Chapter nine
LUCAS
Popping into the surgery was a huge mistake.
It hadn’t felt like one when I’d walked down from the mountains in the early afternoon. Part of my role as the island’s vet was caring for wild creatures, as well as the farm animals and domesticated pets. Today’s task had been finding the homes of Doughnut’s less friendly inhabitants.
I’d noted that the seal population on the westerly beaches was thriving.
The signs warning tourists to keep their distance were well maintained, so I suspected someone other than my predecessor had been keeping an eye on the blubbery grey lumps sprawled across one of the island’s hard to reach beaches.
I updated records on the nesting places of skylarks and hunted down evidence of hares and rabbits. Fox, hedgehog, and badger prints confirmed that the nocturnal animals of the island were alive and well.
The furthest I trekked was over to the northern cliff-faces that hosted a couple of white-tailed eagles. I’d laid on the grass with a pair of binoculars wedged over my eyes as they swooped back and forth from their nest. They were huge, their black wings clear against the light blue sky.
White-tailed eagles had been hunted to extinction across the United Kingdom but reintroducing them into the wild had gone well in Scotland. Since their territories spanned miles, Doughnut could only host one pair.
It was amazing to witness them caring for their young, whose heads occasionally peeked out of the nest built into the side of the cliff.
In London, I hadn’t had much to do with birds.
Most of my time was spent with pampered dogs and cats.
No one in the bustling city cared about the pigeons who hobbled about on misshapen claws.
Despite laying on my belly and watching the eagles for longer than was strictly necessary to ascertain they were healthy, I’d walked back to the village much earlier than I’d expected to.
It had seemed like a good idea to nip into the surgery since I had a couple of hours to spare before dinner at Bonnie and Joshua’s, and not just because staying away from home meant no accidental bumping into Kit.
I had back-to-back appointments over the next few days.
It made sense to get acquainted with the surgery beforehand and make sure the previous vet had left it in an acceptable state.
I’d been pleasantly surprised. The island’s farm, pygmy goats, and wildlife records might have been neglected, but the surgery was clean and well-ordered.
All the medication was in date and the packs of tools were sterilised.
The records were easy to decipher and the diary on the computer was up to date.
I was refilling a jar of dog treats on the counter when there was a knock. My heart sank as I turned to find an anxious face peering through the glass at the top of the door.
The vet’s surgery was at the back of a cottage a few doors down from Kit’s bookshop. The front of the ground floor was taken up with the island’s combined optician and dentist. A narrow alley down the side lead to the surgery.
I didn’t think I’d been spotted as I slipped between the cottages and hurriedly dipped inside. I was wrong.
Dread rising, I turned the lock. Before I could explain I was doing a tidy of the surgery today but would meet with furry patients tomorrow, the woman bustled inside.
‘I’m so glad to have caught you.’ In her arms, a white cat squirmed. ‘I’m worried about Precious.’
I had a choice in that moment. I could have turned Precious’s owner away, been firm and stuck to the surgery’s allocated opening hours.
That didn’t feel like an option when faced with a concerned pet owner.
‘Bring Precious through.’ I led the way to the examination room.
I might not have been seen sneaking into the surgery, but there was no way the steady stream of pet lovers waltzing down the alley wouldn’t be. Each time I escorted a reassured owner and their beloved furry friend out of the examination room, the crowd in the waiting area had grown.
I didn’t bother checking the clock after the time I should have arrived at Bonnie and Joshua’s cottage for dinner had passed. I led the seventh dog I’d checked over only to conclude they were fine out to the waiting room.
The crowd had swelled. I wondered if bursting into frustrated tears would make them go away.
‘Who’s next?’ I asked, then followed a woman cradling a pair of guinea pigs into the examination room.
I would never stop loving people who cared about their pets. There was nothing worse than someone who neglected an animal who depended on them for basic care. The people currently ruining my evening were the best kind of people.
I still wished they would go away, especially after reassuring the guinea pig owner that it was perfectly normal for her small friends to jump and whistle when excited.
I opened the door. ‘It’s called popcorning.’
