‘I don’t see any sign of Cath Stewart,’ Wattie observed, scanning the deck of the ferry. ‘Do you think she’s missed the boat?’
‘Mrs Stewart’s not due back on Greensay until Monday,’ Jess said through gritted teeth.
‘Really? So she’s making a long weekend of it—she and her husband and daughter? It was her husband I saw with her this morning, wasn’t it?’
‘I’ve no idea, Wattie, and now if you’ll excuse me—’
‘Would you have any idea what this Dr Walton looks like?’
‘No, she bloody well wouldn’t!’ Ezra retorted, so fiercely that Wattie stepped back a pace.
‘Right…I see. Well, I think—I think I might just go and have a word with the harbour master,’ he said.
‘Don’t let us keep you,’ Ezra said grimly.
‘No. Right, I’ll see you later, then,’ Wattie said, and beat a very hasty retreat.
‘That’s one person you certainly aren’t going to miss,’ Jess said with a small smile.
‘No.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Jess—’
‘You can drive your car on board now, Dr Dunbar,’ one of the ferrymen called.
Quickly Ezra delved into his pocket and threw his car keys to him. ‘Would you do it for me?’
The young man looked at Ezra’s blue Mercedes, and his eyes lit up. ‘You bet!’
But when Ezra turned quickly back to Jess she wasn’t looking at him any more but at the gangway.
‘Do you think that’s him?’ she said. ‘Dr Walton?’
It had to be, he thought, his lip curling as he followed the direction of her gaze. Nobody else would arrive on Greensay wearing a grey pinstriped city suit and carrying an umbrella.
‘He looks a complete prat,’ he couldn’t help saying.
‘As long as he’s a half-decent doctor, I don’t care what he looks like,’ she said.
‘Jess—’
Hesitantly she held out her hand to him. ‘Well, it’s goodbye, then, Ezra.’
There was so much he wanted to say, so much he needed to say, but the only words he could force out of his mouth were, ‘Take care of yourself, Jess.’
‘You, too,’ she replied.
‘I’ve enjoyed my stay here,’ he continued. ‘Maybe…maybe some time I might come back for a holiday.’
He wouldn’t—she knew he wouldn’t—and he knew it, too.
‘You’d better get on board,’ she said. ‘The ferry will be leaving soon.’
He put out his hand to her, and for one wonderful moment she thought he might kiss her, then suddenly he turned abruptly away and began walking towards the gangway.
Part of her wanted to go after him—to tell him to stay—but she forced herself to stay where she was. It’s for the best, Jess, she told herself. He would never be happy here. It’s for the best, she kept repeating, and wished she could make herself believe it.
‘Dr Arden?’
Blindly she turned to see the young man she’d noticed coming down the gangway gazing at her with a frown.
‘Yes, I’m Dr Arden,’ she said with an effort. ‘You must be…’
‘Phil Walton.’ He gazed critically around him. ‘I have to say the island looks a lot smaller than I thought.’
‘You’ve only seen the harbour so far, Dr Walton.’
He didn’t look convinced. ‘Where’s the harbour master’s office?’
‘The harbour master’s office?’ she repeated in confusion.
‘My car.’ He pointed to the white Peugeot on the quayside. ‘It was damaged on the voyage over, and I know what insurance firms are like. Unless you report it immediately, they drag their heels about paying up.’
She gazed at the car, then back at him. ‘I don’t see any damage.’
‘It’s been scraped,’ he protested, pointing to a minuscule scratch on the wing. ‘I bought it only a month ago, and it’s been scraped!’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘Dr Walton—’
She came to a halt as the air was suddenly shattered by the sound of a ship’s horn. The ferry was leaving. While this stupid man had been complaining about nothing, the ferry had pulled away from the quayside.
Quickly she scanned the deck, looking for Ezra, but there was no sign of him. Had he gone below already? She’d thought—hoped—he might at least wave to her, but…
‘The harbour master’s office, Dr Arden?’
‘It’s over there, Dr Walton,’ she snapped, pointing to the small hut at the end of the quayside.
He followed the direction of her hand, then grimaced. ‘A hut. How quaint.’
