Chapter 3
FINN
The Grumpy Sheep
(Or How to Become Public Enemy Number One)
The sign for the pub, The Grumpy Sheep, creaks overhead as it swings in the wind. The name fits my current mood perfectly.
Three appointments this afternoon.
Three slammed doors.
The first was Mrs. Campbell, who finally decided to give me a chance after canceling yesterday. She opened the door, looked me up and down, and announced, “You’re far too young to be a real doctor,” before shutting it in my face.
I’m thirty-five years old.
I’m not too young.
I’m just not McKinnon.
The second was Mr. Douglas, who wanted me to renew his statin prescription without an examination first because “McKinnon always did it that way.” I insisted on checking his blood pressure beforehand. He called me a city bureaucrat and showed me the door.
As for the third…
I’d rather not think about the third.
I push open the pub door and a wave of warmth greets me, along with the mixed scents of fried food, beer, and fireplace smoke. It’s four in the afternoon on a Tuesday, and the place is already half full. Apparently, the Highlands have a very relaxed relationship with drinking hours.
Or maybe I’m the one developing a desperate relationship with the need for alcohol.
The conversations die the second I walk in. Heads turn in my direction. Eyes assess me. I recognize a few faces—potential patients who refused my services, villagers I passed on the street who deliberately looked away.
Looks like I already have a fan club.
I head for the bar and set my medical bag at my feet before sliding onto a stool. A man in his thirties with red hair and a neatly trimmed beard approaches me with a smile that actually seems genuine.
A first since arriving in Glenfield.
“Hello! You must be the new doctor. I’m Ewan Fraser.”
He offers his hand. I shake it, surprised by the warmth of his welcome.
“Finn McLeod.”
“Welcome to The Grumpy Sheep. What can I get you?”
I study the rows of bottles behind him.
“A scotch. Double.”
One eyebrow lifts, but he wisely doesn’t comment. I appreciate that. He pours the drink and sets it in front of me.
“Rough day?”
“You could say that.”
I take a sip. The whiskey burns pleasantly down my throat, temporarily driving away the cold that’s settled deep in my bones since this morning.
“My father ran this pub for thirty-five years,” Ewan says while wiping down the counter. “Retired two months ago. Said he wanted to enjoy life before he got too old, his words not mine. Now he and my mother are on a cruise in the Bahamas.”
I glance up, struck by the unintended parallel between our careers.
“Hard stepping into his shoes?”
“You have no idea,” he replies with a laugh completely free of bitterness. “Customers compare me to him constantly. ‘Your father poured pints differently.’ ‘Your father always had a funny story.’ Like I’m just a pale imitation.”
For the first time in weeks, I feel understood.
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“Figured you might. McKinnon was... how should I put this... an institution in Glenfield.”
“Apparently.”
Ewan refills my glass without asking.
“Give them time. People around here hate change, but they’ll come around eventually. Look at me—I survived three straight months of nonstop comparisons. Now I’m down to only two or three a day.”
“How encouraging,” I say dryly.
“It’s the Highlands, doctor. We take our traditions very seriously. Including our grudges and our preference for doctors who retired to sunbathe in the Canary Islands.”
He says it with a wink that almost makes me smile.
Almost.
“You eaten yet?” he asks. “The fish and chips are excellent today.”
I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast at the boarding house where I’ve been staying since moving here, and I’m starving.
“I wouldn’t say no to a decent meal,” I admit.
A grin spreads across the innkeeper’s face. Well, for once, it seems I’ve managed to earn the approval of at least one Glenfield resident.
Maybe I should’ve come to the pub sooner.
“I’ll get that started right away.”
He disappears into the kitchen, leaving me alone with my scotch and my thoughts. Around me, the conversations slowly resume, the noise level rising little by little. For the first time all day, my shoulders loosen slightly.
It feels nice.
Almost normal.
Naturally, it can’t last.
The pub door bursts open, letting in a blast of cold air along with a man I recognize instantly.
Duncan Fraser.
The farmer I tried to visit yesterday before he sent me away to go feed his animals.
He’s broad-shouldered, dressed in a thick wool vest over a plaid shirt, and he has the kind of expression I’ve already learned to recognize around here—the expression of a man with opinions he fully intends to share.
“Ewan!” he bellows as he strides toward the bar. “Pint of your best!”
Then his gaze lands on me. His eyes narrow.
“Well, well. The new doc’s here.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Fraser.”
I wonder if he’s related to the owner, though around here sharing a surname doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
“So you finally came to the pub, huh? McKinnon came in every Friday. Regular as clockwork.”
Like every other person in this village, he apparently cannot stop talking about my predecessor.
“Good to know,” I reply politely.
Duncan drops onto the stool beside mine, far too close for comfort. Ewan, who’s returned from the kitchen, sets a pint in front of him and shoots me an apologetic look.
“You know,” Duncan begins after taking a long drink, “McKinnon saved my son’s life fifteen years ago.”
I feel my shoulders tense.
“Acute appendicitis,” he continues, raising his voice so the entire pub can hear. “Middle of a snowstorm. Roads completely blocked. Ambulance couldn’t get through. But McKinnon? He made it to our farm in the middle of the night.”
