in the final stages of liver failure—cirrhosis caused by hemochromatosis, poor soul. She moved here to be close to her son, Hugh, once she’d decided not to undergo any further treatment. I’ve had her on a bi-weekly visit, but I think it’s time to increase the frequency.”
“Do you need me to pull her file?”
“No, I have it here,” he replied, tapping the folder on his desk.
He spoke a little more about Mrs. Jacobson’s prior treatment, and what he’d prescribed to battle the ascites and hepatic encephalopathy. It was, in effect, palliative care, and Harmony wasn’t surprised he wanted to up the number of times she was seen.
“I told Hugh I’d be by at one, so maybe grab something to eat after the ceremony, and if you could be ready at a quarter to, that would be great. Oh, and do you have a pair of wellies?”
She’d been wondering why they needed fifteen minutes to go a few doors down when he asked the question and it distracted her. “I haven’t worn Wellington boots since my days in the Guides. Do I need them?”
“Some of the farmyards will be a quagmire after the rain we’ve had, so they’d be a good idea for when you go to do your rounds.”
Unimpressed with the thought of messing up her trainers, which were pretty new and had been a splurge buy, she asked, “Is there somewhere I can buy some?”
Cam shook his head. “You’d have to go to the mainland—or order online and have them delivered, which would take longer. We have a bunch of them up at the Manor. What size do you wear?”
“Seven and a half.”
“Okay.” He sent her one of his heart-stopping smiles. “I’ll hunt out a pair for you.”
Cam was already heading for the door and Harmony watched him go, still stinging from his earlier set-down, and annoyed at the way her heart leapt and fluttered whenever he grinned that way.
The thought of spending time with him as he showed her around the island flustered her. Hopefully it was just because he was her boss and she wasn’t used to him yet, she mused, knowing it was more. She was attracted to him—which was another wrinkle in what was already a situation so far outside her comfort zone as to be in a different universe.
It would be a lot easier not to have a physical reaction to him if he were a little less handsome and didn’t have a gazillion-kilowatt smile. Not even the knowledge that he was a risk-taking daredevil could stop those butterflies from invading her insides whenever he entered the room or smiled her way.
But it should, she reminded herself. The very last thing she needed was to be attracted to a man like her father. The type of man who put his need for adventure before everything else—even his health, or the people who loved him.
Cam made his escape, wondering how he was going to get through the next month and half.
Harmony Kinkaid, his fussy, big-city nurse administrator, was already making him crazy.
She’d rearranged all his files, so he couldn’t find anything. She wanted to come down hard on patients who didn’t turn up for their appointments. She’d silently showed her displeasure when he’d mentioned he’d be leaving on a hiking and rock-climbing trip to Peru just after Hogmanay, even when he’d said there’d be a locum to fill in for him.
But it had been her expression when she’d realized he had type 1 diabetes that had really aggravated him. She, of all people, should know it was no reason for him not to live fully.
Thank goodness for Grand-Da, who’d shown Cam that the disease wasn’t an impediment to having a good, exciting life.
“It’s something to be managed,” Grand-Da had told him in his habitual no-nonsense way, that first summer he’d come to stay. “Once you learn how to do that anything is doable. You just have to accept you have it and be smart about it.”
Learning how to control the effects of his diabetes had given him a freedom beyond his wildest imagining. Gone had been the days when he’d only watched other boys enjoying themselves, never being allowed to join in. And at the age of thirteen Cam had embraced his new-found independence with gusto. Pitting himself against nature, or against his own limitations or fears, had brought him fully alive.
He’d seen Harmony glance at the pictures on his wall, had almost been able to hear her internal dialog regarding the pastimes he chose. As she was a nurse he was surprised at her reaction. Hell, there were type 1 diabetics playing rough professional sports. It all came down to how you took care of yourself and managed the disease.
Maybe he wouldn’t be so testy if it wasn’t so close to the opening of the Winter Festival and everyone wasn’t going bonkers. He’d had one or other of the CIs on the phone almost constantly, complaining about something or needing help with different situations. They kept trying to get him to recruit Harmony too, but so far he’d been able to still keep them at bay.
Settling into his vehicle, Cam ran his fingers through his hair and sighed.
The truth of it was, for all her annoying qualities, his attraction to Harmony hadn’t abated one little bit. All morning, whenever they’d been in the same room, Cam had found himself watching her—not as a boss assessing a new hire’s abilities, but as a man admiring a beautiful woman. He’d found himself liking the way she moved, liking the scent—something floral and sweet today—that wafted around her, and her expressions with those flashes of emotion she tried so hard to hide.
And those amazing eyes were golden again today. They had him constantly checking to see whether they’d changed to green again…
Despite her trying to boss him around and compulsively rearranging things, he couldn’t get his mind off her.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he muttered to himself, as he got True Blue started and, after her usual complaints, into gear. “You only just met her. It’s just the draw of the unknown…”
But his words rang hollow in his own ears, and he was still obsessing over Harmony Kinkaid as he drove home, looking forward to spending the rest of the day with her.
And mentally kicking himself because he was.
CAM STOOD WITH his head bowed as John Harris read out the list of islanders who’d served in World War I and World War II. The Armistice Day ceremony was being held at the cenotaph at the north end of the village green, and Cam was aware of Harmony standing next to him, all her attention on the elderly wheelchair-bound gentleman.
He was one of the patients she’d be checking on when she was on her rounds, and Cam had promised at least to point out those who were attending, even if he didn’t get a chance to introduce her to them all.
As the “Last Post” was played by a cadet, Cam watched in his peripheral vision as Harmony fished a tissue out of her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. He was always moved by the “Last Post” too—the long first call, and the trill of the bugle running and then coming back to the mournful last notes.
John
