Her Hot Highland Doc
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Annie O'Neil
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Chapter One
NO AMOUNT OF torrential rain unforgivingly lashing his face would equal the storm brewing inside of Brodie McClellan. Not today. Not tomorrow. A month of Sundays wouldn’t come close.
And yet he had to laugh...even though everything he was feeling was about as far off the spectrum of “funny ha-ha” as laughter could get. He’d seen death on a near daily basis for the months he’d been away, but this one...? This one had him soul-searching in the one place he’d longed to leave behind. Blindsided didn’t even come close to what he was feeling.
“Hey, Dad.”
He crouched low to the ground, unable to resist leveling out a small hillock of soft soil soaked through with the winter rains. The earth appeared months away from growing even a smattering of grass to cover his father’s grave. It was no surprise that his brother hadn’t come good on his promise to lay down some turf. It was difficult enough to drag him down from the mountains, let alone—
Enough. Callum had a good heart, and he had to be hurting, too.
Brodie dragged his fingers through the bare earth again. Time would change it. Eventually. It would become like his mother’s—the grave just to the left. The one he still couldn’t bear to look at. He moved his fingers behind him, feeling long-established grass. A shocking contrast to the bare earth in front of him.
Yes, time would change it. Just as it had all the graves, each one protected with a thick quilt of green. Time he didn’t have nor wanted to give to Dunregan. Not after all it had taken from him.
He scanned the parameters of the graveyard with a growing sense of familiarity. Brodie had spent more time here in the past fortnight than he had in a lifetime of growing up on the island. Asking, too late, for answers to all the questions he should have asked before he’d left Dunregan in his wake.
Gray. It was all he could see. Gray headstones. Gray skies. Gray stones making up the gray walls. A color washout.
He ran a hand across the top of his father’s headstone. “We’ll get this place fixed up for you, Father. All right? Put in some flowers or something.”
A memory pinged into his head of Callum and himself, digging up snowdrop bulbs when he’d been just a young boy. His father counting out a few pence for each cluster. He swiped his face to clear off the rain, surprised to discover he was smiling at the memory of his paltry pocket money. The small towers of copper pennies had seemed like riches at the time.
“I’ll get you some snowdrops, eh, Dad? Those’ll be nice. And some bluebells later on? For you and Mum. She always loved bluebell season.”
He shook his head when he realized he was waiting for an answer.
“It’s a bit of a nightmare at the clinic. I’ve had to call in a locum. It’ll buy me time until I figure out how to explain to folk that it’s okay. I’m okay.”
He looked up to the skies again, unsurprised to find his mood was still as turbulent as the weather. Wind was blowing every which where. Rain was coming in thick bursts. Cold. It was so ruddy cold up here on Dunregan.
He pressed his hands to his thighs, stood up and cursed softly. Mud. All over his trousers.
For the few minutes it took to drive home Brodie tried his best to plumb a good mood from somewhere in the depths of his heart. He wasn’t this guy. This growling, frowning man whose image he kept catching in the rearview mirror. He was a loving son. Older sibling to a free-spirited younger brother. Cousin, nephew, friend. And yet he felt like a newcomer. A stranger amidst a sea of familiarity. A man bearing more emotional weight on his shoulders than he’d ever carried before.
He pulled the car into the graveled drive in front of the family home, only to jam the brakes on.
“What the—?”
Wood. A huge stack of timber filling the entire driveway. He’d barely spoken to anyone since he’d returned to Dunregan, let alone ordered a pile of wood!
Brodie jumped out of his four-by-four and searched for a delivery note. He found it tucked under a stack of quarter-inch plywood. His eyes scanned the paper. The list of cuts and types of wood all began to slot into place, take on form...build one very particular item.
The boat.
The boat he and his father had always promised they would build.
The one he’d never been able to think about after that day when he’d come home from sailing without his mother.
Another sharp sting of emotion hit and stuck in his throat.
Today.
All he had to do was get through today. And then tomorrow he’d do it all over again, and then one more time until the pain began to ebb, like the tides surrounding the island he’d once called home.
* * *
Kali’s grip tightened on her handlebars.
