‘They’re fortunate to have you looking out for them,’ Megan said awkwardly.
He shrugged. ‘I just wish I could have been here sooner. Anyway, I really must go. It’s been a pleasant evening, Megan, so thank you.’
As Megan showed him out, he paused in the doorway. ‘How long have you lived here?’
Megan shrugged. ‘Only a short time. When I knew that Mum and Dad were leaving the area I didn’t want to be living on my own in their house. It would have been too big for me. So I bought this place.’
‘A good choice,’ he said, and strode down the path. When he reached the gate he raised his hand in a brief salute and then drove off.
When he’d disappeared from sight Megan let out a deep breath and went back inside. He was the last person she’d expected to see appearing out of the summer dusk. It had been a nice gesture to suggest a toast, and an exquisite relief not to have been reminded of her youthful crush. Maybe he’d forgotten. If he had she would send up a prayer of thanks. But how was she to know? It could be that he remembered it very well and was saving the mention of it for a later date.
Nevertheless she went to bed in a happier frame of mind than she’d been in all day and it was due to Luke Anderson.
* * *
The house was still. Sue had gone to bed early with a headache and the boys were also asleep. They’d been great while they’d been showing him around the village, but at bedtime Oliver, who was eleven years old, had been awkward.
He’d wanted to stay up and watch television and wouldn’t get undressed until Luke had told him he had to as it was school in the morning, and on no account was he to disturb his mother. He’d done as he’d been told but with a scowl on his face. When Luke had gone to check on them, Owen, the thirteen-year-old had been fast asleep, and Oliver thankfully had been on the point of dozing off.
He’d gone to bed himself then and as he lay thinking about the day, the short time he’d spent with Megan was at the forefront of his mind. When they’d met a month ago at the practice he’d been as dumbfounded as she had been at meeting up again and in such circumstances.
When she’d sent him the Valentine card he’d been at his lowest ebb. His marriage to Alexis had just ended in divorce. He’d been feeling angry and betrayed. And even if Megan hadn’t been his student, the thought of another relationship hadn’t been bearable.
Since his marriage had ended, he hadn’t looked at another woman, and it might have stayed that way if he hadn’t met Megan again. But again the time wasn’t right. Then he’d been reeling from his divorce, and now he had his hands full with a distraught mother and her fatherless sons.
As a reminder of that fact he heard the creak of a bedroom window being opened in the next room to his, and when he went to investigate he found Oliver halfway out of the window and preparing to jump onto the roof of an outhouse down below.
When he saw him he hesitated and Luke said, ‘Don’t even think of it, Oliver.’And taking his arm, he helped him back into the room.
‘Where were you intending going?’ he asked quietly, dreading that he’d been on the point of running away.
‘Mothing,’ was the surly reply. ‘I meet my friend Mikey out on the lane at the back and we go into the fields with our nets.’
‘And does your mother know?’
‘No. She wouldn’t let me if she knew.’
‘I see,’ Luke said unsmilingly. ‘So how about we do a deal. If you promise to go back to bed and stay there, I’ll come with you and Mikey tomorrow night, and any other night for that matter, but you have to promise that you won’t sneak out again.’
‘What? You’ll come mothing with us, Uncle Luke?’ Oliver exclaimed with his good humour restored in the form of a wide smile. ‘I didn’t think grown-ups did that sort of thing.’
‘They don’t,’ Luke told him dryly, ‘but for you, Oliver, anything. And now I’m going to ring your friend’s parents to tell them to check on his whereabouts.’
‘He won’t have gone out yet,’ Oliver told him calmly. ‘Mikey always waits until he hears me whistle beneath his window.’
‘Is that so? Well, I’m going to phone them nevertheless, and now let’s have you back in bed, Oliver. I have my first day at the surgery tomorrow and don’t want to be half-asleep.’
‘OK. I get the message.’ Oliver grinned. ‘Goodnight, Uncle Luke.’
When he looked in on him a few moments later Oliver wasn’t pretending. He was fast asleep and as Luke closed the door quietly behind him, he decided that his own affairs were going to have to be put on hold for quite some time if tonight was anything to go by.
He’d taken on two big commitments, looking after his sister and her children, and the position at the practice, both requiring patience and stamina. Yet compared to living with Alexis they would seem like a holiday, and on that thought he turned on his side and slept.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN Megan awoke the following morning the first thing that came to mind was Luke appearing in the sunset with a bottle of wine. Thinking about it, she wished she could have been a bit less stilted in her manner, but surprise and unease had been responsible for that.
And in the light of day the unease was back. She wasn’t going to be able to cope with being on tenterhooks all the time in case the matter of the Valentine card came up, and she decided reluctantly that the best thing to do was take the bull by the horns and mention it herself.
That way it would be over and done with. She would be able to work alongside him more comfortably when she’d reassured him that the card had just been the result of a youthful crush. It was going to be the first thing she did when she got to the surgery, she decided. She would mention it casually, poking wry fun at herself, and it would be over.
She was using her mother’s room for consultations and Connie, the cleaner, had been asked to come in over the weekend to give the room that had been her father’s a good spring clean, ready for Luke’s arrival.
Megan had to smile when she saw it. Everywhere was immaculate. Connie had even put flowers on the window-sill and a fresh box of tissues for any patient who might be distressed during a consultation. All it needed now was the arrival of its new occupant.
It was a quarter past eight. In fifteen minutes the wheels would start turning and another day at the Riverside Practice would begin. Luke needed to get a move on. She wanted to introduce him to the staff and put him in the picture as to how the surgery was run before he settled himself behind the desk in the room that had been prepared for him.
He arrived just before eight-thirty, looking nothing like the man who’d toasted their partnership the night before. There was a tightness around his mouth and his tie needed knotting into place.
‘I am so sorry,’ he gasped. ‘I intended being here early, but while I was under the shower those lads started playing Sue up, and once I’d sorted them and they’d ambled off to school, she began to cry. I couldn’t leave her in that state, so I hung on until she’d calmed down.’
He flashed a wry smile. ‘Does it sound as if I’m whingeing? I’m sorry if it does. The process of helping them adjust to losing their dad is not going to be easy. I’ll tell you later what Oliver got up to last night.’
She nodded and thought, So much for putting the Valentine episode to bed. It would have to wait.
‘I’ll introduce you to the staff first,’ she told him, ‘and then a quick run through procedures. I’m sure the patients won’t mind waiting a few moments longer.’
There were three receptionists, all efficient middle aged