Читать книгу: «Christmas Magic In Heatherdale»

For Robert Bonar, a good friend and the kindest of men.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

EMPLOYED AS A paediatric consultant at Heatherdale Children’s Hospital, Ryan Ferguson was used to the demands of the job, but today had been in a class of its own. Relieved to finally be away from work he pulled up outside the elegant town house that was home to him and his two small daughters.

Rhianna and Martha would be fast asleep at this late hour, but he was grateful that they would have been tucked up for the night by Mollie, his kindly housekeeper, who in spite of the time would have a meal waiting for him.

Ryan’s work centred mainly on children with neurological illnesses and injuries and his dedication to his calling was an accepted fact by all who knew him. His intention to bring up his children as a single father was more of a surprise, as there were many women who would be only too willing to fill the gap in his life.

Today’s non-stop problems had been serious and in some cases rare, with almost a certainty that the dreaded meningitis would be lurking somewhere amongst his young patients and the battle to overthrow it would begin.

With the workload as heavy as it was, it was becoming obvious that they needed another registrar on the neuro unit to assist him and Julian Tindall, his second-in-command.

A rare shortage of nursing staff due to a bug that had been going round hadn’t helped, and as he’d performed his daily miracles the hours had galloped past. Now he was ready to put the day’s stresses to the back of his mind and enjoy the warmth and peace of his home for a few hours. Home was in the delightful small spa town of Heatherdale, tucked away amongst the rugged peaks and smooth green dales of the countryside, with Manchester being the nearest big city.

The moment he was out of the car and had collected his briefcase from the back seat he moved swiftly towards where warmth and hot food would be waiting for him, casting a brief glance in the direction of the property next to it as he did so, and his step slowed.

A town house like his own, it had been empty for years and he was amazed to see a car parked outside and a flicker of light coming from inside, as if from a torch or a candle. He frowned. He doubted it was thieves, as there would be nothing in there to steal. Could be squatters, though, and the thought was not appealing.

When his housekeeper opened the door to him she couldn’t wait to tell him the latest neighbourhood news. When she’d returned from picking the children up from school there had been the car parked outside, and shortly afterwards a bed had been delivered from a nearby furniture store.

‘Wow!’ he exclaimed as he closed the door behind him. ‘Surely they’ve had it cleaned first? It must be filthy after being empty for so many years. The amount of lighting inside has to mean that they’ve not had the electricity switched on and are using candles or a torch. It seems an odd state of affairs. Once I’ve changed into something less formal, I’ll do the neighbourly thing and go and introduce myself, ask if there is anything I can assist them with.’

When he knocked on the door of the run-down house that was a blight in the crescent of much-admired Victorian town houses there was no sound for a moment. Then the door swung open slowly and his jaw dropped at the sight of a slender stranger with long dark hair that swung gently against her shoulders and a face blotched with weeping.

‘They haven’t been,’ she cried desperately as he was on the point of introducing himself. ‘The cleaners haven’t been and the place is full of spiders’ webs and the dust of years. I will have to find a hotel for the night.’

‘Are you alone here?’ he asked carefully. ‘I’m Ryan Ferguson, and my family and I are your new neighbours.’ He held out his hand in greeting. The tearful stranger shook it limply but didn’t volunteer any information about herself. she seemed extremely distracted, which was no wonder considering the situation.

He got the impression that she wanted him gone but he could hardly go back to his own comfortable home and leave her in such a state.

‘Can you recommend a hotel not too far away?’ she asked. ‘I just can’t spend the night in here. I’ve had a bed delivered but haven’t taken the wrappings off it so it should come to no harm for the present.’

Ryan was still standing in the doorway and would have liked to see just what a mess the inside of the house was in, but he could hardly go barging in without an invite.

‘You must be exhausted. I’ll take you to a hotel if you would like to lock up. My car is parked out front like yours, so I will lead the way and you can follow.’

‘Thank you,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I do apologise for breaking into your evening. I shall be onto the cleaners first thing in the morning.’

‘I’m only too pleased to be of assistance,’ he told her. ‘If you will just give me a moment, I’ll go and get my car keys.’

When Mollie opened the door to him again he explained, ‘This is our new neighbour, Mollie. I’m taking her to a hotel as the house isn’t quite ready to move into.’

