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He’d snapped needlessly at Kristie. He knew that. But he just couldn’t think beyond what would happen next for Magda, David and the baby. And until he knew that, he didn’t know what came next.
Guilt swamped him. ‘Kristie, wait,’ he shouted as he walked out after her.
She spun around towards him. The expression in her eyes told him everything he needed to know. She was every bit as panicked and worried as he was. She was also mad. And no wonder. He knew better than to act like this. He walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m just worried.’ He glanced up at the sky. The helicopter was well out of sight. He prayed things would go well. ‘I didn’t mean to snap. And thank you for your help in there. I just feel so...’ He struggled to say the word out loud, not really wanting to admit it.
‘Helpless?’ Kristie added without hesitation. He could see her eyes searching his face. Wondering if he would agree.
He closed his eyes for a second and nodded as the rush of adrenalin seemed to leave his body all at once. ‘Helpless,’ he agreed with a sigh. ‘I won’t be able to think about another thing until I know they’re both okay.’
‘Neither will I,’ she said quickly. Should he really be surprised? It was the first real time since she’d got here that he’d taken the time to really look at her, really see something other than the bolshie American TV presenter. There was something there. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Her hand reached across her chest and covered the hand he had on her shoulder. He felt a jolt. It must be the warmth of her palm against his cold skin. She licked her bare lips. All her makeup had disappeared in the last few hours. She didn’t need it. Something sparked in his brain. Had he really just thought that?
She squeezed his hand and spoke quietly as she held his gaze. ‘Let’s just do the only thing we can. Pray.’
His stomach gave a gentle flip as he nodded in agreement and looked back up at the sky. He pushed everything else away. Magda and the baby were all he could concentrate on right now. Anything else could wait.
CHAPTER THREE
July
PEOPLE WERE LOOKING at him a bit strangely, and he couldn’t quite work out why. And it wasn’t just the people he knew. Summer holidays had well and truly started and, as normal, the island’s population had grown, bringing a stream of holidaymakers with minor complaints and medical issues to the island’s GP surgery. This meant that he now had a whole host of strangers giving him strange sideways glances that turned into odd smiles.
It took one older lady with a chest infection to reveal the source.
‘You’re the handsome doc I saw on TV,’ she said.
‘What?’ He was sounding the woman’s chest at that point, paying attention to the auscultations of her lungs instead of to her voice.
She gave a loud tut then giggled. ‘You really don’t like that poor girl, do you?’
He pulled the stethoscope from his ears. ‘Excuse me?’
‘The pretty one. With the blonde hair. She looked shell-shocked by that death.’ The woman leaned over and patted his hand. ‘I’m sorry about your friend. How’s Mac?’
For a few moments, Rhuaridh was stunned. Then the penny dropped like a cannonball on his head.
‘You’ve seen the TV show?’ He hadn’t really paid attention to when it would air.
She grinned. ‘Yes. It was wonderful. Best episode of that series yet.’ She gave him a sideways glance and raised her eyebrows. ‘And, yep, it’s probably fair that they call you hot. But you really need to behave a bit better.’
He wasn’t really paying attention to all her words. ‘What do you mean—the death?’
She frowned at him, as though he were a little dense. ‘Your friend. The farmer.’
‘They showed that?’ He felt a surge of anger. How dared they?
The old woman shook her head. ‘Well, we didn’t really see anything much at all. Just a pair of feet. Nothing else. It was more about...’ she held her hands up to her crackly chest ‘...the feelings, the emotions. The love in the room.’ She gave a wicked little shrug. ‘And the tension. Like I said, you need to be nicer to that girl. She’s very pretty, you know. She looked as though she could have done with a hug.’
