Page 15 of Mending Hearts at the Cornish Country Hospital (The Cornish Country Hospital #6)

Drew felt like a complete idiot. He’d been standing in the shop waiting for Gwen to come out of the stock room, where she’d insisted on checking whether she had another box of wine gums in stock, ready to fulfil his daily order for the next month or so.

He’d already felt a bit awkward standing there, but then he’d spotted Eden and a group of others in the corridor outside the shop.

Eden had her back to the doorway and she was good-naturedly bickering with one of her friends about who should buy the coffees.

Suddenly the thought of bumping into her ‘by chance’ seemed ridiculous.

She had his number and had clearly decided not to use it.

Eden didn’t want to bump into him, by chance or otherwise.

He realised he had the opportunity to slip out of the door and head out of the main entrance before she saw him, and so that’s what he did.

Drew had left the can of Coke and the Snickers bar that Saskia had requested on the counter, and had walked almost half a mile to the next nearest shop, before heading back to the hospital and going around to the side entrance.

All just to avoid seeing Eden. He didn’t just feel like an idiot, he was one.

He must be if he couldn’t act like a normal person.

That was the mantra that was playing in his head for the rest of the day, and it wasn’t until it was time to leave that he picked up his phone and saw a message from an unknown number.

Hi Drew. It’s Eden, Teddie’s mum. I wondered if you were still up for getting together? Let me know if so, but no pressure.

Drew stared at the message for a moment, trying to work out whether accepting her offer was a good idea, despite the fact that he really wanted to.

What concerned him most was just how much her message had lifted his spirits.

He’d done his best to hide his attraction to her when they were together, because even though he often wasn’t very good at reading signals, let alone giving them out, he knew Eden didn’t feel the same way.

She’d been clear that her interest in him involved talking about Teddie.

Drew wanted to help her and her little boy as much as he possibly could, but that wasn’t the only reason he wanted to see her.

He was worried that by saying yes, he wouldn’t be being completely honest and that was incredibly important to him.

Looking at the text again, he shook his head.

He was being ridiculous. He’d been in his job at St Piran’s for over a year, and he’d hardly done anything except work, this was his opportunity to alter that.

Before he changed his mind, he sent Eden a reply.

Hi Eden. Yes, I’m still up for meeting. I don’t know what your shifts are like, but I’m off this weekend if you’re free either day?

As soon as Drew had sent the message he wondered if he should have been so honest about not having any plans for his weekend off.

He was due to do some volunteer work, but nothing that couldn’t be rescheduled, and Eden might as well get to know the real him.

If she didn’t like what she saw, they’d both be better off finding that out sooner rather than later and at least he wouldn’t have lied.

He’d had to contend with far too many lies in the past, and there was no way he was going to live one too.

* * *

Eden had thought carefully about where to meet Drew. Since their first encounter in the car park, she’d found out a bit more about him, mostly from Gwen, who seemed to know everyone and everything about life at St Piran’s.

‘He’s a little bit quirky, but if I didn’t have Barry and I was twenty years younger…

’ Gwen had paused and wrinkled her nose.

‘Okay maybe more like forty years younger, I’d be very interested in getting to know Drew better.

He’s so interesting, I could talk to him all day long about his job.

He might be quiet, but you know what they say about still waters running deep and all that.

He looks like he could be living on a remote croft up in the Scottish mountains, striding through the heather back to the woman he loves.

Like something out of Highlander . I bet there are hidden passions there. ’

She’d winked then and Eden hadn’t been able to stop herself from laughing, and telling Gwen that if she ever fancied a change of career she could try her hand at writing a steamy romance.

She might be in her early seventies, but she never shied away from talking about any subject and she certainly seemed invested in other people’s love lives.

It was all done in good spirit, but she’d got the wrong idea this time.

Despite her initial attraction to Drew, and Felix’s insistence that she should keep an open mind, Eden still wasn’t remotely interested in any kind of romantic relationship.

The risk just wasn’t worth it and she’d made sure Gwen knew where she stood.

‘I don’t care about his hidden passions, as long as they don’t involve cutting up bodies when he’s off the clock.

I don’t want to take Teddie with me to meet a serial killer in the middle of nowhere.

’ It had been a joke, of course, but his job was pretty unusual, and she had to wonder what kind of person chose to work with the dead.

Maybe she’d watched too many crime dramas.

There’d even been one recently where the forensic pathologist working on the case turned out to be the killer; it was the perfect cover for his crimes.

Despite that, Eden had known that her comments about Drew were ridiculous and the expression on Gwen’s face had confirmed it.

‘I think what he does is amazing. Thank goodness someone is prepared to do a job like that and give answers to people who so desperately need them. He works with the police too, helping to get justice that might not be served any other way. As to the chances of him being violent’ – Gwen had rolled her eyes – ‘I’d bet my pension against that ever happening.

I serve all kinds of people in here and in over forty years as a midwife I dealt with every personality type you can imagine, and Drew is one of the gentlest souls I’ve ever met. ’

It had almost been as though she’d personally insulted Gwen and, much like the conversation with Felix, it had left Eden questioning herself for making assumptions about Drew.

Just because he did a job she couldn’t imagine doing, it didn’t make him odd.

She knew better than anyone how damaging labels and assumptions could be, and yet even the most basic of new experiences – like meeting a colleague – could feel almost overwhelming these days.

The years with Jesse had made her that way, but that was no excuse for judging Drew before she even knew him, and she promised herself she was going to do better.

She was determined to go back to being the girl she’d been before Jesse had attempted to mould her into someone else entirely.

Maybe then she could finally put her relationship with him behind her, where it belonged.

In the end they’d arranged to meet at the coastal park between Port Kara and Port Tremellien.

It started in a patch of woodland parallel to the beach and eventually led down towards the sea itself, just before the first row of beach huts that overlooked the main beach in Port Tremellien.

There were slides, rope swings and tunnels, and even a zip line.

Not to mention a café, with two huge sand pits outside, and a wooden pirate ship that had slides leading down from its deck.

Teddie loved it there and there’d be enough going on around them to ensure that any lulls in the conversation weren’t quite so awkward.

Eden had borrowed her dad’s car to drive to the car park close to where the trail began, and had then put Teddie into his buggy to walk down and meet Drew at the starting point.

She just hoped the buggy would cope okay with the different terrain, now that Teddie was getting so much heavier than he’d been as a toddler.

‘Thanks so much for agreeing to meet.’ Eden was slightly breathless when she reached the point where Drew was standing.

He was wearing an oatmeal-coloured Aran sweater, making him look exactly like the kind of sexy Highland farmer Gwen had described.

She cursed the older woman as the thought popped into her head, Gwen and her ridiculous romantic notions had a lot to answer for.

‘It’s no trouble at all.’ Drew smiled and Teddie started jabbering loudly in his made-up language.

She’d described her son as non-verbal in the past, but recently she’d made the effort to stop doing that.

He was very verbal and sometimes so loud that it made people around him jump.

He just didn’t speak, at least not in any language Eden recognised.

She turned to Drew again, as Teddie’s voice got louder.

‘I’m sure he’s fluent in Korean, and I just don’t understand him.

No wonder he gets so frustrated sometimes.

He’s started lashing out more, and the worst part is that it’s usually towards himself.

The last few days he’s been slapping his head really hard.

It makes me feel like the worst mother in the world.

’ Eden hadn’t meant to say so much, especially not this quickly, but over the last couple of days Teddie’s behaviour seemed to have escalated and she was desperate to talk to someone who might understand.