Page 23 of Mending Hearts at the Cornish Country Hospital (The Cornish Country Hospital #6)

Drew often left work later than planned.

He barely noticed the passing of time when he was engrossed in something.

He might realise he was due to finish if Saskia headed off at the end of the day, but often, after that, Drew would start writing up notes from a postmortem.

Sometimes hours passed before he looked at his watch again.

He worked hundreds of hours of unpaid overtime like that, but he didn’t care.

There was no one waiting at home for him.

Only Marmalade, his ginger Persian cat, who frankly couldn’t care less whether or not Drew was in, as long as there was food left out for him.

Today, though, Drew would be leaving the hospital two hours early, having for once in his life taken some time off in lieu of additional hours worked, but he needed to pop into the shop on the way out.

‘Extra wine gums mid-afternoon?’ Gwen furrowed her brow at the sight of him. ‘It feels like Armageddon might be coming.’

‘You might be even more worried when you discover I’m not here for wine gums.’

‘I must be having a dream.’ Gwen pretended to pinch herself, in an over-exaggerated way. ‘Just don’t tell me you’re here for something frivolous and flighty like Skittles, or Starbursts.’

‘I’m after something suitable for a child.

I was thinking about a Freddo or a Curly Wurly.

’ They were sweets Drew could remember from his own childhood and he couldn’t imagine Teddie not liking them.

He and Eden had met up five times now, and it had quickly become obvious that Teddie was a bit of a chocoholic.

Eden had confided that she’d been worried about her son’s diet before his diagnosis, because he was only willing to eat a very narrow range of foods.

She’d said the paediatrician had reassured her that Teddie was getting the nutrients he needed from the food he was eating, and the dietician had explained it was the textures of many other foods that Teddie couldn’t cope with.

Fruit and vegetables could be inconsistent.

The texture of a banana on one day, at one level of ripeness, could be very different to the next.

Teddie’s autism meant he found that kind of unpredictability difficult.

Eden had smiled when she’d been explaining it to Drew, holding up one of the fun-size bars of milk chocolate that she seemed to have a limitless supply of.

‘It seems chocolate can be relied upon, it never lets Teddie down. It never lets me down either when I come to think of it. I can’t tell you how many difficult days Dairy Milk has got me through.

There’s no situation it can’t make better.

’ She’d wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh God, I’m giving myself away, aren’t I?

I could at least be classier and go for Green it was a feeling he wasn’t sure it was possible to quantify.

He couldn’t have put his bond with Teddie into words either, let alone have looked up a definition for either of those things in the dictionary.

‘The best relationships are based on friendship and I’m willing to bet if you ask her out, she’ll say yes.’

Apprehension fluttered in his chest at the thought of risking his friendship with Eden, because of how much it meant to him.

But an even bigger part of Drew still wanted to take the chance.

The easiest way to cope with that was to focus on the bet that Gwen was offering, rather than everything he had to lose. ‘What’s the wager?’

‘If she says no, I’ll pay for your wine gums for the next year.’

‘And what will I have to give you if she says yes?’

‘A front row seat for the wedding.’ Gwen dropped the perfect wink, and much to Drew’s surprise once again, he found himself nodding, but then something hit him.

‘I think what I might really need is a penalty to pay, if I lose my nerve before I ask her.’

‘You have to come to my belly dancing class. Only once, but joining in will be compulsory.’

Drew looked at her for a long moment, picturing just how awful it would be to have to go through with a forfeit like that, but then he surprised himself for a third time. ‘Okay, you’ve got a bet.’

Gwen reached out and shook his hand. ‘We have indeed and no welching on it, Drew, because I’ll find out if you do.’

‘I know you will.’ Drew picked up two packets of the chocolate buttons Gwen had recommended, and two bars of Dairy Milk.

However Eden responded when he finally got up the nerve to ask her out, he didn’t want to lose her friendship.

She’d said chocolate could make any difficult situation better, and he might just need all the help he could get.

* * *

The Spotted Pig may have sounded like the kind of gastro pub Drew might have suggested taking Eden to, if they’d gone out on their own, but it was actually a newly opened children’s farm a few miles inland from Port Kara.

Drew had suggested they take Teddie there because the pathways around the farm had been specially designed to facilitate wheelchair access.

He’d seen how Eden had struggled with Teddie’s buggy sometimes and, although the little boy could be a runner when the mood struck him, most of the time he didn’t want to walk far.

The farm was open until 7p.m. in the summer months, so they’d decided to head over for a couple of hours after work.

‘It’s so lovely to be out in the sunshine.

’ Eden smiled at Drew as they stopped by one of the paddocks where a fat little Shetland pony, who was almost as wide as it was tall, was scratching its bottom against a fence post. The view beyond the field looked out on to open farmland with just a glimpse of turquoise-coloured sea in the distance.

It was a beautiful day and it felt a world away from how Drew spent his days at work.

He’d never have come somewhere like this without Eden and Teddie, but she was right, it was good to be outside and feel the sun on his skin.

‘My mother used to take me to the farm up the road to see the animals. She’d been at school with the farmer, and he never minded us roaming about on his land.

’ When Drew thought about the times his mother had been happiest, after Flora’s death, it was always on days like that – trips out where it had just been the two of them.

He didn’t remember ever hearing his father make his mother laugh and there was something very wrong about that.

‘I don’t think there were places like this when I was a child. ’

‘What, in the olden days?’ Eden grinned and he raised his eyebrows, smiling too.

‘And the seven years between us makes all the difference I suppose?’