He wasn’t quaint, she thought as she watched the ferry sailing out of the harbour. He was going to drive her mad in a day, and because of him she hadn’t even been able to wave goodbye to Ezra. He was gone, out of her life.
Miserably she turned away, unwilling to watch the ferry any longer, and gasped when she saw a familiar figure sitting on one of the capstans.
‘Ezra, what happened? I saw you get on the ferry.’
‘I got off again.’
‘Did you forget something? You could have telephoned. I would have sent it on to you.’
‘Jess, I’m not leaving. I’ve decided to apply for the post of surgeon at the Sinclair Memorial, and I don’t care if it pays peanuts and I have to live in a caravan. I’m staying here.’
‘You’re…you’re just nervous about the future,’ she said uncertainly. ‘It’s understandable, not having worked as a surgeon on the mainland for over a year, but once you’re back in the swing of things—’
‘I don’t want to be back in the swing of things—can’t you see that?’ he said angrily. ‘Jess, I’m thirty-four years old, and for the first time in my life I know what happiness is, and I don’t want to lose it.’
‘But your career…’
‘I’ve had a career. I’ve had the admiration and the recognition it can bring, but I’ve never had a life.’
‘But—’
‘Jess, I want people to grieve for me when I’m gone. I want people to call me Ezra instead of Mr Dunbar. But the most important thing…’ His eyes caught and held hers. ‘The most important thing is I want you.’
‘Me?’ she said faintly.
‘Jess, I’m in love with you. I think I’ve been in love with you ever since you hid my lunch in your medical bag.’
‘But you can’t be in love with me.’
‘Will you stop telling me what I can or can’t do?’ he exclaimed. ‘If I want to be in love with you, I will be in love with you. I’m not asking you to love me back. All I’m asking is to be allowed to stay here, and maybe…maybe in time you might fall in love with me.’
Tears clogged Jess’s throat. ‘Oh, Ezra…’
‘I know Brian Guthrie has more money than I’ll ever earn in a lifetime—’
‘I’ve never been interested in money,’ she said softly.
‘And I know Fraser Kennedy is younger than me, better-looking—’
‘He hasn’t got a cleft chin or black hair.’
Hope flared in his eyes. Hope, and uncertainty, and longing. ‘Are you saying…? Do you mean…?’
‘Ezra, I love you, too,’ she whispered. ‘I think I’ve loved you since you told me I was the most stubbornly vexatious woman it had ever been your misfortune to meet, but are you sure? You’re throwing away so much. I don’t want you to look back on this moment and regret it—’
‘Jess, I’m giving up nothing that’s important to me. The only thing—the only thing—that matters in my life is you. I love you. And I want to marry you.’
A cry broke from her—a cry that was halfway between a laugh and a sob—and before she knew it she was in his arms and he was kissing her, holding her as though he never wanted to let her go. And he didn’t.
‘Let’s go home, Jess,’ he murmured huskily. ‘Let’s go home and pray the phone doesn’t ring because I want to show you just how much I love you.’
She nodded, then gasped as she suddenly remembered. ‘But your car—
all your things. They’re on their way to the mainland!’
‘I’ll phone the terminal—get them to send it back on Monday’s ferry. Jess, it doesn’t matter,’ he said as she continued to stare at him in dismay.
‘But it’s not just your car. What am I going to do about Dr Walton? He’s awful.’
‘Can’t you just send him back?’
She shook her head. ‘If I send him back, I’ll have to pay hefty cancellation fees. The only way we can get rid of him is if he resigns.’
A frown pleated Ezra’s forehead, then a slow smile spread across his face. ‘Did you tell the agency he’d be staying with you?’
She shook her head. ‘I just said accommodation would be available.’
‘I understand Wattie occasionally rents out rooms in his house.’
‘Ezra, we couldn’t…’
‘You said he was awful, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘I want you all to myself, Jess Arden,’ he said, his face alight with love. ‘Today—tomorrow—for the rest of my life.’
And as he gathered her into his arms and kissed her again, Phil Walton was forgotten, and her only thoughts were about the new and wonderful future that lay ahead.
