Bachelor Cure

PROLOGUE

MIKE LLEWELLYN pushed the dark curls out of his eyes and looked wildly around him. The mountains where he lived had always seemed his friends and, heaven knew, he stood in need of friends now. His bony shoulders trembled, and his hands clenched into fists of helplessness.

Sixteen years old was too young an age to face this. The doctor was here now, but Mike knew in his heart that it was too late.

Over and over, the doctor’s words played in his mind.

‘You should have called me sooner, you stupid boy. Don’t you realize your mother’s dying?’

Yes, he did know, and the accusation was unfair. He’d phoned over and over again, but the doctor’s wife hadn’t helped a bit.

‘He’s out. That’s all I know. Don’t ask me where he is. He’s just out.’

After scores of frantic phone calls, the whole district had started searching, but the locals knew what the doctor would be doing. He’d be somewhere with a woman who wasn’t his wife, and he’d probably be drunk. The valley’s only doctor would have no intention of being found.

In the end the doctor had arrived back at the surgery full of drunken bluster, saying he’d had his radio on all the time and no one had called him.

Liar!

‘The man’s a liar,’ Mike said to the mountains, and tears of frustration and rage welled behind his eyes. He blinked them back but others came fast to replace them.

And at that moment he made himself a silent vow. It was a promise he made to nothing but the mountains, but it was a vow he intended to keep for the rest of his life.

‘I’ll be a doctor myself,’ he swore. ‘I’ll be the best doctor I can make myself and I’ll come back here and work. And that’s all I’m going to do. No woman’s ever going to interfere with my work. There’s no way anyone else in this place will die like this-not if I can help it. No matter what happens now…’

And then he turned to face what was happening inside. He turned to face the emptiness of his future.