“Please, call me Harmony,” she said, while looking around the office. Seemingly without conscious thought, she straightened a pile of magazines on the table beside the door. “When I hear ‘Nurse Kinkaid’ like that, I instinctively look around for my mother.”
“Sure,” he said, seeing an opening to get to know her better but unable to take advantage of it. She completely unsettled him, making him want to get away and catch his breath, not to mention get out of his wetsuit. “I’ll remember that. Be right back.”
But as he shimmied out of the wetsuit he found himself wondering what she’d look like if she truly smiled. Something told him that rather prim mouth would turn sumptuous and appealing.
Become eminently kissable.
Cam cursed to himself.
She’s definitely going to be a problem.
He just had to make sure that, no matter what happened, the problem didn’t involve him.
The interest she stirred in him wasn’t something he’d ever consider acting on. Even if getting involved with an employee wasn’t tacky—which it was—he liked his relationships short and with no strings attached. No matter how quickly her tenure on the island would be over he’d have to work with her, and the chances of it all going sideways were large.
Finally dressed in his street clothes, he grabbed his jacket and went back out into the main part of the office. Danny Smith, the Dock Master, wasn’t there, so Harmony was still alone, standing in front of one of the myriad pictures on the wall. It was a painting of one of the rescue boats that used to be launched from the island in rough seas back in the early part of the twentieth century.
“That’s my great-grandfather in the prow of that boat,” he said, going to stand beside her. “They were probably going out to help with a sea rescue after a wreck—or at least that was what the artist was portraying.”
She sent him a brief glance, and once more he felt a zing of electricity when he realized her eyes were more green than gold. Getting used to them was going to take some doing.
“Do you still have a lifeboat station here?” she asked.
“I wish,” he said.
How many times had he stood staring at this painting, imagining himself on that boat, fighting the seas, on his way to save lives?
“Now the Coast Guard handles all the rescues. In the old days almost all the islands had manned boats, because it took the authorities much longer to get to the site of a wreck. Now, once someone radios the helicopters can be in the air in a matter of minutes. The private rescue units aren’t needed anymore. I think the last one was disbanded here in the nineteen-seventies.”
“Hmm.”
It was a noncommittal sound, and he figured the conversation was over. “Shall we head over to the surgery?”
“Sure,” she said, but she stared at the painting a little longer before turning away.
He led her out through the other side of the building, which took them onto the main street through the village. This time of the afternoon, there weren’t many people around, but he knew many of the residents were peeping out from behind their curtains. Everyone knew the nurse was arriving today. Everyone was curious.
As they walked he pointed out the Post Office, the grocery store, the pub, and Sanjit’s restaurant, thinking them the most important.
“The Ladies from Hades?” she said, obviously catching sight of the pub sign, with a kilted and armed Highlander painted on it.
“It’s a play on the nickname for a famous Scottish regiment.”
“The Black Watch,” she said, surprising him. “Must have been opened by an ex-military man. And you have a curry shop here too?”
He wanted to ask how she knew about the Black Watch and their World War I nickname, but left it for another time.
“We’re actually very lucky,” he explained, speaking a little louder than usual because of the sound of her suitcase bumping along behind him over the cobbles. He’d left the sliver of sidewalk to her and her high heels, since the last thing he needed was for her to twist her ankle before she even started working. “Eilean Rurie has attracted a variety of artists, farmers, and business people over the years, making our population rather more eclectic than some of the other islands.”
“Like the owner of the curry shop?”
“Exactly. Sanjit Gopaul came here on vacation with his parents and, for whatever reason, fell in love with the island. He came back and asked if I’d be willing to let him open a restaurant, and I said sure. That was five years ago. He’s been an amazing addition to the island and shows no signs of wanting to leave. In fact, he also runs a canoe rental and tour operation during the summer, and he’s always looking for new businesses to start.”
“Including that jet thing?”
There was no mistaking the disapproval in her voice, and his look at her profile found it echoed there in her pursed lips. It made Cam’s hackles rise a bit.
“Yes, like the water jetpack. I was sad to have to tell him no. It was a lot of fun. Wouldn’t you like to have a go?”
She gave him a bland look, all censure erased from her expression. “I should say not. I’m not into that kind of thing.”
Striving for a light tone, he teased, “What kind of thing? Having fun?”
Looking into the window of the shop they were passing, she replied, “More like stuff that’ll get you killed or maimed.”
“Ha! It’s safe as houses if you’re careful and know what you’re doing.”
The skeptical look she gave him scorched him to his toes.
“No wonder you didn’t give him permission to offer it to visitors.” Then, as if tired of the discussion, she changed the subject completely. “Your village is beautiful—although I’ll admit when I first saw the island from the ferry I thought it looked like something out of a very scary story.”
That made Cam chuckle, even though he still felt the sting of her retort about the jetpack. He knew the exact vista she was talking about.
“Eigg Point, no doubt—before you round the headland and see the village. That sheer black cliff with the sea foaming around its base does look like it belongs in a horror movie on a misty, overcast day like today. On a sunny day, though, when the hills are so startlingly green they look like they were drawn with crayon and the water is smooth and clear, it’s very different. There’s the surgery,” he added, pointing across the grassy village green to the three-story building beyond.
“That’s your surgery? It looks more like a fancy hotel!”
Cam chuckled. “My great-grandfather built it to try and attract a decent doctor to take up residence. I used to tease my grandfather that he only took up medicine so he’d be able to work in the second nicest building on the island. He didn’t deny it.”
“I don’t blame him,” she said.
The appreciation in her voice was pleasing.
“Normally I’d cut across the green to get to the surgery, but it’s pretty wet right now and your heels would sink in.”
“Thank you.”
She had a prim way of speaking he rather liked, and an intriguing way of pronouncing some words that gave unusual flavor to an otherwise very North London voice. Caitlin had mentioned that Harmony’s mother’s family had originally come from Jamaica, and he thought he could hear an echo of that migration in the nurse’s voice. It was so nice, especially with its husky tone,