forgotten that you are about to join the fray. How does it feel?’
‘Scary,’ she told him wryly. ‘I wasn’t exactly the most popular person around here when I went away. It would seem that a lot of people knew that Mum wasn’t coping, but no one thought to tell me, and of course Mum hid it from me, though I was so wrapped up in my own plans I wasn’t entirely blameless.’
‘So your father didn’t say anything?’
She smiled. ‘Dad less than anyone. He wanted me to get away for a while for reasons that I won’t go into, but not so much that he didn’t send for me when he thought it was time I knew what the situation was.’
The smile was still there and Lucas was surprised when she went on to say, ‘You see, I was brought up with one and a half parents.’ And before he had the chance to comment further she placed her foot back on the pedal and prepared to ride the last few yards to the practice with a parting comment of, ‘I’ll see you on Thursday afternoon, Lucas, if you still want me at the clinic.’
‘It is Ethan’s decision that you work with me, and you might find it hard to believe…but I don’t bite.’
She was already moving off so he didn’t know if she’d heard the last bit, and he thought grimly if that was what she thought, he’d asked for it by being so smugly critical of someone he’d had no yardstick to measure by. There was Philippa, of course, who’d betrayed him, but to compare Jenna with her just because she was beautiful would be an insult that she didn’t deserve.
The morning was going too quickly. Lucy had greeted her with open arms, and Maria, the young trainee practice nurse, who was Ronnie’s eldest daughter, had flashed her a shy smile when Jenna had presented herself at the the nurses’ room.
Ethan had popped in for a moment to greet her in his usual pleasant manner and she’d felt that at least there was no criticism here. They were her friends, and even Lucas had been pleasant when they’d met unexpectedly outside the busy little store.
She’d watched while Lucy had treated the first few patients and noted that they were more concerned about their health than the fact that there was a newcomer amongst the practice nurses. When Lucy needed to go to the storeroom for supplies she said, ‘I’ll leave you to see to the next patient, Jenna. Maria will help you out with any surgery routine that you’re not sure of.’ And off she went.
In line with that comment the teenager went out on to the corridor where patients waited to be seen and came back to report that Mrs Waterson was there.
Jenna groaned inwardly as she picked up the patient’s records and saw that she’d come for a three-monthly B12 injection to keep anaemia at bay. Mildred Waterson had been a great admirer of her mother and rightly so as Barbara had treated her for various illnesses over the years, all of them serious, and she’d always made a good recovery due to her care. With everyone else Mildred was vinegary and critical and that side of her nature became evident the moment she saw Jenna smiling across at her as she entered the room.
‘So you’re back, I see,’ she said. ‘Waited until your mother had gone first, though, didn’t you, and now they’ve taken you on in the surgery. Well, I’ll wait for my injection until Lucy comes back from wherever she’s gone, if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I don’t mind, Mrs Waterson,’ Jenna said quietly. ‘She will only be a moment. Do take a seat.’
‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘I will. And how is your mother?’
‘As well as can be expected. I am working mornings mainly so that I can be with her in the afternoons.’
‘Yes, I should think so,’ was the acid reply.
At that moment Lucy appeared and immediately picking up on the atmosphere said smoothly, ‘Isn’t it lovely to have Jenna with us, Mildred?’
‘Mrs Waterson would prefer you to give her the injection, Lucy,’ Jenna said quickly, before any other bad vibes were put on display.
The elderly nurse said calmly, ‘Yes, fine, but in future there will be three nurses in attendance, Mildred, and it will be a matter of which one is free.’
The next patient was George Enderby, the elderly farmer who had been to Lucas’s heart clinic, and to Jenna’s relief there was a twinkle in his eye when he saw her standing there.
‘Hello, Jenna,’ he said heartily. ‘I saw you the other day, didn’t I, when I’d been to see that campanologist fellow?’
‘You’ve got that a little bit wrong, Mr Enderby,’ she told him. ‘Dr Devereux is a cardiologist.’
‘So what do those others do then, go camping?’
‘No, they are the bell ringers. The people in the bell tower who turn out for Sunday church services, weddings and funerals, and now we’ve got that sorted out I see that you’re here for a dressing on your leg, so if you’ll roll up your trousers we’ll have a look at it.’
The twinkle was still there in his eye as he did as she’d suggested and she said laughingly, ‘You were teasing, weren’t you? Wanting me to think you didn’t know that Dr. Devereux is a cardiologist.’
‘I might have been, yet it was worth it if it made you smile. But, then, you’d just had Mildred Waterson in here, hadn’t you? And with regard to the heart man, what a treat to have somebody like him here for us folks. The only thing is that his skills could be wasted in a place like this. I wonder what made him leave Hunters Hill Hospital to come and work in Bluebell Cove?’
‘I’m sure there must have been a good reason,’ she replied, as a vision of the awful scar across his chest came to mind, and she started to wonder what the effects of a physical attack and the failed romance she’d heard about could have had on him.
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