“Is there anyone I can call to come over and stay with you?”

“I don’t need anybody. I’ll be all right.”

“You won’t—and I don’t just mean simply tonight. Jess, you’re going to be in plaster for a minimum of eight weeks. You might just be able to do your surgeries, but how are you going to do any home visits or night calls when you can’t drive?”

“It’s not your problem,” she pointed out.

“Of course it’s my problem,” he shot back. “There’s only one thing I can do. I’ll have to stay.”

“Stay?” she echoed faintly.

“And not just for tonight,” he fumed. “I’m going to have to stay with you until you get a replacement.”

Dear Reader,

I moved to the far north of Scotland ten years ago and have never regretted it. It’s beautiful, remote—some people would say it’s lonely—but I’ve never found it so. It occurred to me recently that almost all of the “incomers” I’ve met since moving here have been running away from something. An unhappy marriage, a job they disliked, a situation they could no longer face.

It was this thought that inspired me to create the island of Greensay, and the mysterious Ezra Dunbar. He’s a man with a past, who seems to have no future until he meets the local family physician, Jess Arden, and then…

Well, I just hope you enjoy discovering how Ezra finds his future as much as I enjoyed writing about it!

Maggie

The Stranger’s Secret
Maggie Kingsley

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

Cover

Dear Reader

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘ARE you all right?’

The driver of the dark blue Mercedes wasn’t simply a maniac, Jess decided, opening her eyes slowly, only to close them again when a searing pain shot down her leg. He was a gold-plated, top-of-the-class idiot as well. How on earth could she possibly be ‘all right’ after he’d just driven at breakneck speed round the corner of the single-track road straight into her car?

‘I really don’t think you should try to move,’ the deep male voice continued with concern when she eased herself gingerly back from her steering-wheel. ‘You might be injured.’

‘Of course I’m injured,’ she muttered through clenched teeth. ‘My right leg’s fractured.’

‘It may simply be jarred—’

‘I’m a doctor and, believe me, it’s fractured.’ And if I’m not very careful I’m going to burst into tears, Jess realised with dismay when a cool, firm hand suddenly enveloped hers.

She didn’t need this. She really, really didn’t need this. Five minutes ago she’d been congratulating herself on having got through all her afternoon home visits early. Had even thought she might actually have time to attack her mounting paperwork before the start of her evening surgery, and now…

‘Are you in pain anywhere else?’ the male voice said quickly as a sob came from her. ‘Your chest, neck—’

‘Look, do you suppose you could stop playing doctor for a moment and concentrate on getting me out of here?’ she asked as the fingers which had been taking her pulse moved to her throat.

‘Wouldn’t it be more sensible if I called for an ambulance?’

Good grief, the idiot was using the tone she always adopted when she was dealing with a difficult child. If she’d been fit enough she’d have hit him.

‘There isn’t any ambulance,’ she said tightly. ‘At least not today. It’s down in the garage, having an overhaul.’

‘Then another doctor—’

‘There isn’t another doctor on Greensay, only me.’

‘I still don’t think—’

‘No, you obviously don’t, do you?’ she retorted, fighting back her tears. ‘Because if you had thought you wouldn’t have been driving like a maniac, and if you hadn’t been driving like a maniac I wouldn’t—’

‘Be in this mess?’ he finished for her awkwardly. ‘Look, I’m really sorry. I needed a few things from the shops—’

‘And you thought they might disappear unless you drove at eighty miles an hour?’

A low, husky chuckle was his only reply, and she turned towards the sound and tried to focus.

He was a tall man. That much she could see in the pale January moonlight. A tall man in his mid-thirties with deep grey eyes, thick black hair and a beard.

And she knew him.

Not to speak to. Nobody on the island knew him yet to speak to. But she’d seen him last week, walking along the beach the day after he’d moved into Sorley McBain’s holiday cottage. Walking as though he had all the cares of the world on his shoulders.

‘You’re the drug dealer,’ Jess murmured. ‘The one who’s lying low until the heat’s off.’

‘The drug…?’ His fingers reached swiftly for her wrist again.

‘That’s what Wattie Hope reckons at any rate. Or an axe murderer who’s come to Greensay to dispose of the dismembered bits and pieces of your ex-wife.’

He sat back on his heels, his grey eyes glinting with amusement. ‘I see. And you—what do you think?’

‘I’m just wondering if your car is as much of a write-off as mine.’

‘No, but, then, I don’t drive a sardine can,’ he replied, gazing critically at her beloved little hatchback. ‘Surely if you’re the only doctor on the island you should have chosen something more substantial to drive.’

‘Look, could we just stick to the point?’ she returned acidly. ‘Is your car driveable?’

‘The front bumper’s bent, and the offside light and indicator are smashed, but apart from that—’

‘Then you can drive me to the Sinclair Memorial in Inverlairg.’

The man’s black eyebrows snapped down. ‘I really don’t think—’

‘You’re doing it again—thinking—and I’d far rather you didn’t,’ Jess interrupted. ‘Now, are you going to help me out of my car, or do I have to crawl?’

For a second he hesitated, then held out his hands to her. Large hands, she noticed, strong hands. Which was just as well, she realised, because when she tried to stand up another shaft of pain had her grabbing frantically at the front of his Arran sweater.

‘Care to reconsider your plan?’ he said gently as she buried her face in his chest, desperately fighting the waves of nausea and pain which threatened to engulf her.

Actually, she’d have liked nothing better. Just to stand here wrapped in this man’s arms was infinitely preferable to the thought of the journey ahead. And she was mad. Good grief, he could have killed her and yet all she could think as she clung to him was that he smelt of the sea, and of warmth, and shelter.

‘What I want,’ she managed to reply, after taking several deep breaths, ‘is for you to stop talking, stop thinking and get me into your car.’

His mouth quirked into a rueful smile. ‘Are you always this bloody-minded, Dr…Dr…?’

‘Arden. The name’s Jess Arden, Mr Dunbar.’

All amusement disappeared instantly from his face and his voice when he spoke was clipped, tight. ‘You know me?’

‘Not from Adam. Sorley McBain said he’d rented his cottage to an Ezra Dunbar from London—’

‘A talkative man, Mr McBain.’

‘You can’t really blame him,’ Jess replied defensively, hearing the decided edge in his voice. ‘I mean, we get lots of people renting holiday cottages on Greensay in the summer—Americans mostly, looking for their Scottish roots—but it’s pretty unusual for someone to take a cottage for three months in the middle of winter.’ She glanced up at him with a slight frown. ‘Does it bother you—people knowing your name?’

He didn’t answer. Instead he slipped his arm round her waist, balanced her against his hip, then carried her across to his Mercedes. An action which left her white-faced and shaking, and feeling sick all over again.

‘You know, your leg really ought to be splinted,’ he observed after he’d pushed the front passenger seat of his car back as far as it would go. ‘It’s a ten-mile trip down to Inverlairg and no matter how slowly I drive you’re going to get jolted. Perhaps I could find some pieces of wood to splint it—’

‘And perhaps you could just let me worry about my leg?’ Jess flared, driven beyond all endurance.

For a second she thought he was going to argue with her again, but by the time he’d eased her into the car Jess heartily wished she’d let him find those pieces of wood, and that he’d used them to knock her unconscious.

‘Feeling rough?’ he murmured sympathetically when he finally got into the driver’s seat beside her.

‘A bit,’ she admitted, pushing back her damp hair from her forehead with a trembling hand.

He shook his head. ‘I’m not surprised. Frankly, I don’t know whether to admire you for your courage or condemn you for your stupidity.’

‘While you’re making up your mind, could you just drive?’ she suggested, and he chuckled as he switched on his car’s ignition.

‘Regular little firebrand, aren’t you? Goes with the red hair, I suppose. Your eyes wouldn’t happen to be green, would they?’

They were, but Jess didn’t feel up to acknowledging it as he turned his Mercedes in the direction of the town, or to informing him that she’d always been short-tempered even as a child. So he thought her a firebrand, did he? Well, right now she felt more like a damp squib. A squib that was giddy, and in pain, and more frightened than she’d ever been in her life.

What if she hadn’t simply fractured her leg? What if she’d suffered internal injuries as well? She couldn’t afford to be ill, couldn’t so much as catch a cold, when it would mean leaving her patients with a two-and-a-half-hour ferry ride to the nearest doctor on the mainland.

‘Why are you the only doctor on the island?’ Ezra asked suddenly, as though he’d read her mind. ‘Surely there’s too much work here for you on your own?’

