‘Alex, not Alec,’ the young woman said. ‘Alex, short for Alexandra, but surely you saw that on my CV?’
He hadn’t read her CV-couldn’t be bothered to. He—she—had just been yet another in a long line of locums that Malcolm had hired as far as he was concerned, but Malcolm had read her CV. Malcolm would have known it was Alex, not Alec, and so, too, would Chrissie.
Malcolm and Chrissie, you’ve a lot of explaining to do, Hugh thought grimly as he watched his partner hurriedly introduce himself to the newcomer, and heard Chrissie practically chirrup a welcome while keeping one anxious eye on him, and the other on her husband.
‘And you must be Dr Scott,’ Alex Lorimer said, turning to him. ‘The senior partner in the practice?’
‘I used to think so,’ he said tightly.
‘Used to…?’ the girl began, but he didn’t give her time to finish.
Instead, he caught Malcolm by the elbow.
‘I’d like a word in private, Dr MacIntyre,’ he said.
‘But I thought I might show Alex round the practice,’ Malcolm began, then sighed as he caught Hugh’s expression. ‘Your consulting room?’
Hugh nodded, but the minute he’d ushered Malcolm through, and shut the door, he turned on his partner angrily.
‘Just what the hell do you think you are playing at, Malcolm? You knew she was a woman. Every time I said his—her—name you never once corrected me, never once told me she was a woman.’
‘Because I knew this was how you would react if I told you,’ Malcolm threw back at him. ‘So she’s a woman, so what?’
‘Because I told you male locums only, that’s so what,’ Hugh exclaimed. ‘When you asked if we could have locums I agreed on the condition we would only have men. God dammit, Malcolm, you know what it’s like round here. Our roads are appalling, the distances we have to travel are immense, and the crofters won’t come anywhere near the surgery unless you bully them into it. How in God’s name is a woman like that going to cope round here, far less bully anyone? She looks like a schoolgirl out on work experience.’
‘She’s thirty.’
‘Then why is she still doing locum work?’ Hugh demanded, quickly changing tack. ‘She should be working full time in a practice at her age if she’s any good. There’s obviously something wrong with her.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with her,’ his partner protested. ‘You’re overreacting, getting this all out—’
‘And where’s she going to stay?’ Hugh continued, talking over him. ‘Have you thought about that?’
‘In your flat, like all the other locums.’
‘No,’ Hugh exclaimed, his grey eyes flashing. ‘No way is she staying in my flat. Can you imagine what the locals will say? Dr Scott’s living with a woman—’
‘No one will say that,’ Malcolm interrupted with exasperation. ‘Everyone knows your upstairs flat is completely self-contained.’
‘She is not staying, Malcolm, and that’s final. Phone up the agency and ask them to send somebody else.’
‘There isn’t anybody else,’ his partner replied. ‘It was Alex, or it was nobody.’
‘Then we’ll just have to wait until they can find somebody else.’
‘You might be prepared to wait, but I’m not,’ Malcolm exclaimed, his colour now as high as Hugh’s. ‘Look, let’s cut out all this crap about her looking too young, and people talking if she stays in your flat, and her not being able to cope. You just don’t want her because you can’t stand the thought of another woman being in Jenny’s consulting room, reminding you of her.’
‘That’s nonsense.’
‘Is it?’ Malcolm demanded. ‘Hugh, we need her help. Even if we only keep her for her three-month contract, we need her help.’
‘She is not staying, Malcolm.’
His partner stared at him for a long moment then his face set into grim lines.
‘Fine. Send her back to the agency, but when you do you can also have my resignation.’
‘Malcolm—’
‘Either Alex stays, or Chrissie and I go, Hugh. Your choice, your call.’
His friend meant it, Hugh knew he did. It took a lot to rile Malcolm, but when he dug in his heels there was no moving him.
It’s only for three months, Hugh’s mind whispered. You can surely put up with this woman for three months?
But she doesn’t even look like a doctor, he argued back. She’s too small, too fragile, and look at her hair. Jenny’s hair had been beautiful. Long, and thick, and corn-coloured. He’d loved running his fingers through it. Not that he could ever envisage a time when he might want to run his fingers through Alex Lorimer’s hair, but what kind of woman would choose to go around looking like a pixie on crack cocaine?
