LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER THREE

      AMELIE’S first morning at the surgery was over and as she waited for Leo’s much longer list of patients to come and go before they set out on the home visits she was thinking how much she’d enjoyed her first taste of general practice.

      She’d coped with the patients that had been passed to her by the other two doctors without having to consult either of them, and when Leo finally appeared and asked, ‘So how was it?’ she had a smile for him.

      But there was uncertainty behind it and he thought she was unsure of him, still aware that he hadn’t liked being questioned as to whether he’d passed on details of her private life to Harry. But she was not to know that though some saw him as lightweight, he cherished his integrity and admired that of others.

      ‘I enjoyed it immensely,’ she told him. ‘I liked the one-to-oneness of it. In a hospital situation there are sometimes too many fingers in the pie.’

      ‘So, are you ready for an interesting couple of hours visiting the sick and seeing the sights of Bluebell Cove when we’ve had a coffee?’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ she said obediently, and it was there again, a withdrawal of the unaffected easiness that she’d displayed when in his company previously.

      Yet as he pulled out onto the coast road she was the first to speak, and it was to ask if Dr Balfour had relations living in Bluebell Cove. She went on to explain that a patient had mentioned someone called Barbara Balfour.

      ‘Yes, he has indeed,’ he replied. ‘Harry was brought up in this place and when he got his degree came to work at the practice as a junior doctor like you. At that time his aunt, Barbara Balfour, was in charge of the practice and I’m told was a force to be reckoned with, but she had to retire due to ill health. She and her husband live in Four Winds, the large house on the headland.

      ‘Barbara was instrumental in persuading Harry to come back to Bluebell Cove after losing his wife in an accident, and also helped Ethan Lomax with his problems at the same time. The lady in question is a household name here and revered by all who know her, but she is also something of a tartar, even though she isn’t in charge any more.’

      ‘And it is her daughter who is married to the heart surgeon?’

      ‘Yes, she was Jenna Balfour before she married Lucas Devereux. So now you can place us all in our slots,’ he said whimsically.

      ‘All except you, Dr Fenchurch. You don’t seem to have one. All the others appear to have roots in Bluebell Cove but not you. Where do you come from?’

      ‘The north-west. I’m from Manchester.’

      ‘So you are a long way from home.’

      ‘Yes, but not as far from home as you are, though you seem contented enough.’

      She shook her head. ‘Not always, I’m afraid. Yet I know I’m going to be happy here, I can feel it inside. Bluebell Cove is so beautiful, how could I not be?’

      He gave her a quick sideways glance and thought how different she was from other women he’d known. She had no airs and graces. She was just herself, an enthusiastic young doctor with, from the sound of it, parents who had put their careers before their daughter. Had they been around when in the not so distant past she had suffered heartbreak at the hands of some two-timing upstart?