‘Not for most of the time, there’s not,’ she answered, biting down hard on her lip as his car hit a pothole. ‘Greensay only has a population of six hundred.’

‘But those six hundred don’t all live in the main town,’ he argued back. ‘From what I’ve seen, a lot of them live in outlying crofts, and if you’re called out at night—’

‘I manage,’ she replied defensively. ‘My father was the doctor here for thirty years before he died, and he managed.’

He glanced across at her, his grey eyes pensive. ‘I see.’

She rather thought he saw more than she wanted him to. That it hadn’t simply been a desire to return to the island where she’d been born which had brought her back when her father had died three years ago. It had been a desire to follow in his footsteps, to be as good a doctor as he had been.

And why shouldn’t she want that? she asked herself as they drove through the dark countryside. She’d adored her father, had always loved the island and its people. Why shouldn’t she want to emulate him?

Yes, it was tough sometimes, being permanently on call. And, yes, there were days when she was so bone-weary it took all her strength to drag herself down to the health centre, but she couldn’t have borne it if a stranger had taken over her father’s practice. She had to succeed. She simply had to.

‘Where do we go for the A and E unit?’ Ezra asked when they finally arrived outside the imposing Edwardian building which housed the Sinclair Memorial Hospital.

‘There isn’t one as such,’ Jess replied, sucking in her breath sharply as he carried her up the steps. ‘But if you ring the bell at Reception Fiona should come.’

The staff nurse did, and the minute she saw them her face crumpled in dismay. ‘Oh, my word…!’

‘I’m OK, Fiona, honestly,’ Jess interrupted quickly. ‘I just took a corner too fast and landed in a ditch. I think I’ve fractured my right tibia—possibly my patella as well.’

‘Not to mention having also acquired a very nasty bump on your forehead.’ Fiona’s eyes drifted towards Ezra. ‘And you are…?’

‘The drug dealer,’ he replied blandly. ‘Or the axe murderer—take your pick.’

‘Ezra Dunbar!’ she exclaimed triumphantly. ‘You’ve taken Sorley McBain’s holiday cottage—’

‘For the next three months.’ He nodded with resignation. ‘Yes, that’s me.’

‘Well, thank goodness you did,’ Fiona declared, lowering Jess carefully into a wheelchair, then pushing her through a door marked X-RAYS. ‘We islanders don’t tend to go out much in the evening in winter and heaven knows how long Jess might have been stuck in her car if you hadn’t happened along.’

‘I didn’t exactly happen—’

‘Would you mind staying with Jess until I get Bev and Will?’ Fiona continued. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

And before either of them could reply she was gone in a flurry of starched green cotton.

‘Bev is our part-time radiographer,’ Jess explained as a frown creased Ezra’s forehead. ‘Will’s her husband, and a first-rate anaesthetist, though how long we’ll be able to keep him is anybody’s guess. Our resident surgeon retired last year, you see, and we haven’t been able to replace him. I can do some surgery, but—’

‘Why did you do that?’

‘Do what?’ she asked in confusion.

‘Tell her the accident was your fault?’

Jess eased herself gingerly round in her wheelchair. ‘I don’t think you’d have a very happy three months here if word got round that you’re the man who trashed the doctor’s car and landed her in hospital.’

The frown deepened. ‘But why should you care? Like you said, you don’t know me from Adam.’

She was hurting more and more by the second, and was in no mood to try to explain what she didn’t quite understand herself, but she managed to dredge up a smile. ‘Maybe I’m an old softy at heart. Maybe I’m just too sore to be able to think straight.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Didn’t I tell you to buy a decent car—well, didn’t I?’ Will Grant declared as he breezed into the X-ray department. ‘Buy a Volvo or a Range Rover, I said—’

‘Yes, we all know what you said, dear,’ his wife Bev interrupted, pushing past him, ‘and right now I don’t suppose Jess wants to hear you repeat it. Fractured right tibia and patella, you reckon?’ she continued, eyeing Jess critically, and when she nodded the radiographer frowned. ‘I’m not too happy about that bruise on your forehead. I think we’ll X-ray it as well.’

‘If you’re hoping to find any brains, I wouldn’t hold your breath,’ Ezra murmured, and Will laughed.

‘Too damned right. I’ve been telling this girl she’s an idiot for the past three years. Taking on her father’s practice—’

‘Look, could we just get on with this?’ Jess protested, scowling across at Ezra who, to her acute annoyance, merely smiled back.

It didn’t take long for Fiona to check her blood pressure and temperature, and it only took a few minutes more for Bev to process the X-rays.

‘Well, the bad news is you’ve definitely fractured your tibia and patella,’ the radiographer declared. ‘The good news is they’re both nice clean breaks, and I can’t see any indication of internal damage.’

Jess let out the breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding. OK, so she’d broken her calf bone and kneecap, which would mean eight to ten weeks in plaster, but clean breaks meant she wouldn’t have to go to the mainland. Clean breaks and no internal injuries meant she could still take care of her patients.

‘My turn now.’ Will beamed, leading the way out of the X-ray department into the next room. ‘Time for a spot of good old reduction and plastering.’

‘But…but this is an operating theatre,’ Ezra declared, coming to a halt on the threshold.

‘We don’t have a plastering department,’ the anaesthetist explained. ‘Frankly, we’re lucky to have a hospital at all, considering the authorities would like nothing better than to shut us down. Centralisation of resources, they call it. In my opinion—’

‘Yes, dear, we all know your opinion,’ his wife sighed. ‘But right now Jess’s leg needs attending to.’

And Ezra Dunbar badly needed some fresh air, Jess thought as she glanced up at him and saw how white he had become. Delayed shock, her professional instincts diagnosed. OK, so he hadn’t been hurt in the accident, but he had been involved and the knowledge of what could have happened had obviously just hit him.

‘Don’t you think it might be better if you waited outside?’ she said gently.

He thrust his hands through his hair and she saw they were shaking. Delayed shock, indeed. And delayed shock in a very big way.

‘I—Right…Fine,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll…I’ll see you later, then.’

And before she could say anything else, he was gone.

Will stared after him for a second, then chuckled as he loaded a syringe with short-acting anaesthetic. ‘Well, who’d have thought it? A big, strapping chap like that coming over all queasy and not even a drop of blood in sight!’

‘Not everybody’s as cold-blooded as you are, Will,’ Jess retorted, only to flush slightly when they all stared at her in amazement. And it was hardly surprising. What on earth was she doing, leaping to a virtual stranger’s defence? And not simply a stranger but the man who had landed her here in the first place. Not that any of them knew that, of course, but… ‘Look, could we just get on with getting this leg of mine aligned and plastered?’ she continued vexedly. ‘I don’t want to be here all evening!’

Ezra didn’t want to be there at all as he leant his head against the waiting-room window and tried to calm his fast-beating heart.

Hell, they must all think he was an idiot. One minute he’d been fine, and the next…

It had been the smell. He’d never realised that all operating theatres probably smelt the same, but they did, and when he’d seen the table…

‘Oh, hell.’

He clenched his hands tightly together and whirled round on his heel. Think of something else. Think of anything else, his mind urged, before you make an ever bigger fool of yourself than you already have done.

If only he hadn’t been driving so fast. If only he’d been paying attention. But he hadn’t, and now…

Restlessly he paced the waiting room. What the hell were they doing in there? Aligning and plastering a leg shouldn’t take very long. Unless, of course, they’d found some complication.

A cold sweat broke out on his forehead and he turned quickly as a door opened behind him. Fiona. And to his relief, Jess was with her.

‘She’s thrown up twice, and fainted once,’ the staff nurse stated, holding out a bottle of pills. ‘She can take two of these for the pain, but no more than eight in twenty-four hours.’

‘B-but surely you’re going to keep her in?’ Ezra stammered, and Fiona sighed with resignation.

‘She won’t stay. Maybe you can make her see sense but I doubt it.’

‘Jess, of course you’ve got to stay!’ Ezra exclaimed as Fiona walked away. ‘You could be suffering from shock—’

‘I’m not,’ she said smoothly. ‘Will’s plastered my leg, and given me some painkillers, so could we, please, leave now?’

‘But—’

‘Could you drive me down to my practice? It’s not far, but…’ she gazed wryly at the crutches Fiona had given her ‘…I don’t think I could manage it on these.’

‘You want to collect something?’ he murmured, still stunned by the knowledge that she’d actually discharged herself.

