a mixer dance. The military school his stepfather had deposited him in strongly encouraged shoulder rubbing with the ‘power makers’, as the school head had liked to call them.
‘Deal breakers’ would’ve been a better moniker if today’s news was anything to go by. He still couldn’t wrap his head round the hospital reneging on their word. Sure, they needed the money, but obliterating Plants to Paws to let a developer build a car park?
Bam! There went three years of hard work. Not to mention the slice of peace that came from knowing he’d finally made good on a years’ old vow to do what he hadn’t done for his mother: offer a refuge from a life that wasn’t as kind as it should have been. All for a bit of money they’d never see on the wards. Hello, cement trucks, sayonara Plants to Paws.
The puppy nuzzled against his hand.
‘What’s her name?’ He had yet to look up.
‘Skye,’ the voice said.
She sounded like a Christmas ornament. Angel? Whatever. Too damned nice was what she sounded.
Her leather boots moved in a bit closer. Italian? They looked handmade.
‘I think you’ll find her “love me tender” routine is an act. Skye’s always got an ulterior motive and, from the look of things, you’re playing right into her paws.’
He didn’t even want to know what that meant.
‘Is she a working collie or one of those therapy dogs?’ They’d been trying to introduce the therapy dogs into the hospital but, as ever, stretched resources meant the lovable fur balls weren’t seen much on the wards.
‘Working. Though she’s still in training. Precocious. Just like her mother.’
Damn. This woman’s voice was like butter. Better. Butter and honey mixed together. If he was to add a shot of whisky and heat it up it’d be the perfect drink on a day like this.
‘What type of training?’ he asked, to stop his brain from going places it shouldn’t.
‘Search and rescue.’
That got his attention. He had been expecting agility. Maybe sheep herding. A voice like that usually came attached to some land. Land managed by someone else. As he tilted his head up, the sun got in his eyes and all he could make out was a halo of blonde hair atop a stretch of legs and a cashmere winter coat that definitely wasn’t from the kind of stores he shopped in.
Miss Boots squatted down to his level and the second their eyes met he stood straight back up.
Piercing blue eyes. A tousle of short curls the colour of summer wheat. A face so beautiful it looked as though it had been sculpted out of marble. For every bit of wrong she elicited in his gut, there was an equal measure of good.
‘Are you a patient?’ It was the only thing he could think to ask, though he knew the answer would be—
‘No.’ She put her leather-gloved hand out to shake his. ‘Esme Ross-Wylde.’
He kept his facial features on their usual setting: neutral. Though society papers weren’t his thing, even he’d heard of the Ross-Wyldes. Scottish landed gentry of the highest order. The Ross-Wylde estate came with about five thousand acres, if memory served. A couple of hours north of Glasgow. Before his mum had married The Dictator, as Max liked to think of his stepfather, she’d taken him there for one of their famous Christmas carnivals. Huge old house. A castle actually. Expansive grounds. Extensive stables. Skating rink. Toffee apples and gingerbread men. It’d been the last Christmas he hadn’t been made to ‘earn his keep’.
‘So.’ He clapped his hands together and looked around the sparsely populated garden. ‘Have you brought Skye along to meet someone?’
She unleashed a smile that could’ve easily lit him up from the inside out. Good thing she’d met him on a bad day. On a good one? He might have had to break some rules.
‘I was looking for you.’ She held up a familiar-looking scarf.
‘How’d you get that?’ He knew he sounded terse, but with his luck she was the developer. If she was trying to sprinkle some sugar in advance of telling him when the wrecking ball would swing, she may as well get on with it.
Esme was unfazed by his cranky response. She tipped her head towards the garden shed as she handed him his scarf. ‘A member of your fan club gave me this to give Skye a go at “search”.’
He glanced over at the shed and, sure enough, there were a couple of patients from the oncology ward waving at him. Cheeky so-and-sos. They’d been trying to blow some oxygen onto the all but dead embers of his social life ever since they’d found out the nurses not so discreetly called him The Monk. He rolled his eyes and returned his attention to Esme Ross-Wylde. ‘I presume that means you’re here for the “rescue” part?’
She shrugged nonchalantly. ‘If you’re interested.’
Skye’s tail started waving double time.
If he wasn’t mistaken, the corners of her rather inviting lips were twitching with the hint of a smile.
Something about this whole scenario felt like flirting. He didn’t do flirting. He did A and E medicine in Glasgow’s most financially deprived hospital. Then he slept, woke up and did it all over again. Sometimes he came out here and dug over a veg patch. There definitely wasn’t time for flirting.
When he said nothing she asked, ‘How do you fancy keeping Plants to Paws the way it is?’
His eyes snapped to hers, and something flashed hard and bright in his chest that had nothing to do with gratitude. It ricocheted straight past his belt buckle and all the way up again. By the look on her face, she was feeling exactly the same thing he was. An unwelcome animal attraction.
Oh, hell. If life had taught him anything, it was the old adage that if something seemed too good to be true, it usually was.
The Dictator had taught him that everything came with a price. Best to rip off the plaster and get it over with. ‘What’s the catch?’
‘Charming.’ Esme quirked a brow. ‘Is this how you win all the girls over?’
‘It works for some.’ Dr Kirkpatrick’s shrug was flippantly sexy.
‘Not this girl.’ Her hip jutted out as if to emphasise the point she really shouldn’t be making. That she fancied him something rotten and her body was most definitely flirting without her permission.
‘Suit yourself.’ His full lips twitched into a frown. Something told her it was for the same reason her mouth followed suit. They’d both been burnt somewhere along the line and if she was right, those burns had been slow to heal. If at all.
She sniffed to communicate she would suit herself, thank you very much, but the butterflies in her belly and the glint in his eye told her Max Kirkpatrick knew the ball was very much in his court.
He wasn’t at all what she’d expected when she’d heard about an A and E doctor who’d set up a multi-purpose garden where patients could grow carrots and play with their pets. For some reason she thought he’d be older. Like…granddad old. And not half as sexy as the man arcing rather dubious eyebrows at her.
She called Skye to her and gave her head a little scrub. Here was someone she could rely on. Even as puppies, dogs were completely honest. Constant. Loyal.
Men? Not so much. Something she’d learned the hard way after her entire life had been splashed across the tabloids as a naive twenty-year-old who’d been taken for a fool. These days the Esme Ross-Wylde people met was friendly, businesslike and, despite the inevitable tabloid update on her charitable activities, able to keep her private life exactly that. Private. Which was a good thing because the rate of knots at which she was mentally undressing him would’ve won a gold medal.