‘Hugh.’ Malcolm’s voice was gentle, pleading. ‘Hugh, please.’
He wanted to say no, that no amount of blackmail would change his mind, but he couldn’t afford to lose Malcolm and it wasn’t just because he was an excellent doctor. They’d been friends for over twenty years, and Malcolm had been with him in the good times, and the bad.
‘OK, all right, you win,’ he said grudgingly, ‘but no way can she take that bike out on home visits. Apart from the safety angle, can you imagine what our patients would say if she roared up on it? Lady Soutar would have a fit.’
‘She would, wouldn’t she?’ Malcolm chuckled, then his eyes sparkled. ‘I don’t suppose we could send Alex out on her bike just once to Lady Soutar? No. Right. Of course not,’ he continued as Hugh frowned at him. ‘I’ll ask Neil at the garage to rent us one of his hire cars.’
‘Make it something substantial, preferably a 4x4.’
‘Will do. Shall I ask Alex to come through?’ Malcolm added, and when Hugh nodded he hurried to the door, then paused. ‘Look, I know she isn’t what you wanted, but try not to judge her by your first impression. She might just turn out to be the answer to our prayers.’
Or the stuff of our worst nightmares, Hugh thought when Malcolm returned with Alex Lorimer and he couldn’t help but wince at the sight of her short, spiky red hair.
‘Who won, then?’ she said as she sat down.
‘Won?’ he repeated, and a dimple creased one of her cheeks.
‘I’m guessing the two of you have just had one almighty row about me so do I hang up my helmet or hit the road?’
‘My conversation with Dr MacIntyre had absolutely nothing to do with you,’ Hugh declared, and from the glint of laughter in her large green eyes knew she was not one bit deceived. ‘I don’t know how much the agency has told you about the practice,’ he continued, deliberately changing the subject, ‘but—’
‘Just where it was, and that you wanted a locum for the next three months,’ she interrupted. ‘So which of you am I temporarily replacing?’
‘Neither of us,’ Hugh said, his mouth tightening. ‘This was originally a three-handed practice, and we’re filling in with locums until we can find the right doctor to join us permanently. I’ll work out a rota for you tomorrow and Malcolm will take you down to our local garage where they should be able to fix you up with a car.’
‘I don’t need a car,’ she replied. ‘My bike can go anywhere. In fact, probably more places than a car can.’
‘Be that as it may,’ Hugh said, ‘it hardly creates a good impression of the practice if our locum is seen racing around in leathers.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’ she said, beginning to laugh, only to stop when he didn’t join in. ‘You’re not kidding. Well, I’m sorry you disapprove of my bike—’
‘Hugh doesn’t disapprove of bikes,’ Malcolm interrupted hurriedly, glancing uncomfortably from her to Hugh. ‘In fact, we both had bikes when we were med students. Mine was an ancient Honda, and Hugh had a Harley, but the thing is—’
‘You had a Harley?’ Alex said, her head swivelling round to Hugh with interest. ‘What kind?’
‘A Sportster FXST,’ he replied, ‘but I don’t think that’s the—’
‘Transmissio
n?’
‘Chrome 5-speed Harley,’ Hugh declared, ‘but we’re wandering off the point here. Kilbreckan is a highly conservative Highland village, and the people in the outlying countryside are even more so. They will expect their doctor to turn up for home visits looking like a doctor.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, I shouldn’t think your patients would care if I rode up on a camel, dressed as a bunny girl, just so long as I knew what I was doing when I got there,’ she protested. ‘And whether you like it or not,’ she continued as Hugh tried to interrupt, ‘my bike has to stay because I can’t drive a car.’
‘Everyone can drive a car,’ he declared, not bothering to hide his disbelief, and she straightened in her seat.
