Hired: GP and Wife / The Playboy Doctor's Surprise Proposal (13 page)

He put the phone back in his pocket and folded his arms, looking at the wake creaming behind them and smiling grimly to himself. His mother had just informed him she was coming to stay for a few days soon and he could well imagine what she would say if she knew what had happened between him and Terry. ‘She’s out of your league, son. She doesn’t want to be involved with a boy from the Gorbals. I could have told you this would happen!’

Perhaps that was it. His mother would see what he could not, blinded as he was by attraction for Terry. Terry must suddenly have realised that she was hitching herself to someone from a completely different world from his. He gazed stonily over the water, his lips set in a firm line. He wouldn’t have thought it of Terry—she had seemed so fresh, so straightforward—but, then, what did he know about women? He’d made one bad mistake so the odds were that he could easily make another.

And yet…he turned round and looked at Terry standing by the rail, her slender figure looking vulnerable, her short fair hair whipping across her elfin face. He’d thought he’d known her so well—she seemed to be the last person in the world who would be concerned with something as trivial as the background one would come from, and he couldn’t really believe that she felt that about him.

At that moment she turned round and looked at him, and her expression had such pain and sadness in it that he could swear that she still felt something for him. She had been so intransigent about them parting and yet he couldn’t believe that that was what she really wanted.

What was he to do? He couldn’t force Terry to change her mind, but he was damned if he’d just sit back and let her go away without a fight. And he’d find out the cause of this sudden change of heart if it was the last thing he did.

Terry went over to a bench and sat down. It was no good regretting what she’d done—it was the only option that she could see. She had contacted the police and they were aware of the situation, giving her a special number to ring if she felt threatened. It hadn’t made her feel any safer.

They were drawing up to the little dockside now and the ropes had been thrown over the bollards to hold the ferry steady. Atholl was pushing his motorbike down the ramp and Terry followed him, horribly aware that she would have to get on the back of it and cling to him when they rode to the clinic. The last thing she needed was to be as close to him as that, holding onto his muscled body, awakening all kinds of feelings she was trying to suppress.

‘Put this on,’ he said unsmilingly as he handed her a crash helmet.

She took it wordlessly and then climbed onto the pillion seat behind him. He stamped on the accelerator and they whirled off. Terry closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as she pressed against him—so close to him physically and yet already so far from him emotionally. She had hurt him desperately, she knew, and he was angry and frustrated at her inexplicable change of heart. His manner had become cold and distant even now as if to cut himself off from her—and who could blame him? He must feel he hadn’t had much luck with women, reflected Terry miserably.

They stopped outside a small building with the words ‘Hersa Community Hall’ across the front, where a queue of children with parents were going in. Atholl and Terry got off the bike and he propped it up against the wall and took out a bag from underneath the pillion seat.

‘Come on,’ he said brusquely. ‘Let’s get this done.’

There were plenty of children there, some from one of the other tiny inhabited islands near Hersa but who attended the local school. Their parents were all extremely worried and a lot of reassurance had to be given that their offspring were highly unlikely to contract meningitis and that the antibiotics were merely a precaution.

Sitting so close to Atholl and working steadily through their young patients, it would seem to the outsider that there was nothing amiss between them, reflected Terry. Atholl was courteous to her when he spoke, but had introduced her to the parents as ‘Dr Younger, who is just filling in for my uncle for a short time’. When he said that, his eyes caught hers for a second and there was mutual misery in their locked gazes. Terry turned away abruptly to deal with her next small patient, a little boy with a snub nose and freckles.

‘And your name is…?’ she asked him.

‘Jimmy Scott, miss.’ He grinned at her as she gave him the injection, seemingly unaffected by the thought of a needle in his arm. ‘So are you and Dr Brodie sweethearts?’ he asked cheekily. ‘My auntie on Scuola says you make a lovely couple—I’ve heard her tell my mam!’

A posse of children around him burst into a fit of giggles and some of the parents remonstrated with them.

