The Bachelor Doctor Read online

  ‘Wh-what’s happened?’ Anna looked at Jake and Cara in puzzlement, her voice slightly slurred. ‘I feel funny…sort of dizzy.’

  ‘In a minute you’ll be back to normal now you’ve had some glucose,’ said Jake, holding her hand comfortingly. ‘The ambulance will be here very soon and take you to hospital for a check-up. We need to make sure your diabetes is balanced again—you know how important that is.’

  On cue, the sound of an ambulance’s siren came wafting over the thudding music, and in a few seconds a police car came speeding up the drive, followed by the ambulance, its blue light still flashing.

  In no time at all the drive seemed to be filled with police and paramedics dressed in jackets with large fluorescent bands on them with the words PARAMEDIC or POLICE written on the back.

  ‘Ah, it’s Dr Donahue!’ said one of them. ‘What have you got for us this time, Doc?’

  Jake put the paramedics quickly in the picture regarding Anna, and then both he and Cara watched as the young patient was stretchered into the ambulance and driven away.

  The music had suddenly stopped and a line of sullen-looking youths and girls were coming out of the house, shepherded like reluctant sheep by several policemen. Megan looked a forlorn and dejected figure standing by Jake’s side.

  ‘Don’t worry, Megan,’ said Cara, going up to her. ‘I’ll come round tomorrow and see if I can help you clear up the mess. Perhaps you can get friends into help you too. It’ll seem a lot better in the morning…’

  Megan smiled mournfully at her. ‘Thanks very much. I just don’t know how I’ll face Grannie and Grandpa, though—I was only meant to be having a few friends to stay for hogmanay.’

  ‘Where are you going to stay tonight?’ asked Jake. ‘I don’t think you should be here by yourself.’

  ‘I’ll go to my friend’s—her parents won’t mind me staying over.’

  Both doctors were silent for a second, watching the young girl walk in a dejected way down the drive with a police officer to make a statement, then Jake turned to Cara.

  ‘Lucky you happened to be passing. It was a hairy situation and if you hadn’t been around, there might have been more to worry about than a trashed house.’

  There was an engaging openness about the smile he gave, reflected Cara, giving him a more youthful air than his normally austere expression allowed. In fact, she thought with surprise, flicking a covert glance towards him under her lashes, he was rather a good-looking guy in his way—blue eyes, thick, dark hair and an athletic body—and probably the arrogance to go with it!

  She smiled back at him. ‘I certainly didn’t expect to be thrown into a medical emergency as soon as I arrived back in Ballranoch—I was hoping for a few days’ rest!’

  Jake frowned slightly, sweeping a critical gaze over her face. ‘We haven’t met before, by any chance?’

  ‘We have,’ she said simply. ‘About five years ago.’

  He looked at her quizzically. ‘Go on—where?’

  A faint smile lifted Cara’s mouth. ‘You were giving me some advice, telling me not to go to London—remember? Said I was letting Ballranoch down by going off to the Big Smoke and that I would hate it there!’

  Jake nodded. ‘Of course! You’re Sir Gordon Mackenzie’s daughter, aren’t you?’ He paused for a minute, and looked over to Dan in the car. ‘I wasn’t aware you had a little boy. Gordon will be thrilled that you’ve brought him up for hogmanay.’

  Cara’s heart fluttered for a second. ‘I hope so…Dan’s very excited about seeing him.’

  ‘It’s been quite a while since you’ve been up,’ observed Jake. ‘You must have a full life in London. Your career’s taken off, has it?’

  His words hung in the air, the unspoken criticism being that her work came before seeing her father. Cara bit her lip—she was right about the arrogance!

  ‘Ballranoch’s a long way from London, and I’ve been very busy,’ she said tersely.

  There was a short silence, and Jake started to dry his wet hair vigorously with a towel he took out of a small rucksack, his dark eyes appraising her closely. ‘So I was wrong—life’s been good to you in London?’

  Cara swallowed and thought of the photograph she’d destroyed, and with it her memories of London. How this man would love to have been proved right in his predictions!

