A Wedding in the Village Read Free Page B

back in bed, Oliver. I have my first day at the surgery tomorrow and don’t want to be half-asleep.’
    ‘OK. I get the message.’ Oliver grinned. ‘Goodnight, Uncle Luke.’
    When he looked in on him a few moments later Oliver wasn’t pretending. He was fast asleep and as Luke closed the door quietly behind him, he decided that his own affairs were going to have to be put on hold for quite some time if tonight was anything to go by.
    He’d taken on two big commitments, looking after his sister and her children, and the position at the practice, both requiring patience and stamina. Yet compared to living with Alexis they would seem like a holiday, and on that thought he turned on his side and slept.

CHAPTER TWO
    W HEN Megan awoke the following morning the first thing that came to mind was Luke appearing in the sunset with a bottle of wine. Thinking about it, she wished she could have been a bit less stilted in her manner, but surprise and unease had been responsible for that.
    And in the light of day the unease was back. She wasn’t going to be able to cope with being on tenterhooks all the time in case the matter of the Valentine card came up, and she decided reluctantly that the best thing to do was take the bull by the horns and mention it herself.
    That way it would be over and done with. She would be able to work alongside him more comfortably when she’d reassured him that the card had just been the result of a youthful crush. It was going to be the first thing she did when she got to the surgery, she decided. She would mention it casually, poking wry fun at herself, and it would be over.
    She was using her mother’s room for consultations and Connie, the cleaner, had been asked to come in over the weekend to give the room that had been her father’s a good spring clean, ready for Luke’s arrival.
    Megan had to smile when she saw it. Everywhere was immaculate. Connie had even put flowers on the window-sill and a fresh box of tissues for any patient who might be distressed during a consultation. All it needed now was the arrival of its new occupant.
    It was a quarter past eight. In fifteen minutes the wheels would start turning and another day at the Riverside Practice would begin. Luke needed to get a move on. She wanted to introduce him to the staff and put him in the picture as to how the surgery was run before he settled himself behind the desk in the room that had been prepared for him.
    He arrived just before eight-thirty, looking nothing like the man who’d toasted their partnership the night before. There was a tightness around his mouth and his tie needed knotting into place.
    ‘I am so sorry,’ he gasped. ‘I intended being here early, but while I was under the shower those lads started playing Sue up, and once I’d sorted them and they’d ambled off to school, she began to cry. I couldn’t leave her in that state, so I hung on until she’d calmed down.’
    He flashed a wry smile. ‘Does it sound as if I’m whingeing? I’m sorry if it does. The process of helping them adjust to losing their dad is not going to be easy. I’ll tell you later what Oliver got up to last night.’
    She nodded and thought, So much for putting the Valentine episode to bed. It would have to wait.
    ‘I’ll introduce you to the staff first,’ she told him, ‘and then a quick run through procedures. I’m sure the patients won’t mind waiting a few moments longer.’
    There were three receptionists, all efficient middle aged women, and after they’d smiled their welcome, Megan took him into the nurse’s room where Pat Howarth, heading for retirement and dreading it, ruled the roost. Working alongside her was Kath Storey, a young mother of two little girls, who showed a less dominant attitude towards staff and patients.
    The practice manager was Anne Faulkner, a quiet woman with accountancy qualifications, who rented the apartment above the surgery.
    Connie, the cleaner, was absent. After her labours over the