Someone famous once said that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. From the moment I'd arrived in Portwenn – hell, from the moment I'd been unable to perform that simple operation in London years ago – I'd wanted more than anything to once again be a vascular surgeon.

And now that I had that thing I wanted for so long, now that I'd proven that I again could be the surgeon I'd once been, I was finding the adage to be true.

"But you do enjoy being a doctor," Louisa was asking, "Don't you?"

My response was automatic. "Of course I do." I couldn't even imagine myself doing anything else.

"What do you like about it? Why do you like being a doctor?"

What's with the twenty questions? I almost snapped at her then calmed myself. If I were ever to sort out my conundrum, these were questions I'd have eventually to answer.

Nonetheless, the question was annoying and I answered in the petulant manner I often used with my ignorant patients. "People come to me with medical complaints – with illnesses or injuries – and I treat them." It was that simple. "Those whom I can help that is," I added, thinking of Ethan Brown and Bobby Richards, for whom I'd been able to do nothing at all.

"What was special about being a surgeon – other than the thing with your dad?"

That was easy. "People who require vascular surgery are generally very ill. My skill often meant the difference in the patient living or dying. It's a gift that quite frankly is wasted treating the common cold and pulling snotty peas from children's noses. Which is how I seem to spend most of my days here."

Months ago at the castle I'd told Louisa that I'd stay in Portwenn for her and James Henry and, since that day had been more or less content to while away my days as the local GP. The success of Morwenna's surgery had unexpectedly opened up a world of possibilities. Everyone, including me, seemed to assume that because I could be a surgeon again, I would be a surgeon again.

"Martin, just because you can do something doesn't mean you must do it."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" I was beginning to regret getting being dragged into this conversation.

"What if you had an exceptional singing voice?" she asked.

I gave her an annoyed look. "I don't."

"But if you did. What if you could be the next Pavarotti but instead wanted to be a doctor? Would that mean you would still have to be an opera singer?"

This was a stupid conversation. "Of course not."

"So why must you be a surgeon if that isn't what you want to be?"

"For God's sake, Louisa! There's a difference between saving lives and entertaining tuxedo-clad philanthropists." A difference she clearly couldn't comprehend.

"Martin, you just finished telling me that, if you hadn't been trying to prove yourself to your father you might never have become a surgeon in the first place."

I nodded, my eyebrows pinching together. That much was true.

"And along the way," she continued, "you found you were good at it. Exceptional, in fact. That doesn't mean that you're required to do it forever if it's no longer what you want to do."

"But when I operated on Morwenna, it felt right, even good," I admitted. "What I was meant to do."

"Because you were performing vascular surgery or because you were saving Morwenna's leg?"

"Aren't they the same thing?"

She shook her head with a knowing smile. "When you went to see Morwenna in hospital yesterday, was it as her surgeon or her GP?"

"I'm her doctor," I said simply. I'd never even thought about the distinction.

"Yes, you're her doctor. And the doctor to everyone in this village."

I remembered the conversation with my father several years ago. "I'm responsible for the healthcare of this community," I'd said at the time. A duty I took very seriously then, and a responsibility I could never seem to avoid or escape.

I couldn't even drive out of the village for the last time without stopping for that stupid dancing teacher. When the disastrous Dr. Dibbs wouldn't examine Joe Penhale's genitals, I'd done it. And when her short reign as village GP ended, I'd postponed my surgical career and stepped in to replace her – for a few days, then a few weeks, then a few months. And now?

"Martin, you've proven you can be a surgeon again. The question is whether you want to."

It was a question I never thought I'd need to answer. And it was more complicated than even Louisa realized. If I stayed as a GP, I'd forever have to answer to surgeons, such as my father, for whom GPs were a lesser form of existence. It had been hard enough when I could no longer be a surgeon; to admit that I had subsequently chosen not to be one – regardless of my reasons – would provide an endless source of ridicule.

More importantly, I needed to determine whether I could simply pick up my scalpel and take up where I'd left off. What I hadn't told Louisa – hadn't told anyone – was that Morwenna's operation had made me painfully aware that I'd indeed been away from theatre for more than five years, an eternity in surgery. I'd been able to push through her procedure only because I'd done it so many times before. And then, when it was complete, when I knew I'd done all I could within the bounds of my skill, I'd walked into the lavatory and heaved up bile.

This time it wasn't the sight or smell of blood that caused me to be ill. I was sick about what might have passed me by. Watching White and the surgical registrars had shown me that going back wouldn't be as easy as simply walking into theatre every day. There were new instruments, new techniques, new procedures, new ways of doing things that I'd only read about in the journals. There was no doubt I'd be the best vascular surgeon in Cornwall, but was that good enough? And how long until the next whiz kid came along and exposed my weaknesses?

I stared down at my hands, large hands with carefully trimmed nails, the same hands that had saved countless lives in the operating theatre and that now . . . "I thought I did," I replied honestly to Louisa's question. "I thought that regaining my surgical abilities would be all that I needed."

"And?"

"I don't know!" It's the same thing I'd told Parsons and the fact that everyone was asking me that question was getting in my nerves. My current situation seemed almost worse than when I'd developed my hemophobia in the first place. Miserable as I was at that time, I'd had little choice in deciding to retrain as a GP. Now, the choice of whether to continue my medical career as a surgeon or a GP was entirely up to me.

"Martin, you don't have to get angry."

"I'm not angry!"

"Then why are you shouting at me?"

My voice, I realized, had been rising. I took a deep breath and blew it out. This mess wasn't Louisa's fault; of course, it wasn't really mine either. Damn fate – or whatever it was.

I tried a different tack. "Would it make you happy if I were to stay here in Portwenn as the GP?" I was pretty sure I knew what her response would be, so I was surprised when she didn't answer immediately.

"Of course I'd like for you, for us, to stay here. It's my home and, in many ways, your home too. But only under one condition."

I frowned. "What's that?"

"That staying here and being the GP is what you really want to do. You've been miserable for the last nearly five years—"

"I have not!" I replied indignantly.

"Well, you could have fooled me – and everyone else in this village, for that matter." It was her turn to sigh and lean back against the sofa. "Martin, I know you agreed to stay in Portwenn for James Henry and me. But your surgery and this village can't be the confines of your prison. In the long run, you'll end up resenting us for keeping you from what you need to do.

She was right. With Louisa and James Henry I'd achieved a level of personal happiness that I never thought possible. While I'd hoped that would make my job as GP more palatable, had it? Could I be content to spend my days treating hives, hypertension, and hypochondria if the end of each day was spent with the two people I loved most in this world?

Louisa had posed the right questions. She wasn't, however, the one to help me find the answers. That would require another visit to Truro.

Author's Note:

The "someone famous" who once said "Having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting," was Mr. Spock in the Star Trek Original Series episode "Amok Time." While I can't surmise whether DM ever watched Star Trek, poetic license lets me believe he at least would have heard the phrase.