Читать книгу Tempted By The Hot Highland Doc - Scarlet Wilson - Страница 11

THERE WAS NO way that this amount of vomiting could be normal. Maybe it was something she’d eaten on the flight between Los Angeles and London? The chicken had looked okay. But then she’d had that really huge brownie at Heathrow Airport before the departure to Glasgow.

She groaned as her stomach lurched again and the roll of the waves threw her off balance. They weren’t even out at sea any more, they were in the middle of docking at the harbour in Brodick, Arran.

‘First-timer, eh?’ said a woman with a well-worn face as she walked towards the gangway.

Kristie couldn’t even answer.

Gerry gave her a nudge. ‘Come on, they’ve already made two announcements telling drivers to get back into their cars. Do you want me to drive instead?’

She shook her head and took another glug of water from the bottle he’d bought her. Poor Gerry. He’d spent half of this ferry journey holding the hair from her face so she could be sick. He was more than double her age, but seemed to have weathered the journey much better than she had—even if he had twice tried to get into the car on the wrong side.

She gave him a half-hearted smile. ‘Next time we get on a flight together I’ll have what you’re having.’ He’d popped some kind of tablet as soon as they’d boarded the flight in Los Angeles and had slept until the wheels had set down at Heathrow.

He returned a smile. ‘What can I say? Years of experience.’

She watched him shuffling down the stairs in front of her to the car deck. The boat’s bow was already opening, preparing for the cars to unload. Kristie ignored a few pointed glares as she made her way to their hire car and tried to squeeze back inside.

The cars in front had already moved by the time she’d started the unfamiliar vehicle and tried to remember what to do with the pedals and the gearstick.

She jumped as there was a loud blast of a horn behind her. She muttered an expletive under her breath as she started the car and promptly stalled it. The car juddered and heat rushed into her cheeks. ‘Why is everything on the wrong side?’

Gerry chuckled. ‘Just watch out for the roundabouts.’

She bit her bottom lip as she started the car again. The roundabout at Glasgow airport had been like an episode of the Wacky Races. The whole wrong-side-of-the-road aspect had totally frazzled her brain and she was sure at one point her life had flashed before her eyes.

‘Arran isn’t that big,’ she muttered. ‘Maybe they don’t need roundabouts. Crazy things anyway. Who invented them? What’s wrong with straight roads?’

Gerry laughed as they finally rolled off the ferry and joined the queue of traffic heading towards a road junction.

‘Which way?’ she asked.

‘Left,’ he said quickly. ‘The doctor’s surgery and hospital are in a place called Lamlash. It’s only a few miles up the road.’

Gerry settled back in his seat as they pulled out onto the main road. The sun was low in the sky and all around them they could see green on one side and sea on the other.

‘I think I’m going to like this place,’ he said with a smile, folding his hands in his lap.

Kristie blinked. Although there were a number of people around the ferry terminal, as soon as they moved further away the crowds and traffic seemed to disperse quickly. There was a cluster of shops, pubs and a few hotels scattered along what appeared to be the main street of the Scottish town, but in a few moments the main street had disappeared, only to be replaced with a winding coastal country road.

‘I’ve never seen so much green,’ she said, trying to keep her eyes fixed on the road rather than the extensive scenery.

Gerry laughed. ‘You don’t get out of Los Angeles often enough. Too much dry air.’

A few splotches of rain landed on the windscreen. Kristie frowned and flicked a few of the levers at the side of the wheel, trying to locate the wipers. The blinkers on the hire car flicked on and off on either side. She let out a huff of exasperation as she tried the other side.

‘Road!’ Gerry’s voice pulled her attention back to the road as an approaching car honked loudly at her. She yanked the wheel back in an instant, her heart in her mouth. The car had drifted a little into the middle of the road as she’d tried to find the wipers. She cursed out loud as she pulled it back to the correct side of the road—which felt like the wrong side. ‘Darn it. Stupid road,’ she muttered.

Gerry shook his head. ‘No multiple lanes here. Get with it, Kristie. Embrace the countryside.’

She pressed her lips together. She hadn’t seen a single coffee shop she recognised, or any big department stores. What did people do around here? Her grip tightened on the wheel as the rain changed from a few splats to torrential within a few seconds. Her hand flicked the lever up and then down to quicken the windscreen-wiper speed. It was almost as if a black cloud had just drifted over the top of them. She leaned forward and tried to peer upwards. ‘What is this? Five minutes ago the sun was shining.’

She knew she sounded cranky. But she was tired. She was jet-lagged. She wanted some decent coffee and some hotel room service. She didn’t even know what time zone she was in any more.

A sign flashed past. ‘What did that say?’ she snapped.

‘Go left,’ said Gerry smoothly.

She flicked the indicator and pulled into the busy parking lot in front of her. There was a white building to their right, set next to the sea.

The rain battered off the windscreen and the trees edging the parking lot seemed to be lolling to one side in the strong winds.

Gerry let out a low laugh at her horrified face. ‘Welcome to Scotland, Kristie.’

* * *

‘Tell me you’re joking.’ He stared across the room at his colleague Magda, who had her feet up on a nearby stool and was rubbing her very pregnant belly. She sighed. ‘I signed the contract ten months ago. Before, you know, I knew about this.’

‘You signed a contract for filming in our practice without discussing it with me?’

