St Piran's: The Wedding!

As the second incubator was wheeled from the theatre, she heard the defeated note in the surgeon’s voice.

‘Time of death … sixteen forty-three.’

November in Cornwall could provide a bone-chillingly grey day with an ominous cloud cover that threatened a torrential downpour at any moment.

The rain held off for the duration of Rebecca O’Hara’s funeral but the background was suitably grim for the final farewell of a young mother who had never had the chance to see her babies.

‘I hope nobody gets too sick today,’ somebody muttered as the congregation filed into the chapel. ‘Looks like practically the entire staff of St Piran’s is here.’

There were whispered conversations in every pew.

‘Who’s that sitting beside Josh?’

‘Tasha. His sister. The one that married the prince. I didn’t know she was pregnant.’

‘No. On the other side. The older woman. Is that his mother?’

‘Yes. Her name’s Claire. I heard that she’s planning to move to Penhally to help him look after the babies.’

Further up the aisle, St Piran’s CEO, Albert White, was sitting with a member of the board of directors, Luke Davenport.

‘Thank goodness the babies are doing so well,’ he muttered. ‘Josh looks wrecked enough as it is.’

‘It’s all so sad.’ Luke’s wife, Anna, tightened her grip on her husband’s hand. ‘All of it. Rebecca was so unhappy for so long. I think she really believed that the babies would make everything all right.’

She exchanged a glance with her husband. One that suggested that—given enough time—maybe things would be all right eventually.

For Josh, anyway.

At the very back of the church, a woman noted for her tendency to gossip wasn’t about to rely on meaningful glances.

‘You’ll see,’ she muttered to the colleague sitting beside her. ‘Now that the wife’s out of the way, he’ll be married to his fancy piece in no time flat. You just wait and see.’

‘Shut up, Rita,’ her companion hissed.

For once, Rita did shut up. She spent the next few minutes watching as the final people squeezed in to take up the last of the standing room at the back of the church. She’d been watching the congregation ever since she’d arrived. Early.

‘Where is Megan?’ Rita finally had to ask. The organ music was fading and the funeral director was taking his place to start the service.

‘Haven’t you heard?’ The person on the other side seemed amused that Rita was out of the grapevine loop for once. ‘She left St Piran’s yesterday.’

‘Where’s she gone?’

‘Africa.’

‘She’s coming back, though … isn’t she?’

‘Doubt it. Her resignation was permanent. She’s joined Medécins San Frontières’

‘But—’

‘Shhh. Leave it, Rita. It’s over.’

CHAPTER ONE

Almost two years later

WHY ON EARTH had she come back here?

Penhally, Cornwall, on this November day seemed grim. Grey and bleak.

And so cold. Megan was quite sure the temperature was a single digit and having come from an African summer where a cool day could still be thirty degrees Centigrade, this was like being inside a fridge.

It didn’t help that she’d lost so much weight in recent weeks, of course. Dengue fever took a huge toll, especially the second time around. Her old coat hung so loosely on her that Megan could wrap it around her body like a blanket. Which was exactly what she did as she stood there, shivering, a suitcase by her feet, looking out over Penhally Bay as the taxi disappeared down the hill.

The sky was a deep, ominous grey and looked ready to unleash a torrent of rain at any minute. The sea looked equally menacing with whitecaps on the steel-grey water, moored yachts rocking on the swells and huge breakers crashing onto dark, wet sand. Seagulls circled overhead and the sharp, plaintiff notes of their cries echoed perfectly how Megan was feeling.

It was too cold to stand here in the street, that was for sure, but the view as she turned towards the cottage was just as dispiriting. The gate was barely visible in the wild growth of what had been a neatly trimmed hedge. The small garden was a wilderness but not high enough to disguise the coils of long-dead plants in the hanging baskets on either side of the front door or the broken panes in the lattice windows, some of which had curled pieces of cardboard trying to fill the small squares.

How long had it been since the last tenants had gone? Since she’d fired the rental agency who had failed to fix the issues like the broken pipes that had driven the tenants away? At least six months, but Megan had been too far away and too busy to cope with the hassle of putting new arrangements in place. Angered too by the flood of queries coming in from developers who were always waiting in the wings like vultures to get their hands on such a desirable piece of real estate.

And then she’d been too sick.

It was a ridiculously hard effort to push the gate open and drag her suitcase along the flagged path now choked with weeds and the branches of perennials like lavender that looked like they hadn’t been cut back since she’d left two years ago. Megan felt the prickle of tears at the back of her eyes. This had all been so pretty once. Not that she’d ever managed to keep it as picture-perfect as her grandmother had but she’d tried her best to keep it the same.

To preserve the memories of how it had been in her childhood, when this cottage and her beloved gran had been the most precious things in her life.

And that, of course, was what had brought her back now.

This was where her roots were.

Not that she’d actually been brought up here. No. After her parents were tragically killed in a car accident, Megan had gone to live with her grandmother in London. But Gran had been brought up in Penhally and that was where she’d taken Megan for a seaside holiday, every summer. They’d rented this very cottage, year after year, and the memories of those weeks had always been tinged with the rosy perfection of being the best time in the best place in the world. The cottage had been the home of her heart for as long as she could remember.

When she’d been so dreadfully ill, nearly losing her life after losing the baby, Megan had been forced to finally tell her grandmother the truth. Despite being already frail, Gran had gathered up all her strength, wrapped it all with the unconditional love she had for her granddaughter and declared that they needed a new beginning, starting with a seaside holiday. When she’d found that their beloved rental cottage was on the market, Gran had simply moved their lives back to her home town and, by doing so, had allowed Megan to put the pieces of her shattered life back together.

So this cottage and its memories, the sea and the village all added up to home. And home was the place that drew you back when you needed comfort. A safe place to recover and reassess your life.

Besides, the cottage badly needed sorting out. It would have been unforgiveable to let it crumble into some sort of ruin. Megan could hear the kind of ‘tsking’ sound her grandmother would have been making as she pushed open a front door stiff with disuse and stepped into a space that felt just as cold as it was outside. A space that reeked of damp and mould and mice.

Oh … hell …

This was far worse than she’d expected.

It wasn’t just the evidence of appalling neglect. The horrible smell of the rubbish left by the tenants littering the hallway or the ominous sound of trickling water coming from the kitchen. Or was it the bathroom upstairs? Probably both.

It wasn’t the knowledge that there would be no electricity on yet and it mightn’t even be safe to have it turned back on until she found someone to check the wiring. It wasn’t even the wave of incredible weariness as Megan contemplated the energy it would take to sort any of this out.

No. It was the feeling of being so alone.