The elements vs the cyclist.
Game on.
She lifted her head, only to receive a blast of wind straight in the face. Her eyes streamed. Her nose was threatening to run. Her hair...? That pixie cut she’d been considering might’ve been a good idea. So much for windswept and interesting. Windswept and bedraggled was more like it—but she couldn’t keep the grin off her face.
Starting over—again—was always going to be an uphill struggle, but she hadn’t thought this particular life reboot would be so physical!
Only one hundred more meters between Mother Nature’s finest blasts of Arctic wind and a hot cup of tea. Who would win? Fledgling GP? Or the frigid forces of Scotland’s northernmost islands?
Another briny onslaught of wind and sea spray sent Kali perilously close to the ditch. A ditch full of...ugh. One glimpse of the ice-skinned murk convinced her to swing a leg off her vintage-style bicycle and walk. A blast of icy water shot up from her feet along her legs, giving her whole body a wiggle of chills. She looked down at the puddle her ballerina flats–clad feet had landed in.
Splatterville. A shopping trip for boots and a proper jacket might be in order. So much for the romantic idea of tootling along Dunregan’s coast road and showing up to her first day of work with rosy-cheeked panache. There were tulips blooming all over the place in London! How long was it going to take the Isle of Dunregan to catch up?
“Dr. O’Shea?”
A cheery fifty-something woman rode up alongside her, kitted out in a thick waterproof jacket, boots, woolen mittens, hat...everything Kali should’ve been wearing but wasn’t. Her green eyes crackled with mischief...or was that just the weather?
“Yes.” Kali smiled, then grimaced as the wind took a hold of her facial features. She must look like some sort of rubber-lipped cartoon character by now!
“Ailsa Dunregan.” She hopped off her bike and walked alongside Kali, and laughed when Kali’s eyes widened. “Yes. I know, it’s mad, isn’t it? Same name as the island. Suffice it to say, my family—or at least my husband’s family—has been here a long time. My family’s only been here a few hundred years.”
Hundred?
“How’d you know it was me?”
Ailsa threw back her head and laughed. The sound was instantly yanked away by the wind. “Only someone not from Dunregan would—”
Kali struggled to make out what she was saying, her own thoughts fighting with the wind and making nothing comprehensible.
“Sorry?” Kali tried to push her bike a bit closer and keep up the brisk pace the woman was setting.
“I’m the practice nurse!” Ailsa shouted against the elements. “I get all the gossip, same as the publican, and not too many people come to the island this time of year.”
Kali nodded, only just managing to keep her bike upright with the approach of another gust.
“It has its merits!” Kali shouted back when she’d regained her footing.
“You think?” Ailsa hooted another laugh into the stratosphere. “If you’re after a barren, desolate landscape...” she groaned as her own cycle was nearly whipped out of her hands “...you’ve come to the right place!”
As if by mutual agreement they both put their heads down, inching their cycles along the verge. Kali smiled into the cozy confines of her woolen scarf—her one practical nod to the subzero temperature. Compared to the other obstacles she’d faced, this one was easy-peasy. Just a healthy handful of meters between her and her new life.
No more hiding. No more looking over her shoulder. Okay, so she still had a different name, thanks to the heaven-sent Forced Marriage Protection Unit, and there were a boatload of other issues to deal with one day—but right here, right now, with the wind blowing more than the cobwebs away, she felt she really was Kali O’Shea. Correction! Dr. Kali O’Shea. Safe and sound on the uppermost Scottish Isle of Dunregan.
As if it had actual fingers, the frigid tempest abruptly yanked her bicycle out of her hands, sending her into a swan dive onto the rough pavement and the bicycle skidding into the ditch. The deep ditch. The one she’d have to clamber into and probably shred her tights.
She looked down at her knees as she pressed herself up from the pavement. Nope! That job was done already. Nice one, Kali. So much for renaming herself after the goddess of empowerment. The goddess of grace might’ve been a better choice.
“Oh, no! Are you all right, darlin’?” Ailsa was by her side in a minute.
Kali fought the prick of tears, pressing her hands to her scraped knees to regroup. C’mon, Kali. You’re a grown woman now.
