Swallowbrook's Winter Bride (11 page)

He didn’t reply, just nodded, and as they departed he considered that compared to sorting out his love life, caring for Toby
was
easy.

CHAPTER NINE

W
HEN
they arrived at the moorings in the late afternoon it was a much better day than the one before. The wind had dropped and a pale sun was shining down onto the assortment of craft there. When Nathan pointed out the boat that was theirs, Toby’s delight and excitement was a pleasure to behold and would only have been made more gratifying had Libby been there to share it with him.

Before he took Toby on board he fastened him into the life jacket that he’d bought from the Outdoor Pursuits store. Nathan knew he could swim, his parents had seen to that, but he was taking no chances as they pulled out onto the lake.

This time he didn’t go anywhere near the island. It would soon be dark and he didn’t want Toby to have any diversions on his first sail on
Pudding
. That was what he was telling himself anyway and it was true in part. The last thing he wanted was for the child to be involved in the complexities of his relationship with Libby while on his maiden voyage, but it was an effort not to keep casting his eyes across to where the island stood remote and still on the autumn afternoon.

If Nathan’s day had been full, Libby’s had been an aching, empty void. She’d thought the night before that it was all coming right between them at last until he had done what he always did, pushed her away again with just a few words on a scrap of paper. Thank goodness she was here on the island away from everyone, she thought as she gazed out onto the lake’s now calm waters. She needed this time alone more than ever.

It was her third day at Greystone House, and she had the rest of the week to concentrate on putting up her defences once more. She’d done it before often enough and would do it again when next the two of them met, she decided determinedly, so why was she weeping all the time and in the late afternoon straining for a sight of Nathan as he took Toby out in the boat for the first time?

She knew what his plans for the day were, and it went without saying that he would be taking the excited five-year-old for a sail about that time, but there was no sighting of them and she went back into the house knowing he wasn’t going to be coming calling again unless she asked him to—
and she was not going to do that!

It was Saturday morning and she was packed and ready to depart, leaving the house as she’d found it, a place to dream in, but not, it seemed, for her.

Peter was due any moment to take her back to Swallowbrook, back to the bosom of a busy practice, back to a relationship that was more of an endurance test than anything else since Nathan had come back into her life. She couldn’t believe that he’d thought she’d let him make love to her out of gratitude, or because of their brief rapport when she’d laughed at the name he’d chosen for the boat.

Yet she had to admire him for one thing. Most men would accept what had happened between them without giving a second thought to the whys and wherefores of it, but not so Nathan Gallagher. What he’d said in the note he’d left had hinted that the night they’d spent together had been a mistake and it had besmirched the memory of it, made it seem cheap and fortuitous. She could not forgive him for
that.

When Peter arrived his first words were in the form of an apology for letting Dr Gallagher find out where she was. ‘He guessed when he saw your car parked at my place,’ he told her awkwardly, ‘and I couldn’t deny it. I hope it didn’t cause any problems, Libby.’

‘No, not at all,’ she assured him. There was no way she was going to let Peter be dragged into their affairs, neither was she going to tell him what it was all about. The folks in Swallowbrook had already watched her make one mistake by marrying Ian and, as they always were for their own, had been there for her every step of the way.

It would grieve them beyond telling if they had to watch her make another mistake. It did at least seem as if Nathan’s hasty departure from the island and ‘the note’
had saved her from doing that.

The cottage when she got back was how she’d left it, attractively furnished, tidy and soulless. There were no signs of life next door but as it was Saturday morning she wasn’t surprised. Nathan would either have gone into the town to shop or taken Toby to the park, she decided, and if that was so she would have a few more hours’ grace before their next meeting.

She was wrong on both suppositions. When she went to the local store to shop for fresh food to replenish her stock after being away, Libby could hear music, and when she turned the corner to where the village hall stood back beside the shops, the fact that Christmas was only a few weeks away was brought to her notice with a jolt.

Morris dancers, dressed in bright colours with bells jangling in the crisp morning, were performing on the forecourt of the hall, and behind them was the Christmas market that the shops and stall-holders held at this time of year.

When she stopped to watch them she saw Nathan and Toby in the crowd on the opposite side of the road and was about to turn away when it seemed that she’d been seen. She heard Toby shout, ‘There’s Libby!’ When she looked up the two of them were coming towards her, with Toby beaming his delight and Nathan observing her gravely.

The urge to depart with all speed was strong, but Toby was not to blame for her fixation for his guardian. He was straining to get to her through the crowd and when they stood in front of her she swept him into her arms and hugged him.

‘So how is my beautiful boy?’ she asked laughingly, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. ‘What have you been up to while I’ve been away?’

‘That’s what I want to tell you,’ he said excitedly. ‘We’ve got a boat, Libby!’

‘Wow! When did this happen?’ she asked, looking suitably surprised.

‘Monday after school,’ Nathan said as if she didn’t know.

‘And guess what it’s called?’ Toby cried.

‘I’m sure I have no idea. What
is
it called?’ she asked, as if it wasn’t imprinted on her mind for ever. She’d laughed when she’d first seen it, but now she felt it was another reminder of how Nathan still saw her as someone on the edge of his life, rather than at the forefront of it.

‘It’s called
Pudding
,’ he said, unaware of its origin, and turned to Nathan. ‘Can Libby come with us the next time we go sailing?’

‘Yes, of course,’ was the reply, ‘if she wants to, that is. How about tomorrow morning?’ he suggested promptly, not wanting her to go and knowing that Toby would give him no peace until she’d sailed on it with them.

‘I could never say no to Toby,’ she told him. ‘I’ve got a life jacket somewhere.’

