LITMIR.BIZ

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it wasn’t going to be such a short flight as the exhaustion that she’d had to fight to get there on time had taken over and even before take-off she’d been asleep.

      It was why she was one of the last off the aircraft, drowsy and disorientated. She saw the card in the hand of a man who looked like the angel Gabriel in a suit and wished that she’d managed to find time to brush her hair properly instead of just rubbing it dry with the towel after she’d showered.

      She was discovering that his likeness to an angel wasn’t just in the golden fairness of him. He was offering her food and as it had been hours since she’d eaten, she would have kissed his feet if he’d asked her to. Yet there was nothing angelic about the hand that he’d extended to shake her ringless one. The contact was brief, but she felt a firmness and sense of purpose in its clasp.

      ‘Yes, please,’ she said in reply to his offer of food. ‘I’m famished. I came straight off my shift with only a short time to spare before my flight was due to leave, and have slept all the way.’

      He nodded. At that moment she looked like what she was, an overworked, underpaid junior doctor with the white mask of exhaustion that most of them wore.

      The rest of her was made up of hair that was black as raven’s wings in a short cut that would have looked stylish if she’d taken the trouble to run a comb through it, and there was a snub nose in the centre of a face with a wide mouth that looked as if it might smile a lot under other circumstances.

      She was of average height, average weight, everything about her was average, except for her eyes. They made up for it, blue as the bluebells that the village got its name from, and as their glances met, his keen and perceptive and hers still verging on sleep, he thought that maybe she wouldn’t be such a disappointment after all. If nothing else, she would be an extra pair of hands.

      He took her to eat in a restaurant on the airport concourse and as she enjoyed the food he reflected it was only the smell and sight of it that was keeping her awake.

      A visit to the powder room followed the meal and Amelie sighed at the vision she presented in the mirror there. A quick flick of a comb through her hair improved it slightly, but the overall effect was far from how she would have wanted to appear on arriving in the UK for the first time to be met by a man who on closer inspection was more like a Greek god than an angel, but so what? She was off men, had been ever since she’d given Antoine his ring back.

      The hurt and humiliation of what he’d done to her had made her feel unlovely and unloved when it had happened, but she felt she was over that now, had risen above those sort of feelings, and been grateful in a crazy sort of way for the long hours and other demands made of a junior doctor, which had left her with little time to brood. Yet it would be an eternity before she put her trust in or gave her heart to another of his sex.

      Leo was waiting for her by the reception desk with her cases beside him when she reappeared, and didn’t miss the fact that the black bob of her hair now hung smooth and shining around her face.

      That’s better, he thought, and almost laughed at the workings of his mind.

      Amelie Benoir hadn’t crossed the Channel to enter a beauty competition. She’d come to gain some experience in general practice and hopefully give assistance to Harry and himself at the same time.

      ‘Thanks for the food,’ she said gratefully. ‘I feel much better now.’

      ‘Good. I was a junior doctor myself once and remember the trials and tribulations just as much as the rewards. So if you want to nod off again feel free because it will be some time before we arrive in Bluebell Cove.’

      ‘What is the house like where I shall be living?’ she asked after they’d travelled the first few miles in silence, each not sure if the other wanted to talk.

      ‘It was built for Ethan and his family a couple of years ago and is very spacious and attractive. It is opposite the surgery so you won’t have to travel to get there. With regard to visiting our patients, Dr. Balfour is sorting out a hire car for you, though you will be with one of us until you know the district and have got the hang of the surgery routine.’

      ‘And where do you live?’ was her next question.

      ‘Nowhere as sumptuous as where you will be living in Ethan’s modern detached, or Harry Balfour’s manor house,’ he said laughingly. ‘I live in an apartment above the surgery that supplies my needs.’

      ‘So you do not have family?’

      ‘My mother is alive. She lives in Spain with my sister and her husband. I’m not married myself, neither do I have any children. Families are the ties that bind, I feel. What about you? Have you left family behind in France?’

      She shook her head and he thought there was something sad about the gesture. ‘No. I have not left anyone behind. Both my parents are in the diplomatic service and spend most of their time abroad. I rarely see them.’

      He nodded, ‘I only asked because Ethan’s house is big. If you’d wanted to bring anyone with you, he wouldn’t have minded.’

      ‘I might have done at one time,’ she replied, ‘but not now.’ Silence fell between them once more.

      It was gone midnight when Leo pulled up across the way from the surgery in front of the big detached house that was to be her home for the next six months.

      Amelie had been half-asleep on the last leg of the journey but had woken up when he’d turned onto the coast road and been tuned in when he’d explained that the sea and the beach were below and that a house standing on a headland overlooking them called Four Winds because of its exposed position was occupied by a frail elderly woman who had once been in charge of the medical practice that they were heading for.

      ‘I have lived in many places,’ she told him, ‘and the ones I have liked best were always beside the ocean. So this is a great adventure for me.’

      ‘That’s good, then,’ he commented as he took her cases out of the boot and carried them to the front door of the house. While he was unlocking it he said, ‘Ethan and his family were here just a few weeks ago for Harry and Phoebe’s wedding, so all should be in order.’ And with her close behind, he led the way inside.

      Amelie looked around her, wide eyed at the spacious rooms and attractive, modern furniture, and Leo thought that this place made the apartment above the surgery look like a henhouse, yet did it matter? It was enough for his needs at the present time.

      ‘If you would like to take a look upstairs, you should find that Phoebe has made up one of the beds for you, and there will be fresh food in the cupboards and the refrigerator,’ he explained. ‘If you need anything over the weekend, you know where to find me, above the surgery.’

      ‘You will see a separate staircase leading to the apartment and there is a buzzer by the door. Now I shall leave you to settle in.’ With a glance at her tired face, he added, ‘Sleep well. Harry and Phoebe will be calling in to introduce themselves some time over the weekend and, as I’ve said, I won’t be far away, so I’ll say goodnight until eight-thirty on Monday morning.’

      ‘Thank you for bringing me here, Dr Fenchurch,’ she said, and he sensed the melancholy in her tone again.

      Yet she was smiling as she went to the door to see him off and nodded obediently when he said, ‘Be sure to lock and bolt the doors after I’ve gone.’

      It was only when she was alone in the strange house that she’d escaped to that she allowed herself to think that with midnight already past, today should have been her wedding day.

      Had Antoine even remembered, she wondered, or was he so engrossed in his new love that he’d shut the past out of his mind? Whatever the answer to that was, she was here in this beautiful English village and was going to make the most of the time by helping the sick and enjoying the change of surroundings, and along with that was hoping to find some kind of permanent healing for her own hurts.

      She awoke the next morning to the sound of shrill cries in the distance

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