‘You’d like me to see him?’
‘I think it might be better as you’re going to be in charge of his long-term care.’
After I leave. She hadn’t said the words, but that’s what she’d meant, and he suddenly realised that he’d actually forgotten about her leaving. Somehow she had managed to slot herself so effortlessly into the practice, become so quickly a part of it, that he’d forgotten she would be leaving.
She doesn’t have to go, a small voice pointed out. You could offer her a permanent post. Malcolm would be happy, the patients would be happy, and you…
How often had he heard himself say to Malcolm, ‘We’ll need to check that with Alex.’? How often had he found himself waiting for the sound of her motorbike when she was out on home visits, always giving a sigh of relief when he saw she was safely back especially now that it was becoming dark so fast? She’d become a good friend in the short time she’d been here, and if she left…He would miss her. It amazed him to have to admit that, after he’d been so unwelcoming to her when she’d first arrived, but he would.
‘Alex—’
‘I saw Donna in the waiting room,’ she interrupted, ‘and I have to say she looked downright miserable.’
‘She feels it, too.’ Hugh sighed. ‘Her sugar level is still a little on the high side, and now she’s getting stomach cramps.’
‘Maybe she’s simply not been on the diet long enough,’ Alex said, ‘or maybe changing her diet isn’t enough. She might need hypoglycaemic tablets as well to stimulate her pancreas to produce more insulin.’
‘I was wondering whether she might have hypothyroidism instead of Type II diabetes?’ he said, and Alex’s forehead wrinkled in thought.
‘That would certainly explain the muscle weakness, and the stomach cramps, but her heart rate wasn’t slow when I sounded her. Has she noticed her skin becoming very dry and flaky, maybe her hair getting thinner, or her voice sounding slightly deeper?’
‘No, no, and no,’ Hugh admitted. ‘I’ve taken more blood and urine samples, and asked the lab to check her level of thyroid hormones, but it’s a puzzle, Alex, and I don’t like puzzles.’
‘Neither do I,’ Alex said, ‘but I’ve got to admit I’m stumped unless she has both Type II diabetes and hypothyroidism, which is possible.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘You still think it’s something else.’ Alex nodded. ‘I don’t suppose we could simply pack her off to the hospital, and ask them to test her for everything?’
‘I can just imagine the kind of letter I’d get back from the admin department if I tried that.’ Hugh laughed.
‘So can I,’ Alex said, reaching for her bag, but before she could stand up, Chrissie appeared.
‘Sorry to interrupt you both,’ the receptionist declared, ‘but you’ve another call to add to your home visits, Alex.’
‘Not a problem,’ Alex replied, and Chrissie grinned.
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that. It’s Lady Soutar.’
‘The Lady Soutar?’ Alex said, and Hugh rolled his eyes.
‘There is only one,’ he said. ‘Thank God.’
‘OK, give,’ Alex demanded, when Chrissie had gone. ‘What’s so very awful about Lady Soutar?’
Hugh’s expression became wry.
‘Lady Beatrice Soutar is a widow, aged sixty-something, but you’d have to put lighted matches under her fingernails to find out how much older than sixty. Her husband’s family have owned Glen Dhu lodge for the past hundred years, and she has two sons, both married, and both terrified witless of her even though they’re now in their forties.’
‘A formidable lady, in other words,’ Alex observed.
‘And then some.’ Hugh nodded. ‘She spends six months of the year at Glen Dhu, and the rest of the year at her house in London which is pretty unusual. Most of the landowners around here come and stay for a month, if we’re lucky.’
There was an uncharacteristic note of bitterness in his voice, and Alex’s eyebrows rose.
‘I didn’t realise you disliked landowners so much.’
‘I don’t dislike them per se,’ he replied, ‘but too many of them bring nothing to the area. Too many think that if they can afford to buy a Highland estate it also gives them the right to treat the place like one gigantic playground.’
‘Hey, I’m neither rich, nor a landowner, remember?’ Alex said, and Hugh shook his head ruefully.
‘Sorry, but absentee landlords are one of the things I feel very passionate about. Nobody should have the power to decide whether whole families are happy or miserable.’