If only...
No. Focus on the positives. She didn’t do “if onlys” anymore.
“What’s going on here?”
A pair of sturdy leather boots appeared in Kali’s eyeline. They must go with the rich Scottish brogue she was hearing.
“You pulling patients in off the streets now, Ailsa?”
Kali’s eyes zipped up the long legs, skidded across the thick wax jacket and landed soundly on... Ooh... She’d never let herself think she had a type, but this walking, talking advert for a Scandi-Scottish fisherman type with...ooh, again!...the most beautiful cornflower-blue eyes...
She swallowed.
He might be it. There was something about him that said...safe.
Thirtyish? With a straw-blond thatch of hair and a strong jawline covered in facial hair a few days past designer stubble to match. She’d never thought she was one to go for a beardy guy, but with this weather suddenly it made sense. She wondered how it would feel against her cheek. Reassuringly scratchy or unexpectedly soft?
She blinked away the thought and refocused.
He was no city mouse. That was for sure. It wouldn’t be much of a step to picture him on a classic motorbike, lone wolfing it along the isolated coastline. And he was tall. Well... Everyone was tall compared to her, but he had a nice, strong, mountain-climber thing going on. You didn’t see too many men like that in London. Perhaps they were all hiding out here, in Scotland’s subarctic islands, waiting to rescue city slickers taken out by the elements.
“All right, darlin’?” He put a hand on her shoulder, his eyes making a quick visual assessment, gave a satisfied nod and headed for the steep embankment. “Here, I’ll just grab your bicycle for you.”
Chivalrous to boot!
Strange how she didn’t even know him and yet her shoulder seemed to almost miss his touch when he turned toward the ditch.
Kali’s hormones all but took over her brain, quickly redressing her Knight in Shining Gore-tex in Viking clothes. Then a kilt. And then a slick London suit, just to round off the selection. Yes. They all fit. Every bit as much as his hardy all-weather gear was complementing him now. Maybe he’d just come from an outdoor-clothing catalog shoot.
“Brodie?” Ailsa called to him as he affected a surfing-style skid down the embankment toward the ditch. “She’s no patient! This is Kali O’Shea. The new GP.”
“Ah.”
Brodie came to a standstill, hands shifting up to his hips. His bright blue eyes ricocheted up to Kali, to Ailsa and then back to Kali before he took a decisive step back up the bank.
Kali’s eyes widened.
Was he taking back his generous offer?
Abruptly he knelt, grabbed the bike by a single handle and tugged it out of the ditch.
“Here you are, then.”
In two long-legged strides he was back atop the embankment, handing over the bike as if it were made out of pond scum...which, now, it kind of was. In two more he was slamming the door to his seen-better-days four-by-four, which he’d parked unceremoniously in the middle of the road.
Brake lights on. Brake lights off.
And with a crunch of gravel and tarmac...away he went.
“Oh, now...” Ailsa sent Kali a mortified look. “That was no way...” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen him behaving...”
The poor woman didn’t seem to be able to form a full sentence. Kali shook her head, to tell her that it didn’t matter, nearly choking on a laugh as she did. Her Viking-Fisherman-Calendar Boy’s behavior was certainly one way to make an impression! A bit young to be so eccentric, but...welcome to Dunregan!
She shook her head again and grinned. This whole palaver would be a great story to tell when—Well... She was bound to make friends at some juncture. This was her new beginning, and if Mr. Cranky Pants’ sole remit was to be eye candy...so be it.
She waved off Ailsa’s offer to help, took a hold of the muddy handlebars, and smiled through the spray of mud and scum coming off the spokes as she walked. She was already going to have to change clothes—might as well complete the Ugly Duckling thing she had going on.
“I am so sorry. Brodie’s not normally so rude,” Ailsa apologized.
“Who is he?”
“Don’t you know?” Ailsa’s eyes widened in dismay.
A nervous jag shot through Kali’s belly as she shook her head. Then the full wattage of realization hit.
“If I were to guess we were going to see him again at the clinic, would I be right?”
“You’d be right if you guessed you would see his name beside the clinic door, inside the waiting room and on the main examination room.”
