Wedding Bells For The Village Nurse

‘Jenna!’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you come back to us, or is it just a visit?’

‘I’m back,’ she told him, smiling her pleasure at the sight of the good-natured doctor who had taken her mother’s place. ‘I haven’t discussed it with Mum and Dad yet as I only arrived yesterday, but I would like to combine looking after her with some sort of part-time nursing somewhere.’

‘I can manage…’ her mother started to protest.

Ignoring the protest, Ethan was smiling and saying, ‘You need look no further if you want a job. We need a part-time practice nurse to help with morning surgery, and for a couple of afternoons to assist Lucas in the cardiology clinic.’

‘Lucas! Cardiology clinic!’ she exclaimed. ‘Who might he be? And how long has the surgery been able to offer that kind of thing?’

‘Since a friend of mine needed a change of scene,’ he said with a smile. ‘So are you interested?’

‘Of course I am!’ she hooted, ‘just as long as Mum and Dad agree.’

‘You already know my views regarding you joining the practice,’ her mother said.

Her father commented gently, ‘It’s all right by me, but I don’t want you to feel that now you’re back you’re being hemmed in with our affairs, Jenna. You’ve got a top degree in nursing, remember.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she replied, ‘but a nurse is a nurse is a nurse wherever he or she may be. My stepping into that role here has been delayed, but I always intended to join the practice one day if there was a place for me. We Balfour women have to stick together.’

The saying of that sentiment would have stuck in her throat at one time, she thought, but there was something so sad in seeing her mother defeated by illness that she’d meant every word.

Ethan was checking his watch. ‘Must go,’ he said, ‘or they’ll be thinking at the surgery that I’ve got lost. So are we sorted, Jenna? You’re interested in coming to join us?’

‘Yes. Definitely.’

She would have agreed to sweep the streets, or empty waste bins, if it would have resulted in the same degree of happiness she was seeing on her mother’s face.

‘Call in this afternoon for a chat if you get the chance,’ he said as she walked to the gate with him. He lowered his voice. ‘It must have been a shock when you saw your mother. She was fine when you left, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes, she seemed to be,’ she told him sombrely. ‘I had no idea, and needless to say she didn’t tell me what was going on. That isn’t her way.’

‘I know,’ he agreed, ‘and it isn’t always the best.’

When he’d gone her father said by way of explanation, ‘Ethan calls every morning on his way to the surgery to make sure we’re all right. He’s a good guy.’

It was late afternoon before Jenna got the chance to call in at the practice and when she went through the main doors into Reception she was gripped by a feeling of unreality. This had been her mother’s domain and now here she was, another Balfour about to become part of The Tides practice.

There was a new face behind Reception and as Jenna moved across to explain why she was there, the door of a consulting room opened directly behind her. As she swivelled round, there he was again, the mystery man, surfer, property owner, and what else—patient, doctor, medical sales rep?

The questions crowding her mind were soon answered as with a swift glance in her direction he said to the elderly man about to depart, ‘I want to see you again next week, Mr Enderby, and if in the meantime the fast heartbeat or breathing problems return send for me immediately and we’ll take it further. The ECG you’ve just had didn’t show any cause for concern at the moment, but do remember that my heart clinic is here for your benefit.’

‘It was probably me getting so worked up about losing my sheepdog that caused me to be the way I was,’ the elderly farmer said awkwardly. ‘I’d had Jess for a long time.’

‘So maybe it wasn’t surprising, then,’ he said with a sympathetic smile, and Jenna thought that it must just be her that he couldn’t take to. Yet why should this stranger want to get to know her? He might be living alone but there was nothing to say that he didn’t prefer it that way, or wasn’t already spoken for.

George Enderby halted in his tracks when he saw her standing there and exclaimed, ‘Jenna! How long have you been back in Bluebell Cove, my dear?’

‘Since yesterday,’ she told him with a wide smile.

‘And are you staying?’

‘Yes, I am, Mr Enderby. I’m going to be working mornings here and will be helping with the new heart clinic on two afternoons.’