‘I can’t bear injustice either,’ she said, seeing the anger in his eyes. ‘Jonathan…my fiancé…He used to say I should have been called Jude—after the patron saint of lost causes. “Stick to medicine,” he used to say. “It’s what you’re paid for.”’
‘He definitely wasn’t the right man for you,’ Hugh observed, and she smiled faintly.
‘I guess not, but your antagonism towards landowners—it’s personal for you, isn’t it? It’s not just the politics of the situation, or a feeling of sympathy for those involved, it’s personal.’
He smiled. ‘How very acute of you. Yes, it’s personal. My forebears came from this area originally, you see. They were dirt-poor crofters, forced to scrape a living out of land no one could ever make a living out of, until they were thrown out of their homes to make way for sheep.’
‘What happened to them?’ she asked, and saw the anger come back into his eyes.
‘Some emigrated to the US, and made good, but most—like my great-grandparents—ended up in the slums of Glasgow. They worked every hour God sent to give their son—my grandfather—a better life, just as he did for my father, and my father did for me.’
‘Which is why you came back here,’ she said slowly. ‘You wanted to put two fingers to your nose at the landowners, to show them you’d succeeded, and you also wanted to make them see you had a right to be here.’
‘It was partly that,’ he admitted, ‘but it was also—and I know this is going to sound very pretentious—I came back because I thought—I hoped—my presence might make a difference, that I might be able to ensure that everyone—whether they were rich or poor—got the best possible medical care.’
‘I don’t think that sounds pretentious at all,’ she said. ‘I think it’s a wonderful aim.’
‘And you’ve done it again, haven’t you?’ he said wryly. ‘Managed to get me talking about myself. Malcolm said I needed to talk to somebody—either a counsellor, or someone I could trust—and it looks like I decided to choose someone I could trust.’
‘You trust me?’ she said, completely taken aback.
‘You’re a good person, Alex Lorimer.’
Her throat closed.
‘Hugh, I…I’m not the person you seem to think I am,’ she managed to say. ‘I’ve made mistakes in the past, done things I wish I hadn’t.’
‘Haven’t we all?’ he protested. ‘And I didn’t say you were perfect. I said you were a good person. You can also be bloody minded, cussed, opinionated—’
‘Hey,’ she protested, relieved to be able to take refuge in outrage, even if her outrage was faked. ‘You’ve just told me you’re a real Highland highlander. What happened to the traditional manners and courtesy?’
He grinned. ‘I’m one of the black sheep highlanders who tells it like it is and, before you ask, it would take a knife at my throat to get me into a kilt. My bony knees are not for public consumption.’
She’d bet money he didn’t have bony knees. She’d bet even more money that he would look absolutely stunning in a kilt. He was so tall for a start, with such very broad shoulders, and with those grey eyes and his thick black hair, she just knew he would look handsome, and sexy, and utterly and completely desirable.
Oh, wake up and face reality, Alex, she told herself as she stared at him. This man doesn’t even realise you’re a woman. You’re just ever-smiling, always-joking Alex, and you sho
uld be relieved that’s how he sees you, because if he ever did realise you’re a woman…
‘Alex?’
Hugh’s expression was curious, and she forced a smile to her lips.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘What were we talking about?’
His grey eyes gleamed. ‘My bony knees.’
‘No, we weren’t,’ she said determinedly. ‘You were telling me about Lady Soutar, and how much you dislike her.’
‘I don’t dislike her,’ he replied. ‘As landowners go, she’s one of the good ones. She takes care of her tenants’ properties, doesn’t overfish the river, and keeps her deer under control. The trouble is we strongly suspect she has a gastric ulcer. She, unfortunately,’ he continued with a wry smile, ‘has decided she’s simply suffering from indigestion, and whenever she has a bad bout she calls one of us out, we tell her she has an ulcer, she calls us quacks, forces an antacid prescription out of us, then sends us on our way with a flea in our ear.’
Alex frowned. ‘And this happens how often?’
‘Generally after she’s held a big dinner party, and as she holds rather a lot of dinner parties during the season and the parties go on until quite late…’
‘You often get called out in the middle of the night,’ Alex finished for him. ‘Anything else I should know about her?’
