The Stranger's Secret

by Maggie Kingsley

  ‘I’m not that bothered about a bath anyway,’ she lied, fighting desperately with her mounting colour. ‘I’ve masses of paperwork I need to catch up on and—’

  ‘It’s because I’m a man, isn’t it?’ he interrupted impatiently. ‘If I were a woman, you’d have accepted like a shot.’

  ‘OK. All right—I would,’ she retorted before she could stop herself. ‘Call me old-fashioned and prudish if you like, but I don’t normally allow men I scarcely know to see me with nothing on!’

  He drummed his fingers on the coffee-table, a deep frown creasing his forehead. ‘Right, we have a problem here, but we’re both mature, intelligent people and there has to be a way round it.’

  ‘Ezra, it doesn’t matter—’

  ‘If you had a shower instead of a bath we wouldn’t have this problem,’ he continued as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘Mind you, the plastic bag on your leg would get soaked, and…’ He came to a sudden halt, his eyes lighting up. ‘Of course. A shower—it’s obvious!’

  ‘But I haven’t got one,’ she said in confusion.

  ‘No, but you’ve got a shower cap.’

  ‘A shower cap?’ she echoed, as he put his hand firmly under her arm and helped her out of the sitting room and into the bathroom. ‘Ezra, how in the world will a shower cap help?’

  ‘Like this,’ he announced triumphantly, whipping her plastic shower cap off the back of the bathroom door, putting it on his head and pulling it down over his eyes. ‘Wearing this I can help you in and out of the bath, and your modesty is preserved.’

  She stared at him, bemused. ‘Ezra, that’s a ridiculous idea!’

  He pushed the bath cap up so it sat at a rakish angle on his head. ‘Perhaps, but it will work.’

  ‘But…’ She could feel her cheeks heating up all over again. ‘I’m sure you mean well—in fact, I know you do—but…’

  ‘Look, would an oath satisfy you?’ he said in exasperation, and before she could answer he’d drawn himself up to his full six feet two, raised his hand high in the air and begun intoning gravely, ‘I, Ezra Dunbar, do solemnly swear that this shower cap will remain over my eyes when I help Jess Arden in and out of her bath. There will be no peeking, peeping or any other underhanded attempt to look at her body.’ He lowered his hand and frowned. ‘Satisfied?’

  She giggled—she couldn’t help it. He looked so silly wearing her shower cap. Silly, and kind, and eager to help. Before she’d even had time to think about it she heard herself say, ‘OK.’

  It was better than OK. It was bliss. Bliss to feel the warm water enclosing her, even if it was awkward sitting with her right leg propped out over the side. Bliss to feel really clean at last instead of merely half-washed.

  And Ezra…

  He sat perched on the toilet seat in case she slipped, and decided he must have been out of his mind.

  What on earth had ever made him suggest this?

  OK, so she’d looked unhappy and he’d wanted to help, but in the cold light of day he knew he would never have suggested it. In the cold light of day he would have thought it through and realised he couldn’t possibly lift her into the bath without touching her naked body.

  He knew it now. Knew how soft and warm her skin was. Knew the way her waist curved gently inwards, the fullness of her bottom and how ripe her breasts were because his fingers had accidentally brushed against one as he’d lowered her into the bath.

  It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see anything. Having felt all her warm softness, he could imagine. Hell, but he’d never realised he possessed such a vivid imagination, and it was working overtime.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked as he shifted uncomfortably on the toilet.

  ‘I’m…um…fine,’ he managed to reply, tugging slightly at his shirt collar, only to hear the sound of water splashing as though she’d levered herself upright. Had levered that luscious, soft, warm body upright. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked quickly.

  ‘Wonderful,’ she murmured with a contented sigh, which did nothing for his equilibrium.

  It was crazy. Just one short week ago he’d decided Jess Arden was the most irritatingly stubborn woman he’d ever met, so why on earth was he finding himself wanting her now?

  Lust, of course. The fact that, though his brain had sense, his body had none, and it was simply rampantly reminding him that he hadn’t made love to a woman for more than a year.

  Which didn’t mean he had to give into his body’s demands, and he wouldn’t. Right now Jess needed him to keep her practice running, and to abuse that need would be unforgivable.

