Page 38 of Highland Stars
“Things are fine. She’s hanging around and I’m showing her around when I can. I imagine she’ll sort of use my house as a homebase once she’s up for more active exploring.”
“Uh-huh. But how are thingsgooooing?” Rory raises his eyebrows at me.
I grab him by the elbow and lead him away from the nurses’ station. “Keep your voice down, you know how people talk around here and there is nothing to talk about. She’s juststaying at my house.”
“Who’s staying at your house?” Nurse Elsie steps around me.
“He has a beautiful American woman living with him.”
“Oh good grief. She’s not living with me. She’s staying with me briefly, and then she’s going home.”
Elsie directs her question at Rory. “Is something going on with them?”
“She’s beautiful. He’s beautiful. All signs point to yes.”
“Rory.”
“Elsie,” Alice, a new nurse to the E.D., calls from an exam room. “Will you help me with this blood draw? I can’t find a vein.”
“I’ll be right there,” Elsie calls back. “I want to hear more about this later.” Elsie, the nearly sixty-year-old nursing veteran, grins at me like a teenager before leaving to help Alice.
“Now everyone is gonna think I’m shacking up with Makenna, ya eejit.”
“I’m just having a wee bit of fun. And you should too.”
“This coming from the guy who was in favor of me letting her fend for herself during her recovery?”
“Well, you didny, so here we are.”
“But you know I don’t want to move, and I can’t expect that from her either. Cait didny even want tostay, and she wasbornhere.”
“Does Makenna seem much like Cait?”
“No, she seems quite different.”
“Does she like it here?”
“Aye, she loves cool weather and enjoys hiking and nature. And history; she seems to love history.”
“Cait always wanted to be a city girl. It was obviously more important to her than you were.”
“Alright, yes. But we don’t need to dive into this right now.”
“Do you like Makenna?”
I sigh. “Aye, I do.”
“And you think she’s bonnie?”
“Aye, she’s a braw lass.”
“What if she’s perfect for you, man? I don’t want to lose you to the States, but wouldn’t it be worth it to be with her? And she might want to move here. You never know.”
“That’s what my da said.” Maybe it would be worth a try. There’s certainly something that draws me to her, something I never felt with Cait—and I was engaged to her.
“There’s an incoming trauma,” the desk clerk calls. “A thirty-year-old male took a fall on a steep hike.”
It’s an hour later than I’d expected to get home. We worked on the hiker for almost two hours, but he didny make it. Shiftslike this always lead to a difficult night. Though I know there’s nothing we could have done, I go over everything in my mind on the way home, and I don’t think to let Makenna know I’m on the way.
