The Princess's Christmas Baby Page 19

  He should’ve told Doc Anstruther he’d take the job the day he arrived. Made the decision as quickly and cleanly as a surgeon made an incision. He knew they were taking bets down at the pub about whether or not he’d stay.

  It was a simple bet—would he stay or go? —but really he knew it went deeper. The decision he made would cement the way folk thought about the MacAskill name. Was he a good islander like his grandmother? Or a bad seed like his father? His sister had made her own decision by moving to New Zealand years back. Cooper had kept folk guessing long enough.

  He knew opinions about him swung to both ends of the spectrum. Some thought his grandmother’s firm but fair hand in raising him and his sister once their parents had died had made all the difference. Others weren’t so generous.

  A fair call, when being here tapped into his darker side. Anyway... He hadn’t made the call and he wouldn’t yet. He’d learnt the hard way about making promises he couldn’t keep. If he made this promise he’d have to know in his marrow he was going to keep it. The intention was there. All he had to do now was see if he had the follow-through to ensure the island still had a ‘good’ MacAskill on it.

  ‘Good to have you back for a wee while, Coop. And as Mr Holly Jolly himself, no less.’ Robbie gave him another thump on the back. ‘Brilliant. Your gran would’ve loved this, she would.’

  Despite himself, Coop’s lips curved into a half-smile as they both examined his outfit. His grandmother would’ve loved it. Thick black boots with a solid tread. Dark red trousers. A huge but lightweight jacket that fitted like a dream over his thermal top, wind-resistant fleece and gilet. Some might argue that the floppy hat with ermine lining was a bit OTT, but if there was a beautiful woman teasing him about it he’d flirtatiously suggest that it brought out the blue in his eyes.

  But he was with Robbie, and not feeling remotely flirty. He was feeling antsy and guilty and quite a few other things he was used to shoving in a box to worry about when hell froze over.

  He glanced at his watch. The ferry was making a real production of pulling in half an hour later than scheduled.

  Fog.

  Surprise, surprise.

  ‘This the new regulation uniform, then, Coop?’

  ‘For house calls,’ Cooper said, playing it straight.

  ‘Aye, well... I dare say folk’ll appreciate the effort.’

  ‘Hope so.’

  And he did. Truly, he did. He might not be able to fix the way his gran had gone—alone—but he was going to pour every ounce of energy he had into making sure no one else’s loved ones felt sad, or lonely, or any worse than they had to over the Christmas holidays. He’d chop down a Christmas tree for each and every one of them if necessary.

  He jogged in place for a minute.

  ‘What’s this, then, Coop?’ Robbie gave him a jab in the ribs. ‘It’s a bit late to get fighting fit for the new district nurse, isn’t it? Bit of a hottie, is she?’

  ‘No idea.’

  Romance was the last thing on his mind. Another of his periodic relationships had bit the dust a few months back, and he’d been too busy working to think about it since. Too busy working to be here for his gran during what had turned out to be her final days. The promise he should’ve made to her years ago—that he’d make her proud of the man he’d become—he’d had to make over her grave.

  ‘Never met her. I just hope she’s a good nurse. We’ve got to go straight out on some calls.’ He nodded out towards the car park, where the medical four by four stood ready and waiting.

  Robbie’s eyes opened in surprise. ‘I still can’t get my head wrapped round the fact Cooper MacAskill is doing calls on Bourtree. I thought you’d be too much of a bigshot over there in Glasgow for the likes of us.’

  Cooper only just managed to keep his expression neutral. ‘Doc’s busy in the surgery, so I said I’d do the house calls and take the nurse on her first few sets of rounds.’

  Robbie nodded. ‘Someone down at the Puffin said you were doing a few days to help out Doc Anstruther, but I said I wouldn’t believe it till I saw it. Cooper MacAskill on Bourtree?’ He laughed, as if the idea was ridiculous.

  Cooper gave his best stab at a nonchalant shrug, gritting his teeth against having his face rubbed in the past. A better reaction than connecting his fist to Robbie’s nose, anyway. An instinct from back in the day.

  If he decided to stay, punching people wouldn’t exactly be kicking things off on the right note, so he took a deep breath, smiled, and prayed for the ferry to dock. Immediately.

  Ach, well. If he decided to become the island’s doctor he’d better get used to having these sorts of conversations. He owed it to Bourtree. More importantly, he owed it to his gran. Not that doling out aspirins and wrapping up sprained ankles while the doctors over in Glasgow got properly stuck into the type of emergency medicine he was trained for was his idea of heaven, but the simple truth was nothing could change the fact he’d not been by his gran’s side when she had passed away.

  Just a cold.

  He should’ve known better. It was pneumonia season and, no matter how hale and hearty she’d been, older folk were always more vulnerable to contracting it after a virus. Particularly when they insisted upon riding their bicycles and paying house calls to elderly friends on a wintry Scottish island constantly cloaked in a shroud of cloud.