EPILOGUE
‘JESS, if we don’t hurry up we’re going to be late.’
‘I know.’ Desperately she tugged at the zip on her skirt. Lord, it was tight. Only last month it had fitted perfectly, but now…
‘Should we take both our mobiles?’ Ezra asked, popping his head round the bedroom door, looking immaculate in a dark blue suit, white shirt and green silk tie.
‘We’d better.’ She nodded. ‘That way, we’ll have both the hospital and the surgery covered.’ Quickly she slipped on the loose jacket that went with the skirt, adjusted her wide-brimmed straw hat and grimaced. ‘I look like a mushroom.’
‘You look lovely,’ he exclaimed, and she shook her head.
‘Ezra, you’d say I looked lovely if I was wearing a potato sack.’
‘And you would,’ he said, taking her in his arms. ‘In fact, Mrs Dunbar, have I told you lately how much I love you?’
She chuckled. ‘Only four times a day on average since we got married.’
‘Four times?’ he murmured. ‘It’s not enough—nowhere near enough.’
For a second she enjoyed the feel of his arms around her, but when she felt his fingers moving to the front of her blouse she shook her head. ‘Ezra, we have to go. If we’re late for baby Fullarton’s christening, Denise will never forgive us.’
He sighed regretfully. ‘I still don’t know how she managed to talk us into being godparents.’
‘By not taking no for an answer,’ she said with a laugh as she led the way out of the cottage.
And Denise hadn’t. Nothing they’d said had dissuaded her, and now the entire population was assembling at the small island church for the christening. In fact, the last time St Mary’s had seen such a gathering had been exactly a year ago when Jess and Ezra had got married.
Jess’s lips curved as she remembered. Ezra had wanted them to get married right away, and so had she, but once Mairi had heard the news, and then Cath, it had been taken out of their hands.
‘Make it a June wedding,’ Mairi had insisted. ‘By June I won’t be infectious any more, and I want to arrange everything.’
‘June, most definitely,’ Cath had agreed. ‘Not July or August. I’m having my mastectomy at the end of April, then I’ll have to start on the chemotherapy in July, and though I don’t mind turning up for your wedding with one breast, I’m damned if I’m going to appear bald in your wedding pictures.’
So June it had been, and it had been a wonderful wedding. It had been a wonderful year.
It was a lovely christening, too, even though Ezra was none too happy when the minister declared that Denise and Alec’s son would be henceforth known as Ezra Alec Fullarton.
‘The poor little soul’s going to hate me when he grows up,’ he told Denise at the buffet lunch in the village hall afterwards. ‘What were you thinking of—landing him with an old-fashioned name like mine?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with Ezra,’ Denise said stoutly. ‘And Alec and I felt we had to call him after you when we owe you so much.’
‘You don’t owe me anything,’ Ezra protested. ‘This pregnancy was simply meant to go full term this time, that’s all.’
‘You’re never going to convince her, you know,’ Jess observed, as Denise bustled away with her son to have a few words with the minister.
‘I guess not.’ He smiled, then frowned slightly. ‘You’ve been very quiet all afternoon. Anything wrong?’
She shook her head. ‘I just can’t believe we’ve been married for a whole year, that’s all.’
‘I can.’
‘You mean it seems much longer?’ she said uncertainly, and he reached for her hand and squeezed it.
‘I mean that as soon as I met you I knew one lifetime was never going to be enough.’
Tears filled her eyes, and she rapidly blinked them away. ‘No regrets, then?’
His grip on her hand tightened. ‘Jess, I have you and two jobs that have given me more happiness and fulfilment than I could ever have thought possible. What more could I want?’
Hopefully, one more thing, she thought, taking a deep breath. ‘Ezra, there’s something I want to—’
‘Don’t you just love a christening?’ Mairi Morrison beamed as she joined them at the buffet table. ‘A christening or a wedding—both have me in floods of tears every time.’
‘I hope that’s not all you’re going to eat, Mairi,’ Brian Guthrie chastised, adding another two sandwiches and a vol-au-vent to her plate. ‘You’ve got to build yourself up, you know. TB’s a nasty thing, and though you’re over it now, you’re still far too thin.’
