‘Of course,’ said Atholl, shooting a relieved glance at Terry. ‘I think it would be a wise move.’
After the police had been and gone, Atholl and Terry quickly put the scattered things back into place. Kate showed them an old photograph she had of her mother wearing a piece of the jewellery that had been stolen—a pretty little Victorian necklace.
‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever see it again—but at least we’re both OK, and that’s all that matters,’ she said. ‘And we’d like to thank you doctors for all your help, wouldn’t we, Sarah?’
‘No trouble at all,’ said Atholl. ‘Now, I’ll go and get Shona’s lead from the car, and an old bone she likes to play with.’
He went out and Sarah put a restraining hand on Terry’s arm, holding her back for a second. ‘It’s good to see young Dr Atholl has some reliable help now—he’s been through such a bad time with that Dr Grahame.’ She put a hand to her mouth guiltily. ‘Oh, dear, perhaps I shouldn’t be saying that—but maybe you’ll be just the girl to cheer him up!’ Her eyes twinkled and she turned to her sister. ‘He needs a bit of fun in his life, doesn’t he, Kate?’
Kate nodded gravely. ‘Aye, he’s a good man who’s had a rough time. We’d all love to see him settled happily. We’ve known him since he was a little boy and used to come for the holidays with his uncle.’
‘I suppose he feels almost like one of your family,’ remarked Terry, longing to know just what the story was about this Dr Grahame and how she’d affected Atholl’s life so much. To ask him outright would seem too intrusive, she reflected, but surely she could find out from Bunty? She determined to do that when the moment seemed right.
‘It’s a very odd thing about that burglary,’ Atholl said as they drove back to The Sycamores. ‘There really aren’t many people walking or even living near the Mackie sisters. A few campers in the middle of summer perhaps, but I know there’s no one at the site at the moment.’ His jaw tightened. ‘I just hope they pick up whoever’s burgled those old ladies.’
‘They’re very fond of you,’ said Terry. ‘They said they’d known you for many years.’
‘That’s true—I remember them plying me with sweeties when I went with my uncle on a visit sometimes. In a place like this there’s often a long-standing relationship with your GP.’
They were back at The Sycamores and Terry got out of the car. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then. I know you’re off to see your uncle again now and I’ll be in bed by the time you get back. I hope he’s doing well.’
He smiled at her and said quietly, ‘Thanks…and thank you again for your help today.’
There was sudden self-consciousness between them, as if they had both remembered at the same second that intimate interlude a day or two ago in the back of the Land Rover. Their eyes locked and in Terry’s mind she felt again the soft touch of his lips on hers, the thudding of his heart when she’d leant against him, the scratch of late-day stubble on his chin. It might have meant nothing to him, she thought wryly as she ran up the steps of the surgery, but it had been a moment of bliss that she wouldn’t forget in a hurry.
She bit her lip and looked back at him for a second before she opened the surgery door. How stupid she was being—surely the last few months had taught her that men were not to be trusted. Max had destroyed her happy life, and it would surely never be the same again.
Atholl watched as she disappeared, looking deliciously feminine in her neat skirt and pale blue silk blouse. She probably thought he’d been a chancy character trying it on with her the other day, although she’d been decent enough to make light of it. He sighed. The moment that he’d kissed her should never have happened, but a sudden impulse that had driven him on to throw caution to the winds—and now he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Atholl revved up the engine, turning the car round in a tight circle in the drive, and started out towards the ferry, trying to make sense of his mixed emotions. He parked the car in the car park, and sat for a minute staring out at the sparkling sea. For some time now he’d been treading on eggshells where women had been concerned—he’d been bruised and humiliated by one woman and he was damned if he was going to take the chance of any other female doing the same to him.
An image of Terry’s sweet face came into his mind and he sighed. She had lit more than a little spark of attraction in him—but she was essentially a city girl like Zara and she was only going to be here for a short time. No good thinking they could form any permanent relationship—it would just be a rerun of the scenario with Zara.
