Return of Dr Maguire (Mills & Boon Medical) (7 page)

Fred scowled. ‘Has my lad Ian put you up to this? He wants us near him in Inverness, but I’m not bothering them. Anyway,’ he added half-humorously, ‘my daughter-in-law’s a real tyrant—I don’t fancy being in her hands!’

Christa knelt down beside him, took his gnarled old hand in hers, looking into the faded blue eyes, and said gently, ‘They’re worried about you both being so isolated, Fred—we all are. Won’t you try it for a little while, please?’

The old man sighed. ‘Aye, lass, perhaps you’re right. The two of us are getting no younger. I’m a stubborn old fellow, I know. But if you think Bessie needs help then you can go ahead and organise it—but just for a wee while, to tide us over.’

Lachlan appeared with a box of peat sods and put one of them on the fire, where it hissed and sent up a spiral of aromatic smoke.

‘I see you’ve lost a few tiles from your roof, Fred,’ he said. ‘The winter’s coming on and you ought to have them looked at.’

‘Aye. I’ll do it when I’ve time, lad.’

Lachlan laughed. ‘I wasn’t suggesting you should do it. I’ve got a builder coming to Ardenleigh and I’ll send him up to do them for you.’ He put his hand up to stop Fred’s protest. ‘And before you say anything, that’s doctor’s orders!’

Fred subsided back in his chair and shrugged. ‘You’re bullies, all of you!’ he said gruffly, but Christa felt there was a certain relief in his manner, as if he’d realised that it wasn’t such a bad thing to accept help—if only for Bessie’s sake.

Bessie reappeared and handed round cups of tea in pretty little cups of bone china and a plate with warm shortbread covered with sugar. She wouldn’t let Christa help her pour out the tea or distribute the food—however frail, she was determined to show the doctors that they could do things independently. Despite Fred submitting to help, it was going to be difficult for them to accept that someone would be coming in every day to keep an eye on them. They were so used to doing everything for themselves.

‘When Lorna comes in tomorrow morning to look at your hand, she’ll introduce you to the home help she’ll put in place,’ Christa explained. ‘She’s such a nice young girl and will do any shopping for you once a week—and if you need the bed changed or perhaps a casserole done, she’ll do that for you...’

Bessie stood up and said indignantly, ‘I certainly don’t need anyone cooking for us—I hope I can still put a hotpot in the oven!’

‘Consider yourself told off!’ remarked Lachlan with a grin as they left.

* * *

The car did its usual impression of a bucking bronco as they set off again towards the valley below the Logans’ cottage, a rough, grinding noise coming from the engine.

Lachlan raised his eyebrows. ‘It really might be a good idea to get this car serviced soon. It sounds very dodgy to me.’

‘Oh, don’t fuss, it’ll be fine. It’s never let me down yet.’

Christa put her foot on the accelerator and the car seemed to recover for a few miles, but after a renewed series of bangs inside the engine and one or two lurches it came to an abrupt halt.

They both sat in stunned silence for a second, then Lachlan laughed, ‘Never let you down, eh?’

‘It’s Sod’s law, isn’t it? Blast the thing! Are you any good at mending engines?’

‘I can have a go, but on the whole I’m more au fait with the human body. You’d better ring your rescue company.’

Christa scrabbled for her phone and scrolled down to the number. After a few seconds she looked at him quizzically. ‘No signal,’ she reported.

‘I’d better have a look at its innards, then.’ Lachlan climbed out of the car and opened the bonnet, peering into it with a frown, then scratched his head. ‘As I said, I’m more familiar with human intestines than all these pipes and tubes in a car. Perhaps,’ he said hopefully, ‘the plugs need cleaning.’

He delved into the engine, took out the plugs and began cleaning them with his handkerchief, then examined the oil and water levels.

‘See if that brings it back to life,’ he said.

Christa turned the key. There was a spasmodic cough and a brief shaking, then silence.

‘I don’t seem to have cured it,’ remarked Lachlan. ‘We’ll have to wait until someone comes along, I suppose.’ He looked up at the Logans’ cottage, high above them on a hill and the little spiral of smoke drifting over the roof. ‘I could run back there and use their land line,’ he suggested.