‘That’s good news. I feel better already.’ He chortled and went slowly on his way, leaving her to adjust to the fact that the man on the beach was the Lucas person, the celebrity who was involved with the practice.

He was a new face there, just as the receptionist seemed to be, and she, Jenna, would be another when she joined the staff. Though she wouldn’t be a new face to everyone. To most folk she would be Barbara’s daughter.

Only that morning Ethan had referred to a cardiologist who had his own clinic there, and this just had to be him with a dark suit and smart shirt and tie replacing the swimming trunks of their first meeting and the sports shirt and shorts that had been his attire on the second.

The elderly farmer had gone and now the receptionist was on the phone to a patient and the man observing her with cool dark eyes said, ‘I’m presuming that you are Jenna Balfour here to see Ethan. He said to look after you if he wasn’t back from an urgent home visit he’s been called out on, but I’m sure that the receptionist will be only too pleased to make you a cup of tea when she comes off the phone.’

His tone implied that he didn’t want the responsibility of looking after her and she told him frostily, ‘I’ll be fine, thanks just the same. It seems as if you have quite rightly decided who I am, so how about introducing yourself?’

‘Lucas Devereux,’ he said evenly, ‘recuperating in the countryside and involving myself in medicine at a slower pace.’

She held out a smooth ringless hand and said, ‘Pleased to meet you, Dr Devereux.’

He hesitated for a second then took it in a firm clasp and instead of greeting her in a similar fashion merely said, ‘Nice of you to say so.’

The receptionist had replaced the phone and he didn’t waste a second in saying, ‘And now, if you will excuse me, I have a patient waiting.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and seek out someone that I know after I’ve introduced myself to this lady.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘JENNA! So you really are back! I didn’t believe Ethan when he told me he’d seen you this morning,’ Lucy Watson cried when she opened the door of the nurses’ room to her knock.

‘Hello, Aunt Lucy’ she said, hugging the sparse frame of her mother’s only friend and confidante. ‘Dad phoned to ask me to come home because of how Mum is, and I came as soon as I could. I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes when I went away or I would never have gone, and now that I’ve seen her I’m appalled.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you are,’ her mother’s friend said consolingly. She had been senior practice nurse for almost as long as Barbara had been in charge of the coastal medical centre. ‘I told your mother countless times that she should put you in the picture, but we both know what she’s like. Barbara will choke on her own pride one of these days.

‘But enough of the past. Let’s talk about the present. Ethan tells me that you’re going to join us part time and spend the rest looking after your mother. That is really good news. Your father has been coping wonderfully but Keith needs some help, so who better than his lovely daughter who is also a nurse?

‘Any problems will come from your mother’s side of the arrangement. She is so used to dealing with the sick and suffering that becoming one of them herself has been hard to accept, as you can imagine. What sort of a welcome did you get?’

Jenna smiled. ‘Reasonable enough. We actually had a laugh together.’

‘Wow!’ Lucy exclaimed. ‘Seriously, though, be patient with her, Jenna. Her life has changed unbelievably.’

‘I’m not short on patience,’ she said soberly. ‘One needs it in plenty to be a nurse. It’s my mum who has always been short on it, at least where Dad and I are concerned.’

The other woman sighed. ‘Yes, I agree, but knowing your father, Keith won’t let you take on too much of the burden. The situation is that now Barbara needs a woman’s care. The fact that you are home and will be around and are about to join us here at the practice is wonderful news.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ Jenna said wryly, ‘but I’ve just had a lukewarm reception from the cardiologist who is now part of the practice and Ethan wants me to assist him with his clinic on the two afternoons that he’s here. We’ve already met briefly on two occasions and I get the feeling that he disapproves of me for some reason so he won’t be laying down the red carpet for his new assistant.’

Lucy smiled. ‘Don’t be put off by his manner. Lucas Devereux is quite something in the medical world in these parts. Until recently he was top cardiologist at Hunters Hill Hospital and we couldn’t believe it when he agreed to move here at Ethan’s suggestion. It seems that the two of them are friends from way back.’

‘Even so, why lower his sights to that extent if he was top dog at The Hill?’