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CHAPTER ONE

‘SO...YOU’RE GOING after all, then?’

Dr Bethan Monroe didn’t need to look at her grandmother to know she was disappointed. She’d heard it in her voice. But what was she to do?

‘I have to, Nanna.’

‘No, you don’t. Not with him. Not with a Brodie.’

Bethan groaned out loud. It really was quite childish, this feud her nanna had against that family. Okay, maybe not the whole family, but most definitely against one of them in particular. Thankfully the one she was seeing today was not her nanna’s arch-nemesis—rather, he was his grandson.

‘I do!’ She stepped over to the kitchen table, snatched up the not insignificant pile of final demands in her fist and waved them about. ‘Because if I don’t then you lose the house. We had the phone cut off last week for a whole day!’

Her exasperation wore off instantly when she noted the discomfort on her beloved grandmother’s face.

She softened her tone. ‘Grace is in school now. I can work again and pay my way.’

She’d missed it. Incredibly so. Being a doctor was her calling and, though she’d loved being a stay-at-home mum whilst her daughter grew to school age, she felt a real yearning to get back into the consulting room. It had always been the plan that she would take this break, but she’d not known how difficult it would be alone.

‘But surely there must be other posts you could apply for? Somewhere further afield? In Glencoe or Fort William?’

Perhaps there were. But they lived here now. In Gilloch. And she didn’t want to be that far away from her loved ones. Not any more. Grace was growing up fast, and she didn’t want her nanna to miss any of it. Commuting for hours each day simply wasn’t on her agenda.

Living in Cornwall had been wonderful, but that was in the past now. She’d returned to her proper home three years after Ashley had died. Back to the place she had been born. And it felt right. Coming home.

‘This job—right here in the village—it’s a gift in itself! I’ll be able to get home whenever I’m needed. Say, if there was an emergency.’

She couldn’t help but feel guilty once again as she thought back to when Ashley had died. For weeks she’d sat by his bed—keeping him company, holding his hand, reading to him, never missing a minute—and then one day she’d been called into work. There’d been an emergency—a train derailment—and all hands had been needed on deck.

And Ashley had died alone. She’d received the call at work, from a neighbour who’d had a key and had promised to keep an eye out. She’d not been able to get home quickly enough. Had got caught in endless traffic jams, delayed by lights and drivers who hadn’t seemed to know which pedal the accelerator was.

She’d just wanted to get back to Grace. Pick her up from the childminder and hold her close against her heart before making that final walk into their bedroom, where Ashley had lain. She’d vowed never to be that far away ever again.

‘It’ll be okay, Nanna.’

Mhairi sank shakily into a seat by the table, adjusting the woven scarf at her neck. ‘You have more faith than I. What that Angus Brodie put me through...’

‘I know.’

‘He ruined my life. I don’t want to see another Brodie man ruin yours.’

‘I might not even get the job.’

But she hoped she would. ‘Brodie man’ or not. They needed this! She’d only been back a few months and their financial situation was getting more dire. They couldn’t live off Ashley’s life insurance for ever.

This was about a job. Employment. That was all. It was a business transaction—not an affair of the heart. It wasn’t going to be anything like what had happened between her nanna and Angus Brodie. Those had been different times back then. It was the past. And Bethan didn’t feel she was ready for another relationship yet. She was over the raw pain of Ashley’s death, yes, and she worried something rotten about raising Grace without a father figure around, but did that mean her heart was on the open market?

No. Not yet.

She kissed her nanna’s soft, downy cheek and sat beside her at the kitchen table, one eye on the clock. ‘We’ll be okay.’

Nanna covered Bethan’s hand with her own, more gnarly, liver-spotted one. ‘I’m just so used to having you here now. I worry he’ll hurt you, like Angus did me. But I’m just being a worry-wart, that’s all.’

‘It’s in the past. Where it should belong. Let’s look positively to the future. I’m a strong woman. I can handle myself and any Brodie male who even tries to cause me trouble.’

‘Even handsome ones? That grandson of his... I’ve seen him about. I’ve seen how the young women of this village look at him. Like they could eat him alive!’ Nanna smiled with reluctance.

‘Even the good-looking ones.’ She held her nanna’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

Her grandmother smiled. ‘I suppose I can’t persuade you to become a sheep farmer instead?’

