‘Thank you.’ She started to take off the leather jacket he’d put over her in the car park. ‘You’d better have this back.’
He looked at his watch. ‘No, you hang onto it for a while, it’s getting very cold. Perhaps I could give you a lift now,’ he offered. ‘I can’t hang around here any longer and it seems as if your chap’s forgotten to come and mine must have missed some connection.’
Terry looked nervously at the large machine he was proposing to give her a lift on—not her favourite form of transport. ‘Er…that’s very kind of you. The trouble is, I’ve got no helmet.’
Amused eyes twinkled at her as if he guessed her anxiety. ‘Don’t worry—I bought a spare with me. Where are you going?’
‘Not very far. A place called The Sycamores—it’s the medical centre on the island, and I believe it’s off the main street.’
The man straightened up suddenly from getting out the spare helmet from the bike’s holdall and stared at her in surprise. ‘You’re going to the medical centre?’
‘I’m going to start a new job there,’ explained Terry simply.
The man pushed his fingers through his hair so that it stood up in ruffled spikes round his forehead. ‘So you’re not on holiday, then? I thought you were a tourist.’
Terry shook her head. ‘Far from it.’
‘Who were you expecting to meet you?’ he said slowly.
‘Dr Euan Brodie. Do you know him?’
He gave a short laugh. ‘I ought to—he’s my uncle. I’m Atholl Brodie and I’ve come to meet a Terry Younger who’s taking over from a locum at our practice. Unfortunately my uncle had a major heart attack three days ago and is in hospital on the mainland. I’m sorry I didn’t get round to telling the agency that it would be me meeting you and not Uncle Euan. I’m his partner in the practice.’
Terry felt a funny thrill of excitement—could this really be the guy she was going to work with? ‘We…we’ve found each other, then. I’m Terry Younger.’ She held out her hand and he shook it rather abstractedly.
‘So I gather,’ he replied with a wry smile. ‘I have to admit this is, er…rather a surprise.’
‘Oh? Why is that?’
‘Because I thought you’d be a man,’ he said simply. ‘It didn’t occur to me that Terry could be a girl’s name as well.’
‘Well, I hope it’s not too much of a let-down,’ Terry said.
‘No…no, of course not. But do you know that on top of GP duties to cover the two islands here, we at the practice help a friend of mine doing an outward bound course for four deprived teenagers from Glasgow for a few weeks? I was hoping that the new doctor—’
‘Would be six foot four and sixteen stone,’ finished Terry impishly. ‘As a matter of fact, I did know your requirements,’ she added, smiling. ‘The agency told me you wanted help with the course.’
Atholl’s eyes swept over her slight five-foot-four-inch frame and he shook his head dismissively. ‘These lads are large, rough and aggressive. I need someone who’s physically tough and can abseil down cliffs, lead hikes on mountain trails, keep discipline—ideally someone who’s had a course in Outward Bound activities…’
‘And why shouldn’t I be able to fulfil all those criteria?’ demanded Terry. Suddenly his looks seemed to diminish—he was a more unreasonable man than she’d thought, obviously dismissing females as pathetic creatures who couldn’t do anything physically demanding.
She added firmly, ‘It so happens I have done a threeday course in hiking and kayaking—the only thing I’ve not done is abseiling. Anyway, if you think I’m getting back on that ferry today you’ve got another think coming. I’ve been offered a job here and I’ve accepted it, and it’s taken since the crack of dawn to get here.’
A cold wind had blown up suddenly and a stinging rain was starting to drive in from the hills. Terry pulled the helmet over her head and stared at him stubbornly. The man may have just saved her life, but she was damned if she’d go meekly trotting back to London just because he’d been expecting a man. Not, she thought wanly, that returning would be an option anyway—she could never return to London.
Atholl shrugged and then picked up Terry’s case and rucksack.
‘I guess we’ll sort it all out later,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave your case at the ferry office and I’ll come back for it shortly, after we’ve talked at the surgery.’ He looked down at her with a sudden laugh that made his strong face look younger, softer. ‘And I thought Terry was a man’s name…is it short for something?’
‘No,’ said Terry with deliberate emphasis. ‘It’s just Terry.’
She clambered on the back of his motorbike, and bit her lip. It wasn’t just her name—that was who she’d become now, Terry Younger, looking different and feeling different from a few days ago, cut off from the family and friends of her old life, with a whole new persona.
She was on her own, and it was vitally important to her that her job worked out here. She was as far away from London as she could reasonably get and still be in the British Isles—she wasn’t about to go anywhere else in a hurry.
CHAPTER TWO
‘PUT your arms round me,’ shouted Atholl through the wind, ‘and lean with the bike!’
He was one powerfully built man—muscles like steel bars, thought Terry as she clung to him nervously, wrapping her arms round him like a vice. She gave a surprised giggle. What girl wouldn’t choose to be in her situation? Hugging a man who looked as if he did a daily workout in the gym as close to her body as she could!
Then she closed her eyes in fright as he roared along the winding road out of the little bay and up the hill beyond the colourful cottages on the seafront, the bike leaning frighteningly at an angle when they turned corners. There was probably no need to worry about the job, she decided resignedly. She’d be killed on this bike before she got to the surgery.
They pulled up sharply in the drive of a graciouslooking stone-built house covered with scaffolding. Terry dismounted carefully, wondering if Atholl had deliberately driven the blessed machine at the speed of light to test her nerve or if it just seemed that way.
‘You OK?’ he asked.
‘Of course. I found it exhilarating,’ Terry retorted as she removed her helmet. She was damned if she’d let him believe she was a wimp!
She turned to look around at the view—or as much as she could see in the driving rain. It was spectacular, dramatic and gloomy with black clouds looming over the Sound of Scuola. The mainland over the water was just a dark line on the horizon at the moment.
‘When the sky’s clear and there’s sunshine it’s a completely different picture—the sea is as blue as a periwinkle. And believe me,’ he added with a grin, ‘it does stop raining sometimes! Now, come in and get dry and perhaps we can discuss arrangements over coffee and some biscuits.’
It was warm inside—the large hall did duty as a waiting room, and another room with half the wall cut out formed the reception area, with a severe-looking grey-haired woman behind the desk. She looked up as they came in.
‘You’ve taken your time, Atholl,’ she remarked sternly. ‘You’ve several calls to do before we finish tonight.’ She peered at his face. ‘And what have you done to your chin—fallen off your bike? I told you that machine was lethal…and your uncle hates you riding it.’
‘Nothing to do with the bike—just a fall, Isobel,’ he said lightly.
‘And what about this Dr Younger—where