Tempted By The Hot Highland Doc. Scarlet Wilson

had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died in the space of a few weeks. Due to the difficulties in failing to recruit to such a rural post, he’d spent the last ten months, giving up his own practice in one of the cities in Scotland, packing up his father’s house and selling his own, and trying to learn the intricacies of his new role. It was no wonder this piece of crucial information hadn’t really stuck.

      He ran his hand through his thick hair. ‘But what on earth does this mean?’

      Magda held up her hands. ‘I’m sorry. I meant to talk to you last week when I sent them your details instead of mine—but I had that scare and just didn’t get a chance.’

      Rhuaridh swallowed and took a look at Magda’s slightly swollen ankles. This was a much-wanted baby after seven years of infertility. Last week Magda had had a small fall and started bleeding. It had been panic stations all round, even from the team of completely competent staff in this practice and at the nearby cottage hospital. It seemed that practically the whole island was waiting for the safe delivery of this baby. There was no way he was going to put his colleague under any strain.

      He sighed and sat down in the chair in front of her as he ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Tell me again about this.’

      The edges of her lips quirked upwards. They both knew he was conceding that she hadn’t really told him properly at all.

      ‘It’s a TV show. A Year in the Life of...’ She held out her hands. ‘This one, obviously, is a doctor. It’s an American company and they specifically wanted a doctor from Scotland who worked on one of the islands.’

      He narrowed his gaze. ‘I didn’t know you wanted to be a reality TV star.’ He was curious, this didn’t seem like Magda at all.

      She laughed and shook her head. ‘Reality TV? No way. What I wanted, and what we’ll get—’ she emphasised the words carefully ‘—is a brand-new X-ray machine for the cottage hospital, with enough funds for a service contract.’

      ‘What?’ He straightened in the chair.

      She nodded. ‘It’s part of the deal.’

      Rhuaridh frowned. How had he managed to miss this? The X-ray machine in their cottage hospital was old and overused. Even though the staff had applied to the local health board every year for an upgrade and new facilities, NHS funding was limited. While their machine still worked—even though it was temperamental—it was unlikely to be replaced. A new machine could mean better imaging, which would lead to fewer referrals to the mainland for potential surgeries. Fractures could be notoriously hard to see. As could some chest complaints. A better machine would mean more accurate diagnosis for patients and less work all round.

      He looked at Magda again with newfound admiration. ‘This is the reason you applied in the first place, isn’t it?’

      She grinned and patted her belly again. ‘Give a little, get a little. You know I hate reporting on dusky X-rays. We’ll have a brand-new digital system where we can enlarge things, and ping them on to a specialist colleague if we need to.’ She shrugged, ‘Just think of all those ferry journeys that won’t need to happen.’

      He nodded. Being on an island always made things tougher. Their cottage hospital only had a few available beds, which were inevitably full of some of the older local residents with chronic conditions. They had a small A and E department and a fully equipped theatre for emergencies but it was rarely used. Occasionally a visiting surgeon would appear to carry out operations on a couple of patients at a time, but they weren’t equipped to carry out any kind of major surgery and any visiting consultant had to bring their whole team.

      Whilst their facilities were probably adequate for their population of five thousand, every year the influx of holiday tourists during the summer months took their numbers to over twenty thousand. Slips, trips and falls made the X-ray machine invaluable. Rhuaridh had lost count of the number of times he’d had to send someone with a questionable X-ray over on the ferry to the mainland for further assessment.

      ‘Sometimes I think I love you, Magda,’ he said as he shook his head.

      She wagged her finger. ‘Don’t tell David you said that, and just remember that while I tell you the rest.’ He smiled. He’d known Magda’s husband for the last ten years. He’d watched his friend battle to win the heart of the woman in front of him.

      ‘What’s the rest?’ he asked as he stood up and stretched his back.

      Magda bit her bottom lip. ‘The filming happens for three days every month. You don’t have to do anything special. They just follow you about on your normal duties. They take care of patient consent for filming. You just have to be you.’

      The words were said with throwaway confidence but from the look on Magda’s face she knew what was coming.

      ‘Three days every month?’

      She nodded. ‘That’s all.’

      He pressed his lips together. It didn’t sound like That’s all to him. It sounded like three days of someone following him around and annoying him constantly with questions. It sounded like three days of having to explain to every single patient that someone was filming around him. He could kiss goodbye to the ten-minute consultation system that kept the GP practice running smoothly. He could wave a fond farewell to his speedy ward rounds in the community hospital where he knew the medical history of most of the patients without even looking at their notes.

      ‘Three days?’ He couldn’t keep the edge out of his voice. He’d spent his life guarding his privacy carefully. Magda knew this. They’d trained together for six years, then jokingly followed each other across Scotland for a variety of jobs. It had been Rhuaridh who had introduced Magda to the isle of Arran off the west coast of Scotland—a place she’d fallen instantly in love with. It had been Rhuaridh who had introduced Magda to his best friend David, and his father Joe, who’d looked after the cottage hospital and GP practice on the island for thirty years. She knew him better than most. She knew exactly how uncomfortable this would make him.

      She put her feet on the floor and leaned forward as best as she could with her swollen stomach. ‘I know it’s bad timing. I never thought this would happen.’ Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. ‘I always meant for it to be me that did the filming. I thought it might even be fun. Some of our oldies will love getting a moment on TV.’

      He could hear the hopeful edge in her voice. He knew she was trying to make it sound better for him.

      He shook his head. ‘It...it’ll be fine, Magda. Don’t worry. You know I’ll do it.’ He could say the words out loud but he couldn’t ignore the hollow feeling in his chest. Three days’ filming every month for the next year. It was his equivalent of signing up for the ultimate torture. This was so not his comfort zone.

      He took a deep breath. ‘Okay, it’s fine. You concentrate on baby Bruce. Don’t worry about anything. We both know you should currently be at home, not here. Leave this with me.’

      She gave a half-scowl. ‘I am not calling my baby Bruce.’

      It was a standing joke. David’s family had a tradition of calling the firstborn in their family Bruce. David had missed out. He was the secondborn. Once Magda had got past the three-month mark both David and Rhuaridh had started teasing her about the family name.

      He laughed. ‘You know you are. Don’t fight it.’ He glanced at the pile of work sitting on his desk. It would take him until late into the night. With Magda going on maternity leave, and no locum doctor recruited to fill the gap, everything was going to fall to him. He was lucky. He worked within a dynamic team of advanced nurse practitioners, practice nurses and allied health professionals. He already knew they would support him as best they could.

      Life had changed completely for him once his father had died. He’d felt obligated to come back and provide a health service for the people of the island when the post couldn’t get filled. Unfortunately, Zoe, his partner, had been filled with horror at the thought of life on Arran. He hadn’t even had