She shot him an apologetic look. ‘I did discuss it with you.’ She leaned forward to her laptop and scrolled. ‘There.’ She pointed to her screen. ‘Or maybe not quite discussed, but I sent you the email. I forwarded the details and the contracts. So much has happened since then.’ She let her voice slow for a second.

He knew what she meant. In the last year he’d gone from helping out at the practice as a locum to taking over from his dad when he’d died. This had been his father’s GP practice, and Rhuaridh had been left in the lurch when his father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died in the space of a few weeks. Due to the difficulties in failing to recruit to such a rural post, he’d spent the last ten months, giving up his own practice in one of the cities in Scotland, packing up his father’s house and selling his own, and trying to learn the intricacies of his new role. It was no wonder this piece of crucial information hadn’t really stuck.

He ran his hand through his thick hair. ‘But what on earth does this mean?’

Magda held up her hands. ‘I’m sorry. I meant to talk to you last week when I sent them your details instead of mine—but I had that scare and just didn’t get a chance.’

Rhuaridh swallowed and took a look at Magda’s slightly swollen ankles. This was a much-wanted baby after seven years of infertility. Last week Magda had had a small fall and started bleeding. It had been panic stations all round, even from the team of completely competent staff in this practice and at the nearby cottage hospital. It seemed that practically the whole island was waiting for the safe delivery of this baby. There was no way he was going to put his colleague under any strain.

He sighed and sat down in the chair in front of her as he ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Tell me again about this.’

The edges of her lips quirked upwards. They both knew he was conceding that she hadn’t really told him properly at all.

‘It’s a TV show. A Year in the Life of...’ She held out her hands. ‘This one, obviously, is a doctor. It’s an American company and they specifically wanted a doctor from Scotland who worked on one of the islands.’

He narrowed his gaze. ‘I didn’t know you wanted to be a reality TV star.’ He was curious, this didn’t seem like Magda at all.

She laughed and shook her head. ‘Reality TV? No way. What I wanted, and what we’ll get—’ she emphasised the words carefully ‘—is a brand-new X-ray machine for the cottage hospital, with enough funds for a service contract.’

‘What?’ He straightened in the chair.

She nodded. ‘It’s part of the deal.’

Rhuaridh frowned. How had he managed to miss this? The X-ray machine in their cottage hospital was old and overused. Even though the staff had applied to the local health board every year for an upgrade and new facilities, NHS funding was limited. While their machine still worked—even though it was temperamental—it was unlikely to be replaced. A new machine could mean better imaging, which would lead to fewer referrals to the mainland for potential surgeries. Fractures could be notoriously hard to see. As could some chest complaints. A better machine would mean more accurate diagnosis for patients and less work all round.

He looked at Magda again with newfound admiration. ‘This is the reason you applied in the first place, isn’t it?’

She grinned and patted her belly again. ‘Give a little, get a little. You know I hate reporting on dusky X-rays. We’ll have a brand-new digital system where we can enlarge things, and ping them on to a specialist colleague if we need to.’ She shrugged, ‘Just think of all those ferry journeys that won’t need to happen.’

He nodded. Being on an island always made things tougher. Their cottage hospital only had a few available beds, which were inevitably full of some of the older local residents with chronic conditions. They had a small A and E department and a fully equipped theatre for emergencies but it was rarely used. Occasionally a visiting surgeon would appear to carry out operations on a couple of patients at a time, but they weren’t equipped to carry out any kind of major surgery and any visiting consultant had to bring their whole team.

Whilst their facilities were probably adequate for their population of five thousand, every year the influx of holiday tourists during the summer months took their numbers to over twenty thousand. Slips, trips and falls made the X-ray machine invaluable. Rhuaridh had lost count of the number of times he’d had to send someone with a questionable X-ray over on the ferry to the mainland for further assessment.

‘Sometimes I think I love you, Magda,’ he said as he shook his head.

She wagged her finger. ‘Don’t tell David you said that, and just remember that while I tell you the rest.’ He smiled. He’d known Magda’s husband for the last ten years. He’d watched his friend battle to win the heart of the woman in front of him.

‘What’s the rest?’ he asked as he stood up and stretched his back.

Magda bit her bottom lip. ‘The filming happens for three days every month. You don’t have to do anything special. They just follow you about on your normal duties. They take care of patient consent for filming. You just have to be you.’

The words were said with throwaway confidence but from the look on Magda’s face she knew what was coming.

‘Three days every month?’

She nodded. ‘That’s all.’

He pressed his lips together. It didn’t sound like That’s all to him. It sounded like three days of someone following him around and annoying him constantly with questions. It sounded like three days of having to explain to every single patient that someone was filming around him. He could kiss goodbye to the ten-minute consultation system that kept the GP practice running smoothly. He could wave a fond farewell to his speedy ward rounds in the community hospital where he knew the medical history of most of the patients without even looking at their notes.

‘Three days?’ He couldn’t keep the edge out of his voice. He’d spent his life guarding his privacy carefully. Magda knew this. They’d trained together for six years, then jokingly followed each other across Scotland for a variety of jobs. It had been Rhuaridh who had introduced Magda to the isle of Arran off the west coast of Scotland—a place she’d fallen instantly in love with. It had been Rhuaridh who had introduced Magda to his best friend David, and his father Joe, who’d looked after the cottage hospital and GP practice on the island for thirty years. She knew him better than most. She knew exactly how uncomfortable this would make him.

