Ann McIntosh - The Nurse's Christmas Temptation / A Mistletoe Kiss For The Single Dad

“True Blue?”

There was no mistaking the laughter in her voice, and it made Cam’s grin widen. “She’s held together with baling wire and tape, but she’s never let me down anywhere I couldn’t walk home.”

The sound of her amusement filled the rattling, groaning vehicle and made Cam unaccountably happy. He realized he’d never heard her laugh that way before; not a giggle but full-on belly laughter.

What started as a quick glance at her had him staring, his gaze riveted on her face. Amusement had taken her from beautiful to stunningly gorgeous, and it was only the need to watch where he was driving that tore his attention away.

“You live on a very small island. I’m guessing you’d be able to walk home from just about anywhere—am I right?”

He cleared his throat, being careful not to look at her again. “Yes, but don’t tempt fate. We’re in this together now.”

That exchange seemed to set a good tone for the rest of the time they spent together. Harmony even relaxed slightly, so Cam asked about her grandfather, and heard the story of her grandmother travelling to England alone.

“She explained it by saying that Granddad had ‘small pond’ syndrome. He wasn’t happy with the thought of leaving a place where he was known and had a certain status to start over in a much larger pond, where he’d have to begin again at the bottom.”

Cam couldn’t really relate. As a child he’d lived in more countries than he had fingers, and before moving back to Eilean Rurie he had seen even more working for the aid agency, which had sent doctors to refugee camps and disaster zones all over the world.

Despite his desire for a stable home when he was young, if given the chance to start over somewhere new and exciting now, he’d probably take it. With his past experience, being tied to the island sometimes chafed.

Still trying to get a handle on her family, he said, “Oh, I thought at first perhaps it was your father’s father who taught you to drive?”

“No,” she said. “My dad was half English, half Scottish. No Jamaican roots.”

Something in her voice stopped him from asking anything more about her father, so he just said, “How often do you get to go to Jamaica to see your family?”

“I went most summers before I started nursing school. I haven’t been back in a while, though, and I should go soon. Granddad isn’t getting any younger, and now he’s my last grandparent left.”

“I hardly knew my mother’s parents, and my father’s mother died before I was born. I think it made the bond between Grand-Da and me all the stronger.”

“Did your mother’s parents live far away?”

Cam eased True Blue into neutral and brought her to a stop at a T-junction before he replied. “No. It was my parents who moved around all the time. My dad is an archeologist, my mother’s his archivist, and he loves working in the field—the more obscure and distant the dig, the better. The Middle East and Southeast Asia are his specialties.”

The peripatetic nature of his childhood was something he rarely, if ever, talked about, and he was glad to be able to divert Harmony.

“Okay, now, it might seem logical to think this road goes all the way around the island, but it doesn’t. If you continue along here you get to the Harris farm, and then to a dead end where we have a wind turbine installed. So you need to remember to take the turn here, rather than go straight.”

Fighting the wretched gearbox, he made it back into first and turned the corner to continue circling the island. Since he’d introduced her to most of the people she’d be seeing on her rounds, he decided to simply give her the tour and then take her back home.

The less time they spent together, the better.

They crested a slight rise in the rolling terrain and the sea came into sight in the distance.

“Oh! How lovely!” Harmony said suddenly. “Can we stop for a second? I promised Mum I’d take pictures, and I’d forgotten up until now.”

It was a glorious day, although chilly, with a cloudless sky, and he found her reaction to the vista charming. For all his wanderlust, to Cam, Eilean Rurie was the most beautiful place in the world, and he loved to see others appreciate it, as well.

As he brought the vehicle to a halt she fished her phone from her bag and then hopped out. Cam followed, noticing the way the breeze caught her curls and made them bounce.

She started snapping pictures. “I told Mum about the ferry ride, and she asked then if I’d remembered to take any pictures. I felt pretty silly telling her I hadn’t.”

“Your mum’s okay with you being so far away?”

Harmony shrugged lightly. “I don’t think she was happy with the idea, but she knew I needed a job, so now she’s taking it in her stride, I think. I’ve been keeping her updated all along the way, and I got a chance to talk to her this morning before her shift. She’s sent my other suitcase already, or I’d have asked her to put in a pair of wellies.”

“I have a pair for you. At the Manor.”

Her lips twitched. They didn’t purse, just twitched.

“Did you forget them?”

“No,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, not sure whether to be annoyed at her implication. “I washed them off and left them out to dry. We’re going to drive right past the front entrance to the Manor anyway, so we’ll stop and you can get them.”

Her eyes were shining when she turned toward him, and heat radiated up his spine as she smiled.

“Oh! Can I take a look inside? I’m so curious about what it’s like.”

“Sure,” he said, then had to clear his tight throat and get a grip on himself. What was it about her smile that made his entire system go into overdrive? “But we don’t start opening up most of the bedrooms until later this week.”

Harmony blinked at him, her eyebrows dipping briefly before she turned back to take another picture. He played back his words in his head, trying to figure out her reaction, and then suppressed a groan.

Had he really just mentioned bedrooms, as though they were what she should see? And now that he’d realized the connotations he could picture her in bed—all smooth golden-syrup-and-cinnamon skin and luscious curves, those wild curls spread across his pillow. Somehow, though he didn’t know how or why, he knew her eyes would be greener then, inviting him close, and closer yet…

His reaction to the image was visceral: a shock of heat along his spine, lust turning his blood to lava.

She still had her back to him, had made no reply, and he dragged himself from his fantasy to rush into speech, trying to salvage the conversation and his sanity.

“We only keep part of the hotel open for most of the year, since we just get dribs and drabs of visitors. But next week the entire place will be opened up and aired, and the decorating started, so you’ll get a chance to see all of it.”

“Okay.”

That was all she said, leaving him wondering if he’d gotten himself out of the suggestive hole he’d unthinkingly dug.

Harmony took a deep, silent breath, pretending total concentration on her phone, all the while trying to shake her imagined visual of Cam in bed.

Naked.

Aroused.

Making love to her.

Those chiseled lips on hers…his large, capable hands all over her body.

She was blushing. The heat caused by an intense rush of arousal had traveled from her chest into her face. So she kept her back turned to him, trying to get herself under control.

What on earth was wrong with her? She’d met handsome men before, even dated a couple, but none had affected her the way Dr. Cam MacRurie did.