A Mother's Secret

She held up a pale blue dress with some obvious netting underneath. A little-girl princess-style dress. The kind of thing his sister would love.

He took the dress and carefully put it on a hanger. ‘There we go. Do you want to hang it up yourself?’

She shook her head, her curls bouncing around her. ‘No. Mum says that’s your job.’ Like mother, like daughter.

‘How old are you, Isla? It is Isla, isn’t it?’

She smiled. One of her front teeth was missing. ‘I’m five. I’ll be going to the big school after the summer.’

He nodded. ‘There’s a lovely primary school just around the corner. I’ll show you it later if you like.’ He pointed to her tooth. ‘Did the tooth fairy come?’

She rolled her eyes and planted her hands on her hips. ‘No, silly. The tooth fairy only comes if a tooth falls out by itself.’

He straightened his back. ‘Why, what happened to yours?’

She sighed. She’d gone back to her dolls and had obviously lost interest in him now. ‘I got it knocked out when I was playing football.’

He blinked. So the little curly-haired redhead who liked princess dresses was actually a tomboy?

Gemma appeared at the door with another pile of clothes, which she started automatically hanging in the wardrobe. ‘I can see Isla’s entertaining you with her terrifying tales.’

Logan gave a slow nod. ‘Football?’

Gemma nodded. ‘Football. Is there a team she can join?’

‘At five?’

‘Yes. She was in a mixed team back in Glasgow. They played in a mini-league.’

Logan leaned against the wall and folded his arms. ‘I think the primary school has a football team, but I’m sure it’s the primary six and sevens. We can ask at the surgery, someone is bound to know.’

Gemma finished hanging her clothes and turned around. ‘I’m not really sure what you’re doing here, Logan. I certainly won’t be ready to start work for a while. Look around. My contractor hasn’t appeared and one of the windows is broken.’ She ran her hand through her tangled hair. ‘And I have no idea where to start with that one. The estate agent isn’t even answering her phone.’

Logan glanced at his watch. ‘That’s because it’s a Thursday and it’s two o’clock. Nancy Connelly will be getting her hair done.’

Gemma’s chin almost bounced off the floor. What did she expect? Logan had spent most of his life on this island and could tell her the ins, outs and daily habits of just about everyone.

She started shaking her head. ‘Well, that’s not much use to me, is it? I would have thought she would have the courtesy to call me and let me know that my property had been damaged. I’m going to have to find out who can do replacement windows around here, and then I’m obviously going to have to find an alternative contractor since the one I’ve paid hasn’t done his job.’

It sounded like the start of a rant. No, maybe that was unfair. She’d just arrived on a strange island with her little girl and probably wanted to get settled in straight away. At least she’d planned ahead. Her cottage was supposed to be ready just to walk into, and the reality was she wasn’t supposed to start at the GP surgery for another few weeks. He was going to have to appeal to her better nature—and just hope that she had one.

He put up his hands. ‘Whoa. I’m sorry. I should have got to the point but you’re a bit like a whirlwind around here. Harry Burns was your contractor. The reason the work hasn’t been started is because Harry had an MI last week—just after he’d delivered your paint to start decorating. The reason the window is broken is because he was up on a ladder, cleaning out your guttering, when he fell off.’

Gemma put her hand up to her mouth. ‘He had a heart attack here? At my house? And why on earth was he cleaning my guttering?’

Logan shrugged. ‘Because that’s just Harry. He saw it needed doing, and thought he would help out. He was lucky. He usually works by himself, but his fourteen-year-old grandson was with him that day. He called us and we were lucky enough to get him to the hospital in time.’

Gemma took a deep breath. ‘Do you have facilities for things like that? I thought most of the emergency stuff had to go to the mainland?’

Logan picked his words carefully. He didn’t want to vent his frustration on their new doctor. It often took newcomers a while to adjust to what could and couldn’t be done on a small island. ‘We can treat MIs with rtPA—the same as they would get in a coronary care unit. What we can’t do is an immediate angioplasty to find the problem. So we treat the clot, ensure they’re stable then transfer them to the mainland for further treatment.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Your new window should be on the two o’clock ferry. We ordered it last week and they said they would supply and fit it today.’