‘Thank you so much,’ she said, as she walked out into the waiting room.
I took a deep breath, and followed her.
‘Oh.’
Only a single chair was occupied. Kit had one leg crossed over the other, his arms folded. He was wearing a bright yellow jumper and pink scarf that would have looked ridiculous on me but seemed cheery on him.
‘You got rid of them?’ I checked, unsure if I was having a lack-of-dinner induced hallucination.
Kit stood. ‘Yes. To be clear, I checked first that none of their pets were in genuine peril, but I thought they could wait until their appointments to make sure it’s normal for their dog to itch or their cat to throw up in their shoes.
As a cat owner, I know that at least one of those is frighteningly ordinary. ’
‘You’re amazing,’ I breathed, far too grateful to feel the usual level of embarrassment that I’d over-complimented Kit yet again. ‘Thank you.’
‘Come on.’ Kit reached for the door, but not before I noted the faint blush rising to his cheeks. ‘We should go before I have to turn anyone else away.’
The shame hit. Kit had rescued me, and the first thing I’d done was make him uncomfortable. Holding my tongue, I followed him out of the surgery and quickly locked the door. We fell into step on the road along the front of the cottages. Bonnie and Joshua’s seemed a long way off.
‘Sorry for being odd again,’ I muttered.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at Kit so wasn’t sure what his face was doing when he asked, ‘Pardon?’
‘I’m honestly not doing it on purpose,’ I said to the ground. ‘It’s just each time I’m around you, I say the stupidest stuff.’
Kit’s hand landed on my arm, forcing me to stop walking. The sea stretched behind him, the sun peeking out from behind clouds over to one side. It transformed the sky into a deep curtain of pinks and oranges.
‘You match the sky,’ I said, then whacked my face into my hands. ‘Shit. Why does this keep happening?’
Commenting on how Kit’s clothing reflected the setting wasn’t quite as weird as the other stuff I’d said to him, but it wasn’t exactly normal. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t get through a conversation with him without making unwelcome observations.
‘Have I always been like this?’ I said into my palms. I’d already done enough that Kit must think I was a freak, so it didn’t matter if I had a crisis in front of him. ‘Has Aster been a buffer between me and the world and without him around my weirdness is spewing out?’
‘Lucas?’
I groaned into my hands instead of blurting out that I liked how Kit said my name. It was different to how Aster yelled it or Mum grumbled it.
Gentle fingers wound around my wrists. Kit didn’t look strong, but he firmly pulled my hands from my face.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, before he could attempt to salvage a conversation I was intent on messing up.
Kit pressed his lips together. ‘You need to stop saying that. And saying you’re weird. And avoiding me.’ He shook his head. ‘I want to get to know you, Lucas. Nothing you’ve said has changed that. In fact, everything you’ve said has probably been the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.’
My eyes widened. The shock slackening my jaw made it easy for more nonsense to slip out. ‘No one has told you that you look lovely before?’
More than a rosy glow flooded Kit’s face as he snatched his hands back from my wrists. ‘People tend more towards telling me I’m hot or fit.’
That’s what Aster had said. I didn’t see that, but I did see Kit’s warmth and his determination to befriend me despite the roadblocks I’d thrown in the way.
I’d wanted to be Kit’s friend even before I came to the island because of the stories Aster had told me about how he had looked after him during his fight with Callum.
That desire hadn’t changed since we’d met.
I thought my inability to control my vocal cords would make Kit want nothing to do with me, but apparently that wasn’t the case.
I turned towards Bonnie and Joshua’s cottage at the end of the row. ‘You are amazing for freeing me from my vet duties tonight,’ I said, deciding to trust that Kit didn’t mind what came out of my mouth around him.
‘It was just a case of calmly refusing to take no for an answer. My mum was a lawyer. She taught me how to stand my ground when I need to.’
I did have some control of my tongue, since I didn’t immediately ask if his mum had stopped being a lawyer or if the past tense meant she was dead.
Maybe the only thing I couldn’t hold in was compliments about how soft and gentle Kit was.
If that was the case, then we would have a vaguely normal friendship interspersed with my strange but not unwelcome observations.