  So, like a perfect gentleman, he would control his libido until the locum arrived, and then he’d leave. Leave the practice, leave the island, and never once remember a girl with stunning red hair and skin which was as soft and smooth as velvet.

  ‘I’m ready to get out now, Ezra.’

  So was he, but he still had four weeks to go. Four long, interminable weeks. As he gritted his teeth and prepared to lift Jess out of the bath, he could only hope his blood pressure would stand it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CATH STEWART smiled as she stood beside Jess in the car park and watched Ezra help old Mr Dean into the health centre. ‘Tracy’s right, you know. Ezra is nice.’

  He was.

  Nice and kind and even after two weeks of living and working with him, still a completely unknown quantity to her, Jess thought with a slight sigh.

  ‘I wonder why he came to Greensay?’ Cath continued, unconsciously echoing her thoughts. ‘I mean, apart from the fact that nobody in their right mind would choose to come here in the middle of winter, what kind of job would give him three months’ holiday?’

  Jess had wondered about that, too. Wondered increasingly since Indira’s comment last week.

  ‘Perhaps he writes books for a living,’ she murmured, as much to herself as to her receptionist. ‘And he came to Greensay looking for peace and quiet to finish a book.’

  Cath frowned as she chained her bicycle to the railing. ‘Wattie said he didn’t notice him unloading anything even faintly resembling a laptop from his car when he moved into Selkie Cottage.’

  ‘I’m surprised he didn’t go through Ezra’s suitcases just to make sure,’ Jess said tightly, hitching her crutches up under her arms and beginning to hop across the car park to the Inverlairg Health Centre. ‘Honestly, that man—doesn’t he ever give up?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Cath replied. ‘Mind you, if you want real, dogged determination you don’t have to look much further than my daughter.’

  ‘Rebecca still being difficult?’ Jess asked sympathetically, and Cath rolled her eyes heavenwards.

  ‘Difficult? Ever since she hit fourteen, I’ve become an idiot and she knows everything.’

  ‘I seem to remember being much the same at that age,’ Jess laughed, but Cath didn’t.

  ‘It’s so damn wearing, Jess. Perhaps if I spent more time with her, perhaps if Peter was home, but…’ She shook her head. ‘He phoned me last night—said he was doing fine, but longing for March, like me.’

  Jess nodded. Cath’s husband worked in the oil industry and could only come home twice a year to see his wife and daughter. It was a lonely life for Cath but, as Peter had said, he had to go where the work was.

  ‘How are you getting on, having Ezra as a lodger?’ Cath continued, holding open the surgery door to let Jess hop in ahead of her. ‘It must feel really odd after being on your own for the last three years.’

  Actually it didn’t, Jess realised with a sudden shock. It was nice. Nice to buy for two instead of one. Nice to have someone to talk to at the end of the day. Nice to look up in the middle of a meal and see someone there.

  ‘It would be wonderful, wouldn’t it, if Ezra decided to stay on here permanently?’ Cath commented, watching her, and Jess shook her head.

  ‘Cath, there’s scarcely enough people on Greensay to warrant my salary, far less another doctor’s.’

  ‘I wasn’t actually thinking of
him staying on as a doctor,’ the receptionist murmured. ‘I was thinking more…well, more on the lines of maybe you and Ezra getting together.’

  ‘Now, hold on there a moment—’

  ‘Jess, he’s perfect for you,’ Cath exclaimed in a rush. ‘Good-looking—’

  ‘How can you tell with that beard?’

  ‘Intelligent, kind—’

  ‘And here on holiday,’ Jess interrupted firmly. ‘The minute my locum arrives he’ll disappear back to Selkie Cottage and I guarantee we’ll never see him again.’

  For a second Cath looked disconcerted, then rallied. ‘But he likes you,’ she protested, lowering her voice quickly when the clatter of high heels on the tarmac outside the surgery announced Tracy’s imminent arrival. ‘I know he does. And you like him—’

  ‘And as I recall, this is your mums and toddlers morning,’ Jess declared, ‘so you’d better don your practice nurse’s hat pronto before they start arriving.’

