Page 11 of My Fake Dating with the Grumpiest Highlander
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.
