LITMIR.BIZ

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explained weakly. ‘So maybe he’s been to the stall that’s selling food and drinks over there.’

      The two doctors were only half listening. Francine was making the phone call and Ethan was watching keenly as the choking began to slowly subside and the tongue began to go forward once more leaving the airways clearer.

      He gave a sigh of relief. The whole incident had taken just a matter of minutes, seconds almost, but if he and Francine hadn’t been there…

      She was switching her phone off and placing a comforting arm around the shoulders of the organist’s wife and he thought for a moment that it had been almost like how it used to be with the two of them caring for the folks in Bluebell Cove.

      He was still doing that, but she wasn’t, and as he noted thankfully that the stricken man’s heartbeat and pulse had stabilised he wondered what had brought her back to the place where she’d once been happy and contented.

      When the ambulance had left, the children had gone to seek out their friends and for Francine and Ethan the brief feeling of togetherness that the incident had created hung between them like a question mark.

      She was pale and shaking after the urgency of the situation, the need to act fast because a life had been at stake, and he placed his arm around her shoulders, held her close for a second and said gently, ‘What a homecoming for you, Francine. Do you think that you and I deserve top marks for effort now that Bradley will live to see another day? We were right back on line like we used to be, weren’t we?’

      ‘Yes, professionally maybe,’ she agreed stiltedly as panic took hold at the thought of him describing her presence back in his life as a homecoming, ‘Though I’m only here on a visit.’

      ‘Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?’ he asked, his voice tightening with disappointment.

      ‘It was on impulse, a last-minute thing. I felt I just had to be with the children at Christmas,’ she said awkwardly, knowing that she’d not kept to the arrangements they’d agreed on regarding who Kirstie and Ben should be with and when. ‘I’ve put my things in the spare room. I hope that’s all right.’

      ‘No, it isn’t!’ he gritted. ‘Take the master bedroom. I’ll sleep in the spare room. The house is still your home as far as I’m concerned. So shall we go there instead of making a spectacle of ourselves in front of what is left of the wedding party?’

      ‘Jenna and Lucas saw you trying to keep out of sight for some reason best known only to yourself and said to tell you that you’re invited to the evening reception, which starts in an hour at the Enderbys’ farmhouse.’

      Kirstie and Ben weren’t far away and he went on to explain, ‘Needless to say, the children and I are going as I was best man for Lucas, and Kirstie was Jenna’s bridesmaid.’

      He looked across at the children, who were engrossed in throwing snowballs, and said, ‘Don’t spoil their Christmas, Francine.’

      She swallowed hard. Kirstie had been a bridesmaid and Ethan best man for his friend and she hadn’t been there, and now he was warning her not to spoil their Christmas. Was this what she’d come to? Was his opinion of her now as low as that?

      Yet she’d had to tell herself the same thing, not to let the huge well of misery inside her loose on those she loved.

      As they walked towards the house she said, to try and placate him, ‘I haven’t stopped loving this place, you know, Ethan.’

      ‘But not enough to live in it,’ he commented dryly.

      ‘I haven’t crossed the Channel to have all my shortcomings pointed out.’

      ‘No, you haven’t. Forget I said that.’

      He wasn’t to know that now she’d got what she wanted and was living in the beautiful house near Paris that had been her home during her childhood and early teens, she felt as if the price she was paying to live there permanently was too high, and she’d get the feeling of choking and breathlessness that came with panic.

      She hadn’t stopped to think things through properly when in hurt and anger she’d asked for a divorce, and now that it was under way and she was installed there, she was floundering instead of rejoicing, feeling that Ethan would never forgive her for the way she’d cared only about her own needs.

      ‘I don’t want us to change bedrooms,’ she told him when they arrived back at the house. ‘I’ll be fine in the spare room. I didn’t come to cause any upheaval and in keeping with that will give the wedding reception a miss, I think. Something tells me I won’t be flavour of the month amongst your friends and the surgery crowd. I left them in the lurch when I went chasing off to France, didn’t I, even though I was only a part-time G.P.?’

      ‘You’ve got to come, Maman,’ Kirstie pleaded. ‘There will be lots of nice things to eat and music and dancing.’

      ‘I will stay with Maman,’ Ben said quickly, as an escape from something he wasn’t looking forward to presented itself.

      Ethan shook his head. ‘No, Ben. There will be plenty of time for you to be with your mother over Christmas. You have been invited and are going, just as you would have been if she was still in France.’

      ‘I’ll come,’ Francine said hastily, and as Ben’s expression brightened she thought it didn’t matter how people felt about her as long as the children were content.

      Kirstie was keeping the pink dress on. She obviously adored it. Ben had changed into jeans and a sweater, replacing the suit he’d worn for the wedding, and Ethan was still in his outfit as best man.

      It remained for her to find something to wear, Francine thought, which meant unpacking her cases or rummaging around to see what she’d left behind in the wardrobe when she’d departed all those months ago.

      

      There was an evening dress there of pale turquoise silk that Ethan had always liked her in. Low cut with a hooped skirt, it fitted better than it had ever done because of the weight she’d lost, and at the same time emphasised the dark chestnut of her hair and her beautiful green eyes.

      When she went downstairs to where the three of them were waiting for her Ethan said, ‘Did you have to wear that, Francine? The dress belongs to another life.’

      ‘Do you want me to take it off, then?’ she asked, with the feeling that so far she hadn’t done anything right.

      ‘No, of course not, we need to be off. I’m still in my role as best man until the evening is over.’

      

      As he drove them along snow-covered lanes beside hedgerows touched by winter’s frosty fingers, to the big farmhouse where the afternoon reception had already taken place, Ethan was wondering what really lay behind Francine’s sudden appearance.

      They’d agreed that the children should come to him from the middle of December until after New Year, and now she was here beside him looking pale and drawn with dark shadows under her eyes.

      If only things had been different between them he would be holding his petite French wife close and wanting to put right what was wrong, but those days were gone for ever. The split was hurting beyond telling, and for his own part he was living with the knowledge that if he’d been prepared to leave the practice the two of them would still be together.

      But torn two ways, he’d felt he owed it to Barbara Balfour to keep to the present arrangement. She had placed her life’s work in his capable hands. For as far back as anyone could remember she’d provided those who lived in Bluebell Cove with first-class medical care and was now a semi-invalid, barely able to walk and relying on him to carry on the good work.

      

      He and Francine had met at university where they’d both been studying medicine. They’d fallen madly in love, had had a fairy-tale wedding in Paris, and for twelve years she’d seemed content living on the Devon coast in beautiful Bluebell

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