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Her Hot Highland Doc
Annie O'Neil
He might have the good looks of a modern day Viking, but Dr Brodie McClellan has brooding down to an art. He’s only recently returned to the Isle of Dunregan and already the demons of his past are pushing him to the edge.Running from her own troubled past, this remote posting is heaven-sent for locum Dr Kali O’Shea. And Brodie makes her long to find her true home in Scotland…in her new boss’s arms!


A match made in Scotland
He might have the good looks of a modern-day Viking, but Dr. Brodie McClellan has brooding down to an art. He’s only recently returned to the Isle of Dunregan and already the demons of his past are pushing him to the edge.
Running from her own troubled past, this remote posting is heaven-sent for locum Dr. Kali O’Shea. And Brodie makes her long to find her true home in Scotland...in her new boss’s arms!
Dear Reader (#ulink_7ae8c5c5-deeb-55ac-81c2-a364ed40ae32),
So good to see you here, about to embark on Kali and Brodie’s journey to a Highland HEA. I enjoy writing all my books, but this one really took hold of my imagination in the form of two different radio stories I heard—I’m a bit of a radio and podcast junkie, and soak up stories whenever I’m in the car.
One was a story about an amazing young woman who had been tricked into a ‘summer break’ in her parents’ homeland only to discover it was for an arranged marriage. She was rescued by a group who work with the British Embassy, but on the condition she never see her family again. As you can imagine, that set my wheels turning!
Then I heard another story about some amazing doctors who, during the recent Ebola crisis in Africa, volunteered to go and work with patients under pretty harrowing conditions—only to discover, upon their return, that reintegrating into the patient-doctor world of the UK was a lot trickier than they’d anticipated. Cue more reeling brain cogs!
Those are a lot of extenuating circumstances to deal with! What remains ever-dazzling to me about falling in love, and the power of being in love, is what a person can overcome when they’ve found that special someone. This is one of those stories.
I hope you enjoy Kali and Brodie’s story, and please do feel free to get in touch no matter what you thought! There’s absolutely no need to be shy. I can be reached on Twitter @AnnieONeilBooks (https://twitter.com/AnnieONeilBooks) or through my website email annie@annieoneilbooks.com.
Enjoy!
Annie O’ x
Her Hot Highland Doc
Annie O’Neil


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Books by Annie O’Neil (#ulink_2703f5db-0378-5a2c-9cfd-a4b9dc8dca1c)
Mills & Boon Medical Romance
Hot Latin Docs
Santiago’s Convenient Fiancée
Christmas Eve Magic
The Nightshift Before Christmas
The Monticello Baby Miracles
One Night, Twin Consequences
Doctor...to Duchess?
One Night...with Her Boss
London’s Most Eligible Doctor
Visit the Author Profile page at
millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk) for more titles.
This book goes out to—and I’m stealing her phrase here—the best friend I never met: the marvellous Nettybean. She’s always there for me and I am ever grateful. Thanks, Netts—hope you don’t mind having to go to an inclement Scottish Island for a big slice of gratitude pie! Annie O’ xx
Praise for Annie O’Neil (#ulink_fe0c9829-a7f1-5a10-a161-7e3e97acf6b8)
‘This is a beautifully written story that will pull you in from page one and keep you up late and turning the pages.’
—Goodreads on
Doctor...to Duchess?
Annie O’Neil won the 2016 RoNA Rose Award for her book Doctor...to Duchess?
Contents
Cover (#u62b985ea-2d7e-55c7-bf9a-f61fe03eed6f)
Back Cover Text (#uce9ebafc-b1a2-58ba-ad08-99952c9233c7)
Dear Reader (#ulink_b02e3bf8-d9f1-5923-ab48-203f18be847e)
Title Page (#u4616dace-2671-527e-be82-fce250133d33)
Booklist (#ulink_552cd3a8-955b-549d-983e-6f96409fd533)
Dedication (#uc2135708-50ef-5f0a-acdb-234ec37f26f6)
Praise (#ulink_2729b24f-e53a-5ed1-9860-e2cdf1886200)
CHAPTER ONE (#u2ef797f5-a972-574f-8bee-78860bcc3e78)
CHAPTER TWO (#u6e05c64b-f629-507c-934c-1bca9409e840)
CHAPTER THREE (#ua3600339-d521-5876-9770-e4b29ab63d45)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ua0e8bfaf-af6c-53e7-b9c3-bea3cc715b05)
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?”
