A Familiar Stranger

‘I didn’t disappear! Every time I’ve been back while you were here you’ve had to go away, or been busy, or some feeble excuse. I haven’t been avoiding you, Janna, you’ve been avoiding me! It’s hardly my fault if I finally took the hint and left you alone.’

Was that true? Had she driven him away herself? Was it possible she’d really read him all wrong? Perhaps the change in him that Christmas hadn’t been so significant; perhaps he had been just the same old Finn that he always was, even though he’d been her lover.

No. He had been different before her birthday, before he went away. Perhaps he’d just regretted it. Her father had talked him out of his impulsive urge to marry her on the spot—perhaps his arguments had been too convincing?

Janna sighed. ‘Maybe we just took each other for granted, Finn.’

‘So what now, Janna?’ He reached out for her, then dropped his hands and rammed them into his pockets. ‘Look, we can’t talk about this here. Let me take you home when this do is over, so I can talk to you, just for a while. There’s a lot we need to say.’

‘I hardly think that will look very good—you coming home with me your first day back.’

He laughed. ‘With your parents standing guard like chaperones? Not even in this part of the Highlands are they that fanatical about propriety.’

‘What have my parents got to do with it? I don’t live at home any more. I haven’t for the past year.’

He looked astonished. ‘Where do you live, then?’

She waved over her shoulder. ‘There—the Nurse’s House, of course.’

He shook his head as if to clear it. ‘I’m sorry, I just assumed——’

‘Well, you shouldn’t, Finn. You shouldn’t assume anything about me any more—nothing at all. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and see off our guest of honour.’

Drawing in a steadying breath, Janna tipped up her chin, straightened her shoulders and somehow found the strength to walk away.

That Friday night signalled the end of Janna’s hopes that working with Finn would mean a return to the easy, casual relationship of their childhood.

Once she had resented that treatment from him—now, perversely, she longed for it. Finn, however, obviously had something more in mind, and Janna didn’t know how to deal with it. So she took her usual action in the face of Finn’s inconstancy—she avoided him.

On Monday morning Finn took the usual branch surgery, held at the Nurse’s House in Kilbarchan, and although he said nothing Janna could see from his eyes that he wanted to talk to her and wouldn’t rest until he had.

Fine. She wasn’t at all convinced that she was strong enough to deal with him once he really turned on the charm, and dragging up all her old fears and disappointments would upset her. The last thing her pride needed was Finn reducing her to tears of disappointment and confusion. What a weapon!

No way was she handing him that on a plate. She was polite, courteous, but distant—and out of a room whenever he entered it.

It worked—to a point. By eleven-thirty, however, he’d had enough, and came and tracked her down in her room where she had just finished with the last patient.

‘All done?’ she asked brightly.

‘No, I’ve got to put some stitches in a nasty leg wound—one of our visitors slipped on a hill path this morning on the dewy grass and cut his leg on a bit of old rusty iron sticking out of the ground. I wondered if you could give me a hand?’

She nodded. ‘Of course.’ At least with the patient between them things couldn’t get too personal, she reasoned.

She had reckoned without her response to his presence. It was enough that Finn was in the room. He didn’t have to look at her or talk to her or touch her—all of which he did, of course, while he was working. Nothing personal, all strictly professional, but it was enough to drive her to distraction.

Finally they were finished, and Mr Gibbs was asked to come back on Wednesday to have the stitches checked and the dressing changed.

Janna quickly cleared up, then headed back to her room, leaving Finn organising a prescription to be delivered that afternoon from the dispensary at the main surgery in Craigmore.

She was about to escape when he reappeared in her doorway, lounging comfortably against it and cutting off her retreat.

‘What now?’ she asked, a little shortly.

His eyebrows rose. ‘Sorry, am I holding you up on your visits? I just wanted a word about Betty Buchan. She seems to be getting more and more confused.’

‘She is,’ Janna agreed. ‘Her neighbours worry about her, but they keep tabs on her and let me know if they think anything’s wrong. She reports to them daily on the phone.’

‘If she could remember what time of day it was,’ Finn said drily. ‘I gather she woke the shop in the middle of the night again to order her groceries.’

Janna had heard about that. It was getting more difficult to see the funny side of Mrs Buchan’s confusion now, and Janna was increasingly worried about the elderly lady’s safety.

