The Nurse's Christmas Temptation. Ann McIntosh

but Harmony was still taken aback. Caitlin hadn’t mentioned this, and all around the room there were pictures of him doing all kinds of dangerous stuff: mountain-climbing, caving, hang gliding, hiking through remote-looking terrain… Not that having diabetes should preclude him from doing any of those things, just as her father’s heart condition hadn’t stopped him from indulging his own daredevil spirit.

      But look how that had ended.

      Already in a bit of a snit because of the patients, now she found her mental comparison of Cam to her father was making her cross her arms, trying to hold in the spate of words hovering on her tongue.

      Instead of letting them loose, she took a deep breath, then asked, “Did you plan to tell me?”

      Cam glanced up, his eyebrows lifted. “Why would I tell you something so mundane when you’d no doubt find out about it sooner or later?”

      Although his tone was even, there was an unusually cool expression in his eyes.

      “Well, I’m your nurse. The only other medical practitioner on the island that I know of. What would happen if you went hypo or hyperglycemic and I wasn’t aware of your condition?”

      “I’m very well versed in the monitoring and treatment of my diabetes, and I haven’t had an incident in ages. Don’t fuss, Nurse Kinkaid.”

      She wanted to ask what he meant when he said, “ages,” but there was no mistaking the steel in his voice. Not to mention his reversion from calling her Harmony to Nurse Kinkaid, so she kept her mouth shut, for a change.

      “Was there something you wanted?”

      He was putting away his diabetes kit, and although the chill might have gone from his voice, Harmony still felt the flick of his disapproval keenly.

      She adopted a formal tone in return. “What is your official policy on missed appointments?”

      “Reschedule the patient.”

      Really annoyed now, Harmony said, “No, I mean how do I charge them for not showing up nor even calling to say they wouldn’t be coming? Do I do it through the mail?”

      Cam’s eyebrows rose again, and he stared at her for a moment, before chuckling. “Ha! Only do that if you want to have a stream of highly upset people coming in to see you. Don’t worry about it.”

      “But it’s a waste of my time, and yours. Don’t you charge them at all?”

      Cam got up and stretched. “Most of the time everyone keeps their appointments, but this time of year things get a little crazy.”

      Distracted by the sight of his muscles rippling beneath his shirt, Harmony tried to look away, but she had a hard time forcing herself to meet his gaze.

      “Since Mr. Gibson hasn’t shown up I’m going to run back up to the Manor before the ceremony. After it’s over I have a quick house call to make, and then I thought I’d take you around the island and show you where the patients you’ll need to visit live. Interested?”

      “Sure, that’ll be really helpful.” She’d been worried about losing her way on her rounds, so that was a relief.

      “Actually, you can come with me to see Mrs. Jacobson too. She’s just a few steps away from the surgery, and I’ll be asking you to start looking in on her, as well. She’s in the final stages of liver failure—cirrhosis caused by hemochromatosis, poor soul. She moved here to be close to her son, Hugh, once she’d decided not to undergo any further treatment. I’ve had her on a bi-weekly visit, but I think it’s time to increase the frequency.”

      “Do you need me to pull her file?”

      “No, I have it here,” he replied, tapping the folder on his desk.

      He spoke a little more about Mrs. Jacobson’s prior treatment, and what he’d prescribed to battle the ascites and hepatic encephalopathy. It was, in effect, palliative care, and Harmony wasn’t surprised he wanted to up the number of times she was seen.

      “I told Hugh I’d be by at one, so maybe grab something to eat after the ceremony, and if you could be ready at a quarter to, that would be great. Oh, and do you have a pair of wellies?”

      She’d been wondering why they needed fifteen minutes to go a few doors down when he asked the question and it distracted her. “I haven’t worn Wellington boots since my days in the Guides. Do I need them?”

      “Some of the farmyards will be a quagmire after the rain we’ve had, so they’d be a good idea for when you go to do your rounds.”

      Unimpressed with the thought of messing up her trainers, which were pretty new and had been a splurge buy, she asked, “Is there somewhere I can buy some?”

      Cam shook his head. “You’d have to go to the mainland—or order online and have them delivered, which would take longer. We have a bunch of them up at the Manor. What size do you wear?”

      “Seven and a half.”

      “Okay.” He sent her one of his heart-stopping smiles. “I’ll hunt out a pair for you.”

      Cam was already heading for the door and Harmony watched him go, still stinging from his earlier set-down, and annoyed at the way her heart leapt and fluttered whenever he grinned that way.

      The thought of spending time with him as he showed her around the island flustered her. Hopefully it was just because he was her boss and she wasn’t used to him yet, she mused, knowing it was more. She was attracted to him—which was another wrinkle in what was already a situation so far outside her comfort zone as to be in a different universe.

      It would be a lot easier not to have a physical reaction to him if he were a little less handsome and didn’t have a gazillion-kilowatt smile. Not even the knowledge that he was a risk-taking daredevil could stop those butterflies from invading her insides whenever he entered the room or smiled her way.

      But it should, she reminded herself. The very last thing she needed was to be attracted to a man like her father. The type of man who put his need for adventure before everything else—even his health, or the people who loved him.

      Cam made his escape, wondering how he was going to get through the next month and half.

      Harmony Kinkaid, his fussy, big-city nurse administrator, was already making him crazy.

      She’d rearranged all his files, so he couldn’t find anything. She wanted to come down hard on patients who didn’t turn up for their appointments. She’d silently showed her displeasure when he’d mentioned he’d be leaving on a hiking and rock-climbing trip to Peru just after Hogmanay, even when he’d said there’d be a locum to fill in for him.

      But it had been her expression when she’d realized he had type 1 diabetes that had really aggravated him. She, of all people, should know it was no reason for him not to live fully.

      Thank goodness for Grand-Da, who’d shown Cam that the disease wasn’t an impediment to having a good, exciting life.

      “It’s something to be managed,” Grand-Da had told him in his habitual no-nonsense way, that first summer he’d come to stay. “Once you learn how to do that anything is doable. You just have to accept you have it and be smart about it.”

      Learning how to control the effects of his diabetes had given him a freedom beyond his wildest imagining. Gone had been the days when he’d only watched other boys enjoying themselves, never being allowed to join in. And at the age of thirteen Cam had embraced his new-found independence with gusto. Pitting himself against nature, or against his own limitations or fears, had brought him fully alive.

      He’d seen Harmony glance at the pictures on his wall, had almost been able to hear her internal dialog regarding the pastimes he chose. As she was a nurse he was surprised at her reaction. Hell, there were type 1 diabetics playing rough