CHAPTER TWO (#ua0e8bfaf-af6c-53e7-b9c3-bea3cc715b05)
BRODIE PULLED HIS hand out of Kali’s and received an indignant stare in response.
“What? Now I’m not fit to see to a first-degree burn? I am a qualified GP, I’ll have you know.”
This time there was fire behind her words. She was no pushover. He liked that. Decorum ruled all here on Dunregan and it had never been a good fit for him. It was what had forced him to head out into the world to explore who he could be without That Day branded onto his every move.
Enough with the bitterness, McClellan. You’re not a teenager anymore.
“No, that’s not it at all.” Brodie waved away her presumption, opting to get over himself and just be honest. “I think the booking agency might not have been entirely forthright with you.”
“What are you talking about? Four weeks—with the possibility of an extension. What’s there to know beyond that?” Her forehead crinkled ever so slightly.
“I...” Brodie hesitated, then plunged forward. No point in beating round the bush. “I’ve recently finished my twenty-one-day clearance after three months working in an Ebola hospital. In Africa,” he added, as if it weren’t ruddy obvious where the hospital had been.
Three countries. Thousands dead. He’d wanted to make a difference. Needed to make a difference somewhere—anywhere—before coming back here. And he had done. Small-scale. But he’d been there. A pair of hazmat boots on the ground in a place where “risky” meant that sharing the same air as the person next to you might mean death. Only to come back and face a sea of incriminating looks.
Is this what you had in mind, Dad? Making me promise to work on the island for a year after you’d gone so I could be reminded how much of an outsider I am?
He shook off the thought. His father had been neither bitter nor vengeful. It had been his fathomless kindness and understanding that had driven the stakes of guilt deep into Brodie’s heart.
“Hmm...”
Kali’s green-eyed gaze remained steady apart from a blink or two. Could she see the inner turmoil he was fighting? Filial loyalty over a need to cut loose? To forge his own path.
Kali’s voice, when she finally spoke, was completely neutral. “Guess they did leave that bit out.” She considered him for a moment longer. “I am presuming you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t had the all clear so...it does beg the question: what am I doing here if you’re good to go?”
“Ah, the mysteries of life in Dunregan begin to reveal themselves.” This was the part that rankled. The part where Brodie found himself slamming doors, spilling boiling water and leaving unsuspecting GPs with their muck-covered bicycles by the side of the road on a stormy day.
“Some of—most of the patients are concerned...about being seen by me.” Total honesty? All of them. Fear of catching Ebola from Ol’ Dr. McClellan’s son had gripped the island.
Or...the thought struck him...maybe they had simply preferred his father and were using the Ebola scare as an excuse to refuse his treatment. Now, that hurt.
He cleared his throat. One step at a time.
“Even though you’ve had the all clear?” Kali’s voice remained impartial. She was fact gathering.
“Right. Apparently most folk round here don’t put much faith in the Public Health Office’s green light.” He snorted derisively. “And to think of all the viral infections I’ve treated here. Rich, isn’t it?”
He stopped himself. He was going to have to check the bitter tone in his voice. Yeah, he was angry. But he was hurting much more than he was spitting flames. And to add on moments like these—moments that reminded him why he wanted more than anything to live somewhere else. Oh, to be anonymous!
“I’m going to presume, as someone who has also taken the Hippocratic oath, that you wouldn’t have returned to your practice until you felt well and truly able to.”
Despite himself, he shot her a look. One that said, Obviously not. Otherwise I wouldn’t be so blinking frustrated.