‘Not collect, no. My surgery started half an hour ago, and I don’t want to keep my patients waiting any longer than necessary.’

Ezra stared at her in disbelief, then anger flooded through him. ‘Are you crazy?’

‘I happen to believe I have a duty to my patients,’ Jess replied crisply. ‘Now, if you could—’

‘Duty be damned!’ he flared. ‘You’re just being pig-headed, that’s all, and if you think I’m going to encourage you in this stupidity, you can think again!’

‘Then I’ll phone the garage and ask them to send a taxi,’ she retorted, only to suddenly remember to her chagrin that, though she’d insisted on him retrieving her medical bag from her car, she’d forgotten all about her handbag. ‘Could…could you lend me twenty pence for the pay-phone, please?’

‘No, I will not lend you twenty pence!’ he thundered. ‘For God’s sake, woman, were you born with a vacant space between your ears? You’ve been in a car crash. You’ve fractured your leg in two places, and badly bruised your forehead. OK, so maybe you don’t feel too awful at the moment, but that’s only because of the anaesthetic and the fact that your body’s producing its own endorphins. Believe me, in a little while you’re going to feel hellish—’

‘Endorphins?’ A frown pleated Jess’s forehead. ‘What do you know about endorphins?’

‘Only what everybody knows,’ he replied with irritation. ‘That they’re peptides produced in the brain which give pain-relieving effects.’

‘Everybody doesn’t know that,’ she said, her eyes fixed on him. ‘What are you—a nurse, a vet?’

‘I used to be a doctor. Jess, listen to me. You can’t possibly do this—’

‘What kind of a doctor?’

‘Does it matter?’ he retorted, exasperation plain in his voice. ‘The most important thing right now—’

‘You can’t have retired,’ she continued thoughtfully. ‘You’re much too young to have retired.’

‘I…I just don’t practise any more, OK?’ he muttered, his eyes not meeting hers. ‘People change careers, want to do something else.’

‘I can’t ever imagine not wanting to be a doctor,’ she observed. ‘It was something I wanted even when I was a little girl.’

‘Everybody’s different.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Look, if you insist on going to your surgery, let’s go,’ he interrupted grimly. ‘And I only hope to heaven that when we get there we’ll find somebody who can convince you that you’re out of your tiny mind!’

Tracy Maxwell tried. Ezra had to give the teenager credit for that. She might look a bit weird, with her heavily gelled, spiky black hair and the diamond stud in her nose, but the minute the receptionist saw Jess, she tried her level best.

‘It’s only the usual bunch of hypochondriacs anyway, Jess,’ she protested. ‘And you look shattered.’

‘My thoughts exactly.’ Ezra nodded. ‘So why don’t I go out to the waiting room, explain what’s happened—?’

‘Don’t you dare!’ Jess ordered. ‘OK, so I’ve fractured my leg but my brain’s still working.’

‘I’d say that was highly debatable,’ Ezra observed, and Tracy giggled.

‘His name is Dr Dunbar,’ Jess said acidly in answer to the girl’s raised eyebrows. ‘He has a big mouth, and even bigger opinions.’

‘You’re a doctor,’ the receptionist exclaimed. ‘We all thought—’

‘Yes, I know what you all thought.’ Ezra’s lips curved ruefully. ‘Sorry to be such a disappointment.’

‘Oh, not a disappointment at all,’ Tracy replied, batting her heavily mascara’d eyelashes at him. ‘In fact, it’s terrific, being able to finally put a face to a name.’

‘Is it?’ he said in surprise.

‘Oh, yes.’ Tracy beamed. ‘You know, you really ought to get out more. Living all alone at Selkie Cottage—a man could start getting weird doing that, and we’re quite a sociable crowd on Greensay, so there’s no need for you to ever feel lonely or isolated.’

‘I’m not—’

‘In fact, there’s a dance in the village hall this weekend—’

‘Look, I’m sorry to interrupt this cosy chat,’ Jess said caustically, ‘but some of us have work to do. Goodbye, Dr Dunbar.’ She didn’t extend a hand to him but kept both fixed firmly on her crutches. ‘I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure meeting you, but in the circumstances I don’t think that would be appropriate, do you?’

‘Goodbye?’ he echoed. ‘But—’

‘Goodbye, Dr Dunbar,’ she repeated, and before he could stop her she’d turned and hopped with as much dignity as she could along to her consulting room.

The nerve of the man—the sheer unmitigated gall! Laughing and joking with Tracy—discussing the dance which was going to be held in the village hall on Saturday. Well, to be fair, Tracy had done most of the laughing and joking, but that didn’t alter the fact that she wouldn’t be able to do any dancing for the next three months. And whose fault was that? Ezra’s!

Just as it was also his fault that by the end of her surgery she felt like a washed-out rag. Ten patients—that’s all she’d seen. Ten patients who’d been suffering from nothing more challenging than the usual collection of winter coughs and colds, and yet by the time they’d all gone her head was throbbing quite as badly as her leg.

So the last person she wanted to see in the waiting room was Ezra Dunbar.

‘Now, before you chew my head off,’ he began, getting quickly to his feet as he saw the martial glint in her eye. ‘I’m here solely because I thought you might appreciate a lift home, rather than having to wait for a taxi.’

‘I don’t need—’

‘No, I know you don’t,’ he interrupted. ‘But just humour me this once, please, Jess, hmm?’

And because she felt so wretched she feebly allowed him to drive her home, and made only a token protest when he insisted on helping her inside.

But the minute he’d flicked on the sitting-room light and ushered her towards a chair, she turned to him firmly. ‘I’ll say goodnight, then.’

To her surprise, he didn’t go. Instead, he stared round the room, then back at her with a frown. ‘Isn’t there anybody I can call to come over and stay with you?’

‘I don’t need anybody,’ she insisted. ‘You can see for yourself that my house has no stairs, and as all I want to do is go to bed—’

‘Your clothes—what about your clothes?’ he demanded, his eyes taking in her green sweater and the remnants of her trousers. ‘How are you going to get them off?’

‘The same way I put them on,’ she replied dismissively, only to see his frown increase. ‘Look, I’ll be all right.’

‘You won’t. Oh, I don’t mean simply tonight,’ he continued as she tried to interrupt. ‘I mean tomorrow, and the day after that. Jess, you’re going to be in plaster for a minimum of eight weeks. You might just be able to do your surgeries, but how are you going to do any home visits or night calls when you can’t drive?’

‘I’ll get a locum to cover the nights and home visits.’

‘And until he or she arrives, how are you planning on getting to your patients—by hopping or crawling?’

Ezra was right. If she couldn’t drive there was no way she was going to be able to cope. And then suddenly it hit her. She had the answer standing right in front of her. All six feet two of him.

‘You could drive me about.’

‘I could what?’ he gasped.

‘You’re here on holiday,’ she continued quickly. ‘You could drive me to my home visits and out to any night calls until I get a locum.’

‘Jess—’

‘I’m not asking you to do anything medical—’

‘Just as well because I wouldn’t do it,’ he retorted. ‘No, Jess. No way.’

He meant it—she could see that—but desperate situations called for desperate measures, and she drew herself up to her full five feet two inches and took a deep breath.

‘OK, I’ve tried asking, and now I’m telling. You’ve admitted the accident was your fault so you owe me. Either you agree to chauffeur me around or…or I go straight to PC Inglis, and accuse you of dangerous driving.’

‘That‘s…that’s blackmail!’ he spluttered, and she coloured.

‘I haven’t got any choice—can’t you see that? The people here need me, and everybody else on the island is either too young, or too old, or they’ve got full-time jobs. Only you are here on holiday.’

He stared back at her impotently. He could tell her to go to hell. He could say he didn’t give a damn if she spoke to the chief constable of the area himself, but if she called in the police questions would be asked. Questions about where he’d come from and what he was doing here. And everything would come out. Every last, sorry detail. There was nothing he could do but agree to her suggestion, but that didn’t mean he had to like it, or that he couldn’t make one last attempt to dissuade her.

‘And what if I am a drug dealer, like Wattie Hope said, or an axe murderer?’

Heavens, but he looked angry enough at the moment to be either, she thought as she stared up at him. And she couldn’t really blame him. What she was doing was unforgivable.

‘I’ll…I’ll risk it,’ she said. He didn’t reply. He simply turned on his heel and headed for her front door, and desperately she hopped after him. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I know what I’m doing is wrong, and I promise I’ll phone the agency about a locum first thing tomorrow—’

She was talking to thin air, and as she listened to the sound of his footsteps going down the gravel path she suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to burst into tears. Which was crazy.