Libby would be so good to be around him while Toby was growing up, Nathan thought. She was just what the child needed to fill the empty place in his young life. He knew how much she loved him, but would she want himself as part of the package? That was the question. From the frost in her voice when she wasn’t speaking to Toby it was almost certain that the answer to
that
would be no.

She’d made it quite clear that night at the hospital when he’d asked her to marry him that she was not in the market for a marriage of convenience and what he was thinking now was that kind of thing.

She would always love the child devotedly, but not the man. Unless he could convince her that the caution he displayed in his approach to her was because of the past flippancy he’d shown for her love for him and the careless words that he’d dismissed it with.

Added to that was always the thought that she would never have married Jefferson if he, Nathan, had not been so blinkered. But maybe he’d been playing it
too
cool, that he’d been patient long enough and was hurting her once again in the process.

He was by nature a man of action, not a ditherer, and as he brought his thoughts back to where Libby and Toby were chattering away, happy to be together again, he felt that his cautious approach had gone on long enough.

On observing that he was back from wherever his mind had been during the last few moments, she said, ‘I’m afraid that I have to go. I’m here to do some food shopping as my larder is bare. I’ll see you both in the morning, but before I go, Nathan, what about your hand, how is it now? Did the dressing prevent the blistering and take the soreness away? I’ve been wondering all week if you had to go to A and E.’

‘My hand is fine.’ He was holding it out in front of him for her to inspect and commented dryly, ‘You could have phoned.’

‘So could you,’ she parried. ‘Yet maybe it was as well that neither of us did. We might have said things that we regretted afterwards.’

‘Such as?’

Toby was engrossed in what was going on around him at that moment and she said in a low voice, ‘Such as how could you liken the first time we’d ever made love to a vote of thanks on my part and an opportunity not to be missed on yours?’

He was not to be ruffled, was actually smiling, and she thought despondently that he didn’t care. Nathan didn’t care what he did to hurt her, and with a brief word of farewell and a kiss for an innocent Toby she left them and went to shop.

She drove into the town to do some Christmas shopping in the afternoon after watching the morris dancers and buying food from the stalls of the Christmas market in the morning, and after a quick lunch in a bistro went to choose gifts for Toby, John, her father far away in Somerset and the practice staff, and then there was Nathan. It would be the first time she had bought him anything on her own and it wouldn’t be easy.

When he’d been part of the practice before she’d contributed as a junior doctor to the gifts that the staff bought for the partners, which had been an impersonal sort of arrangement, but now there was nothing impersonal in their dealings with each other, far from it, but neither was it a situation for bestowing on him the kind of gifts she’d always wanted to buy, so how was she going to get around that? Certainly not a voucher from one of the big stores, their relationship wasn’t so cut down to size as that.

For Toby, whatever she chose she would have to consult Nathan, first, to make sure that he hadn’t got the toy already and, second, to check that Nathan hadn’t bought it for him as part of the delights of Christmas morning.

It had been a phone call she’d been reluctant to make, but it would be easier than speaking face to face, she’d decided, and when his voice had come over the line it was almost as if the rift in their relationship hadn’t happened. When they’d discussed what Toby would like at length he’d said casually, ‘And what would you like for Christmas, Libby?’

That had brought the conversation back down to basics and her reply had even more as she’d told him, ‘Just peace of mind would be fine.’ And before he’d been able to pursue that line of reasoning, she’d rung off.

He hoped to present her with more than that, he thought in the silence that followed, and was already taking steps in that direction. Asking her out to dinner was going to be the first. He’d once suggested that they go out somewhere if his father would have Toby for the night, so the idea wasn’t going to come as a complete surprise when he came up with it, but whether Libby was still in the same frame of mind as she’d been then remained to be seen.

When he saw her return in the late afternoon he went out to ask her, and as she faced him with the car behind her full of packages he said, ‘Do you remember we once discussed going out on the town if Dad would have Toby for the night?’

‘Yes,’ was the reply. As if she could ever forget anything he’d said, though it might be better if she could.

‘So what do you think? Would you like me to take you for a meal to somewhere of your choice? I’ve already squared it with Dad that he’ll have Toby.’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she told him, hating herself for being so easily swayed. ‘If that’s all you’re suggesting, I suppose we could. As we said at the time, neither of us has much opportunity for socialising so it would be a change, but as far as I’m concerned that is all it will be, a nice meal in pleasant surroundings.’

‘Sure,’ he agreed, ‘but it would be a treat if you wore the blue dress.’

‘Why, what for?’

‘Because it suits you maybe.’

‘I’ll think about it, but don’t be surprised if I don’t.’

There was still frost about, he thought, and as if unaware of it asked, ‘So where do you want to go and when?’

‘My favourite place is on a wide ledge high up on one of the fells. It’s called the Plateau Hotel,’ she replied, ‘and if we’re going there I think it should be soon as it gets booked up very quickly at this time of year.’

‘So what about tomorrow night, sailing on the lake in
Pudding
in the morning and dining at the Plateau in the evening?’

‘Er, yes, I suppose so,’ she said, taken aback at the speed with which he was ready to act on her suggestion.

‘So that’s sorted, then,’ he replied, and again she despised herself for being so amenable after recent events having been so hurtful.

He was eyeing the car and asked, ‘Can I give you a hand with your shopping?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I can manage, thanks just the same.’

He didn’t persist. ‘All right, I’ll go and see what Toby is up to, then.’ And off he went to get in touch with the restaurant.

A phone call while she was sorting out her purchases of the afternoon was to say that he’d made the reservation for eight o’clock the following evening, which would give them time to drop Toby off at his father’s place and drive up to the high plateau from which the hotel had got its name.