  ‘I’ve made many friends,’ she said brightly. ‘Had lots of good times.’ She looked curiously at Jake. ‘And you—you’re still working around here, then? You came five years ago as a locum to help my father, didn’t you? I thought you would have moved on from here—perhaps gone to a less isolated practice with more facilities.’

  Jake’s face shadowed for a second and his lips tightened. ‘Ballranoch suits me very well.’ he said briefly as he stuffed the towel back in the bag.

  Cara looked at him with surprise—she seemed to have touched a sensitive nerve there. He looked such a confident man she found it hard to believe there was a chink of vulnerability in that assured manner. She gave an inward shrug. So he had a story to tell in his background. It was none of her business, but she couldn’t help being intrigued.

  ‘Do you still help my father, then?’ she persisted.

  He frowned slightly. ‘I would have thought Sir Gordon would have told you I became a partner in the practice a year or two back.’

  Cara reddened. ‘Perhaps he did mention it—probably slipped my mind.’

  ‘It was getting hard for him, being a single-handed practice, and now I think the workload is too much for him even though I’m here.’ He paused, rubbing his thumb on his chin as he looked at her. ‘Things haven’t been easy for him since his wife…since Angela left, as you probably will have guessed.’

  Angela! Hearing that hated name was like having a douche of cold water poured over her, and the blood pounded uncomfortably in Cara’s ears. It was hard to escape the fact that her stepmother had been the cause of all the heartbreak in her family, and unconsciously she clenched her fists. Whatever happened now, she was damned if she’d allow that woman to destroy their lives any more.

  ‘I can imagine how my father would feel,’ she said tersely. ‘I’m afraid she and I never got on very well.’

  She made an effort to swing the conversation back to something safer, something that wouldn’t tear her heart so much. ‘So Ballranoch suits you—and your family?’

  ‘I live in the hills beyond the town—and, yes, I love it around here.’

  Cara noticed that he didn’t expand on his family commitments. His stern expression softened as he glanced smilingly at Dan in the back of the car. ‘It will do Gordon a world of good to see his little grandson. Are you able to stay here for long?’

  ‘Er…I’m not sure.’ Cara bent down and put the glucometer back in her bag.

  ‘Dan’s father’s coming up separately, then?’

  Cara flushed and a knife twisted inside her. She would have to get used to this question.

  ‘Dan’s father isn’t around any more,’ she said lightly, as if it had been of no more consequence than him being away on holiday, but her words hung heavy in the air.

  ‘Ah. I see…’ Jake nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She snapped the bag closed and looked quickly at her watch. ‘I really must go now—my little boy will be waking up soon and he’ll be very hungry. And, of course, I’m dying to see my father.’

  Jake smiled. ‘Then perhaps I’ll see you later at your father’s hogmanay party.’

  She stared at him in dismay. She’d forgotten about the traditional party, and the thought of being sociable after a long and tiring day wasn’t appealing. And how did she know yet that she’d be welcome?

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said cautiously.

  They walked towards Cara’s car together, and he opened her door. ‘Thanks again for your help,’ he said. ‘We made a good emergency team. Perhaps we should start one up—this area’s short on emergency cover!’

  For a second his eyes locked with Cara’s, then he turned and ran
back along the drive. Cara smiled as she watched him disappear, an incongruous figure for a winter’s afternoon, dressed in running shorts, his shirt soaking wet and outlining the broad muscular shape of his chest. Like a bolt from the blue, a shiver almost like an electric shock crackled through her heart, and the hairs prickled at the back of her neck. Jake Donahue, she suddenly realised, was not only good-looking but emanated a sexual attraction that was rather too compelling!

  She stared crossly at herself in the car mirror. Having made a fool of herself once, surely she wouldn’t allow herself to react to the first attractive man she’d met since Toby. Men were off limits as far as she was concerned—especially men like film stars with deep blue eyes! She’d been impetuous once before and it had nearly ruined her life. There was no way she was going to get involved in another relationship for a long time—especially with someone who probably had a wife and several children.

  Shakily she put the car into gear and drove off towards her father’s house. The last thing she wanted at this moment was to have to socialise at her father’s party. What she needed more than anything was a time of peace and reflection, to build bridges with her father—not the effort of being sociable with people who were bound to ask questions.

