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‘But you did, so now I can break the happy news to the inhabitants of Glenmore. How have you been? Tell me, honestly.’ Logan hesitated. ‘It must have been hard…’
‘Coming back? Why would you say that?’ Conner was surprised to find that his voice sounded so harsh. ‘You know how much I love this place.’
Ignoring the sarcasm, Logan watched him steadily. ‘Actually, I was talking about leaving the army.’
The army?
Conner realised that since he’d stepped off the ferry, he’d given no thought to the life he’d just left. All he could think about was Glenmore and how it felt to be back. The bad memories poured into him like some dark, insidious disease, gradually taking possession of his mind. ‘Leaving the army isn’t my problem at the moment.’ he growled. ‘And, anyway, I don’t believe in living in the past when there’s a perfectly good future to be getting on with.’
‘Are you going to sell the house?’
‘You get straight to the point, don’t you?’ Conner rose to his feet and paced across the room, keeping his back to his cousin as he rode the pain. ‘Yes.’ He turned, his eyes fierce. ‘Why would I keep it?’
‘So that you have a place on Glenmore?’
‘If I’d wanted that,’ Conner said softly, ‘why would I be renting your barn?’
‘Good point.’ Logan gave him a sympathetic look. ‘This must be hard for you, I know.’
‘Nowhere near as hard as it’s going to be for the locals.’ Conner studied a picture on the wall. ‘They’re going to think that you’ve lost your mind, appointing me as the locum.’
‘They’d be less shocked if you told them the truth about what you’ve been doing since you stormed off Glenmore all those years ago.’
‘Island gossip has never interested me.’
‘You sound like Flora. Her clinics are taking twice as long as they should because she doesn’t like to interrupt people when they’re chatting.’
‘Flora?’
‘My practice nurse. She replaced Kyla.’
‘Flora Harris?’ Conner turned, the pain inside him under control. ‘Daughter of Ian Harris, our island solicitor? Niece of our esteemed headmistresses?’
Cloudy dark hair, soft brown eyes, an impossibly shy and awkward teenager, and as innocent as the dawn…
Logan’s eyes narrowed. ‘You didn’t ever…’
‘Fortunately for her, there were enough wild teenage girls on the island who were more than happy to experiment, without me having to corrupt the saintly Flora. Anyway, she didn’t take her nose out of a book for long enough to discover the existence of sex.’
‘She isn’t saintly. Just shy.’
‘Maybe. But definitely not the sort of girl who would skip classes in favour of a practical session on human reproduction.’ Conner rolled his shoulders to ease the tension. ‘I’m not surprised she’s a nurse. It would have been that or a librarian. Does she know I’m the new doctor?’
‘Not yet.’
‘She won’t approve.’
‘Even if she doesn’t, she would never say so. Flora is sweet, kind and incredibly civilised.’
‘Whereas I’m sharp, unkind and incredibly uncivilised. I’m willing to bet that the first thing she does, when she finds out about me, is remind you that I blew up the science lab.’
‘I’d forgotten about that.’ Momentarily distracted, Logan narrowed his eyes. ‘What did you use—potassium?’
‘Too dangerous. They didn’t keep it at school.’ Restless, Conner paced across the room again and scanned the row of textbooks on the shelf. ‘But they did keep sodium. That was good enough.’
‘It should have been in a locked cupboard.’
‘It was.’
