‘Don’t tell me what I should have done, please.’ His blue eyes glared icily at her. ‘I don’t need lessons in how to be a good son. It’s too late for that.’
Funny how the atmosphere between them had plummeted yet again in the space of half an hour! God, he was touchy! But, then, she might have known that someone like him wouldn’t have taken the slightest hint of criticism. How typical that was of a man—from charming and gentle to hostile and angry!
‘For God’s sake, stop feeling sorry for yourself,’ she snapped. ‘It seems to me you punished a lovely, kind woman for no good reason!’
Steely blue eyes held hers. ‘Then let me tell you the reason that I left this “lovely, kind woman”, as you call her...’ Lachlan’s voice grated with emotion. ‘I was seventeen when I learned that my mother—the woman I looked up to and revered—had been having an affair, betrayed my father and me!’
Christa’s jaw dropped and she stared at him in disbelief. ‘Isobel had an affair?’ she faltered. ‘I can hardly believe it!’
‘My father was not an easy man, he had a quick temper, but he was devastated. She refused to end the affair, and he left. The happy home life I’d thought we’d had vanished. I couldn’t believe a word she said and it was as if the family had never been happy, never been a unit at all. She had put her own selfish desires before that of her young son.’
Christa was stunned into silence then said slowly, ‘I never knew that. She never talked about her life before I came—just the odd remark about you and how well you’d done at med school.’
‘Then,’ he said bitingly, ‘you had no right to tell me what I should or should not have done—you didn’t know the background. Just because you forged a close bond with my mother, it doesn’t mean to say that she was an angel.’
‘I’m surprised you came back at all if that is how you think of her.’ Christa glared at his mutinous face. ‘Perhaps it was only the fact that the practice became available—is that it?’
‘How dare you say that?’ His voice was low and controlled but she could see the fury in his face. ‘I came back because I loved my mother...’
Christa closed her eyes. ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Of course you loved her.’ As usual, she’d opened her big mouth before thinking.
Lachlan pushed a hand through his hair wearily and kicked a stone roughly into the verge. ‘Oh, what the hell, it’s I who should be sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve been unforgivably rude—perhaps it’s because I feel so guilty. Of course I regret like mad not being here when she died, not making my peace with her.’
Suddenly he looked worn and tired, something grief-stricken in his eyes as he gazed unseeingly over the valley, and Christa glimpsed something of his inner turmoil.
She looked at him quizzically and said gently, ‘We seem to be apologising to each other rather a lot! Let’s hope our working relationship goes more smoothly.’
‘Of course it will,’ he said firmly. ‘I know we can work well together. I suppose I’ve still not come to terms with things.’ He sighed, a sudden sweet smile lighting his face. ‘Friends again, then?’
And because he looked so gorgeous and incredibly sad, Christa forgave him, pushing to the back of her mind that she could never have left her own mother in similar circumstances. She smiled back at him, putting her hand up to pat his cheek comfortingly. ‘Of course we’ll be friends,’ she said gently.
He caught her hand and squeezed it. ‘Friendly colleagues, a good idea,’ he murmured.
CHAPTER FOUR
A GUST OF wind with a cold bite to it swirled around them, and a last bright shaft of light from the sun made the loch glitter. The blue skies were disappearing and dark clouds were coming up fast over the hills, changing the scene very quickly from benign to a dramatic, brooding intensity. Christa shivered and hugged her arms round her body, and Lachlan took off his jacket and put it around Christa’s shoulders.
‘Hey, you’re cold. Look, put this jacket on.’
‘I don’t need it, I’m fine!’
He pulled the jacket round her and said firmly, ‘You’re not fine, you’ve gone blue! I don’t want you going down with pneumonia before I’ve even joined the workforce.’
‘I’m made of hardier stuff than that!’ she protested.
He pulled the jacket further around her. ‘Listen to me—I’m a doctor. I can tell when someone’s getting hypothermia without having to take their core temperature.’