  A sigh and a yawn from the back seat alerted her that Dan was stirring and rubbing his eyes sleepily.

  ‘You’ve been so good, darling,’ she soothed as she turned into the tall gates of Glen Shee Manor. ‘Soon you’ll meet your grandpa, and have a nice drink of milk and some toast soldiers. And you’ll be able to play with Buchan, the dog.’

  Dan brightened. ‘Can I see Grandpa now?’ he demanded.

  ‘In a minute,’ promised Cara.

  Her heart pounded as she parked before the wide front door set in the stone arch with her family’s crest carved over the lintel, FAITHFUL AND LOYAL. A faint smile touched her lips. Perhaps it should have been STUBBORN AND UNYIELDING! She wondered if her father would forget the past and give her a loving welcome—or would it be cold indifference? Five years ago she and her father had parted on bitter terms. Now, after all this time and what had happened, she longed more than anything else to be reunited with him.

  She drew in a deep breath and stepped forward with her son cuddled into her arms, and pulled the old-fashioned wire bell pull. This was the moment of truth for her and Dan—the next few minutes would determine whether they stayed or left.

  There was a jangling noise deep within the house and after a short while the sound of footsteps coming slowly towards them and a dog barking. The door swung open.

  The frail, stooping figure of Sir Gordon Mackenzie peered down at Cara and Dan from the steps of the porch and they gazed at each other for a long moment. Then he moved forward and touched her arm tentatively, as if unable to believe his own eyes.

  ‘Cara…Cara—is it really you?’ His voice trembled slightly.

  Tears welled up in Cara’s eyes. How he’d aged! The last time she’d seen him he’d been portly, imposing. Now he looked gaunt, old and very tired.

  ‘Yes, Dad, it’s me.’ She smiled tremulously and then held up the little boy. ‘And this is Dan, your grandson.’

  ‘My…my grandson? My own grandson? But I never knew you had a child.’ The old man’s voice was a whisper and he looked incredulously at Cara and then Dan. ‘How…how old is he?’

  ‘Nearly three.’

  ‘Three!’ He put up a hand to touch the little boy’s head. At last he said unsteadily, ‘You’ve come to stay for a while, then?’

  Cara swallowed a troublesome lump in her throat. ‘No, Dad, we’ve not come to stay for a while. We’ve come back to Ballranoch—if you’ll have us—to live.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE kaleidoscope of white dresses and tartans whirled before Cara in the huge hall and she rubbed the back of her stiff neck. She was very tired, emotionally and physically. As soon as she could, she would slip off to bed. She remembered how the noise of the band and the whoops of the dancers had entranced her as a small child, and what a handsome couple her parents had made, greeting all the guests by the door. Sadly she gazed above the fireplace where the portrait of her beautiful mother had once hung—no prizes for guessing who had taken that down. Angela would never have countenanced any likeness of her predecessor in the house.

  She looked across at her father, leaning on his stick, his face sunken and tinged with grey, and felt renewed shock at his present appearance.

  ‘He looks a different person. If only I’d known how frail he was getting, perhaps I would have come back sooner,’ she murmured to herself.

  She sighed. It was no good, going over what might have been. Her father hadn’t stopped her going five years ago—had almost encouraged her to pack her bags, she thought sadly. But things had changed for both of them in those intervening years and each of them would have to learn to forgive and forget. Somehow she felt the first step had been taken. His joy at seeing her and meeting his little grandson had been transparent and she felt a new happiness. Perhaps now bridges could be mended.

  In the long talk they’d had before the dance he had brushed aside questions about his health, asking instead all about Dan. His face was alive with interest as he watched his little grandson play with the dog and listened to the child babble away about his toys. Cara hadn’t told her father why Toby had left her. It was too painful, and what good would it do to tell her father that part of the story? It would only spoil the evening and his delight in his newly discovered grandchild.

  A hand touched her shoulder and a deep voice said, ‘I imagine you could do with an injection of something alcoholic. You must be pretty tired after your long journey, to say nothing of your help in the rain this afternoon.’