‘Oh, you poor dear,’ Mollie said, observing the strange woman standing hesitantly at the kerb edge. ‘What a horrible thing to happen, and on a cold, dark night like this.’ She turned to Ryan. ‘I’m just about to dish up your meal before I go home for the day. There’s plenty to spare, so can we not offer the young lady some hospitality?’

‘Yes, of course, by all means,’ he said, forgetting his weariness for a moment.

Their new neighbour shrank back.

‘I couldn’t possibly intrude into your evening any more than I am doing,’ she said.

Ignoring her reluctance, Ryan insisted. ‘You are most welcome. How long is it since you last had something to eat?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘If that’s the case, you need food now.’ He stepped back to let her past him to where Mollie was hovering near the kitchen door. ‘If you want to wash your hands you’ll find anything you need in the cloakroom at the end of the hall. Mollie will have the food on the table when you’re done.’

‘Thank you,’ she croaked meekly, and disappeared.

Mollie was ready to go by the time his unexpected guest had removed the day’s surface grime and once they were alone silence descended in what was a tastefully furnished dining room.

When they’d finished eating Ryan said, ‘There’s a fire in the sitting room. Make yourself comfortable while I make coffee.’

She nodded and said uncomfortably, ‘The food was lovely. Thank you so much.’

He was observing her gravely. ‘Are you going to tell me who you are? The house next door has been unoccupied for many years so it was a surprise to find signs of life there when I came home. Are you actually planning to live there?’

‘Er, yes,’ she told him hesitantly. ‘My name is Melissa Redmond. The house was left to me by my grandmother when she died some years ago. I’ve had no interest in living out here in the backwoods until a short time ago when my circumstances changed dramatically.

‘I’d arranged for a firm of cleaners to come in and make it liveable, and for the power to be connected, but when I got here late this afternoon nothing had been done and I was frantic.’

‘Yes, I can understand that,’ Ryan said slowly. Melissa didn’t look quite as bedraggled in the warm glow of the lamps in his sitting room as she had when she’d opened the door of the mausoleum next door. The colour had returned to her cheeks and she seemed a lot calmer. His curiosity about his new neighbour had definitely been piqued. He wanted to know more.

When he came back with the coffee cups she was asleep, overcome by the comforting warmth of the fire. So it looked as if he wasn’t going to find out any more about her for now.

An hour passed and Melissa hadn’t stirred out of the deep sleep of exhaustion that had claimed her. There was no way she could be allowed to go back to the chill of the house that had been empty for so long, neither did Ryan want to rouse her to go to a hotel at that hour. Instead, he went and found a soft fleece, laid it gently over her, and went up to bed with the intention of checking on her at regular intervals. That turned out to be a wise precaution as the first time he went downstairs, she was awake and about to disappear through the front door.

‘Melissa, wait!’ he cried. ‘You can’t stay in that place tonight. I have a spare room that is always kept ready for visitors. I insist you stay in it. I won’t be able to sleep knowing that you’re not somewhere safe, and I’ve had a very exhausting day that I need to recover from before the next one is upon me.’

‘My nightwear is in my case next door,’ she protested faintly.

‘I’ll find you some,’ he offered. Was he going insane to let a strange woman wear something that had belonged to Beth?

He pointed to a gracious curved staircase and said, ‘If you would like to go up, I’ll show you to the guest room. While you are settling in there I’ll find something for you to wear.’

Ryan dug out one of Beth’s plain cotton nightshirts to lend to Melissa. He avoided taking out any of the prettier nightgowns that Beth had favoured.

Melissa took it from him with a subdued smile and said with tears threatening, ‘I hope that one day I’ll be able to repay your kindness, Ryan.’

He smiled. ‘Don’t concern yourself about that. Tomorrow is another day and it just has to be better than this one has been for you.’

With that brief word of comfort he left her and went to a room across the landing. Closing the door behind him, he looked down at his sleeping daughters and wondered just what Rhianna and Martha would think when they saw there was a visitor for breakfast.

As she lay sleeplessly under the covers of the bed in the spare room, Melissa’s thoughts were in overdrive. The future that had looked so bleak seemed slightly less so because of the kindness of a stranger who had taken her in, fed her, and offered her a bed for the night.

