should tell you that I won’t be pulling rank or anything like that. I will be relying on you to put me right if I make any mistakes.’
He’d come to sit on the seat beside her, still with the bottle in his hand, and she said in a low voice, ‘And is that it?’
He smiled. ‘Yes. I think so. I can’t think of anything else. So, are we going to drink a toast, Megan?’
She nodded, speechless with relief, and went inside to get a bottle opener and glasses. By the time she’d done that she’d found her voice and, standing in the kitchen doorway, she said, ‘Shall we drink it inside or out?’
He got to his feet. ‘Inside would be nice. I’d love to see what your home is like. It’s a beautiful place you have here.’
‘I think so,’ she said stiffly, still on edge, and stepped back to let him in. ‘Do make yourself comfortable. Though perhaps you should pour the wine first, as you’ve brought it.’
‘Whatever,’ he said easily and did as she’d suggested. ‘To us, Megan,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘To a good working partnership.’
As he took a sip of his wine, Luke wondered if she remembered sending him the Valentine card. When he’d behaved like a moron and left her red with embarrassment, instead of telling her why he hadn’t been ready to take her up on it. She had been the only one of his students that he’d ever taken note of. Small, dainty, with red-gold hair and green eyes, she’d moved like a dream.
But it hadn’t just been those things that had caught his attention. It had been the way she’d worked, steadily and with zeal, while some of the students had thought that university was a big joke. An opportunity to waste their parents’ money on living it up.
There had been a strange irony in discovering that half the class fancied him, including the girl sitting opposite him, when his marriage had crashed and he had been going through a bitter divorce.
He checked the time. ‘I must go, Megan. Sue will have the meal ready by now, and the boys will be raring to spend some time with me, as I’m the nearest thing they’re going to get to a dad.’
He sighed. ‘The poor kids are in a state at losing him, which is only natural. It’s the first time they’ve been this close to death, and are striking out against it in the only way they know how. They desperately want a father figure at the moment and I’m going to be there for them for as long as they need me. That applies to Sue as well. She’ll be all right when they are. So it’s going to be taking one day at a time.’
‘They’re fortunate to have you looking out for them,’ Megan said awkwardly.
He shrugged. ‘I just wish I could have been here sooner. Anyway, I really must go. It’s been a pleasant evening, Megan, so thank you.’
As Megan showed him out, he paused in the doorway. ‘How long have you lived here?’
Megan shrugged. ‘Only a short time. When I knew that Mum and Dad were leaving the area I didn’t want to be living on my own in their house. It would have been too big for me. So I bought this place.’
‘A good choice,’ he said, and strode down the path. When he reached the gate he raised his hand in a brief salute and then drove off.
When he’d disappeared from sight Megan let out a deep breath and went back inside. He was the last person she’d expected to see appearing out of the summer dusk. It had been a nice gesture to suggest a toast, and an exquisite relief not to have been reminded of her youthful crush. Maybe he’d forgotten. If he had she would send up a prayer of thanks. But how was she to know? It could be that he remembered it very well and was saving the mention of it for a later date.
Nevertheless she went to bed in a happier frame of mind than she’d been in all day and it was due to Luke Anderson.
* * *
The house was still. Sue had gone to bed early with a headache and the boys were also asleep. They’d been great while they’d been showing him around the village, but at bedtime Oliver, who was eleven years old, had been awkward.
He’d wanted to stay up and watch television and wouldn’t get undressed until Luke had told him he had to as it was school in the morning, and on no account was he to disturb his mother. He’d done as he’d been told but with a scowl on his face. When Luke had gone to check on them, Owen, the thirteen-year-old had been fast asleep, and Oliver thankfully had been on the point of dozing off.
He’d gone to bed himself then and as he lay thinking about the day, the short time he’d spent with Megan was at the forefront of his mind. When they’d met a month ago at the practice he’d been as dumbfounded as she had been at meeting up again and in such circumstances.
When she’d sent him the Valentine card he’d been at his lowest ebb. His marriage to Alexis had just ended in divorce. He’d been feeling angry and betrayed. And even if Megan hadn’t been his student, the thought of another relationship hadn’t been bearable.
Since his marriage had ended, he hadn’t looked at another woman, and it might have stayed that way if he hadn’t met Megan again. But again the time wasn’t right. Then he’d been reeling from his divorce, and now he had his hands full with a distraught mother and her fatherless sons.
As a reminder of that fact he heard the creak of a bedroom window being opened in the next room to his, and when he went to investigate he found Oliver halfway out of the window and preparing to jump onto the roof of an outhouse down below.
When he saw him he hesitated and Luke said, ‘Don’t even think of it, Oliver.’And taking his arm, he helped him back into the room.
‘Where were you intending going?’ he asked quietly, dreading that he’d been on the point of running away.
‘Mothing,’ was the surly reply. ‘I meet my friend Mikey out on the lane at the back and we go into the fields with our nets.’
‘And does your mother know?’
‘No. She wouldn’t let me if she knew.’
‘I see,’ Luke said unsmilingly. ‘So how about we do a deal. If you promise to go back to bed and stay there, I’ll come with you and Mikey tomorrow night, and any other night for that matter, but you have to promise that you won’t sneak out again.’
‘What? You’ll come mothing with us, Uncle Luke?’ Oliver exclaimed with his good humour restored in the form of a wide smile. ‘I didn’t think grown-ups did that sort of thing.’
‘They don’t,’ Luke told him dryly, ‘but for you, Oliver, anything. And now I’m going to ring your friend’s parents to tell them to check on his whereabouts.’
‘He won’t have gone out yet,’ Oliver told him calmly. ‘Mikey always waits until he hears me whistle beneath his window.’
‘Is that so? Well, I’m going to phone them nevertheless, and now let’s have you 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