‘Well, here’s some stop press news for you, Dr Scott. I can’t. I never learned, but if my leathers offend you I suppose I could always take them off when I arrive for a home visit. Unfortunately, as I normally just wear an all-in-one Lycra body suit underneath them, your patients might feel they were seeing rather more of me than they might like, but if that’s what you want…’
Malcolm was staring at her in wide-eyed fascination, but Alex Lorimer wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at Hugh and as his gaze met hers he could see the unmistakable light of challenge in them. Malcolm had been right. He’d warned him not to go by first impressions. Alex Lorimer might look as though a puff of wind would blow her away but she was also clearly a woman with attitude, and it was an attitude he didn’t like. Not one bit.
‘If you can’t drive a car,’ he said with an edge, ‘then you’ll have to use your bike, but can I urge you—’
‘To keep my leathers on when I’m doing home visits?’ she finished for him, her face perfectly bland, though her green eyes, he noticed, were dancing, and he gritted his teeth.
‘I was going to urge you to be careful on our roads,’ he declared. ‘We don’t have a lot of traffic, but we do have a lot of fools. It’s also September which means it will soon be the start of the rutting season when the red deer come down from the hills, and if you hit one of them at speed there won’t be much left of you, or your bike.’
She shook her head dismissively. ‘I can take care of myself.’
Jenny had said that, he suddenly remembered with a jolt of pain. They’d been having a row about her driving too fast, and she’d told him she knew what she was doing, that she could take of herself, and he should give it a rest. He had, and how he wished now that he hadn’t.
Abruptly, he got to his feet.
‘Malcolm, could you and Chrissie lock up, while I show Dr Lorimer where she’ll be staying while she’s working with us?’
Malcolm nodded, but when Hugh accompanied Alex Lorimer out of the surgery he couldn’t help but notice that both Malcolm and his wife were standing at the waiting-room window, watching him.
Hell’s bells, but what did they think he was going to do? Engineer an argument with their new locum so she’d flounce off back to where she’d come from? Dammit, he’d agreed to her staying. He’d even agreed to her using her bike. What more did Malcolm and Chrissie want from him?
For you to show Alex Lorimer some civility, his mind whispered. It’s not her fault you’ve been blackmailed into having her. Not her fault she will never be able to cope here in a million years. At the very least she deserves some civility, and with an effort he cleared his throat.
‘Did you come far today, Dr Lorimer?’ he said, injecting as much pleasantness into his voice as he could.
‘Just from Edinburgh, ’she replied. ‘I was spending a few days with my mother, then the agency phoned to say you needed me.’
Not you, he thought. We might need help but not from somebody like you, but he didn’t say that.
‘Quite a distance,’ he said instead, and she shrugged.
‘It took me just over four hours. I would have been faster but there were roadworks on the A9.’
‘You must have put your foot down the whole way,’ he observed, torn between being impressed and horrified at the sort of speed she must have been travelling.
‘She is pretty fast,’ Alex replied, patting her bike fondly, ‘but then she has a 992cc, Marelli electronic fuel injection, V-twin engine.’
‘Impressive,’ he murmured.
She tilted her head slightly. ‘The bike specs, or me apparently knowing something about an engine?’
‘Both,’ he admitted and, before he could stop himself, he added, ‘How come you know so much about engines?’
‘My dad owned a garage before he retired, and from when I was small I used to love watching the mechanics work, and it was always the bikes I wanted to ride, never the cars.’
‘Which explains why you don’t have a driving licence.’
She nodded. ‘I got my first bike when I was seventeen, and by the time I was eighteen I could strip it down and put it back together again. My mother was horrified. She wanted me to wear pretty dresses, and go to parties, but I was only ever happy wearing a pair of dungarees, lying underneath a bike with a wrench in my hand.’
‘A regular tomboy in other words,’ he said and she gave him a hard stare.
‘Just as well I’m not a rampant feminist, Dr Scott, or you’d be in deep trouble for that remark.’