“He’s Dr. McClellan?”
Terrific! In a really awkward how-on-earth-is-this-going-to-work? sort of way.
Kali tried her best to keep her face neutral.
“You’ll hear a lot of folk refer to him as Young Dr. McClellan. The practice was originally his father’s, but sadly he passed on just recently.” Her lips tightened fractionally. She looked at the expanse of road, as if searching for a bit more of an explanation, then returned her gaze to Kali with an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid Brodie’s not exactly the roll-out-the-red-carpet type.”
Kali couldn’t help but smile at the massive understatement.
“More the practical type, eh? Well, that’s no bad thing.” Kali was set on finding “the bright side.” Just like the counselor at the shelter had advised her.
She could hear the woman’s words as clearly as if she’d heard them a moment ago. “It will be difficult, living without any contact with your family. But, on the bright side, your life can be whatever you’d like it to be now.”
The words had pinged up in neon in her mental cinema. It was a near replica of the final words her mother had said to her before she’d fled the family home in the middle of the night, five long years ago. Taking a positive perspective had always got her through her darkest days and today would be no different.
“There’s only a wee bit to go.” Ailsa tipped her head in the direction of an emerging roofline. “Let’s get you inside and see if we can’t find some dry clothes for you and a hot cup of tea.”
Tea!
Bright side.
* * *
Brodie had half a mind to drive straight past the clinic and up into the mountains to try to hunt down his brother. Burn off some energy Callum-style on a mountain bike. He was overdue a catch-up since he’d returned. And it wasn’t as if he’d be seeing any patients today anyway.
She would.
The new girl.
He tipped his head back and forth. Better get his facts straight.
The new woman.
From the looks of Dr. O’Shea, she was no born-and-bred Scottish lassie, that was for sure. Ebony black hair. Long. Really long. His fingers involuntarily twitched at the teasing notion of running them through the long, silken swathe. He curled them into a fist and shot his fingers out wide, as if to flick off the pleasurable sensation.
There was more than a hint of South Asia about her. Maybe... Her eyes were a startling light green, and with a surname like O’Shea it was unlikely both of her parents had been Indian born and bred. He snorted. Here he was, angry at the world for making assumptions about him, and he was doing the same thing for poor ol’ Kali O’Shea.
When he’d received the email stating a Dr. O’Shea was on her way up he had fully been expecting a red-headed, freckle-faced upstart. Instead she was strikingly beautiful, if not a little wind tousled, like a porcelain doll. With the first light-up-a-room smile he’d seen since he didn’t know how long. Not to mention kitted out in entirely inappropriate clothing, riding a ridiculous bicycle on the rough lane and about to begin to do a job he could ruddy well do on his own, thank you very much.
He slowed the car and tugged the steering wheel around in an arc. He’d park behind the building. Leave Kali and Ailsa guessing for a minute. Or ten, given the strength of the gusts they were battling. Why did people insist on riding bicycles in this sort of weather? Ridiculous.
He took his bad mood out on the gear lever, yanking the vehicle into Park and climbing out of the high cab all in one movement.
When his feet landed solidly on the ground it was all too easy to hear his father’s voice sounding through his conscience.
You just left her? You left the poor wee thing there on the side of the road, splattered in mud, bicycle covered in muck, and didn’t lend a hand? Oh, son... That’s not what we islanders are about.
We islanders... Ha! That’d be about right.
And of course his father, the most stalwart of moral compasses, was right. It wasn’t what Dunreganers were about.
He scrubbed at his hair—a shocker of a reminder that he was long due for a trip to the barber’s. He tipped his head up to the stormy skies and barked out a laugh. At least he was free to run his hand through his hair now. And scrub the sleep out of his eyes. Rest his fingers on his lips when in thought...
Not that he’d done much of that lately. A moment’s reflection churned up too many images. Things he could never un-see. So it was little wonder his hair was too long, his house was a mess and his life was a shambles ever since he’d returned from Africa. The only thing he was sure of was his status on the island. He’d shot straight up to number one scourge faster than a granny would offer her little ’uns some shortbread.
