Free New Surgeon at Ashvale A&E by Joanna Neil

you’re going to make me pay big time for my remarks, aren’t you? I expect you’ll be gloating all through next week.’
    She shook her head. ‘Not at all,’ she murmured. ‘In fact, I won’t be here…I start my annual leave as of tomorrow. And I’ve been over to personnel and told them I won’t be renewing my contract.’
    He sent her a stunned look. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he ground out on a terse note. ‘How come I didn’t know anything about this?’
    ‘It was a last-minute decision on my part, I admit,’ she said, ‘but I did let it be known some time ago that I wasn’t sure about staying on here as registrar once my contract came to an end.’ She gave him a sweet smile. ‘Perhaps you should have read the memo,’ she said.

Chapter Four
    R UBY gazed at the phone, willing it to ring. All she needed was a message from Sophie to say that she was well and that she would be coming back home just as soon as she could get her head together. Just one call to give her peace of mind…was that too much to ask? At least the police would be able to track Sophie’s movements from a phone call, wouldn’t they?
    Frustration tugged her stomach into tight knots. It had been over a week now, and there had been no sign of her sister, no clue as to where she might be. The agony of not knowing what had happened to her was unbearable. Was she safe? Was she well? There was no rhyme or reason behind her disappearance. Sophie loved her baby, so why would she go? Nothing made sense any more.
    ‘Da-da,’ Becky chanted, looking up at Ruby from the comfort of the mat on the floor, where she was enjoying her newfound ability to sit up straight all by herself. She was holding out a circular teething ring, and now she quickly lifted her arms up and down in unison as though she would bang the floor with the ring and hear the rattling noise it made.
    Ruby’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘No, baby,’ she murmured, kneeling down beside her. ‘No Da-da.’ She gave a soft sigh. ‘No anybody, except me. I guess that means we’re stuck with one another, but I’m okay with it if you are.’
    Becky gurgled, biting down on the toy and coming out with an excited babble of baby talk, so that Ruby smiled. ‘You’re absolutely right,’ she told the infant. ‘We’ll just have to make the best of things, won’t we? At least we get to stay in this lovely farmhouse and enjoy the comfort of a log fire of an evening.’
    The one consolation in all of this was that she had the opportunity to spend time with Becky, playing with her and cuddling her to her heart’s content. If Becky wondered where her mother had gone, Ruby guessed it was in those fleeting moments when a door creaked and she looked up expectantly, waiting to see if Sophie would walk in, or on those occasions when Ruby laid her in her cot so that she could take a nap. Then the child would give a small frown and look around as though sensing that something was missing and all was not as it should be.
    She could not explain to her what was going on. All she could do was offer comfort and kisses in between the time she spent tending to the animals and weeding around the vegetables that grew in abundance on this rambling four-acre plot.
    ‘And I do look forward to sitting by that huge old fireplace this evening,’ she told Becky. ‘Truth is, I’m too exhausted to do anything else.’
    She looked around the cosy living room, pleasingly furnished with sofas and chairs in softly textured upholstery, and lifted here and there with splashes of bright colour in the cushions. The drapes were beautifully elegant, providing a sumptuous backdrop to the fine pieces of solid golden oak furniture. Wide French doors looked out on to the landscaped gardens beyond. ‘It could be so restful here if it wasn’t for worrying about you and your mother and about the animals getting sick.’
    And, if she was honest with herself, wasn’t there also the faint tinge of regret for the