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.
‘You’ll have autonomy. And I’d like to observe for two weeks.’
We won’t get close.
‘Two weeks...’
‘Two weeks of me sitting in the corner and saying nothing. Unless you need me to, of course.’
She nodded. Smiled. ‘That’s okay by me.’
‘Good.’
He decided to shock her. See how she dealt with surprises.
‘When would you like to start?’
* * *
She stood outside in the bright morning sun, a little stunned.
I got the job!
Her first job application after a long break away!
Dr Brodie had seemed a very likeable man. Handsome, tall, broad-shouldered... A typical Scot, if there was one, with that beautiful head of red hair. And his eyes... Such a piercing blue against those dark shadows that lurked beneath them.
Clearly he had not been sleeping well recently. Or he was worried about something. Was it his decision to take a year off? Was he concerned about leaving his patients with someone he didn’t know? Perhaps there was something else. Something she didn’t know yet.
It’s none of my business.
What was her business, though, was the fact that she could start her new job next Monday! Cameron had said that Mondays were appointment days at the surgery. Tuesdays were for home visits, Wednesday was procedure day, when they’d perform small surgeries such as skin tag removal, wound care, that sort of thing, and Thursdays were for more appointments, as were Fridays.
Weekends and evenings were usually spent on call, but they shared the on-call with the practice over in the next village, so that they did actually get some time off on alternate weekends, and he’d said they didn’t often get lots of call-outs.
Gilloch was a small coastal village in the Highlands. She could smell the brine in the air from wherever she stood. No more than a thousand people lived here and they were of sturdy stock. And now she would be their doctor.
Smiling, she set off back to her nanna’s, to tell her the good news. She had no doubt at all that her grandmother would be suspicious about Cameron Brodie’s motives, but Bethan was determined not to be!
I’m going to make this work. I’m going to make Cameron Brodie see that I am a brilliant doctor and that I will be able to care for all his patients as if he were still doing it himself! If not better!
She needed this. Wanted this.
And now it was in her grasp.
Life was changing now that she was back.
Just as she’d hoped it would.
‘YOU’VE GOT YOUR phone in case I need you?’
‘Yes, Nanna.’
‘Your purse?’
‘Of course.’
‘You’ll call me if anything goes wrong?’
Bethan laughed at her nanna’s fussing. ‘Why would anything go wrong?’
Nanna fiddled with the pendant at her neck. ‘I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling about this.’
Bethan held out her arms and scooped her grandmother into a hug. She needed one. She’d been nervous these last few days as her starting day had got closer. And Nanna was still utterly convinced it was all a great big trick to humiliate her further.
‘It’ll be okay. Dr Brodie is a very nice man.’
‘Impossible! Brodie men are the worst.’
‘Not this one. He’s different.’
Nanna pulled back to look at her. ‘You believe that?’
She smiled. ‘I do. What happened between you and old Angus Brodie is ancient news.’
‘Maybe to you.’