Bethan pretended to consider it. ‘I’m not sure I’m an open-air kind of girl. Besides, wouldn’t that be a waste of all my education?’

Nanna mock-doffed her cap. ‘I don’t know where you get it from. Your father loved to fish before he became a stablehand, and your mother enjoyed to sew...’

Bethan nodded. ‘I do enjoy suturing.’

‘Och, it’s not the same and you know it!’

She got up from the table again and took the red bills from where Bethan had left them and went to switch on the kettle. She let out a heavy sigh, as if resigning herself to the fact that she was going to lose this battle of wills today.

‘Okay...let’s take a look at you.’

Bethan stood up, straightening her navy trouser suit and making sure her cream blouse was crease-free. ‘Will I do?’

‘He’d be a dunderheid to turn you down, lass.’

‘Good.’ She checked her watch. ‘I’ll be late. Will you be all right?’

‘’Course I will. I’ve looked after myself for nearly twenty years—I think I can probably manage the next hour or so. Besides, I’ve had a few orders come in for the shop, so I need to get those bagged up.’

‘Okay. Well...wish me luck?’

‘Good luck, lassie.’

Bethan gave her a quick hug and one last look that she hoped conveyed that everything would be all right, and then she picked up her briefcase and headed out of the door.

Nanna wasn’t the only one who was doubtful about expecting a Brodie to take her on. She’d probably been the most surprised when a letter had arrived, inviting her for an interview with a Dr Cameron Brodie. But the past was the past and she herself had no argument with the Brodies. Clearly Dr Cameron Brodie didn’t have a grudge either, or she wouldn’t have been invited for the interview.

Nanna’s part-time job—dying her own rare wool skeins to sell in an online shop—barely covered the bills, and in the last three months sales hadn’t been good. They’d struggled—and struggled hard. But now, with Grace having started school full-time, Bethan had become free to get herself a proper job again.

She’d really missed work. She’d come home to start their lives afresh, and nothing could beat being a mother, but her whole heart had always wanted to care for others. There was something about being a GP that spoke to her. The way you could build a relationship with patients over years, so they wouldn’t be strangers. It was a privilege to be a friend as well as a doctor, and although sometimes that was a difficult line to walk she did it anyway.

Helping people—healing them, curing them of their ailments—was a magical thing and something that she treasured. But the most she’d done over the last few years with Grace had been to patch scuffed knees, wipe snotty noses and nurse Grace through a particularly scratchy episode of chicken pox. The closest she’d got to medication was calamine lotion.

And what she’d been through prior to that, with Ashley, that had been... Well, I don’t regret a day of that.

But he’d not been a patient, nor a friend. He’d been her husband. Grace’s father. Their relationship had been all-consuming in that last year, and she’d been bereft when he’d died. Quite unable to believe that she would still be able to get up and carry on each day without him.

But I did. For Grace.

She’d made the decision to move away from Cornwall three years afterwards, and coming back to Gilloch—to Nanna—had seemed the right thing. Mhairi was alone, too. She knew what the pain of losing a husband—and, sadly, a child—felt like. They were comrades in grief to start with.

But that was the past and now the future beckoned—and with it a fresh sense of purpose for Bethan. She felt it in her bones. This job—this interview—was the way forward for all of them.

As she strode through the streets of Gilloch, her head high and the strong breeze blowing her hair from her shoulders, she remembered Ashley’s last words—‘You’ll go on without me and you’ll be absolutely fine.’

She’d doubted it back then. That she would get through life without him. But time, as they said, was a great healer, and now she often found herself yearning for that kind of closeness again.

But she was absolutely sure—no matter how good-looking Dr Cameron Brodie was—that she would keep her work relationships on a different level from her personal ones.

* * *

Dr Cameron Brodie swallowed the tablets with a glass of water and hoped that his headache would pass. He’d woken with it pounding away in his skull and it had been a real struggle to open his eyes to the bright light of the early morning, to get up and get dressed to face the day. If it hadn’t been for Rosie then he would no doubt have pulled the quilt over his head and gone back to sleep.

But it wasn’t just Rosie. He had someone to interview today. Someone he hoped would take his place permanently at the Gilloch surgery. Not that she would realise that at first. He’d advertised it as a year’s post. Twelve months—start to finish. But he knew that before those twelve months were up the people he left behind would have to rearrange their aspirations.