“Don’t shoot the messenger, Dr. McClellan! I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t check with you.”
“Fair enough.”
And it was. It just felt...invasive...being questioned again. And by someone who hadn’t been through the post-Ebola wringer as he had.
Kali might be a fully qualified GP, but her face was unlined by personal history. With skin that smooth, no dark circles under her eyes, excited to be working in Dunregan... She had to be green around the ears.
“What are you? Two...three days out of med school?”
She looked at him as if he’d sprouted horns. The rod of steel reasserted itself.
“Old enough. Apart from which, I don’t really think that’s any business of yours.”
“No.” Might as well be honest. “You just look—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” She all but spat the words out, crossing her arms defensively across her chest. “Baby-faced.”
“Not exactly what I was going to say,” Brodie countered. Arrestingly beautiful would’ve been more accurate. Her smooth skin was entirely unweathered by life, but now that he was paying more attention the wary look in her eyes spoke of wisdom beyond her years.
“Well...” She adopted a tone one might use for toddlers. “I’m a fully fledged grown-up, just like you, so you can rest easy, Dr. McClellan.”
“Brodie,” he countered with a smile.
He was warming to Kali. The more they spoke the more it seemed they might be two of a kind. Quick to smart when someone hit the right buttons. Slow to trust. A well-earned friendship if you ever got that far.
“Well, guess you’re just lucky. Good genes from your parents, eh?”
She stiffened.
More sensitive territory, from the looks of things. Maybe her relationship with her family was as terrific as the one he had with his. One wayward brother, a meddling auntie and a godsend of a niece who’d stepped in at the reception desk when his “loyal” long-term sidekick had flown the coop. Okay...so they weren’t that bad. But right now he was feeling a bit more me-against-the-world than he liked.
“So...you were working in Africa...?”
Score one to Kali for deftly changing the topic!
“Right, sorry.” Brodie regrouped with a shake of his head. “Okay—long story short: I did the work through Doctors Without Borders who—as I’m sure you will appreciate—have some pretty rigorous safety systems in place for this sort of thing. I was lucky enough to be working in one of the newly built facilities. Upon my return to the UK...” he glanced at the date on his phone “...which was about five weeks ago, I went to a pre-identified debriefing under the watchful eye of Public Health England.”
“PHE? I know it.” Kali nodded for him to continue before noticing Ailsa coming down the corridor, her arms laden with patient files.
“Oh, Dr. O’Shea! Glad to see you in some dry clothes. If you’d just like to hang yours on the radiator in the tea room at the back there—where we came in—they should be dry in no time. I’ll see about finding you a white coat as well, but folk don’t stand too much on formality here. What you have on now will do just fine.”
Ailsa squeezed between the pair of them on her way to her office, giving Brodie a bit of a glare as she did. He gave her a toothy grin in return. He knew he was a pain in the bum, but that was what number one nephews were for!
Ailsa Dunregan was a brilliant nurse. And a vigilant auntie. It meant more than he could say that she hadn’t fled the coop like the rest of his staff. Well, the receptionist. Best not get too hysterical.
He returned his focus to Kali. All gamine and sexy looking in his castoffs. Who knew a scrubby T-shirt and joggers could look so...rip-offable?
He gave his head a quick shake. Kali was showing professionalism. Now it was his turn.
“Okay, the clinic is going to be opening soon so—in a nutshell—there’s a twenty-one-day incubation period. I stayed near a PHE-approved facility and did the following: I took my temperature twice a day, called my ‘fever parole officer,’ did a full course of malaria prophylaxis, because malaria symptoms can mimic Ebola symptoms. Any hint of a fever and I was meant to isolate myself and call the paramedics—like that doctor in New York. Who also got the all clear, by the way,” he added hastily.
“Where did you do all this?” Kali asked.
“I stayed in London so that I was near an appropriate treatment center should any of the symptoms have arisen, and I spoke regularly with hospital staff just to triple-check everything I was experiencing was normal.”
She quirked an eyebrow.