  That Cath would dearly like to continue the conversation was obvious, but what could Jess say? Yes, she liked him. More than she would have thought possible two weeks ago, but as for him liking her…

  Not by a word or a look had he ever suggested he regarded her as anything but a colleague. Good grief, he’d even helped her in and out of the bath last week and still behaved like a perfect gentleman.

  Actually, he’d been so much of a perfect gentleman it was a bit depressing. OK, so maybe she wasn’t ever going to win any beauty contests, and maybe she was rather more rounded—well, all right, then, plump—than was currently fashionable, but…

  But nothing, she told herself. Good grief, it wasn’t as though she was interested in the man in the sense of being interested. She’d never liked beards, had always thought they made men look scruffy no matter how well trimmed they were. And just because she’d recently found herself wondering what it would feel like to be kissed by a man with a beard, that meant nothing. It didn’t.

  ‘Doctor, help—I need some help here!’ Danny Hislop cried, shattering her thoughts in an instant when he shouldered open the surgery door. She saw Simon Ralston beside him, his hand swathed in a bloodstained towel.

  ‘Tracy, you take over the desk and warn everyone who arrives we’re going to be running late,’ Jess ordered as the girl stared at Simon in stunned horror. ‘Danny, keep Simon’s hand up as high as you can. Cath, treatment room—now!’

  ‘I don’t know how it happened, Doc,’ Danny declared, his face almost as white as his friend’s as he and Cath helped Simon along to the treatment room while Jess followed more slowly, inwardly cursing her crutches. ‘We were coming back to harbour in The Aurora, and the captain says let’s give it one last try for a decent catch, and somehow…somehow Simon’s hand got caught in the hawser.’

  Jess winced. The hawser was the cable used to pull the fishing net to the side of the ship. It was made of metal, and moved at a terrifying speed, and if Simon’s hand had been caught in that…

  ‘How long ago did this happen?’ she asked, propping her crutches against the wall while Cath began taking Simon’s blood pressure and pulse.

  ‘Thirty—forty minutes ago,’ Danny replied. ‘We got him back to shore as quickly as we could.’

  ‘BP 130 over 90,’ Cath announced. ‘Pulse 135.’

  Both surprisingly good, considering the injury Simon had sustained, and thankfully somebody on The Aurora had possessed the presence of mind to tie a towel tightly round his hand to minimise the blood loss. But the more Jess swabbed his hand, the more her heart sank.

  Lord, but it was a mess. The wound was deep. Deep and ragged and extensive.

  Cath was watching her, and Jess knew what she was thinking. He needed a specialist. She could stitch quite large wounds—had happily done so in the past—but if she got this one wrong Simon could lose all mobility in his hand.

  ‘Simon…’ He was looking distinctly green, and she reached for a bowl just in case. ‘Simon, I’m sorry, but I think we should call out the lifeboat—have you transferred to the mainland. That hand—it should be seen by an expert.’

  He shook his head vehemently. ‘Doctor, you know what my wife’s like. She’s already worried to death about Toby—him having this juvenile arthritis thing—and if I go off and leave her…’

  Elspeth would fall apart. The unspoken words hung between them, but though Jess felt sorry for Simon’s wife she knew she couldn’t take the risk.

  ‘Simon, I’m really sorry, but—’

  ‘Is there a problem?’

  Ezra was standing in the doorway of the treatment room and she nodded grimly. ‘Simon got his hand caught in the hawser, and I’m just telling him he needs someone with far greater skills than I possess to stitch it.’

  Quickly he walked across the room and lifted Simon’s hand in his. ‘Nasty. Very nasty,’ he murmured, ‘but I could stitch it for you.’

  ‘Then do it,’ Simon exclaimed eagerly, but Ezra was no longer looking at him. His eyes were resting on Jess.

  ‘It’s your call,’ he said softly. ‘I can do it, but if you’d feel happier—safer—sending him to the mainland…’

  Two weeks ago all she’d known about this man was that he’d once been a doctor, and yet she’d allowed him to become a member of her practice. Good grief, she even allowed him to do half of her home visits now—liberally armed with the necessary patient files, of course—but to let him tackle this…

  She’d have to be crazy. Crazy to allow a man she knew so little about perform such a difficult procedure. If he got it wrong…

  But he wouldn’t get it wrong. As his eyes held hers she knew that he wouldn’t, and she turned to Simon with a smile. ‘It looks like you’re staying put after all.’

