‘Good point.’ Logan gave him a sympathetic look. ‘This must be hard for you, I know.’

‘Nowhere near as hard as it’s going to be for the locals.’ Conner studied a picture on the wall. ‘They’re going to think that you’ve lost your mind, appointing me as the locum.’

‘They’d be less shocked if you told them the truth about what you’ve been doing since you stormed off Glenmore all those years ago.’

‘Island gossip has never interested me.’

‘You sound like Flora. Her clinics are taking twice as long as they should because she doesn’t like to interrupt people when they’re chatting.’

‘Flora?’

‘My practice nurse. She replaced Kyla.’

‘Flora Harris?’ Conner turned, the pain inside him under control. ‘Daughter of Ian Harris, our island solicitor? Niece of our esteemed headmistresses?’

Cloudy dark hair, soft brown eyes, an impossibly shy and awkward teenager, and as innocent as the dawn…

Logan’s eyes narrowed. ‘You didn’t ever…’

‘Fortunately for her, there were enough wild teenage girls on the island who were more than happy to experiment, without me having to corrupt the saintly Flora. Anyway, she didn’t take her nose out of a book for long enough to discover the existence of sex.’

‘She isn’t saintly. Just shy.’

‘Maybe. But definitely not the sort of girl who would skip classes in favour of a practical session on human reproduction.’ Conner rolled his shoulders to ease the tension. ‘I’m not surprised she’s a nurse. It would have been that or a librarian. Does she know I’m the new doctor?’

‘Not yet.’

‘She won’t approve.’

‘Even if she doesn’t, she would never say so. Flora is sweet, kind and incredibly civilised.’

‘Whereas I’m sharp, unkind and incredibly uncivilised. I’m willing to bet that the first thing she does, when she finds out about me, is remind you that I blew up the science lab.’

‘I’d forgotten about that.’ Momentarily distracted, Logan narrowed his eyes. ‘What did you use—potassium?’

‘Too dangerous. They didn’t keep it at school.’ Restless, Conner paced across the room again and scanned the row of textbooks on the shelf. ‘But they did keep sodium. That was good enough.’

‘It should have been in a locked cupboard.’

‘It was.’

Logan laughed. ‘I’m amazed you weren’t expelled.’

‘Me, too. Very frustrating, given how hard I applied myself to the task.’ Conner suppressed a yawn. ‘So I’m going to be working with Flora. The excitement of this place increases by the minute.’

‘She’s a brilliant nurse. She was working in Edinburgh until last month but we persuaded her to come back. And now you’ve joined us. I’ve been thinking—we should tell the islanders what you’ve been doing with your life.’

‘It’s none of their business.’