She put her feet on the floor and leaned forward as best as she could with her swollen stomach. ‘I know it’s bad timing. I never thought this would happen.’ Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. ‘I always meant for it to be me that did the filming. I thought it might even be fun. Some of our oldies will love getting a moment on TV.’

He could hear the hopeful edge in her voice. He knew she was trying to make it sound better for him.

He shook his head. ‘It...it’ll be fine, Magda. Don’t worry. You know I’ll do it.’ He could say the words out loud but he couldn’t ignore the hollow feeling in his chest. Three days’ filming every month for the next year. It was his equivalent of signing up for the ultimate torture. This was so not his comfort zone.

He took a deep breath. ‘Okay, it’s fine. You concentrate on baby Bruce. Don’t worry about anything. We both know you should currently be at home, not here. Leave this with me.’

She gave a half-scowl. ‘I am not calling my baby Bruce.’

It was a standing joke. David’s family had a tradition of calling the firstborn in their family Bruce. David had missed out. He was the secondborn. Once Magda had got past the three-month mark both David and Rhuaridh had started teasing her about the family name.

He laughed. ‘You know you are. Don’t fight it.’ He glanced at the pile of work sitting on his desk. It would take him until late into the night. With Magda going on maternity leave, and no locum doctor recruited to fill the gap, everything was going to fall to him. He was lucky. He worked within a dynamic team of advanced nurse practitioners, practice nurses and allied health professionals. He already knew they would support him as best they could.

Life had changed completely for him once his father had died. He’d felt obligated to come back and provide a health service for the people of the island when the post couldn’t get filled. Unfortunately, Zoe, his partner, had been filled with horror at the thought of life on Arran. He hadn’t even had the chance to ask whether she thought a long-distance relationship could work. She had been repelled by the very prospect of setting foot on the island he’d previously called home and had run, not walked, in the opposite direction.

All of that had messed with his head in a way he hadn’t quite expected. He loved this place. Always had, always would. Of course, as a teenager wanting to study medicine, he’d had to leave. And that had been good for him. He’d loved his training in the Glasgow hospitals, then his time in Edinburgh, followed by a job in London, and a few months working for Doctors Without Borders, before taking up his GP training. But when things had happened and his father died suddenly? That whole journey home on the boat had been tinged with nostalgia. Coming home had felt exactly like coming home should. It had felt as if it was supposed to happen—even though the circumstances were never what he had wanted.

He moved over towards the desk and looked at Magda. ‘So, when exactly does this start? In a few months?’

There was a nervous kind of laugh. ‘Tomorrow,’ Magda said as she stared out the window. ‘Or today,’ she added with a hint of panic as her eyes fixed on the woman with blonde hair blowing frantically around her face in the stiff Firth of Clyde winds. Rhuaridh’s eyes widened and he dropped the file he’d just picked up.

‘What?’ His head turned and followed Magda’s gaze to the car park just outside his surgery window.

The woman was dressed in a thin jacket and capri pants. It was clear she was struggling with the door of her car as it buffeted off her body then slammed in the strong winds. She didn’t look particularly happy.

‘You’ve got to be joking—now? No preparation time, nothing?’

Magda gave an uncomfortable swallow, her blue eyes meeting his. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I just got caught up in other things.’

He could sense the panic emanating from her. He felt his annoyance bubble under the surface—but he’d never show it.

His brain started to whirl. He’d need to talk to patients. Set up appropriate consultations. Make sure nothing inappropriate was filmed. He wanted to run a few questions past his professional organisation. He knew there had been some other TV series that had featured docs and medical staff, and he just wanted a bit of general advice.

A piece of paper flew out of the hand of the woman outside. ‘Darn it!’ Even from inside her American accent was as clear as a bell.

Magda made a little choking sound. He turned to face her as she obviously tried to stifle her laugh. Her eyebrows rose. ‘Well, she looks like fun.’

Rhuaridh pressed his lips together to stop himself from saying what he really wanted to say. He took another breath and wagged his finger at Magda. ‘Dr Price, I think you owe me.’

She held out her hand so he could help pull her up from the chair. ‘Absolutely.’ She smiled.

* * *

Gerry seemed to be taking the wind in his stride. ‘Why did we come here first?’ she muttered as she opened the boot of the car to grab some of their equipment.

‘Best to get things started on the right foot. Let’s meet our guy, establish some ground rules, then crash.’

She gave him a sideways glance. Maybe her older colleague was more fatigued than he was admitting. She batted some of her hair out of her face. The sign outside the building read ‘Cairn Medical Practice’, with the names of the doctors underneath.

‘Roo-ah-ree.’ She practised the name on her tongue as they made their way to the main entrance. Gerry already had a camera under one arm. One thing for Gerry, he was ever hopeful.

‘Roo-ah-ree.’ She practised again, trying to pretend she wasn’t nervous. So much was riding on this. She had to make it work. She had to make it interesting and watchable. There hadn’t been background information on this doc. Apparently he’d been the last-minute replacement for someone else. And if he was anything like the majority of the people on the ferry he would be grey-haired, carry a walking stick, and be wearing a sturdy pair of boots.

The ferry. What if she still smelled of sick? She felt a tiny wave of panic and grabbed some perfume from her bag, squirting it madly around her before they went through the main entrance door.

