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the front of the tiny terminal. She ducked her well-powdered chin as she swallowed hard, wet her pink lips, and waved a crinkled hanky toward a dilapidated truck parked beside a freshly painted fence. “We’ve no’ got a lot of specialists here. If there’s a need for special care then we must travel to the mainland.”
    “All the women still flock to the man,” Alfred interrupted with a snorting grunt as he ambled up beside them. “Ye’d think he’s bespelled them or some such nonsense and I’m sure a woman such as Dr. Emma will be certain to catch his eye.” Alfred tossed Emma’s bags into the back of the truck, all the while casting a disgruntled glare back over his tweed-covered shoulder.
    “If ye don’t mind my askin’…” Pointedly turning her back to Alfred with a curt twist of her round little body, Moira cleared her throat and lifted her powdered chin higher in the air. Moira folded her hands atop the floral printed ledge of her tummy and gently tapped one foot. As her glasses slid to the end of her nose, Moira gave Emma an appreciative glance up and down. “Would ye happen to be single? Completely unattached? I’m sure Dr. Mac would find a willowy redhead such as yourself quite fetching.”
    Willowy redhead? Who was this lady kidding? Emma had never thought of her five foot nine frame as willowy. More like gawky and out of proportion—nothing but elbows and knees that didn’t corner well in cramped areas. Emma fished her sunglasses out of her bag and tightened the scarf holding back the tangled mass of curls struggling to flutter in the breeze. The wind had picked up and yanked her long ponytail free of its confines, lashing it about her face. Moira’s questions had taken the wrong direction and she’d seen that I’ve-got-a-man-you-need-to-meet look too many times on Laynie’s face to not recognize it when it gleamed in Moira’s eyes. “Since you asked, yes I’m single but I’m entirely too busy for all that nonsense. I’m here to get our clinic started. That’s it. I’m afraid there won’t be much time for socializing.” That universal matchmaking glint on Moira’s face had to be doused before it blossomed into a full blown mating beacon. The last thing Emma needed right now was the distraction of dodging a series of catastrophic blind dates.
    Emma swallowed a groan as the calculating tip of Moira’s tongue darted excitedly across her lower lip. The woman looked like a plump gray cat about to pounce on an unsuspecting canary. An Emma canary. Moira’s eyes twinkled. The woman was definitely plotting. One corner of Moira’s mouth curled up into a knowing twitch, clearly indicating that Moira’s unite-two-lonely-souls gears had shifted into overdrive in less than a nanosecond. Emma would bet her best stethoscope on it. Whoever this Alexander Mackenzie was, he better run like hell.
    “Well.” Moira arched a silvery brow, giving a gentle tsk tsk with a toss of her head and a disappointed shrug. “Whatever ye say, Dr. Emma. We’ll see what we shall see.” Moira beamed a smug glow as she yanked open the door to the truck.
    “Ye’ve doomed yourself to a certain visit of no peace. Ye do realize that, do ye not?” Alfred gripped her hand in his work-roughened grasp and helped her climb up onto the worn fabric seat. Moira whacked him on his backside and he turned to her with a chilling scowl.
    “I heard that, ye old goat. I’m standing right behind ye.”
    Emma settled into the sagging cushions of the truck and pulled her bag to her chest. First thing on the agenda was definitely a rental car. She could tell right now ping-ponging between these two would prove exhausting. But wouldn’t they make for tons of great conversation whenever she got Laynie on the line? Closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose, Emma bowed her head and fought back a grin as Moira and Alfred dove into another tirade.

Chapter Five
    Destruction. A pleasurable rumble of satisfied laughter