So much for keeping a low profile in her new surroundings! The hurts she had suffered over recent months had made her long for privacy, for somewhere to hide. But her meeting with a man with the golden fairness of a Viking and eyes as blue as a summer sky had put an end to those sorts of plans.

It seemed Ryan had children who no doubt were fast asleep, and was in sole charge of them, so where was their mother? Wherever it might be, it was not her business. She had to fix her thoughts on tomorrow and the cleaners, the electricity people, and accepting the delivery of her few remaining belongings some time during the day. With those thoughts in mind she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

The sound of children’s voices on the landing mingling with her host’s deeper tones brought Melissa into instant wakefulness in the darkness of a winter morning. She dressed quickly in yesterday’s clothes and prepared to go down to where she could hear the sounds of breakfast-time coming from the kitchen.

Pausing in the doorway, she saw that Ryan was at the grill, keeping an eye on sizzling bacon, and two little girls were seated at the table with bowls of cereal in front of them, observing her with wide eyes of surprise as she said, ‘Thank you so much for last night. I feel a different person this morning after the meal and the rest. I’m off to find out what happened to the cleaners and the electricity services.’

He smiled across at her. ‘Not before you’ve eaten. You have no facilities for preparing food next door, so take a seat.’

Rhianna, at seven years old and the elder of his two young daughters, was not a shy child, and burst out, ‘Who is this lady, Daddy? She wasn’t here when we went to bed.’

‘No, she wasn’t,’ Martha, two years younger, chirped beside her. At that point Ryan took charge of the conversation.

‘Her name is Melissa and she’s going to live next door to us,’ he explained. ‘Melissa, these are my daughters, Rhianna and Martha.’

‘She can’t!’ Rhianna protested.

‘Why not?’ he asked.

‘It’s haunted!’

‘No way,’ he said laughingly as he pulled out a chair for Melissa to be seated, as if there had been no hesitation in joining them on her part. ‘There aren’t any ghosts in Heatherdale, I promise you that, Rhianna. Now, who would like a bacon roll?’

‘Me!’ the children both cried.

With the day ahead momentarily forgotten, Melissa smiled as the memory surfaced of how, when she’d been at junior school, she and her friends used to pass a creepy-looking empty house on the way there. They had been convinced that there was a human hand on the inside window ledge. It had only been when one of their fathers had gone to investigate that it had been discovered that the ‘hand’ had been a pink plastic glove. There had been much disappointment amongst the children.

She had done as Ryan requested and seated herself opposite him. As she smiled across at his children she saw that they both had the same golden fairness as their father, but their eyes were different—big and brown and fixed on her.

Making her second contribution to the occasion, Martha asked, ‘Are you some children’s mummy? We haven’t got one any more. Ours was hurt by a tree.’

Ryan had just put cereal and a bacon sandwich in front of Melissa and was about to join them at the table. He stilled, and she saw dismay in his expression.

‘Just get on with your breakfast, Martha,’ he said gravely, ‘and no more questions.’

‘It’s all right,’ Melissa told him. ‘I don’t mind. They are delightful.’ She turned to his small daughter.

‘No, Martha, I’m not a mummy, but I do love children. My job is all about making them well when they are sick.’

Their interest was waning to find that she didn’t fit their requirements, but not their father’s. The stranger at their table was full of surprises. What kind of a job was it that she’d referred to?

Bringing his mind back to their morning routine on school days, when the children had finished eating he told them to go and put their school uniforms on and have their satchels ready for when Mollie came to take them to school.

‘Will Melissa be here when we come home?’ Rhianna asked.

She answered for Ryan. ‘I’m afraid not, Rhianna. My house needs cleaning and sorting. But once that’s done everything will be fine and you can come to see me whenever you like.’

Rhianna seemed happy with that answer and she and Martha hopped off to get ready for school.

‘Your daughters are adorable, Ryan,’ she said with a warm smile.

‘They’re the light of my life. A life that would not be easy if Mollie wasn’t around,’ Ryan replied. ‘She’s a good friend as well as my housekeeper. I have a very demanding job but it’s totally rewarding and somehow I manage to give it my best, while organising things at this end to make sure that Rhianna and Martha are happy, though the result is not always how I want it to be. Still, I mustn’t delay you. We both have busy days ahead of us.’