Ezra’s jaw dropped as Brian solicitously shepherded Mairi away. ‘Good grief, you don’t think those two…?’
Jess chuckled. ‘Maybe it’s in the air. Us getting married, then Tracy and Danny. Maybe it’s infectious.’
He grinned, then shook his head as she selected another salmon sandwich. ‘I thought you said you were going on a diet?’
‘Ezra, you should know by now I’m always going on a diet.’ She laughed. ‘And anyway, I thought you said you liked my figure?’
He put his arm round her. ‘I do. It’s perfect. Every inch of it.’
‘So you wouldn’t mind if I added a few more?’ she asked, and when he shook his head she cleared her throat. ‘Good, because there’s something I want to tell you—’
‘Sorry to interrupt, Docs, and I know a christening’s not the place to be talking business, but I wondered if you’d given any more thought to the plans I drew up for extending your cottage?’ Robb MacGregor asked. ‘Like I said at the time, you’ll probably be thinking about starting a family yourselves soon, and a cottage with two bedrooms really isn’t big enough.’
‘We liked the plans,’ Ezra replied, ‘but we both think the quote you gave us was far too low.’
‘You let me worry about the quote,’ Robb said, reaching for a crab sandwich, only to put it down quickly when Ezra’s eyebrows snapped together. ‘Force of habit, Doc. Sometimes I forget about the gluten.’
‘Not too often, I hope.’ Ezra frowned, and the builder shook his head.
‘No way. The last thing I want is to go back to feeling as wretched as I did a year ago before we knew I had coeliac disease. So, are we on for the extension, or what?’
‘Most definitely on,’ Jess said before Ezra could reply. ‘In fact, the sooner the better.’
‘I thought you said we should wait,’ Ezra said curiously as the builder walked away. ‘That it would cause too much upheaval?’
‘I know I did but, you see—’
‘Jess, you wouldn’t happen to have seen the big silver cake knife?’ Cath asked, looking distinctly harassed. ‘Alec and Denise want to cut the cake, and I thought I put it—’
‘It’s in the kitchen, Mum,’ her daughter Rebecca chipped in. ‘You said it would be safer there with all these kids running about the place.’
‘So I did.’ Cath shook her head. ‘Honestly, this is the last time I’m ever going to organise anything. I don’t know whether I’m on my head or my heels.’
‘And you’re loving every minute of it,’ her daughter said giggling, and Jess smiled as Rebecca and Cath headed off together towards the kitchen.
Cath’s cancer had brought mother and daughter much closer together, and though it had been a rough year for Cath—undergoing a mastectomy, and then chemotherapy—her last scan had shown no recurrence of the cancer. Now she could begin considering the pros and cons of reconstructive surgery, but Jess knew that no matter what Cath decided she would be all right.
‘OK. You can tell me now.’
She turned to see Ezra smiling down at her. ‘Tell you what?’
‘What you’ve been trying to tell me all afternoon, but keep getting interrupted.’
She stared up at him. She loved him so much, and though she was delighted with the news… ‘It doesn’t matter—it can wait.’
His grey eyes danced. ‘If you’re trying to pluck up the courage to tell me you dented the Mercedes last night when you were out on call, I know already.’
‘It’s not that. It’s…’ She glanced over her shoulder. It was too public here—much too public. ‘Come outside for a minute.’
‘Look, if it’s about the fax machine, I know it was Tracy who jammed all the incoming mail,’ Ezra said as he followed her out of the village hall. ‘And, yes, it was a stupid thing to do, but we can’t expect her to know as much as Cath did—’
‘It’s not Tracy. It’s…’ She coloured slightly. ‘Do you remember when we talked about starting a family?’
He nodded. ‘We decided we’d wait a couple of years.’
‘I know we did, but…’ Her colour deepened. ‘How would you feel about starting one a lot sooner than we planned? Like in six months?’
He stared at her silently for a second, then a smile curved his lips. A smile that grew and grew until his whole face lit up. ‘Jess, do you mean…? Are you…are we…?’
She nodded. ‘I don’t know how it happened—’
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