‘I’ll go and see her again,’ she told Finn quietly. ‘I think it’s maybe time she went into some sort of care. I’ll see if I can persuade her.’

‘Won’t her family mind if you interfere?’

‘What family?’ Janna scoffed. ‘They don’t give a damn. Someone has to take responsibility, and her family won’t.’

‘Or can’t?’

‘Won’t,’ Janna said firmly. ‘Is there anything else?’

‘Yes—Janna, have I got something contagious?’

Her smile faded. ‘Contagious?’ she said in mock innocence. ‘You tell me.’

‘Janna, stop it. We need to talk.’

‘No, Finn,’ she corrected, ‘you need to talk. What I need is to get on with my rounds. Please lock the door on your way out.’

And with that she walked away from him for the third time. She wondered how many more times she would get away with it.

Not many, she suspected—not unless he had changed even more than she imagined.

CHAPTER TWO

THE day was one of quiet, routine visits for Janna, interspersed with the usual forgetful tourists. Appalled to discover that the nearest chemist was over an hour away by car, they rang the nurse.

‘I’ve left my drugs behind, dear, and I can’t possibly ask my friends to take me all that way,’ one lady told her, and then it transpired that she couldn’t remember what they were all called. Those funny little pink and white ones—you know. And some yellow ones with something written on them.’

Janna had to call the patient’s GP in Manchester and sort out a repeat prescription, then phone the surgery at Craigmore to get them to make up the drugs and send them out with the next delivery.

Another family of visitors had a child with tummyache. Janna called to find that the father and two younger children had gone out for a walk on the beach, and the mother and Julie, the little girl with the pain, were quietly reading a book.

Not, Janna thought, what most little girls would want to do on a beautiful sunny day. She looked pale and pasty, and Janna’s first instinct was appendicitis. However, the pain didn’t seem bad enough, so Janna asked a few questions about the origin of it. Apparently it had been there off and on since just before they left, and the mother reported a history of ‘nervous’ tummyache in the child.

‘She hates change, and I wondered if she was worried about coming up here. She’s had to leave her rabbit with a friend and it’s been fretting her, and sometimes she gets tummyache just from worrying,’ the mother explained.

Janna examined her, asked about problems with passing urine, or if she had constipation or diarrhoea, took her temperature and pulse and found them more or less normal.

‘Are you worried about anything, Julie?’ Janna asked her.

The little girl nodded slowly. ‘My rabbit,’ she said.

Janna turned to the mother. ‘Could you ring the people looking after her, so Julie can reassure herself? Perhaps that really is all that’s wrong.’

‘Oh, dear, I feel so silly,’ Mrs Harvey said apologetically. ‘I didn’t mean to waste your time, but she did look so pale.’

‘She is pale, and I don’t mind you calling me out. You did entirely the right thing, Mrs Harvey,’ Janna soothed the young mother. ‘We never mind coming out to a child with tummyache or earache. However, this time I really think it’s probably nothing much to worry about. Just keep an eye on her, and if you’re still worried give me a ring later on and I’ll get the doctor to pop in and have a look at her before tonight, OK?’

With a smile and a wave to the wan little girl on the sofa, Janna left them and went to old Mrs Buchan.

She came to the door in her nightdress and dressing-gown, looking faintly surprised. ‘It’s you, hen—I wondered who was calling in the middle of the night. Come away in—it’s awful late, but I dare say we could ha’ a wee dish o’ tea.’

‘Mrs Buchan, it’s lunchtime,’ Janna told her gently. ‘See, the sun’s high in the sky.’

She squinted over Janna’s shoulder, her brow creased in confusion, and then her eyes filled and she turned away. ‘So it is. Come away in anyway, hen, it’s nice tae see you just the same.’

Janna followed her in, shaking her head slightly. Poor old thing, if only she hadn’t started to lose her mental faculties she would be fine on her own, because her body was still fit, honed by the harsh life and fresh air. The little croft was simple but spotless, and as Janna followed her into the kitchen she wasn’t surprised to see freshly baked bread out on the side.

‘Had to bake ma own bread—the shop didnae have any.’

At four o’clock on a Monday morning, Janna reasoned, they probably wouldn’t have had.

‘Mind,’ she added, ‘Moira was cross wi’ me because I woke her up from a wee nap—fancy that, Janna, having a nap in the shop in the middle of the afternoon!’

‘I thought it was night-time, though?’