They stepped into a large waiting area. It was empty but looked...busy. Some of the chairs were higgledy-piggledy, magazines and a few kids’ toys were scattered around the tables and floor. She could see some tread marks on the carpet. This place had a well-used feel about it.

She glanced at her watch. There was no one at the reception desk. It was after six p.m. The sign on the door said that was closing time. ‘Hello?’ she ventured.

There was the slam of a door from somewhere and a tall ruffled, dark-haired man appeared from the back of the building. He had the oddest expression on his face. It looked almost pained.

‘Hi, sorry,’ he said. ‘Just seeing my pregnant colleague out.’ His eyes seemed to run up and down the two of them. ‘You must be the TV people.’

His accent was thick, almost lilting, and it actually took her a few seconds to tune in and process his words. A frown appeared on his forehead at the delay. ‘Rhuaridh Gillespie?’ He lifted his hand and pointed to his chest.

Oh, my goodness. She was going to have to concentrate hard—and she didn’t just mean because of the accent. He was so not what she expected. Instead of an old wrinkly guy, she had a lean, muscled guy with bright blue eyes and slightly too long tousled dark hair. He was wearing a light blue shirt and dress pants. And he didn’t look entirely pleased to see them.

Something sparked in her brain and she walked forward, holding her hand out, knowing exactly how dishevelled she looked after their long journey. ‘Kristie Nelson. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Roo—’ She stumbled a little. ‘Dr Gillespie,’ she said, praying that her signature smile would start working any moment soon.

For a while, that had kind of been her trademark. With her styled blonde locks, usually perfect makeup and ‘signature’ wide smile, there had been a time on local TV when she’d become almost popular. That had been the time she’d had oodles of confidence and thought her star was going to rise immensely and catapult her to fame and fortune. Instead, she’d fallen to the earth with a resounding bump.

He reached over and took her hand. It was a warm, solid grip. One that made her wonder if this guy worked out.

‘Like I said, Rhuaridh Gillespie.’ He leaned over and shook Gerry’s hand too.

‘Gerry Berkovich. Camera, lights, sounds and general dogsbody for the good-looking one.’ He nodded towards Kristie.

She slapped his arm. ‘As if!’

Dr Gillespie didn’t even crack a smile. In fact, he barely held in his sigh. He gestured towards the nearest office. ‘Come and have a seat. I’ve kind of been thrown in at the deep end here, so we’re going to have to come to an agreement about some boundaries.’

It was the edge to his tone. She shot a glance at Gerry, who raised one corner of his eyebrow just a little. This didn’t sound like the best start.

She swallowed and tried to ignore the fact she was tired, now hungry, and desperately wanted a shower and five minutes lying on a bed and staring up at a ceiling. She’d been travelling for twenty hours. She’d been in the company of other people for more than that. Sometimes she needed a bit of quiet—a bit of down time. And it didn’t look like it would happen anytime soon.

Rhuaridh showed them to seats in his office.

Kristie had dealt with lots of difficult situations over the last few years in TV and moved into autopilot mode. ‘I’m sure everything will be fine,’ she said smoothly. ‘Contracts have already been agreed—’

‘Not by me,’ he cut in sharply, ‘And not by my patients. In fact...’ he took a deep breath, lifting one hand and running it through his dark scraggy hair ‘... I’ll need to get my professional organisation to take a look at this contract to make sure no patient confidentially will be breached inadvertently.’

He was speaking. But she wasn’t really hearing. It was all just noise in her ears.

‘This was all looked at—all prepared beforehand.’ She could cut in too. As it went, she didn’t know a single thing about the show’s contracts because she’d had nothing to do with any of this. All she knew was she was on a schedule. She had three days to film enough stuff to get forty-one minutes of usable footage. Much harder than it sounded.

‘I’ve been thrown into this. I won’t do anything to compromise my patients, or my position here.’ His voice was jagged and impenetrable. She could see him building a solid wall in front of himself before her very eyes. Her very tired eyes.

She’d thought he’d looked kind of sexy earlier. If this guy could do a bit of charm, the ladies would love him. But it seemed that charm and Dr Gillespie didn’t go in the same sentence. ‘I’m sure that—’

He stood up sharply. ‘I won’t move on this.’

‘But we only have three days...’

Gerry gave a little cough. She turned sideways to look at him and he gave an almost invisible shake of his head.

‘I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. I suggest you go and check into your accommodation and try and...’ he shot her a glance as if he was struggling to find the right words ‘...rest.’

He walked over to the door and opened it for them. This time he didn’t even meet her gaze. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

Kristie was feeling kind of dazed. Had she just been dismissed? She wanted to stand and argue with him. Who did this guy think he was? Arrogant so-and-so. She’d travelled twenty hours for this.

But it was almost as if Gerry read her mind. He grabbed hold of her elbow as he led her back to the car.

The sky had got darker again as thick grey clouds swept overhead, followed by the obligatory spots of rain.

She opened the car and slumped into the driver’s seat. Gerry started talking. ‘I can shoot some of the scenery. Get a shot of the exteriors, the roads, the surgery. Maybe we could get someone to show us around the—what did they call it in the file—cottage hospital? I could even get a few shots of the ferry docking and leaving.’