“It makes you paranoid. Hemorrhagic fever ain’t pretty.” He checked his tone. Kali hadn’t said a word of judgment. She wasn’t the enemy. Just a GP doing her job. His job. Whatever.
He started over. “Three months in protective gear, vigilant disinfections and then nothing. I’d never realized how often people sneeze on public transport before.” He tried for a nonchalant chortle and ended up coughing. Sexy. Not that he was trying to appeal to Kali on any level other than as a doctor or anything.
“Right.” Kali took back the conversation’s reins before his thoughts went in too wayward a direction. “I take it you’ve spoken with everyone? The islanders?” she clarified.
He swallowed. Not in so many words...
* * *
Kali watched Brodie’s Adam’s apple dip and surge, her eyes flicking up to his in time to see his gaze shift up to the right. So that was his tell.
She was hoping he hadn’t felt her fingers shaking earlier when she had held his palm in hers. Countless self-defense courses hadn’t knocked the infinitesimal tremor out of her hands. But when Brodie had thrown the Ebola grenade into her lap years of medical training and logic had dictated that she’d be fine. Instinctually she knew that she had a jacked-up instinct for survival. It had never come to that, but if she needed to fight for her life she had the skills to give it her all.
“Depends upon what you mean, exactly...by ‘spoken with.’” Brodie’s gaze returned to hers, his fingers dropping some air quotes into the space between them. As their eyes met—his such a clear blue—she wondered that anyone could doubt him. They were the most honest pair of eyes she had ever seen. She felt an unexpected hit of disappointment that she wouldn’t be here in Dunregan longer than a few weeks.
She shook her head, reminding herself they were in the middle of a pretty important conversation.
“So, you’ve not held a town hall meeting or anything like that?”
Just the look on his face was enough to tell her he hadn’t.
“Maybe you’ve had an article in the...what’s the local paper?”
“The Dunregan Chronicle.”
“I’m asking, not telling,” she reminded him when his tone lurched from informational to confrontational. “Have you had anything published? An article? An interview?”
“No, I’ve been a bit busy burying my father, amongst other things,” Brodie snapped, instantly regretting it.
Quit shooting the messenger, idiot!
He gave Kali an apologetic glance. “I thought the ever-reliable gossip circuit on the island would cover all of my bases. Which it did. Just not in the way I’d thought.”
“Look. If it’s all right, I’m going to stop you there,” Kali jumped in apologetically. “I’m really sorry to hear about your father. Now—not that the nuts and bolts of how this island works aren’t interesting—I really need to get a handle on how things work right here.” Kali flicked her thumb toward the front of the clinic. “If you’re happy to meet me after the clinic’s shut I’d love to hear all about it. Your work in Africa,” she qualified quickly. “It sounds fascinating.”
“It was an unbelievable experience. I’ll never forget it.”
Wow! The first person who’d actually seemed interested!
“So...” She gave her shoulders a wriggle, as if to regroup.
A wriggle inside his shirt, with more than a hint of shoulder slipping in and then out of the stretched neckline. A tug of attraction sent his thoughts careening off to a whole other part of his—er—brain? Another time, another place?
Focus, man! The poor woman’s trying to speak with you.
“If I was in your shoes I wouldn’t want me here either. It’s your practice! But I’m here to help, not hinder.”
He nodded. Wise beyond her years. Those green eyes of her held untold stories. He’d been wrong to think otherwise.
“Can we shake on it?” She thrust her hand forward, chin jutted upwards. Not in defiance, more in anticipation of a problem.
He put his hand forward—the one he hadn’t burned—for a sound one-two shake.
“Are we good?”
“Yes, ma’am?” He affected an American accent and gave her a jaunty salute.
Her eyes narrowed a bit.
Okay, fine. He blew that one.
“We’re good. I’ll steer clear of tea duty.”
She furrowed her brow at him in response.
Quit being such a jerk. Like she said, she’s here to help!
She shifted past him in the corridor, leaving the slightest hint of jasmine in her wake. “I should probably go introduce myself up front.”