Her brow creased. ‘So Moira said.’

‘You’re getting in more and more of a muddle, aren’t you, Betty?’ Janna said kindly.

Old Mrs Buchan sighed shakily. ‘I never seem to be able to work out the time—I’ve one of those clocks wi’ twenty-four hours, but I cannae work out the time on it. And in the summer the nights are so short, and I seem to doze in the day. Everything just gets in a grand old muddle, and then I make a nuisance of mysel’ and folks get angry——’ She broke off, biting her lip, and Janna put her arm round the slender shoulders and gave her a hug.

‘Don’t fret, Betty. You’re not a nuisance, pet. I think I’ll have a word with Dr McGregor and see if you should have something to help you sleep at night—that way perhaps you’d get back into a pattern of sleeping at night and being awake in the day, and it would help you to work out what the time was.’

She chatted for a few more minutes with the lonely old lady over a cup of tea, then headed back to her house to grab a late bite of lunch and check her phone for messages.

There was a note from Finn in his jagged, powerful scrawl.

Dinner tonight at the hotel at seven. I’ll pick you up at ten to. Be here, please. Finn.

The ‘please’ was underlined about a dozen times, and Janna’s heart sank. Evidently he meant to talk to her.

She checked her answerphone, found a call she needed to make to an elderly patient at Inverbeg, and set off again.

‘Mac’ McDougall was an old man, housebound, and supported by a team of carers and auxiliaries, and Janna had already visited him that morning. He was restless, however, and had apparently pulled his catheter out.

‘What’ve you been up to, my darling?’ she asked cheerfully as she prepared the necessary equipment.

‘Are you cross wi’ me, Sister?’ he croaked.

‘No, Mac, you’ve just been a bit silly. You must leave it in, otherwise you wet the bed. Let me see you, now.’

She peeled back the bedclothes and found his pyjamas were soaked and so was the bed. First things first, she thought, and stripped him out of his wet things, washed him down and started on the catheter. Once he was leakproof, she decided, she’d tackle the bed.

Inserting a new catheter was a job Janna did often, and she wouldn’t have minded at all except that Mac was rather difficult to deal with and refused to keep still, bending up his legs and rolling over so that Janna had to start again twice before she managed to insert it and fill the balloon with saline to keep it in place—not that the balloon had stopped him pulling the last one out.

She could see that his urethra was a little sore as a result, and so she had used plenty of anaesthetic jelly on the new catheter; by her third attempt it must have been numb enough not to worry him any more. However, she was feeling harassed, the procedure had taken far longer than it should have done, and she was worried about little Julie Harvey.

‘There—now, please, Mac, leave it alone, my dear.’ She taped the end of the catheter firmly to his thigh, so he couldn’t get hold of it too easily, and then helped him into dry pyjamas, remade the bed in double-quick time and popped him back in.

Already it was nearly four, and as she had to pass the house she called in on the Harveys.

‘Oh, she’s much better now she’s found out that the rabbit’s OK,’ Mrs Harvey said blithely. ‘She’s gone down to the beach with the other two.’

For some reason Janna didn’t feel reassured. ‘Call me if you’re unhappy or the pain comes back,’ she repeated, and went back to the Nurse’s House.

One last maternity check, she thought, and then she was off duty and could get ready for dinner with Finn. The young woman she had to visit was eight months pregnant with her third child, and Janna was trying to persuade her to go to Inverness or Fort William the following week, to be on the safe side. Her first two labours had been protracted, and without the prompt attention of the maternity staff at Inverness could have had a much less happy outcome.

However, against all advice, Lindsay Baird had decided to have this baby at home. Dr MacWhirter’s opinion on the subject had been pithy in the extreme, and his parting shot to Janna on Friday had been, ‘Well, at least I don’t have to be responsible for the Baird delivery now!’

Janna, however, was, in her capacity as community nurse and midwife. If Lindsay refused to go to hospital and had the baby at home, technically Janna was absolved if anything went wrong. Morally, however, she knew she had to do everything in her power to get the woman to listen, even if it mean worrying her to death with what might go wrong in order to make her take advice.

She arrived at the house and found Lindsay lying in the garden on a sun-lounger, enjoying the warm summer sunshine while the children played in the sand-pit beside her. She greeted Janna with a wave. ‘Hi—grab a seat.’

‘I will—fancy a drink?’