Dammit, he owed her a favour. OK, so maybe she shouldn’t have blackmailed him into agreeing to it, but he did owe her. And just because he obviously thought she was the lowest form of pond life, that was no reason for her to get upset.

She was home, wasn’t she? Home in the house where she’d been born. Home with all her familiar things. OK, so her leg—not to mention every other bone in her body—hurt like hell, but that didn’t explain why she should suddenly feel so lost and lonely.

And it sure as heck didn’t explain why her heart should lift when her front door was suddenly thrown open again and Ezra reappeared.

‘I can’t do it,’ he announced without preamble. ‘You might be the most manipulative, stubbornly vexatious woman it’s ever been my misfortune to meet, but I can’t leave you here on your own. You could collapse in the middle of the night—’

‘I won’t—and if I do it’s not your problem,’ she pointed out.

‘Of course it’s my problem,’ he flared. ‘You wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for me, and if you’re too stupid and pigheaded to stay in hospital there’s only one thing I can do. I’ll have to stay.’

‘Stay?’ she echoed faintly.

‘And not just for tonight,’ he fumed. ‘If you insist on me being at your beck and call twenty-four hours a day I’m going to have to move in with you until you get a locum.’

Jess’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, then she found her voice. ‘But it could take me a week to organise a locum!’

His lip curled grimly. ‘You’re the blackmailer. You tell me what other alternative there is?’

To her acute dismay Jess realised there wasn’t one. His cottage was on the far west side of the island and if she got an emergency call during the night he’d have to get up, get dressed, drive down, pick her up—

‘And lose vital, potentially life-threatening minutes in the process.’ Ezra nodded, obviously reading her mind. ‘So would you care to reconsider your plan?’

She wanted to—oh, boy, did she want to. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t abandon her patients, leaving them with no emergency cover or home visits.

‘No, I don’t want to reconsider,’ she replied tightly. ‘Believe me, the thought of you living here doesn’t exactly fill me with unmitigated joy either, but right now it looks as though I’m stuck with you, Dr Dunbar.’

And she was stuck with him, she thought after she’d shown him through to the spare room then retreated thankfully to her own bedroom. Stuck with the most bossy, self-opinionated man she’d ever had the misfortune to meet. Stuck with a complete stranger who could have been anyone, despite his declaration that he’d once been a doctor.

Yet, as she began undressing, and heard him moving about in the room next to hers, she realised that she had that odd feeling of security again.

And she was still mad.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS the sunlight streaming through her bedroom window which first told Jess something was wrong.

For a start it should be dark. Greensay was situated off the far west coast of Scotland and it never became fully light in January until well after nine o’clock, so if the sun was shining…

Quickly she reached for her bedside clock, remembered her plastered leg too late, and with a yelp of pain knocked the clock. But not before she’d seen the time. One o’clock. Lunchtime. Which could only mean some officious, overbearing swine had sneaked into her room during the night and switched off her alarm.

The same overbearing, officious swine whose dark head had just appeared round her bedroom door.

‘Now, before you blow a fuse,’ Ezra declared, holding up his hands defensively as she eased herself upright, a look of fury plain upon her face, ‘it was obvious you needed sleep—’

‘And what about my morning surgery?’ she exclaimed, pushing her tangled hair back out of her eyes and wincing as her fingers caught the bruise on her forehead. ‘My poor patients, left wondering where I was—’

‘They weren’t. I told Tracy to put a notice on the health-centre door, explaining what had happened and advising anyone with worrying symptoms to contact the Sinclair Memorial.’

She all but ground her teeth. ‘Dr Dunbar—’

‘The name’s Ezra.’

‘Tracy doesn’t have the authority to cancel anything. She only joined my practice four months ago. Cath Stewart’s my senior receptionist and practice nurse.’

‘I wondered about that,’ he observed. ‘The diamond stud in her nose and everything.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with the stud,’ she retorted, conveniently forgetting her own initial misgivings when she’d seen it. ‘It’s fashionable, modern. And how Tracy dresses is none of your damn business anyway,’ she added for good measure.

He stared at her for a second, then sighed heavily. ‘Topsy.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Forget it. Jess, a tired doctor is a careless doctor. A tired doctor who is also in pain is a menace.’

‘I’m not in pain,’ she lied.

His eyebrows rose. ‘No? Then lunch will be ready in ten minutes. No doubt you’ll be able to get up, dressed and along to the kitchen by then.’

And he went. Without giving her the chance to hurl something harder than her voice at him, he just upped and went.

Of all the interfering, arrogant, pompous…! There was no limit to the home truths she intended throwing at him, but first she had to get out of bed and dressed.

Well, she’d managed to get undressed and into bed last night, she told herself as she pulled back the duvet and stared dubiously at her plastered leg. How hard could it be to do it in reverse?

Tear-blindingly, excruciatingly hard was the answer.

‘Don’t say a word,’ she ordered when she finally made it to the kitchen more than half an hour later. ‘Not one single solitary one, OK?’

Obediently Ezra lifted the pan of potatoes off the hob and drained them. ‘It’s frozen fish, potatoes and peas for lunch. Your freezer needs restocking.’

She knew it did. In fact, she’d intended going shopping yesterday but it hardly seemed tactful to point out to him why she hadn’t been able to do it. Especially when he was cooking for her.

‘Who—or what—is Topsy?’ she said instead when he put her lunch down in front of her.

‘A neighbour’s cat in London.’

Which made absolutely no sense at all to her, Ezra realised as he began washing the pots, but perfect sense to him.

Topsy and Jess Arden had a lot in common. Both were red-haired, green-eyed and fiercely independent. Both hissed and spat fire whenever they thought anyone was trying to invade their space. Not that he’d tried invading Topsy’s space often. He preferred his hands in one piece. And he most certainly didn’t intend trying it with Jess Arden.

Lord, but she was a firebrand and a half. Attractive, he supposed, if your taste ran to shoulder-length, curly red hair and eyes which sparkled like emeralds. Sassy and spunky too, but he’d never been attracted to redheads, and certainly not to redheads who were stubborn, opinionated and pig-headed. And Jess Arden was one pigheaded lady.

‘OK, I’m ready to go.’

He turned in surprise and gave her suspiciously clean plate a very hard stare. ‘Go where?’

‘I may have missed my morning surgery, but I have absolutely no intention of missing any home visits or my evening surgery.’

Ezra reached for a towel to dry his hands. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any point in me trying to talk you out of it, is there? No, I didn’t think there was,’ he sighed when she pointedly lifted her medical bag. ‘Have you taken your painkillers?’

‘Of course,’ she replied quickly. Much too quickly, he thought, but before he could press her she continued, ‘So, are we going, or what?’

He would have preferred the ‘or what’ if it meant her returning to bed and staying there, but he also knew that nothing short of a padlock and chain would have kept Jess Arden in her bed.

Actually, the image held a certain appeal, he decided grimly as he followed her out of the house. Especially if he could have arranged to have her fed on nothing but bread and water for a couple of weeks. Perhaps that would teach her the perils of blackmailing someone, and it might even—though he very much doubted it—teach her some sense.

‘I’ll have to leave you at your surgery for a little while,’ he declared after he’d helped her into his car. ‘I’m not sure how long I’ll be—’

‘But you agreed to chauffeur me about,’ Jess protested. ‘We had a deal—’

‘Which I fully intend to keep,’ he interrupted, his voice clipped, ‘but unless you want me arrested for driving an unroadworthy vehicle, I suggest I get my car repaired first.’

She bit her lip. ‘Oh. I see. I’m sorry,’ she added belatedly.

He didn’t reply. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all during the drive down to Inverlairg, which left her feeling angry, and guilty, and confused, all at the same time.

The trouble was, she wasn’t used to being fussed over. She was used to making her own decisions, and although part of her knew her leg wouldn’t have been broken if it hadn’t been for him, the other part also knew he hadn’t needed to make her lunch or to switch off her alarm to let her get some sleep. And how had she repaid him? By sounding like a nagging harpy, that was how.

She would just have to apologise to him again properly, she decided when he left her outside the health centre and drove away without a backward glance. And then again perhaps she wouldn’t, she thought when she saw the notice taped to the door, proclaiming that all medical services were suspended until further notice.

‘I’m sure Dr Dunbar meant it for the best, Jess,’ Cath declared when she bore the offending notice into the surgery. ‘He probably thought—as we all did—that you’d be taking a few days off.’