Lachlan’s blue eyes danced mischievously into hers, and Christa looked away hastily. She wanted to be friends with him—but not too friendly! She stepped away from him, confused by her mixed emotions. One minute she was enraged by him and his plans to raise money for the house, and the next minute she was filled with sympathy because he obviously felt the loss of his mother so acutely, and the fact he’d missed her funeral. And now he was flirting with her. It was like being on a roller-coaster!
Lachlan’s sexiness and cheeky smile, and the nearness of him, triggered a powerful memory of how it had been when Colin had been near her. She felt a longing to be held and loved again. In her imagination she could almost feel Lachlan’s demanding firm mouth on hers, passionate, urgent, and his muscular body crushing her close to him. A little trail of fire ripped through her body, and for a second she closed her eyes, leaning provocatively towards him. That long-forgotten sensation of desire flickered through her again, bitter-sweet.
She couldn’t encourage him like this—hadn’t they just agreed they’d be ‘friendly colleagues’? She stepped back from Lachlan abruptly and gave an involuntary shiver as if, having stepped to the brink of an abyss, she’d saved herself in the nick of time.
‘There you are!’ he said triumphantly. ‘You’re shivering. I know you’re freezing!’
She looked at him mock-sternly, trying to keep things on a light level. She had to make it clear once again that their friendship was to be a strictly business arrangement, with positively no flirting! Wasn’t that how her relationship with Colin had started—a little mild flirting?
‘I’m actually feeling quite warm.’ She smiled, shrugging off the jacket he’d put around her shoulders and handing it back to him. ‘If you live around here long enough you become quite tough.’
‘I think I guessed that...’ He grinned down at her. ‘I knew from the moment I first saw you yesterday that you were one feisty girl.’
‘What on earth makes you think that?’
‘Oh, I’ve gleaned quite a bit of knowledge over the past twenty-four hours to realise that you’re something very special.’
Those blue eyes were flirting with her again, and she bit her lip. It could be Colin speaking, just the kind of thing he would say, and she was damned if she’d be hoodwinked by that any more! There was something chancy about Lachlan Maguire when he wasn’t in a sombre mood, she concluded—that teasing manner combined with eye-catching looks spelt danger with a capital D!
She shook her head and said in a brisk, no-nonsense voice, ‘You don’t know me at all—just as I know nothing about you. It’s going to be a learning process for both of us over the next few months, and I’m looking forward to a very good friendly working relationship from now on.’
A smiled touched Lachlan’s lips at her formal tone and the slight emphasis she’d put on the word ‘working’.
‘Of course,’ he said urbanely with a little bow of his head.
Perhaps, thought Christa nervously, the penny would drop now that she was only interested in him as a colleague and nothing else—no dangerous flirting! She stole a glance at him, his long, lean body now leaning against the car and his thick hair being blown casually over his forehead. Yes, it was definitely safer to make it quite plain from the outset that their relationship had to be purely professional—friendly maybe, but purely professional!
The sound of a car changing gear as it came up the steep hill floated towards them, and Christa went to the other side of the road to wave it d
own. Lachlan watched her wryly. They’d crossed swords twice in one afternoon, but he knew there was a spark between them. How sensible, then, that they’d agreed to be friendly colleagues and nothing more—keep that spark at a distance!
Of course it was a relief to him that their relationship should stay at that level, he thought. The truth was that he deeply resented the fact that his mother should try and manipulate his life even from the grave—how dared she suggest he marry Christa Lennox just because she’d formed a close bond with the girl? How did Isobel know the kind of girl he wanted?
In another time and place perhaps Christa would have been the sort of girl he would have gone for. He sighed. And if she hadn’t been Angus Lennox’s niece... But that was a subject he was better off keeping to himself.
* * *
‘So this guy’s on top of the roof and I’m shouting at him to come down—and guess who he turns out to be?’
Christa and her mother, Pat, were sitting in Pat’s little bright kitchen, having a quick cup of coffee before Christa went back to afternoon surgery. Titan was lying contentedly by a radiator, half-asleep. Christa cradled her mug of coffee in her hand and her mother leaned forward, her bright, dark eyes, so like Christa’s, alive with interest.
