A Summer Wedding At Willowmere. Abigail Gordon

the lake that was visible when she looked through her bedroom window.

      Elaine had gone to bed and she’d been about to do the same when the urge to go out into the gloaming had overtaken her. The sunset had been magnificent and now it was still and sultry with a yellow moon above.

      She’d been wearing a sundress in the house and instead of changing into something less revealing threw a light cardigan across her bare shoulders and sallied forth, minus the gloves.

      There were still a few people about loath to be inside on such a night, but they thinned out as she drew nearer to the lake, and by the time she was only a field away she was alone, and looming up in front of her in the moonlight were the ruins of a big stone house. Could this be the place that David Trelawney had mentioned? she wondered. If so, what a mess it was in, yet what a position, just a hundred feet or so from Willow Lake, and on the other side of the house, not far away, the place where the two rivers that flowed through the village met. There was a tattered sign on the fencing that separated the field from the road and as she peered at it she saw that it said appropriately ‘Water Meetings House.’ She shook her head in disbelief. Was the man insane? It would take forever to restore this place.

      ‘Hello, there,’ a voice said from behind her.

      She turned slowly and he was there, the village doctor who was considering rebuilding the shell of what must have once been a gracious home.

      ‘Hi,’ she said lightly, pulling the cardigan tightly around her shoulders. ‘I came out for a stroll and stumbled upon this derelict house. It’s the one that you mentioned the other day, isn’t it?’

      He was smiling. She could see his teeth gleaming whitely in the moon’s light. ‘Yes, it is. I expect you think I’m crazy to be considering restoring it.’

      ‘Yes, I do as a matter of fact,’ was the reply. ‘Yet I can see why. It’s in a fantastic position and so aptly named.’

      She was a dedicated city dweller, but there was something about the moment with the two of them wrapped around by the silent night and the remains of the limestone house shining palely in the moonlight that was firing her imagination, and she thought whimsically that it was as if there were forces abroad that were out to entrance her, when she didn’t want to be entranced.

      As he observed her bemused expression David was thinking along similar lines. It was weird that Laurel of all people should be so much on his wavelength about this place and the ruins of his mother’s old home. Meeting up with her out there in the moonlight was just as odd as on the other times they’d met.

      It had come at the end of a very strange day. In the early afternoon he’d had a phone call from one of the Texan wives who’d been in Caroline’s group when he’d first met her in London.

      He’d been surprised to hear from her and even more so when he’d heard what she had to say. She’d rung to tell him that Caroline had married the senator that she’d been seeing at the time they’d ended their relationship.

      ‘My Jerome said we should let you know,’ she’d said gently in a soft Texan drawl, ‘so that if you hear it from someone else it won’t be such a shock.’

      He’d thanked her and after chatting briefly had finished the call with no feelings of regret. There’d been just the relief of knowing that the big mistake he’d almost made had reached its final conclusion, and it would be a long time before he made such an error of judgement again.

      He’d picked up the phone again and rung his father, and when he’d told him about the call from America and that it was definitely over with his ex-fiancée Jonas had exclaimed, ‘Praise be! But I thought it already was?’

      ‘Yes, it was, but now there is closure, Dad,’ he said calmly.

      ‘And are you sure you’re all right with that?’

      ‘Spot on,’ he replied. ‘It would never have worked. We had a different set of values.’

      ‘One day you’ll meet the right woman and when it happens you will know beyond any doubt,’ Jonas said. ‘When I met your mother I knew she was the only one for me, and it will be the same for you.’

      ‘If you say so,’ he agreed dubiously, with the old proverb about once bitten, twice shy in mind.

      With the feeling of contentment still there he went to the local estate agent’s while out on his calls and ended his uncertainties about the house by the lake by making an offer for it and the land it stood on.

      In the summer twilight he’d gone to gaze upon what he hoped would soon be his and found that the strange day was not yet over. He’d found Laurel Maddox there, standing silent and alone in front of what had been his mother’s childhood home.

      CHAPTER THREE

      HER eyes looked huge in the light of the moon. She was still clutching her cardigan tightly around her, and once again he wondered what it was with this strange newcomer to the village.

      She was different from any woman he’d ever met. There was a sort of touch-me-not aura about her and yet he sensed hurt and vulnerability there too.

      ‘I’ll walk you home,’ he suggested. ‘We don’t get much crime around here, but even so it isn’t a good idea to be out on your own in the dark.’ She didn’t reply, but as he began to move in that direction she fell into step beside him.

      As they walked along the road that separated the house from the lake she tripped over a loose stone and his arm came out to steady her. He felt her flinch at his touch and let his hold fall away as soon as she’d regained her balance.

      She was happy enough when she was with Elaine, he thought, and no one at the surgery had had any adverse comments to make about her after she’d been introduced to them, so maybe it was him that she didn’t care for.

      Two in one day, he thought wryly. Caroline marrying her rich lover and Laurel behaving as if he’d got the plague, yet it didn’t prevent his concern about her increasing.

      When they reached Glenside Lodge and stopped at the gate he said, ‘Take care, Laurel. If we don’t meet before, I will see you on Friday.’ Leaving her to go quietly up the stairs without disturbing Elaine, he strode off towards the village green and the cottage he was renting.