“Yes—yeah. On you go. Caitlyn’s my niece and is about as much of a newcomer to the clinic as you are.”
“Excellent.” Kali gave him a polite smile. “She and I can forge into unknown territory together, then. And don’t worry about the tea. I’m more of a coffee girl.”
Her tone was bright, non-confrontational.
“We’ve not given you much of a welcome, have we?”
Kali rocked back on her heels with a squelch, not looking entirely sure how to respond until she saw the edges of Brodie’s lips tweak up into a slow but generous grin.
“Ailsa’s great!” Kali shot back with her own cheeky grin. Adding, “I’ve yet to make a decision on the boss man...”
“He’s a real piece of work.” Brodie was laughing now. “But he’s good at his job.”
“I don’t doubt that for a minute.”
And he could see she meant it. He was a good doctor. A little shy on bedside manner, but—
“Oh, and as for that hand of yours—you probably don’t need a bandage, but it might be a good idea to put some topical sulfonamide antibacterial cream on there. Although, as you probably know, some new studies suggest it might actually lengthen the healing time.”
Brodie gave a grin as Kali shrugged off her own advice before tacking on, “I’m sure you know what’s best, Old Timer...” as she pushed through the swinging door into the front of the clinic.
Kali gave as good as she got. Just as well, given his zigzagging moods.
Brodie put his hand to the door to talk Caitlyn and Kali through their intro but stopped at his aunt’s less than subtle clearing of her throat.
“And what can I help you with on this fine day, my dear Auntie?”
“You’re not thinking of going in there and looming over Caitlyn, are you?”
“No.”
Yes.
“Give the girl a chance. She’s only just out of school and she doesn’t need her uncle hovering over her every step of the way.”
“What? Do you think I might accidentally breathe too much in the reception area and frighten away even more patients?”
“Brodie McClellan.” Ailsa wagged a finger at him. “You’d best think twice about pushing so hard against the support system you have. Caitlyn’s here until she starts university in September—but after that... Only a few months for you to make your peace with everyone. Including...” she steeled her gaze at him “...Dr. O’Shea. She’s here to help, might I remind you?”
“Help for something that’s not actually a problem?”
“You know what I mean, Brodie. C’mon.” She gave his shoulder a consoling rub. “You can’t blame folk for being nervous. And besides, you’re only fresh back. It’ll give you time to settle back in. Mend a couple of fences while you’re at it.”
She gave him her oft-used Auntie Knows Best stare.
He could do as she suggested. Of course he could. Or he could go back home and pack his bag and head back on another Doctors Without Borders assignment until Kali was gone.
A hit of protectiveness for his father’s surgery took hold.
Unexpected.
Or was it curiosity about Kali?
Interesting.
He leaned against the wall and gave his aunt his best I’ll-give-it-a-try face.
“So, after all the miraculous recoveries of the bumper-to-bumper patients we normally have over the past couple of weeks, do you think they’ll come flooding back now that we have Kali here?”
“Most likely.”
His aunt had never been one to mince words.
“So what am I meant to do? Just twiddle my thumbs whilst Kali sees to folk?”
“I suspect she’ll need some help. You would be showing her the good side of yourself if you were to talk her through a patient’s history. Give her backup support if she needed it. Prove to her you’re the lovable thirty-two-year-old I’ve had the pleasure of knowing all my life instead of that fusty old curmudgeon you showed her this morning. I’ll tell you, Brodie—I didn’t much like seeing that side of you. It’s not very fetching.”
“Fine.” He pressed back from the wall with a foot. “Maybe it’d be best if I just leave well enough alone. Let you two run the show and I’ll—I don’t know—I’ll build that boat I always had a mind to craft.”
The words were out before he could stem them.
“You mean the one your father always wanted to build with you?” Ailsa nodded at the memory, completely unfazed by his burst of temper. “That’s one promise you could make good on. Or you could put all of that energy you’ve got winging around inside of you helping out the new doctor who’s come all the way up here to get you out of a right sorry old pickle. Then make good on the other promise you made to your father.”
