A Family to Save the Doctor's Heart by Marion Lennox

Author:Marion Lennox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-03-03T22:22:23+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

BAKED POTATOES WERE always a success. Apart from that one time Tom had burned himself, they were pretty much a guaranteed way to get them all to eat. Usually she served them with coleslaw and yoghurt. Tonight, with the prospect of a paying job and with a general store within walking distance, she’d lashed out and bought cheese, sour cream and bacon. Now she dug out the potatoes, still wrapped in their foil. Then she hauled a heap of coals from the edge of the fire, put some butter in the pan and fried the bacon while the potatoes cooled.

The smell of bacon brought the kids running, and they fell on the food as if they hadn’t been fed for a week. And they talked. Mealtime usually meant stilted silence. Now they were hopping into their spuds, vying for more and more bacon—and talking so fast to Silas that she was having trouble keeping up.

‘I fed the biggest one.’ That was Ruby. ‘Dad might have caught him for dinner if he’d been here, but Mum would have told him off and made him let it go...’

‘Mine were slippery,’ Tom broke in. ‘But I catched three. I put them back though. They’ll grow to be as big as Ruby’s.’

‘Will you come to the boatyard with me tomorrow?’ That was Sam. ‘After...after school, I mean.’

There was a moment’s silence at that, the enormity of actually confronting school seemingly daunting. But, if it worked, a new home, new friends... It might lift these kids from the nightmare of grief they’d been living in.

And that made her collect herself. The sun was slipping towards the horizon, and tomorrow was the start of their new lives.

‘Right, showers and bed,’ she told them, standing up and brushing off sand. ‘Now.’

‘We don’t have to go to bed until we’re tired,’ Ruby said mutinously, but, before she could answer, Silas stepped in.

‘I have a surprise,’ he told them. ‘Tomorrow, because it’s a huge day—Jenny’s off to become the island doctor and you’re off to meet your new classmates—I’ve stocked the fridge. I’m planning a buffet breakfast, all you can eat—eggs, sausages, fruit salad, two types of toast, four types of jam, you name it, it’ll be on the veranda for anyone who’s up early enough to enjoy it. And the best thing is... I’ve found strawberries.’

‘Strawberries?’ Tom said, sounding confused.

‘Strawberries?’ Jenny said faintly. Where had he sourced those? They certainly weren’t stocked in the Albatross general store, and they’d be far too expensive to buy on Gannet. Had these kids ever eaten them?

‘Last year Elsa bought us ice cream with frozen strawberries when Mum had to take us to Gannet for the dentist,’ Ruby said. ‘Are they like that?’

‘Are they in jam?’ Sam asked, suspicious.

‘I have half a bucket of fresh ones,’ Silas said and grinned, benevolent genie producing his miracle. ‘And there’ll be ice cream too. But you have to go to bed now, so you’ll wake up in time.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Come on,’ Tom yelled. ‘Let’s go!’

‘Showers before bed,’ Jenny yelled, and they waved acknowledgement as they took off towards the house.

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