He got out of the car and looked towards the little ferry sailing across the sound and shrugged. He would look forward to spending a whole day with Terry when they went to help at the outward bound course. She would be a pleasant companion and it would be fun to show her the beautiful countryside, without getting too involved. And perhaps he’d find out more about this beautiful woman with the background she kept so close to her chest.
CHAPTER SIX
THE Sunday they were scheduled to go to the outward bound centre dawned bright and clear. Atholl banged loudly on Terry’s bedroom door.
‘Time to get up,’ he called. He got a muffled grunt in response, so he banged again. ‘Come on, Terry, no time to lose!’
Still no response, so he opened the door and peered round. ‘Wake up!’ he bellowed. ‘The weather forecast’s good for this morning but dicey later on, so we need to get a move on or the abseiling might be off.’
Terry stirred slightly then relaxed again, lying curled up on her side with one hand supporting her head, long lashes sweeping the curve of her flushed cheek. There was something so vulnerable about her, her lips slightly parted as if just waiting to be kissed. Atholl felt a moment’s shame as he looked at her. He shouldn’t be here in this room without her knowledge—it was as if he were taking advantage of her somehow—but he did have to wake her, didn’t he? He was holding a mug of tea in one hand and with the other he reached down and tickled her nose.
She stirred again and brushed his hand away. She’d just been enjoying a wonderful dream where she and Atholl had been swimming in one of the little coves on the island. The sea was rather rough and the waves kept tossing her into his arms as they were swept towards the shore. His body was wet and slippery against hers and he held her tight to him so that she wouldn’t be submerged by the next wave. She could feel every muscle in his taut body, his legs firm against hers, bracing her against the swell of the sea. He was laughing down at her, white teeth in a tanned face…then suddenly a little feather landed on her nose and started to tickle it. Impatiently she tried to brush it away, longing to get to the next stage of her dream, but it continued to irritate her.
She opened her eyes in exasperation and sat up suddenly in bed, looking slightly bewildered when Atholl’s familiar face only a foot away from her swam into view. She clutched the sheets against her when she realised that she was no longer dreaming but the subject of her dream was looking down at her!
‘What the…? What’s happened? What are you doing here?’
Atholl’s gaze took in her flushed cheeks, dishevelled hair and a flash of soft creamy breasts as she tried to maintain her modesty, and felt his heartbeat accelerate as if a button had been pressed. What wouldn’t he give to tear off his clothes and leap into the warm bed with her and to hell with going over for the day with the outward bound group! He was beginning to realise that having Terry living in the same house as him could be one big temptation.
‘Wake up, sleepyhead,’ he said huskily. ‘Sorry to disturb you, but we ought to get going if we’re to get to the outward bound group before they set off.’
Terry’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, I’d forgotten all about that. I was so exhausted after the past few days…’
He grinned. ‘Exhausted? It’s just a normal everyday story of country doctors, reviving someone with a heart attack in a rainstorm, helping two old ladies who’d been burgled….’
She laughed. ‘So I’m beginning to realise! But
I’d been dreaming, you see.’
‘Not a nightmare, I hope?’
A warm flush suffused Terry’s cheeks as she recalled just what the subject of her dream had been. ‘No,’ she murmured. ‘Definitely not a nightmare.’
He stood looking at her with twinkling eyes as if he could read her mind and was amused by it. She waited for a moment, slightly embarrassed, expecting him to leave.
‘I’ll be down soon,’ she hinted. ‘It won’t take me long.’
‘Sorry—didn’t mean to intrude. I thought you’d like a cup of tea, or rather a mug,’ he added with a grin. ‘I don’t do cups!’
He held out a mug and she leant forward to take it, but in trying not to let the sheet fall down and expose the skimpy baby doll she wore in bed, she fumbled it and the mug clattered to the floor, spilling the tea over the sheets.
‘Oh, no! What am I like?’
She bent over the bed to retrieve the mug at the same time as Atholl bent down to pick it up. Their heads almost collided and they both froze in mid-action, their faces inches apart.