He slammed his car door shut and dug into his pocket for the practice keys, a fresh wash of rain announcing itself to the already-blustery morning. The one Ailsa and Dr. O’Shea were still battling against.
Fine. All right. He’d been a class-A jerk.
To put it mildly.
He’d put the kettle on. A peace offering to his replacement. Temporary replacement, if he could ever convince the islanders that he wasn’t contagious. Never had been.
Trust the people who’d known him from the first day he’d taken a breath on this bleak pile of rocks and earth not to believe in the medical clearance he’d received. A clearance he’d received just in time to be at his father’s bedside, where they’d been able to make their peace. That was where the first hit of reality had been drilled home. And then there had been the funeral. It was hard to shake off those memories just a fortnight on.
His brother—the stayer—had received the true warmth of the village. Deep embraces. Claps to the shoulder and shared laughter over a fond memory. Only a very few people had shaken hands with him. Everyone else...? Curt nods and a swift exit.
He blamed it on his time in Africa, but his heart told him different. No amount of time would bring back his mother from that sailing trip he’d insisted on taking. No amount of penance would give the island back its brightest rose.
He had thought of giving a talk in the village hall—about Africa, the medicine he’d practiced, the safety precautions he’d taken—but couldn’t bear the thought of standing there on his own, waiting for no one to show up, feeling more of an outsider than he had growing up here.
He shoved the old-fashioned key into the clinic’s thick wooden door and pushed the bottom right-hand corner with his foot, where it always stuck when the weather was more wet than cold.
The familiarity of it parted his lips in a grudging smile. He knew this building like the back of his hand. Had all but grown up in it. He’d listened to his first heartbeat here, under the watchful eye of his father. Just as he had done most of his firsts on the island. Beneath his father’s ever benevolent and watchful eye.
And now, like his father and his father before him, he was taking over the village practice in a place he knew well. Too well. He grimaced as the wind helped give the door a final nudge toward opening.
Without looking behind him he tried to shut it and met resistance. He pushed harder. The door pushed back.
“You’re certainly choosing an interesting way to welcome our new GP, Brodie.”
Ailsa was behind him, trying to keep the door open for herself and—yes, there she was...just behind Ailsa’s shoulder—Dr. Shea.
Dr. O’Shea?
Whatever. With the mood he was battling, he was afraid she’d need the luck of the Irish and all of...whatever other heritage it was that he was gleaning.
“Hi, there. I’m Kali.” She stepped out from behind Ailsa and put out a scraped hand.
He looked at it and frowned. Another reminder that he should’ve stuck around to help.
She retracted her hand and wiped it on her mud-stained coat.
“Sorry,” she apologized in a soft English accent. One with a lilt. Ireland? It wasn’t posh London. “I’m not really looking my best this morning.”
“No. Well...”
Brodie gave himself an eye roll. Was it too late to club himself in the forehead and just be done with it?
“Ach, Brodie McClellan! Will you let the poor girl inside so we can get something dry onto her and something hot inside of her?” Ailsa scolded. “Mrs. Glenn dropped some homemade biscuits in yesterday afternoon, when she was out with her dogs. See if you can dig those up while I try and find Dr. O’Shea a towel for all that lovely long hair of hers. And have a scrounge round for some dry clothes, will you?”
“Anything else I can do for you?” he called after the retreating figure, then remembered there was still another woman waiting. One not brave enough to shove past him as Ailsa had. “C’mon, then. Let’s get you out of this weather.”
* * *
Kali eyed Brodie warily as he stepped to the side with an actual smile, his arm sweeping along the hallway in the manner of a charming butler. Hey, presto! And...the White Knight was back in the room. Sort of. His blue eyes were still trained on the car park behind her, as if the trick had really been to make her disappear.
Kali quirked a curious eyebrow as she passed him. Not exactly Prince Charming, was he? But, my goodness me, he smells delicious. All sea-peaty and freshly baked bread. With butter. A bit of earthiness was in there, too. An islander. And she was on his turf.
She hid a smile as she envisioned herself helming a Viking invasion ship, a thick fur stole shifting across her shoulders as she pointed out to her crew that she saw land. A raven-haired Vikingess!