‘Will you hush up, Jimmy?’ scolded his mother. ‘You’re so rude. Do forgive him,’ she pleaded. ‘I’m afraid rumours get round this area very quickly…’

‘It’s quite all right, I’m immune to rumours,’ said Terry, stretching her mouth into a false smile. ‘There you are, Jimmy, you’re all done now.’ Beside her she was intensely aware that Atholl couldn’t have helped but hear the exchange.

‘I hope you’ve enjoyed your time in this area,’ continued the woman politely.

‘Yes,’ sighed Terry. ‘I have—very much.’

The last of the children had been seen and the hall was empty. Atholl started to push the chairs that had been used back against the wall and Terry wandered outside, unable to stand the atmosphere between the two of them in the empty room.

He came out into the sunshine and stopped for a second, taking in her woeful expression and the sad droop of her shoulders. Finishing their relationship evidently hadn’t made her any happier, he thought.

‘Right,’ he remarked. ‘Back to Scuola—and do I take it you’re staying at the B and B tonight?’

‘Yes. You can drop me off there.’

He nodded and got on the bike, and again there was the exquisite torture for her of being so close to Atholl as they flew along the road as she had been on the shores of the lake. Terry gave up trying to lean away from him as they drove along a winding road and allowed herself to squeeze up to his solid body, burying her head in the back of his leather jacket and savouring the warm, masculine smell of him. This would be the last time she would ever be this close to him, she cried inwardly to herself.

When they got off the boat the attractive house that did bed and breakfast was only a few minutes away. Atholl drew to a halt outside it and sat for a minute, waiting for Terry to dismount, then he got off the bike and took off his helmet, his dark hair ruffling in the breeze.

‘I’ll be ringing the agency for an emergency locum this afternoon,’ he said tersely. ‘Hopefully I can get one short term, starting in the next day or two.’

‘Very well. I think it’s for the best, Atholl.’ Terry tried to sound calm and measured, to disguise the little catch in her voice. ‘You’ll let me know when one becomes available.’

She turned and went into the house and Atholl went back to The Sycamores and parked his bike against the wall as he was just going in to catch up on his e-mails. A young man smoking a cigarette and smartly dressed in a casual suede coat and cream cords was standing near the entrance, looking at the brass plaque on the wall that listed the doctors who worked there. Terry’s name had not yet been added, so there were only Atholl and his uncle’s names on it.

‘Can I help you?’ asked Atholl.

The man turned round and smiled. He was good looking in a tough kind of way, but with a hardness about him that reminded Atholl of the kind of youths he used to hang around with in Glasgow, although this man had a veneer of sophistication and polish about him.

‘Thanks. I believe that Dr Younger works here—but I don’t see her name on the plaque. I was hoping to meet up with her.’

‘She has been working here,’ answered Atholl brusquely. ‘But she’s leaving.’

‘Ah…I see.’ The man frowned slightly. ‘And you are her colleague, I take it?’

‘Yes, I am.’ Atholl didn’t elaborate—he felt tired and irritable and not willing to enter into a conversation with a stranger.

‘You don’t happen to know her address, do you? I seem to have mislaid it.’

Some instinct made Atholl wary of giving the man that information. ‘I only know she’s moved from the place she was living in very recently,’ he said evasively. ‘Are you a close friend?’

The young man smiled. ‘Oh, yes, we were very close—and I knew her father very well.’ He flicked his cigarette into the grass verge. ‘Never mind, I’ll catch up with her. As I said, she’ll be expecting me.’

He walked off down the road and Atholl’s gaze followed him. The first hint of anyone from Terry’s background to have surfaced, he reflected as he went into the building, then his mobile phone rang and he answered it, putting the man out of his mind.

‘I’
VE
got an emergency locum,’ said Atholl tersely the next day, standing in front of the desk and looking down at Terry. ‘He’s starting tomorrow.’

So this is my last day here, and my successor is a man, Terry thought wryly. Not that she could blame Atholl—he’d surely never employ a woman again! She nodded wordlessly and sighed. The happiness she’d found in Scuola had been so short-lived. If only she could tell Atholl why she was leaving, what the whole background was. Impossible now. His safety depended on her cutting off any connection with him.