‘She’s a real stickler for protocol. Don’t ever call her Beatrice or she’ll poleaxe you.’ A slight frown pleated his forehead as he stared at her leathers. ‘Look, perhaps I should take the call. Lady Soutar’s not for the faint-hearted.’
‘Hey, I’m the woman who recklessly throws herself out of planes, and down rapids, remember?’ Alex declared. ‘I can handle it.’
She reached to retrieve her medical bag, and Hugh put out his hand to stay her.
‘Alex, you do know if there’s something wrong—if you have a problem—a worry—you can talk to me?’
She gazed at him with dismay. He wasn’t talking about Lady Soutar, she knew he wasn’t, just as she also knew there was no point in pretending to misunderstand him—he was far too shrewd for that.
‘There’s nothing wrong,’ she said, all chirpily upbeat. Please, don’t have guessed I’m finding you more and more attractive with every passing day. Please don’t have guessed. ‘I can’t imagine why you should think I have a problem.’
‘I just thought…’ He shrugged awkwardly. ‘You’ve seemed a bit down, and a little distracted, this week.’
‘I’m fine,’ she insisted. ‘Just a little tired, that’s all.’
‘Alex.’ He opened his mouth, then paused, clearly trying to decide how best to say what he wanted to say. ‘Asking for—and accepting—help isn’t a sign of weakness. When Jenny died, I pushed Chrissie and Malcolm away, refused to let them help me, and I know now that I shouldn’t have.’
‘They’re obviously very good friends,’ she replied, ‘but I prefer to take care of myself. That way I won’t ever be disappointed or let down.’
‘It can also be a very lonely way to live,’ he said gently. ‘I know. I’ve done it.’
Yes, but the people who loved you wanted to help, she thought. The person I loved didn’t.
‘Hugh, I am fine—honestly I am,’ she said, and he shook his head at her.
‘I don’t think you are, and if you should ever change your mind, want a friendly ear…’
‘You’ll be the first to know,’ she said, picking up her bag. ‘And now I really do have to go. I’ll leave seeing Lady Soutar until I’ve completed all of my other home visits—’
‘I think I should come with you,’ he interrupted. ‘Alex, she doesn’t know you,’ he continued, as she gazed heavenwards with exasperation, ‘and if you just roar up there unannounced she might not be particularly pleased, whereas if I drive along behind you, introduce you when we get there…’
‘You’re fussing over me again, aren’t you?’ she exclaimed. ‘Hugh, I’m thirty years old. I outgrew the need for a nanny a long time ago.’
‘I know,’ he said with great and obvious patience, ‘but I don’t think anyone ever outgrows the need for a friend, and that’s what I hope I am, Alex. A friend.’
He meant it, she knew he did, and she’d never had a man offer to be her friend before. Her lover, yes, but never her friend, and stupidly—crazily—she knew that if he said much more she was going to burst into tears.
‘I hope we’re friends, too,’ she said through a throat so tight it hurt.
‘So, do I get to come to Lady Soutar with you?’ he pressed, and she managed a shaky chuckle.
‘OK—all right—you can come,’ she said. ‘I’ll do my other morning visits first, then I’ll telephone you, and you can meet me at Glen Dhu, but once you’ve introduced me you disappear.’
‘Alex—’
‘You promise you’ll disappear, Hugh, or I won’t phone you.’
He sighed. ‘I’ll disappear,’ he said.
‘Wow,’ Alex gasped as she gazed up at the castellated turrets of Glen Dhu lodge. ‘Wow, wow, and double wow.’
‘If you think this is impressive,’ Hugh observed, ‘wait until you see inside. It’s Brigadoon gone mad. Tartan carpets, tartan curtains, stuffed deer heads on the walls, not to mention the claymores, pikes and dirks.’
‘I’m surprised she doesn’t have her own personal piper,’ Alex said faintly, and Hugh laughed.
‘Actually, she does, but thankfully he only ever plays in the evenings. Nervous?’ he added, as he saw Alex look ruefully down at her leathers.
Her chin came up.
‘Nerves of steel, me,’ she replied.
She was going to need them, Hugh thought, as Lady Soutar appeared at Glen Dhu’s large oak door, resplendent in a tartan skirt and matching jacket, her steel-grey hair tightly curled and a very definite frown on her face.
