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‘But there must be another way? A smaller boat? A helicopter? What if there’s a medical emergency?’
The man gave her a look. ‘To take a smaller boat out in this weather would be suicide. As for emergencies, everyone on the island knows that this can sometimes happen. If the doc can’t fix it, it can’t be fixed.’
She stepped back. He’d got her with that word. Suicide. She’d been desperate. She’d been ready to run around the harbour to try and charter a smaller boat. But she wouldn’t do that now. Not after that word.
She looked out through the glass at the ferry terminal. She couldn’t even see Arran on the horizon, just the mass of grey swirling storm, and hear the thud of the pouring rain.
Another month without seeing Rhuaridh again?
It had never seemed so long.
CHAPTER EIGHT
December
HE WAS WAITING at the ferry terminal. It was ridiculous. She would be driving the hire car but he still wanted to see her. Two months. Two months since their second kiss.
Sometimes he felt guilty, thinking he’d taken advantage. But from the stream of messages they’d exchanged since then, there had been no indication that she thought that.
Was it possible to actually get to know someone better by text, email and a few random video chats? Because it felt like it was. He’d learned that Kristie’s favourite position was sitting on her chair at home, in her yoga pants, eating raisins.
She’d learned that he was addicted to an orange-coloured now sugar-free fizzy drink that some people called Scotland’s national drink. He didn’t let many people know that. She’d also laughed as she’d watched him try to follow a new recipe and increase his limited kitchen menu, and fail dismally.
It was only when he was standing on the snow-covered dock that he realised he’d no idea what car she would be driving this time. But she spotted him first, flashing her headlights and pulling to a stop next to him in the car park.
‘Hey!’ She jumped out of the car with a wide smile on her face. At first she looked as if she was about to throw her arms around him, but something obviously stopped her as she halted midway and looked a bit awkward. Instead, she held out her hands. ‘Snow,’ she said simply as she looked about.
She lifted her chin up towards the gently falling snow, closing her eyes and smiling as she spun around.
Gerry got out of the car and looked mildly amused.
‘You’ve never seen snow before?’ asked Rhuaridh.
‘Of course I haven’t,’ she said, still spinning around. ‘I live in LA. It’s hardly snow central.’
Rhuaridh looked over at Gerry. ‘What about you?’
Gerry shook his head. ‘Don’t worry about me. I spent three months filming in Alaska. I know snow.’
Rhuaridh smiled as he kept watching Kristie. He’d never realised this would be her first experience of snow. ‘It’s not even lying properly,’ he said. ‘Give it another day and we might actually be able to build a snowman or have a snowball fight.’
‘Really?’ She stopped spinning, her eyes sparkling.
He nodded. ‘Sure. Now come on, I’m taking you two guys to dinner in the pub just down the road. Let’s go.’
‘Good for me,’ said Gerry quickly, climbing back into the car.
Kristie stepped up in front of him. ‘You don’t have to do that,’ she said, still smiling.
She was so close he caught the scent of her perfume. It was different, something headier. ‘But I want to.’ He slid his hand behind her, holding her for the briefest of seconds. ‘I might have missed having you around.’
‘Good.’ She blinked as a large snowflake landed on her eyelashes. ‘Let’s keep that up.’
* * *
Part of her was excited and part of her was laced with a tiny bit of trepidation. Louie was massively excited. It seemed he’d taken over production of the episode where she’d been unwell and had included footage of Rhuaridh looking after her, interspersed with a few repetitions of their previous interactions.
It wasn’t her favourite episode because it felt so intrusive. The whole episode was literally dedicated to the relationship between them, rather than the life of a Highland doc. But Louie had argued his case well. ‘The viewers have been waiting for this. They want it. And what else have we got to show them this month? You didn’t exactly do any filming on the island, we were lucky Gerry actually filmed anything at all.’
She knew in a way he was right. But when she’d taken on this role, she hadn’t realised the story would become about her too.
Watching the scenes where Rhuaridh had been looking after her had brought a lump to her throat. He was so caring. So quietly concerned. It was a side of him she hadn’t seen before. And the way that he’d looked at her at times had made her heart melt. Thank goodness Gerry hadn’t been around to film their kiss. She hadn’t told him about either of the times they’d kissed. He was already looking at her a bit suspiciously—as if he suspected something—so she didn’t plan on revealing anything more.
The pub that Rhuaridh took them to was warm and welcoming, panelled with wood. Every table was taken and the pub was full of Christmas decorations—twinkling lights, a large decorated tree and red and green garlands underneath the bar. Rhuaridh insisted they all eat a traditional Scottish Christmas dinner—turkey, stuffing, roast potatoes, tiny sausages, Brussels sprouts and mashed turnip all covered in gravy. ‘This is delicious,’ said Gerry. ‘A bit more like our Thanksgiving dinner. But I like it. I could eat more of this.’
Kristie leaned back and rubbed her stomach, groaning. ‘No way. I couldn’t eat another single thing.’
Rhuaridh was watching them both with a smile on his face. ‘Well, I’m still trying to make up for the fact you spent a few days here eating hardly anything.’
‘Are you trying to take care of me, Dr Gillespie?’ she teased.
He shook his head. ‘No way. You’re far too difficult a patient.’ There was a twinkle in his eyes as he said the word. He glanced at Gerry, obviously not wanting this conversation to become too personal. ‘What are your plans for filming this time? Do we need to make up for lost time?’
Kristie shifted a little uncomfortably, not quite sure how to tell him about the episode that would go out in a few weeks, but Gerry got in there first. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said with a wave of his hand, ‘we’ve got that covered. We had some old unused footage and just mixed it with the fact that Kristie was pretty much out of action.’
‘Oh, okay.’ Rhuaridh seemed to accept the explanation easily. ‘So what about this time?’
Kristie had given this some thought. ‘We’ve got quite a bit of footage of some of the patients in the cottage hospital. Christmas is a big deal. I know we’re not actually here for Christmas Day, but it might be nice if we could get some film of how the staff deal with patients who they know will have to stay in hospital for Christmas.’
Rhuaridh lifted his eyebrows. ‘You mean, you actually want some heart-warming stuff for Christmas instead of some kind of crisis?’
Gerry laughed. ‘If you can whip us up a crisis we’ll always take it, but I think we were going to try and keep with the season of goodwill. On a temporary basis, of course.’
Rhuaridh looked carefully at Kristie. ‘Do you feel okay about filming in the hospital?’
Gerry’s eyebrows shot upwards. He had no idea that she’d shared her secret with the doc. Kristie cleared her throat awkwardly, trying to buy a bit of time. But she could come up with nothing. It seemed that honesty might be for the best.
‘He knows about Jess. I told him.’
She couldn’t decipher the look Gerry gave her. ‘Okay, then,’ he said simply.
She took a few moments. She’d thought about this when Louie had suggested it. Everything previously had seemed like a diktat—it had been required for the show so she’d had to grit her tee
th and get on with it. She’d been so fixated on how she felt about hospitals, deep down, that she hadn’t taken the time to reconsider how her perspective might have changed a little. ‘We’re talking about the older patients who are too sick to get home. You know I met some of them before?’
Rhuaridh nodded.
She smiled as things seemed to click in her mind. ‘I actually really enjoyed talking with some of them. They’re not patients. They’re people. People who’ve lived long, very interesting lives and have a hundred tales to tell. Maybe we should try and film an update on a few of the people we’ve spoken to before—and maybe we should ask them about Christmases from years gone by. How did people normally celebrate Christmas on Arran? Are there any special traditions?’
