adopted. So in the matching-up process you and Sara would be no different than any other member of the public.

‘By all means put it to those who are treating Josh, but I doubt if they’ll agree. If they operated and it wasn’t successful, he mightn’t be strong enough for further surgery when a liver comes through the usual channels.’

He nodded sombrely. ‘Yes. I know what you mean, but I’m going to ask them. We just can’t face up to losing him. We love those lads as if they are our own, and now Josh is facing up to all the drinking he did when he was in his teens. The poor boy was so messed up when he came to us. He’s come a long way since then, and now this has happened.’

He got up to go. ‘Thanks for your time, Megan,’ he said quietly. ‘Only a miracle will save him and there aren’t many of those about these days.’

* * *

When she told Luke about Tom and Sara’s dilemma he said, ‘They’ll have to hope that a liver comes available soon. I can’t see any other way. There might have been a slight chance if they’d been the lad’s natural parents, but as they’re not…’

She nodded. ‘In times of desperate need we clutch at straws, don’t we? I’ve never yet been in that sort of situation, but I can imagine what it’s like, and time is running out for Josh.’

‘It can’t always be easy for you, treating people who are friends and acquaintances,’ Luke commented.

‘It isn’t. But there is often relief on the part of the patient to be dealing with someone who isn’t a stranger. Though it does make me inclined to take their problems home with me.’

‘That I can believe,’ he told her. ‘Yet you know, Megan, I’ve lived with someone high on the ladder of health care, in
her
opinion and everyone else’s. It’s good to work with someone who really cares about her patients.’

Megan could feel her colour rising. She supposed it was something if Luke approved of her as a doctor. How he saw her as a woman was another matter. He may have been unhappy with Alexis Duncan, but she would be some act to follow when it came to style and allure.

Luke’s glance was on her face. It had attracted him long ago in the days when she’d been a serious student and he’d been full of rage and bitterness at the loss of his child. A child that he hadn’t even known existed until Alexis had decided to put him in the picture.

But now his attention had shifted. He was looking past her and said, ‘Hello, hello! Here comes trouble.’ When she turned Megan saw Owen standing just inside the doorway of the surgery.

‘I’ve lost my mobile, Uncle Luke,’ he said miserably. ‘Either that or someone’s taken it.’

‘Yes, but what are you doing here?’ Luke asked. ‘School isn’t over for another hour and a half.’

‘I slipped out at breaktime because I’m desperate to find it. I need my mobile.’

‘No, you don’t. Now get back to school fast before you’re missed.’

‘I can’t go back there without it!’

‘Oh, yes, you can. We’ll sort out the phone business this evening. So on your way, Owen.’

‘I’ve got a spare phone,’ Megan said quickly, touched by the boy’s distress. ‘I’ve never used it, so it hasn’t got anything private in it. You can borrow it until yours turns up if you like.’

Owen’s expression indicated that the sun had just come out from behind a cloud. ‘Yes, please, Dr Marshall. I’ll take great care of it.’

‘You’d better,’ Luke told him.

‘I’ll get it. It’s in my desk drawer,’ she told him, and within minutes Owen had gone with a lighter step than when he’d come in.

‘You didn’t have to do that, Megan,’ Luke said when he’d gone. ‘It would have taught him to be more careful with his things if he’d had to do without.’

‘He’s already doing without,’ she reminded him. ‘He’s without a father and his mother is far away. I said I would do all I could to help, and compared to what you’re doing for the boys it was a drop in the ocean.’

He nodded. ‘Yes. You’re right. Finding the right level between love and discipline isn’t easy.’

‘You’ll make a great father some day,’ she said impulsively, and saw his face close up.

‘Chance would have been a fine thing,’ he commented levelly, and wondered what the child that Alexis had aborted would have been like. Maybe she’d done them a favour. For children to be born into an unhappy marriage was not a good thing. It was a fallacy that their arrival brought peace to a warring couple.

Megan turned away. She wasn’t going to ask what he’d meant. The tone of his voice told her not to. So instead she smiled and said, ‘There’s no rush to get the phone back. We can’t have Owen upset and fretting. And by the way, have you been mothing of late? Any more journeys into the dark country night?’

Back to his usual equable self, he said, ‘A couple of times, as I did make young Oliver a promise, you know.’

‘Yes. I know you did
and
I know that you keep your promises,’ she told him, with the memory crystal clear of when she’d questioned his keeping of his marriage vows.

‘And how do you know that when you’ve no proof of it?’

‘I’m not sure, but I do.’

‘Mmm. I see.’ He was glancing at the clock, and as if what they’d been discussing was of no merit he said, ‘Shall we see how many people are waiting to see us? Hopefully with problems less dreadful than Tom Meredith’s.’

CHAPTER FIVE

S
EPTEMBER
had gone, taking with it mellow days and cooler nights, and now October had arrived with a mixture of weather that was giving frequent reminders that winter was on its way.