‘Oh, love one. The kettle’s hot.’

Janna made a pot of tea and took it out to the garden. Lindsay was one of her contemporaries, and Janna knew her well. It helped, because it meant that she could take a more frank approach.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve come to your senses?’ she asked bluntly as she poured the tea.

Linday shook her head. ‘Janna, I really want a normal, natural birth. I’m sure the others were so traumatic because I wasn’t at home. If I was here, and relaxed, it could all be so different.’

‘Lindsay, that’s hogwash. Of course being relaxed helps, but it won’t increase the diameter of your pelvic outlet. You’re small, your husband’s big, and you suffer a degree of pelvic disproportion every time. When was your last scan?’

Lindsay sighed. ‘Three weeks ago, and they said it was almost as big as it could get.’

‘Well, then.’

‘Well, then, nothing. Janna, I want to have my baby at home!’

‘Even it if means risking its life?’

‘Janna, don’t be melodramatic! I’ll be fine, I know I will. I’m confident.’

‘Did anybody ever tell you you were stubborn?’ Janna asked mildly, giving up for now.

‘Me?’ Lindsay snorted. ‘Never. Tell me, how’s Finn? We missed MacWhirter’s party on Friday, so I didn’t see him. Is he still as gorgeous as ever?’

‘Are you changing the subject, Lindsay?’ Janna asked, trying to ignore the soft colour flooding her cheeks.

‘Yes,’ her friend replied, eyeing her blush with interest. ‘Are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Nice weather for July.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘Janna?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Are you still in love with Finn?’

Janna stirred her tea absently. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘Because I know you. You look strained.’

‘Finn said that.’

‘He’s right.’

‘So am I—Lindsay, you can’t have that baby at home.’

‘I can.’

Janna sighed. Why was everybody so determined to be difficult today? She left Lindsay, still adamant about a home birth, and went home to examine the sparse contents of her wardrobe. Heavens, there were still things in there Finn would recognise! Still, it was only the local pub they were going to, and she was damned if she was going to try and impress Finn! She dug out a silk shirt, jeans, and a newish sweater in case it got chilly later, showered in double-quick time and arrived in the hall just as the bell rang.

Carefully arranging her face into a non-committal smile, she opened the door expecting Finn, and found instead Sue, the landlord’s daughter. ‘It’s Julie Harvey,’ she said frantically. ‘They were in the pub having supper and she keeled over. She looks dreadful! You must come!’

Janna picked up her bag, scribbled a note for Finn and stuck it on the door, and ran down the road after Sue. By the time she arrived at the pub Julie had been put into a little back room, and had been violently sick several times.

‘Oh, Nurse, thank God you’re here,’ Mrs Harvey said fervently. ‘I can’t understand it—she was so much better.’ And she started to shake all over.

Moving her gently out of the way, Janna looked at the little girl’s flushed face and glazed eyes, and took her temperature.

‘It’s up now, quite a bit,’ Janna told the girl’s mother. ‘I think she’s got appendicitis, but Dr McGregor will be here in a minute and he’ll confirm it. It’s all right, sweetheart,’ she said gently to the little girl as she was sick yet again. ‘You’ll soon be OK. We’ll look after you.’

Just then she heard Finn’s deep, soft voice, and he came into the room, glanced at the child and then at Janna, and raised his eyebrows.

‘Appendix, I think,’ Janna told him.

He nodded, examined her quickly and turned to the parents. ‘Yes, it looks like a classic appendicitis, so she’ll need to go to hospital straight away, and I imagine they’ll operate as soon as she arrives. I’ll go and make the arrangements.’ He went out to the bar, and a few minutes later came back with a little towel—wrung out in warm water. ‘They’re on their way,’ he told everyone generally, then crouched down by the little girl on the bed, wiping her face and hands gently with the damp towel. ‘Can you hear me, sweetheart?’

The little girl opened her eyes and nodded, a shiver running through her.

‘Julie, inside your tummy there’s a little thing like a curly tail, called an appendix. Have you ever heard of it?’

She nodded, her eyes wide. ‘A boy in my class had one of his out.’

Finn suppressed the smile. ‘Well, sweetheart, I think you might have to have yours out, too, because I think it’s gone bad, and it’s making you feel poorly, isn’t it?’

She nodded again, her eyes filling with self-pity. ‘I feel ever so sick,’ she whispered.

