LITMIR.BIZ

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few yards from the practice, which was a bonus as he and his wife had recently separated and the close proximity to his job made coping with the break-up a little easier. But nothing was going to take away the hurt of being apart from his children, Kirstie, eleven, and Ben, thirteen. They were living abroad with Francine, their French mother, and although he had access to them, the life of a busy G.P. didn’t allow for long absences from the practice.

      The two men valued each other’s friendship and rarely mentioned the women who had once been in their lives and were now part of their pasts, but each was aware that the inward hurts of broken relationships were still there, and for his part Lucas was only too happy to be there for Ethan should he need him to help with practice matters.

      Both at a loose end, they went to the pub that evening and as they chatted Lucas found the opportunity to question his friend about Jenna’s addition to the staff.

      ‘She’s a great girl,’ Ethan enthused, ‘and Barbara will be on cloud nine to know that another member of her family has joined the staff of The Tides. Jenna is going to work mornings and if you are agreeable will assist you in your clinic two afternoons a week.’

      ‘That sounds fine,’ he said immediately, omitting to mention that he’d already heard about it from the nurse in question. ‘When is she due to start?’

      ‘Tomorrow morning,’ Ethan informed him, ‘which will mean that instead of just having the faithful and very experienced Lucy at one end of the scale, and young trainee Maria at the other, we’ll have three practice nurses, which we’ve needed for some time.’

      ‘Sounds good,’ Lucas commented, and wanting to satisfy his curiosity further asked, ‘So why didn’t Jenna come into the practice when she graduated?’

      ‘She wanted some freedom away from her mother. There was a big fallout because she wouldn’t toe the line and off she went. But she would never have gone if her mother had told her how increasingly difficult it was to keep going with the rheumatoid arthritis progressing as it was. Some of the locals who feel Barbara Balfour can do no wrong were very critical of Jenna at the time, but those who knew and liked her understood.’

      ‘I see,’ he said dryly, as another of his suppositions went by the board. Yet he’d been half expecting it ever since he’d got to know the golden girl better.

      As Lucas went for his paper the next morning to the busy general store at the far side of the surgery, Jenna was cycling towards him in the early morning sun, a smiling vision in her nurse’s uniform.

      ‘Hello, there!’ he said as she stopped beside him. ‘I’d forgotten that you are about to join the fray. How does it feel?’

      ‘Scary,’ she told him wryly. ‘I wasn’t exactly the most popular person around here when I went away. It would seem that a lot of people knew that Mum wasn’t coping, but no one thought to tell me, and of course Mum hid it from me, though I was so wrapped up in my own plans I wasn’t entirely blameless.’

      ‘So your father didn’t say anything?’

      She smiled. ‘Dad less than anyone. He wanted me to get away for a while for reasons that I won’t go into, but not so much that he didn’t send for me when he thought it was time I knew what the situation was.’

      The smile was still there and Lucas was surprised when she went on to say, ‘You see, I was brought up with one and a half parents.’ And before he had the chance to comment further she placed her foot back on the pedal and prepared to ride the last few yards to the practice with a parting comment of, ‘I’ll see you on Thursday afternoon, Lucas, if you still want me at the clinic.’

      ‘It is Ethan’s decision that you work with me, and you might find it hard to believe…but I don’t bite.’

      She was already moving off so he didn’t know if she’d heard the last bit, and he thought grimly if that was what she thought, he’d asked for it by being so smugly critical of someone he’d had no yardstick to measure by. There was Philippa, of course, who’d betrayed him, but to compare Jenna with her just because she was beautiful would be an insult that she didn’t deserve.

      The morning was going too quickly. Lucy had greeted her with open arms, and Maria, the young trainee practice nurse, who was Ronnie’s eldest daughter, had flashed her a shy smile when Jenna had presented herself at the the nurses’ room.

      Ethan had popped in for a moment to greet her in his usual pleasant manner and she’d felt that at least there was no criticism here. They were her friends, and even Lucas had been pleasant when they’d met unexpectedly outside the busy little store.

      She’d watched while Lucy had treated the first few patients and noted that they were more concerned about their health than the fact that there was a newcomer amongst the practice nurses. When Lucy needed to go to the storeroom for supplies she said, ‘I’ll leave you to see to the next patient, Jenna. Maria will help you out with any surgery routine that you’re not sure of.’ And off she went.

      In line with that comment the teenager went out on to the corridor where patients waited to be seen and came back to report that Mrs Waterson was there.

      Jenna groaned inwardly as she picked up the patient’s records and saw that she’d come for a three-monthly B12 injection to keep anaemia at bay. Mildred Waterson had been a great admirer of her mother and rightly so as Barbara had treated her for various illnesses over the years, all of them serious, and she’d always made a good recovery due to her care. With everyone else Mildred was vinegary and critical and that side of her nature became evident the moment she saw Jenna smiling across at her as she entered the room.

      ‘So you’re back, I see,’ she said. ‘Waited until your mother had gone first, though, didn’t you, and now they’ve taken you on in the surgery. Well, I’ll wait for my injection until Lucy comes back from wherever she’s gone, if you don’t mind.’

      ‘Of course I don’t mind, Mrs Waterson,’ Jenna said quietly. ‘She will only be a moment. Do take a seat.’

      ‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘I will. And how is your mother?’

      ‘As well as can be expected. I am working mornings mainly so that I can be with her in the afternoons.’

      ‘Yes, I should think so,’ was the acid reply.

      At that moment Lucy appeared and immediately picking up on the atmosphere said smoothly, ‘Isn’t it lovely to have Jenna with us, Mildred?’

      ‘Mrs Waterson would prefer you to give her the injection, Lucy,’ Jenna said quickly, before any other bad vibes were put on display.

      The elderly nurse said calmly, ‘Yes, fine, but in future there will be three nurses in attendance, Mildred, and it will be a matter of which one is free.’

      The next patient was George Enderby, the elderly farmer who had been to Lucas’s heart clinic, and to Jenna’s relief there was a twinkle in his eye when he saw her standing there.

      ‘Hello, Jenna,’ he said heartily. ‘I saw you the other day, didn’t I, when I’d been to see that campanologist fellow?’

      ‘You’ve got that a little bit wrong, Mr Enderby,’ she told him. ‘Dr Devereux is a cardiologist.’

      ‘So what do those others do then, go camping?’

      ‘No, they are the bell ringers. The people in the bell tower who turn out for Sunday church services, weddings and funerals, and now we’ve got that sorted out I see that you’re here for a dressing on your leg, so if you’ll roll up your trousers we’ll have a look at it.’

      The twinkle was still there in his eye as he did as she’d suggested and she said laughingly, ‘You were teasing, weren’t you? Wanting me to think you didn’t know that Dr. Devereux is a cardiologist.’

      ‘I might have been, yet it was worth it if it made you smile. But, then, you’d just had Mildred Waterson in here, hadn’t you? And with regard to the heart man, what a treat to have somebody

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