He had a ticking time bomb in his head. An inoperable glioma. And Dr Bethan Monroe had been the only applicant for the post. Beggars can’t be choosers. Wasn’t that what they said?

He made it to the surgery and opened up, having driven there wearing the strongest pair of sunglasses he owned. Sometimes in the early mornings the sunlight in Scotland could be so bright, so fierce, it would make your eyes water. The sun so low in the sky, its light reflecting off the wet road, was almost blinding.

The headache would ease soon. He knew that. The tablets his consultant had prescribed were excellent at doing their job.

And they allowed him to do his.

For a little while longer anyway.

He hoped that this Bethan character was a strong applicant. Her CV was impressive.

By all accounts in her last post she had started up a support group for people with anxiety and panic attacks. Somewhere for them to get together and share stories and ideas in the hope that they could learn that they were not alone in the fight. She had also put together a volunteer ‘buddy system’, for older people who were lonely to be paired up with a younger person who could be a friend and check in on them whenever it was needed.

Her references were glowing. Her previous colleagues and partners all sang her praises and had been sad to see her go. For ‘personal reasons’, whatever that meant.

He checked the time. If she was as punctual as she said she was in her CV, no doubt she would be arriving in the next ten minutes.

There was a small mirror above the sink in his room, and he quickly checked his reflection to make sure that he didn’t look too rough—that there was some colour in his normally pale cheeks. That was the problem with being a redhead—he had such pale skin that when he was actually sick he looked deathly.

He rubbed his jawline, ruffling the short red bristles, and figured he’d have to do. There were some dark shadows beneath his eyes, but there was nothing he could do about those.

Cameron sat down in his chair and his gaze fell upon the one small picture of his daughter Rosie which he allowed on his desk. In it she sat on a beach, with the sun setting behind her and her long red hair over one shoulder as she smiled at him behind the camera. She’d put a flower behind her ear and begged him to take a picture.

She’d looked so much like her mother at that moment he’d almost been unable to do so. For a moment it had been as if Holly was looking back at him, smiling. She had simply taken his breath away that day. He had almost put the camera down.

‘Daddy! Take my picture!’

He was doing this for her. It was all for Rosie now. They didn’t have long left together and he wanted whatever time they had to be spent together, having fun and making memories, so that she remembered him long after he was gone. His voice, his laughter, how much he’d loved her, how much he’d wanted to spend time with her. He wanted her to know that she had been cherished and adored.

So it didn’t matter if this Dr Bethan Monroe was a three-headed monster from Mars—he needed someone to take his place at the surgery and soon. If she was qualified, and didn’t have a death sentence of her own, then she was going to be perfect for the job.

His phone buzzed. Janet from Reception. ‘Aye?’

‘Dr Bethan Monroe is here to see you.’ Janet had put on her ‘customer service’ voice. It always made him smile when he heard it, because she somehow lost most of her Scottish brogue and sounded more English than anything.

‘Thank you. Could you send her through?’

‘Certainly, Doctor.’

He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. Everything seemed so much easier when he took a moment to do that. Took a moment to meditate. To calm the body. Concentrate on his breathing.

Perhaps I ought to take up yoga? he thought with amusement.

There was a slight tap at the door.

He opened his eyes and stood up. ‘Come in!’

Janet came in first, smiling, her bonny cheeks rosy-red. ‘Dr Bethan Monroe for you. Can I get you both a pot of tea? Or coffee?’

He lifted his hand to demur, but then he caught sight of the tall, willowy woman who had walked into his room behind his receptionist, her long, chocolatey locks of wavy hair flowing either side of her beautiful face, and he found himself unable to speak any words.

She was beautiful. Elegant. Elfin bone structure.

For a moment she looked startled, then she gathered her composure after seeing his no doubt deathly pale face and walked towards him and held out her hand. ‘Very pleased to meet you.’

Now, she did have an English accent. A real one.

He suddenly became aware of his throat. His tongue. Had the temperature of the room increased? He felt hot, his mouth dry, but so he didn’t give Janet too much fodder for the village grapevine he managed to force a smile himself and shake her hand. ‘Hello, there.’

‘Did you want tea, Doctors?’ Janet persisted, looking from one to the other with wry amusement.

He hadn’t wanted any before, but with his mouth this dry it might be a good idea. ‘Er...aye...thank you, that would be great.’

Bethan Monroe nodded agreement. ‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll be back in a moment, then.’ And Janet hurried from the room, closing the door behind her.