‘I can’t imagine who it would be. Brad Pitt perhaps?’
Christa laughed. ‘I wish! Of all people, he’s Isobel’s son. Lachlan Maguire!’
Pat Lennox stared at Christa in astonishment. ‘Isobel’s son?’ she repeated. ‘Lachlan Maguire? He’s turned up, after all this time—I never thought we’d see him again!’
‘I know—it’s incredible, isn’t it? He didn’t know Isobel had died until after the funeral. He’s been working in Australia.’
‘But what was he doing on top of the roof?’
‘That’s what I wondered. I thought he was filching lead, but it turns out he was just inspecting the guttering. The place is very neglected, and his mother’s left it to him. You do remember him, then?’
Pat took a sip of coffee and replaced the mug precisely on a mat on the table. ‘Yes,’ she said rather abruptly. ‘Of course I remember him—he used to run home through the village from school, and your father supplied any drugs the practice needed.’
‘Well, as I said in my text to you on Sunday, explaining that I wouldn’t be able to pop in and see you, there was an incident with two youths in the big barn and luckily he was there to help.’
Pat got up from the table and went over to the coffee jug, her back to Christa. ‘Sounds as if he came in the nick of time. Another cup of coffee? I’m having one...’ Her voice was light, inconsequential, and she turned back to Christa with a bright smile. ‘Fancy him being found. Sad that he missed Isobel’s funeral, though. How long’s he going to be here?’
‘That’s the thing, he’s decided to leave Australia and he’s going to come back to the practice. At first I wasn’t sure about it but, actually, it’s a relief that I’ve got someone.’
‘You mean he’s going to be working with you?’
‘Well, yes. Apparently he’s been pining for Scotland.’
‘Did...did he say why he left, or at least stayed away for so long?’
‘It’s extraordinary—he told me he found out when he was just about to leave school that Isobel had had an affair when he was younger. That’s why his father left. Lachlan blamed his mother for the break-up of the family, and I guess that’s why he and she had a falling out. He didn’t go into detail.’
Pat put her hands round her coffee mug as if to warm them, and gazed ahead of her as if looking into the past.
‘But that was many years ago...’ she said softly, and shook her head. ‘All this time and never a word from him.’ She focussed back on Christa. ‘You’ll be working closely with him, then, won’t you? Probably get to know him quite well.’
A little nervous tremor passed through Christa, the doubts she was having about not allowing herself to get too involved with this man surfacing yet again.
She shrugged, trying to appear casually indifferent. ‘Well, as colleagues we’re bound to see each other quite a lot.’ She looked at her mother more closely. ‘You OK, Mum? You look a little pale.’
Pat Lennox stood up and moved restlessly to the window, twisting her hands together. ‘I’m fine... It’s just, well, you seem to be irretrievably bound up with the Maguire family, always working with them. Couldn’t you get someone else...someone who has nothing to do with them?’
Christa looked taken aback. ‘But surely you liked Isobel, Mum?’
Pat’s lips compressed slightly and she said briefly, ‘She offered you a job near me when I was very ill, and I was grateful for that—although perhaps I didn’t find her as...congenial as you did.’
‘I never knew you thought that,’ said Christa in some surprise.
Pat picked up the mugs and stacked them in the dishwasher, then shrugged. ‘It’s of no consequence—one can’t like everybody,’ she said offhandedly. ‘Tell me, is Lachlan’s family going to join him soon?’
‘Oh, he’s no wife or children...and he can start straight away, thank goodness. Frankly, I’m finding it pretty hard going at the moment and I can’t wait for him to start properly next Monday.’
Pat turned round, leaning against the machine, her eyes studying Christa intently. ‘You will be careful, won’t you, darling, working closely with another single man...?’
Christa laughed. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Mum. Just because I fell for that rat Colin when he was working at the practice, it doesn’t mean that every single man I work with is going to break my heart! I’ll be extremely careful who I fall for another time. I’ve learned my lesson. He may be reasonably good looking and have a bit of charm, but it’s mixed with a short fuse. No—it’ll be strictly business from now on, I can assure you.’