‘It’s miles away, and I’m sure someone will come along soon.’ Christa gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I should have had the thing serviced, I know—there just didn’t seem to be a window of time, what with organising the funeral and trying to get a locum...’ She flicked a guilty look at Lachlan. ‘Sorry, I’m certainly not moaning about organising Isobel’s funeral. It’s just—’

‘I know,’ he said abruptly. ‘It must have been difficult, and of course I’m very grateful to you.’ He was silent for a second, looking down at the road, scuffing the dirt with his shoes, then he said roughly, ‘Of course I should have been there to do that. If I’d known earlier that she’d died...’

‘We tried to find you—her solicitor did his best. If you’d left a forwarding address...’

Was it guilt that made his expression change and harden? Whatever it was, Christa had touched a raw nerve. ‘Well, I didn’t leave a forwarding address,’ he said tersely. ‘It’s too complicated to go into now, but if my mother hadn’t been so damn selfish...’

Christa stared at him in surprise. How could he say that about his mother? Surely she had been the most gentle and kindly of people and not deserving the cold-shoulder treatment meted out by her son.

‘Aren’t you being rather harsh on Isobel?’ she said coldly.

Lachlan scowled. ‘You don’t know the circumstances—you see her as a colleague, not as a mother who ruined her son’s life!’

There was a shocked silence broken only by the bleating of sheep in a field across the valley.

‘What on earth do you mean?’ asked Christa bluntly. ‘How the hell did she ruin your life? Isn’t this all rather melodramatic? After all, you’ve had a good job in a wonderful country—all you had to do was send the odd e-mail...’

‘Don’t tell me what I should have done, please.’ His blue eyes glared icily at her. ‘I don’t need lessons in how to be a good son. It’s too late for that.’

Funny how the atmosphere between them had plummeted yet again in the space of half an hour! God, he was touchy! But, then, she might have known that someone like him wouldn’t have taken the slightest hint of criticism. How typical that was of a man—from charming and gentle to hostile and angry!

‘For God’s sake, stop feeling sorry for yourself,’ she snapped. ‘It seems to me you punished a lovely, kind woman for no good reason!’

Steely blue eyes held hers. ‘Then let me tell you the reason that I left this “lovely, kind woman”, as you call her...’ Lachlan’s voice grated with emotion. ‘I was seventeen when I learned that my mother—the woman I looked up to and revered—had been having an affair, betrayed my father and me!’

Christa’s jaw dropped and she stared at him in disbelief. ‘Isobel had an affair?’ she faltered. ‘I can hardly believe it!’

‘My father was not an easy man, he had a quick temper, but he was devastated. She refused to end the affair, and he left. The happy home life I’d thought we’d had vanished. I couldn’t believe a word she said and it was as if the family had never been happy, never been a unit at all. She had put her own selfish desires before that of her young son.’

Christa was stunned into silence then said slowly, ‘I never knew that. She never talked about her life before I came—just the odd remark about you and how well you’d done at med school.’

‘Then,’ he said bitingly, ‘you had no right to tell me what I should or should not have done—you didn’t know the background. Just because you forged a close bond with my mother, it doesn’t mean to say that she was an angel.’

‘I’m surprised you came back at all if that is how you think of her.’ Christa glared at his mutinous face. ‘Perhaps it was only the fact that the practice became available—is that it?’

‘How dare you say that?’ His voice was low and controlled but she could see the fury in his face. ‘I came back because I loved my mother...’

Christa closed her eyes. ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Of course you loved her.’ As usual, she’d opened her big mouth before thinking.

Lachlan pushed a hand through his hair wearily and kicked a stone roughly into the verge. ‘Oh, what the hell, it’s I who should be sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve been unforgivably rude—perhaps it’s because I feel so guilty. Of course I regret like mad not being here when she died, not making my peace with her.’

Suddenly he looked worn and tired, something grief-stricken in his eyes as he gazed unseeingly over the valley, and Christa glimpsed something of his inner turmoil.

She looked at him quizzically and said gently, ‘We seem to be apologising to each other rather a lot! Let’s hope our working relationship goes more smoothly.’

‘Of course it will,’ he said firmly. ‘I know we can work well together. I suppose I’ve still not come to terms with things.’ He sighed, a sudden sweet smile lighting his face. ‘Friends again, then?’

And because he looked so gorgeous and incredibly sad, Christa forgave him, pushing to the back of her mind that she could never have left her own mother in similar circumstances. She smiled back at him, putting her hand up to pat his cheek comfortingly. ‘Of course we’ll be friends,’ she said gently.