‘I expect you do, poppet. Now, tell me, how do you fancy going in a helicopter?’

Her eyes rounded. ‘A helicopter? I’ve never done that before.’

‘Not many people have—and I bet when the boy in your class went to hopsital to have his appendix out he just went in an ordinary ambulance, didn’t he?’ Julie nodded. ‘Well, you’re going to have something to tell him when you get home, aren’t you?’

She smiled faintly, and Finn squeezed her hand and straightened up, turning to her mother and father.

‘You will have gathered the air ambulance is on its way from Inverness—it’ll be here in about half an hour, and it will be able to take Julie and one other person.’

‘Inverness!’ Mrs Harvey exclaimed. ‘Isn’t there a hospital closer?’

‘No. Well, there is, but it takes longer to get there by road, and I think time is of the essence. Your little girl’s pretty sick, Mrs Harvey. You don’t want to waste time.’

As the significance of Finn’s comment sank in, Mrs Harvey collapsed on to a chair, her face ashen. ‘Is she really that ill?’ she asked. ‘I thought she was just worrying about the rabbit!’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Is it critical that she’s hospitalised so fast?’ Mr Harvey asked Finn. ‘It will make visiting them so difficult. Can’t they deal with something so common here?’

Finn shrugged. ‘They can, of course. I could take out her appendix myself with anaesthetic cover. However, I don’t have it, and although it’s a common complaint it can be quite serious if it’s neglected or if treatment is delayed. She’ll be fine once she’s had her appendix out,’ Finn assured them. ‘I just don’t think you want to jostle her about on the road unnecessarily in case it perforates. Now, will one of you be going with her? You might just have time to get a few things together before they get here.’

Mrs Harvey looked at her husband. ‘I’ll go—can you find us a change of clothes and wash things?’

With a nod he left, and a few minutes later they heard the steady beat of the helicopter rotors. Within minutes Julie was strapped to a stretcher, Finn had handed over to the team doctor and they were loading Julie and her mother into the helicopter in the field behind the pub. Mr Harvey returned in the nick of time and handed a bag to his anxious wife. ‘I’ve probably put in all the wrong things,’ he told her.

‘It doesn’t matter. Take care of the other two—come up and see us tomorrow.’

‘I will. Ring me.’

He hugged her briefly, then Finn led them all back out of the way and the helicopter roared into life, the steady wop-wop-wop of the rotors fading gradually into the distance.

Mr Harvey, one arm round each of the two younger children, turned to Finn. ‘Will she really be all right?’

‘I’m sure she will,’ Finn said confidently. ‘Don’t worry—the helicopter seems very dramatic, but it’s just a case of distance and terrain. People round here soon take it for granted.’

He nodded. ‘OK. Thanks. Will it be all right to ring the hospital later on?’

‘Of course—try them about ten o’clock. OK?’

‘I’ll do that. Thanks again. Come on, kids, let’s get you home to bed.’ As Mr Harvey led the other two children towards his car, Finn turned to Janna.

‘Well, hi there,’ he said with a smile.

She laughed softly. ‘Hi.’

‘Hungry?’

‘Starving.’

‘When aren’t you?’ Finn said with a laugh. ‘You were hungry the first time I met you, and as far as I know you’ve been hungry ever since. Come on, let’s eat.’

‘Can I clean up first? Julie was in a bit of a mess. I could do with a change of clothes.’

Finn sniffed, and grinned. ‘Good idea. I could do with a wash, too. I’ll walk you back to your house.’

‘Such a gentleman.’

‘Don’t knock it.’

On the way, people seemed to come out of the woodwork and find them.

‘McGregor! Good tae see ye!’

‘Finlay—my, laddie, you’re even bigger!’

‘Caught any salmon yet this season, Finn?’ This last with a dig in the ribs from Auld Jock, a friend of Finn’s late father.

‘I’ll see you in a minute,’ Janna mouthed over Jock’s head, and left him to it.

She heard him come in through the front door while she was changing into an older pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that had definitely seen better days. Oh, well, So much for trying to please Finn. It was the last thing she should be doing, anyway. Perhaps it was a blessing Julie Harvey had been sick on her clothes!

He appeared from the cloakroom just as she stepped down into the hall. His eyes swept over her, softened in a smile and his hand came up and cupped her face. It was cool from the water and sent shivers over her skin. ‘OK now?’ he murmured.