Joanna Neil - His Summer Bride

‘No…’ Katie’s mind refused to take it in. ‘That can’t be… I only spoke to him on the phone this morning. How can this be happening?’ For all her training as a doctor, coming face to face with the death of a loved one was turning out to be every bit as difficult for her as it was for her patients. She had no idea it could be so hard to accept.

Nick put his arm around her and held her tight. ‘I’m so sorry, Katie. It’s a shock—in fact, it’s a shock for both of us.’

Steve pressed his lips together in a fleeting moment of sadness. ‘Dr Weissman did everything he could to try to resuscitate him, but in the end it was impossible. There was nothing more he could do.’

Katie was bewildered. ‘I just can’t take it in. I came here thinking he was just having one of those bad days. He always seemed so stoical, so determined to get the best out of life.’

‘And I’m sure he did, Katie.’ Nick leant his cheek against hers. ‘He was over the moon because you had come out here to see him. These last few weeks he was always talking about you, saying how well you’d done for yourself.’

‘Was he?’ Tears began to trickle slowly down her face. ‘It seems such a waste. All these years I’ve waited, wanting to get to know him but always holding back because I was afraid of what I might find. It took me such a long time to forgive him for walking out on my mother and me. It was such a strange sort of life… as if it was somehow off key. And now he’s gone.’

He held her close, letting her weep for what might have been, and all the time he stroked her hair, comforting her just by being there for her when she needed him most.

Libby brought in a tray of tea and quietly set it down on the coffee table. ‘The doctor’s gone into the kitchen to fill in his forms. He’s very sad. They were good friends—your father always spoke highly of him.’

Katie glanced up at Libby. The woman was ashen-faced, struggling to keep her emotions in check.

‘Perhaps you should sit down and give yourself some time,’ Katie suggested softly, still shaken but subdued. ‘You must be as upset as the rest of us. More so, perhaps… my father told me you’d been with him for years.’

Libby put a tissue to her face. ‘I have, yes, that’s true.’ She wrung her hands. ‘I ought to go and.’ She turned distractedly, as though to go out of the door, and then changed her mind and came to sit down on one of the straight-backed chairs by a polished mahogany desk. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said in a broken voice.

‘Don’t do anything. Just sit for a while and I’ll get you some tea.’ Katie moved as though to go and pour a cup, but Nick gently pressured her back into the sofa.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘You stay there.’

Steve looked towards the sitting-room door while Nick poured tea and handed it around. ‘I should go and have a word with the doctor,’ he murmured. ‘He’ll need someone to see him out… and I’d better call the paramedics and tell them what’s happened.’

He walked over to the door and opened it, walking out into the hallway. The sound of voices coming from there alerted Katie and made her sit up and take notice. Had the paramedics arrived already?

‘We just want to talk to Libby for a minute or two,’ a male voice said. ‘There will be things to arrange.’

Steve said quietly, ‘Perhaps it can wait for a while. Libby’s in shock, as we all are. Do you want to go and talk to the doctor instead, in the kitchen?’

‘Not just yet.’ The sound of the man’s voice drew nearer, and Katie looked across the room as the door opened. A young man walked in, followed by a slender girl who looked to be slightly older than him, about twenty-three or twenty-four years old. She was pretty, with auburn hair that fell in bright curls about her shoulders, but right now her features were taut, as though she was doing her best to hold herself together.

Katie stood up, dragging her thoughts away from all that had happened and making an effort to behave in the way that Jack would have expected. He would want her to politely greet his guests and make them welcome, even now.

‘Hello,’ she said, going over to them. ‘I don’t think we’ve met before, have we? I’m Katie. For a moment there I thought you were the paramedics.’

The young man shook his head. ‘I think the doctor rang and told them there was no urgency.’

‘Yes, that would be the sensible thing to do.’ Katie studied him briefly. He had black hair and hazel eyes, and she had the impression he was struggling to keep his emotions under control, his face showing signs of stress, with dark shadows under his eyes and a gaunt, hollowed-out appearance to his cheeks.

‘I’m Tom Logan,’ he said, ‘and this is my sister, Natasha.’ He put an arm around the girl’s shoulders. ‘You’ve caught us at a bad time. I expect you’ve heard that our father has just died. Did you know him? Were you a friend of his?’

Katie almost reeled back in shock. She stared at him. Their father? Surely there had to be some mistake? She felt as though all the breath had been knocked out of her and for a moment or two she simply stood there and tried to absorb his words.

‘I didn’t realise…’ she began after a while, but broke off. There couldn’t be any mistake, could there? Logan, he had said. How much clearer could he have made it?

‘Are you all right?’ Tom was frowning, looking perplexed, and his sister pulled in a shaky breath and tried to show her concern, too.

It wasn’t fitting that she should be here, Katie decided suddenly. These were Jack’s children, and they had the right to grieve in peace. She had to get out of here. ‘Yes, I…’ She swallowed hard. ‘I have to go… I need to get some air…’ This wasn’t the time or the place to explain who she was and where she had come from, was it? They’d obviously had no idea that she existed before this.

She swivelled round, desperate to get out of there, away from all these people. All at once she felt as though she was part of a topsy-turvy world where nothing made sense any more. She needed to be alone, to try to take it all in.

‘Katie’s upset,’ she heard Nick saying. ‘This has all been a bit too much for her. Excuse us, please. I think I’d better take her home.’

Katie was already out of the front door, standing on the drive, when she realised that she didn’t have her own car there. But perhaps that was just as well. She was probably in no state to drive.

Was it too far away for her to walk home? She could always get a taxi, couldn’t she? But for now she just needed to keep moving, to get away from there, to get her head straight.

‘Katie, wait, please.’ Nick dropped into step beside her.

‘Why would I do that?’ She shot the words at him through gritted teeth. ‘I really don’t have anything to say to you.’ She kept on walking. Hadn’t he known all along?

‘But we need to talk this through,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a shock—a double shock, given what’s happened to Jack.’

‘Yes, I’ve had a shock—and whose fault is that, precisely?’ The words came out flint sharp. ‘Did you really think you could hide it from me for ever? Why would you want to do that?’ She clamped her lips together. ‘No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to hear it. You colluded with him, let me go on thinking I was the daughter he loved and cared about, when all the time he…’ She couldn’t get the words out. Her anger was rising in a tide of blood that rushed to her head. It made her feel dizzy, and it thumped inside her skull like the stroke of a relentless mallet.

‘It wasn’t the way you think…believe me…’

‘Believe you?’ She gave a harsh laugh. ‘Why should I believe you?’ She looked at him, her green eyes glinting with barely suppressed fury. ‘Why should I listen to anything you have to say? I was foolish enough to think that you had some integrity, that you were different to the others… that you could be honest with me. Well, I was wrong.’ She was still walking, her footsteps taking her out through the large wrought-iron gates, flanked on either side by stone-built gateposts.