He caught her hand and squeezed it. ‘Friendly colleagues, a good idea,’ he murmured.

CHAPTER FOUR

A
GUST
OF
wind with a cold bite to it swirled around them, and a last bright shaft of light from the sun made the loch glitter. The blue skies were disappearing and dark clouds were coming up fast over the hills, changing the scene very quickly from benign to a dramatic, brooding intensity. Christa shivered and hugged her arms round her body, and Lachlan took off his jacket and put it around Christa’s shoulders.

‘Hey, you’re cold. Look, put this jacket on.’

‘I don’t need it, I’m fine!’

He pulled the jacket round her and said firmly, ‘You’re not fine, you’ve gone blue! I don’t want you going down with pneumonia before I’ve even joined the workforce.’

‘I’m made of hardier stuff than that!’ she protested.

He pulled the jacket further around her. ‘Listen to me—I’m a doctor. I can tell when someone’s getting hypothermia without having to take their core temperature.’

Lachlan’s blue eyes danced mischievously into hers, and Christa looked away hastily. She wanted to be friends with him—but not too friendly! She stepped away from him, confused by her mixed emotions. One minute she was enraged by him and his plans to raise money for the house, and the next minute she was filled with sympathy because he obviously felt the loss of his mother so acutely, and the fact he’d missed her funeral. And now he was flirting with her. It was like being on a roller-coaster!

Lachlan’s sexiness and cheeky smile, and the nearness of him, triggered a powerful memory of how it had been when Colin had been near her. She felt a longing to be held and loved again. In her imagination she could almost feel Lachlan’s demanding firm mouth on hers, passionate, urgent, and his muscular body crushing her close to him. A little trail of fire ripped through her body, and for a second she closed her eyes, leaning provocatively towards him. That long-forgotten sensation of desire flickered through her again, bitter-sweet.

She couldn’t encourage him like this—hadn’t they just agreed they’d be ‘friendly colleagues’? She stepped back from Lachlan abruptly and gave an involuntary shiver as if, having stepped to the brink of an abyss, she’d saved herself in the nick of time.

‘There you are!’ he said triumphantly. ‘You’re shivering. I know you’re freezing!’

She looked at him mock-sternly, trying to keep things on a light level. She had to make it clear once again that their friendship was to be a strictly business arrangement, with positively no flirting! Wasn’t that how her relationship with Colin had started—a little mild flirting?

‘I’m actually feeling quite warm.’ She smiled, shrugging off the jacket he’d put around her shoulders and handing it back to him. ‘If you live around here long enough you become quite tough.’

‘I think I guessed that...’ He grinned down at her. ‘I knew from the moment I first saw you yesterday that you were one feisty girl.’

‘What on earth makes you think that?’

‘Oh, I’ve gleaned quite a bit of knowledge over the past twenty-four hours to realise that you’re something very special.’

Those blue eyes were flirting with her again, and she bit her lip. It could be Colin speaking, just the kind of thing he would say, and she was damned if she’d be hoodwinked by that any more! There was something chancy about Lachlan Maguire when he wasn’t in a sombre mood, she concluded—that teasing manner combined with eye-catching looks spelt danger with a capital D!

She shook her head and said in a brisk, no-nonsense voice, ‘You don’t know me at all—just as I know nothing about you. It’s going to be a learning process for both of us over the next few months, and I’m looking forward to a very good friendly working relationship from now on.’

A smiled touched Lachlan’s lips at her formal tone and the slight emphasis she’d put on the word ‘working’.

‘Of course,’ he said urbanely with a little bow of his head.

Perhaps, thought Christa nervously, the penny would drop now that she was only interested in him as a colleague and nothing else—no dangerous flirting! She stole a glance at him, his long, lean body now leaning against the car and his thick hair being blown casually over his forehead. Yes, it was definitely safer to make it quite plain from the outset that their relationship had to be purely professional—friendly maybe, but purely professional!

The sound of a car changing gear as it came up the steep hill floated towards them, and Christa went to the other side of the road to wave it down. Lachlan watched her wryly. They’d crossed swords twice in one afternoon, but he knew there was a spark between them. How sensible, then, that they’d agreed to be friendly colleagues and nothing more—keep that spark at a distance!