thoughts of what might have been. Exploring Bluebell Cove was top of the list, and wallowing in hurtful memories at the bottom.
When she passed the house called Four Winds an elderly man was pottering around the garden and he gave a friendly wave when she appeared. The strip of golden sand below was deserted and as the sea pounded against the rocks and the gulls continued to screech above, she was out of the shorts and top and walking barefoot towards the water’s edge in a matter of seconds, as if the wide expanse of ocean was a huge blue magnet pulling her towards it.
Leo had seen her go by from his vantage point above the surgery and had watched her walking towards the beach in amazement. Where was the exhausted young doctor of the previous night? he thought, never having dreamt that she would be up and about so early.
Getting her to Bluebell Cove and dropping her at Ethan’s house had been enough to be going on with aftera busy day in the surgery with journeys to and from the airport added on, so issuing warnings about dangerous currents and rip tides hadn’t been in his mind at gone midnight the night before.
For one thing, he hadn’t been expecting her to surface before midday and there she was, moving towards the delights of the cove with a spring in her step, which was more than he could say for himself.
He would have mentioned the tides if he’d had time to think the night before, but having not done so he couldn’t let her go down there with no such thoughts in her mind. Within seconds he was following her, dressed in a similar manner in shorts and a T-shirt with swimwear underneath, and feeling less than chirpy at not having fulfilled his function as welcome party to Amelie Benoir.
She was in the water when he got there, swimming effortlessly quite a way out, and he groaned. He could murder a coffee and some toast, followed by a leisurely read of the morning paper, but first he was going to have to swim out to her, explain the dangers, and suggest that she swim nearer to the shore as Ronnie, the lifeguard, didn’t appear on the beach until eight o’clock. The treacherous tides only surfaced rarely but strangers and locals alike needed to be aware of them.
When he bobbed up beside her in the water he gestured for her to swim back to the beach with him, and when they were on the sand she exclaimed, ‘Dr Fenchurch! Do you also like to swim at this time of day?’
‘Not unless I have to,’ he told her dryly. ‘I saw you walking past my place and came to warn you that there are dangerous tides on rare occasions that you need to be aware of. I should have mentioned it last night, but wasn’t expecting you to be out and about so early after your exhaustion of yesterday.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she said apologetically, ‘but my room was full of sunlight and I could hear the gulls. I just had to explore down here.’
She wasn’t going to tell him that today she didn’t want time to think, that she needed to be occupied every moment so that her thoughts wouldn’t be of a wedding dress taken back to the shop, a bridal cake that had to be cancelled, and on a larger scale a honeymoon that hadn’t materialised.
‘So can I expect you to be watchful?’ he asked, about to depart.
‘Yes, of course. I will take note of everything that you say.’
‘Good, and now I’m going back for some breakfast. Enjoy your weekend, Amelie.’ And off he went with the thought going round in his mind that there was a solitariness about her that was worrying.
As he settled down to a belated breakfast and the morning paper, Leo was hoping the new addition to the practice would find her own niche socially and workwise, and that his part in the proceedings would now be completed.
He could understand her eagerness to go down to the beach and having seen her swim understood why.She moved like a dream in the water, and now he supposed she would be exploring the rest of Bluebell Cove if she hadn’t gone back to