She couldn’t have agreed more. As she looked around her at his delightful home, the gloom of yesterday came back. Dreading what the day would hold for her, she wished Ryan a stilted goodbye and went to ring the cleaning firm and the electricity company.

As Melissa waited for the cleaners to arrive, her mind drifted back over her recent past. She recalled how only yesterday, stony-faced behind the wheel of her car, she had driven away from the house that had always been her home in a select area of a Cheshire green belt without looking back.

The doors had been locked, the windows shut fast, and as a last knife thrust she’d put flowers in the hallway, a huge bunch of them that would be the first thing that the new owners saw when they arrived to take over their recently acquired property.

The purchase had been completed early that morning, the money was already in her bank account, but the thought of it brought no joy. It would be a matter of here today and gone tomorrow.

‘I’m sorry, sweetheart,’ her father had said as the last few moments of his life had ebbed away. ‘So sorry to be going like this before I’d sorted things.’

‘You have nothing to be sorry for,’ she’d told him gently, thinking that he must be delirious. ‘You have always been there for me, making me laugh, indulging me, keeping me safe, and David will do the same. I know he will.’

He’d tried to speak again but the mists had been closing in and the nurse at the other side of the bed had said a few seconds later, ‘He’s gone, Melissa. His injuries were too severe for him to overcome. There will be no more pain for your father.’

Max Redmond had been a charmer, and a wealthy one at that. Melissa had lost her mother to heart failure when she had been eleven and Max had given her everything she could possibly have wanted to make up for the loss. He’d taken her on fantastic holidays, bought her the kind of car that most young people could only dream of when she had been old enough to drive, and had given her a generous allowance that had been more than some families had had to feed their children and pay the mortgage.

The two of them had lived in a smart detached house amongst the rich and famous, not far from the city, and when she’d gone to fulfil a dream and enrolled as a medical student, it had been at a university in nearby Manchester so that her father wouldn’t be lonely, although it hadn’t seemed likely.

Max had never remarried, but he’d made lots of women friends in the circles in which he’d moved, where wining and dining was the order of the day. However, he had always cancelled any arrangements he’d made if his daughter had been free to socialise with him.

That had been until she’d got engaged to David Lowson, the son of one of her father’s women friends. After that, he’d watched benignly as most of Melissa’s time away from her career had been taken up with the delights of being in love.

She’d qualified as a doctor in paediatrics in the summer, and on receiving her degree had been employed at a nearby hospital. Life had been good in every way, with all of it centred around the big city that she knew so well and would never have wanted to leave, until her father had walked in front of a speeding car on a road not far from where they lived after a lively lunch in a nearby hotel, and had died from his injuries.

Since then Melissa had experienced all of life’s worst emotions: grief at the sudden tragic loss of the man who had loved her so much; sick horror to discover that his last words to her had been referring to a huge mountain of gambling debts that he had accumulated.

There had also been the aching hurt of betrayal from an engagement that had fizzled out when her fiancé had discovered that she was no longer the wealthy heiress that his mother had urged him to propose to, and was going to be poorer than a church mouse by the time she’d sorted out Max’s frightening legacy.

Everything Melissa could lay her hands on had been sold, and most of her salary each month had gone into the bottomless pit, with the sale of the house as the final heartbreaking humiliation.

During the time that the sale had been going through, those who knew her had seen little of her. Grief stricken and panicked about the future, Melissa had chosen to hide away from her friends.

Her father had given no inkling that he’d had money problems. Always a man about town, as generous host to all his friends, he hadn’t been able to admit to his failings, and she now understood fully his weak apology as he’d lain dying.

Incredibly, there’d been no life insurance to fall back on, or other safeguards that were usually in place regarding the death of a person, but thankfully the money from the sale of the house would clear the last of the debts.

She supposed it would have been sensible to rent herself a small apartment in Manchester and bring the shattered remnants of her life together again somehow. But with her father now resting with her mother in a nearby cemetery, and an ex-fiancé who had cast her aside living not far away, she had been intent on moving to some place where she wasn’t known.

Having left the hospital where she’d been employed, she’d headed for the small market town of Heatherdale, where her paternal grandmother had lived and where her house, which had been empty for a long time, was there for her if she wanted it.