She bit her lip and said in a choked voice, ‘Thanks for telling me, Atholl. I…I’m sorry it worked out like this.’

A moment’s silence, then he said softly and unexpectedly, putting his hands on the desk and leaning towards her, deep blue eyes holding hers, ‘So am I, Terry, so am I. You know it doesn’t have to be like this. Are you quite, quite sure you want us to end things?’ He looked at her searchingly. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’

She turned her face away from his, unable to meet his eyes, biting her lip. ‘How do you mean?’ Her voice was edgy, cautious.

Atholl shrugged and said simply, ‘Because everything seemed so right—you, me, the way we worked together. Sweetheart, I’m adding two and two together here and it’s making five—there’s no sense to it.’

His tender voice hung in the room so tantalisingly, just as he had sounded when he had made love to her that wonderful evening by the loch, and it was heart-breaking. Terry took a deep breath and got up from the desk, walking towards the window to get away from his scrutiny.

‘It’s for the best, believe me…’

He frowned and looked at her assessingly. She hadn’t really answered his question. He stepped towards her and put out his hand to pull away a stray tendril of hair that covered her forehead, and she stiffened, willing him to move away again, to be anywhere but in that danger zone of closeness that made her stomach turn over. His hand strayed down her cheek and traced the line of her jaw down to her neck, and involuntarily she turned towards him, her face a picture of misery.

‘Please, Atholl…don’t…’

His hands were on the wall either side of her head, imprisoning her against it so that she couldn’t escape, and his body was nearly against hers as he gazed at her with those clear blue eyes. He was too close—far too close for comfort!

‘Tell me you don’t love me, Terry,’ he said roughly. ‘Tell me now that we aren’t meant to be together. It’s not too late.’

His mouth came down and kissed her full on her lips, gently but possessively, his hands running lightly over the curving fullness of her breasts, turning her insides to liquid and reminding her of just what she would lose when they parted. And he was right—they should have been together, she thought in anguish. His touch became more demanding, his lips plundering hers, teasing them open, his body pressing urgently against her, and she felt her resolve sliding away, starting to respond helplessly to his passion.

Then Max’s horrible note seemed to dance in front of her eyes and she forced herself to think of the danger she was putting Atholl in the longer she was near him. With every ounce of energy and resolve that she had, she twisted away from him and stood by the window, touching her lips where he had kissed them, still feeling them tingle.

‘I can’t get back with you, Atholl…I just can’t,’ she said desperately.

He straightened up and ran a hand roughly through his hair. ‘I’m sorry, Terry.’ He walked back to the desk, his back view slightly hunched as if gathering himself together, and after a few seconds turned round and said slowly, ‘Very well, I shall have to accept it.’ Then after a few seconds he added more briskly, ‘By the way, some man was asking about you last night—said he was an old friend of yours and knew your father.’

A sudden chill of foreboding laid its fingers on Terry’s heart. It had to be Max. There was no one else it could possibly be. So he’d got here already. Thank God she’d moved out of Atholl’s cottage.

She swallowed and forced herself to say lightly, ‘Really? Did you tell him my new address?’

‘I’m not in the habit of giving private information to people I don’t know.’

It was hard to hide the relief in her voice. ‘No, of course not. Did he give his name?’

‘No…I didn’t have a chance to ask him. He was quite tall, fair haired—ring any bells?’

Terry shook her head. ‘Can’t think who it might be. Anyway, he’ll probably find me if he needs to.’ Her heart thumped uncomfortably, a picture of Max and those lazy hooded grey eyes smiling at her flashing into her imagination, and she shuddered. She forced herself to calm down and speak normally. ‘I’ll tidy up my desk, then, and update the notes for the new locum. I’ll, er…see you before I go after tonight’s surgery.’

‘If you want to. I’ll be here until I go to visit my uncle tonight.’ Atholl turned round and went out of the room.

