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As long as she did her job, he shouldn’t care about anything else. He just needed to get through the winter rush with someone he could count on to keep the surgery going and his patients taken care of, along with aiding with any injuries. After that he’d have the time and head space to find a permanent employee.
All he could hope for was a certain level of professionalism and competence from Harmony Kinkaid. If she could produce that, all would be well.
DAY THREE OF her island experience and Harmony looked at the clock again, giving a huff. Thank goodness this was a temporary position, because otherwise this place would drive her to drink. She’d been waiting for Dr. MacRurie’s next patient to arrive for almost ten minutes and there was no sign of him. No call either.
She’d spent Sunday exploring the surgery, making lists of things she needed to get done. The lower floor held the waiting room, an X-ray room, the records room, two examination rooms and Dr. MacRurie’s office, along with a reception/office area for Harmony and, in the back, a kitchenette.
Climbing the steps to the second floor, she’d found a larger office, now clearly used for old records and abandoned furniture, and five bedrooms, which seemed set up to house patients. This had been confirmed when she’d located a relatively modern elevator at the back of the building—big enough to accommodate a stretcher. Having not noticed any corresponding doors downstairs, she’d ridden it down and realized it came out into what she’d assumed to be a maintenance closet behind the kitchenette.
When she’d asked the doctor about the second floor the next morning he’d explained that occasionally they’d have a patient who needed overnight observation. Or, if the weather was forecast to be terrible and he was worried about outlying elderly folks, he’d bring them in and house them there.
While Caitlin had written her up a list of duties, with notations on where to find things, in just that first go-through Harmony had been able to see areas in need of improvement. Caitlin was a fine nurse, as Harmony knew, but her administrative skills left something to be desired. At least in Harmony’s opinion.
She’d spent the first part of Monday morning trying to put the records into some semblance of order. The files weren’t stored to her preferred specifications, and she had broken a sweat moving armfuls of records back and forth. Then, and only then, had she started on a pile of notes that hadn’t been dealt with—probably from the time between when her friend had left and the present.
Luckily she was an expert in interpreting “doctor write,” because Cameron MacRurie’s penmanship was something to behold. She’d often thought that doctors wrote so poorly because their brains were going faster than their hands could follow. If that were the case, her new employer must be a genius!
They’d opened early, because of the Armistice Day ceremony, and she was down in her office before seven. But her frustration levels had risen as their eight o’clock patient had been a no-show, and the eight thirty had sauntered in almost fifteen minutes late. To add insult to injury, the woman had insisted there was no need for Harmony to do any kind of pre-examination tests.
Not that Harmony hadn’t tried to get her job done.
“Dr. MacRurie will expect me to have weighed you, taken your blood pressure and temperature, plus asked you about the reason you’re here so I can make notes.”
“Och, no,” Mrs. Campbell had rebutted, in the strongest Scottish accent Harmony had heard since arriving on Eilean Rurie. And from her steely glare Harmony had been able to tell she meant business too. “The Laird’ll do all that himself. I’ll show myself in.”
And before Harmony had been able to react the elderly lady had marched right past her and into Dr. MacRurie’s office without even a knock on the door.
Rushing after her, file in hand, Harmony had expected a reprimand from the doctor, but all he’d said was “Ah, here’s your file, Amelia. Thank you, Harmony.”
Taking it as a dismissal, and thankful not to have got a flea in her ear from him, she’d scuttled back to her desk. Yet, it had still burned when Mrs. Campbell had marched past her at five past nine without even a fare-thee-well.
She wasn’t used to patients totally dismissing her that way, and now, with their nine o’clock also a no-show, she was decidedly out of sorts.
She decided it would be best to ask how she was supposed to handle this type of situation, so she walked down to the doctor’s office and knocked.
“Come in,” he called, and Harmony pushed open the door, just in time to see him pulling up his shirt. “Is Mr. Gibson here?”
“Um…no,” she replied, surprised to realize he was injecting himself with an insulin pen. Taken off guard, she forgot why she was there and asked, “You’re a diabetic?”
“Yes. Have been since I was four.”
He said it casually, but Harmony was still taken aback. Caitlin hadn’t mentioned this, and all around the room there were pictures of him doing all kinds of dangerous stuff: mountain-climbing, caving, hang gliding, hiking through remote-looking terrain… Not that having diabetes should preclude him from doing any of those things, just as her father’s heart condition hadn’t stopped him from indulging his own daredevil spirit.
But look how that had ended.
Already in a bit of a snit because of the patients, now she found her mental comparison of Cam to her father was making her cross her arms, trying to hold in the spate of words hovering on her tongue.
Instead of letting them loose, she took a deep breath, then asked, “Did you plan to tell me?”
Cam glanced up, his eyebrows lifted. “Why would I tell you something so mundane when you’d no doubt find out about it sooner or later?”
Although his tone was even, there was an unusually cool expression in his eyes.
“Well, I’m your nurse. The only other medical practitioner on the island that I know of. What would happen if you went hypo or hyperglycemic and I wasn’t aware of your condition?”
“I’m very well versed in the monitoring and treatment of my diabetes, and I haven’t had an incident in ages. Don’t fuss, Nurse Kinkaid.”
She wanted to ask what he meant when he said, “ages,” but there was no mistaking the steel in his voice. Not to mention his reversion from calling her Harmony to Nurse Kinkaid, so she kept her mouth shut, for a change.
“Was there something you wanted?”
He was putting away his diabetes kit, and although the chill might have gone from his voice, Harmony still felt the flick of his disapproval keenly.
She adopted a formal tone in return. “What is your official policy on missed appointments?”
“Reschedule the patient.”
Really annoyed now, Harmony said, “No, I mean how do I charge them for not showing up nor even calling to say they wouldn’t be coming? Do I do it through the mail?”
Cam’s eyebrows rose again, and he stared at her for a moment, before chuckling. “Ha! Only do that if you want to have a stream of highly upset people coming in to see you. Don’t worry about it.”
“But it’s a waste of my time, and yours. Don’t you charge them at all?”
Cam got up and stretched. “Most of the time everyone keeps their appointments, but this time of year things get a little crazy.”
Distracted by the sight of his muscles rippling beneath his shirt, Harmony tried to look away, but she had a hard time forcing herself to meet his gaze.
“Since Mr. Gibson hasn’t shown