He couldn’t get over Bethan’s eyes. As chocolate-brown as her hair, if not more so. She also had beautiful, creamy skin, with a hint of the English rose on her cheekbones and a wide, full-lipped mouth. She looked nothing like her grandmother, whom he knew well—even though she’d refused to be his patient for years and saw Dr McKellen instead, over in the next village.

You couldn’t help but see the same faces out and about in Gilloch, and her grandmother, Mhairi, was well-known to him because of the upset between her and his grandfather years back, that probably no one except them ever talked about any more. He often saw her. She took long walks down to the wool mill, or along the front of the bay to sit outside the coffee shop, wrapped up in swathes of knitted garments and watching the fishermen come in with their catch.

‘I’m Cameron. Very pleased to meet you.’

‘Bethan. Likewise.’

‘Please take a seat.’

She was long-limbed but graceful as she sank into the seat opposite and laid her briefcase neatly against her chair. ‘Thank you.’

‘You found us all right?’

Clearly, or she wouldn’t be here, idiot!

‘I did. It’s not far from my nanna’s house. Well, my house, too, now, I guess.’

‘You’ve been back in the area for a short while?’

‘A few months, yes. I moved here from Cornwall.’

He nodded. Good. That was all good.

You’re staring.

Cameron cleared his throat and stared down at her paperwork. The only application on his desk.

‘So, we’re here to discuss the vacancy of general practitioner here in Gilloch.’

He needed time to think. Time to reorganise his thoughts. He picked up her CV and read it through as if it were the first time.

‘You’re looking for a full-time post?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’ve spent the last few years as a full-time mother? That’s correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re aware that this post is very demanding? Long hours—frequently past school pick-up time—sometimes evening work, call-outs, home visits, that kind of thing?’

Are you trying to scare her away?

She seemed to bristle slightly. Had he implied that she wouldn’t be able to cope because she had a child? He hadn’t meant to.

‘What I mean is, it’ll be an abrupt change from what you’re used to.’

‘I don’t think so at all. Being a mother is about having demands made on you all the time—all day long and sometimes through the night. There are no days off. You can’t go sick or take a holiday. You’re always on call.’ She smiled.

He nodded, seemingly unable to tear his gaze away from her. There was something so vibrant about her. So intriguing.

‘You’re absolutely right. I have a child myself. Same age as...’ he quickly scanned her personal statement again ‘...Grace, is it?’

Bethan smiled. ‘Yes. She’s just started at Gilloch Infants’ School.’

‘So has Rosie. My daughter.’

She looked surprised. ‘Which teacher does she have?’

‘Mrs Carlisle.’

‘Oh! They’re in the same class, then.’

‘I’m sure they’ll become good friends.’

She smiled at him—a beautiful smile. ‘Let’s hope so.’

He considered her, enjoying her optimistic outlook. It had been a long time since he’d felt optimistic about anything, and it was just fascinating to see someone who shone so brightly with it. Surely there had to be shadows somewhere?

‘It says here that you left your last post for personal reasons?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Not because of the job itself?’

‘No. I loved working as a GP, but my husband got sick and needed someone to look after him.’

‘Oh. I’m very sorry to hear that. I hope he’s better now?’

She looked down at the ground for a brief moment, her smile faltering, before she met his gaze again. ‘He died. Of pancreatic cancer.’

He was shocked. And a little embarrassed at having pushed her to explain. ‘I’m very sorry.’

‘You weren’t to know.’

‘I lost my wife when Rosie was born. It’s difficult being a single parent, isn’t it?’

‘I’m sorry, too. It can be, if you’re truly on your own. That’s why it’s good to have family around.’

‘Is that why you moved to Gilloch?’

‘Yes, I was born here. Lived here in Gilloch until about the age of three or four, when my parents moved to Cornwall. My father was looking for better job prospects—my mother for better weather!’

She laughed at the personal memory and he loved the way her eyes lit up as she spoke of her parents.

‘It was in Cornwall that I met my husband. He was a doctor, too. When he died I felt incredibly alone. My parents were gone by then, and I just felt a yearning to be with family. It’s important, that connection. More than any other. We’d always kept in touch with my grandmother, speaking online and on the phone, and I wanted Grace to know her properly instead of just being a voice...an image. So I decided to move back here so we could look after each other.’