He walked slowly down the corridor to his surgery. Funny how she hadn’t seemed excited that someone from London had come up to see her—someone who had known her father. But, then, Atholl mused, she never talked about her life in London or reminisced about her family. It was as if she had obliterated everything that had gone before her arrival in Scuola.

In the end Terry couldn’t bear to say good bye to anyone. She knew how incredulous they would be that she was leaving when she had seemed to be so happy in her work. Instead, she left a note saying how much she had enjoyed her time with them, but unavoidable circumstances had meant she had to move on urgently, and that she would always remember Scuola and think of it fondly. She also left a short letter to Atholl.

The girls had all gone home, although she knew Atholl was still at the surgery because his bike was outside. She put the notes on the desk in the office and then after a wistful final look around the room she let herself out of the building and walked down to the bed and breakfast, looking around carefully to see no one was following her.

Atholl watched Terry walk down the street from his surgery window, until her slight figure neared the corner. Perhaps it was for the best that she hadn’t come back to say goodbye personally. He sighed and was about to turn away when he noticed a man appearing from a side street and start to walk in the same direction. Nothing unusual in that, except that he recognised him as the man he’d spoken to last night who said he’d known Terry’s father.

He watched as the man caught up with Terry. He must have said something to her because she stopped and turned round, then took a step back before the man took her arm. She seemed to be having a conversation with him and then, with the man still holding her arm firmly, they disappeared round the corner. She didn’t look particularly surprised to see him.

Atholl wandered into the office, his mind preoccupied, slightly edgy. He saw two notes on the desk, one in Terry’s writing addressed to him. He smiled bitterly as he picked it up and tore it open. It wouldn’t be a love letter…

Atholl, please don’t think badly of me. Believe me when I say I’ve never felt so happy as I did here with you. Meeting you was like coming alive again—a complete knockout to the heart. Perhaps I haven’t put my reasons for leaving very clearly. I only know it’s best that we part. I shall never ever forget you, Terry.

He frowned, fingering the note thoughtfully. She was saying that she hadn’t been entirely clear about why she wanted to leave—was that a hint that there was more behind all this than she had told him? The uneasiness he had felt before flickered like a gathering fire through his mind. Something was not quite right about the whole thing. Intuitively he felt she was keeping something back from him.

A sudden wave of determination swept through him. Damn it, he would go and see her at the bed and breakfast, whether that man was there or not, try and question her once and for all about this extraordinary decision of hers. He deserved a fuller explanation than she’d given him.

Mrs Bedowes, the woman who ran the bed and breakfast, answered the door.

‘Dr Brodie!’ she said in surprise. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I wondered if Dr Younger was here. I believe she’s staying with you for a night or two?’

Mrs Bedowes shook her head. ‘Well, no. She’s just checked out, actually. She and her young man just came to collect her things—she’s decided to leave tonight.’

Atholl raised an eyebrow. ‘Her young man?’

‘Oh, quite a charmer he was too. So much in love with her—he wouldn’t let her out of his sight. He said he wished they’d had time to stay longer in such a lovely place as Scuola. Apparently Dr Younger has to do a quick home visit before they go off for a break, so she picked up her medical bag and case.’

‘A home visit?’ repeated Atholl, puzzled. As far as he knew, Terry had finished work and had no home visits planned.

‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Bedowes with an indulgent smile. ‘Her boyfriend wants to take her on a little holiday—they’re such a sweet young couple. They were clinging to each other as if one of them might disappear!’

Terry’s boyfriend? Atholl stared at the woman as a sudden extraordinary thought struck him. Was it possible that Max had come back into the picture? Was that why she’d finished things between them, because she’d realised she still loved the man, and knew he was coming to see her?

‘Did…did you happen to catch this man’s name?’ he asked diffidently.

Mrs Bedowes smiled. ‘Oh, yes, but only his first name. He answered his mobile in the middle of talking to me. I heard him say, “Max here.”’