They both knew what she meant.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“That’s not what I meant, nor your father and you know it, Broderick Andrew McClellan.”
Brodie had to hand it to her. Whipping out all three of his names—that was fighting talk for Ailsa.
She pursed her lips at him for added measure, clearly refusing to rise—or lower herself—to his level of self-pity. And frankly he was bored with it himself. He’d never been one for sulky self-indulgence. Or standing around idly doing nothing.
He had twiddling his thumbs down to a fine art now. Not to mention a wind farm’s worth of energy to burn. He gave the wall a good thump with the sole of his boot.
Ailsa turned away, tsking as she went back into her office to prepare for the day. Which would most likely be busy now that Kali was here.
“It’s not like I was away having the time of my life or anything!” he called after her.
She stuck her head out into the corridor again, but said nothing.
“People were dying in droves!”
“Yes, you were an incredibly compassionate, brave man to go and do what you did—and it’s a shame folk here haven’t quite caught up with that. But with you looking like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders it’s little wonder you’ve become so unapproachable.”
“Unapproachable! Me?” He all but bellowed it, just as Kali walked into the hallway—only to do an immediate about-face back into the reception area.
Ailsa gave him an I-told-you-so look. Brodie took a deep breath in to launch into a well-rehearsed list of the things wrong with Dunregan and her residents, and just as quickly felt the puff go out of him. It would take an hour to rattle off the list of things wrong with himself this morning, let alone address the big picture.
For starters he’d been rude to Kali. Unprofessional. Then had thrown a blinkin’ tantrum over a burn that had happened solely because he’d been slamming around a kettle of boiling water in a huff because he had to tell yet another person why he was toxic.
The word roiled round his gut.
He wasn’t toxic! He was fit as a fiddle set to play for an all-hours fiddle fest! But he knew more than most it ran deeper than that. How to shrug off the mantle of the tortured laddie who’d sailed out on a handmade skiff with his mum, only to be washed ashore two hours later when the weather had turned horribly, horribly fierce?
He knew it was a miracle he’d survived. But he would’ve swapped miracles any day of the week if only his mother could have been spared.
“You know, Ailsa...”
His aunt gave him a semi-hopeful look when she heard the change in his tone.
“A second pair of hands round this place would be helpful longer term, wouldn’t it? Female hands. You’re wonderful—obviously—but Dad always spoke of having a female GP around. Someone not from Dunregan to give the islanders a bit more choice when they need to talk about sensitive issues.”
As he spoke the idea set off a series of fireworks in his brain. New possibilities. With Kali on board as a full-time GP he wouldn’t have to kill himself with office hours, out-of-hours emergency calls, home visits and the mountain rescues that cropped up more often than not during the summer season.
Not that he minded the work. Hell, he’d work every hour of the day if he could. But working here was much more than ferrying patients in and out for their allotted ten minutes. And if he was going to make good on his deathbed promise to his father to work in the surgery for at least a year he wasn’t so sure doing it alone would get the intended results...
His grandfather and his father had prided themselves on being genuine, good-as-their-word family doctors. Their time and patience had gone beyond patching up wounds, scribbling out prescriptions and seeing to annual checkups. Here on Dunregan it was personal. Everything was. It was why his father’s premature death from cancer had knocked the wind out of the whole population. Everyone knew everyone else and everything about them.
Sharing the load with Kali might be the way he’d get through the year emotionally intact. Maybe even restore some of his tattered reputation. Everyone who’d ever met his father thought the world of him. John McClellan: treasured island GP.
The same could not be said of himself.
Ailsa eyed him warily. “You’re not just saying this to get out of the promise to your father, are you?”
“No.” He struggled to keep the emotion out of his voice. A bedside promise to a dying father... It didn’t get more Shakespearean than that.
“Well, my dear nephew, if you’re wanting Dr. O’Shea to stick around you best check she’s not already legged it out the front of the clinic. You need to show her the other side of Brodie McClellan. The one we all like.”
