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

Finally she got herself centered, and although her cheeks still felt warm, she thought she’d dare to turn around.

“I’ve got enough pictures,” she said, trying not to look at him. “Shall we…?”

They got back into the vehicle and he ground it into first.

“True Blue sounds like her gearbox and clutch need some help,” she commented, just to break the silence, which was weighing on her and giving her too much time to think.

“We only have a few cars on the island, since a lot of people use bicycles or scooters, so our mechanic went off to look for greener pastures. I’d have to take her over to the mainland on the car ferry to get her looked at. She’s sounded like this forever, so I’m not too worried.”

They drove through a cut in the low hills—a twisty road, with rough autumn-colored moorland punctuated by the occasional gnarled tree or low copse on each side. In the distance the hills rose, dark stone stark against the heather and grass. It was, Harmony thought, beautiful in a stern, unflinching way.

“Do you get much snow here?”

“Not really—the occasional heavy fall but usually just a light coating. Our location is pretty sheltered, and because the hills aren’t very high storms tend to pass over us quickly.”

Just then they crested a hill and there below was a small settlement and the sea again beyond. The afternoon light was wonderful, and the sun, which would set about four o’clock, hung low in the sky, casting a golden glow over the whitewashed buildings.

“Our fishing village,” Cam said as Harmony leaned forward to see better. “My great-grandfather moved it here after a storm destroyed the old fishing village a little way down the coast. The entire spit of land gave way, and over the years the sea has eaten most of it up. You can still see the old buildings and what remains of the rescue station when the tide is low.”

She risked a glance at him, but when heat threatened to overtake her again, looked away.

“How long has your family lived here?” she asked.

“Almost two hundred years,” he said, and she couldn’t help smiling at his obvious pride. “In 1853 my three-times great-grandfather won the island in a game of whist.”

“A game of what?”

“Whist. It’s a card game. The story is that the island’s owner at the time was a bit of a wastrel. He lost a lot of money to my ancestor, and paid with the land. Charles MacRurie took the island, which was sparsely populated at the time because it was only used as a summer retreat and hunting lodge, and turned it into his private fiefdom.”

“Clearly he wasn’t the humble type, since he named it after himself.”

Cam chuckled. “From all accounts he was not. At all.”

They continued around the coast, with Cam pausing every now and then for her to take pictures, and Harmony keeping the conversation away from the personal and on the island and work.

She was amazed to hear there was an alpaca farm, which produced hand-spun wool, an artists’ collective, and a pottery with a world-famous potter. Somehow it had never occurred to her that so small a place would have such an interesting and diverse set of artisans.

When Cam pointed out her patients’ homes, and the side roads she’d need to take to get to them, she was able to ask informed questions, since she’d already read all their files. Cam slanted her a raised-eyebrow glance, but didn’t comment beyond answering her.

As the gates of Rurie Manor came into sight he said, “The road continues on past Eigg Point, and then goes back to town, but we’ll take the back road when you’re finished looking around the Manor.”

Call it cowardice, or the effect of the heat she could already feel building in her belly and snaking out to fill her chest, but Harmony had changed her mind.

“Why don’t I wait until everything is decorated?” she asked. “I’m due to check on Hillary Carstairs tomorrow, aren’t I? So I’ll take the car and drive myself back to the surgery. It’ll give me a chance to read her file more thoroughly and do any research I need to.”

“Sure, if you’d like,” Cam replied, giving her a look which she avoided, quite sure her cheeks were red again. “But it wouldn’t be a problem for you to come in now.”

She firmly refused, even though close up the Manor was so beautiful she itched to get inside and see it for herself.

Instead she put deeds to words, collecting her borrowed Wellingtons and then hightailing it out of Cameron MacRurie’s vicinity as fast as possible.

HARMONY WOKE UP to an almighty roar and clatter, which got louder and then seemed to be coming into the surgery itself. They were back to their usual nine o’clock opening schedule, and normally she would have been awake long before seven, but she’d hardly slept and had hit the snooze button a few times.

“What on earth…?”

The noise was coming around the corner of the building, and she could swear that everything in the place, including her teeth, was rattling.

Kneeling on the bed, she pulled back the curtain and saw, in the gray morning light, two large lorries and a caravan going past. As she watched someone jumped out of the first truck to open the gate leading to the Manor and the cavalcade drove through. It was only when the trucks were going up the path that she realized there were a couple of SUVs following behind, as well.

She watched until the last vehicle was through, and the gate was closed behind them, before letting the curtains swing shut again. Reaching over and turning on the bedside lamp, now wide awake, she wondered what was going on. More vehicles than she’d seen on the entire island had just passed her window.

Sliding out of bed, she reached for her bathrobe, resigned to getting an early start on the day, although she’d planned to spend another half an hour in bed. Mum was working afternoons, starting yesterday, so there was no early-morning prework call to look forward to, and no good reason to be up earlier than necessary.

Not that she could talk to her mother about the main thing on her mind—Dr. Cam MacRurie, who’d cost her sleep and had her mind and body in a tailspin. While her mother was no prude, Harmony knew the fact that her daughter seemed to be going ga-ga over a man she’d literally just met wouldn’t sit well with Delilah Kinkaid.

Heck, it didn’t sit well with Harmony either, but she couldn’t get the darn man out of her head.

Tossing and turning half the night, thinking about Cam, had left her frustrated and testy, wishing she could stay in the apartment all day and not have to face him. However, there were tasks that needed to be done in the surgery, and despite Cam telling her there was no rush she preferred to be ahead of the game, rather than stressing when a deadline loomed and she was unprepared.

Having showered and had some oatmeal, she went downstairs to the surgery and was surprised to see, through the front window, a crowd of people on the village green.

Going closer, to look out through the glass, she realized there was more than just people. There were a couple of pieces of what appeared to be farm equipment, some open-back vans, and lots of ladders, loaded pallets, coils of rope and large wooden boxes.

Harmony blinked a few times, trying to figure out if she was seeing things. There were only two hundred and fifty people on the island, give or take, and it appeared that all of them, probably plus a few more, were milling about on the green.

“What are they…?”

She almost had her nose pressed to the glass, trying to see what was happening. In the midst of it all was a figure in a Santa hat she was almost sure was Dora, who was gesticulating this way and that like a conductor on a podium.