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intact right up until the time they had both been due to enrol in the family medicine training programme when Greg had started his run in intensive care. Greg's change in ambitions had begun gradually but had gathered momentum. The plan hadn't been abandoned exactly. Just modified. Sophie could still be a GP, could still work part time when the children came along, but Greg would stay at the hospital. He couldn't bear to give up the excitement and challenge of dealing with the critically ill.
    It had been a huge disappointment for Sophie. She'd tried to adjust. She'd thought she'd been successful. She could still be happy in general practice even if she wasn't married to her professional partner. It didn't matter that Greg's ambitions didn't quite match the person she'd thought she'd known so well. It didn't matter that he wasn't exactly like...
    Like Oliver Spencer. Committed to community medicine. Caring for the people who weren't critically ill. People who sometimes needed a holistic approach to their health care. Someone who recognised die importance of his position and wasn't remotely bothered by the low ranking many specialists bestowed on general practitioners.
    Damn Oliver Spencer! Sophie refilled her wine glass but then set it down on the bench beside the now wilting roses. She rubbed at the empty space on her finger created by the absence of her ring. It was definitely Oliver Spencer's fault. He was exactly what Greg was supposed to be. Or at least become. The fact that he was also a very attractive person was only a secondary consideration. Wasn't it?
    Sophie groaned aloud. It couldn't be any sort of consideration now. As far as Oliver Spencer was concerned, she was getting married on July twenty-fifth. Sophie had moved herself up from the status of a happily engaged woman. Now she had stepped into the blushing bride-to-be category.
    A bride-to-be whose main reason to blush might be in trying to find an explanation for her missing engagement ring.
     

CHAPTER THREE
    It was no big deal.
    Sophie would simply tell the truth. Well, not quite all of it. She couldn't go as far as confessing having simply invented a fictitious wedding date. She had her story in place by the time she parked outside St David's Medical Centre on Tuesday morning.
    I rang Greg to discuss the wedding arrangements, she would say, and we had a long talk. Would you believe we decided that we didn't really want to get married after all?
    It bothered Sophie considerably that it would take another lie to cover up the first. Tangled webs and all that, she warned herself. She could imagine the surprise with which her colleagues would greet her news. Perhaps if she told Toni first then the news could filter through and they could all have a chat about it when she wasn't there.
    Janet would look sympathetic but wise. Her romances always seemed to end in disaster. Toni would be disappointed. At thirty-three, St David's practice manager had never been married and didn't appear to have anyone special in her life, and she absolutely loved weddings and babies. There was a noticeboard in her office area plastered with photographs that the centre's patients had given her over the years. Gurgling babies and happy bridal parties. And cats. Sophie and many of their patients knew that Toni had two Burmese cats she was very fond of. They assumed she would be just as interested in their pets as in their family celebrations and additions. She was, too. Toni had a very warm personality and seemed to take great pleasure in involving herself with the lives of others. Yes, Toni would be disappointed.
    Josh would probably congratulate her on her maturity. He would probably congratulate himself as well, for having dispensed such good advice which she had obviously taken to heart. And Oliver? How would Oliver react? Would the teasing which had hinted at how smitten Oliver Spencer was with his registrar cease now that the safety net of her unavailability had gone? Or would it