Page 92 of A Helpin g Hand for the Village Nurse

‘Chloe?’

Stacey turned and gave a wry smile. ‘You try telling Chloe she can’t do something because she’s pregnant and you’d get such a gobful it’s easier to let her get on with it. It’s not all that heavy with two anyway, just a bit unwieldy.’

Ottilie wasn’t thrilled at the notion that Chloe had been lifting, but she understood where Stacey was coming from. Having seen first-hand Chloe’s attitude to her pregnancy, she wasn’t a bit surprised. Her one misgiving was that it wasn’t really safe for Chloe to be overdoing things. Stacey didn’t seem unduly concerned, though. Instead, she chatted as they lifted the heater from the boot of her car.

‘I bet Lavender was happy to see you back at work today. Says they didn’t much care for your cover. I don’t think anyone did.’

‘I got that impression.’ Ottilie lifted her end of the heater up over the gateposts. ‘It was quite nice actually. I had so many complaints about her I thought she couldn’t possibly be that bad, so perhaps all the patients finally like me after all.’

Stacey laughed. ‘They always liked you.’

‘You didn’t hear them moan that first clinic I did after Gwen had gone. You wouldn’t have said that if you had.’

Between them they set the heater down in the living room.

‘Got time to stay for a drink?’ Ottilie asked.

‘What kind of drink?’

‘Any kind you like as long as it’s tea. I’m clean out of booze.’

‘What kind of cheap date are you? I suppose it’ll have to be tea then. Although…’ she continued as she followed Ottilie into the kitchen, ‘Geoff says you’re quite an expensive date.’

Ottilie turned to her with a wry smile. ‘He still thinks his little cupid stunt worked?’

‘He’s convinced he’s put you on the path to true love. He’s a more hopeless romantic than I am, that brother of mine. Saying that, I think Magnus had more than a bit of a hand in it – bad as each other, they are.’

Ottilie shook her head as she switched on the kettle. ‘I wish he had.’

‘Had what?’

‘Found me a bit of true love.’

When she turned back, Stacey was staring at her. ‘You said…You told me it was too soon.’

‘It was. I mean, it is. It’s…’

Ottilie had no idea where her sudden frankness had come from. Yes, Stacey had visited a few days after the cinema debacle to share what Geoff had told her and to get Ottilie’s side of the story, and Ottilie had told her in no uncertain terms that there was absolutely no way she was getting involved with Heath. Not with any man, because it was too soon. Perhaps, being here now in her empty house, despite the fact that it was good to be back home, she was reminded forcibly that home meant alone. The prospect of sleeping in a house by herself again stared her in the face and perhaps she’d had a sudden attack of nerves.

‘Hmm…’ Stacey was silent for a moment before she spoke again. ‘Do you like him?’

‘I hate to say it, but yes.’

‘Why do you hate to say it?’

‘Because I shouldn’t be feeling that way about another man.’

‘Why not? Your husband wouldn’t have wanted you to be lonely, would he?’

‘Of course not, but that doesn’t change how I feel about it. It’s not right; it’s not proper to move on this fast, and I don’t think it would be a very good idea even if I thought otherwise.’

‘God, you sound like a nineteenth-century schoolmistress. Right and proper? Says who? You get to decide the timetable, no one else. You decide how you feel and what you want. It’s nobody else’s business if you marry twenty men next week.’

Ottilie gave a half-smile. ‘Well, the law might have something to say about that.’

‘But there’s no law against liking another man just because you’re a widow. Give it a go, one date. What harm could it do?’

‘I don’t?—’

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