So that was it! Suddenly things were becoming clearer. Atholl stared at her wordlessly for a second, feeling as if someone had punched him in the solar plexus. Why the hell hadn’t Terry told him the truth? Why keep it a secret that she was going back to Max, instead of reeling off all this garbage about not wanting to commit herself so soon after her affair with Max, and that things between himself and her had been going too fast?

She’d pretended that she hadn’t a clue who Max was when Atholl had told her that a man had come to see her. But it had been a lie. She must have known damn well it had been Max but hadn’t wanted Atholl to know.

A mixture of betrayal, rage and deep hurt flooded through him, but with a great effort he managed to control his voice, and said pleasantly enough, ‘How long ago did they leave? I saw them going towards your place ten minutes ago.’

‘Oh, they’ve only just gone.’ The woman pointed up the road. ‘They’re in a blue car—they went up the main road towards the hills.’

‘Thanks!’ shouted Atholl over his shoulder, as he ran towards his motorbike and tried to kick-start it. It sputtered reluctantly into life and he roared off in the direction the woman had indicated. Again he felt slightly puzzled about Mrs Bedowes’s reference to Terry going on a home visit. He tried to think of the patient she might be seeing on this route, thinking that at least it would give him a chance to catch up with her before she disappeared on this jaunt with a man she’d said had caused her great unhappiness.

What a fool he’d been! He should have realised that she was still hankering after that damn Max, but he had to confront her and hear from her own lips the whole truth this time. He was damned if he’d be fobbed off with a load of lies and half-truths.

If she was leaving because Max had come back into the picture, why hadn’t she had the guts to tell him? Atholl felt a knot of anguish in his stomach—he’d thought more of Terry’s honesty than that.

The bike was not performing well—he’d been meaning to strip it down and clean the plugs for some time. Every few minutes it seemed to die on him before surging back into life, and he decided that as he was passing his cottage, he’d stop there and take his car instead.

He was surprised to see that Shona was in the little garden when he arrived, barking her head off. He was sure he’d left the door closed when he’d gone to work. He got off his bike, propped it against the wall and bent down to ruffle Shona’s fur.

‘Have you seen Terry, old girl? And why are you outside?’

Shona wagged her tail furiously, then ran up and down the path, whining and looking back at Atholl. He looked around. No sign of anyone. It all looked very quiet, but Shona was obviously agitated. He followed the dog up the path and went up the step to open the door.

As soon as she felt that hand on her shoulder, Terry knew it was him—Max had caught up with her. She turned round slowly and looked into the distinctive pale grey eyes of the man she’d once thought she loved so much, and whom she’d last seen jumping into a car outside the bank on the day of the robbery. That was the day her father had been found bound and gagged in the office, the day he’d died of a heart attack.

Max had been wearing a balaclava and a tracksuit, but she’d known it was him all right—there was no disguising those unusual eyes of his and the old scar that cut across his eyebrow. She had recognised his accomplice in the get-away car—Max’s brother, Harry, and he hadn’t been wearing anything over his face. They’d screeched off round a corner and she had stood rooted to the spot, immobile with shock, shattered by the realisation that Max Carter was a criminal.

No one else had been in the road—it had been an early summer’s evening and people had finished work and gone home. Terry had managed, with trembling fingers, to call for the police and, by some inner instinct, for an ambulance, then she’d gone and found her father tied up in his own office, obviously gravely ill. She’d tried desperately to massage her father’s heart back to life, although she’d known that it had been too late—her beloved father had died.

In the months that had elapsed since that day, Max and Harry had gone to ground—completely vanished—and the police had said it was most likely they’d managed to flee the country, but they couldn’t be sure. And now here was Max standing two feet away from her and looking at her with a familiar grin—good looking, charming even, but, as she now knew, an evil bastard.

‘Hello, Theresa, surprised to see me?’ he said. ‘You didn’t think I’d catch up with you so soon, did you? Thought changing your name and getting a new hairdo would be enough to keep you hidden?’ He laughed softly. ‘I’m not put off the scent that easily, you know.’