The Stranger's Secret. Maggie Kingsley

prefer,’ Jess interrupted gently. ‘They generally travel from head to head when children share combs or hats—’

      ‘But Sophy never does that,’ Louise protested. ‘I’ve warned her time and time again about the dangers, and I can assure you she doesn’t do it.’

      Sophy’s swiftly averted gaze suggested that the warning had gone unheeded, but Jess saw no point in commenting on it. The most important thing now was to treat the condition.

      ‘Do people often do that—ask you for a consultation on the street?’ Ezra asked, clearly bemused, as an obviously furious Mrs Lawrence bore Sophy off in the direction of the village shop with instructions to buy a special head-lice shampoo and to remember to treat everybody in the family.

      ‘And how!’ Jess chuckled. ‘My most potentially embarrassing case happened not long after I came back to the island. It was an old fisherman who thought he had a hernia but didn’t want to take time off work to come into the surgery to confirm it. Honestly, if anyone had seen the two of us down this side street—me on my knees in front of him—well, you can just imagine what they would have thought!’

      Unfortunately Ezra discovered he could—only too vividly—and was even more dismayed to feel his groin tighten at the image.

      Lord, but Tracy had been right. One week of living on his own at Selkie Cottage and already he was getting weird. He had to be if he was finding himself envying an unknown, elderly fisherman with a hernia.

      And the ridiculous thing was that he didn’t even like Jess Arden. OK, so in the winter sunshine her red hair shone like spun silk, and her eyes became an even deeper green than they’d been before, but when all was said and done she was just a woman.

      And a blackmailing one at that, he reminded himself as he drove her out of Inverlairg to the first of her outlying home visits.

      So if she wanted to hobble from patient to patient all afternoon, he had absolutely no sympathy for her. And if she was clearly growing more and more exhausted by the minute, then it was her own fault.

      Which was why it made no sense at all when he drew his car to a halt outside Woodside croft for him to demand angrily, ‘Look, how many more of these damn house calls have you got to make?’

      Of course she bristled immediately, as any idiot would have known she would.

      ‘I’m sorry if you’re bored, Dr Dunbar,’ she said, her voice ice-cold, ‘but I’m not about to rush my visits just to please you.’

      ‘I’m not bored—’

      ‘This is my last call,’ she continued, completely ignoring his protest, ‘but, believe me, it will take as long as it takes.’

      And it would, she thought, even though she was obviously the last person Mairi Morrison wanted to see when she opened her front door.

      ‘Not much of a talker, your new locum,’ Mairi observed when Ezra stalked off towards the barns after the very briefest of greetings.

      ‘People on the mainland don’t tend to talk as much as we do, Mairi, and I’m afraid I might have rather steamrollered him a bit today, and…’ And what the hell was she doing, defending him? Jess wondered, feeling her cheeks redden under Mairi’s curious gaze. Ezra Dunbar was big enough and cussed enough to look after himself. ‘Grace asked me to drop by,’ she continued quickly. ‘She’s a bit worried about you.’

      Mairi shook her head as she led the way into the house. ‘I’d have thought she had enough to worry about with her own angina, instead of poking her nose into other people’s business. I’m just getting old, like everybody else.’

      ‘Fifty-three’s hardly old,’ Jess protested with a laugh. ‘In fact, I’d say you were just in your prime!’

      The Mairi Morrison Jess knew of old would have made some witty retort. The same Mairi Morrison would also have had something considerably more stringent to say about interfering neighbours, but this Mairi Morrison accepted her offer of an examination without a murmur and to Jess’s dismay seemed lethargic and uninterested, almost strangely resigned.

      ‘How long have you had that cough?’ Jess asked after she’d sounded her.

      ‘Everybody’s got a cold, Jess. It’s winter.’

      It was, but everybody’s chest didn’t sound like Mairi’s. Thick and congested and wheezy. And everybody hadn’t lost weight they could ill afford to lose.

      ‘I’d like to send you for an X-ray,’ she said, reaching for her notebook. ‘You’ve probably simply got a chest infection, but it’s best to check it out. I’ll give Bev a call and try to get you an appointment for the end of the week, if that’s OK?’

      Mairi gazed down at her red, work-worn knuckles for a moment, then sighed. ‘I suppose so.’

      There it was again. The same air of defeat, as though Mairi knew—or suspected—something she wasn’t telling her.

      ‘Mairi, if there’s something worrying you—’

      ‘When are you going to get married?’

      Mairi had been asking the same question ever since Jess had turned twenty-two, but today Jess knew it was merely a means of changing the subject. She also sensed, however, that there was no point in pressing the matter, and she smiled. ‘Oh, this year, next year, some time, never.’

      ‘You’ve not met the man with the black hair and the cleft chin, then?’ Mairi observed, and Jess stared at her in amused amazement.

      ‘Good grief, fancy you remembering that! I must have been—what—fifteen, sixteen, when I told you all about my ideal man. No, I haven’t met him yet.’

      Neither had she ever experienced that flip of her heart which she’d solemnly assured Mairi would indicate she’d fallen in love with The One.

      Well, actually, yes, she had, she suddenly remembered, suppressing a chuckle. Last night, when Ezra had come back, her heart had lifted in a most disconcerting way. Which only served to show what romantic twaddle she’d believed when she’d been sixteen.

      ‘Maybe it’s time you looked closer to home,’ the older woman said, leading the way outside. ‘Brian Guthrie’s sweet on you, you know.’

      ‘Brian’s lonely, and has been ever since Leanne died.’

      ‘He thinks you’re sweet on him.’

      He did, too, Jess thought glumly. She’d only gone out with him because he’d been so depressed after his wife had died, and she’d thought it might help if he had someone to talk to. And it had, but not the way she’d wanted.

      ‘OK, so he’s in his fifties,’ Mairi continued, ‘but at thirty-two you’re no spring chicken.’

      ‘Gee, thanks!’ Jess protested, her eyes dancing as Ezra walked towards them, ready to carry her medical bag.

      ‘And if you don’t fancy Brian Guthrie, there’s always Fraser Kennedy,’ the older woman continued. ‘He’s been in love with you for years, and he owns three fishing boats now so he’s well on the way to becoming a man of means.’

      Jess shook her head and laughed, but she didn’t feel much like laughing when Ezra drove her back to Inverlairg and she saw how full her evening surgery was. She felt even less like laughing by the time she’d finished it.

      ‘Time to go home, Jess,’ Ezra declared firmly when she came out of her consulting room, and he saw the dark shadows under her eyes, the way she was leaning more heavily on her crutches.

      For once she didn’t argue. All she wanted was to go home and crawl into bed, but even when they reached her cottage he was still in full organising mode.

      ‘Put your feet up, and I’ll get dinner,’ he said, steering her into the sitting room. ‘It’s nothing fancy—just some chicken I picked up from the shop—but I’ll make a