‘And you are?’ Lady Soutar demanded as she came down the steps to meet them, her eyes fixed on Alex.
‘Lady Soutar,’ Hugh began, ‘this is—’
‘I didn’t ask you, Dr Scott,’ she interrupted. ‘I was speaking to this young woman.’
‘I’m Dr Lorimer, Lady Soutar,’ Alex said quickly, seeing Hugh’s I-told-you-so look. ‘The new locum. You asked for a home visit—’
‘And you’re doing them in packs now, are you?’ Lady Soutar exclaimed. ‘Sounds to me like your surgery doesn’t have enough to do.’
‘Dr Scott was simply showing me how to get here,’ Alex said. ‘He’s just leaving.’
‘Stay,’ Lady Soutar declared imperiously, as Hugh turned to go. ‘John will show you through to the kitchen and cook will make you some coffee while this young lady makes me out a prescription for antacid.’
‘That’s most kind of you, Lady Soutar,’ Hugh replied, seeing the long-suffering look on the face of the manservant who had appeared at the top of the steps, ‘but I really don’t have time—’
‘If you have time to show this young lady out here, you have time for a coffee,’ Lady Soutar announced. ‘As for you, young woman, come along. I don’t have all day even if you have.’
‘Right.’ Alex nodded, and, with a what-have-you-got-me-into look at Hugh, she followed Lady Soutar into the house, leaving Hugh with nothing to do but follow John.
‘I’d drink your coffee fast, if I were you, Dr Scott,’the manservant observed. ‘Her ladyship’s not in a very good mood this afternoon, what with her indigestion, and judging by the looks she was giving the young lady’s leather outfit I’d say Dr Lorimer has twenty-five minutes tops before she’ll be leaving us.’
That would have been Hugh’s estimate, too, but when he went through to the drawing room after having drunk his coffee there was no sign of Alex, or of Lady Soutar. He could, however, hear the distant sound of voices outside, and groaned inwardly. Things must have gone really badly if Lady Soutar was escorting Alex off the premises, but when he hurried out of the front door the sight that greeted him stopped him dead in his tracks. Lady Soutar was laughing at something Alex had said, a
nd Alex was beaming back.
‘Glad to see you’ve finally employed somebody who knows her arse from her elbow, Dr Scott,’ Lady Soutar declared when she caught sight of him. ‘Alex, dear, how long do you think it will take for that appointment at the hospital to be finalised?’
‘It shouldn’t take long, Bunty,’ Alex replied. ‘I’m hoping no longer than a couple of weeks.’
‘Good—good,’ Lady Soutar said, and with a brief nod at Hugh she went back up the steps of her home and disappeared inside, and Hugh turned slowly to Alex.
‘Bunty?’ he said faintly.
‘She asked me to call her that,’ Alex declared, ‘and even better she’s agreed to go to the hospital for tests. She’s a real sweetie, Hugh.’
‘She’s a…’ Hugh shook his head. ‘How did you do that—how? She has been putting Malcolm and me through hell for the last ten years and you come along on one visit and suddenly she can’t wait to go to the hospital.’
‘Well, she was a bit frosty at first, but I think that’s just her way,’ Alex replied. ‘I noticed, however, that she kept glancing out of the window at my bike so I asked her if she was interested in bikes.’
‘And?’
‘It turns out that Bunty’s father made his fortune in manufacturing, but what he really wanted was to race motorcycles so he used to take Bunty and her brothers all over the world to watch the big races, and she got hooked, too. She wanted to know all about my Ducati. How long I’d had it, how fast it went, when I’d started riding. Would you believe, she was the same age as me when she got her first bike?’
‘I’d believe anything at the moment,’ Hugh said with feeling. ‘Alex, if I was wearing a hat, I’d take it off to you. You’re a miracle worker.’
In more ways than one, he decided as he drove back to Kilbreckan, with Alex following close behind, and his jaw dropped when he saw all the cars packed into the car park outside the surgery, and the number of excited, chattering women who had clearly turned up for Alex’s class. Jenny had been lucky if eight women turned up to her class whereas it looked as though every overweight woman in Kilbreckan had arrived for Alex’s.
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