Golden Luckenbooth

Forty-Four

"Didn't expect to see you at my kitchen table this morning." I tease Arran as I step to the kettle to pour some water for my tea. The dogs are eager to smell him, racing around his chair as though they're sharks circling for the kill. It causes me to take a better look at him. "Wow, she must have kept you up all night. You look awful. I don't know whether to applaud my bestie or console you by letting you take it easy today."

"SHE definitely kept me up most of the night – if by 'she' you mean Cinnamon out at the Hamiltons' Dairy. Emergency c-section."

Disappointment roils through me, and I pause with one hand on the back of the chair, and the other hand holding my mug.

"Oh."

"Oh? Tell me, Dr. Matchmaker, are you more dismayed that I didn't spend the night with Dr. Gilmore or that you didn't get to perform the c-section?"

"Shut up," I respond snappishly, then relent. "Both."

"You're the one who told me that having sex with her would mean the end of our relationship, so I did what any smart man would do – walked her home, kissed her goodnight, and came back here. Which meant I was coming in the door just in time to get the call from Mr. Hamilton."

Once again, my heart goes out to Arran and Blair as they fumble their way into a courtship. Harry and I definitely did this backwards, but we've made it to a good place. Haven't we?

"So you should go back to bed. Get some sleep and be ready to go out on calls this afternoon."

"Mhm. Is that what you would do?"

His question ruffles me. "If I weren't pregnant, you mean? Hell no. It's not what I would do, but I'm trying to build a successful veterinary practice in a small town. I would do whatever it took to take care of my patients."

"Then that's what I'll do too," he nonchalantly replies, and I am suddenly so filled with inexplicable anger that I want to kick his chair out from under him.

"And what if there's another emergency c-section tonight somewhere? It's calving and lambing season, Arran. This is what it's like. One after another." My voice has risen, and Arran is staring at me like I've lost my mind.

Maybe I have.

I take a deep breath and plop into the chair across from him.

"Anna, you've been pushing yourself pretty hard lately. You do know you don't have to do it all yourself?"

Tears well up in my eyes. "This isn't what I had planned, Arran."

"This conversation?" His bewildered and concerned look gives me pause.

"This life." I sip my tea to stall, but he doesn't follow up with a question. He just stares at me until I shift uncomfortably and continue speaking. "The plan was to build the practice, then maybe fall in love, and eventually have kids. It's all jumbled."

"And yet you have a growing group of people who care about you. You've got a bairn on the way, a man who loves you, and your practice is thriving. How can any of that be a bad thing?"

As the sound of his metaphorical dropped microphone reverberates through the kitchen, a brick sails through the window, and I gasp while Arran jumps from his seat and races for the door. Opening it, Arran reveals Paddy holding the arm of a young woman.

"Get in there." The bodyguard is gruff, and I'm grateful for his serendipitous presence.

Trembling, I pick up the brick. There's a note tied on it that says, 'You bitch. You trapped him.' Arran closes the kitchen door before approaching me and reading the note over my shoulder. He shudders visibly, then turns to the young woman who cringes.