LITMIR.BIZ

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people—healing them, curing them of their ailments—was a magical thing and something that she treasured. But the most she’d done over the last few years with Grace had been to patch scuffed knees, wipe snotty noses and nurse Grace through a particularly scratchy episode of chicken pox. The closest she’d got to medication was calamine lotion.

      And what she’d been through prior to that, with Ashley, that had been... Well, I don’t regret a day of that.

      But he’d not been a patient, nor a friend. He’d been her husband. Grace’s father. Their relationship had been all-consuming in that last year, and she’d been bereft when he’d died. Quite unable to believe that she would still be able to get up and carry on each day without him.

       But I did. For Grace.

      She’d made the decision to move away from Cornwall three years afterwards, and coming back to Gilloch—to Nanna—had seemed the right thing. Mhairi was alone, too. She knew what the pain of losing a husband—and, sadly, a child—felt like. They were comrades in grief to start with.

      But that was the past and now the future beckoned—and with it a fresh sense of purpose for Bethan. She felt it in her bones. This job—this interview—was the way forward for all of them.

      As she strode through the streets of Gilloch, her head high and the strong breeze blowing her hair from her shoulders, she remembered Ashley’s last words—‘You’ll go on without me and you’ll be absolutely fine.’

      She’d doubted it back then. That she would get through life without him. But time, as they said, was a great healer, and now she often found herself yearning for that kind of closeness again.

      But she was absolutely sure—no matter how good-looking Dr Cameron Brodie was—that she would keep her work relationships on a different level from her personal ones.

      * * *

      Dr Cameron Brodie swallowed the tablets with a glass of water and hoped that his headache would pass. He’d woken with it pounding away in his skull and it had been a real struggle to open his eyes to the bright light of the early morning, to get up and get dressed to face the day. If it hadn’t been for Rosie then he would no doubt have pulled the quilt over his head and gone back to sleep.

      But it wasn’t just Rosie. He had someone to interview today. Someone he hoped would take his place permanently at the Gilloch surgery. Not that she would realise that at first. He’d advertised it as a year’s post. Twelve months—start to finish. But he knew that before those twelve months were up the people he left behind would have to rearrange their aspirations.

      He had a ticking time bomb in his head. An inoperable glioma. And Dr Bethan Monroe had been the only applicant for the post. Beggars can’t be choosers. Wasn’t that what they said?

      He made it to the surgery and opened up, having driven there wearing the strongest pair of sunglasses he owned. Sometimes in the early mornings the sunlight in Scotland could be so bright, so fierce, it would make your eyes water. The sun so low in the sky, its light reflecting off the wet road, was almost blinding.

      The headache would ease soon. He knew that. The tablets his consultant had prescribed were excellent at doing their job.

      And they allowed him to do his.

      For a little while longer anyway.

      He hoped that this Bethan character was a strong applicant. Her CV was impressive.

      By all accounts in her last post she had started up a support group for people with anxiety and panic attacks. Somewhere for them to get together and share stories and ideas in the hope that they could learn that they were not alone in the fight. She had also put together a volunteer ‘buddy system’, for older people who were lonely to be paired up with a younger person who could be a friend and check in on them whenever it was needed.

      Her references were glowing. Her previous colleagues and partners all sang her praises and had been sad to see her go. For ‘personal reasons’, whatever that meant.

      He checked the time. If she was as punctual as she said she was in her CV, no doubt she would be arriving in the next ten minutes.

      There was a small mirror above the sink in his room, and he quickly checked his reflection to make sure that he didn’t look too rough—that there was some colour in his normally pale cheeks. That was the problem with being a redhead—he had such pale skin that when he was actually sick he looked deathly.

      He rubbed his jawline, ruffling the short red bristles, and figured he’d have to do. There were some dark shadows beneath his eyes, but there was nothing he could do about those.

      Cameron sat down in his chair and his gaze fell upon the one small picture of his daughter Rosie which he allowed on his desk. In it she sat on a beach, with the sun setting behind her and her long red hair over one shoulder as she smiled at him behind the camera. She’d put a flower behind her ear and begged him to take a picture.

      She’d looked so much like her mother at that moment he’d almost been unable to do so. For a moment it had been as if Holly was looking back at him, smiling. She had simply taken his breath away that day. He had almost put the camera down.

       ‘Daddy! Take my picture!’

      He was doing this for her. It was all for Rosie now. They didn’t have long left together and he wanted whatever time they had to be spent together, having fun and making memories, so that she remembered him long after he was gone. His voice, his laughter, how much he’d loved her, how much he’d wanted to spend time with her. He wanted her to know that she had been cherished and adored.

      So it didn’t matter if this Dr Bethan Monroe was a three-headed monster from Mars—he needed someone to take his place at the surgery and soon. If she was qualified, and didn’t have a death sentence of her own, then she was going to be perfect for the job.

      His phone buzzed. Janet from Reception. ‘Aye?’

      ‘Dr Bethan Monroe is here to see you.’ Janet had put on her ‘customer service’ voice. It always made him smile when he heard it, because she somehow lost most of her Scottish brogue and sounded more English than anything.

      ‘Thank you. Could you send her through?’

      ‘Certainly, Doctor.’

      He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. Everything seemed so much easier when he took a moment to do that. Took a moment to meditate. To calm the body. Concentrate on his breathing.

      Perhaps I ought to take up yoga? he thought with amusement.

      There was a slight tap at the door.

      He opened his eyes and stood up. ‘Come in!’

      Janet came in first, smiling, her bonny cheeks rosy-red. ‘Dr Bethan Monroe for you. Can I get you both a pot of tea? Or coffee?’

      He lifted his hand to demur, but then he caught sight of the tall, willowy woman who had walked into his room behind his receptionist, her long, chocolatey locks of wavy hair flowing either side of her beautiful face, and he found himself unable to speak any words.

      She was beautiful. Elegant. Elfin bone structure.

      For a moment she looked startled, then she gathered her composure after seeing his no doubt deathly pale face and walked towards him and held out her hand. ‘Very pleased to meet you.’

      Now, she did have an English accent. A real one.

      He suddenly became aware of his throat. His tongue. Had the temperature of the room increased? He felt hot, his mouth dry, but so he didn’t give Janet too much fodder for the village grapevine he managed to force a smile himself and shake her hand. ‘Hello, there.’

      ‘Did you want tea, Doctors?’ Janet persisted, looking from one to the other with wry amusement.

      He hadn’t wanted any before, but with his mouth this dry

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