The Village Nurse's Happy-Ever-After. Abigail Gordon
ABIGAIL GORDON loves to write about the fascinating combination of medicine and romance from her home in a Cheshire village. She is active in local affairs and is even called upon to write the script for the annual village pantomime! Her eldest son is a hospital manager and helps with all her medical research. As part of a close-knit family, she treasures having two of her sons living close by and the third one not too far away. This also gives her the added pleasure of being able to watch her delightful grandchildren growing up.
The Village Nurse’s Happy-Ever-After
Abigail Gordon
ISBN: 978-1-472-05986-4
THE VILLAGE NURSE’S HAPPY-EVER-AFTER
© 2010 Abigail Gordon
Published in Great Britain 2020
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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Table of Contents
PHOEBE HOWARD had moved into the apartment above The Tides Medical Practice, in the coastal Devon village of Bluebell Cove, on the first day of January. She’d looked around it sombrely and thought it was adequate in a basic sort of way—it would have to do.
Looking down at the toddler in her arms, she’d said, ‘It has one advantage, Marcus. Your mummy won’t have to travel far to work as she’s based right here. We have Ethan to thank for this—him, and your Aunt Katie and Uncle Rob, who took me in when I was a lost soul. They are the ones who’ve always been there for me and I will be forever grateful.
‘But now Ethan has found the happiness he so much deserves, and is going to live in Paris with his lovely family. At the same time Katie and Rob are moving up north to be near his elderly father, so it’s just you and me from now on, little one. Oh, and with a new head of the practice to get used to thrown in for good measure!’
That had been a couple of weeks ago and today Phoebe was at the airport, along with other folk from Bluebell Cove, to say goodbye to the Lomax family as they departed for their new life in France.
In her role as district nurse at the village surgery, she’d arranged her home visits to her patients to leave her free for this moment. Once she’d seen the aircraft take off, it would be time to pick Marcus up from the Tiny Toes Nursery where he was being cared for while she was working.
It had been a wrench, taking him there. They’d spent barely any time apart since the day of his birth. During the months of her maternity leave, she’d lived with her sister Katie and brother-in-law Rob in the bustling market town near Bluebell Cove. On the rare occasions when she’d left Marcus, they had cared for him as lovingly as she did herself, but all the time she’d known it couldn’t last. And even though she’d accepted that she had no choice, she still hated leaving him behind every day.
She