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Flora shook her head. ‘I think it’s something that needs looking at. The child is poorly, there’s no doubt about that. And he has a really weird rash. I’ve never seen anything like it before.’
Conner rose to his feet. ‘Is she going to slap my face again or run away screaming in horror if I walk into the room?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Flora gave a weary smile. ‘Let’s try it, shall we? Harry needs to see a doctor and I’d rather it was sooner than later.’
Diane looked up as they walked into the room. ‘Dr MacNeil.’
‘Diane.’ Conner’s greeting was cursory, his eyes focused on the boy, who was now sitting on his mother’s lap, his head on her chest. ‘Hey, sport.’ He hunkered down so that he was on the same level. ‘What’s going on with you?’
Harry opened his eyes but didn’t move his head. ‘Feel bad.’
‘His temperature is thirty-nine degrees.’ Flora gently lifted Harry’s arm so that Conner could see. ‘He’s had this rash for three days.’
‘Feel horrible,’ the boy muttered, and Conner nodded.
‘Well, we need to see what we can do about that.’ He studied the rash in silence, his blue eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Circular rash.’
Diane watched his face. ‘You’re going to tell me that it’s just a virus and that I shouldn’t have bothered you.’
Conner lifted his gaze to hers. ‘You were right to bring him. Harry? Do you mind undressing down to your underpants? I want to take a proper look at this rash.’
Flora helped the child undress and Conner examined his skin carefully and questioned Diane in detail.
‘It started under his arm when we were on holiday,’ she told him. ‘Just a red spot. And then it grew bigger and it turned into that weird thing he has now.’
‘Where did you go on holiday?’
Flora glanced at him in surprise. She wouldn’t have expected Conner to be interested in small talk.
‘Mainland.’
‘Highlands?’ Conner ran a finger over the rash, his expression thoughtful. ‘Were you walking?’
‘Yes.’ Diane looked at him. ‘How do you know?’
Conner straightened and reached for Harry’s T-shirt. ‘It fits with what I’m seeing. You can get dressed now. I’ve seen all I need to see.’ He gently pulled the T-shirt over the boy’s head. ‘Were you camping?’
‘Yes. We spent a few nights in a forest. It was lovely.’
‘Lots of deer around?’
‘Actually, yes.’ Diane frowned. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Because Harry has Lyme disease.’ Conner washed his hands. ‘He was almost certainly bitten by a tick, which is why he started off with one red spot. Did you see an insect?’
‘No.’ Bemused, Diane shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t. But we’ve been camping every year since he was born and we’ve never had a problem. Lyme disease? What is that? I’ve never even heard of it.’
‘It’s not that common in this country, although the number of cases is increasing. Ticks are tiny insects and they feed by sucking blood from animals such as deer. Some ticks get infected with the bacterium that causes Lyme disease and if they bite a human then they pass the disease on.’
Diane looked at him in a mixture of horror and amazement. ‘And you’re sure Harry has it? How do you know?’
‘Because his symptoms fit the history.’
Flora felt the tension leave her. Clearly Conner hadn’t been making small talk about holidays, he’d been verifying the cause of the symptoms he was seeing. Logan was right. Conner was a good doctor. A clever doctor. And Diane appeared to have forgotten that she’d ever had reservations about seeing him.
‘You’ve seen this Lyme disease before?’
‘When I was stationed overseas.’ Without waiting for an invitation, he sat down at Flora’s computer and hit a few keys, bringing up a list of antibiotics. ‘The rash that Harry has is fairly typical.’ He scrolled down, searching for the one he wanted. ‘It starts as a single circular red mark and it gradually spreads. It isn’t always painful or itchy and some people don’t even notice it, depending on where they were bitten.’
