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      ‘That was fantastic,’ Glenn said laughingly as he took her in his arms and danced her along the main street of the village, past the fairy lights in the windows of the cottages, past the giant Christmas tree in the square where the surgery was, and up the path of the place she called home.

      As they faced each other breathlessly at her door Anna wanted to stay in his arms for ever, with everything open and truthful between them. But it was still there—the fear that he would want to marry her out of concern rather than desire if she ever told him what had happened to her.

      Sensing that she was retreating behind the wariness that never seemed to go away, he kissed her just once—with a tenderness and passion that made her bones melt.

      Taking the door key out of her hand, he unlocked the door of the annexe. As she stepped inside he said, ‘Thanks for a wonderful experience,’ and went striding off to where Bracken House stood in the darkness of the midnight hour.

      Abigail Gordon loves to write about the fascinating combination of medicine and romance from her home in a Cheshire village. She is active in local affairs, and is even called upon to write the script for the annual village pantomime! Her eldest son is a hospital manager, and helps with all her medical research. As part of a close-knit family, she treasures having two of her sons living close by, and the third one not too far away. This also gives her the added pleasure of being able to watch her delightful grandchildren growing up.

       Recent titles by the same author:

      COUNTRY DOCTOR, SPRING BRIDE

      A SINGLE DAD AT HEATHERMERE

      A WEDDING IN THE VILLAGE

      CITY DOCTOR, COUNTRY BRIDE

       Dear Reader

      Having been brought up happily enough in a Lancashire mill town, where fields and trees were sparse on the landscape, I now live in the countryside and find much pleasure in the privilege of doing so. It gives me the opportunity to write about village life with its caring communities and beautiful surroundings.

      So, dear reader, welcome to the first of my four stories about Willowmere, a picturesque village tucked away in the Cheshire countryside. During the changing seasons you will meet the folk who live and work there, and share in their lives and loves.

      In this first book, Willowmere is beneath the mantle of winter, and over their first Christmas together in years practice nurse Anna is reunited with her long-lost love Glenn, a handsome doctor. Will the gift of happiness be theirs at this special time? Read on to find out!

       Abigail Gordon

       The Willowmere Village Stories

       Look out for Georgina and Ben’s story in the spring!

      CHRISTMAS AT WILLOWMERE

      BY

      ABIGAIL GORDON

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For Bryan Murray, a fellow writer and my brother

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE first snow of winter had fallen during the night and as Anna and the children walked the short distance to the village school it crunched beneath their feet, cold and dazzling beneath a pale sun.

      When Pollyanna and Jolyon had awakened to find a white blanket on cottage roofs and gardens there had been cries of delight and breakfast had been a rushed affair, so eager were they to be out of doors and in the snow…and now the three of them were making slow progress. With faces rosy from the cold, the children were stopping every few yards to slide on the slippery surface of the pavement or pausing to scoop up the snow in their woolly mittens.

      But at last wellies had been exchanged for trainers, mittens put on a radiator to dry in the school cloakroom, and hats and warm jackets hung on pegs, leaving Anna free to make her way to the village’s health care centre where she was a part-time practice nurse.

      It was snowing again, swirling flakes resting briefly wherever they fell before turning to wetness. She smiled. It was the beginning of December, early for the first snow of winter to be transforming the village into a wonderland of white.

      Not all people saw it as something enchanting. There would be no smiles from those who lived high up on the fringe of the moors, beside the proud peaks that today were snow-capped. Sheep farmers and other remote dwellers would be watching the weather forecasts uneasily and hoping that this was just a fleeting reminder that winter had arrived.

      Most of the parents who had dropped their children off at the school had gone. Just a single car was still parked outside, and as she walked past the window on the driver’s side it was lowered and a man’s voice said questioningly, ‘Anna?’

      She stopped, hoping that it wasn’t a patient wanting a kerbside consultation instead of going to the surgery, and waited as a pair of long legs swung out of the car.

      ‘Glenn!’ she breathed, taking a step backwards. ‘What are you doing here?’

      ‘I was passing the school and saw you going in with the children,’ he said. ‘So I stayed around until you came out.’

      Anna swallowed hard with legs wobbling beneath her. It was five years since she’d seen the man standing in front of her, and it had felt like an eternity. The last time she’d seen him she’d told him they had no future. That she wasn’t going to work in Africa with him because she was needed here in Willowmere. It was where she belonged.

      It had been a half-truth. There’d been another reason why she had ended their relationship, a reason that she had not wanted to burden him with as it would have meant him sacrificing a cherished dream on her account.

      She’d belonged where he was, but life, with its twists and turns, had shattered all her hopes and dreams on a day such as this, and instead of her future being the happy and fulfilling thing she’d wanted it to be, it had turned onto a narrow restricting path.

      After what she’d said to Glenn Hamilton the last time she’d seen him, she’d thought never to see him again. Yet here he was, as large as life, and she couldn’t believe it.

      They’d met at a disco organised by their respective colleges when she’d been taking a nursing degree and Glenn had been studying to be a doctor. The attraction between them had been instant. They’d spent every spare moment together from that night and as graduation day had drawn near in their last year, they’d begun to make plans for a future they intended to spend together, blissfully confident that nothing was ever going to separate them.

      As they faced each other Anna’s heartbeat was like a marching army thudding in her breast. On a cold and snowy morning Glenn had appeared in Willowmere again.

      He was close enough for her to see that he’d changed since she’d last seen him. He was thinner, his face almost gaunt beneath the dark thatch that lay upon his head, but as their glances held she saw that his eyes, the same deep blue as violets, were the thing about him that had changed most.

      There had been enthusiasm and purpose in them once, now there was uncertainty there. The look of someone who wasn’t sure of his welcome.

      As for the rest of him, he was still tall and straight-backed, and was sporting a tan which looked out of place in the snow of an English winter.

      ‘I just thought I’d look you up,’ he said evenly, reminding her of the question she’d gasped out at the sight of him…

      ‘You were that sure I would be here after such a long time?’ she said quietly.

      ‘I was pretty sure, yes, after you informing me the last time we met that

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