‘Well, you all thought wrong,’ Jess replied as evenly as she could. ‘Dr Dunbar and I have had a full and frank discussion.’ Well, that was one way of putting it, she thought, remembering her threat of police action. ‘And he has kindly volunteered to chauffeur me around until I can get a locum, so it’s business as usual, starting with my home visits this afternoon and evening surgery tonight.’

‘But what about your night calls?’ the receptionist protested. ‘I can do some for you—after ten years as a theatre sister at the Sinclair Memorial I’ve certainly got the experience—but there’s a limit to what I’d feel happy about treating on my own.’

To her acute annoyance Jess felt her cheeks beginning to heat up. ‘Dr Dunbar has also volunteered to stay at my cottage so he can drive me to any night-time emergencies.’

Cath’s eyes opened very wide, then a slow grin spread across her face. ‘I can just imagine what Wattie Hope is going to make of that arrangement!’

‘Cath—’

‘Tracy said he reminded her of a pirate. All dark and bearded and mysterious.’

‘Personally, I’ve always thought men with beards have something to hide,’ Jess declared dampeningly.

‘Tracy also said he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. So do you reckon he’s single, married or divorced?’

‘I’ve no idea, and less interest,’ Jess replied dismissively. ‘And I thought Tracy was dating Danny Hislop anyway?’ she added with irritation, only to be angry with herself for being irritated.

‘She is,’ Cath observed, shooting her a puzzled glance. ‘But she’s known him since they were kids, whereas Ezra…Well, he’s new, different.’

Oh, he was different, all right. Bossy, opinionated—a human steamroller. And yet he could also be very kind, Jess was forced to admit when she suddenly remembered what was inside her medical bag.

Gingerly she delved into it and extracted a soggy package. ‘Cath, could you get rid of this for me, please?’

Her receptionist wrinkled her nose. ‘It smells like fish.’

‘Fish, potatoes and peas, to be exact. Dr Dunbar made me lunch, but I felt too queasy to eat it.’

‘And you hid it?’ Cath laughed. ‘Boy, this must be some man if you didn’t want to risk offending him!’

‘It wasn’t that—well, it was in a way—but I didn’t—I mean, I wasn’t…’ Cath’s brown eyes were dancing, and Jess scowled. ‘Look, could you just get rid of it, please, while I phone the medical agency about a locum?’

But by the time Jess had finished speaking to the agency she heartily wished that someone—or something—could have got rid of Ezra Dunbar before he’d ever set foot on Greensay. Oh, the agency was very nice, very sympathetic, but the minute she’d told them where her practice was, the excuses had begun. January was a difficult month for locums, trainees didn’t like being sent to remote areas, it was all rather short notice. After fifteen minutes of begging and pleading, the best she could extract from them was the promise of a locum in five weeks.

‘If Dr Dunbar’s as wonderful as Tracy says, I’d just sit back and enjoy it,’ Cath replied when Jess told her. ‘After all, it’s not every day a handsome pirate comes to the rescue of a damsel in distress, takes her home and then cooks for her!’

And it wasn’t every day that Jess saw her happily married forty-year-old receptionist light up like a beacon, but she did just that when the door to the health centre opened and Ezra appeared.

Good grief, anyone would think he was a film star, Jess thought with disgust. OK, so he was six feet two inches tall, with thick black hair, and had rather nice grey eyes when he smiled. And, OK, his voice was deep and warm, and oddly comforting when he wasn’t shouting at you, but when all was said and done he was just a man. And yet now, not only had Tracy gone all dreamy-eyed over him, Cath clearly thought he was Mr Wonderful, too.

Irritably she picked up the list detailing requests for home visits and frowned when she scanned it. ‘Mairi Morrison wants a home visit?’

‘Actually, it was her neighbour, Grace Henderson, who asked if you could drop by,’ Cath replied. ‘Apparently she’s a bit worried about her.’

Jess’s frown deepened. Grace must be worried if she was prepared to risk incurring Mairi’s wrath by asking for a home visit on her behalf. There wasn’t a person on Greensay who didn’t know that Mairi never asked for or expected help from anyone.

‘Something wrong?’ Ezra asked as she grasped her crutches.

‘Maybe—I don’t know,’ she replied absently, then pulled herself together. ‘My first call is to Harbour Road. Toby Ralston—four years old—juvenile arthritis. His parents initially thought he had meningitis. I confess I did, too, when they called me out in the middle of the night and I discovered his temperature was over 39°C, and he had stiffness in his joints and a rash.’

‘Systemic juvenile arthritis, then, affecting the small joints rather than pauciarticular or polyarticular arthritis?’ he said, then smiled slightly as she stared at him in surprise. ‘I did tell you I used to be a doctor, remember?’

He had, and she’d believed him—of course she had—but she’d have been a fool if a little part of her hadn’t wondered about his qualifications. She wasn’t wondering any more.

‘I’ve got him on non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to relieve the pain and swelling, but they’re not working very well,’ she continued once Ezra had stowed her medical bag in the boot of his car and they were driving down the narrow streets from the health centre towards the whitewashed houses that lined the harbour. ‘I suppose I could start him on corticosteroids but…’

‘You’re reluctant to do so because of his age.’ Ezra nodded. ‘I’d try to keep it under control for the moment. Most children recover from juvenile arthritis within a few years and are left with little or no disability. Only a very small minority go on to develop an adult form of arthritis.’

She’d been telling Toby’s parents that for weeks, but the minute Simon and Elspeth had heard the word ‘arthritis’ they’d instantly assumed their son would be crippled for life, and nothing she’d said had persuaded them otherwise. Which was why, when Ezra drew his car to a halt outside the Ralstons’ home, she found herself turning to him and saying on impulse, ‘Would you like to come in—see him yourself?’

‘I’m not a doctor any more.’

‘I know, but I wondered—’

‘No!’ He bit his lip as she stared up at him, startled by his vehemence. ‘No,’ he repeated more evenly. ‘I’ll wait outside in the car if you don’t mind.’

Jess didn’t mind at all. It wasn’t as though she didn’t know what was wrong with Toby, but what really intrigued her was why Ezra had reacted as he had. OK, so he didn’t practise medicine any more but he’d seemed not only angered by her suggestion but also strangely upset by it.

It didn’t make any sense, but she had no time to think about it. Elspeth was already on the doorstep and Toby was bouncing towards her, his white-blond hair gleaming in the sunlight, his large blue eyes alert and full of mischief.

‘It’s his chest, Doctor,’ Elspeth explained, ushering her son back into the sitting room, concern plain on her face. ‘He got up this morning with the most dreadful cold, and I know we have to be careful, what with his condition and everything.’

Jess would have been amazed if Toby’s abundantly runny nose had meant anything other than one of the many colds which were plaguing the islanders this winter, and a quick check with her stethoscope revealed she was right.

‘You don’t think he needs a chest X-ray, then?’ Elspeth said after Jess had given her the good news. ‘Or perhaps some antibiotics?’

‘Elspeth, he has a cold,’ Jess said firmly. ‘If I give him antibiotics every time he’s snuffly, they won’t work when he really needs them. How’s the physiotherapy going?’ she continued, determinedly changing the subject.

‘All right, I guess. He’s not very happy about the night splints.’

Which meant he probably wasn’t wearing them, Jess thought with a deep sigh. ‘Elspeth, you know he has to wear them in bed, whether he wants to or not. The physiotherapy he’s getting will maintain muscle strength and joint mobility, but the splints are equally important to prevent joint deformity.’

‘I suppose so,’ the woman muttered. ‘I still don’t know how he’s got this juvenile arthritis. Simon’s phoned round all our relatives—even contacted his uncle in Australia—but none of them can remember anybody in the family ever having had it.’

‘Elspeth, I only said it might be inherited,’ Jess reminded her. ‘The initial joint inflammation can also be triggered by a viral infection, but the truth is we really don’t know why some children are affected and others aren’t. But as I told you before, there’s every chance he’ll grow out of it.’

And Elspeth still didn’t believe her, Jess thought wearily when she left the house and Ezra drove her to her next call. Neither did Denise Fullarton after she’d examined her, but at least the local dentist’s wife had more cause to be concerned.

‘She’s had three miscarriages in five years?’ Ezra exclaimed when she explained the situation. ‘No wonder she was too terrified to walk to the surgery for a confirmation of her pregnancy. How far on is she?’

‘Seven weeks.’