Another customer near the fireplace jumps in.
“McKinnon delivered my wife’s baby in our kitchen! Breech birth too, but he stayed calm. Calm as a summer loch.”
“He cared for my mother during her last months,” adds a woman in her sixties. “Visited every single day, even Sundays. He used to hold her hand.”
“He diagnosed my lung cancer before I even had symptoms,” a man at the back says. “Just by listening to me breathe. Man was a genius.”
The stories keep coming, each more heroic than the last.
McKinnon saving lives during blizzards.
McKinnon sitting beside dying patients for hours.
McKinnon apparently diagnosing illnesses through sheer medical telepathy.
Honestly, if McKinnon doesn’t end up in the next Avengers movie, I’ll be disappointed.
My hand tightens around my glass.
“He knew the names of every child in the village,” Duncan continues. “And their birthdays. Sent cards.”
“He made house calls even for colds,” someone else adds.
“He never charged Mrs. MacTavish when she couldn’t pay.”
“He rescued my daughter’s cat from a tree!” a male voice shouts from a dark corner.
I stiffen.
“That’s not a doctor’s job,” I mutter.
“McKinnon still did it,” the voice replies.
Of course he did.
My glass is almost empty. I stare into it, trying to breathe steadily.
One.
Two.
Three breaths.
Then I pick up the glass and drain it in one swallow.
“You see, doctor,” Duncan says, slapping me on the back with unbearable familiarity, “McKinnon wasn’t just a doctor. He was our doctor. Part of the community.”
Something inside me snaps.
I stand abruptly. Too abruptly.
My elbow knocks into a pint, sending Duncan’s beer spilling across the dark wooden bar. Foam spreads slowly toward the edge.
Dead silence falls over the pub.
Every eye shifts toward me.
Toward the overturned beer.
Toward my hand trembling ever so slightly.
“I... sorry,” I mutter, grabbing a towel to wipe it up.
“McKinnon never would’ve wasted a perfectly good Tennent’s,” Duncan grumbles.
I didn’t waste it. It was an accident.
But I say nothing.
I drop the towel, grab my medical bag, and head for the door.
“Doctor, wait!” Ewan calls after me.
I ignore him.
I need air.
I need to get out of this room where every breath reminds me that I’ll never measure up to a man who apparently rescued cats from trees in his spare time.
The door slams shut behind me and the cold hits instantly. The rain has started again—obviously—and I remain standing there on the sidewalk with my ordered-but-never-delivered fish and chips.
“Dr. McLeod!”
Ewan rushes outside without a jacket despite the rain.
“I’m sorry about Duncan, he... he didn’t mean—”
“Forget it.”
“No, listen. McKinnon was a pillar of the community. A lot of people took his leaving badly—”
I stare at him incredulously.
“And that justifies hating me because I’m trying to do my job?”
“That’s not exactly—”
“They don’t want a doctor,” I cut in. “They want a saint. Some superhero in a white coat who works twenty-four hours a day, never makes mistakes, and rescues cats from trees for fun.”
Ewan says nothing.
What could he possibly say?
“I’m not McKinnon,” I continue, my voice hardening. “I will never be McKinnon. I’m just a doctor trying to do his job without having doors slammed in his face every five minutes.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because I’m starting to feel like I’m the only person in this village who understands that.”
Rain streams down my forehead. I wipe it away with my soaked sleeve, a completely useless gesture.
“For what it’s worth,” Ewan says after a moment of silence, “I think you’re a good doctor. My aunt Moira was wrong to throw you out yesterday.”
“Moira MacTavish is your aunt?”
“Unfortunately. She’s stubborn as hell. But she’ll give you a chance eventually. They all will. It’ll just take time.”
“How much time?”
He shrugs.
“Like my father always says: in the Highlands, we measure time in seasons, not weeks.”
Fantastic.
So I get to live like this for at least another three months.
“Your fish and chips are ready,” Ewan adds. “Want me to wrap them to go?”
I should refuse.
Go back to the clinic.
Fill out my reports.
Plan my next round of house calls that will inevitably end with more slammed doors.
But my stomach growls, and I’m exhausted.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Ewan disappears inside and returns thirty seconds later carrying a paper bag.
“First order’s on the house,” he says. “The next ones probably will be too. You’re gonna need them.”
“Thanks for the fish and chips.”
“Come back anytime. And... ignore Duncan. He’s like that with everyone.”
I nod and head toward my Land Rover. Once inside, I’m about to start the engine when my phone vibrates.
It’s a text from my cousin Nate.
NATE
How’s it going?
I stare at the message. I could lie. Tell him everything’s fine and that I’m integrating perfectly.
Instead, I type:
FINN
I spilled a pint in a pub. The bartender thinks I’m pathetic. The entire village hates me because I’m not McKinnon. Other than that, everything’s going great.
His reply comes thirty seconds later.
NATE
For what it’s worth, McKinnon could be a real asshole sometimes. Come to dinner Friday. Lily’s making roast beef. And she won’t compare you to anyone.
I stare at the screen, feeling something loosen slightly in my chest.
FINN
Okay.
I start the Land Rover and drive back toward the empty medical clinic, where nobody compares me to anyone because nobody comes.