‘Sorry!’ they exclaimed in unison, then stopped and gazed at each other, a crackle of attraction between them springing into life like a current between magnets.
How close they were. Terry could see the black flecks in his blue sexy eyes, the black lashes fringing them, and smell the just-washed soapy clean, male smell of him. It was almost as if her dream was continuing. All her senses screamed out to lean towards him and feel once more those firm sexy lips on hers, his hand caressing her body. Somewhere in the back of her mind a hundred warning thoughts whirred round. Was she going to embarrass them both as she had done last time? He’d no doubt think she was up for sex at any opportunity! Even more to the point, once they’d started kissing in such a setting as this bedroom, for God’s sake, where would it end?
‘There’s still some tea left in the mug,’ Atholl said gruffly. ‘Why don’t you drink it now?’
Terry pushed herself back properly into the bed and pulled the sheet up to her chin. ‘Er…I’ll have it in a minute, thank you,’ she said breathlessly, aware that he was looking down at her, an unreadable expression in his blue eyes.
He put the mug on the bedside table carefully and sat down on the bed, taking out a handkerchief to mop up some of the spilt liquid on the sheets and over her arms.
‘The tea didn’t scald you, did it?’ he asked.
‘No…not at all.’
Terry’s voice came out in a husky little croak, her pulse speeding up slightly at his proximity and the thought that if she wanted to she could throw off her sheet and pull him alongside her with no trouble at all! She couldn’t help but give a nervous giggle at the thought, turning it unsuccessfully into a cough.
He smiled at her. ‘Right. Well, I’d better go and get breakfast started,’ he said, not moving, his gaze travelling slowly over her face.
Terry licked her lips nervously, aware of his close proximity to her, half hoping he’d move and yet longing for him not to.
‘You…you’ve still got quite a scar from the accident,’ she said at last, to break the tension between them. Her hand went out to touch the cut he’d sustained on his chin trying to get Maisie out of the car on the day Terry had arrived.
‘And you’ve got a piece of hair across your eye,’ he murmured, leaning over her and removing a wisp of hair from her forehead. His hand stayed on her cheek for a moment, then strayed across to her ear before he took it back. She froze for a second, a mixture of excited anticipation and apprehension flickering through her body.
‘Funny how long we seem to have known each other,’ he murmured.
Terry’s voice caught in her throat. ‘Only a few weeks actually…’
He smiled. ‘True, but I want to know more about you. Was losing your father the only thing that brought you to Scuola? You’ve only given me sketchy details…’
His piercing blue eyes looked intently into hers as if he could decipher just what had happened to make her leave London. He watched her eyes slide away from his and he was sure that she was withholding something. Suddenly he was determined to find out more, to crack the mysterious code that was Terry’s past.
She answered pugnaciously, ‘I told you before—I wanted a change. My father’s death precipitated that. I don’t need to elaborate. Anyway, is it relevant to our situation?’
Terry turned her face away from that searching look, determined not to divulge any more, but he took her chin in his hand and gently turned it back so that she had to face him.
‘I’ve got to know what makes you tick,’ he said gently. ‘Don’t you see that if we’re to work well together we have to be friends? Friends usually know each other’s backgrounds, don’t they? I’m making a shrewd guess here, Terry. I’ve a feeling that it was a broken love affair that first made you think of leaving London, before your father died.’
He watched the stricken look in her eyes and felt he’d hit on something like the truth. Terry was silent. She couldn’t tell him everything, but she felt that perhaps he did deserve to know a little about her background.
‘That was part of it,’ she admitted at last. ‘The truth is, I fell for my ex, Max, because I thought he was everything I wanted—charming, charismatic, good fun, good looks…’ She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘And he could give a girl a good time!’
‘Sounds as if he ticked a lot of boxes,’ remarked Atholl drily, his clear eyes never leaving her.
