grimly. ‘It’s amazing the number of naive people who try to get to the top totally without equipment or experience.’
What a contrast to her patch in London, thought Terry. It was almost too much to take in, and she was gradually becoming aware that it wasn’t going to be the sort of quiet country practice she’d imagined.
‘I’ll need to get some transport,’ she said. ‘And I’d rather not borrow your motorbike!’
‘Don’t worry about that—you can use Uncle Euan’s little car. The main thing is to take a map and your mobile—it’s easy to get lost in the hills out there.’
‘It’s all very beautiful.’ Terry peered through the car window at the changing scene in front of them. ‘There must be some wonderful walks—I can’t wait to explore.’
Atholl smiled. ‘There’s so many different walks along the shore and back through the woods and the hills I never tire of them.’ He glanced at her and said in an offhand way, ‘You’d be welcome to come with a small group of us who walk together sometimes if you like.’
Funny how much that suggestion pleased her—she’d been sad for so long that the slightest lifting of her spirits felt almost alien. It was as if a curtain had been drawn apart a little and a small beam of sunlight had filtered through.
‘I’d enjoy that very much,’ she said. ‘Were you born here?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I only came here in the school holidays. I was born and raised in Glasgow.’
‘I believe it’s a lovely city.’
‘I lived in a very deprived area,’ he explained. ‘There’s still a lot of poverty in parts of Glasgow, and my family lived—still do really—in a pretty poor way. Not many advantages to life in the area I was brought up in.’
He’d obviously been glad to leave, thought Terry, whereas she had been so very happy with her life in London until…until it had all crumbled around about her ears and she’d been forced to depart. She sighed and leaned back in her seat, trying to blank out that last vision she’d had of her father as he’d lain dying in her arms and her frantic efforts to save him.
She bit her lip, telling herself firmly that she’d just got to put that episode in her life behind her. All that was finished and done with now.
‘So you won’t go back to live there, then,’ she commented.
He shrugged, a wry smile touching his lips. ‘My family think I should be back with them. They think I’ve let them down—sort of leaving the sinking ship kind of thing and coming to a better area when I could be of much more use where they live.’ He gave a humourless laugh. ‘They imagine I’m hobnobbing with lairds and big landowners—well above my station in life!’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ cried Terry. ‘You’re helping your uncle out—and you’re needed here as well!’
He laughed at her response. ‘Nevertheless, perhaps they have a point. The fact is, though, that I needed to get more experience—have a wider take on life. I’d lived and trained there all my life, and I was longing to spread my wings. And once I’d started working here, I fell in love with the place.’
He changed gear and slowed as they turned a corner and drew up in front of a square stone cottage surrounded by a little copse and protected from the road by a small front garden.
‘Here we are—rough and ready perhaps, but it’s home to me,’ he remarked.
The cottage wasn’t very big, but was most attractive, with a Virginia creeper running rampant over the walls and an untidy rose scrambling round the front door. Terry descended from the Land Rover rather wearily and followed Atholl as he went to the front door and opened it.
He whistled as he went into the little hallway, and there was a joyful bark and a large golden retriever came bounding out of the back regions and flung itself at Atholl.
‘Allow me to introduce you,’ he said. ‘This is Shona—she rules the house, I’m afraid!’
Terry looked up at Atholl and laughed, throwing back her head in amusement. ‘And I thought Shona was your girlfriend…’
The sun was streaming through the open door and fell on her raised face, catching the gold light in her hair and emphasising her large amber eyes sparkling up at him with amusement, her lips slightly parted. Looking down at her, Atholl felt slightly stunned. He’d realised she was attractive when he’d first seen her. Now he was suddenly conscious that she wasn’t just attractive—she was damned beautiful, her eyes like golden sherry set in a sweet heartshaped face. It unsettled him, made him nervous, thinking again of tattling tongues in the village, trying to matchmake. He’d had enough of that, thank you. He wasn’t lonely and he didn’t need a relationship with anyone he worked with—not after the last catastrophe.
He flicked a quick look at Terry’s bent head as she ruffled the dog’s head—the nape of her neck looked slim and vulnerable, her hair curling softly into it. And for a mad moment he imagined bending down and kissing the soft curve of her cheek. He could almost feel the velvety touch of her skin…
He started suddenly, realising that Terry was smiling at him, waiting for him to say something.
‘You’ll find your room upstairs on the right,’ he said gruffly. ‘It’s a bit basic, but you can dump your things there, freshen up and then do what you like here while I do my visits.’
‘Sure,’ Terry said. ‘But if you’d like me to come with you I’m very happy to.’
‘No, that won’t be necessary today. Tomorrow will be soon enough to start work,’ he said tersely. ‘I’ll be off, then. See you later.’
He strode out abruptly and leapt into the Land Rover, revving it up and accelerating out of the little drive with a spurt of pebbles. What the hell was he thinking about, allowing himself to even notice what Terry Younger looked like, let alone visualise himself touching her—and more? How much easier it would have been if the agency had sent a man, or even a much older woman to take the job—anyone but a knockout like Terry Younger.
He pictured her elfin face with those large expressive eyes like liquid gold and the crisp fair hair framing her face. The trouble was, he thought, gripping the steeringwheel tightly, he’d been taken unawares when Terry had come along, imagining that she would be a man. He scowled out at the landscape as he drove along. Just because he’d led a monastic life for the past few months, the last thing he needed was the distraction of sexual attraction with a colleague. Then he smiled grimly to himself. A city girl like her would probably not last long in the remote world of Scuola—after all, it hadn’t taken Zara long to find the place was not to her liking.
Terry stood in the doorway, staring after Atholl with a puzzled frown. He seemed to have suddenly become tense, uneasy about something. Was he perhaps regretting offering her the job? She shrugged. It was too late to back out now, and she’d not give up the job without a fight. She bent down to pat Shona, who looked up at her with trusting brown eyes.
‘I’ll show him, Shona,’ she whispered. ‘He’ll not regret having me in the practice—even if I am a woman.’
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