  Cara whipped round to find Jake Donahue standing just behind her in an impeccably cut dinner suit, holding a champagne glass out to her. Her heart gave a sudden lurch. Clothes sat so well on a man like Jake and he looked very different to his afternoon appearance in dripping running shorts and damp hair—and every bit as attractive!

  ‘It was certainly an interesting afternoon—I don’t think I’ve ever treated anyone in the rain in the middle of a rave. I didn’t realise Ballranoch had become a centre for gatecrashing parties!’

  Jake gave a sardonic smile. ‘You thought it was a little backwater village with no excitement? I suppose after London you might think that…’

  ‘I don’t lead a very exciting life in London, you know,’ she remarked, sipping her drink gratefully. ‘Thanks for this—I needed something with a lift. I thought I’d just stay up to see the New Year in then I’ll probably crash out. I’ve missed out on sleep for the past few days, and I should think it shows.’

  Jake’s eyes travelled slowly over her tall figure, and Cara blushed, suddenly feeling self-consciously aware that the clinging white silk top and black taffeta skirt, which was the only evening wear she had, were probably more revealing than she’d intended!

  He looked at her gravely. ‘You certainly seem fine to me. And how is your little boy?’

  ‘Dan had a lovely time playing with the dog, but he soon drifted off after he’d had something to eat.’

  ‘Your father seems ecstatic with his grandson—and the fact that you’re here.’ Jake twirled his glass and looked at her over the rim. ‘Said he hadn’t known you were coming. Quite a surprise for him!’

  ‘I only decided at the last minute.’ Cara put her glass up to her cheek, trying to cool her warm face. ‘I thought it would be a nice change for Dan.’

  ‘Sure.’ Jake nodded. He looked across at Gordon and then back at Cara. ‘And how do you think your father seems?’

  ‘He looks…very frail. I had a shock,’ admitted Cara. ‘I hadn’t expected him to have changed so much.’

  ‘He’s certainly gone downhill in the last few months. I suppose you’ll be staying until he’s had his bypass?’

  Cara stared at Jake in disbelief. ‘His…his bypass?’ she said falteringly. ‘He never mentioned it.’
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br />   For a moment sadness overwhelmed her—no wonder her father looked so ill. ‘I might have guessed he had atherosclerosis,’ she murmured. ‘His colour’s very bad.’

  Jake gave her a penetrating look. ‘You seem to be in the dark about a lot of things—my partnership, your father’s health. Did it never occur to you to come up and see him?’

  Tears suddenly prickled at the back of Cara’s eyes. ‘I know, I know,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I should have come home before…come and made sure Dad was OK.’

  Jake frowned, his voice becoming harsher. ‘Couldn’t drag yourself away from London—that it?’

  There was a short silence and the temperature between them seemed to plunge. Cara flushed angrily. ‘You know nothing about it,’ she retorted. ‘He had who he wanted near him. It was made very clear to me I’d be rocking the boat if I stayed here, and I’d be pleased if you didn’t jump to conclusions. There isn’t a day since I’ve been away that I haven’t longed to speak to him.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you?’ asked Jake quietly.

  Cara looked at him in angry astonishment for a second, then she brushed a tendril of hair impatiently away from her cheek. ‘I don’t have to listen to this,’ she said brusquely. ‘I remember when we met five years ago I thought you were too ready with your own opinions, and my views haven’t changed. Your family must find you extremely difficult to live with!’

  A gleam of humour lit Jake’s eyes. ‘That may be so, but it’s nothing to do with what we’re discussing now.’

  ‘I’m not discussing anything with you,’ retorted Cara coldly. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to speak to some old friends.’

  Jake caught her arm as she turned away, his glance holding hers. ‘Wait a moment.’ His voice was low but forceful. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I’ve seen your father deteriorate badly in recent months…’

  The firm touch of his hand sent a shiver through Cara’s body. He was so near, so dominating and demanding, the kind of man who liked things dictated on his terms—and she’d had enough of that. Suddenly she wanted to get away from that penetrating look, that hard male presence.