‘Has she ever carried a baby to full term?’

Jess shook her head. ‘I’ve had her tested for everything—fibroids, uterine abnormality, genetic abnormalities—but the muscles of her cervix just seem to be too weak to support her uterus when she’s pregnant. I’ve told her I’ll put a stitch in her cervix to keep it closed when she reaches the end of her first trimester, but the trouble is she doesn’t usually make it to twelve weeks.’

‘Have you tried taking blood tests at the start of her menstrual cycle to see whether her progesterone levels are raised?’ Ezra suggested. ‘I believe there’s some evidence to suggest women who miscarry a lot don’t produce enough progesterone after ovulation to help the embryo.’

She looked up at him enquiringly. ‘I thought that was usually linked to polycystic ovarian disease?’

‘It is,’ he said nodding, ‘but I also remember reading that giving gonadotrophin-releasing hormones to women who repeatedly miscarry can help. It’s obviously too late to try that now, but if—and hopefully it doesn’t happen again—your patient has another miscarriage it might be worth a try.’

It would, just as she’d dearly have liked to have asked him what kind of doctor he’d been before he’d decided to stop practising medicine.

Not a GP, that was for sure. This was a man who was used to giving orders—orders that were instantly obeyed.

A special registrar, perhaps? But, then, why had he given it up? He didn’t look like the kind of man who would throw in the towel on a whim. Dedicated, she would have said. Focused.

Could she ask him—did she dare?

Awkwardly she cleared her throat, but before she could say anything someone called her name and she turned to see Louise Lawrence striding determinedly across the road towards her, her youngest daughter in tow.

‘I wish you’d take a quick look at Sophy’s head, Doctor,’ Louise said irritably. ‘Scratch, scratch, scratch. She’s been doing it for a couple of days now and it’s driving me mad.’

Obediently Jess parted Sophy’s long black hair and saw the cause immediately. ‘I’m afraid your daughter has lice, Mrs Lawrence—head lice.’

Sophy’s mother was outraged. ‘But she can’t have! My daughter has clean hair—’

‘Which is just the sort lice prefer,’ Jess interrupted gently. ‘They generally travel from head to head when children share combs or hats—’

‘But Sophy never does that,’ Louise protested. ‘I’ve warned her time and time again about the dangers, and I can assure you she doesn’t do it.’

Sophy’s swiftly averted gaze suggested that the warning had gone unheeded, but Jess saw no point in commenting on it. The most important thing now was to treat the condition.

‘Do people often do that—ask you for a consultation on the street?’ Ezra asked, clearly bemused, as an obviously furious Mrs Lawrence bore Sophy off in the direction of the village shop with instructions to buy a special head-lice shampoo and to remember to treat everybody in the family.

‘And how!’ Jess chuckled. ‘My most potentially embarrassing case happened not long after I came back to the island. It was an old fisherman who thought he had a hernia but didn’t want to take time off work to come into the surgery to confirm it. Honestly, if anyone had seen the two of us down this side street—me on my knees in front of him—well, you can just imagine what they would have thought!’

Unfortunately Ezra discovered he could—only too vividly—and was even more dismayed to feel his groin tighten at the image.

Lord, but Tracy had been right. One week of living on his own at Selkie Cottage and already he was getting weird. He had to be if he was finding himself envying an unknown, elderly fisherman with a hernia.

And the ridiculous thing was that he didn’t even like Jess Arden. OK, so in the winter sunshine her red hair shone like spun silk, and her eyes became an even deeper green than they’d been before, but when all was said and done she was just a woman.

And a blackmailing one at that, he reminded himself as he drove her out of Inverlairg to the first of her outlying home visits.

So if she wanted to hobble from patient to patient all afternoon, he had absolutely no sympathy for her. And if she was clearly growing more and more exhausted by the minute, then it was her own fault.

Which was why it made no sense at all when he drew his car to a halt outside Woodside croft for him to demand angrily, ‘Look, how many more of these damn house calls have you got to make?’

Of course she bristled immediately, as any idiot would have known she would.

‘I’m sorry if you’re bored, Dr Dunbar,’ she said, her voice ice-cold, ‘but I’m not about to rush my visits just to please you.’

‘I’m not bored—’

‘This is my last call,’ she continued, completely ignoring his protest, ‘but, believe me, it will take as long as it takes.’

And it would, she thought, even though she was obviously the last person Mairi Morrison wanted to see when she opened her front door.

‘Not much of a talker, your new locum,’ Mairi observed when Ezra stalked off towards the barns after the very briefest of greetings.

‘People on the mainland don’t tend to talk as much as we do, Mairi, and I’m afraid I might have rather steamrollered him a bit today, and…’ And what the hell was she doing, defending him? Jess wondered, feeling her cheeks redden under Mairi’s curious gaze. Ezra Dunbar was big enough and cussed enough to look after himself. ‘Grace asked me to drop by,’ she continued quickly. ‘She’s a bit worried about you.’

Mairi shook her head as she led the way into the house. ‘I’d have thought she had enough to worry about with her own angina, instead of poking her nose into other people’s business. I’m just getting old, like everybody else.’

‘Fifty-three’s hardly old,’ Jess protested with a laugh. ‘In fact, I’d say you were just in your prime!’

The Mairi Morrison Jess knew of old would have made some witty retort. The same Mairi Morrison would also have had something considerably more stringent to say about interfering neighbours, but this Mairi Morrison accepted her offer of an examination without a murmur and to Jess’s dismay seemed lethargic and uninterested, almost strangely resigned.

‘How long have you had that cough?’ Jess asked after she’d sounded her.

‘Everybody’s got a cold, Jess. It’s winter.’

It was, but everybody’s chest didn’t sound like Mairi’s. Thick and congested and wheezy. And everybody hadn’t lost weight they could ill afford to lose.

‘I’d like to send you for an X-ray,’ she said, reaching for her notebook. ‘You’ve probably simply got a chest infection, but it’s best to check it out. I’ll give Bev a call and try to get you an appointment for the end of the week, if that’s OK?’

Mairi gazed down at her red, work-worn knuckles for a moment, then sighed. ‘I suppose so.’

There it was again. The same air of defeat, as though Mairi knew—or suspected—something she wasn’t telling her.

‘Mairi, if there’s something worrying you—’

‘When are you going to get married?’

Mairi had been asking the same question ever since Jess had turned twenty-two, but today Jess knew it was merely a means of changing the subject. She also sensed, however, that there was no point in pressing the matter, and she smiled. ‘Oh, this year, next year, some time, never.’

‘You’ve not met the man with the black hair and the cleft chin, then?’ Mairi observed, and Jess stared at her in amused amazement.

‘Good grief, fancy you remembering that! I must have been—what—fifteen, sixteen, when I told you all about my ideal man. No, I haven’t met him yet.’

Neither had she ever experienced that flip of her heart which she’d solemnly assured Mairi would indicate she’d fallen in love with The One.

Well, actually, yes, she had, she suddenly remembered, suppressing a chuckle. Last night, when Ezra had come back, her heart had lifted in a most disconcerting way. Which only served to show what romantic twaddle she’d believed when she’d been sixteen.

‘Maybe it’s time you looked closer to home,’ the older woman said, leading the way outside. ‘Brian Guthrie’s sweet on you, you know.’

‘Brian’s lonely, and has been ever since Leanne died.’

‘He thinks you’re sweet on him.’

He did, too, Jess thought glumly. She’d only gone out with him because he’d been so depressed after his wife had died, and she’d thought it might help if he had someone to talk to. And it had, but not the way she’d wanted.

‘OK, so he’s in his fifties,’ Mairi continued, ‘but at thirty-two you’re no spring chicken.’

‘Gee, thanks!’ Jess protested, her eyes dancing as Ezra walked towards them, ready to carry her medical bag.

‘And if you don’t fancy Brian Guthrie, there’s always Fraser Kennedy,’ the older woman continued. ‘He’s been in love with you for years, and he owns three fishing boats now so he’s well on the way to becoming a man of means.’

Jess shook her head and laughed, but she didn’t feel much like laughing when Ezra drove her back to Inverlairg and she saw how full her evening surgery was. She felt even less like laughing by the time she’d finished it.

‘Time to go home, Jess,’ Ezra declared firmly when she came out of her consulting room, and he saw the dark shadows under her eyes, the way she was leaning more heavily on her crutches.

For once she didn’t argue. All she wanted was to go home and crawl into bed, but even when they reached her cottage he was still in full organising mode.

