Читать книгу The Nurse's Christmas Temptation / A Mistletoe Kiss For The Single Dad - Ann McIntosh - Страница 17

CAM WALKED AROUND the front of the vehicle, glancing in at Harmony through the windshield. She was fussing with the seatbelt which, like most things in True Blue didn’t work as it should, and just a glimpse of her furrowed brow and pursed lips made him smile.

Cranking open the driver’s door, he levered himself into the seat just as she got the belt wrestled into submission. She was casually dressed, but the jeans, white shirt and red anorak did nothing to camouflage her lovely figure. Cam rather wished it did, so he wouldn’t find himself admiring it so much.

Firing up the engine, trying to ignore how good Harmony smelled, he dragged his thoughts back to business. “I forgot to ask, can you drive a manual?”

“Yes,” she said.

But just as he was coaxing the vehicle into gear and, and it ground its way into first, he glanced across and saw her concerned expression.

“My grandfather taught me, but although he always said if I could drive a stick shift in Jamaica I could drive anywhere, I don’t know if I can manage this beast.”

Cam chuckled. “No, I have an estate car for you to use. I’m the only one who drives True Blue. She’s very persnickety.”

“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.

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.