Annie Claydon - Snowbound With The Surgeon

‘I don’t think we have time. We have to get on…’

‘Just for a minute. We won’t keep you.’

Neve bit back the temptation to say that the news crew was already keeping them, by dint of their minibus blocking the road. ‘I have patients…’

‘I promise we’ll be finished before you know it. Or you could go over there and pretend to help, if you prefer.’

No, she didn’t prefer. The last thing Neve wanted to do was to embarrass herself with Joe by pretending to help him for the cameras.

‘Joe…’ She marched over to the minibus, where he was now shovelling ice and snow from under the chassis. ‘We’ll be going soon, won’t we?’

He straightened, taking in the hastily assembled tripod and camera. ‘She’s asked you for an interview, hasn’t she?’

Neve shifted uncomfortably. ‘Yes. But I’ve told them there’s no time. We have to be on our way…’

He grinned. Joe was enjoying her discomfiture a little too much. ‘I’m afraid it’ll be a short while yet. And I don’t dig well with an audience. Perhaps you can keep them amused for a few minutes.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

He shrugged. ‘Thought you wanted to help.’

Not what she’d had in mind. Neve turned on her heel and walked back to the camera.

‘Ready?’ The woman smiled brightly at her. ‘Perhaps if you could take your hat off so we can see your face.’

She was going to have to do this. Neve stood on the spot the reporter indicated and removed her hat, smiling uneasily. The camera swept across the snow-covered hills and then homed in on her.

‘How are you coping in these difficult conditions? Are your patients going without the medical help they need?’

An image of Maisie on the phone, reassuring worried callers that the doctor would be able to see them, flashed through Neve’s mind. ‘No, we’re seeing everyone. We’re coping very well.’

‘But your resources must be strained to breaking point. How long can you go on like this?’

‘As long as we need to. We expect snow during the winter here, and we plan for it. It’s business as usual, and that’s not going to change.’ Neve tried to put all the gravitas of her profession behind the statement. Difficult when a blast of icy wind had just slapped the side of her face, almost taking her breath away and making her nose drip.

The sound of the minibus’s engine choking into life saved her. Joe was in the driver’s seat, gently rolling the vehicle forward and out of the patch of slush that its spinning wheels had produced.

‘Sorry. Got to go.’ Neve almost skipped over to where the empty cat-litter bag and the shovel lay, picked them up and carried them back to Joe’s car. Then she got in, shutting the door firmly. The news crew took one last shot of Joe walking back to the SUV, then there was a scramble to get the camera packed up and they were on their way, Joe following the minibus as it nosed its way along the narrow, snow-filled lane.

As soon as the road widened, he flashed his headlights and a brief, assertive blast of the horn signalled the driver of the minibus to pull over. Joe overtook it, and in a sudden show of bravado he put his foot down, a shower of powdery snow flying up from the wheels as they accelerated away.

‘Show-off.’

He chuckled. ‘You looked a bit put out by some of those questions.’

He’d noticed. No surprise there, Joe seemed to notice everything. ‘Well, really. What did they expect me to do? Go on TV saying that my patients will be lucky to get a visit this side of next week?’

‘I imagine that’s what they wanted to hear.’

‘Well, tough. I’ll make it through to everyone…’ It occurred to Neve that Joe had a part in that now. ‘I meant we .’

He gave her a melting grin. ‘Yeah. We’ll make it.’

After eleven hours, half of it spent huddled in the passenger seat of his car and the other half seeing her patients, Neve still shone. In Joe’s experience, that took some doing. When they drew up outside her house that evening, she heaved a deep sigh of contentment.

‘Look…’

He looked. Welcoming light glowed from the porch. ‘Your power’s back on?’

‘Yes.’ Her smile made it seem like the end of a perfect day, rather than the first piece of good luck that she hadn’t had to work hard for. ‘Will you come in for tea?’

The warmth of her rambling farmhouse kitchen. The warmth of her smile. In a past life, which seemed so distant now it was if it had all happened to someone else, Joe wouldn’t have hesitated to say yes.

‘No. Thanks, but I should get going. I’ll see you in the morning. Same time?’

‘Tomorrow’s Saturday. Aren’t you taking the weekend off?’

‘Are you?’

She shrugged. ‘Not this weekend. I’ll be off next weekend.’

‘Then I’ll see you in the morning. Eight-thirty.’

Her smile made the whole day worthwhile. ‘Shall we say nine? I think we both deserve a lie-in.’

‘Nine it is.’

‘Thanks for all you’ve done today, Joe. I really appreciate it.’

It had been his pleasure. Having her rely on him, bringing her safely home again had made Joe feel strong again. As if he’d flexed muscles that had been long under-used and had found, almost to his disbelief, that they had taken the strain. But he shouldn’t go too far.

He carried her bags up the path for her, setting them down on the doorstep and turning back, before the lure of refreshments got too great. Got into his SUV and waited until she was safely inside the house before he started the engine and drove away. Neve was just the kind of woman who could tempt a man into believing that he could be whatever he wanted to be. And in Joe’s experience, the one good thing about having found your breaking point was that you knew for sure that some things were out of reach.

‘HOW ARE WE going with the list?’

The list had been the overarching purpose of their lives for the last three days. How many people were on it and where they lived. It was a challenge and a reason for Neve to spend her days with him. Joe was getting to love the list.

However much he loved it, he didn’t get to spend a lot of quality time with it. While she let him get on with his side of things, assessing their route, driving and the odd spell of snow clearing, the list was Neve’s responsibility, and she seemed to function best when it was under her control.

‘Not bad. Just four more. We need to go up to Holcombe Crag, and there are three more between there and Leminster.’

‘Where first?’ Joe had no inclination to involve himself in the decisions about who needed her most urgently, and was always careful to let Neve set their priorities.

‘What do you think? I guess it would be better to go up to Holcombe Crag while it’s still light.’ She reached for the bag of toffees on the dashboard, offering him one, and when he shook his head she unwrapped one for herself.

‘Probably, but don’t worry about that. If the others need to be seen first…’

‘No, they’re all routine visits. They could wait until tomorrow morning if we don’t get time today, but Nancy Olsen’s got a young baby so I’d like to see her this afternoon.’

Joe nodded, and started the car. ‘Holcombe Crag it is, then.’

Neve had been watching the clouds draw across the sky as they approached the crag. ‘Are we going to make this? It looks as if the weather’s closing in.’

‘We’ll make it. There’s plenty of time to get up there and back before it gets dark— Is that your phone, or mine?’

‘Mine, I think.’ Neve unzipped her jacket and pulled her phone from the inside pocket, studying the small screen. ‘It’s a text from Maisie.’