already have an assistance dog for his daughter, so…’ Esme looked up to the wintry sky as if for inspiration.
‘Because he’s so young and such a little scruffball we weren’t sure he’d be up for much training, but he seems pretty adaptable. Aksel caught him trying to purr next to a cat the other day.’ She laughed, her features softening as she unclipped his lead and gave him a bit of a cuddle. ‘Poor Dougal. He deserves someone who will love him exactly the way he is. A little broken. A lot in need of love.’
Something told Max she was describing herself. She sure as hell was describing him. Though he could hardly believe the words as they came out of his mouth, he said them anyway. ‘Want to talk about it?’
‘About Dougal?’ Esme knew he’d been asking about her, but she was hardly going to pour her heart out to a man who had more control over her emotions than she cared to admit. ‘Nothing to say really. His past is a mystery.’ Her eyes flicked towards Max. A bit like you. Adopting what she hoped was a fun, interested look, she asked, ‘So what’s your kilt like? I’m not familiar with the Kirkpatrick tartan.’
‘Probably because it’s Lowland. I’m guessing the Ross-Wylde tartan is—forgive the pun—cut from a different cloth.’
It was as it happened. Highlander through and through. But that didn’t mean he could tar her with a brush of superiority. ‘I don’t use my name to get things I haven’t earned.’
His eyes widened. There had definitely been bite to her bark and Max wasn’t a man to stand around getting attacked. ‘You certainly seem happy to use it when it comes to flinging your money about.’
Everything in her stilled.
‘Don’t say that.’
Max’s spine realigned into ramrod position. ‘Sore point?’
‘Something like that.’
She saw him reeling through the possibilities of what could make the poor little rich girl so touchy about money. When she failed to explain he asked, ‘Is this why you fund the charities through the ball instead of donating it all yourself? Gives you a bit of emotional clearance so you don’t have to feel responsible for anyone and they don’t have to come crawling to you for more?’
He was hitting close to the bone. Too close. And he wasn’t bothering to sugar-coat it.
She flicked her hair out of her eyes and tucked it back underneath her hat.
‘How I run the foundation is nothing for you to worry about, Max. It’s a charity event, not a Princess Charming Ball.’ Instead of stropping off, which she should have done, she lashed out, ‘And don’t think for a minute I need to find a male version of Cinderella to make me happy.’
‘No?’ countered Max, the space between them diminishing as the heated intensity between them increased. ‘What do you need to make you happy?’
Her heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear her own thoughts let alone the sounds around them.
Someone like you?
‘Max!’ Euan was running towards them. ‘Come fast! It’s Fenella!’
Max took off with the practised speed of an athlete. Esme scooped up Dougal’s lead and, as best she could, ran behind, silently adding, Make self immune to grumpy but sexy Scottish doctors to her list of things to do.
When Max reached the clearing, he could hardly believe what he was seeing.
Fenella’s dog, Nora, was nudging herself under Fenella’s head as she came to the end of a seizure.
‘She was fitting, Doc.’ Euan said, breathless and a bit pale from fright. ‘I stuck my glove in her mouth so she wouldn’t bite her tongue or anything, but she spat it out. Too mucky, I guess.’
‘It’s all right, pal.’ Max dropped to his knees and did a quick check of Fenella’s vitals. ‘You’ve done the right thing in finding me. From the look of things, Nora here knows what she’s doing.’
‘Absolutely.’ Euan looked awestruck. ‘I know we saw her in the practice hall, but this was the real thing. It was like she knew it was going to happen.’ He looked up as Esme jogged into the clearing. ‘Did you know Nora makes herself into a cushion?’
Esme gave Nora a quick pet and a treat as Fenella slowly came to. ‘Absolutely. That’s what she’s trained to do.’
Max helped Fenella sit up. ‘You all right there, hun?’
The post-ictal phase was always a bit tricky. The person who’d had the seizure could feel perfectly fine or often exhibit signs similar to those of a stroke. Headaches, slurred speech, nausea and fatigue. In rare cases, some epileptics could suffer from post-ictal psychosis and suffer from paranoia or extreme fear. Usually the anomaly occurred in people who weren’t taking their medication.
‘Yes, I…’ Fenella looked a bit confused and then, when her eyes lit on Nora, it was as if everything pinged into place. ‘I felt a bit woozy and the next thing I knew, this one was being my pillow.’ She ran her hand through the dog’s fur and automatically reached to her pocket to get her a treat. ‘Good girl. You’re a clever girlie, aren’t you?’
‘She was!’ Euan jumped in. ‘Out of, like, absolutely nowhere you fainted. But you weren’t fainting. You were having a seizure, I guess, and it was like Nora knew exactly what to do. She broke your fall. Then she stuck herself under your head while you were fitting. No offence, but it was really cool.’
Max glanced across at Esme. She looked concerned for Fenella but pleased her new service dog had fallen straight into her new role. She was actively avoiding eye contact with him. Served him right. He’d been an ass. Sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. He should tell her about Gavin. It would break just about every rule in his play-your-cards-close-to-your-chest handbook, but he felt he owed it to her to even the emotional playing field. He got it. Sometimes things were personal. Luckily for his emotional armour, taking caring of Fenella took precedence.
‘Did you take your AEDs?’ Max asked. Anti-epileptic drugs helped but weren’t a failsafe, especially if they weren’t taken regularly or weren’t the right dosage. Having seen her in his A and E several times for sprains and cuts sustained while she’d been fitting, he knew she had struggled for years to find the right balance of medication.
‘Yes.’ She looked away, rubbing her elbow.
It didn’t sound like a one hundred percent yes, but he wasn’t going to embarrass her in front of everyone if there was a story behind her not taking it. Or, as was often the case, she might need to change meds. They weren’t a one-pill-fits-all type of medicine.
‘Did you hurt yourself?’
‘No more than usual.’ She held up a lightly scraped hand then qualified her answer. ‘I probably would’ve cracked my head on a stone or something if it hadn’t been for Nora.’ She wrapped her arm round the dog and nuzzled her face into the fluffy goldendoodle’s coat. After
