Read Online A Wedding in the Village by Abigail Gordon - Free Book Online

and when it got midnight and the lights were still not on, he picked up the phone, thinking that maybe Megan had gone straight in and to bed.
    He knew she wouldn’t thank him if that was the case and his call brought her out of sleep, but was going to chance it. There was no answer and he knew she wasn’t back.
    At half past twelve he went to pick up the phone again, but at that moment the lights in the cottage came on and he breathed a sigh of relief. You are crazy, he told himself as he went up the stairs. As if you haven’t taken on enough responsibility in this place, now you’re fussing over someone who is perfectly capable of looking after herself. How do you think she coped before you appeared on the scene?
    He didn’t know. What he did know was that she was young, hard-working and beautiful, with her striking colouring and grace of movement, yet there didn’t seem to be any potential boyfriends hovering. It would be so easy to fall in love again, but he’d rushed down that path once and it had been full of thorns.
    After checking that the boys were where they should be at that hour, he went to bed himself, aware that it was Sunday already. Soon it would be Monday and with Monday came Megan with the no-nonsense approach when it came to the practice, its patients and himself . With that thought he turned on his side and slept.
    * * *
    ‘How was your trip to the city?’ Megan asked on Monday morning.
    Luke smiled. ‘Fine. We had a good day. I really enjoyed myself. Those are two great kids. And what about you? Did you enjoy the ballet?’
    ‘Yes, I did. We went for a meal afterwards and I caught the last train with only minutes to spare.’
    ‘I gathered that.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I saw your lights go on at somewhere around midnight.’
    ‘Oh, I see. Checking up on me, were you?’
    ‘No, not really,’ he said smoothly. ‘I was admiring the night sky from my bedroom window and happened to see your place suddenly come to life.’
    It wasn’t true, of course. He had been checking on her, but only in the best possible way, and the thought came again that she’d managed to get along very well without anyone looking out for her welfare so far. If Megan knew what was in his mind, she would think he was crazy or some sort of opportunist.
    ‘How did you get on with Warhurst?’ he asked with a swift change of topic.
    ‘All right. He was amazed to hear you were working as a GP here in the village. He’s a registrar at the Ear, Nose and Throat,’ she told him, and waited to see if he had any comment to make.
    ‘Hmm, really. Good for him,’ he murmured, settling himself behind his desk for the day ahead, and that was all. The last thing he wanted was for Alexis to crop up again. She was in the past, and as Megan left him without further comment, he thought that was where his ex-wife was going to stay.
    A knock on the door as he was about to call in his first patient turned out to be Connie, the cleaner, asking if she could have a quick word.
    ‘Yes, of course,’ he said with a smile for the second of his two domestic lifelines. ‘What can I do for you?’
    Connie came to Woodcote House each day after she’d finished at the surgery in the early morning and they hadn’t seen much of each other so far, but he had felt her presence when he’d gone home to find the place clean and tidy.
    ‘I just wanted to ask if you are satisfied with what I’m doing, Dr Anderson,’ she said nervously.
    ‘Yes, of course I am,’ he told her. ‘I hope we don’t leave you too much of a mess to clear up. Teenage boys are not the tidiest of creatures.’
    She smiled. ‘I know. I’ve had some myself.’ Her nervousness came back. ‘There is something else I wanted to ask you about. Could I have an appointment to see you?’
    ‘Certainly. I’ll see you now before you set off for my place, if you like, and before the surgery gets under way.’
    Connie, who was in her late fifties, and trim with it, had the