‘That will fill about five minutes of film when it’s all edited down,’ she groaned. She leaned forward and banged her head on the steering wheel. ‘Why didn’t I get the museum curator in Cairo? The person who is training to be an astronaut? Why did I have to get the grumpy Scottish doctor?’ She thumped her head again, just to make sure Gerry understood just how frustrated she was.

‘Kinda good looking, though,’ he said unexpectedly.

‘What?’ She sat back up and shot him a weird look.

‘I said, he’s kind of good looking. And that cross demeanour? I think some folks might like it.’

Kristie shook her head. ‘At this rate the whole first episode will have to be subtitled. Did you hear how fast he talks? And how thick that accent is?’

Gerry gave a slow appreciative nod as he folded his arms across his chest. ‘He’s practically got Highland warrior stamped on his forehead.’ He twisted towards her and tapped one finger on his chin, looking thoughtful. ‘Hey? What do you think your chances are of getting him in a kilt?’

It was no use. Her brain was clearly switching off, and Gerry’s was clearly switching on. She just couldn’t function.

She let out a kind of whimper. ‘Blooming Arran. I need food, a shower and a bed. Tell me you know where our hotel is.’

Gerry smiled. ‘It’s about a five-minute drive from here. And it’s not a hotel. It’s a cottage. Apparently accommodation can be tricky here. There’re only a few hotels, but some holiday lets. We’ll be lucky if we stay in the same place twice.’

Kristie put both hands on the steering wheel and started the engine. ‘Just tell me which direction.’ Her head was starting to thump. It was probably the jet-lag and a bit of dehydration. If she couldn’t get something in the can in the next three days she would be toast. Her career was already dangling by a thread. Another failure against her name and Louie would be right—no one would want to work with her.

She was going to have to try all her Kristie charm on Dr Grump. Because if she didn’t, who knew what could happen next?

* * *

They were sitting in his waiting room—again. Patients had already started asking questions. Some were even volunteering to be filmed. Three days of this every month for the next year?

He’d checked with his union. Apparently the TV contract was standard, and the appendix regarding patient consent was similar to one used by other TV series. As long as consent was granted and paperwork completed, there was no reason for him not to continue.

Truth was, he’d heard this news one day ago, but still couldn’t bring himself to tell the TV crew. The guy—Gerry—permanently looked as if he could go to sleep at the drop of the hat, whereas his counterpart—Kristie—looked more wound up than the tightest spring.

Pam, one of the secretaries, stuck her head around the door. She had a sheaf of messages in her hand. ‘Hospital called. X-ray problems again. Mrs McTaggart needs her painkillers upped. John Henderson phoned—sounded terrible—I’ve put him down for a house call, and...’ She paused for a second, giving him a wary look. ‘And I’ve got his permission to take the film crew.’

Rhuaridh’s head flicked up from the bunch of prescriptions he’d been signing. Pam sighed. She was another member of staff that he’d inherited from his father, meaning she knew him better than most. ‘You did what?’

Pam never pandered to him. ‘Magda had already gone through all the patient permissions with me. So I’ve started getting them. Now hurry up and take that woman out of my waiting room before she spontaneously combusts.’ Pam spun around and left, not giving him any chance to respond.

Rhuaridh leaned back in his chair and glanced at his watch. Nearly three p.m. He could do this. A few hours today, then all of tomorrow and he wouldn’t have to see them again for another month. He tried to rationalise it in his brain. How bad could this be?

He pasted his best kind of smile on his face and walked outside.

* * *

Finally. He’d finally graced them with his presence.

There were only so many outdoor shots they could film on Arran—and Gerry had shot them all. Filler time, to use around the actual, proper filming. The thing they didn’t have a single second of.

For a second yesterday, as they’d sat in the waiting room all day, she’d had half a mind to try and put a secret camera in this guy’s room. It wasn’t that she didn’t know all the unethical issues with this, it was just that she was feeling that desperate.

And after two days of waiting, Rhuaridh Gillespie gave them a half-nod of his head. ‘I’ve checked things out. We need to go to the local hospital. You’ll need to sort out your permissions with the patients when you get there.’

She refused to let that make her mad. She’d already spent part of the night before meeting the nurse manager in charge at the hospital and sorting out all the paperwork with the long-stay patients.

She hadn’t let Gerry see that she’d actually been sick outside before they’d entered. She’d been determined that she had to get the first visit to the place over and done with. Once they’d got inside and made the obligatory introductions she’d stuck her hands in her pockets so no one could see them shaking. If she’d had any other choice, she would have walked away from filming inside a hospital. But the fact was, there wasn’t another choice. It was this, or nothing. So she’d pushed all her memories into a box and tried to lock it up tight.

Once the horrible squirming feeling in her stomach had finally disappeared, she’d decided that distraction was the best technique so she’d spent some time talking with some of the older patients, and had already decided to go back and interview a few of them on camera.

So by the time they joined Rhuaridh in his black four-by-four and he drove down the road to the hospital she felt a bit better prepared and that horrible ominous sensation had diminished a little. The journey only took a few minutes.

It became pretty clear in the first moments after they entered the hospital that Rhuaridh wasn’t going to give them any chance to prepare, lightwise, soundwise or anything-wise. It was almost as if he was determined to ignore them.

Gerry murmured, ‘I can work around him.’