There it was. A little colour appearing in her cheeks. She blushed easily—obviously embarrassed about her earlier almost-rant of frustration.

‘Oh, I see. Thank you.’

Logan knew he should probably stop there. But he couldn’t. He cared about the people on this island. ‘Do you have to have the work done straight away? Can you wait a while? Harry is already upset about the window. If he hadn’t had a heart attack I can guarantee the job would have been done perfectly for your arrival.’

Gemma looked around her. Isla seemed oblivious to the décor. The walls were marked here and there, with the odd little dent in the plasterwork—all things that Harry had been paid to fix. Did it really matter if she had to wait a few weeks for the house to be painted, and for her feature wall to be papered in the living room? Who else was going to see the house but her and Isla?

In an ideal world, her room would have been painted before she laid the new carpet, but she wasn’t prepared to wait. Which was just as well as the men were almost finished. They were poised outside, waiting to try and fit her sofa through the window.

She placed her hands on her hips as she took a few steps down the corridor. The place really wasn’t too bad. It just needed freshening up. ‘I suppose it’s not the end of the world to wait a few weeks. I guess Harry will need around six weeks to make a full recovery. But I don’t want him to be pressured into working before he’s ready. Maybe it would be less pressure on him if he knew someone else had done the job?’

He understood her reasoning. It was rational. It was also considerate. But this woman had obviously never met Harry Burns.

He shook his head; he couldn’t help a smile appearing on his face. ‘Actually, if I tell Harry someone else is doing it, his blood pressure will probably go through the roof and he’ll have another heart attack.’

She smiled. A genuine smile that reached right up into her warm brown eyes. ‘Well, I guess that would never do, then, would it?’

He shook his head. She was mellowing. She seemed a little calmer. But then again, she’d just moved house—one of the most stressful things to do. That, along with the fact she was about to start a new job, meant her own blood pressure was probably through the roof. He was leaving out the most obvious fact. The one that it seemed highly likely she was a single parent.

There was no sign of any man. And all the clothes packed into the back of the little red car were obviously hers and her daughter’s.

His curiosity was definitely piqued. But he couldn’t show it—not for a second. On an island like Arran they’d have him huckled up the aisle in the blink of an eye and all his mother’s cronies would have their knitting needles out and asking about babies.

‘About work...’ he started. That was better. That was the reason he was here.

‘What about it?’ she said absentmindedly, as she opened a drawer and started emptying a bag of little-girl underwear into it. ‘I think I’m supposed to meet Sam Allan next Tuesday. He’s the head of the practice, isn’t he?’

‘Normally, he is.’ Logan chose his words carefully and let the statement sink in.

Her eyes widened and she turned around. ‘Oh, no, what are you about to tell me?’ He could tell from the tone of her voice that she knew exactly where this conversation was headed.

‘About Sam...’

‘What about Sam, Dr Scott?’ She folded her arms across her chest.

He almost laughed out loud at the expression on her face. Did she have any idea how identical her daughter was to her? Even though the hair and eye colour was obviously different, their expressions and mannerisms were like mirror images of each other.

‘I think you should start calling me Logan. We’ll be working together enough.’

He could see her take a deep breath. He liked this woman. And as soon as he had a minute he was going to go back to the surgery and read her résumé. He could only hope that her paediatric skills would be transferable to their GP practice.

‘Sam Allan managed to fall down Goat Fell earlier today. It’s about the hundredth time in his life, but this time he’s been a little unlucky.’

Her eyes narrowed. Goat Fell was the highest peak on the island. ‘How unlucky?’

‘Unlucky enough to break his leg.’ He couldn’t keep the sound of regret from his voice. Sam Allan was one of his greatest friends. ‘Sam’s problem is he’s nearly seventy but thinks he’s still around the age of seventeen.’