Page 37 of Welcome to the Cornish Country Hospital

‘No, I was just going to ask if you’d had a chance to speak to Richard.’

‘Not yet. He put a note through my door the day after Connie told him everything, saying he was going to stay with a friend in Devon and that I should contact John, in the farm office, if there are any problems with the cottage while he’s gone. So I don’t know if he’s got any idea that I’m the same Charlie that Connie told him about.’

‘It must have been a lot for him to take on board, and it’s probably for the best that he’s taking a few days away. He might be able to see things a bit differently when he’s had a chance to process everything.’

‘I hope so.’ Charlie sighed. ‘It’s awful seeing Connie so cut up and I know she’s hoping he’ll get in touch when he’s calmed down. Talking of getting in touch, someone is clearly trying to get hold of you.’

Danni’s phone had pinged for the fourth time since they’d come back out of the bedroom, but when she lifted it up she pulled a face. ‘The last three notifications are all messages from a dating site I was on, asking me if I want to renew my trial membership, because it runs out at the end of the week.’

‘And do you?’

‘No, of course I don’t.’ The resoluteness of Danni’s response surprised even her.

‘I don’t want you to feel you’ve got to say that for my benefit. If I was staying, I’d really be hoping that you wouldn’t want to stay on there. Even then, I know it would be wrong for me to ask.’ Charlie stared at the floor for a moment, before looking back at Danni. ‘But you’ll be kicking yourself if you miss the man of your dreams, because of me. I just don’t want to know when you’ve found him. In fact I might have to block you on all social media forever, so I never have to see you with someone else.’

Charlie laughed, but the truth was that Danni felt the same way. She wanted this little bubble they were in to stay that way, even if it was only in her head.

‘I don’t want to delete the app because of you.’ It was only a half-lie, because Charlie was at least partly responsible for her not wanting to renew her membership. Meeting him had proved she needed to follow her instincts, if things were going to change. Looking through profiles online would never enable her to do that, and the types of men who were interested in her didn’t help. ‘I could show you the sort of matches I get. Then you’ll see why I want to quit. I should have known what I was letting myself in for when I saw the name: Soulmate Selections. Honestly, you need to see it for yourself. I’d rather take holy orders than date any of this lot.’

‘I wish I didn’t have to go.’ Charlie gave a look that made her wish he didn’t have to go either. ‘But as good as Mum and Dad have been about me tracking Connie down, I know it would break their hearts if I stayed down here. Mum had breast cancer last year, and the treatment went well, but I’ll never take having them around for granted again.’

‘You don’t have to explain, Charlie. Like you said, if things were different…’ She couldn’t quite believe how much she wished they were. But maybe if they had been, none of this would have happened. She’d been able to act on her attraction to Charlie because of the fact he wouldn’t be around for long. Otherwise it would have felt like too much of a risk. Knowing it was going to end before it even started felt safer, but that wouldn’t stop her missing Charlie when he was gone. ‘I just hope you aren’t too riddled with guilt when you see what I’m left to pick from.’

‘How does the app work?’ Charlie sat down next to her.

‘Are you going to tell me you’re a dating app virgin?’

‘Guilty.’ Charlie held up his hands, his blue eyes twinkling at the look of shock that must have crossed her face. ‘You’ve seen me in action. I’m awkward enough when I meet a girl I like in the real world, even when there’s no prospect of a date. Imagine what I’d be like if I went on a date with someone I’d met online. I’d embarrass myself and make her wish she’d swiped whichever way deleted my profile from her phone forever.’

‘You’ve got no idea how lovely you are.’ Danni planted a kiss on his cheek, secretly glad that he wouldn’t be signing up to all the apps once he left Port Kara. ‘On Soulmate Selections you have to set up a profile and answer a load of questions, including how your friends would describe you. Then you can put a heart on any profiles you like the look of. If you pay a fee, you get matched with anyone whose profile you’ve selected, as long as they’ve selected yours too. Men can see the matches, but only women can make the first contact.’

‘I feel rejected already.’ Charlie grinned as she opened the app and another reminder to pay a hundred pounds to sign up for the next three months popped up on the front page. ‘Imagine paying for membership and not getting a single match.’

‘Some of them don’t deserve a match.’ Danni shook her head. ‘You can filter by what people are looking for, but I didn’t realise at first. Then, when I looked at my matches, the only ones interested in me were the married ones looking for fun.’

‘All of them?’

‘At least 80 per cent. I’ll show you. We’ll filter the profiles for the married ones first and I’ll like some of them. Then we’ll do the same with some people who actually want a relationship. I guarantee you I’ll get more matches from the married ones.’ Danni applied the filter and started scrolling through. ‘Most of these men are lucky to have wives at all. They should be showering them with affection and thanking their lucky stars for what they’ve found, rather than looking for more on the side.’

‘They should be doing that anyway.’ Charlie caught her eye for a moment and she had to look away. He’d be leaving soon; this was just a stepping stone into whatever came next. Every time she saw Charlie it got harder to remember that he was only ever supposed to help her move on from Lucas.

Danni laughed. ‘You really are too nice for this world.’

‘Now there’s someone who could probably get as many matches as he wants.’ Charlie tried to take the phone from her, but it was like her hand had been welded to it. The face staring back at her was so familiar, she could have described every single detail of it. Danni jumped as Charlie touched her arm. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I know him.’ Swallowing hard, she finally dragged her eyes away from the screen and looked at Charlie. ‘You know I told you about my best friend, whose fiancé was having doubts about whether they should get married?’

‘Yes.’ Charlie’s hand was still on her arm.

‘Well, this is him, in the photo.’

‘Oh God, that’s not good. I would ask you if you’re sure, but I can tell by the look on your face.’ Charlie tried to take the phone again, and this time she relented. ‘Maybe if we look at the profile, we’ll find something obvious that proves it isn’t really him and that someone has just stolen his photo from Instagram and set up a fake profile. Apparently it happens all the time, and they always use photos of guys who look like him. My mum’s best friend, Sheila, got duped by someone like that and ended up sending him ten grand of her savings, before she realised that her American pilot boyfriend was really a woman, living in Glasgow. She’d chatted to “him” over video calls and everything, but it’s scary how good the technology they use to trick people is.’

‘I hope that’s what it turns out to be.’ Danni closed her eyes for a second, silently praying that Charlie was right. But deep down, she already knew he wasn’t. Lucas wasn’t having doubts about his engagement to Esther because he was in love with Danni. He just wanted to do what so many before him had done, and give himself an excuse to cheat. And the worst part of it all was that Esther had absolutely no idea who the man she was about to marry really was.

20

Working a shift with the pre-hospital critical care team couldn’t have come at a better time for Danni. Her mind was working overtime, thinking about the situation with Lucas and Esther, and whether there was a way to approach it that wouldn’t result in losing her best friend. Although the A&E department was almost always busy, there’d be peaks and troughs, which might have given her too much time to dwell on things. But shifts with the pre-hospital team were never quiet. The service had to cover a wide area, filling in the gaps for complex cases when the air ambulance was deployed elsewhere, which meant the chances of having a quiet shift were almost non-existent.

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