Unable to stop the vision, she mouthed, Land-ho! with a grin.
Oops! Her eyes flicked to Brodie’s. His gaze was still trained elsewhere. Probably just as well.
She looked down the long corridor. A raft of closed doors and not much of a clue as to what was behind them.
“Um...where should I be heading?”
“Down the hall and to your left. First door on your right once you turn. You’ll find Ailsa there in the supplies cupboard.”
Brodie closed the outside door and rubbed his hands together briskly, his body taut with energy, as if someone had just changed his batteries.
He had a lovely voice. All rich and rolling r’s and broguey. If he weren’t so cantankerous... She tilted her head to take another look. Solid jawline, arrestingly blue eyes bright with drive, thick hair a girl could be tempted to run her fingers through.
Yup! Brodie McClellan ticked a lot of boxes. He might be a grump, but he didn’t strike her as someone cruel. In fact he seemed rather genuine behind the abruptness.
She envied him that. A man who, in a split second, came across as true to himself. Honest. Even if that honesty was as scratchy as sandpaper. Her eyes slid down his arms to his hands. Long, capable fingers, none of which sported a ring. Huh... A lone wolf with no designs on joining a pack.
She shook her head, suddenly aware that the lone wolf was speaking to her, though his eyes were trained on his watch.
“So...you’ll want to get a move on. I’ll just put the kettle on and see you in a couple of minutes so I can talk you through everything, all right? Doors open soon.”
He turned into a nearby doorway without further ado. Seconds later Kali could hear a tap running and the familiar sound of a kettle being filled.
Note to self, she thought as her lips twitched into yet another smile, civilities are a bit different up here.
None of the normal How do you do? I’m Dr. fill-in-the-blank, welcome to our clinic. Here’s the tea, here’s the kettle, put your name on your lunch if you’re brave enough to use the staff refrigerator, and we hope you enjoy your time with us, blah-de-blah-de-blah.
Dr. Brodie McClellan’s greeting was the sort of brusque behavior she’d expect in an over-taxed big-city hospital. But here in itsy-bitsy Dunregan, when the clinic wasn’t even set to open for another...she glanced at her waterlogged watch...half hour or so... Perhaps he wasn’t too young to be eccentric. She was going to go with her original assessment. Too honest a human to bother with bog standard social niceties. Even though social niceties were...nice.
A clatter of mugs on a countertop broke the silence, followed by some baritone mutterings she couldn’t make out.
Well, so what if her new colleague wasn’t tuning up the marching band to trill her merrily into her first shift? She’d faced higher hurdles than winning over someone who had obviously flunked out of Charm Academy.
Kali leaned against the wall for a minute. Just to breathe. Realign her emotional bearings. She closed her eyes to see if she could picture the letter inviting her to come to Dunregan. She’d been so ridiculously happy when it had arrived. With so much time “at sea” it had been a moment of pure, unadulterated elation. When the image of the letter refused to come, she pulled her phone out of her pocket so she could pull it up from her emails.
The screen was cracked. Shattered, more like it.
Of course it is! shouted the voice in her head. It’s the least you deserve after what you’ve done. The trouble you’ve caused your mother. Your little sister.
She pressed her hands to her ears, as if that would help silence the voice she fought and fought to suppress on a daily basis.
She huffed a sigh across her lips and looked up to the ceiling. Way up, past the beams, the tiled roofing and the abundance of storm clouds was a beautiful blue sky. And this...? This rocky, discombobulated start was one of those things-could-only-get-better moments. It had to be. This was her shot at a completely fresh start. As far away from her father’s incandescent rage as she could be.
“Kali, are you—” Ailsa burst into the corridor. “Darlin’, did Brodie just leave you standing here in your wet clothes? For heaven’s sake. You would’ve thought the man had been raised by wolves!”
* * *
An eruption of colorful language burst forth from the kitchen as Kali eyed the long-sleeved T-shirt from a three-years-old charity run. That and a pair of men’s faded track pants were all Ailsa had managed to rustle up.
“Brodie’s,” Ailsa had informed her.
Her first instinct had been to refuse, but needs must and all that...
