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Chapter 24
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The Ultimate Loser Chapter 1
The waiting room had been packed with patients waiting to see the doctor that Saturday morning.It was January in Mystic Falls when the summer was at its peak, and Mystic Falls was known for its extreme temperatures. But Elena Gibson succeeded in projecting an image of cool, calm professionalism in her nurse’s uniform.Rachel Robert was the last patient in the waiting room as at lunch break. Elena had just finished attending to her. She was a woman in her sixties with grey hair combed back into a neat bun. She was engrossed in the daily papers, when she looked up to find Elena’s eyes resting on her, she closed the papers she had been paging through and placed it on the table beside her chair.‘I’ve sold Rose Garden’, she said chattily, but there was a deep sadness in her eyes. ‘Mike and I never had any children and there is no point in staying alone at the farm now that he is no longer alive’.Elena Gibson’s greatest weakness as a nurse had always been her inability to distance herself
The Ultimate Loser Chapter 2
Elena’s temples were pounding when the consulting room door closed behind Lady Mint’s ample figure, but she sat down behind her desk and tried to concentrate on the things she still had to do before she could go home to her safe little cottage in the outskirts of the town.Safe? The word mocked her ruthlessly. How safe was she going to be with Stephan Lynch owning a farm in the district?Dr Cleave, in his early fifties, emerged from his consulting room half an hour later, and Lady Mint was clinging to his arm as if she was reluctant to let go of the man who had been her doctor and her friend for so many years. She said a tearful goodbye, and Elena had a lump in her throat when she followed the elderly doctor back into his consulting room where he slumped into the leather armchair behind his desk.‘It’s been quite a morning’, he sighed tiredly, taking off his gold-rimmed spectacles and cleaning them vigorously with his white linen handkerchief before he put them on again, and gestured
The Ultimate Loser Chapter 3
Maple trees lined the almost deserted main street, and flowers in window bowls had withered in the heat of the sun. Mystic Falls was a quiet, and unpretentious little town. Progress and civilization had almost passed it by until they had started delving for coal four years ago on an open tract of land ten kilometers out of town. The influx of miners and their families had necessitated the erection of a school and a well equipped hospital, but the peace and tranquillity had somehow remained undisturbed.Elena reduced her speed to a crawl as she drove her car into the narrow lane that led to her cottage. The gravel lane continued past her cottage , curving and twisting down among the tall maple trees towards the river where the local residents occasionally spent their weekends playing in the rushing waters, or picnicking beneath the shady trees.She unlocked the door of her thatch-roof cottage a few minutes later, and walked down the short passage to her bedroom where she flung her handb
The Ultimate Loser Chapter 4
The whistle on the electric kettle went off like a siren, jolting Elena back to the present, and for a few minutes she busied herself making a small pot of tea, but the memories of the past came rushing back to the fore when she sat down at the well scrubbed wooden table with her cup of coffee in front of her.She did not think that she would ever forget the day, when she was told her grandmother had cancer. The doctor had given Lucy Landry a year to live, and, with special treatment, perhaps two or three. Elena had suddenly found herself in a position where she had to make the most difficult decision of her life. She had loved Stephan with her life, and she desperately wanted to marry him, but she could not go away with him and leave the woman who had raised her since she was six after the tragic death of her parents. Her parents had been killed by a drunk driver at a traffic intersection on their way to pick her up from her granny’s. Since then, her life changed, and Lucy became her
The Ultimate Loser Chapter 5
There was nothing strange about Stephan’s buying a farm. Many professional men possessed farms these days, and they used them as a retreat from their pressurized lives in the city, but life had in some co-incidental way guided Stephan to choose Mystic Falls to buy a farm. Why? Oh, God, why? It had to be sheer coincidence. No one would have told him where she lived; Damien would have kept her secret, and there was also no reason to suspect that Stephan would go to any great length to meet her again. Not after what she had done to him.Dear God, she had no choice! Stephan did not know that, and she wondered what his feelings were when he thought of her. If he ever thought of her.Elena changed into an old pair of jeans and a faded polo. Her headache was subsiding, and she had always found it therapeutic to work in her small garden. Barefoot, and with a dilapidated old straw hat planted firmly on her head, she went down on her knees in her flower garden to loosen the soil between the see
The Ultimate Loser Chapter 6
‘What’s happening on Sunday? She asked warily.‘You’re invited to lunch.’ His green gaze sparkled with amusement when she relaxed visibly. ‘ Rosalyn is in the mood to roast a leg of lamb, and we need someone to help us eat it.’‘Rosalyn always does a marvelous roast, and nothing on this earth is going to prevent me from sharing it with you.’ Elena smiled at him and shifted her fears and problems aside for the moment. ‘Thank you for the invitation, and tell Rosalyn that I gladly accept.’The shrill ringing of the telephone interrupted them, and Dr Cleave got up to follow Elena when she went into the waiting room to answer it.‘It’s Roxanne from the Maternity,’ she informed him with her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘ Mrs Charlotte is in the final stages of labor.’‘Tell her l’m on my way, ‘he said, striding briskly into his consulting room to collect his stethoscope and car keys.Elena passed on Dr Cleave’s message, and he had already left the building when she replaced the receiver.The r
The Ultimate Loser Chapter 7
Elena had not dared to ask herself that question during all the restless hours she had spent fretting about the possibility of meeting Stephan again, but suddenly she was startled into taking a moment to reflect on her feelings. Was she still in love with Stephan?‘I wish I could give you a precise "yes" or "no" answer, but I can’t,’ she confessed at length, rising to place her cup in the tray and walking towards the window to stare blindly across the sun-washed garden with its colorful array of shrubs and flowers.‘I knew five years ago that I had to shut him out of my life, and I’ve been working at it ever since then. I would be lying if I said I’ve never thought about him. I’ve thought about him often, but always with the knowledge that he belonged to my past, and to have him suddenly thrust into my present is something that really frightens me.’Are you afraid that you might find out that you still love him? Rosalyn asked.‘I’m not sure what I am afraid of,’ Elena replied candidly
The Ultimate Loser Chapter 8
Children played in the park alongside the municipal offices. Elena could hear the shrill, excited voices as she drove past, and she could not help wishing that she was a child again. Childhood had been such a carefree time for her, but growing up had meant facing problems, making decisions, and she had not always found solace in the conviction that she had made the right choice.Elena drove on through the quiet streets. There was no sense in speculating about what she might have done if she had to have her life again, and she sighed heavily when she finally turned off on to the narrow lane which led to the river.She reduced her speed and changed down to a low gear to drive slowly past the row of familiar cottages. She was nearing the final bend in the lane when a red, low-slung vehicle appeared as if from nowhere directly ahead of her, and it was bearing down on her at a breakneck speed. There was no time for contemplation, she had to avoid a collision, and she reacted instinctively
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