‘Of course. Hi, Logan.’ She struggled to keep her voice casual and quickly moved her hands to her lap so that he couldn’t see them shaking.
Her reaction was pathetic, she told herself. About as pathetic as hanging onto an ancient, dog-eared photograph.
Kyla scrunched up the saturated napkins and stood up to throw them in the bin, casting a long, meaningful look in Evanna’s direction.
‘Well, I’m certainly glad to see you home, Evanna.’ Logan sat back as Meg placed the toast and coffee in front of him. ‘I’ve missed you, desperately. Every moment that you were away seemed like an hour.’
Evanna’s hands clenched in her lap and she felt an involuntary dart of pleasure at his words. He’d missed her? ‘R-really? You missed me?’
‘Yes, really. How can you doubt it?’ He spread butter on his toast with those long, lean fingers that she knew were so skilled with patients. ‘It’s the summer. Glenmore Island is heaving with tourists and every surgery is packed. Not the best time for one of my precious nurses to go swanning off to the mainland for a month, even if it was part of her professional development.’ He smiled the smile that had every woman on the island reeling. ‘Of course I missed you. Did you think I wouldn’t?’
Professional development.
He’d missed her at work. Evanna gritted her teeth and looked away from that charismatic smile. It was always about work. She was his practice nurse and nothing more.
She swallowed down the disappointment, reminding herself that she’d always known that. Hadn’t she just spent an entire month dissecting their relationship in minute detail? Hadn’t she been brutally honest with herself about the way he saw her? The answer was yes to both questions, so why did hearing him confirm her analysis hurt so much? If anything, she should take it as confirmation that she was doing the right thing. And no matter how hard it turned out to be—and she knew it was going to be incredibly hard—she was going to move on.
Kyla sat down again. ‘Evanna had a good time on her refresher course.’ Her tone was cool and pointed, and Logan glanced up from buttering his toast.
‘Good.’ He bit into the toast and lifted a hand in greeting to one of the locals who was strolling along the quay. ‘It’s busy out there today. Day-trippers as well as the usual tourists. The lifeguards are going to be busy on the beach. Let’s hope it’s a quiet one. There’s a wind blowing so I wouldn’t be surprised if the lifeboat sees some business today.’
Kyla’s fingers drummed on the table. ‘She met lots of people.’ She emphasised each word carefully, as if English wasn’t his first language.
Logan dragged his eyes from the window, obviously alerted by something in his sister’s tone. ‘Who did?’
‘Evanna. On her course on the mainland, she met lots of people.’
Evanna blushed. ‘Kyla…’
But Kyla was still looking at her brother, a dangerous light in blue eyes that were exactly like his. ‘She’s been away for a month, remember?’
‘You’re moody today. Of course I remember.’ Logan buttered the second piece of toast. ‘Why wouldn’t I? We’ve all been covering her clinics because the agency nurse they sent was hopeless. As I said, it’s good to have you back, Evanna.’
Kyla gritted her teeth. ‘She went out a lot. Met a lovely registrar. Really nice guy. Good-looking. They got on brilliantly.’
‘That’s good to hear.’ Logan finished his toast, licked his fingers and rose to his feet, his eyes on the street. ‘There’s Doug McDonald. Excuse me. I’ve been trying to catch up with him all week. Since he had the heart attack he’s afraid to push himself and I think he needs to do more. Perhaps he could go to your exercise class, Evanna? People always seem to like doing that. I suppose they have confidence because the instructor is a nurse. See you in surgery this afternoon. Janet’s booked you a full clinic.’ He patted her arm and walked towards the door, pausing by a table to exchange a few words with the couple that ran a small guesthouse near one of the island’s best beaches.
‘You see?’ Evanna’s voice was soft and she blinked several times to clear her vision. ‘I’m just a piece of medical equipment. His practice nurse. He feels the same way about me as he does about the ECG machine. We’re both useful tools that help his life run smoothly. If he could, he’d plug me into the electricity supply to make me function more efficiently.’
Kyla was simmering with frustration. ‘I’m starting to think my brother is thick.’
‘He isn’t thick. He’s very clever, you know that. He just isn’t interested and that’s fine.’
‘It isn’t fine. How can you say that it’s fine?’
Because it had to be. Wh
at choice did she have? ‘You can’t make someone love you, Kyla,’ Evanna muttered, reaching down to pick up her bag. Suddenly she just wanted to go home. Back to the peace and tranquillity of her little cottage. She needed to get her thoughts back together before she started work. Needed to rediscover some of the strength and resolve she’d found during her time on the mainland.
She dropped some money on the table for her coffee just as the door opened and Fraser stood there, his hat askew and his face scarlet. ‘Dr MacNeil!’ He was breathless from running. ‘I saw— You have to come—now.’ He snatched in another tortured breath and Logan turned swiftly, concern in his eyes.
‘Fraser? What did you see?’ He strode over to the boy and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You must have run like the wind to be this out of breath. It’s all right. Calm down. Now, what’s happened?’
Fraser waved a hand towards the beach beyond the harbour. ‘Drowning.’ He sucked in a breath. ‘Kid in a rubber dinghy thing. Fell in.’
Without wasting time on questions, Logan left the café at a run with Fraser at his heels.
Evanna and Kyla followed, dodging the throngs of tourists ambling along the quay before sprinting down the steps onto the sand.