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He was speaking. But she wasn’t really hearing. It was all just noise in her ears.
‘This was all looked at—all prepared beforehand.’ She could cut in too. As it went, she didn’t know a single thing about the show’s contracts because she’d had nothing to do with any of this. All she knew was she was on a schedule. She had three days to film enough stuff to get forty-one minutes of usable footage. Much harder than it sounded.
‘I’ve been thrown into this. I won’t do anything to compromise my patients, or my position here.’ His voice was jagged and impenetrable. She could see him building a solid wall in front of himself before her very eyes. Her very tired eyes.
She’d thought he’d looked kind of sexy earlier. If this guy could do a bit of charm, the ladies would love him. But it seemed that charm and Dr Gillespie didn’t go in the same sentence. ‘I’m sure that—’
He stood up sharply. ‘I won’t move on this.’
‘But we only have three days...’
Gerry gave a little cough. She turned sideways to look at him and he gave an almost invisible shake of his head.
‘I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. I suggest you go and check into your accommodation and try and...’ he shot her a glance as if he was struggling to find the right words ‘...rest.’
He walked over to the door and opened it for them. This time he didn’t even meet her gaze. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
Kristie was feeling kind of dazed. Had she just been dismissed? She wanted to stand and argue with him. Who did this guy think he was? Arrogant so-and-so. She’d travelled twenty hours for this.
But it was almost as if Gerry read her mind. He grabbed hold of her elbow as he led her back to the car.
The sky had got darker again as thick grey clouds swept overhead, followed by the obligatory spots of rain.
She opened the car and slumped into the driver’s seat. Gerry started talking. ‘I can shoot some of the scenery. Get a shot of the exteriors, the roads, the surgery. Maybe we could get someone to show us around the—what did they call it in the file—cottage hospital? I could even get a few shots of the ferry docking and leaving.’
‘That will fill about five minutes of film when it’s all edited down,’ she groaned. She leaned forward and banged her head on the steering wheel. ‘Why didn’t I get the museum curator in Cairo? The person who is training to be an astronaut? Why did I have to get the grumpy Scottish doctor?’ She thumped her head again, just to make sure Gerry understood just how frustrated she was.
‘Kinda good looking, though,’ he said unexpectedly.
‘What?’ She sat back up and shot him a weird look.
‘I said, he’s kind of good looking. And that cross demeanour? I think some folks might like it.’
Kristie shook her head. ‘At this rate the whole first episode will have to be subtitled. Did you hear how fast he talks? And how thick that accent is?’
Gerry gave a slow appreciative nod as he folded his arms across his chest. ‘He’s practically got Highland warrior stamped on his forehead.’ He twisted towards her and tapped one finger on his chin, looking thoughtful. ‘Hey? What do you think your chances are of getting him in a kilt?’
It was no use. Her brain was clearly switching off, and Gerry’s was clearly switching on. She just couldn’t function.
She let out a kind of whimper. ‘Blooming Arran. I need food, a shower and a bed. Tell me you know where our hotel is.’
Gerry smiled. ‘It’s about a five-minute drive from here. And it’s not a hotel. It’s a cottage. Apparently accommodation can be tricky here. There’re only a few hotels, but some holiday lets. We’ll be lucky if we stay in the same place twice.’
Kristie put both hands on the steering wheel and started the engine. ‘Just tell me which direction.’ Her head was starting to thump. It was probably the jet-lag and a bit of dehydration. If she couldn’t get something in the can in the next three days she would be toast. Her career was already dangling by a thread. Another failure against her name and Louie would be right—no one would want to work with her.
She was going to have to try all her Kristie charm on Dr Grump. Because if she didn’t, who knew what could happen next?
* * *
They were sitting in his waiting room—again. Patients had already started asking questions. Some were even volunteering to be filmed. Three days of this every month for the next year?
He’d checked with his union. Apparently the TV contract was standard, and the appendix regarding patient consent was similar to one used by other TV series. As long as consent was granted and paperwork completed, there was no reason for him not to continue.