Kristie straightened her spine. If she didn’t start to get some decent filming soon she could kiss her career goodbye. But there was a little fire of anger burning down inside her. She didn’t let people ignore her. And she’d checked the contract, she knew exactly what Dr Gillespie was getting in return for doing this. He owed her three days of filming every month, and if this guy didn’t start to deliver, she wouldn’t hesitate to remind him.

But Kristie knew, at least for now, she should try and ease him into this filming. Maybe the guy was nervous. Maybe he was shy. Or maybe the guy was just a jerk. Part of her was mad. Did he have any idea how hard she was finding this? Obviously not. But whatever it was that was eating him, she had less than a day and a half to find out.

‘So, Dr Gillespie, can you tell me about the first patient we’ll be seeing?’

She could see the muscles under his white shirt tense. The ones around the base of his neck were particularly prominent. She nodded to Gerry to keep filming as Rhuaridh muttered a few unintelligible words.

‘To the camera, Dr Gillespie,’ she said smoothly.

He blinked and turned towards her just as Gerry flicked on their extra light. She almost stepped back. Resentment and annoyance seemed to ooze from every pore. For a second she was sure he was going to say no.

So she moved quickly. ‘In fact, let’s start with introductions. Face the camera, I’ll introduce you, then you can tell the viewers a little about yourself.’ She shot him a look, then added in a quiet voice, ‘And don’t mumble.’

She would never normally do things like this. Usually she would go over all the introductory questions with their subject, check their responses, and make sure everyone was comfortable before they started filming. But the fact was—on this occasion—they just didn’t have the time.

Before he had a chance to object she turned to the camera and gave her widest smile. ‘Hi, there, folks. It’s Kristie Nelson here, and I’m your host for...’ She realised her mistake almost instantly, but no one watching would notice it. Did this guy know he was going to be called a Hot Highland Doc for the next year? Maybe better to keep some things quiet, this was already an uphill struggle.

She was smooth. She’d been doing this too long. ‘A Year in the Life of...’ She let her voice tail off and held both hands towards Rhuaridh. ‘Our doctor. And here he is, this is Rhuaridh Gillespie and he works on the Isle of Arran. Dr Gillespie, can you tell us a little bit about your background and the work that you do?’

Rhuaridh did his best impression of a deer in the headlights. She gave him a little nudge in the ribs and he actually started.

He stared at the camera. Gerry kept it still while he stuck his head out from behind the viewfinder and mouthed, ‘Go,’ to him.

Rhuaridh gave the tiniest shudder that Kristie was sure only she could see before he started talking. ‘Yes, hi, thanks. I’m Rhuaridh Gillespie. I grew up on this island—Arran—before leaving to train in Glasgow as a doctor, then I’ve worked in a number of other hospitals, and for Doctors Without Borders. I trained as a GP—a general practitioner—like my father, then came back last year to take over the practice when my father...’ he paused for a split second before quickly finding a word ‘...retired.’

She was surprised. He was doing better than expected, even though he still looked as though he didn’t want to be there.

‘Can you tell the viewers a little about Arran?’ she asked.

‘It’s an island,’ he said, as though she’d just asked a ridiculous question.

She kept the smile firmly in place. ‘Can you tell the viewers a little about the people here, and the hospital? What was it like growing up here?’ The curses shooting across her brain stayed firmly hidden.

He gave a slow nod as if he finally understood that most people watching wouldn’t have a single clue about Arran. ‘Growing up here was...’ his eyes looked up to the left ‘...fun. Free. Yeah, as a child I had a lot of freedom. Everyone knows everyone in Arran...’ he gave a half-smile ‘...so there’s not much you can get away with. But a normal day was getting on my bike and disappearing into the hillsides with my friends. The lifestyle here is very outdoors.’ He gave a small frown. ‘Not everyone likes that.’

She wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that but didn’t push. ‘And the island?’ she asked again.

It was almost like his professional face slid back into place. ‘The population is around five thousand people, but in the summer months that can quadruple. We have a small cottage hospital with some long-stay beds and a small A and E department. I share the work in the hospital with the other GP on the island.’

‘What happens in an emergency?’ asked Kristie.

He looked a little uncomfortable. ‘If it’s a real emergency, then we send the patient off the island by air ambulance. In other circumstances we send people by road ambulance on the ferry and on to the local district general hospital.’

‘How long does that take?’ She could see a dozen potential stories forming in her head.

Now he was starting to look annoyed. ‘The ferry takes around an hour. The transfer from Ardrossan—where the ferry docks—and the local hospital takes around thirty minutes.’

‘Wow, that could be dangerous.’

His eyes flashed. ‘Not at all. We assess all our patients and make sure they are fit for the transfer before they are sent.’

‘What about people needing surgeries or baby emergencies?’ She knew there was another word for that but just couldn’t think of it.

‘Most surgeries are pre-planned and our patients will have made arrangements to go to the mainland. All pregnant women on the island are assessed by both an obstetrician and their midwife. We’ve had a number of planned home deliveries on the island. Any woman who has a history that would give cause for concern for her, or for her baby, has arrangements made for admission to the mainland hospital to ensure the equipment and staff required are there for her delivery. We haven’t had any problems.’

Dull. This place was sounding decidedly dull. All the good stuff—the interesting stuff—got sent to the mainland. But there were a hundred documentary-style shows that covered A and E departments. How on earth was she going to make this show interesting enough for people to keep watching?

