The Nurse's Christmas Temptation / A Mistletoe Kiss For The Single Dad. Ann McIntosh

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      Cam made his escape, wondering how he was going to get through the next month and half.

      Harmony Kinkaid, his fussy, big-city nurse administrator, was already making him crazy.

      She’d rearranged all his files, so he couldn’t find anything. She wanted to come down hard on patients who didn’t turn up for their appointments. She’d silently showed her displeasure when he’d mentioned he’d be leaving on a hiking and rock-climbing trip to Peru just after Hogmanay, even when he’d said there’d be a locum to fill in for him.

      But it had been her expression when she’d realized he had type 1 diabetes that had really aggravated him. She, of all people, should know it was no reason for him not to live fully.

      Thank goodness for Grand-Da, who’d shown Cam that the disease wasn’t an impediment to having a good, exciting life.

      “It’s something to be managed,” Grand-Da had told him in his habitual no-nonsense way, that first summer he’d come to stay. “Once you learn how to do that anything is doable. You just have to accept you have it and be smart about it.”

      Learning how to control the effects of his diabetes had given him a freedom beyond his wildest imagining. Gone had been the days when he’d only watched other boys enjoying themselves, never being allowed to join in. And at the age of thirteen Cam had embraced his new-found independence with gusto. Pitting himself against nature, or against his own limitations or fears, had brought him fully alive.

      He’d seen Harmony glance at the pictures on his wall, had almost been able to hear her internal dialog regarding the pastimes he chose. As she was a nurse he was surprised at her reaction. Hell, there were type 1 diabetics playing rough professional sports. It all came down to how you took care of yourself and managed the disease.

      Maybe he wouldn’t be so testy if it wasn’t so close to the opening of the Winter Festival and everyone wasn’t going bonkers. He’d had one or other of the CIs on the phone almost constantly, complaining about something or needing help with different situations. They kept trying to get him to recruit Harmony too, but so far he’d been able to still keep them at bay.

      Settling into his vehicle, Cam ran his fingers through his hair and sighed.

      The truth of it was, for all her annoying qualities, his attraction to Harmony hadn’t abated one little bit. All morning, whenever they’d been in the same room, Cam had found himself watching her—not as a boss assessing a new hire’s abilities, but as a man admiring a beautiful woman. He’d found himself liking the way she moved, liking the scent—something floral and sweet today—that wafted around her, and her expressions with those flashes of emotion she tried so hard to hide.

      And those amazing eyes were golden again today. They had him constantly checking to see whether they’d changed to green again…

      Despite her trying to boss him around and compulsively rearranging things, he couldn’t get his mind off her.

      “Don’t be ridiculous,” he muttered to himself, as he got True Blue started and, after her usual complaints, into gear. “You only just met her. It’s just the draw of the unknown…”

      But his words rang hollow in his own ears, and he was still obsessing over Harmony Kinkaid as he drove home, looking forward to spending the rest of the day with her.

      And mentally kicking himself because he was.