Truth was, he’d heard this news one day ago, but still couldn’t bring himself to tell the TV crew. The guy—Gerry—permanently looked as if he could go to sleep at the drop of the hat, whereas his counterpart—Kristie—looked more wound up than the tightest spring.
Pam, one of the secretaries, stuck her head around the door. She had a sheaf of messages in her hand. ‘Hospital called. X-ray problems again. Mrs McTaggart needs her painkillers upped. John Henderson phoned—sounded terrible—I’ve put him down for a house call, and...’ She paused for a second, giving him a wary look. ‘And I’ve got his permission to take the film crew.’
Rhuaridh’s head flicked up from the bunch of prescriptions he’d been signing. Pam sighed. She was another member of staff that he’d inherited from his father, meaning she knew him better than most. ‘You did what?’
Pam never pandered to him. ‘Magda had already gone through all the patient permissions with me. So I’ve started getting them. Now hurry up and take that woman out of my waiting room before she spontaneously combusts.’ Pam spun around and left, not giving him any chance to respond.
Rhuaridh leaned back in his chair and glanced at his watch. Nearly three p.m. He could do this. A few hours today, then all of tomorrow and he wouldn’t have to see them again for another month. He tried to rationalise it in his brain. How bad could this be?
He pasted his best kind of smile on his face and walked outside.
* * *
Finally. He’d finally graced them with his presence.
There were only so many outdoor shots they could film on Arran—and Gerry had shot them all. Filler time, to use around the actual, proper filming. The thing they didn’t have a single second of.
For a second yesterday, as they’d sat in the waiting room all day, she’d had half a mind to try and put a secret camera in this guy’s room. It wasn’t that she didn’t know all the unethical issues with this, it was just that she was feeling that desperate.
And after two days of waiting, Rhuaridh Gillespie gave them a half-nod of his head. ‘I’ve checked things out. We need to go to the local hospital. You’ll need to sort out your permissions with the patients when you get there.’
She refused to let that make her mad. She’d already spent part of the night before meeting the nurse manager in charge at the hospital and sorting out all the paperwork with the long-stay patients.
She hadn’t let Gerry see that she’d actually been sick outside before they’d entered. She’d been determined that she had to get the first visit to the place over and done with. Once they’d got inside and made the obligatory introductions she’d stuck her hands in her pockets so no one could see them shaking. If she’d had any other choice, she would have walked away from filming inside a hospital. But the fact was, there wasn’t another choice. It was this, or nothing. So she’d pushed all her memories into a box and tried to lock it up tight.
Once the horrible squirming feeling in her stomach had finally disappeared, she’d decided that distraction was the best technique so she’d spent some time talking with some of the older patients, and had already decided to go back and interview a few of them on camera.
So by the time they joined Rhuaridh in his black four-by-f
our and he drove down the road to the hospital she felt a bit better prepared and that horrible ominous sensation had diminished a little. The journey only took a few minutes.
It became pretty clear in the first moments after they entered the hospital that Rhuaridh wasn’t going to give them any chance to prepare, lightwise, soundwise or anything-wise. It was almost as if he was determined to ignore them.
Gerry murmured, ‘I can work around him.’
Kristie straightened her spine. If she didn’t start to get some decent filming soon she could kiss her career goodbye. But there was a little fire of anger burning down inside her. She didn’t let people ignore her. And she’d checked the contract, she knew exactly what Dr Gillespie was getting in return for doing this. He owed her three days of filming every month, and if this guy didn’t start to deliver, she wouldn’t hesitate to remind him.
But Kristie knew, at least for now, she should try and ease him into this filming. Maybe the guy was nervous. Maybe he was shy. Or maybe the guy was just a jerk. Part of her was mad. Did he have any idea how hard she was finding this? Obviously not. But whatever it was that was eating him, she had less than a day and a half to find out.
‘So, Dr Gillespie, can you tell me about the first patient we’ll be seeing?’
She could see the muscles under his white shirt tense. The ones around the base of his neck were particularly prominent. She nodded to Gerry to keep filming as Rhuaridh muttered a few unintelligible words.
‘To the camera, Dr Gillespie,’ she said smoothly.
