St Piran’s: The Wedding of The Year

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Cover Page

Title Page

Dear Reader

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Copyright

Dear Reader

When my editor initially approached me about writing some of the books in the Penhally series, I said that if Nick and Kate were to have their own story, I wanted it! Well, you know the saying: be careful what you wish for…And here it is, right at the beginning of a stunning new continuity series based in Penhally’s nearest hospital, St Piran’s.

Kate was easy. Lovely, straightforward woman, with great compassion, devotion to her child, and the guilt that all women feel about keeping the peace at any price. Nick, on the other hand—well, Nick was Nick. Stubborn, obdurate, opinionated, demanding, contrary, dogmatic and passionate. And tortured. Tortured by his guilt, tortured by the past, unable to see a future with the woman he’d loved all his life.

Add into the mix his children—three of them all past heroes or heroines of the series, and the youngest, Jem, as yet unacknowledged—and it all gets a whole lot more complicated! But Kate loves Nick, has always loved him, and she sees the good in him, the decent, hardworking and still deeply attractive man who is struggling to find the way forward with the boy he now has to acknowledge is his own, and the woman who has his heart. And between them they find the way.

It’s been a long and hard journey for them, and I hope it gives you the reader as much joy to see their resolution as it gave me to write it.

With love

Caroline

‘OH, DR TREMAYNE, Kate left this for you.’

Nick stopped by the reception desk and took the sealed envelope from Sue, glancing at it in puzzlement. How odd…

‘Is she still here?’

‘Yes, I think so, but she’s about to go. She has to pick Jem up from holiday club. Do you want me to find her?’

‘No, it’s OK.’ He gave the envelope another glance, and with a curt nod to his patients as he passed them, he went into his room, closed the door and slit the flap open with his forefinger as he dropped into his chair behind the desk.

He drew out a single sheet, handwritten in her elegant, decisive script, and as he smoothed it out with the flat of his hand he stared at it in disbelief.

Monday 12 April

Dear Nick,

I’ve written to the PCT, and will tell Chloe and all my other colleagues and friends over the next few days, but I wanted you to know first that I’ve decided to leave Penhally and my post here as midwife. I’m putting my house on the market and Jem and I will move away from here over the summer, in time for him to start secondary school in September. It’s the right time to go, as far as his education is concerned, and I thought we could move closer to my mother in Bristol.

I’ll miss the practice and all the people in it, but it’s time for us to move on. There’s nothing here for me any more.

I would just like to thank you for all the support and kindness you’ve shown to me over the years.

Yours,

Kate

Stunned, Nick scanned the letter again. She couldn’t leave. Where the hell did she think she was going? And taking Jem away…

He pushed back his chair and crossed to the window, pressing his hand against the cold glass and staring out numbly at the sudden squall that had sprung up. The rain was streaming down the pane in torrents, bouncing off the roofs of the cars outside, and people were running for cover.

Including Kate. She wrenched open her car door, and as she got in her head lifted and she met his eyes, holding them for a moment through the lashing rain, then with a tiny shake of her head she slammed the door, started the engine and drove away, leaving him staring after her.

He sucked in a harsh, juddering breath and turned on his heel, moving away from the window before he put his fist through it in frustration. The letter was lying there on the desk, taunting him, and he crumpled it up and hurled it at the bin. It missed, and he picked it up, crushing it tighter in his fist.

Why? Why now, of all times, when he’d begun to feel there might be a chance…?

There was a tap on the door and old Doris Trefussis popped her head round and came in with a smile.

‘Cup of tea for you, Dr T., before you start,’ she said brightly, ‘and a couple of Hazel’s fairings. I saved them for you.’

‘Thank you, Doris,’ he said tightly, and held his breath until she’d shut the door. The last thing he could do was eat, it would choke him, but there was no way he could tell Doris that. She’d kill him if he didn’t eat Hazel’s biscuits, he thought, dropping down into his chair and dragging his hands over his face before flattening out the crumpled page and reading the letter again.

It didn’t make any more sense the second time. Or the third.

Maybe the tea would help.

He cradled the mug in his hand and stared blankly out of the window. It was slack water, the boats in the harbour swinging every which way in the squalling wind. He knew the feeling. He’d been swinging at anchor himself ever since Annabel had died five years ago, unsure of what the future held, of which way the tide would turn.