She licked her lips and turned to the computer on top of Rhuaridh’s case note trolley. ‘So, Dr Gillespie, let’s go back. Can you tell us about the first patient we’ll be seeing?’

She had to keep this moving. Interesting footage seemed to be slipping through her fingers like grains of sand on the cold beach outside. Please let this get better.

* * *

There was not a single thing about this that he liked. Her American accent was beginning to grate on him. ‘Don’t mumble’ she’d had the cheek to say to him. He’d never mumbled in his life. At least, he didn’t think that he had.

That spotlight had been on him as he’d done the ward round in the cottage hospital. Normally it would have taken half an hour, but her incessant questions had slowed him down more than he’d liked.

She’d kept stopping and talking in a quiet voice to her cameraman and that had irritated him probably a whole lot more than it should have.

He was almost chanting the words in his head. One more day. One more day.

One of the nurses from the ward came and found him. ‘Rhuaridh, there’s been a message left to remind you about your home visit.’

‘Darn it.’ John Henderson. He still hadn’t managed to drop in on him. He shook his head and grabbed his jacket and case.

‘What? Where are you going?’ Kristie wrinkled her nose. ‘What’s a home visit anyway?’

He stared at the woman standing under his nose who was almost blocking his way to the exit. He felt guilty. He’d meant to visit John before he came here, but this filming thing had distracted him in a way he hadn’t been before.

He snapped, ‘It’s when you visit someone—at home.’ He couldn’t help the way he said the words. What on earth else could a home visit be?

Kristie only looked insulted for a few seconds. ‘You actually do that here?’

Of course. She was from the US. It was a totally different healthcare system. They generally saw a specialist for everything. Doctors like him—general practitioners who occasionally visited sick patients at home—were unheard of.

‘Of course.’ He elbowed past her and moved out to his car.

‘Let’s go,’ he heard her squeak to her colleague, and within a few seconds he heard their feet thudding behind him.

He spun around and held up his hand. ‘You can’t come.’

She tilted her chin upwards obstinately. ‘We can.’ She turned her notes towards him. ‘John Henderson, he’s on the list of patients that granted permission for us to film.’

Of course. Pam had already put a system in place to keep track of all this.

He couldn’t really say no—no matter how much he wanted to. He shook his head, resigned to his fate.

‘Okay, get in the car but we need to go now.’

They piled into the back of his car and he set off towards the farm where John Henderson lived.

It was almost like she didn’t know when to stop talking. Kristie started immediately. ‘So, can you brief us on this patient before we get there?’

Rhuaridh gritted his teeth. It was late, he was tired. He didn’t want to ‘brief’ them on John Henderson, the elderly farmer with the biggest range of health problems in the world. He was trying to work out how he hadn’t managed to fit John in before the visit to the hospital. He should have. Normally, he would have. But today he’d been—distracted.

And Rhuaridh Gillespie had never been distracted before. Not even when he’d been a junior doctor juggling a hundred tasks.

He didn’t speak. He could hear her breathing just behind his ear, leaning forward expectantly and waiting for some kind of answer. Eventually he heard a little sigh of frustration and she must have sat back as the waft of orange blossom scent he’d picked up from her earlier disappeared.

The road to the farm was like every road to a farm on Arran. Winding, dark, with numerous potholes and part way up a hill. This was why he needed the four-by-four.

He pulled up outside the farmhouse and frowned. There was one light inside, in what he knew was the main room. John usually had the place lit up like the Blackpool Illuminations. They liked to joke about it.

He jumped out, not waiting for his entourage to follow, knocking loudly at the front door and only waiting a few seconds before pushing it open.

‘John, it’s Rhuaridh. Everything okay?’

There was a whimper at his feet and his heart sank as he turned. Mac, John’s old sheepdog, usually rushed to meet anyone who appeared at the farm, barking loudly, but now he was whimpering in the hall.

He bent down, rubbed the black and white dog’s head. ‘What’s up, Mac?’

Even as he said the words he had a horrible feeling that he knew what the answer would be.

He was familiar with the old farmhouse, having visited here numerous times in the last few months. Mac stayed at his heels as he walked through to the main room. It was shambolic. Had been for the last few years, ever since John’s wife had died and he’d refused any kind of help.

The sofa was old and worn, the rug a little threadbare. A few pictures hung on the walls. But his eyes fixed on the sight he didn’t want to see.

‘John!’ He rushed across the room, already knowing it would make no difference as he knelt on the floor beside the crumpled body of the old man. Mac lay down right next to John, still whimpering as he put his head on John’s back.

John’s colour was completely dusky. His lips blue. ‘Here, boy,’ said Rhuaridh gently as he pushed Mac’s head away and turned John over onto his back.

His body was still warm, probably thanks to the flickering fire. But there were absolutely no signs of life. No breathing. No heartbeat. He did all the checks he needed to, but it was clear to him that John had died a few hours before.

It didn’t matter that this had been on the cards for a number of months. With his cardiac and respiratory disease John had been living on borrowed time for a while. But the fact was Rhuaridh had loved this old crotchety guy, with his gnarled hands through years of hard work and the well-weathered, lined face.

He looked peaceful now. His face more unlined than Rhuaridh had ever seen it before. Something inside Rhuaridh ached. John had died alone. Something he’d always been afraid of. If Rhuaridh had got here earlier—if he hadn’t taken so long over the hospital ward round—he might have made it in time to hold his hand for his last few breaths.

