Christmas Magic In Heatherdale. Abigail Gordon

Melissa, this is Julian Tindall.’

      Ryan noticed that she was looking a different person altogether today, dressed in smart clothes and with her hair and make-up perfect. She was quite beautiful in a restrained sort of way.

      As Melissa shook hands with Julian she was aware of him sizing her up and immediately had him pegged as an attractive, dark-eyed flirt.

      ‘So when do you want to start?’ Ryan asked, ‘Tomorrow perhaps?’

      ‘Er, yes, if that’s all right with you.’

      ‘Certainly, if you’re available,’ he replied.

      She had never felt more ‘available’ in her life. He knew she was out on a limb here in Heatherdale, that apart from getting her house in order there was no one who cared a jot about her. Why wait to begin this job of a lifetime?

      Melissa wished that there was someone to share her good news with, but the days were gone when she’d had a loving father, an attentive fiancé, and lots of friends to communicate with.

      Her glance rested briefly on the house next door where she’d been welcomed into the home of a stranger and had been reluctant to accept his hospitality on a dark and lonely night. Ryan Ferguson must have thought her some sort of ungracious oddball.

      The lights were on, which was not surprising as his children would be home from school by now and being looked after by his housekeeper. Melissa wondered again what had happened to their mother.

      Whatever it was, the two of them had seemed happy enough until they’d discovered she was coming to live next door. Then had come the protest about it being haunted and she’d tried not to smile at their childish imaginings.

      As afternoon turned into evening she saw there was no car outside so obviously Ryan wasn’t home yet, and as she began to prepare a snack sort of meal, which was becoming the norm since life had become so drab and disillusioning, she hugged herself at the thought of tomorrow.

      Ryan had phoned home to tell Mollie he would be late due to a seriously ill child with bacterial meningitis that he wanted to try to get stabilised before he left her in the care of the night staff.

      It wasn’t the first time he’d been late home because of his job and it wouldn’t be the last, and on such occasions he was very grateful for Mollie’s presence in their lives. She lived alone just down the road from them, having lost her husband from heart failure some years previously and was happy to be of use to him and his children to such an extent.

      The girls were in bed by the time he arrived and after a brief chat and a cuddle he left them sleepy and contented to go downstairs to have the meal that Mollie had kept warm for him.

      She wished that his life was less stressful, but knew it had been his choice to parent single-handedly after his wife’s death. She admired him for the way he cared for his children. Yet she couldn’t help wishing that someone would come along who would make Ryan realise what he was missing, that Beth would not have wanted him to be alone for the rest of his life, always involved with work or family when it came to the social life of the town and its hospital.

      ‘I’ve found a new registrar to lighten our load at the hospital,’ he told her as she placed the food in front of him.

      ‘That’s good!’ she exclaimed. ‘Another man, is it?’

      ‘No, it’s a woman. Actually, someone you know.’

      ‘That I know?’

      ‘Yes, it’s Melissa from next door. She has a degree in paediatrics and she joins us tomorrow. What do you think of that?’

      ‘I’m amazed, but what a good thing for both of you that she has found employment so quickly and that your stresses will be lighter. It’s as if her coming to live in Heatherdale was meant to be.’

      Ryan smiled. ‘Don’t get too carried away, Mollie. I only found out about her qualifications last night and offered her the job on condition that she fits the bill, so it will be probationary to begin with.’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ Mollie agreed, thankful that something was going right for him for once.

      The blood tests and lumbar puncture had shown that little Georgia had indeed got bacterial meningitis and he’d explained to her distraught parents that she was going to be given large doses of antibiotics that he’d arranged for her to have intravenously in the hope of preventing the dreaded illness increasing its hold on her.

      When he’d eventually left the hospital it had been with the determination to ring the ward later for a report on her progress as the next few hours would be crucial.

      The answer was what he’d hoped for when he did. His small patient was regaining consciousness and her horrendously high temperature was coming down, so with Mollie having returned home and Rhianna and Martha asleep, Ryan decided to spend the rest of the evening with a medical journal that had been languishing on the back seat of his car for a few days.

      When he went out to get it he saw that the house next door was in darkness and he observed it thoughtfully. What was the bet that Melissa was having an early night so that she would be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow?

      He supposed it could be said that it hadn’t been a good idea to offer her a job working with him most of the time, but discovering that she was in paediatrics had been too good a chance to miss in his busy working life. He went back into the house in a thoughtful mood and with the feeling that maybe he needed to cool it where she was concerned.

      It was an eight o’clock start for day staff on the wards and the next morning Melissa watched as Ryan kissed his children goodbye with Mollie in attendance, and drove off.

      As the taillights of his car disappeared she followed him at a distance, having no wish to be on the last minute on her first day at the hospital.

      Today could or could not be the beginning of a new life. A life on a lower level than before maybe, when the envious had called her ‘golden girl’, but at least she would have some dignity, wouldn’t be an object of pity or sly smirks.

      In the short time that she’d been in the house she had been aware that something strange was happening. The children next door had said it was haunted and she wasn’t going to go along with that, but one thing she did feel was that the grandmother she had never really known was somewhere near, content that the one person she had always wanted to live in her house had arrived.

      Miserable and lonely she may be, but she was there in the house that had been bequeathed to her all those years ago because the old lady had foreseen what the future might hold for her pleasure-loving son’s child. Today Melissa was about to take the first step towards becoming a working member of the community.