‘Put your feet up, and I’ll get dinner,’ he said, steering her into the sitting room. ‘It’s nothing fancy—just some chicken I picked up from the shop—but I’ll make a proper list tomorrow—’

‘I’d rather just skip dinner tonight if you don’t mind,’ she said swiftly, only to see his eyebrows snap down. ‘Look, missing one meal isn’t going to do me any harm. It’s not as though I’m fading away—far from it—and I had a good lunch—’

‘So how come I smelt fish every time I lifted your medical bag?’

A tide of bright colour swept across her cheeks. She’d hoped he hadn’t noticed, but he clearly had, and she doubted whether he’d believe her if she said he’d simply been smelling Greensay’s fresh sea breezes.

‘I…I didn’t want to offend you when you’d obviously gone to so much trouble—’

‘You don’t like my cooking?’

‘No—I mean, yes, it was fine, great,’ she floundered. ‘I just felt a little queasy at lunchtime. Probably a side effect from the anaesthetic Will gave me last night.’

His eyes narrowed, and she could almost see his professional instincts working as he stared at the bruise on her forehead. ‘And do you feel sick now—headachy, dizzy?’

‘I’m just tired, that’s all.’

‘Then you’ll eat,’ he said firmly.

And she did, though he very much doubted whether she knew what she was eating.

Hell, but she looked awful. Half-asleep on her feet, her face chalk white with fatigue and pain. She couldn’t go on like this, and somehow he had to make her see it.

‘Jess.’

He’d spoken softly but her eyes flew open at once. ‘I’m not asleep. Just resting my eyes.’

‘Resting them, be damned. Jess, this arrangement we’ve got—it isn’t working.’

‘Of course it’s working,’ she exclaimed, panic plain on her face. ‘OK, so maybe we need to iron out one or two creases—’

‘You’re going to kill yourself if you go on like this,’ he said bluntly. ‘You’re not taking your painkillers—’

‘I am!’ she protested. ‘Just because you haven’t seen me—’

‘Jess, I know exactly how many you’ve taken,’ he interrupted, pulling her bottle of pills out of his pocket and waving them under her nose. ‘Two, that’s all, and you took those last night.’

She bit her lip. ‘I can’t take too many—you know I can’t. They fuddle your brains, make you sleepy.’

‘Jess—’

‘I know what you’re going to say—that I should close the surgery until I can get a locum—but the agency can’t get me anyone for five weeks—’

‘Five weeks!’ he repeated in horror, and she groaned inwardly.

She’d meant to break the news to him gently, not spring it on him like this, but it was too late now.

‘It’s an awful lot longer than I expected, too,’ she said, ‘but I can’t—and won’t—ask my patients to travel to the mainland, so I have to keep on working—can’t you see that?’

He could, and the trouble was he could also see an obvious solution to her problem, but it was a solution he didn’t want to suggest. A year ago he’d vowed never to set foot in any medical establishment again unless he was a patient. Hell, that was why he’d come to Greensay, for anonymity, and yet…

Look at her, his mind urged. Hell, the girl’s in pain. It’s your fault, and if you can do even a little to help, you have to.

He cleared his throat, knowing he was undoubtedly going to regret what he was about to say, but seeing no other alternative.

‘Jess, I can’t offer to do your home visits and night calls—I wouldn’t feel comfortable, not knowing any of your patients’ medical histories—but would it help if I shared your surgeries until your locum arrives?’

She stared at him in amazement. Would it help? It was an offer to die for.

‘I—I don’t know what to say,’ she stammered.

‘How about “Yes, please, Ezra” and “Thank you?”’ he replied, forcing a smile to his lips.

‘Yes, for sure, but a mere thank you…’ She shook her head. ‘Ezra, I know this isn’t how you planned on spending your holiday. You probably came here to paint, or to write, or something.’ She paused, giving him the chance to explain, but he didn’t. ‘I guess what I’m trying to say is how very grateful I am, and…’ To her dismay tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away quickly. ‘I’ll be forever in your debt.’

Ezra groaned inwardly as he saw the tears. Jess was a spunky, stroppy, irritating lady, and the last thing he wanted was to see she could be vulnerable, too.

Vulnerable meant him noticing how soft and husky her voice became when she was deeply moved. Vulnerable meant him seeing the way her green eyes darkened, throwing the whiteness and translucency of her skin into sharp relief. And he didn’t want to see these things. Seeing them meant he was in danger of forgetting why he was here, and that the last thing he needed in his life was a relationship.

‘You ought to be in bed,’ he said gruffly. ‘You’re almost asleep on your feet.’

‘Does this mean you’ll be moving back to your own cottage?’

His heart lifted at the prospect, only to plummet down again as he thought it through. ‘I can’t. You’re obviously not fit enough yet to be left on your own. No, don’t try to argue with me, Jess,’ he continued as she opened her mouth to do just that. ‘If I say you’re not fit, you’re not fit. Just accept that you’re stuck with me for a little while longer.’

And he was stuck, too, he realised when she smiled up at him—a small, wobbly smile which touched him more than he could say. Stuck with a job he didn’t want, in the company of a girl who somehow seemed to be unaccountably growing more and more attractive by the hour.

He groaned inwardly again.

CHAPTER THREE

‘I’M so glad it’s you, Dr Arden,’ Wattie Hope said, sitting down opposite her with an ingratiating smile. ‘This new chap you’ve got—nice enough bloke and everything, but you go in to see him with an ingrowing toenail and before you know it he’s got you stripped, sounded and your blood pressure taken.’

‘And how is the ingrowing toenail?’ Jess asked evenly as she opened his file.

‘Och, ’twas just an expression, Doctor,’ Wattie replied, his smile widening to reveal a row of tobacco-stained teeth. ‘It’s the old trouble—my back, you know.’

Jess did know, just as she also knew that Wattie’s back seemed to possess a marked tendency to get worse whenever work was mentioned, then miraculously improve the minute he heard someone was buying drinks in the local pub.

‘Have you found the pills Dr Dunbar prescribed helpful?’ she asked, scanning Ezra’s notes. ‘I see he’s started you on a course of indomethacin—’

‘They helped a wee bit, but…’ Wattie heaved a sigh. ‘Not as much as I’d hoped.’

Probably because you’re not taking them, you old fraud, Jess thought grimly. ‘It might be worth increasing the dose—’

‘Ronald at the garage told me you were speeding when you crashed into Dr Dunbar’s car.’ Wattie shook his head in wonder. ‘And there was me thinking you were one of the most careful drivers on the island, Doctor.’

PC Inglis had said the same, Jess remembered, when she’d reported her wrecked car. His sharply raised eyebrows had also told her he wasn’t one bit deceived by her story, but if that was the way she wanted to play it, so be it.

‘Wattie—’

‘Dr Dunbar was a doctor in London, so I understand,’ he continued. ‘Now, would he have been an ordinary GP there, or one of those big-shot Harley Street doctors?’

‘I think you’d better ask Dr Dunbar that yourself,’ Jess replied. With any luck he would, and with a little bit of extra luck she might be there when Ezra sent him away with a flea in his ear. ‘Now, about these pills—’

‘Wasn’t it a stroke of luck he turned out to be a doctor? I mean, if it had been anybody else…’ Wattie shook his head. ‘Where would we all have been?’

‘Yes—quite,’ Jess said tightly. ‘Now, as I was saying—’

‘And lucky, too, that your father’s old house has two bedrooms in it, now that Dr Dunbar’s staying with you. It does have two bedrooms, doesn’t it?’

Didn’t Wattie ever give up? Apparently not, judging by the way his small, dark eyes were surveying her speculatively, like a crow contemplating a worm. Well, she’d had quite enough, she decided, snapping his folder shut.

‘As you’ve only been taking the indomethacin for a week, I think we’ll give it a little longer to see if it will help,’ she declared, reaching for her crutches. ‘If you still don’t find any improvement in a fortnight, come back and we’ll try something else.’

That Wattie did not take kindly to this abrupt conclusion to his consultation was plain. He got to his feet, rammed his cloth cap back on his head and fixed her with a baleful glare.

‘Just as long as it’s you I see, Doctor. Some of us have got better things to do than be turned inside out by a man who would make the rocks on the seashore look talkative.’

Anger surged within her as she accompanied him back to the waiting room, but much as she longed to deny his criticisms she knew she couldn’t. Ezra did take a long time examining his patients, and it wasn’t because he was chatting to them.

