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      Esme checked her watch. Again.

      ‘The more you look, the longer he’ll be,’ her colleague Margaret teased, then gave Esme’s shoulder a little pat. ‘Don’t worry. Lover boy will be here soon.’

      Esme gave a dismissive click of her tongue. Good thing they were friends as well as co-workers.

      ‘He’s not lover boy! And I’m definitely not worried.’ Esme flounced away from the window. Worry wasn’t her problem. Lust was. And the last person she was going to tell was Margaret—a woman on a single-track mission to get Esme to date someone ‘interesting’. Just because Margaret was now madly in love, it didn’t mean Esme had to be as well.

      ‘What’s he like? Your sexy doc? And don’t trot out the line about how you can’t say until Charles meets him because we both know what the men he approves of are like.’ She feigned an enormous yawn to show just how interesting she thought his choices were.

      Esme laughed. Her brother did have a tendency towards introducing her to men who…well…lacked lustre, but she’d told him she wanted a man who didn’t have a single surprising thing about him. He’d taken her at her word. Not that he played cupid all that often, but when he did? Suffice it to say there had yet to be a love match.

      ‘Ez? C’mon. Details, please.’

      ‘I told you. He’s a Glaswegian A and E doctor.’ With gorgeously curly brown hair and the darkest, most fathomless brown eyes she’d ever seen. He’d been a bit stubbly when they’d had their last video call. She could just imagine his cheek rasping against hers when he—No! No, she could not.

      Margaret grabbed a gingerbread man from the tray Mrs Renwick, Heatherglen’s long-term cook, had given the therapy centre staff and held it in front of her face. ‘Won’t you tell your dear friend Mags something more interesting about the big handsome doctor?’

      ‘Who said anything about him being handsome?’

      Margaret just about killed herself laughing. ‘You didn’t have to. The way your cheeks go bright pink each time you come off a video call with him tells me everything I need to know.’ She began to chant in a sing-song voice, ‘Esme needs some mistletoe!’

      Esme picked up another gingerbread man and stuffed it into her friend’s open mouth.

      ‘Do not.’

      Margaret tugged on her staff hoodie. When her head reappeared she grinned. ‘Suit yourself.’ She pulled on a gilet over her hoodie. ‘I’ll see for myself in a few seconds.’ She flicked her thumb towards the window. ‘Lover boy’s here!’ Before Esme could protest—again—Margaret was on her way out the door, saying she’d get the dogs ready.

      Esme tried to ignore the tiny tremor in her hand as she took a distracted bite of the gingerbread man, her eyes glued to the battered four by four that would give their new vet Aksel’s bashed-up staff vehicle a run for its money. His arrival had been a godsend at the busy veterinary clinic. Running it and the canine therapy centre was a Herculean task and Aksel tackled everything Esme put his way with a fabulous mix of pragmatism and care. Mind you. Aksel was so loved up these days they could’ve issued him a wheelbarrow and a workload for ten men and he would’ve accepted with a smile.

      Her thoughts landed in a no-go zone. It was a bit too easy to picture Max gazing at her in the same adoring way Aksel lit up whenever Flora, the rehab centre’s physio, appeared.

      The last time Esme had looked at someone like that she’d lost her heart and hundreds of thousands of pounds of her family’s money. Not to mention her dignity, sense of self-worth and, yes, she might as well admit it, since the divorce papers had been finalised, nearly nine years ago now, she’d found it hard to believe she was worthy of love. All the compliments Harding, her ex-husband, had lavished on her had turned out to be lies. Lies she’d vowed never to fall for again.

      Her tummy flipped when she caught a glimpse of Max behind the wheel.

      She bit the head off the gingerbread man.

      The next week was going to be a test of sheer willpower.

      Via the Clyde’s administrator, she’d learnt that Max had done several tours in the Middle East. Two more than her big brother, Nick had done. As a surgeon in conflict zones he would’ve seen enough horror to make that difficult-to-read face of his even more practised—giving away no more than he was comfortable with, which, in her case, was just about nothing.

      She’d get there in the end. She always did. She loved teasing apart the complicated webs of her clients’ personalities. Not that she ever bothered turning the mirror on herself. She knew what her problems were. Trust. Trust. And trust.

      The car slowed as it climbed up the hill towards the castle. She craned her neck to watch as the passengers rolled down their windows and took a look. Max was the only one not to stick his head out of the window. As ridiculous as it was, she was a bit put out. Heatherglen Castle was more than a pile of rocks thrown together to impressive effect. It was her home.

      The huge stone structure was framed by a crisp blue sky, the dozen or so chimneys puffing away with fires as the weather had turned so cold. Though some of the rooms were enormous, she and her brother had done their absolute best to make the castle feel as cosy and inviting as possible for the residents. Residents like Max who—because they were running at capacity—would be sleeping in her and Charles’s private wing. Just. Down. The. Corridor. When they’d put Euan’s mum there it hadn’t been a problem. When the thirty-something mum had turned into Mr Tall Dark and Utterly Off Limits, Esme’s stomach had swirled with far too much delight.

       Silly stomach. Just because a good-looking man is on the grounds, it’s no reason to behave like a goofy lust-struck teen.

      The car pulled up outside the clinic.

      Right! Time to get to work.

      Hamish, Mrs Renwick’s grandson, tucked a stack of files under his arm as she walked into the reception area then pointed at her jumper. ‘You going to leave any of those for us?’

      She flashed him a guilty smile when she saw the crumbs. ‘Of course, silly billy. I was just doing a quality control test.’

      ‘Of Nan’s biscuits?’ He didn’t bother to disguise his disbelief that she could say such an outrageous thing.

      Her guilty smile turned sheepish. They all knew Mrs Renwick’s biscuits were insanely delicious.

      ‘Can you take this plate back to the pooches, please, Hamish?’ She handed him a platter of dog-bone-shaped biscuits made to a special dog-friendly recipe. ‘Make sure Dougal gets one. He adores them!’

      ‘Aye aye, boss.’ Hamish gave her a jaunty salute and headed back to the kennels. He was openly enjoying his work experience at the clinic. She hoped he followed up his dream of becoming a vet one day.

      She hurriedly

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