As if by mutual agreement they both put their heads down, inching their cycles along the verge. Kali smiled into the cozy confines of her woolen scarf—her one practical nod to the subzero temperature. Compared to the other obstacles she’d faced, this one was easy-peasy. Just a healthy handful of meters between her and her new life.
No more hiding. No more looking over her shoulder. Okay, so she still had a different name, thanks to the heaven-sent Forced Marriage Protection Unit, and there were a boatload of other issues to deal with one day—but right here, right now, with the wind blowing more than the cobwebs away, she felt she really was Kali O’Shea. Correction! Dr. Kali O’Shea. Safe and sound on the uppermost Scottish Isle of Dunregan.
As if it had actual fingers, the frigid tempest abruptly yanked her bicycle out of her hands, sending her into a swan dive onto the rough pavement and the bicycle skidding into the ditch. The deep ditch. The one she’d have to clamber into and probably shred her tights.
She looked down at her knees as she pressed herself up from the pavement. Nope! That job was done already. Nice one, Kali. So much for renaming herself after the goddess of empowerment. The goddess of grace might’ve been a better choice.
“Oh, no! Are you all right, darlin’?” Ailsa was by her side in a minute.
Kali fought the prick of tears, pressing her hands to her scraped knees to regroup. C’mon, Kali. You’re a grown woman now.
If only...
No. Focus on the positives. She didn’t do “if onlys” anymore.
“What’s going on here?”
A pair of sturdy leather boots appeared in Kali’s eyeline. They must go with the rich Scottish brogue she was hearing.
“You pulling patients in off the streets now, Ailsa?”
Kali’s eyes zipped up the long legs, skidded across the thick wax jacket and landed soundly on... Ooh... She’d never let herself think she had a type, but this walking, talking advert for a Scandi-Scottish fisherman type with...ooh, again!...the most beautiful cornflower-blue eyes...
She swallowed.
He might be it. There was something about him that said...safe.
Thirtyish? With a straw-blond thatch of hair and a strong jawline covered in facial hair a few days past designer stubble to match. She’d never thought she was one to go for a beardy guy, but with this weather suddenly it made sense. She wondered how it would feel against her cheek. Reassuringly scratchy or unexpectedly soft?
She blinked away the thought and refocused.
He was no city mouse. That was for sure. It wouldn’t be much of a step to picture him on a classic motorbike, lone wolfing it along the isolated coastline. And he was tall. Well... Everyone was tall compared to her, but he had a nice, strong, mountain-climber thing going on. You didn’t see too many men like that in London. Perhaps they were all hiding out here, in Scotland’s subarctic islands, waiting to rescue city slickers taken out by the elements.
“All right, darlin’?” He put a hand on her shoulder, his eyes making a quick visual assessment, gave a satisfied nod and headed for the steep embankment. “Here, I’ll just grab your bicycle for you.”
Chivalrous to boot!
Strange how she didn’t even know him and yet her shoulder seemed to almost miss his touch when he turned toward the ditch.
Kali’s hormones all but took over her brain, quickly redressing her Knight in Shining Gore-tex in Viking clothes. Then a kilt. And then a slick London suit, just to round off the selection. Yes. They all fit. Every bit as much as his hardy all-weather gear was complementing him now. Maybe he’d just come from an outdoor-clothing catalog shoot.
“Brodie?” Ailsa called to him as he affected a surfing-style skid down the embankment toward the ditch. “She’s no patient! This is Kali O’Shea. The new GP.”
“Ah.”
Brodie came to a standstill, hands shifting up to his hips. His bright blue eyes ricocheted up to Kali, to Ailsa and then back to Kali before he took a decisive step back up the bank.
Kali’s eyes widened.
Was he taking back his generous offer?
Abruptly he knelt, grabbed the bike by a single handle and tugged it out of the ditch.
“Here you are, then.”
In two long-legged strides he was back atop the embankment, handing over the bike as if it were made out of pond scum...which, now, it kind of was. In two more he was slamming the door to his seen-better-days four-by-four, which he’d parked unceremoniously in the middle of the road.
Brake lights on. Brake lights off.
And with a crunch of gravel and tarmac...away he went.
“Oh, now...” Ailsa sent Kali a mortified look. “That was no way...” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen him behaving...”
The poor woman didn’t seem to be able to form a full sentence. Kali shook her head, to tell her that it didn’t matter, nearly choking on a laugh as she did. Her Viking-Fisherman-Calendar Boy’s behavior was certainly one way to make an impression! A bit young to be so eccentric, but...welcome to Dunregan!
She shook her head again and grinned. This whole palaver would be a great story to tell when—Well... She was bound to make friends at some juncture. This was her new beginning, and if Mr. Cranky Pants’ sole remit was to be eye candy...so be it.
She waved off Ailsa’s offer to help, took a hold of the muddy handlebars, and smiled through the spray of mud and scum coming off the spokes as she walked. She was already going to have to change clothes—might as well complete the Ugly Duckling thing she had going on.
“I am so sorry. Brodie’s not normally so rude,” Ailsa apologized.
“Who is he?”
“Don’t you know?” Ailsa’s eyes widened in dismay.
A nervous jag shot through Kali’s belly as she shook her head. Then the full wattage of realization hit.
“If I were to guess we were going to see him again at the clinic, would I be right?”
“You’d be right if you guessed you would see his name beside the clinic door, inside the waiting room and on the main examination room.”
“He’s Dr. McClellan?”
Terrific! In a really awkward how-on-earth-is-this-going-to-work? sort of way.
Kali tried her best to keep her face neutral.
“You’ll hear a lot of folk refer to him as Young Dr. McClellan. The practice was originally his father’s, but sadly he passed on just recently.” Her lips tightened fractionally. She looked at the expanse of road, as if searching for a bit more of an explanation, then returned her gaze to Kali with an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid Brodie’s not exactly the roll-out-the-red-carpet type.”
Kali couldn’t help but smile at the massive understatement.
“More the practical type, eh? Well, that’s no bad thing.” Kali was set on finding “the bright side.” Just like the counselor at the shelter had advised her.
She could hear the woman’s words as clearly as if she’d heard them a moment ago. “It will be difficult, living without any contact with your family. But, on the bright side, your life can be whatever you’d like it to be now.”
The words had pinged up in neon in her mental cinema. It was a near replica of the final words her mother had said to her before she’d fled the family