‘Just don’t call her Logan,’ Kyla advised cheerfully, folding a towel neatly. ‘One of those is more than enough on an island this size. I’ll go and tell the helicopter lads what’s happening. Which one of you is going with her?’
‘Me,’ Evanna said immediately. ‘Logan has to get back to surgery and then there’s Kirsty to think of. Can you cover my clinic, Kyla? Ask some of them to come back tomorrow.’
‘I don’t think they’ll mind doing that, given the reason.’ Kyla took a last peep at the baby and sighed. ‘Maybe I’m broody after all.’
Evanna laughed and ignored the painful twist of her heart. ‘I’d better warn Ethan.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
LOGAN’S house was in darkness.
Could he already be in bed? She was later than she’d planned, but by the time she’d sorted Sonia out and completed all the paperwork, several hours had passed. Reluctant to knock on the front door in case she woke Kirsty, Evanna walked round the back of the house and opened the garden gate.
She’d just take a look. If there were no lights on then she’d give up and go home. But she wasn’t comfortable about just going home.
Not until she’d checked on Logan. The whole experience must have been completely harrowing for him and she wanted to give him a chance to talk about it. But there was no sign of life in the house. Just one small light burning in the hall.
Could he be out?
Perhaps he’d found a babysitter and gone down to the pub to celebrate the birth of Rachel Evanna, along with the rest of the locals.
She walked into his garden, intending to look through the back door, but then she spotted him sprawled in the hammock at the end of the garden. The moon provided just enough light for her to see that he was holding a bottle of beer in his hand.
‘Logan?’ Perhaps he didn’t want to be disturbed. It was a stiflingly warm summer’s evening, but his garden was cooled by a breeze drifting in from the sea. It was peaceful and tranquil and the perfect setting for quiet contemplation. And she was fairly sure that she knew what he was thinking about. Or who.
Catherine.
Feeling like an intruder and wishing she’d never come, Evanna was just wondering whether to melt back through the garden gate and into her car when he spoke.
‘I thought you’d be in the pub with the others.’ His voice was low and impossibly sexy and she walked across to him on shaking legs, wondering why she continued to torture herself like this.
‘I wasn’t in the mood for celebrations.’
‘Why not?’ He lifted the bottle and drank. ‘You did a good job.’
‘So did you.’
‘Me?’ His mouth twisted into a smile and his blue eyes glittered with an emotion that she didn’t recognise. ‘You did all the work, Evanna.’
‘I’m the midwife. I’m supposed to do all the work. If you’d taken over, I would have resigned on the spot. Goodness knows, I get little enough opportunity to deliver babies on this island—that’s why I go to the mainland once a year. Otherwise I’d forget how to do it.’ She kept her tone light and then sighed. ‘All right, let’s stop being tactful and be honest. I was worried about you. That’s why I’m here. It must have been completely hideous to have to cope with that. I can’t even begin to imagine—and I wasn’t able to give you any support because of Sonia, and all the time I knew that you were in agony and I just wanted to give you a hug. So I’m here to check you’re all right.’ The words tumbled out of her and she felt horribly self-conscious.
They hadn’t had a proper talk since he’d caught her coming out of the shower and their whole relationship seemed to have changed since then. What if he didn’t want to talk to her any more?
What if things were different?
He stirred and the hammock swung gently. ‘I’m sorry if I gave you a fright back there. You needed support and I wasn’t any help at all.’
‘That’s not true,’ Evanna said quickly. ‘You were great.’
He gave a twisted smile that was loaded with derision. ‘I froze. If you hadn’t given me that look, I probably would have just turned and run. Yesterday was the first time in my entire medical career that I panicked.’
‘And is that really so surprising? No one who had been through what you went through would have found that situation anything other than difficult.’
There was a long silence and then he put the empty bottle down on the grass and stretched out a hand. ‘Come and sit down.’
Evanna eyed the swaying hammock. ‘In that?’
‘Of course. There’s plenty of room for two.’