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surprise again by saying, ‘If you’ll hang on while I change my clothes, I’ll walk you home.’

      ‘There’s no need,’ she said hastily. ‘I know the way. I’ve done it a thousand times.’

      ‘Nevertheless, I am not going to let you walk home alone,’ he told her decisively. ‘Make yourself comfortable on the sofa in the sitting room. I will be just a couple of minutes.’

      He was as good as his word. She sensed that he always would be and would have scant patience with anyone who wasn’t.

      They’d been walking in silence for a few moments and out of the blue Lucas asked, ‘So where is your lifeguard friend tonight?’

      Jenna swivelled to face him, eyes widening in surprise at the question ‘You mean Ronnie?’

      He nodded. ‘Yes, if that’s his name.’

      ‘He will be down on the beach, or with his wife and family, I would imagine, but why do you ask?’ He didn’t reply and as light began to dawn she exclaimed in slow surprise, ‘Ah! I see! When we were larking about yesterday you came to the conclusion that there was more to it than just a laugh between friends, which was rather presumptuous on your part, don’t you think?

      ‘Ronnie has lived here all his life, just as I have. We were in junior school at the same time, though he was on the point of leaving when I started as there is a few years’ difference in our ages. He knows me best from me being on the beach. I’ve always used it a lot, and I’m godmother to one of his children.’

      ‘All right!’ he protested. ‘I get the picture, and you are correct in pointing out in a roundabout way that it is none of my business.’

      He wasn’t going to tell her that he was piqued because she was turning out to be different from what he’d expected, that he’d wanted her to be the laughing blonde in a bikini flirting with the handsome lifeguard, because it fitted in better with his present jaundiced views on beautiful women.

      Next he’d be discovering that Jenna Balfour hadn’t really deserted her parents when she’d been needed—the kind of criticism he’d heard from some of the village folk who thought highly of her mother’s years of devoted care for the patients at The Tides.

      They’d reached the headland. The lighted windows of Four Winds were shining out in the darkness and she said gravely, ‘Thank you for walking me home, Lucas, but before you go, can I ask you a question?’

      ‘Of course,’ he told her smoothly, half expecting what was coming next.

      ‘Do you always make a snap judgement on meeting someone for the first time?’

      ‘In my work, never!’ he replied, then, as Philippa drifted into his mind, he went on, ‘But I was guilty of that kind of thing not so long ago and paid a high price for my gullibility with regard to a beautiful woman. I apologise for letting my first glimpse of another equally beautiful woman cause me to form what now seems to be the wrong opinion, if that is what you want me to say?’

      ‘Only if it is really meant,’ she said coolly. ‘We haven’t got off to a very good start, have we? If we are going to be working together we need to clear the air so that when Ethan passes on to you his suggestion that I assist you in your Monday and Thursday afternoon clinics you will have had time to decide if you are prepared to be in such close proximity to me.’

      ‘It will depend on if you’ve had any experience of cardiology nursing more than anything else,’ he said dryly. ‘Have you?’

      ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I’ve worked on a coronary unit in France, but when Ethan suggested that I assist in your clinic I asked that I might give it a trial first.’

      ‘For what reason? You’ve just said that you have some experience.’

      ‘You were the reason. I sensed your antipathy towards me.’

      ‘And how do you feel about that now?’

      She was smiling. ‘Better, I think, because it seems that you might be human after all.’

      The sardonic smile was back. Most nurses he’d worked with had treated him with reverence and respect. But here was a free spirit amongst the nursing fraternity who wasn’t all that keen to work with him and there were all the ingredients of a challenge in that.

      ‘So I’ll see you on Thursday afternoon, then?’ he questioned as they stood looking down at the foamtipped waves lapping onto the beach in the moonlight.

      ‘Er, yes, if you’re going to agree to what Ethan wants.’

      ‘I’ve known him a long time. Ethan Lomax is a good friend,’ he told her sombrely. ‘He saved my sanity when he persuaded me to move to Bluebell Cove. His plans for the practice will be my top priority as long as I am involved in it so, yes, I’m going to agree to you working with me.’

      ‘Who is assisting you now?’

      ‘No one as yet. Today’s clinic was only the second one and we were still looking for a nurse. You appeared at just the right time,’ he told her, and hoped that she realised he was speaking from a medical point of view. As far as he was concerned, there would never be a right time for anything more personal.

      As he walked back to his own place Lucas was thinking that from what he’d seen of her so far there appeared to be nothing devious about the beautiful Jenna Balfour, and added to that she had the personality, and hopefully the nursing experience, that he would require from her in the cardiology clinic.

      For the first time in ages he was actually feeling cheerful as he climbed the stairs to the drab main bedroom of his newly acquired property, but he knew it wouldn’t last. He was surrounded by too many dark shadows and broken dreams.

      ‘Do you want to take the car?’ Keith asked when Jenna came downstairs the next morning looking trim and competent in the dark blue dress of the practice nurse that Lucy had brought for her the night before.

      ‘No. I’ll walk,’ she said. ‘You’ll need the car if you have to take Mum anywhere. The first chance I get I’ll sort out some transport of my own. Which reminds me, is my bike still in the outhouse?’

      He smiled. ‘Yes, knowing how much you used to love the thing, I’ve taken great care of it while you’ve been away.’

      She gave him a hug and her mother, seated nearby, nodded approvingly at the idea of Jenna cycling to the practice instead of walking. A feeling of rare contentment had come over her when she’d seen her daughter dressed for the surgery, and some of the pain of her own limitations had disappeared.

      There’d been a lot of time to fill since she’d had to hand the practice over to Ethan, and she thought frequently that if she had to do it all over again, these two who loved her unconditionally would be first of all her priorities.

      A promise she’d made way back to another loved one, long gone, had driven her through the years to a greater degree than she should have allowed it to, and now she was praying that she hadn’t left it too late to be the wife and mother she should have been.

      Ethan was Lucas’s nearest neighbour, residing in a recently erected detached house that the builder had been inspired to grace the front of with an assortment of attractive pebbles from along the coastline.

      It was only a 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

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