She gave his cheek a good pinch. Half loving, half scolding.
He laughed and pulled her into her arms for a hug.
“What would I do without you and your wise old ways, Auntie Ailsa? I’ve been a right old pill this morning, haven’t I?”
“I’m hardly old, and there are quite a few ways I could describe your behavior, Brodie—but your way is the most polite.” Ailsa’s muffled voice came from his chest. “Now...” She pushed back and looked him square in the eye. “Let me get on with my day, will you?”
As she disappeared into her office so, too, did the smile playing across his lips. Here he was, blaming the islanders for the situation he was in, when truthfully all his frustration came from the fact that he loved his father and his work and right now the two were at odds. Not one part of him was looking forward to the year ahead.
Truthfully? He needed Kali O’Shea more than he cared to admit. If he could convince her to stay she might be the answer to all his prayers. A comrade in arms to help him get through the thicket of weeds he was all but drowning in.
He jogged his shoulders up and down.
Right. Good.
Time for what his father had called a “Starty-Overy, I’ve Done A Whoopsy.” His behavior this morning had been childish. He might as well give it the childish name. Then start acting his age and focus on winning over the mysteriously enigmatic Dr. Kali O’Shea.
* * *
Kali tapped at her computer keyboard a second time. Then pressed Refresh. And again.
Weird.
There didn’t seem to be anyone next in the queue. She stuck her head round the corner into the office where Brodie had been lurking... Okay, not exactly lurking. He’d been “on hand” in case she needed any information. But it had felt like lurking.
“Hey, does the computer system get jammed sometimes?”
“All the time is more like it,” he answered with a smile.
Her stomach grumbled. Kali’s hand flew to cover it, as if it would erase the fact it had happened.
“Er...”
“Hungry after only seeing three patients?” Brodie teased.
“Something like that. I was too excited for my first day at work to eat breakfast.”
“Only fifteen more patients to go before lunch!”
“Or...” She drew out the word and thought she might as well push her luck. “I do seem to recall an offer of a cup of tea and a biscuit.”
He blinked, dragging a tooth across one of those full lips of his. Distracting. Very distracting.
“Would you like it if I put on a pinny and pushed a wee cart along to your office for delivery, Dr. O’Shea?”
A flush of embarrassment crept up her cheeks. He was an experienced doctor. Her superior. Had she pushed that envelope too far?
“Ach, take that nervous expression off your face, Dr. O’Shea. I’m just joshing you.” He stood up from his desk and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “A nice cup of tea is the least I can do an hour after I promised it.”
He dropped her a wink and her tummy did a flip. The sexy kind.
Oh, no. Not good. Not good at all.
“Right, well...I guess I better check with Caitlyn who’s next.” She gave the door frame a rap, as if that was the signal for action. Then didn’t move.
“Anything good this morning?”
“Depends upon your definition of ‘good,’” she replied with a smile. She liked this guy. He was a whole load nicer than Dr. McCrabby from this morning. “A prenatal check, a suspected case of the flu—which thankfully wasn’t more than a really bad cold—and a check on a set of stitches along a feisty four-year-old’s hairline. Rosie Bell, I think her name was.”
“That’s her mother. The daughter is Julia.”
“Right—that’s right. I mean, of course you know it’s right—you know everyone.” She stopped herself. She was blathering. “The stitches were just fine. She had them put in on the mainland, at the hospital, there...so...that was a quickie. Everyone has been incredibly welcoming...”
So much for no more blathering.
A shadow darkened Brodie’s eyes for a moment. He abruptly slipped through the doorway and headed down the hall. “Best go get my pinny on and leave you to it, then, Dr. O’Shea.”
“Thank you,” she said to his retreating back, wishing the ground had swallowed her up before she’d opened her big mouth.
But it was the truth. Everyone had been really welcoming and it felt amazing! Never in her adult life had she been part of a community, and this place seemed to just...speak to her.
Her tummy grumbled again.
Dinner.