The practice was running well. Megan’s concerns regarding Luke’s responsibilities seemed to have been unfounded as he was coping brilliantly, with his elderly housekeeper and not so elderly cleaner there to assist. There were times when he looked frayed around the edges but it didn’t affect his good humour.

Any further trips to the city had been put on hold because he was spending any spare time in the garden centre, helping out and supervising generally.

His two nephews seemed more settled as the weeks went by, and now the only problem was their mother, who was showing no signs of coming back to face up to life in the village with a family to care for and a business to run.

When Megan asked Luke about it he said sombrely, ‘I think that Sue is afraid of having to cope without Gareth when she comes back, and keeps putting it off.’

‘And so what does she intend doing?’ Megan asked levelly. ‘Has she forgotten that there are two fatherless boys here who aren’t seeing much of their mother either? She’s not being fair to them…or you.’

‘Sue can’t stay away for ever, Megan.’

‘Oh, no? She’s my friend but I do feel she’s taking advantage of you, Luke.’

‘Shall I be the judge of that?’ he said coolly, even though he knew she was right. He wanted to tell her that when Sue came home there would be time for them and not just at the practice.

It was the end of the day. They were on the point of leaving the surgery, and he little knew that his recent complacency regarding Owen and Oliver was about to receive a severe jolt.

As he and Megan were going to their cars one of the receptionists came hurrying after them. ‘Phone call for you, Dr Anderson,’ she cried. ‘It’s Rebekah Wainright. There’s been an accident at Woodcote House. One of the boys has been hurt.’

Megan watched the colour drain from his face. ‘What sort of an accident?’ he cried.

‘They lit a firework that someone had given them and…’

She was talking to his departing back as he flung himself into his car. He’d heard enough. So had Megan, already in the passenger seat, and within minutes they were pulling up in front of the house.

They found Rebekah round the back of the house, bending over Oliver, while Owen, as white as a sheet, stood sniffling nearby. When she saw them she cried, ‘I’ve sent for an ambulance. The firework went off with an awful blast and he was too near. Didn’t move away quickly enough and he’s been unconscious ever since.’

As the two doctors dropped to their knees beside him Luke said, ‘He’s breathing, thank goodness. Fast and irregular pulse, and burns down the side of his face.’

‘I’ll put a dressing on them while you keep a check on his breathing,’ Megan said, thankful that he’d had a first-aid kit in the car. She was trying to keep calm for Luke’s sake. The boys doing this was the stuff that nightmares were made of.

‘They’d asked me about fireworks and I gave them all the warnings,’ he said raggedly. ‘I had no idea they might get one themselves—which just goes to show how wrong I was.’

‘We got it off a boy outside the fish and chip shop,’ Owen told them tearfully. ‘He said it was a bargain for five pounds.’

‘Do you think it was a bargain now?’ Luke asked grimly, pointing to where Oliver was beginning to come round. ‘I can’t believe you’d put your brother at risk, Owen. Especially after I warned you. Thank goodness Mrs Wainright was here.’

* * *

An ambulance arrived and as Oliver was being stretchered on board Owen began to cry. ‘I want to go with him,’ he sobbed. ‘Is Oliver going to die, too?’

Luke’s face was grey and pinched-looking as he comforted him and assured him that Oliver was going to be all right, but he needed to go to hospital to be treated for the burns and any other injuries that he might have sustained.

‘Tell us what happened, Owen,’ he asked gently, as he sat beside him in the ambulance.

‘There was a big flash and it knocked him over,’ he gulped.

Megan was seated facing them and as Luke shook his head in disbelief their glances met. Don’t let him blame himself for this, she was thinking. Oliver is alive, thank goodness, and once we get him to A and E they’ll sort him out.

‘Don’t tell Mum what we did, will you?’ Owen pleaded as the ambulance sped towards the city.

‘I’ll have to,’ Luke told him. ‘I can’t keep something like this from her, but don’t worry. Once she knows you’re both all right I’m sure she’ll understand that you won’t ever do it again. They’ll most likely keep Oliver in hospital for a few days, so she’ll have to know.’

* * *

Oliver was seen by a doctor in A and E and his burns were treated. They were mainly surface injuries on the side of his face and one of his forearms as he’d tried to shield himself from the exploding firework.

They’d been warned that there might be concussion from the way he’d been thrown by the blast and, as Luke had expected, they were going to be keeping him in for a few days for observation.

Luke and Megan were concerned that Oliver’s hearing seemed to be affected, and now that he was fully conscious he was saying that it hurt when he swallowed.

There’d been no visible signs of injury to his throat, but the doctor in A and E recommended that he see an ear, nose and throat consultant to be on the safe side, and to Luke’s dismay he said he would ask Alexis Duncan to have a look at him.

Megan saw Luke’s expression, but knew he wouldn’t think of objecting if the doctor in A and E was going to get the best for Oliver. His own feelings he would put to one side for his nephew, and as for herself, she hadn’t yet made any effort to put herself in a position where she would be able to form an opinion about Luke’s ex-wife, but now that the opportunity was being offered, she knew that it was what she wanted.

BOOK: A Wedding in the Village
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