Kali stopped for a moment as the soft cotton slid past her nose and she inhaled a hint of washing powder and peat. A web of mixed feelings swept through her as the T-shirt slipped into place boyfriend-style. Over-sized and offering a hint of sexy and secure all at once. She shook her head at her dreamy-eyed reflection in the small driftwood-framed mirror.
It’s a shirt! Get over it.
“When are we going to get this blasted kettle fixed?”
Blimey. Had the walls just vibrated?
“Cool your jets, Brodie. For heaven’s sake, it’s not rocket science. You do know how to make a cup of tea, don’t you?”
Ailsa’s voice whooshed past the bathroom as she went on her way to the kitchen, her tone soothing as the clink and clatter of mugs and spoons filled out the rest of the mental image Kali was building.
“Stop your fussing, will you?” Brodie grumbled through the stone walls.
“Let me have a look,” Ailsa chided, much to Kali’s amusement. Then, after a moment, “I’ll need to get some dressing on that, Dr. McClellan.”
“Oh, it’s Dr. McClellan now I’m injured, is it?”
“Brodie. Dr. McClellan. You’re still the wee boy whose nappies I changed afore you jumped up on my knee, begging me to read you stories about faeries and cowboys over and over, so hush!”
Kali’s smile widened as the bickering continued.
Local Doctor Defied by Feisty Kettle:
Nurse Forced to Mollify GP with Bedtime Stories.
Was that the type of story the local newspaper would run? The population on Dunregan wasn’t much bigger than some two thousand or so people, and if memory served she was pretty sure that number accounted for the population surge over the summer months. The hospitable months.
“For heaven’s sake, Ailsa! Stop your mithering. I don’t need a bandage! It’s not really even a burn!”
“Well, that’s a fine way to treat your head nurse, who has twenty years experience on you, Brodie McClellan!”
Kali chalked one up to Ailsa.
“But it’s a perfectly normal way to treat my auntie who won’t leave well enough alone!”
Brodie’s grumpy riposte vibrated through the wall. Kali was relieved to hear Ailsa laugh at her nephew’s words, then jumped not a moment later when a door slammed farther along the corridor. Crikey. It was like being in a Scottish soap opera. And it was great! No-holds-barred bickering, banter and underneath it all a wealth of love. The stuff of dreams.
Her family had never had that sort of banter—Stop-stop-stop-stop-stop. Kali deftly trained her hair into a thick plait as she reminded herself she had no family. No one to bicker with, let alone rely on. Not anymore.
Turn it into a positive, Kali.
The other voice in her head—the kind one, the one that had brought her out of her darkest moments—came through like the pure notes of a flute.
There’s always a bright side.
Good. Focus on that. Turn it into a positive... Not having a family means I’m free! Unencumbered! Not a soul in the world to care about me!
The familiar gaping chasm of fear began to tickle at Kali’s every confidence.
Okay. Maybe a positive mantra was going to be elusive. For today. But she could do it. Eventually. And realistically there was only one mantra she really needed to focus on:
K.I.C.K.A.S.S. Keep It Compassionate, Kind and Supremely Simple.
It had kept her sane for the past five years and would continue to be her theme song.
She tightened the drawstring on the baggy pants and gave her shoulders a fortifying shake. Who knew? Maybe she could get someone with bagpipes to rustle up a tune!
The piper’s “K.I.C.K.A.S.S. Anthem.”
Hmm. It needed work.
Regardless, the rhythm of the words sang to her in their own way. They were her link to sanity.
She jumped as a door slammed again. Hearing no footsteps, she thought she might as well suck it up and see what was going on out there. No point hiding out in the toilet! In less than thirty minutes she’d be seeing a patient, and it would probably be a good idea to get the lie of the land.
Kali cracked the door open and stuck her head out—only to pull it right back in when Brodie unexpectedly stormed past. If he’d had a riding cloak and a doublet on he would have looked just like the handsome hero from a classic romance.
Handsome?
She was really going to have to stop seeing him in that way. Rude and curt was more like it. And maybe just a little bit sexy Viking.
He abruptly turned and screeched to a halt, one hand holding the other as if in prayer, his index fingers resting upon his lips. His awfully nice lips.
