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'There are no words to describe our gratitude,' Caroline's father said gruffly. 'We would have got in touch, but up to now we've spent every minute with Caroline.' His eyes were moist. 'We should never have let her persuade us to buy her a motorcycle.' He looked down at the girl in the bed. 'I blame myself for this.'

Her mother was holding Caroline's good hand and she shook her head. 'Don't, Harry. We have to look forward now and get our girl back to health and strength. At least we've still got her.'

Max and Fenella stayed for a little longer and then, leaving the family still around the bed, left the hospital in sober mood.

'What do you say we go for a coffee?' Max suggested as they passed the hospital restaurant.

Fenella nodded. 'Yes, if you like.' With a subdued smile she added, 'We always seem to be eating when we're together.'

'A cup of coffee is hardly eating.'

'No. You're right. It's perhaps as well that it isn't, as a banquet fit for a king wouldn't tempt me at this moment after seeing that devastated family.'

Max took her hand in his and said gently, 'A doctor's life is full of these kinds of things. Dealing with accidents, terminal illnesses and the stress of telling those affected what ails them. It is an exhausting kind of life and an upsetting one, but it also has its rewards, Fenella. To help in someone's recovery, to be able to take away someone's pain. Power and humility walk side by side in it.'

She'd been listening with bent head and a tear fell onto the hand holding hers.

'Don't cry, Fenella,' he told her. 'Just be glad that you're doing the work that you've trained for. From the looks of it, Caroline is going to get better and she's still got her arm. She may not be able to use it fully in the future, but at least it's there. If ever we have any children I'll make damn sure they know how to drive any means of transport that we provide them with.'

She was looking up. Lips parted, eyes bright.

'Did you say "we"?'

He smiled. 'I was speaking metaphorically.'

'Oh. I see.'

'I don't think you do,' he told her, with her mother in mind.

In the weeks that followed there was little time for the two doctors to concern themselves with their own affairs. Their duties at the practice kept them fully occupied during the day and in the evenings they were involved in village matters. The judging day for the Village in Bloom award was fast approaching and the whole place was ablaze with colour.

'Will it do, do you think?' Max asked as the last hanging basket was hung from the last lamppost on the night before the judging and the abundance of flower-filled tubs had been watered for the last time. There had been a lot of people helping but it was to Fenella that he'd addressed the question.

'Yes,' she told him. 'It will definitely do. What time are the mayor and his fellow judges arriving?'

'Twelve o'clock tomorrow.'

'And how long before we know the result?'

'Later in the day, I'm told.'

'And if we win?'

'Then it will be time to finalise the party and crown the flower queen.'

'Alice has volunteered to make the queen's dress,' Fenella had told him the day after her elderly patient had been to see the rheumatologist.

'Really?' Max had questioned doubtfully. 'Are you sure she's up for that?'

'Have no worries,' she'd told him. 'Alice sews like a dream, and since she saw the rheumatologist she's been a different person. She's lost her fear of hospitals and didn't bat an eyelid when he suggested a bone scan.

'Her financial position is better, too. When she finally brought herself to read the leaflets I left with her, she discovered a few things that she wasn't claiming for and between us we've sorted it out.'

In the midst of all the anticipation the results of the DNA testing on the woman's body and the hairs she'd been clutching had come through, and the news had spread around the village like wildfire that Ed Battersby's bull, Saracen,
was
the culprit.

He was in big trouble for letting it get loose and not reporting the matter when the body had been found. Ed had been told that the animal would have to be put down, and Beryl, who was furious at his negligence, had agreed wholeheartedly.

But in the early evening of the day when the judges had been to look round the village, that awful incident had been put to one side as those who had worked to make the place even more attractive than it was already awaited the verdict in the village hall.

At the same time in a side room a group of teenage girls were also waiting for a result, this time as to who was going to be crowned queen of the flowers.

They were appearing before a small panel of local people made up of Max, the vicar's wife, the landlord of The Moorhen and the newly rejuvenated Alice.

Fenella was keeping the anxious contestants company while the decision was being made, and it was turning out to be a nail-biting time. But at last they were ready to announce who was to be the village's first flower queen.

At the same moment the postmistress came hurrying into the hall and cried triumphantly that she'd just had a phone call to say they had won the Village in Bloom competition.

It was August and the nights were slowly starting to draw in. Soon darkness would lie over the village and blot out the shadows of the overhanging peaks, but in The Moorhen there was light and laughter as the villagers celebrated the honour that had been bestowed upon them.

It was unheard of for Alice to be down in the village at night, but on this occasion she'd joined them on the strength of a promise from Fenella to see her safely home.

Sonya was monopolising Max, which was taking the edge off Fenella's pleasure at the good news, but when she got up to take Alice home she felt his gaze on her and the next moment he was by her side.

'Where are you off to?' he asked in a low voice.

'I'm taking Alice home,' she said stiffly. 'Why?'

'I haven't had a chance to talk to you since the result came through.'

'And what am I supposed to do about that?'

'Come back when you've dropped Alice off. I'll be here waiting for you.'

'All right,' she agreed, 'but what about Sonya?'

'She's going soon as she has to pack. She's off to America in the morning to see her ex-in-laws.'

'And is she going to manage to get to the airport without you?'

'I would think so,' he said smoothly. He took note of Alice hovering behind her. 'I think Alice is getting fidgety.'

Max was watching the door. He wanted to savour the moment when Fenella came walking through it. They'd both worked hard on the Village in Bloom project and she was the one he wanted to be with while they celebrated.

A swish of short skirts and she was there, his beautiful assistant. He could feel his arms aching to hold her, his loins quickening. In that moment he couldn't bear the thought of her leaving him to go to her house on the hill and he said casually. 'How about staying at my house tonight, Fenella? It would save you having to drive back up the hillside in the dark.'

