Page 5 of New Dreams for the Village Nurse
Just then Magnus put his head around the door. ‘All done in here. Geoff and I will head home if you don’t need anything else. We’ll pop back later to help clean up.’
While Janet thanked him, Ottilie turned back to Heath.
‘Looks like that’s you off the hook then. As you’re here, we ought to find something for you to do.’ She nodded at a hookon the back of the kitchen door. ‘There’s a spare apron. Make yourself useful – there’s peas to shell.’
‘That’s served you right,’ Flo shouted over.
‘It did backfire a bit.’ Heath grinned and went to get the apron. ‘But I suppose I walked right into it.’
‘That you did,’ Flo replied.
Ottilie showed Heath where the bags of peas were. They were both smiling. Ottilie’s face ached from it, but she couldn’t stop. She was also pleased to see Heath getting stuck in. Since they’d got together, he’d been supportive of her community projects but he’d always shied away from getting involved. Ottilie understood – he was busy and he didn’t live locally, so it was more difficult for him to get there – but it was nice to see it now. She was aware of him as he stood at her side, and it was so distracting she could barely concentrate on her onions. But that was lovely too. Right about now, life was as perfect as it had been for a long time.
CHAPTER TWO
The restaurant was stone-built, nestled in the skirts of one of the Lake District’s many hills. They served fairly traditional but upmarket versions of pub classics – hearty steak-and-ale pies, smoky salmon and parsley potatoes, meaty lasagne, and good old scampi and chips. Ottilie had checked out the reviews online. The interior was warm and mellow, the low ceilings festooned with fairy lights, giving it a magical grotto sort of feel, the furniture old and solid and the floors heavy stone. People seemed to be raving about it, which would explain how difficult it had been to get a booking. She could almost taste the salmon she planned to order, and it set her tummy gurgling in anticipation.
Night had already fallen, which had disappointed Ottilie, because she couldn’t see the majesty of that hill, or its cousins, as she and Heath drove the road out to it. She’d marvelled at the sights of her new home on the day she’d arrived – the greens and russets of the towering hills, the stark contrast of the grey rocks peppering their sides; the dark slants of the valleys and the way the light shimmered through racing clouds over the vast lakes, a different light for every hour of the day; the random patches ofwildflowers on roadside verges and the heavy trees that dipped over roads and riverbanks – and since that day, ten months earlier, she’d never been able to get enough of them.
They’d driven past this place a few weeks before, and Ottilie had said how much she’d like to try it, but this was the first table available. That day, they’d taken Flo out to Kendal to get her favourite mint cake, and the hills had been wreathed in cloud, brooding and magnificent. Ottilie loved the Lakes in any weather, but there was something all at once mysterious and a little bit scary that she loved when it looked like that.
It hadn’t always been so. In her previous home she’d always felt low when Manchester was grey with rain. And not long after her arrival in Thimblebury, a freak storm had flooded her house and it had been one of the worst things that had ever happened to her, but out of adversity came joy. That flood had shown her the very best of her community, and she’d felt so incredibly loved and wanted it had flicked a switch inside her. She’d liked Thimblebury well enough when she’d first arrived, but after that – after her friends and neighbours had rescued her from financial ruin, and made her house better than it had been before the flood, all because they simply wanted her to stay – she’d felt as if this small, insignificant village in the great lakes of England was lodged in her soul and would be until she died.
Heath pulled up in the car park and turned off the engine. ‘We’re a bit early, but they have a nook where we can get drinks while we wait for our table to be ready.’
‘I don’t mind that.’
‘I didn’t think you would. I honestly thought it would take us longer to get up here. Gran said Geoff had told her about a rock fall or something, but I suppose that was wrong.’
‘It’s good actually…’ Ottilie was suddenly troubled. There had been a thing nagging at her, something she’d wanted to talk to Heath about but hadn’t dared yet bring up. She didn’t even knowwhy she was nervous about it. He knew all about her past with Josh – she’d kept no secrets – and he knew how in love she’d been with her husband.
When she’d first started to date Heath, it was almost as if she was cheating on Josh, even though he was no longer alive. It had taken some time to come to terms with that and change the narrative, and now she wanted to talk to Heath about something she needed to do for Josh, it was almost like things had switched. Now, to bring Josh up, to need to do something for him felt like she was somehow cheating on Heath. It was crazy, Ottilie knew that, irrational, but when had a notion being irrational ever stopped her from feeling it just the same?
‘It’s good because there’s something I want to tell you, so the extra time somewhere quiet might?—’
‘This sounds serious.’
Ottilie reached for his hand. Hers was cold and clammy where only moments before it had been warm. Those nerves again. Inwardly, she chided herself. Heath would understand – what was there to be nervous about?
‘Do you want to tell me now? Is it a thing we shouldn’t be discussing in public?’
Ottilie gave the most reassuring smile she could, though she felt far from reassured. ‘It’s not that…’ She drew a breath to steady herself. ‘It’s Josh’s birthday next week. Well, it would have been. It would have been…’
Her eyes glazed with tears. Damn it – she hadn’t wanted to cry. She didn’t want it to look to Heath like she’d loved Josh more than she loved him. It was different – she loved them differently but equally, but could she make Heath see that? She didn’t want to make him feel like the consolation prize. Sure, of course, there was no argument that if Josh had still been alive she’d be with him now, but he wasn’t. She’d never expected asecond chance at a love this good, but it had come to her anyway and she didn’t want to ruin it. But…
Heath pulled her across the gap in the seats and into his arms. ‘You should have said before. I had no idea.’
‘Of course you didn’t. It’s my fault. I didn’t want to bring it up, but he would have been forty, so it feels significant, you know. And I think I’d like to go to Manchester to see his grave. And maybe visit some of his family too. And I just want you to know about it, because I don’t want you to find out I was in Manchester from someone else.’
‘Why would that matter?’ he asked, pulling away to look at her.
‘Because I won’t be seeing you while I’m there. I need to do this alone, you know? And I don’t think it would be good for either of us to spend time together on such a weird occasion. You understand, don’t you?’
‘Yes! Completely! But –and hear me out before you give an answer – do you really want to do this alone? We’re a team now, right?’
Ottilie nodded slowly.
‘And so we’re there for one another. I know this will be a tough thing for you, and I get it – if you’re going to see his family, then you might want to do that alone, but you don’t have to be alone for all of it. What if I come to Josh’s grave with you?’
