‘Ooh, look at you, all dressed up for the part.’ Her eyes travelled over him as she came around to his side. ‘I do like a man in yellow rubber.’
Jake glanced down, trying to quash his irritation as she made a great show of patting his hind quarters.
Sally, though, seemed oblivious to the awkwardness she was causing. Walking across to Emily, who was now looking considerably upset, she hooked an arm through one of hers. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, helping herself to a burger with her free hand. ‘I know I promised to help you set up, but Dave had an emergency call-out, a sewer to unblock – ugh – and my car’s still in the garage so I had to cadge a lift with one of the neighbours.’
‘It’s okay. We managed without you,’ Emily assured her, fixing a bright smile on her face and trying for normal, where normal seemed to have been suspended – between her and Jake, anyway.
‘I knew you would. I said to Dave, you two are a team,’ Sally gushed in between mouthfuls of burger. ‘I wish my husband would take a leaf out of Jake’s book and make a bit more of an effort. His face was like a wet weekend when I told him we were coming to the fair, miserable old—’ She stopped, her eyes growing wide as her gaze shot past Jake. ‘I see Tash is on form,’ she hissed, nodding in the direction of whoever had caught her attention.
Jake followed her gaze to see one of his patients, Natasha Jameson, waving at them.
‘God, whatisshe wearing?’ Looking the woman over, Sally scowled disapprovingly. ‘The village fair is hardly the place for full sex-siren gear, is it?’
Intrigued, Jake glanced again at Natasha and noted the high leather boots over tight jeans. Her T-shirt was low-cut, he noticed that too, but he would hardly call it ‘sex siren’.
‘She’s obviously on a manhunt,’ Sally went on judgementally, and Jake couldn’t help but feel sorry for Natasha. Relatively new to the village, she’d moved here after marrying Michael Jameson, who ran Apple Tree Farm. The tongues had started wagging the minute she’d arrived, the fact that she was fifteen years younger than Michael and didn’t tend to dress in clothes suitable for hop-picking fuelling the gossip. Speculation was rife that she was only after his money. Jake guessed she would be on the receiving end of the tittle-tattle whatever she wore. A pretty woman with a good figure was a prime target for jealousy, he supposed.
‘Question is,whichman?’ Sally pondered, her eyes roving derisorily over Natasha again. ‘I’d gird your loins if I were you, Jake.’ She looked amusedly back at him. ‘She’s definitely making fluttery eyes in your direction. She obviously knows a good thing when she sees it.’
Glancing away, Jake shook his head. When he looked back at Emily, her eyes were shooting venom-loaded daggers at him and Natasha both. ‘Obviously,’ she said, her voice strained as she scooped her bag up from under the table.
‘Emily, hold on.’ Bemused, Jake reached for her arm as she turned to walk past him, eye contact now nil.
‘I’m busy.’ Emily pulled away from him. ‘I’m sure you have important things to attend to as well, don’t you? Like impressing fluttery-eyed women with your rubber-duck-saving skills?’
‘Oh dear. I’ve obviously put my foot in it,’ Sally said worriedly, standing alongside Jake as he watched Emily walk away. ‘You haven’t, have you? Been trying to impress fluttery-eyed women?’ She looked pointedly from him to Natasha and back.
‘Not funny, Sally.’ Jake sighed tiredly.
Six
Emily
She was being absurd. Risking a full-on argument with Jake over an email that had probably been sent by some nasty individual who was quite clearly jealous of what she and Jake had together. The past was the past. Ancient history. They were a family now and theywerea team. Sally had been right. They worked together, laughed together. Or at least they had until recently. They’d always been there for each other. She was being completely irrational. If she carried on like this, it would be a sure way of driving a wedge between them, which was obviously the aim of the email sender.
She would talk to him. She would have to. If she didn’t, her suspicion would eat away at her and she would end up driving him away again. Her heart skipped a beat as she imagined it. And then another when Jake’s foot slipped as he waded about in the water, causing him to stumble. He wasn’t concentrating, busy watching her watching him, no doubt wondering why she was being so horrible to him.
She breathed a sigh of relief as, planting a hand behind him, he saved himself, the crowd cheering him on as he hauled himself up and reeled in a meandering duck to steer it back into line. She couldn’t fail to notice Natasha, whose breasts were in danger of spilling over her top as she leaned over the bridge just ahead of Jake.
Jake glanced up at her when the woman cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, ‘Go the good doctor!’, making sure to attract his attention. He looked away quickly enough, though, Emily noted, another surge of relief washing through her, concentrating instead on the slippery terrain underfoot.
He’s not interested.She tried to resist finishing her thought withyou trollop.It was plain that the woman was interested in him. It was also clear that Natasha Jameson had to be the owner of the email address beginning ‘nja123’. She was one of the female patients Tom had mentioned who had transferred from his list to Jake’s, clearly preferring to disclose her most intimate details along with her anatomy to someone young and good-looking. Recalling how she’d turned up for her last appointment wearing much the same look-at-me outfit she was wearing now, Emily felt her green-eyed monster unfurling dangerously inside her again.
She watched as Natasha pulled herself away from the bridge to head along the road and pick her way precariously down the slope to the riverbank in her high-heeled leather boots. And then laughed in disbelief as, acting more like one of the children she’d squeezed in between than an adult, the woman clapped her hands gleefully and shouted, ‘Oh well done, Jake!’, as if he were herding wild buffalo rather than inanimate plastic ducks.
Feeling miserable and dowdy by comparison, Emily moved from where she was standing on the road just before the bridge. It was possible Natasha wasn’t aware she was here, watching her. Deciding to make sure she realised, she followed her, heading down the slope after her in her unsexy rubber flip-flops.
She was almost at the foot of the slope when her ankle turned over, a sharp squeal of pain escaping her as she pitched helplessly forwards. It was a squeak compared to the shriek Natasha let out as Emily lurched into her, sending her plunging into the icy-cold river.
Assaulted by a petrifying sense of déjà vu, Emily stared, horrified, down at the woman. And then it was as if the world had slowed down, the alarmed cries of those around her receding as she was sucked back to another time, another place, standing waist deep in murky water, another woman frantically thrashing before her; floundering as her muscles cramped and her efforts grew weak. There was someone there. Memories she’d pushed to the deepest recesses of her mind crept back. A figure darting through the foliage.
She heard herself shouting, ‘Help! Help!’ Over and over she shouted, wading further out, mud sucking at her feet, twisted metal tugging at her clothes. Minutes later, minutes lost, she saw someone on the canal bridge. A glimpsed silhouette. A man, backing away. Was he coming down? Why wasn’t he coming down to help? Where was he?‘Help her!She can’t swim! Please …’ She heard someone screaming, a terrified, heart-jolting scream that came from the soul. Emily wasn’t sure whether it was her. Had it been? Her mind hovered somewhere between then and now. She tried hard to remember, snapped her gaze back to the water.
Natasha.She wasn’t moving.
Emily’s chest constricted with confusion and fear. She wasn’t flailing. She was floating, face down. Seeing the thin trickle of crimson bleeding into the water, a tight lump clogged her throat. She wasn’t conscious. The jagged rocks …
She’d hit her head.Oh dear God!‘Someone help her!’ she cried, her stomach knotting with panic as the man next to her scrambled into the river.Get her out, Emily prayed silently as another man plunged in after him.Please get her out.