She would ask Brodie to join her for dinner and then maybe she would stop saying the wrong thing all the time. Fingers crossed and all that.
“Who’s next, please, Caitlyn?” Kali stuck her head into the receptionist’s room, willing herself onto solid terrain. Seeing patients was the one thing in the world that grounded her. Gave her the drive to find some place where she could settle down and play a positive role in her patients’ lives.
“Sorry, Dr. O’Shea... I’ve been trying to send it through on your computer screen. I’ve not yet got the hang of the system with all of these patients showing up like this.”
Kali peeked beyond Caitlyn and out into the busy waiting room.
“It’s not normally like this?”
“Well...” Caitlyn used her feet to wheel herself and her chair over to Kali, lowering her voice to a confidential tone. “Since I started last week it’s all been mostly people here to see Auntie Ail—I mean, Sister Dunregan. But most of the people who canceled appointments when Unc—Dr. McClellan came back seem to have all magically turned up now they’ve heard you arrived...”
“I only got in last night.”
“Aye, but you were on the public ferry, weren’t you?”
Kali nodded. It was the only way onto the island unless you owned a private helicopter. Which she most assuredly did not.
“Word travels fast round here.”
Kali laughed appreciatively as the outside door opened and another person tried to wedge her way onto the long window seat bench after giving Caitlyn a little wave in lieu of checking in.
“Hello, Mrs. Brown. We’ll see what we can do, all right? You might have a wee wait,” Caitlyn called.
“That’s fine, dear. I’ve brought my knitting.”
“So people are just coming along and trying their luck?” Kali’s eyes widened.
“Something like that.” Caitlyn nodded. “No harm in trying, is there? Hey!” Her eyes lit up with a new idea. “I bet you’ll get in the paper!”
Kali felt a chill jag along her spine and forced herself to smile. “Well, I doubt me being here is that big a deal.”
“On this island? You’d be surprised what turns up in the paper. There was a notice put in when my hamster Reggie died.”
She pulled her chair back up to the window that faced the reception area and started tapping at the computer keyboard to pull up the next patient’s information.
Kali crossed her fingers behind her back, hoping that her arrival on Dunregan didn’t warrant more attention than a full waiting room. That she could deal with. Public notice? No. That would never do. So much for unpacking her bags and staying awhile.
“Oh! Dr. O’Shea—I’m such an airhead. Sorry. Would you mind seeing Mr. Alexander Logan first? He’s just come in and says it’s an emergency. He didn’t look all that well...”
“Absolutely.” Kali nodded.
Medicine. And keeping her head down. Those were her two points of focus. Time to get on with medicine.
CHAPTER THREE (#ua0e8bfaf-af6c-53e7-b9c3-bea3cc715b05)
“ALEXANDER LOGAN?” Kali swung open the door leading into the waiting room.
“Aye, that’s me.” A gentleman with a thick shock of gray hair tried to press himself up from the bench seat, flat cap in one hand, cane in the other. “And you are...?”
“Dr. O’Shea. I’m the new—the locum doctor.”
“With a name like O’Shea and those green eyes of yours I’m guessing you must be Irish.” He grinned at her, eyes shining.
Kali hoped he didn’t see the wince of pain his question had elicited. He wasn’t to know that her mother—her ballast—with her distant Irish connection was the only reason she was alive.
“My wife was Irish. Feisty.”
Just like her mother.
“She sounds like a great woman,” she replied with a smile, grateful to dodge the question about herself. “You all right there, Mr. Logan? Would you like a hand standing up?”
“Oh, no—well, a bit.” He looked up at her with a widening smile. “Yes, those eyes of yours remind me of Tilly, all right.”
Kali hooked her arm through his, relieved to feel him put a bit of his body weight on her arm. “Shall we try and work our way to the exam room?”
“Oh, sure. Not as quick on my—” He lifted his hand to his mouth, as if he were waiting for a sneeze to arrive. When the sneeze came, he stumbled forward, losing his grip on his cane as he fell, then let out a howl of pain.

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