‘Oh, yes, on the surface it looked good.’ A bitter tone entered her voice. ‘Underneath he was a devious and selfish opportunist, and he did things that had, well, wideranging consequences. It taught me the lesson never to let my heart rule my head. That’s basically it, Atholl. It was enough to make me want to leave the area.’
There was no need for her to go into any more details. The rest of her story was one she couldn’t divulge—that had to remain a secret. Then, as if pushing that thought to the back of her mind, she said lightly, ‘Let’s stop talking about me—what about you? What happened between you and my attractive predecessor, Dr Grahame, I keep hearing about?’
A startled expression crossed Atholl’s face, as if he hadn’t anticipated Terry asking him such a blunt question. He stood up and walked over to the window, looking out at the fields beyond and bunching his fists tensely in his pockets, before turning back to her with a wry grin.
‘Tit for tat, eh? It seems we’ve had similar experiences—although in my case much of the blame was mine. But it’s a long story, rather boring really.’
Boring? Not to Terry, fascinated and intrigued to know more about the background of this sexy, good-looking man.
‘Please go on,’ she said. ‘I…I’d be really interested to know what happened.’
He shrugged. ‘To put it briefly, Zara was a liar—she strung me along. She deceived me, and deception is an act of betrayal in my eyes.’ His eyes became flint hard. ‘And God help anyone who tries to deceive me again.’
Terry felt a shiver of worry go through her. How would he react if he knew that she wasn’t the person he thought she was? That she was a sham, someone built on a tissue of lies, a woman whose background had had to be obliterated?
‘Wh-what did she lie about?’
He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you. I was so incredibly naive—idiotic actually.’
Terry sat up, hugging her arms around her. ‘Why shouldn’t I believe you? Come on—tell me what she did.’
Atholl sighed and suddenly looked a little older and tireder. ‘We met at medical school. She was very attractive, one of those girls who seemed to have everything—good looks, good fun, full of confidence.’
Terry felt a sudden surge of jealousy over this paragon of attraction. ‘You fell for each other, then?’
‘I should’ve known better. She and I came from completely different backgrounds. Her family were wealthy, rubbed shoulders with privileged people. I was from the Glasgow Gorbals and that was a very d
ifferent world.’
‘But you were just as good as she was—why should that make any difference?’
‘Because we saw things differently. I was used to scraping together every penny I could—Zara didn’t have those worries. But then when we started working as junior doctors there wasn’t much time to spend money anyway, and the differences between us weren’t so noticeable.’
‘And so…what happened then?’
Atholl sat on the windowsill, leaning back against the window, a remote expression on his face. ‘We became engaged.’
‘So you loved her,’ stated Terry rather flatly. Somehow it seemed that there was a lot hanging on this question.
There was a short silence and Terry watched his face turn to one of bitterness. ‘I thought I did,’ he said at last. ‘She was attractive, the centre of attention. I suppose I was flattered when she made it plain she fancied me.’
‘And were you happy?’
He shrugged. ‘Life was fun when we could manage time off together. Zara loved nightclubs, partying, shopping…it was a hectic social whirl and I didn’t realise that actually deep down I didn’t terribly like doing those things. But she was a city girl through and through. I know now that we were totally incompatible.’
‘But you had come from a city too,’ pointed out Terry. ‘Surely there must have been some understanding between you?’
He nodded. ‘Possibly—but then my uncle began having health problems and offered me a job on Scuola, a place I loved from coming here as a child. It was going to be a temporary arrangement so Zara was happy to come here and join the practice for a while. But Uncle Euan decided to cut back on his hours even more and it became plain that he would never come back full time.’
‘So you wanted to stay and Zara didn’t?’ suggested Terry.
‘She began to hate it here. We’d set a date for the wedding—just a small affair, although, of course, it was of great interest to everyone on Scuola—local GP in love match sort of thing,’ he said drily. ‘Zara was quite pleased to be married here in the pretty little church down the road. A television company was doing a film about the area and our wedding was going to be featured in it—that appealed to her.’
Hired: GP and Wife / The Playboy Doctor's Surprise Proposal Page 9