Free The Village Nurse's Happy-Ever-After by Abigail Gordon Page A

that you are house hunting either, she thought glumly as she left the village behind and drove along the coast road to the first of her home visits.
    Was it significant that it had happened the morning after she’d been so unapproachable and turned downhis offer of dinner? she pondered. Yet surely he hadn’t set such store by her acceptance of the offer that he’d decided to move into somewhere more permanent when she’d refused.
    One thing was sure, there was no way she was going to mention Glades Manor to Harry. He had no idea that Lucy had seen him viewing it when she’d been out walking her dog, and she felt he would take a dim view of it being surgery gossip that could end up on the village grapevine. If he didn’t tell her she wasn’t going to ask. It was as simple as that.
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    As the days went by, the house remained on the market and Harry and Phoebe were polite but distant when they met on the wooden staircase or on the landing.
    He didn’t knock on her door again as January shivered into February, and, as he’d reminded her they would, daffodils were nodding in golden perfection in small gardens and sheltered glades, with crocus blooming beside them less gracefully but just as beautiful.
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    Harry had been impressed by the small manor house, it had been beautifully restored by the present owner, but every time he thought about it, he felt that it was a house that needed a family. It needed parents with growing children and maybe more to come, not a wifeless, childless, empty vessel like him.
    He was staying clear of Phoebe as much as possible in the evenings and at weekends because he felt that he’d been too pushy. Deep down, he knew that finding a permanent place to live was the thing to do, butsomething was holding him back. As he lay sleepless, or at the best tossed and turned restlessly in his solitary bed, the reason why was just a few feet away behind a door that remained steadfastly closed against him.
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    Phoebe had no intention of attending the Valentine’s Day ball that the village’s social events committee was organising, until Lucy surprised her by offering to look after Marcus while she went.
    â€˜It’s time you got out and about more,’ she said kindly, ‘and if you could bring baby Marcus across to Jenna and Lucas’s house, where I’ve promised to babysit Lily, I can look after them both. So what do you think?’ As Phoebe hesitated, she continued, ‘There will be a few there from the surgery. Even Harry has bought a ticket, though I doubt he’ll make use of it.’
    â€˜Yes, all right then,’ Phoebe said. ‘I’d love to go. Marcus is always asleep by seven o’clock at the latest, so when its time to go I can carry him across wrapped in a warm blanket and settle him on the couch for the evening. Once he’s in a really deep sleep he rarely wakes up so you shouldn’t have any problems with him.’
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    When Harry heard Lucy telling Maria, the other practice nurse, that she was going to mind Lily and Marcus on the night of the ball, he stopped Phoebe one morning as she was leaving the practice and wanted to know why she hadn’t asked him to take care of Marcus.
    He said, ‘It seems to me that you’re making heavy weather of something that could be so simple if you left me in charge of him.’
    â€˜I was told that you’ve already bought a ticket,’ she said, trying to conceal her surprise at his suggestion.
    â€˜Yes, I have, but it doesn’t say I’ll be going, unless you’re short of an escort.’
    â€˜Do you have to make me sound so needy?’ she snapped, irritated.
    â€˜I’m not. I just thought you might be going with that Jake person.’
    â€˜What?’ she cried with increasing indignation. ‘Why him?’
    â€˜Thought he had the hots for you, that’s all.’
    â€˜He might have had, but they soon cooled