‘Doesn’t say much, your new chap,’ her regulars had commented. ‘In fact, he can be a bit brusque at times but, my word, is he thorough.’

So thorough that the number of blood samples they’d been sending off to the mainland had doubled since he’d joined the practice a week ago. So thorough that Bev Grant had jokingly said she’d soon be a full-time radiographer instead of a part-time one.

If it had been anyone else Jess would have wondered if Ezra’s thoroughness masked a massive case of insecurity, but he was the least insecure man she’d ever met.

‘Wattie doesn’t look very happy,’ Cath observed as he strode out of the surgery, frustration on his face.

‘Wattie Hope is a pain in the butt,’ Jess replied. She glanced out at the waiting room. It was empty, apart from Miss Tweedie. ‘Has Robb MacGregor cancelled his twelve o’clock appointment with me?’

‘Not as far as I know,’ Cath replied, reaching to answer the phone. ‘Good morning. Inverlairg Health Centre. Oh, hello, Fraser.’ Quickly, she transferred the telephone receiver to her other ear and picked up a pencil. ‘I can give you an appointment with Dr Arden—Oh, you’d rather see Dr Dunbar? It would have to be Monday, then. OK, we’ll see you Monday at 9.30.’

‘Looks like you’ve got yourself a fan.’ Jess smiled, seeing Ezra come out of his consulting room.

He didn’t look particularly thrilled by the information. In fact, he looked downright puzzled.

‘Jess, what do you know about gout?’

‘Gout?’ she repeated in surprise as the surgery phone rang again. ‘Not a lot, except it was previously thought to be caused by too much rich food and alcohol, but we now know it occurs when the kidneys aren’t excreting enough uric acid.’ She ran her finger along the selection of medical books they kept in the office and pulled one out. ‘Who do you think has—?’

‘Sorry, Jess, but it’s Virginia—the Dawson’s Pharmaceuticals rep,’ Cath declared, cradling the telephone against her chest. ‘She wants to know if you’ve had a chance to look through her catalogue yet?’ Jess drew a finger across her throat expressively, and Cath smothered a chuckle as she put the phone back to her ear. ‘So sorry, Miss Brunton, but Dr Arden’s decided not to buy anything this time. Yes, I’ll be sure to tell her you called.’

‘That woman is driving me nuts,’ Jess groaned when Cath replaced the receiver. ‘One order—that’s all I’ve ever given her—and now she haunts me.’

‘Told you it was a mistake, didn’t I?’ the receptionist said. ‘Give these reps an inch, and they’ll take a mile.’

Tracy could have done with quite a few more inches, Jess thought, blinking slightly, as the girl joined them wearing a skirt that could have doubled for a pelmet.

‘We’ve plenty of the MMR vaccine, but we’re getting low on the diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus triple vaccine,’ she declared, beaming up at Ezra as she passed him.

‘Um, right. I’ll order some more,’ Jess replied, involuntarily glancing down at her own very sensible, calf-length skirt, before suddenly remembering Ezra’s patient. ‘Who do you think has—?’

She was too late. He had already disappeared back into his room.

Tracy sighed as she gazed after him. ‘He’s lovely, isn’t he?’

Cath nodded in agreement and Jess stared at the two women in bemused disbelief. Lovely? For sure, Ezra could be very kind. Indeed, his offer to help with her practice had been downright amazing, but lovely as in drop-dead gorgeous? She must need her eyes tested because she sure as heck couldn’t see it.

‘Sorry to be so late, Doctor,’ Robb MacGregor said, coming through the health centre door at a rush, ‘but I’ve been waiting on an order from the mainland and it’s finally arrived, and it’s wrong. Heaven knows how it can be. Twelve tons of bricks is twelve bloody tons of bricks in anybody’s language!’

And Miss Tweedie, for one, clearly didn’t appreciate his, judging from the way she pointedly slammed her magazine down in the waiting room.

‘Would you like to come through to my consulting room, Robb?’ Jess suggested, and the builder bit his lip as he followed her.

‘I’m sorry, Doctor, but if it’s not one damn thing at the moment, it’s another. Perhaps if I had more energy I’d be able to cope, but…’ He shook his head unhappily. ‘I’m so tired all the time, you see—that’s one of the reasons I’ve come to see you—and as for being short-tempered…!’

‘Are you having trouble sleeping?’ Jess asked, propping her crutches by the side of her desk and sitting down.

Robb thrust a large hand through his already tousled brown hair and smiled ruefully. ‘Doctor, if you were a self-employed man with a wife and two kids to support, and idiots on the mainland kept sending you the wrong goods, would you be sleeping?’

She chuckled. ‘I guess not. Could you slip your shirt off for me?’

He did, but after Jess had given him a thorough checkup she was no wiser.

‘You’ve lost weight since your last physical, haven’t you?’ she asked when Robb had put his shirt back on.

‘Still need to lose a bit more, I reckon,’ he replied, patting his stomach ruefully.

‘Any diarrhoea or stomach pains?’

He shook his head, and she leant back in her seat with a frown. He looked at the end of his tether. He also looked tired and pale and drawn, but his heart rate had been normal, his BP the same, and apart from his stomach being a little distended she could find nothing to suggest anything worrying.

‘I’ve taken a blood sample, and started him on a course of iron tablets in case he’s slightly anaemic,’ she told Ezra when he joined her in her consulting room for coffee at the end of morning surgery, ‘but I keep wondering if I’ve missed something.’

‘If he’d been suffering from stomach pain or diarrhoea I’d have said possible stomach ulcer,’ Ezra said, handing her one of the cups of coffee Cath had brought in. ‘But without that it certainly looks like anaemia to me.’

She wished she was more convinced, and then she remembered something else she still didn’t know the answer to. ‘Which of my patients did you think had gout?’

‘Brian Guthrie.’

‘Oh, the poor man,’ she exclaimed with concern. ‘Are you sure?’

‘He has all the classic symptoms. A swollen toe, which is very red and tender to the touch, and the veins on the rest of his foot were quite extensively enlarged, too.’

She shook her head. ‘Brian’s had a really rough time lately. His wife died two years ago, and he misses her a lot.’

‘So he told me. He also seemed a little bit disappointed to discover it wasn’t you who would be treating him.’

Actually, more than a little disappointed, Ezra remembered, whereas his jaw had dropped when Greensay’s reputedly wealthiest man had limped into his consulting room.

Brian Guthrie had to be fifty-five if he was a day, not to mention being red-cheeked, portly and balding. OK, so he knew that looks weren’t everything, but if this was Mairi Morrison’s idea of eligible manhood for Jess, he dreaded to think what Fraser Kennedy must look like.

Not that it was any of his business, of course, and neither did he care, but he’d have thought Jess deserved something better than a fifty-five-year-old with gout, or a wizened sailor.

‘Jess—’

‘The trouble is, people still tend to regard gout as a bit of a joke,’ she observed, sipping her coffee pensively, ‘and it’s anything but for the poor sufferer. In fact, I believe it can lead to serious bone and kidney damage if it’s not treated.’

‘So the book you gave me said.’ Ezra nodded. ‘Thanks for the loan of it, by the way. Gout wasn’t something I tended to come across when I—before I stopped practising medicine.’

Damn, but she wished he wouldn’t do that, she thought with frustration. Almost reveal what branch of medicine he’d been in, then suddenly clam up. It was so tantalising. And there was no point in asking him. She’d already tried it and had got nowhere.

Anyway, he was a good doctor, and that was all she really needed to know, but she couldn’t deny she was curious—OK, more than curious—about what he’d done before and why he didn’t practise any more.

‘I had another case of head lice in this morning,’ she said, determinedly dragging her mind away from Ezra’s past.

He smiled ruefully. ‘Snap. Looks like it’s going to go through the whole school. You’d better drop into the shop before you start on your home visits this afternoon and warn Nazir to stock up on antiseptic shampoo.’

She nodded and turned as Tracy popped her head round the staff room door.

‘Morning mail’s arrived, Doctors. Do you want it in here, or…?’

‘In here’s fine,’ Jess answered, only to immediately regret her decision the minute when Tracy came in.

Heavens, but her skirt was short. Short and tight, revealing a pair of long, perfectly shaped slender thighs which tapered down into even more slender ankles. The kind of ankles any woman would have envied. The kind of legs to die for, Jess thought wistfully as the girl left the staffroom. Her legs had never been great even before she’d broken one. In fact, if she’d worn a skirt like that it wouldn’t have been admiring glances she’d have drawn but laughter.

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