It was a weak excuse and he expected her to see it as such, but to his surprise she said, 'Where would I sleep?'

'I can either change the sheets on my bed, or you can have the spare room.'

'The spare room will do,' she said immediately, adding after a sudden thought, 'Is Will going to be around?'

'No, he's gone away for a few days to a music festival down south somewhere. Why?'

'No reason.'

'If you think he fancies you, you're probably right. Though he told me the other day that he thinks you're too old for him.'

'What? The cheek of him. Though I suppose he could be right in one way. I've been to university, got my degree and am now out in the wide world earning my crust, while he is still cushioned within the halls of learning.'

'If he's too young for you, what am I? Too old?'

'No, of course not,' she was quick to protest.

'It's what your mother thinks. She says that you and I should keep it strictly business. That you're too inexperienced to be involved with someone like me.'

She was angry. 'When was this? When did my mother warn you off?'

She knew the answer without having to ask. It would have been after she'd told her mother that she was in love with the man sitting beside her. Sure enough, he said, 'It was on the morning after our aborted attempt at a walk over the moors. The same day that Simon was due out of hospital and she was starting her week's leave from the practice.' There was a question in the dark glance holding hers. 'Why? Is there any significance?'

'Oh, yes,' she said wryly. 'I think my mum forgets I've just spent six years at university and that all human life is there. Yet I came out of it unscathed, and now I'm doing a job that I love under the eagle eye of a man who is above all others
and
I don't want to be coddled! I can't sleep at night for the ache inside me, but none of this matters if you don't feel the same as I do, Max.'

'Come here,' he said softly, holding out his arms. She moved towards him. 'The first time I saw you I was gripped by your helplessness. I never expected to see you again once I'd fulfilled my function as police surgeon, but almost as if it was meant you came breezing into the practice that Monday morning and I couldn't believe my eyes.'

With his chin resting on the soft bob of her hair he went on, 'Ever since then I haven't been able to get you out of my mind, partly because you are everywhere I turn, but mainly because you've brought light into my life, Fenella. But I have to respect your mother's wishes.'

She was moving out of his arms...fast.

'You mean you agree with her. That I'm too immature for you.'

'I didn't say that.'

'Yes, you did! Or as good as. Forget the offer of a bed for the night, Max. I'll be fine in my own house. Even though no one seems to think I'm fit to look after myself.' And before he'd taken in what she was saying Fenella was striding through the same door that he'd watched so eagerly before, and by the time he'd paid the bill and caught up 'with her she was in her car and ready to leave.

He was tempted to bang on the window until she opened it, but had a feeling that it would be a fruitless exercise. So he went to his own vehicle and followed at a distance as she drove home.

As Fenella flung off her clothes she was not aware that Max was out there, watching over her until daylight came creeping over the moors. And if she had known, she wouldn't have cared. She would have seen it as merely another instance of her being seen as a liability.

When he'd taken her in his arms and told her how much she was in his thoughts, she'd melted with joy, but the moment she'd discovered that the two people she loved best in the world thought her unworldly and immature, the bubble had burst.

She'd thought in those first few moments after she'd arrived back at The Moorhen that the two of them spending the night together in the same house might bring them closer to making a commitment, but it had been a vain hope, and now she had decided angrily that if Max wanted a sophisticated woman of the world, he was going to get one.

The following week she would be in the city for the day and would do some shopping. She was entered on a course run by the Department of Post-Graduate Medicine at her university, which provided prospective GPs with extra training, along with the hands-on approach of working in a practice. It would be an ideal opportunity to do something about a new image.

As soon as it was light Max prepared to leave the lane where the cottage was situated. Making as little noise as possible, he drove slowly out onto the steep road that led to the village and headed for home.

The last thing he wanted was for Fenella to know he'd been out there all night. She would think he was crazy, or else that he was stalking her, and he'd no wish to make matters worse.

He had ached to take her home and make love to her in the bedroom that was incomplete without her presence, but unfortunately he was a man of his word, and where that had never troubled him before, it was doing so now.

Chelsea Bullock, the granddaughter of Brenda, had been chosen as the flower queen, and the next morning at the surgery Fenella's coolness towards the man who had his finger on the pulse went unobserved among the general chatter.

The mumps epidemic was easing off due to the vaccinations that had been given and those who had succumbed were well on the way to recovery, but the hay-fever sufferers were still appearing in the waiting room as the pollen count was high, even though autumn was about to replace summer.

It was the day for the diabetes clinic, which the nurses dealt with, and since she'd joined the practice Fenella had sat in to look and learn as feet were examined carefully and urine tested for sugar, amongst other precautions.

Since arriving that morning, she and Max had exchanged a brief greeting and that had been it, but she knew it couldn't last. Their lives were too involved during working hours for any sort of non-communication.

When the clinic was over Megan Oliver walked into her consulting room with a small boy holding tightly onto her hand, and Fenella's eyes widened.

Megan had noted her surprise and smiled as she and the child seated themselves opposite her. 'This is Christopher,' she said. 'He lives next door to me. His mother works mornings, so I said I would bring him to avoid her having to take time off, as they need the money.'

Fenella nodded and, turning to the boy, asked gently, 'So what is the matter with you, Christopher?'

He looked down at the carpet and didn't answer.

'His brother has pushed a bead down his ear and we can't get it out,' Megan explained.

'Right. We'd better have a look, then, hadn't we?' Fenella said. She produced an otoscope and told the child, who was cringing away, 'This won't hurt, Christopher. I'm just going to look into your ear to see where the bead is, and then I'm going to ask Dr Hollister to come and do the same.'