Free A Christmas Promise by Annie Groves Page B

about her at all, and could forget her so easily when he was with his own people. Maybe it had been a narrow escape, she mused. How awful would it have been if she had travelled all the way to America to be with Drew, only to find out he didn’t want her as much as he had said he did.
    Looking out of the window, Tilly watched the countryside flashing past. Tomorrow was her twenty-first birthday and she would be legally old enough to call herself an adult and do exactly as she pleased. But would she? That was the question that was circling in her head.
    She had made the decision to serve abroad so that she could decide once and for all what kind of person she truly was, and the last few months had proved to her that she had outgrown her youthful ways. Nobody, in this day and age, had dreams beyond living another day, she was sure. And her girlhood dreams of a wonderful white wedding were now just a dream …
    ‘Hey, sleepy head, we’re nearly there …’
    Through half-closed lids Tilly saw Rick smiling at her from the seat opposite … How handsome he looked …

SEVEN
    The news that Drew was getting married exploded all Sally’s hopes of him and Tilly ever getting back together again. She had heard from his nurses that he’d had many attractive young ladies visit him, and this was understandable, he being the son of one of America’s wealthiest families – he was bound to have elegant women around him.
    However, Sally would always think of him as just … Drew. Drew, who was welcomed into Olive’s home, as all their sweethearts had been. Wilder, Dulcie’s beau, who had been killed after her sister got her claws into him and before Dulcie married David, or George before he lost his life at sea, even Ted, who treated Agnes more like a sister than his fiancée – Olive had welcomed them all. But Olive had watched none of them as closely as she had watched Drew, imagining at first that he would break her daughter’s heart. And it looked as if she had been right. Tilly had heard nothing from this young man from the day he left her to go back to America over a year ago.
    On the advice of Drew’s father, Olive thought it best not to tell Tilly that Drew had been injured and was at death’s door: Tilly would be better off without the aggravation an invalid might cause. However, Sally knew how much in love the two young people had been, even if their parents had not, and she recognised how much they meant to each other. It shone from their souls every time they looked at each other, and she knew that they had eyes for nobody else in the room. So it was not surprising that the news of Drew’s impending nuptials caused Sally’s heart to sink now, as hopes of a happy ending for Tilly dwindled to nothing.
    ‘Well, look after yourself, Drew,’ Sally said, giving him a friendly hug. ‘It was a pleasure to have met you and I hope you are very happy.’ And before Sally could disgrace herself, she choked back her disappointment, and with a tear in her eye she gave Drew a quick peck on the cheek before hurriedly leaving the room.
    Taking deep breaths, she headed towards her office at the end of Men’s Surgical and closed the door behind her. Picking up the cup of now tepid tea, which one of the young probationers had kindly made for her earlier, Sally sighed. It would have been so wonderful if Tilly could have had her fairy-tale romance. Who would have known how things would turn out at the start of the war, she thought as she recalled Tilly and Drew who, like the two star-crossed lovers Shakespeare had once written about, had been young and in love, and gave the impression that for them life would be happy ever after. If only life were like that, she thought.
    Looking through the small office window onto the ward, Sally could clearly see Callum, his head resting at an angle on the immaculately starched pillow, his dark unruly hair unusually neat, combed back off his forehead, showing three faint surprise lines and a splay