She met her mother’s searching look almost defiantly, because she meant every word, thought Christa fiercely. She’d made it clear to Lachlan the other day when the car had broken down that there was no way she would allow relationships to get in the way of work. Yes, she admitted he was one sexy guy and that kiss had set every erogenous zone in her body buzzing and kept coming back to haunt her. But liaisons of any sort with him were quite definitely not on the cards. Once bitten, twice shy.
‘Well, if you’re happy to be working with Lachlan and he’s a good doctor, I guess that’s fine.’ There was a terse note in Pat’s voice and she softened it by smiling down at Christa lovingly. ‘I...I just don’t want you hurt again, darling, that’s all.’ She paused and sighed. ‘What I really want is for you to meet a nice reliable man who won’t let you down.’
Christa got up and gave her mother a hug, grinning. ‘God, you sound as if you want me to marry Mr Dull-as-Ditchwater... Anyway, you’re looking very glam today—I like that tweed jacket. Are you off somewhere exciting?’
Pat laughed, suddenly looking very like her daughter, although her hair was white now.
‘If you call going out with Bertie to the pub outside the village for a meal exciting!’
‘Good for you!’ Christa looked teasingly at her mother. ‘You know, I don’t know why you and Bertie Smith don’t move in together—he only lives in the next flat. You might as well be married!’
‘Oh, no, I value my independence too much. Besides...’ Her mother’s voice was brisk, devoid of self-pity. ‘The thing is, I’m very fond of Bertie, but I made one lot of vows once, and I’m not inclined to make the same ones again.’ She glanced at the kitchen clock on the wall. ‘Aren’t you going to be late? It’s nearly two o’clock.’
‘Oh, God, you’re right...I’ll have to fly!’ Christa blew a kiss to her mother as she dashed out. ‘See you soon—enjoy your meal... Come on, Titan, back to work!’
* * *
Friday night and a chance to wind down in the local little gym after a gruelling week. The surgery seemed to have been crammed with patients needing urgent referrals, and more than the usual amount of visits, and however ambivalent C
hrista was about Lachlan joining the practice, she couldn’t wait for him to start work on Monday and take some of the load from her.
She really enjoyed her weekly workout at the gym, which her friend Richie had converted from one of the little warehouses off the main road. She admired Richie so much—he had been a ski instructor in the Cairngorms during the winter, but after a bad accident had had to give that up. After that he had trained to become a personal trainer, and had set up this small business. Gradually he was building up his clientele.
‘Now a final exercise for those abdominals!’ he shouted. ‘Touching the floor with the heels as you air-bicycle for twenty... Good, good—and stop! Now a good stretch against the bars and then you can put the kettle on!’
Eight pairs of legs collapsed back on the floor and there was a general gasp of relief.
‘You worked us hard tonight, Richie,’ protested Christa, wiping her forehead. ‘I’m so out of condition!’
‘That’s because you’ve missed a few weeks,’ said Richie mock-sternly. ‘I know you’ve been run off your feet, but no excuses now because I hear you’ve Isobel’s son to help!’
‘Yes, thank God. He starts properly on Monday—such a relief.’ She smiled at Richie and looked around the gym, which seemed quite crowded. ‘You seem to have more people here since I was here last. Things going well?’
Richie pulled a face and rotated his hands. ‘So, so. At the moment I feel I’m just about making a breakthrough. But I’ve heard rumours about a new development...’
‘When did you hear that?’ asked Christa, amazed that what had apparently just been an idea of Lachlan’s should be almost common knowledge so quickly. Hard to keep any secrets in a small place like Errin Bridge!
‘The builder who adapted this place for me said that all the land around your medical centre could be sold off for a leisure centre and holiday complex, even a golf course! Can you imagine what that could do to a little place like this? I’ve invested quite a bit of money in it...’ His voice trailed off, but Christa got his drift.
Return of Dr Maguire (Mills & Boon Medical) Page 6
