Spring Proposal In Swallowbrook. Abigail Gordon

      ‘Yes, of course,’ she replied, and thought she would bear in mind that Monday evenings were not a good time to ring her prospective landlord.

      He was leading her through to the sitting room and pointing to the sofa for her to be seated and the memory of Saturday night came back, with her drooping like a rag doll against its soft cushions after a dreadful day.

      Hugo had been right when he’d said that the rental arrangements wouldn’t take long. In no time at all they had completed the paperwork needed for Ruby to rent the apartment for the next six months, to begin with at a very reasonable figure.

      When she expressed her gratitude he said with none of the abruptness of earlier, ‘I thought you might have to pay off a student loan, and it is worth it to me that someone I already know will be living there, instead of an array of strangers.’

      ‘I do have a loan to pay off,’ she told him. ‘My parents are helping me with it, yet it is still my responsibility, so thanks for the thought, Dr Lawrence.’

      He nodded and asked with casual curiosity, ‘Where is your family situated?’

      ‘In Tyneside. We used to live here in Swallowbrook but had to move because of my father’s job, yet I have always wanted to come back.’

      ‘Are you their only child?’

      ‘No, I have a young brother, Robbie, in his early teens.’

      ‘So your parents have the same as mine had, a son and a daughter, though in our family it is the other way round—my sister, Patrice, is the younger of the two of us.’

      At that moment the phone rang and he said, ‘This will be her now.’

      As she got up to go he said, ‘You don’t have to rush off. I thought you wanted to hear about the patient I called on before morning surgery.’

      She was smiling, her earlier dismay at his abrupt manner having disappeared as she said, ‘It will keep for another time,’ and letting herself out she returned to the apartment and once again danced a little jig at the thought of being its new tenant.