‘Mhairi?’

She nodded.

Cameron put down her paperwork. ‘Tell me what you think you can bring to this post.’

But at that moment there was another knock on the door and Janet was there, carefully balancing a tray with cups, saucers, a teapot and a small plate of biscuits.

‘Thank you, Janet.’ He dismissed her and waited for her to leave the room before turning his attention back to Bethan.

‘I’m punctual, committed, hard-working. I’m good with patients and I know how to build a rapport with them. I believe myself to be very efficient, and I have a good talent for hearing what people aren’t saying.’

Is that right?

‘What would you say are your weaknesses?’

She shifted in her seat. ‘I get attached. I care too much, too quickly, and don’t always control my emotions.’

He frowned. That was a red flag. He didn’t need anyone getting attached to him! Even if it was just as a friend or a trusted colleague. He didn’t need anyone to be hurt by his passing. It was going to be bad enough for Rosie. He needed strong people around to be there for her, not crying a river for their own pain.

‘How do you mean?’

‘It’s the human element. I find it hard to create a professional distance sometimes. Especially with people that I feel I know well. I care for them. Feel for them. When they’re hurting, so am I.’

She leaned forward, planted her elbows on his desk.

‘What I mean is, if I’ve been looking after someone and then I have to deliver a shocking diagnosis that’s going to affect their lives then I’m going to feel that pain with them. It will make me cry. Not whilst I’m with them,’ she clarified. ‘I’m not that unprofessional. But sometimes it can get a little bit too much.’

She looked at him with concern, as if she were worried she’d said too much.

‘Actually, I’m not sure if that is a weakness.’ She smiled. ‘I think it just makes me human, and I think people like having doctors who aren’t made of steel.’

She jutted out her chin, but didn’t meet his gaze.

He suspected she thought she’d blown it.

She hadn’t. Not at all. But she didn’t know she was the only applicant, and she didn’t know just how much he needed her. He had to employ her. No matter what. His time was running out. He would just keep his distance. As much as he could.

‘I need someone who can take over my role completely. I’m leaving the practice for a year’s sabbatical, to spend time with my wee girl, but obviously there will be a short transition period during which I will sit in with the new doctor and observe until they feel able to fly solo. How would you feel about that? Me looking over your shoulder?’

She nodded, smiling. ‘That sounds fine.’ Then she frowned. ‘You’re leaving? Completely?’

Cameron smiled. ‘Completely. For a year,’ he lied.

‘Oh.’

Was she using that special skill of hers right now? Trying to work out what it was that he wasn’t saying? Perhaps she was. He watched her observing him, looking for clues, trying to work out why a fully trained doctor would just leave like this, but he knew she wouldn’t find the answer.

There were no outward signs of his death sentence. Just paleness and bags under his eyes, which lots of people had, and a slowly fading headache that she couldn’t see. No one else knew either. Except family. He’d had to tell them. But everyone else just thought he’d been sick for a while and was now over it.

Cameron leaned forward and poured them both a cup of tea, standing up to pass her a cup and saucer.

‘Thank you.’

‘This practice has always worked well. There’s a good team here. How would you make sure you’d fit in?’

She sipped from the teacup. ‘I’m a local girl who’s come home. I’m sure there will be lots of questions, which I’ll do my best to answer honestly. You can’t be a GP without having good people skills.’

He smiled. Good. ‘Do you have any questions you’d like to ask me?’

Surely there had to be. All good interviewees were taught to ask something at this stage. To sound interested in the post, if nothing else.

Bethan stirred her drink and he noticed what fine hands she had. Lithe fingers, short nails with clear polish. He was struck by a sense of admiration for this woman. Her husband had died and she was a widow. A single parent like himself.

‘There is one.’

‘Aye?’ He sipped his own tea, wincing at the heat of it upon his tongue.

‘I’d like to know if I’d have full autonomy from day one? I know you’d be observing, but how long would you observe me for?’

He smiled. He liked this woman. She had spirit. And enthusiasm. And that mattered to him most of all. He was going to be leaving his patients in the care of someone else. Patients he had looked after for a good few years. He needed to know they were in good hands. She seemed a steady, comforting individual. Someone who—if he hadn’t had this death sentence hanging over him—he could imagine becoming great friends with.

And for that reason he’d have to keep her at arm’s length whilst they worked together. Keep everything brief and to the point.