her, his strong fingers digging into her arms as he held her.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she apologised breathlessly, catching her glasses before they could slide down her nose, ‘I had no idea Logan had a patient with him.’
‘Hello, Flora.’ His lazy, masculine drawl was alarmingly familiar and her eyes flew wide as she tilted her head back to take a proper look at him.
‘Oh!’ Her heart started to beat in double time and she felt decidedly faint. Her knees weakened and from a distance she heard Logan’s voice.
‘Flora, you remember my cousin Conner?’
Remember? Remember? Well, of course she remembered! She might be short-sighted, but she was still a woman! And it didn’t matter how many rules or hearts he’d broken, there wasn’t a woman alive who would forget Conner MacNeil once she’d met him.
Especially not her.
And he would have known how she’d felt because arrogance and Conner had gone hand in hand. Even as a young boy he’d known exactly what effect he had on the girls and had used it to his advantage.
But it wasn’t a boy who was standing in front of her now. It was a man. And his effect on the opposite sex had grown proportionately.
Determined not to boost his ego by revealing her thoughts, Flora screwed up her face and adopted what she hoped was a puzzled expression. ‘Conner…Conner… The name is familiar—were you below me at school? Or were you above me?’
His blue eyes glinted with wicked humour. ‘I don’t recall ever being above or below you, Flora,’ he murmured softly, ‘but that may be my defective memory.’
She felt the heat flare in her cheeks and remembered, too late, that anyone trying to play word games with Conner was always going to lose. His brain and his tongue worked in perfect unison whereas hers had always been slightly disconnected. Without fail she thought of the perfect thing to say about two days after the opportunity to say it had passed.
‘Well, you do look vaguely familiar,’ she said quickly, stepping back and concentrating her attention on Logan to cover up how unsettled she felt. A moment ago she’d been happily existing in the present, enjoying her life. The next she’d been transported back to her childhood and it was a lonely, uncomfortable place. If this was time travel, then she wanted none of it.
She’d had such a desperate, agonising crush on Conner. A crush that had been intensified by the fact that her father had forbidden her to mix with him. ‘Sorry to disturb your reunion, but Amy Price just rang me. Heather has chickenpox.’
‘And?’ Logan frowned. ‘Tell her to buy some paracetamol and chlorpheniramine from the pharmacy.’
‘I’m not worried about Heather. I’m worried about your wife. Evanna saw the child in clinic yesterday.’
‘And the child would have been infectious.’ Understanding dawned and Logan cursed softly. ‘Has Evanna had chickenpox?’
‘I don’t think so. That’s why I thought you ought to know straight away. I remember talking about it with her a few months ago. She was telling me that her mother sent her off to play with everyone who had chickenpox, but she never caught it.’
‘Chickenpox is a disease that you don’t want to catch in the third trimester of pregnancy.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
Somehow she was managing to have a normal conversation with Logan, but her head and senses were filled with Conner. In some ways he’d changed, she mused, and yet in others he hadn’t. The muscular physique was the reward of manhood but other things—the air of supreme indifference and the ice-blue eyes—had been part of the boy.
What was he doing here, anyway? Like everyone else, she’d assumed he’d never show his face on the island again.
Logan walked to his desk. ‘I’ll call Evanna now.’
‘I’ve already done it. She’s about to start her clinic, but she’ll come and talk to you first. I thought you might want to delay your first patient or pass him across to the new doctor when he arrives.’
‘Relax. She’s probably immune.’ Conner leaned his broad shoulders against the doorframe, watching them both with an expression that could have been amusement or boredom. ‘Do a blood test and check her antibody status.’
She was wrong, Flora realised with a flash of disquiet. There was nothing of the boy left. There were more changes than she’d thought, and some were so subtle that they weren’t immediately obvious. Those ice-blue eyes were sharper and more cynical, and his arrogance had clearly developed along with his muscles. What did he know about antibody status? Or was he one of those people who watched all the medical soaps on television and then assumed they were qualified to diagnose?
To make matters worse, Logan was nodding, encouraging him. ‘Yes—yes, I’ll do that, but if she’s not immune…’
‘Then you just give her zoster immunoglobulin. What’s the matter with you?’ Conner’s brows drew into a frown as he looked at his cousin. ‘This is why I’m careful not to fall in love. It fries your brain cells and obliterates your judgement.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with Logan’s judgement.’ Fiercely loyal, Flora immediately flew to Logan’s defence and then wished she hadn’t because Conner switched his gaze from Logan to her and his attention was unsettling, to say the least.
Apparently unaware of the change in the atmosphere, Logan rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. ‘When you love someone, Conner,’ he said, ‘you lose perspective.’
Conner’s eyes held Flora’s. ‘I wouldn’t know. That’s one mistake I’ve never made.’
She swallowed, every bit as uncomfortable as he’d clearly intended her to be. Was he trying to shock her? He’d had women, she knew that. Probably many. Was she surprised that he’d never found love? That he considered love a mistake?
‘True love is a gift, given to few,’ she murmured, and Conner’s mouth tilted and his blue eyes glinted with sardonic humour.
‘True love is a curse, bestowed on the unlucky. Love brings weakness and vulnerability. How can that be a gift?’
Flustered, she cleared her throat and looked away. What was he doing here? Why had he returned to Glenmore with no warning, looking like the bad guy out of a Hollywood movie? His hair was dark and cropped short and his jaw was dark with stubble. He was indecently handsome and the only thing that marred the otherwise faultless symmetry of his features was the slight bump in his nose, an imperfection which she assumed to be the legacy of a fight. He looked tough and dangerous and the impression of virile manhood was further intensified by the width and power of his shoulders under the black leather jacket.
He wasn’t attractive, Flora told herself desperately. How could he possibly be attractive? He looked…rough. Rough and a little menacing. She thought of the conventional, bespectacled lawyer she’d dated for a while in Edinburgh. He’d always let her through doors first and had been completely charming. His hair had always been neat and tidy and she’d never, ever seen him anything other than