  He should’ve been here. Driven her around. Brought her hot toddies and tea when the first round of sniffles hit. Nodded and smiled as she and her friends nattered on about needlepoint or whatever it was they talked about, whilst he daydreamed about life back in the A&E in Glasgow. He should have put an oxygen mask on her when she got short of breath.

  ‘It’s taking a wee while to find the mooring, isn’t it?’ Robbie nodded at the ferry, which was crawling towards the docks at a snail’s pace.

  A pace Cooper would’ve railed against if it were an ambulance pulling into the bay at Glasgow Central.

  ‘Island pace’, his gran had called it.

  Slow down, Coop. Nothing’s going to change for the sake of an extra ten minutes.

  That was what she hadn’t understood. He’d been wired differently. Wired to respond to things in an instant. To a parent whose mood could turn on a dime. To an unkind child whose taunts might gain traction. A grandmother to please, a sister to protect, a reputation to—

  Anyway... His ability to respond quickly meant A&E medicine suited him to a T. A seemingly innocuous situation could change to life-threatening in a matter of minutes. Seconds, even. A nicked artery. A septic wound.

  A grandmother’s cold shifting into pneumonia as her grandson made excuses, yet again, as to why he couldn’t come back and have a wee look in on the woman who’d raised him when his own parents had fallen so short of the mark.

  ‘So, when’ll you be heading back to Glasgow?’ Robbie asked as the ferry staff finally started securing the boat to the dock and a crowd of foot passengers began to gather out on deck to disembark.

  ‘Good question,’ Cooper said, eyes peeled for an unfamiliar face as the small crowd of regulars bowed their heads against the wind and headed for the car park or scanned the small group of folk he was standing amidst for a loved one. ‘One I don’t have an answer for.’

  ‘What?’ Robbie gave him a punch on the arm. ‘I thought you would be high-tailing it back to the mainland as soon as Gertie’s immediate affairs are settled. Even put money on it.’

  Cooper felt the muscles in his jaw twitch. There had definitely been a time when he would’ve done that. But not after what he’d done. Not with the burden of guilt he now bore.

  ‘Coop! MacAskill!’

  Cooper looked up and saw one of the sailors pointing out a woman in an immaculate white ankle-length coat.

  When his eyes landed on her face the wind was knocked out of him. And not because of the cold.

  Dark brown almond-sh
aped eyes, the perfect shade of chocolate, met his straight on. A smattering of freckles made her look younger than he suspected she was. Somewhere around his age? Younger, more likely. Thirty to his thirty-five?

  Her hair colour was a bit lighter than her eyes—a chestnut colour styled into an exacting pixie cut. As if she were a woodland faerie with a rulebook as long as her arm. Her overall aesthetic wasn’t one that would’ve landed her at a modelling agency, but there was something about her that appealed to him at a core level. The upward tilt of her chin. The dubiously arched eyebrow.

  The huge down jacket made her look expensive, but when he caught a glimpse of her nails as she clutched the coat round her neck he saw practically trimmed, clean nails rather than talons. She was a bit taller than average. Easy enough to pick up and carry over a threshold if she were—Hmm... Best not go there.

  Her lips, bright red—from the cold, no doubt—were tipping into a frown. Just as he supposed his own mouth was.

  For some reason he’d been expecting a sturdy, no-nonsense, silver-haired, woman who bustled. Most likely because that was exactly what Noreen, the woman she was filling in for, looked like.

  Audrey Walsh was decades away from being silver-haired. Nor did she have the look of a bustler. She seemed more hustle than bustle. And, from the way she was giving him the side-eye, no nonsense to the core. Which was a good thing. This was the busy season—and he wasn’t talking about Christmas parties.

  Speaking of which... She didn’t look remotely impressed by his effort to spread Christmas cheer to their patients. Which was a bad thing.

  ‘Ho-ho-ho,’ he said. ‘Welcome to Bourtree Castle.’

  Her nose wrinkled as she pasted on a wary smile. ‘I got your text about needing to head straight out to some calls. I presume this...’ she wiggled her fingers at his Santa outfit ‘...is going to come off before we get to work?’

  A burst of fire flared hot in his chest. No way. This was for his gran. And a district nurse should know more than most that house calls were about far more than taking temperatures and heartrates.

  ‘Nope. In fact...’ He held up the clear bag in his left hand, waving his right hand as if he were presenting her with a free car rather than a fancy dress costume. ‘I’ve got something here for you to put on before we head out.’

  Audrey’s expression turned icy. ‘Not a chance.’

  Perhaps the jacket she was wearing should’ve been a hint that she was more Snow Queen than one of Santa’s cheery helpers. But the Snow Queen’s heart had melted in the end, so...

  He held up the costume again. ‘Sure? It’s thermal lined.’

  Copyright © 2020 by Annie O’Neil

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  ISBN-13: 9781488066801

  The Princess’s Christmas Baby

  Copyright © 2020 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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