The old lady had willed it to her and, though grateful for the thought, it was the last place she would ever have contemplated moving to in the past, but the present was proving to be a different matter. Alone and lost, she’d needed somewhere to hide from the pitying looks she’d received from her father’s friends and acquaintances when the news had got around that she was penniless. She’d wanted somewhere to avoid the mocking smiles of those who had witnessed the plight of the ‘golden girl’ and thought it would do her good to see how the other half lived. But the thing that had hurt most had been the speed with which her ex had found another woman to replace her.

She had found the keys to her grandmother’s house in a chest of drawers in her father’s bedroom, and as she’d gazed down at the heavy ornate bunch of them it had been as if a means of escape was being offered to her.

There had been receipts with them for payments that her father had made to the local authorities on her behalf over the years to comply with the law regarding the ownership of unoccupied housing, and she’d decided that the paperwork and the keys were heaven sent.

She’d felt as if she never wanted to see the city that she’d loved so much, with its familiar shops, smart restaurants and green parks, ever again. She’d decided to make a fresh start in a place that she’d never cared for much on the rare occasions she’d been there.

With no job, no money, and no family, she had to hope that she could find a future for herself in Heatherdale. First she had to get the house straight. Next on her agenda was finding a job. The obvious choice would be its famous hospital, but if there were no vacancies there for a newly qualified paediatrician then she’d simply have to find something to tide her over.

The internet had come up with the name and address of a firm of domestic cleaners in the Heatherdale area and she’d hired them to give the house a thorough cleaning from top to bottom before she arrived.

Apart from ordering a bed to be delivered later in the day, when she would be there to accept it, the rest of her belongings would arrive the following afternoon, when she was satisfied that the house was ready to take delivery of them.

It wasn’t the best time of year to be moving into a strange house in a strange place, she’d thought achingly as the miles had flashed past. The last leaves of autumn had been scattered at the roadside or hanging limply on trees, and a cold wind had been nipping at her while she’d been taking a last walk around the gardens of what had been her home.

During her early childhood she and her parents had visited her grandmother occasionally, but there hadn’t been any real closeness between them because the old lady had disapproved of her son’s attitude to life in general. She hadn’t liked the way he’d been such a spendthrift, although at that time he hadn’t reached retirement and had been making big money in the stock markets.

‘When I die I’m leaving the house to the child,’ she’d told him. ‘There might come a day when she’ll need a roof over her head.’ As the lights of Heatherdale had appeared on the horizon, Melissa had reflected that the grandmother she’d rarely seen had turned out to be her only friend.

Martha’s innocent question about the stranger who had joined them for breakfast was uppermost in Ryan’s mind as he drove the short distance to the hospital. It had brought painful memories with it that he only allowed himself to think about when he was alone, but in that moment in the kitchen they had been starkly clear and he’d been extra-loving with the children while they’d waited for Mollie to arrive.

His youngest daughter had described them as being without a mother because theirs had been hurt by a tree. It wouldn’t have been the easiest description of her death for Melissa Redmond to understand, but did that matter? She was just a stranger who had joined them for breakfast.

He and Beth had attended the same school in Heatherdale, had both chosen medicine as a career, he in paediatrics and she in midwifery. It had always been there, the love that had blossomed in their late teens and taken them to the altar of a church in the small market town where they lived.

Heatherdale boasted a famous spa that people came from far and wide to take advantage of, and beautiful Victorian architecture built from local stone that he never wearied of. There were spacious parks and elegant shops and restaurants. Everything that he loved was here except for the wife he had adored.

When she’d died he had wanted to die too as life had lost its meaning, but there had been two small children, unhappy and confused because their mother hadn’t been there any more, so he’d pulled himself together for their sakes. In the last three years his life had been entirely taken up with his children and the health problems of those belonging to others.

If it meant that he never had time to do his own thing, at least there was the comfort of knowing that his young daughters were safe and happy, and that he was serving a vital purpose in the Heatherdale Children’s Hospital where he was a senior paediatric consultant.

He knew that folks found him irritating at times because he never socialised, was always too busy when asked out to dine, even though he had Mollie, who would always take on the role of childminder if needed and who checked out every available woman she met as a possible new wife for him, without actually saying so openly.

As Melissa looked around her house in the cold light of day she was hoping that today would not be quite as horrendous as yesterday. However, every day since she’d lost her father and discovered what he had been involved in had been dreadful.