  The fisherman let out a huge sigh of relief, but Ezra wasn’t listening. He was already snapping on a pair of surgical gloves.

  ‘OK, Cath. I’ll need lignocaine to numb the hand, a pair of toothed dissecting forceps, your finest needles and a wire brush.’

  ‘A wire brush?’ she repeated in confusion, and he nodded.

  ‘If you don’t get all the dirt out from a wound like this, not only will it become infected, the dirt will become permanently tattooed into the skin. That’s why I need a wire brush—to scour out all the dirt. If you haven’t got a brush I can use a teaspoon to dig out any residual dirt. A well-sterilised teaspoon, of course,’ he added.

  Cath glanced across at Jess, her eyebrows raised queryingly but Jess merely nodded.

  Ezra was a pro. She’d suspected it even before he began wielding the teaspoon as though it were the finest surgical instrument in the world. And she knew it for certain once he began suturing with a speed which was breathtaking.

  This man had been a surgeon for sure, but in what speciality, and why he would turn his back on such a talent was beyond her.

  ‘I think I can finish off here now if the two of you want to get back to your patients,’ Cath declared when Ezra had finally tied the last suture in place.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Ezra said uncertainly, and the receptionist laughed.

  ‘Look, if you can perform miracles with a teaspoon, I sure as heck can put on a surgical pad and bandage!’

  He laughed, too, but as he made for the door Jess put out her hand to stop him.

  ‘I just…’ She came to a halt. There was so much she wanted to say. That his skill was amazing. That he’d saved both Simon and Elspeth a lot of grief and heartbreak. But as he stared down at her, his grey eyes suddenly wary, the only words which came out were, ‘Thank you.’

  Which was really dumb, of course, and totally inadequate, but Ezra didn’t seem to think so.

  The wariness in his eyes disappeared, and his lips curved into a smile. ‘Any time, Jess.’

  Which was the sort of casual, offhand thing people often said at a time like this, so why, as he continued to gaze down at her, should her heart begin to perform the most peculiar back flips in her chest?

  Men with beards were chinless wonders. Men w
ith beards had never been—could never be—her type. And yet as his eyes held hers all she was aware of was how breathless she felt, and bewildered, and strangely expectant. Like her life had somehow started to begin. Which was crazy.

  ‘Dr Arden—Dr Dunbar?’

  The voice was impatient, a little querulous, suggesting that Simon had been attempting to attract their attention for quite some time, and Jess turned to him quickly, all too conscious her cheeks must be flushed.

  ‘Simon wants to know when his sutures can come out,’ Cath said, her eyes darting from Jess to Ezra and back again with keen interest.

  ‘In about ten days,’ Ezra said abruptly. ‘But I’m afraid you’re not going to be fit for work for at least six weeks.’

  Simon’s jaw dropped. ‘But I can’t take six weeks off work! The boss will need to hire someone to replace me on the boat, and what if he decides to keep him on?’

  ‘Your boss can’t sack you when you’ve suffered an industrial injury,’ Ezra pointed out. ‘You could take him to an industrial tribunal if he did.’

  ‘Yes, but he could relegate me to shore duties, which means I’d lose my bonuses. And he’d do it, too,’ Simon continued when Ezra tried to interrupt. ‘My work’s not been up to scratch lately, you see, what with all this worry about Toby.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but there’s no way you’re going to be fit for work in less than six weeks,’ Ezra declared. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me…’

  He was already leaving the treatment room and Simon turned to Jess desperately. ‘Couldn’t I wear some sort of protective glove? I’m sure if I wore something like that I could keep on fishing.’

  For a second Jess’s eyes followed Ezra, then she willed herself to concentrate on the fisherman’s problems. ‘Have you told your boss about your family difficulties?’

  ‘Fraser doesn’t listen much to anyone these days,’ Danny replied before Simon could say anything. ‘In fact, he’s a real pain in the ar—the butt.’

  ‘Fraser?’ Jess repeated, her brain suddenly acute and alert. ‘The Aurora’s one of Fraser Kennedy’s boats?’