Stop it! You are not to get all mushy about your new boss. Your new, very grumpy boss. You’ve been down that road and had to leave everything behind. Never again.
She stood stock-still as Brodie’s eyes scanned her from top to toe. A little shudder shivered its way along her spine. His gaze felt surprisingly...intimate.
“That’s one hell of a look, Dr. O’Shea.”
As Brodie’s blue eyes worked their way along her scrappy ensemble for a second time Kali all but withered with embarrassment. Snappy comebacks weren’t her forte. Not by a long shot.
“Once I get a lab coat on it should be all right.”
Nice one, Kali.
“Sure.” Brodie turned and resumed his journey to the front of the clinic. “I’ll just get the patient list.”
Kali did a skip-run-walk thing to catch up with his long-legged strides.
“Would you like me to take a look?”
“That’s generally the idea with a patient list.”
Kali blew out a slow breath, her eyes on Brodie’s retreating back as she continued race-walking to keep up with him. Touchy, touchy! She was next to certain he wasn’t angry with her, but there was a bagpipe-sized chip on that shoulder of his.
“I meant your hand.”
Brodie stopped short and whirled around. Kali only just skidded to a halt in time not to run into his chest. Which, given how nice he smelled, wouldn’t have been too bad a thing, but—
“I’d have thought you’d be too afraid.”
“Wh-what?” Kali instinctively pulled back at Brodie’s aggressive response. She’d been afraid before. Terrified, actually. For her life. And she’d survived.
She pressed her heels into the ground. If she could make a last-minute exit out of an arranged marriage under the threat of death she could deal with a grumpy thirtysomething doctor with a self-induced kettle burn.
“I’ve dealt with difficult patients before,” she continued levelly, her eyes on his hand. Meeting his gaze would only increase the heated atmosphere. “I’m sure we’ll come out all right in the end.”
“Difficult patients with Ebola?”
Brodie thrust his hand forward and with every pore of strength she could muster Kali held her ground. She had no idea what he was talking about, but she was not—absolutely, positively not—going to start out her new life fearfully.
“Aren’t you going to touch it?”
He thrust his hand straight into her eyeline—millimeters from her face. What was this? Some sort of hardcore newcomer test? Whatever it was, she was not going to be frightened by Brodie McClellan or anyone—ever again.
* * *
Brodie watched, amazed, as Kali stood stock-still, seemingly unfazed by his ridiculously aggressive behavior. She took his hand in hers, one of her delicate fingers holding open his own as they instinctively tried to curl round the injury. It was the first time he’d been touched by someone outside of a medical exam in weeks, if not months. The power of it struck him deeply.
Kali’s delicate touch nearly released the soft moan building in his chest. He couldn’t—mustn’t—let her see how much this single moment meant to him. He looked at her eyes as they moved across his hand. Diligent, studied. Their extraordinary bright green making them almost feline. More tigress than tabby, he thought.
Moments later, as he exhaled, he realized he’d been holding his breath while Kali was examining him with clinical indifference—examining the burn mark he’d all but shoved directly in her face. It wasn’t a bad burn. His pride had been hurt more than his hand. Her touch had been more healing than any medicine. Not that he’d ever tell her. She’d be off soon. Like all the good things that came into his life. Just passing through.
Her long lashes flicked up over those green eyes of hers meeting his inquisitive gaze head-on. Could she see how strange this was for him? Being treated as if he weren’t a walking, talking contagious disease? No. It ran deeper than that. She was treating him compassionately. Without the stains of his past woven through her understanding of who he actually was.
“That’s all you’ve got?”
“I’m sorry?” Brodie near enough choked at her about-face, bring-it-on attitude.
“Ebola?” She scoffed. “That’s your best shot?”
Now it was Brodie’s turn to be confused. Was she trying to double bluff him?
“I get a bit of hazing, Dr. McClellan. The less than warm welcome, the mocking about this ridiculous outfit. But seriously...?” She snorted a get real snort, took a step back, her hand still holding his, and gave him a smile wreathed in skepticism. “That’s your best shot at getting me to hightail it back to the mainland, is it? Ebola?”