Unwillingly, he felt the corners of his mouth twitch into a smile. She was quite a pretty young woman if you ignored her hair. Large green eyes fringed by unexpectedly dark eyelashes, porcelain-white skin that was so translucent he could see a small blue vein throbbing on her forehead, and a wide, soft mouth that was clearly meant for laughing. A water sprite, he thought as he stared down at her. Not a pixie, but a water sprite, and he wondered how her boyfriend—because she was bound to have a boyfriend—felt about her moving from job to job. He wouldn’t have liked it. He would have wanted her with him. He…
Hell, and damnation, but what was he doing here? he wondered as he saw her lips begin to curve into an answering smile. He didn’t need—or want—to know anything about this girl. She was just another locum. An annoying irritant who would be gone in three months, and that was exactly the way he wanted to keep it.
‘I hope you’ve brought a lock with you for your bike,’ he said coolly.
‘Kilbreckan might look like a sleepy fishing village, but we get a lot of visitors during the season, tourists passing through, and your bike has temptation written all over it.’
‘It’s data tagged, and I lock it when I’m not riding it,’ she replied as she pulled on her helmet, ‘so if you or Dr MacIntyre should ever feel tempted, you won’t get far.’
‘Neither Dr MacIntyre, nor I, would dream of riding your bike without your permission,’ he began defensively, only to bite off the rest of what he’d been about to say when he saw her green eyes were dancing again. ‘Your flat’s not far,’ he continued, yanking open his car door with slightly more force than was strictly necessary. ‘It’s just on the outskirts of the village, but I’ll lead, you follow.’
‘I think I should just about be able to manage that,’ she said, snapping her visor shut before he could answer, and he knew she was laughing at him.
Lippy, he thought grimly, as he put his car in gear and reversed. I’ve been landed with a lippy, spiky-haired water sprite, and if I wasn’t tired…
You’d what? his mind mocked as he drove up Kilbreckan’s High Street, past the harbour with its bobbing boats, then turned left at the corner shop, checking in his rear-view mirror to make sure Alex Lorimer was following him. Quit while you can, Hugh. Take this unsettling, irritating woman to the flat and leave her there because, right now, you’re not winning.
Alex didn’t think she was winning either as she followed Hugh Scott’s Range Rover up the High Street.
‘So much for the famous Highland hospitality,’ she muttered to herself. ‘So much for Highlanders always making a stranger feel at home. The man asked for a locum, he’s got one, and yet you’re obviously about as welcome as a return of the Black Death. Probably less so.’
Plus he
was tall, too, she thought waspishly, which was another strike against him as far as she was concerned. Being only five feet nothing, she was acutely aware of her own lack of height, and she hated being looked down on, either literally or figuratively, and in the space of half an hour Hugh Scott had done both.
He’s good-looking, though, her mind whispered, and unconsciously she shook her head. He might have thick black hair, a strong lean face, and a pair of quicksilver grey eyes, but he was arrogant and pompous and—
‘Oh, for crying out loud!’ she exclaimed, hitting her brakes as she saw Hugh Scott’s own brake lights come on. ‘What’s wrong now?’
With a muttered oath, she pushed up her visor, and waited until Hugh Scott walked back to her.
‘There’s a problem?’ she said, getting ready to deck him if he was about to make even the tiniest comment about her riding.
‘We’re here.’
She looked up at him, then at the imposing two-storied Victorian building they’d stopped beside, and her jaw dropped. ‘This is where I’ll be living?’
‘In part of it,’ he replied. ‘When my wife and I bought this house five years ago it had been converted into two separate flats. We always intended turning it back into a family home, but…’ His gaze shifted away from hers. ‘We’ll share the front door, and hallway, but your flat is completely self-contained, with three bedrooms, a sitting room, kitchen and bathroom.’
And it was as depressing as hell, Alex thought after he’d showed her round. She’d stayed in some pretty basic places in her time, but somebody had normally put a vase of flowers on a table to try to brighten things up a bit, and there’d usually been some pictures on the walls even if those pictures were of distinctly manic-looking gambolling kittens, but this flat was functional in the extreme.
‘It has a lovely view of the village,’ he said as though he’d read her mind. ‘And it’s very easy to heat.’
So was a monk’s cell, she thought, but she didn’t say that.
‘Right,’ she said instead.
‘Chrissie always gets in some groceries—meat and vegetables and suchlike—for our locums,’ he continued, ‘so you won’t need to rush down to the village shop on your first evening here.’
A Wife Worth Waiting For Page 2