He lifted John’s coldish hand and clasped it between both of his. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered before he moved and closed John’s eyelids with one finger. He couldn’t help the tear he had to brush away. Mac moved back and put his head on John’s chest. He hadn’t thought it possible for a dog to look quite as sad as Mac did now.

He pulled his phone from his back pocket and made the obligatory phone call. ‘Donald, yes, it’s Rhuaridh Gillespie. I’ve just found John Henderson. Yes, I think he’s been dead for a couple of hours. You will? Thank you. I’ll wait until you get here.’

He sighed and pushed his phone into his pocket then started at the sound behind him.

Gerry had his camera on his shoulder and Kristie was wide-eyed. She looked almost shocked. A wave of anger swept over him. ‘Put that away. It’s hardly appropriate.’

Gerry pulled the camera to one side. Kristie seemed frozen to the spot. She lifted one shaking hand towards the body on the floor. ‘Is...is that it? There’s...nothing you can do?’ It was the first time her voice hadn’t been assured and full of confidence.

‘Of course there’s nothing I can do,’ he snapped. ‘John’s been dead for the last few hours.’

He didn’t add the thoughts that were currently streaming through his brain. If she hadn’t delayed him at the hospital, maybe he could have been here earlier. If she hadn’t distracted him at the doctor’s surgery, maybe he would have made John’s visit before he went to the hospital.

He knew this was all irrational. But that didn’t make it go away.

Gerry’s voice broke through his thoughts. ‘Do you have to wait for the police?’

Rhuaridh nodded. ‘They’ll be here in a few minutes, and the undertaker will probably arrive at the same time.’

He turned his attention back to John and knelt down beside him again, resting his hand on John’s chest. He felt odd about all of this. They’d stopped filming but it still felt like they were...intruding. And it was he who had brought them here.

Gerry seemed to have a knack of fading into the shadows, but Kristie? She stood out like a sore thumb. Or something else entirely. He’d been around plenty of beautiful, confident women in his life. What was so different about this one? She felt like a permanent itch that had got under his skin. Probably not the nicest description in the world but certainly the most accurate.

She stood to the side with her eyes fixed on the floor at first as his police colleague arrived then Craig, the undertaker. The unfortunate part of being a GP was that for he, and his two colleagues, this was semi-familiar territory.

When at last things were sorted and John’s body was ready to be loaded into the undertaker’s car, it was almost like the others knew and stepped back for a few seconds.

‘What about Mac?’ asked Donald, the police officer.

‘Right.’ For a few seconds Rhuaridh looked around. There was no one to take care of Mac, and they probably all knew that.

He looked over at the dog lying dolefully on the rug, his head on his paws. It didn’t matter how impractical. How ridiculous. ‘Give me a second.’ He moved back over to John’s body and slid his hand in to find the keys for the house in John’s trouser pocket. Someone would need to lock up.

He stepped back to allow them to take John’s body out to the hearse, then moved through to the kitchen and grabbed a bag, stuffing into it the dog’s bowl and a few tins of dog food from the cupboard.

Kristie and Gerry were still hanging around in the hallway, Gerry still with the camera resting carelessly on his shoulder.

‘You good?’ Donald asked as Rhuaridh appeared back out of the kitchen.

He nodded and walked through to the main room. It was almost as if Mac knew because he jumped up and walked over, tail giving a few wags as he wound his body around Rhuaridh’s legs.

‘Come on then, old guy,’ Rhuaridh said as he patted Mac’s head. ‘Looks like it’s you and me.’ He bent down and paused for a few seconds, his head next to Mac’s. Mac had lived on a farm his whole life. How would he like living in a cottage by the beach? A wave of sympathy and affection flooded through him as he looked at Mac’s big brown eyes. Of course he had to take this guy home.

It only took a few moments to put out the fire, flick the lights switches and lock the main door. Mac jumped into the back seat next to Gerry, who seemed quite happy to pat Mac on the drive back.

He dropped them at their rental and sped off into the dark as quickly as he could. His first day of filming couldn’t have been worse. ‘Please don’t let them all be like this,’ he murmured to Mac.

* * *

Kristie watched the car speed away. Her feet seemed frozen and she didn’t even care about the brisk wind blowing around her. After a few seconds, Gerry slung his arm around her shoulders. She’d just seen her second dead body. And she couldn’t work out how she felt about that—except numb. It was evoking memories that she just didn’t want to recall. The little old man’s house had been so...real. A few hours earlier he’d been there, and then he was just...gone.

This was exactly why she hadn’t wanted to do this job. It was touching at places she kept firmly hidden, pulling at strings in her memory that she preferred not to remember. She shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold.

Gerry looked at the red lights on the now far-off car. ‘Funny kind of guy, isn’t he?’

Anger surged inside her. ‘He’s got a contract. They’re getting paid well for this.’

Gerry looked at her in amusement and shook his head, taking his hand off her shoulder and instead tapping the camera in his other hand.

‘You haven’t realised, have you?’

She shook her head. She had no idea what he was talking about.

Gerry smiled. ‘That stiff-faced, crotchety doc guise that he’s pulling. This? This tears it all apart.’ He gave another nod of his head. ‘Kristie Nelson, in here, we have TV gold.’