Книга - An Unexpected Proposal

An Unexpected Proposal
Amy Andrews


Locum doctor James Remington never stays in one place for long. But the warmth of the people in this welcoming Outback community is starting to make it feel like home–and so is nurse Helen Franklin. James has found it easy to win over the locals in Skye, but Helen proves to be much more of a challenge.Helen's protected her heart for so long that she doesn't know if she's ready to open it up to this charming but temporary doctor. All James knows is that Helen makes him want something he's never wanted before–a home and family.









There was so much he hadn’t had a chance to say to Maddy


He certainly hadn’t believed her when she’d denied loving him. Even if he had to abduct her and tie her to a chair, he would make her listen. She looked so distant, and he felt completely lost. He could see he was losing her.

“Please, Maddy. Tell me what to say to make it better,” he said, his arms aching to hold her. “I’ve never felt this way before. Never. And it’s because of you. Loving you makes me want things I’ve never wanted before.”

Madeline swallowed a lump of emotion. His voice was husky with passion. The plea in his voice unmistakable. He sounded genuine and, despite the dictates of her sensible brain, her heart was flowering. His earlier declaration of love and his admission that he wanted to have babies with her had been like welcome rain nourishing fragile petals.

But at the same time her brain urged retreat. How could she put her heart out there again? She’d taken a risk with him and his heat and his passion had warmed her all the way through, and it had been fantastic while it had lasted. But could she trust him?


Dear Reader,

Opposites attract. That’s what they say, isn’t it? As a writer, this is a fascinating premise. What if two people, complete opposites in every way, were attracted to each other—does the attraction win out despite the differences?

Out of this foundation, Madeline and Marcus emerged.

Conservative, in control Maddy. A gorgeous, career-focused woman who knows what she wants out of life. A job that she loves and marriage with two point four kids.

And Marcus. The complete opposite. Sexy, flying-by-the-seat-of-his-pants, thrill-seeking, footloose and fancy-free Marcus. Sworn off marriage for life and perfectly happy to always play “the uncle.”

Then I asked the question—what if? What if I threw them together? What if I gave them two vastly different jobs that were philosophically incompatible: conventional versus alternative medicine? Such a hotly debated topic and one with two very passionate and opposite camps, especially in the guise of Madeline and Marcus.

The only thing these two have in common when their worlds collide is an inexplicable instantaneous attraction.

Marcus is everything Madeline doesn’t want, but all she needs. Madeline is everything Marcus most definitely wants, but does a footloose, fancy-free man really need any woman?

Woohoo! It’s a hot time in an old Brisbane town when these two clash swords. I hope you enjoy their story and rejoice in their triumph over their differences to prove love really does conquer all.

Love,

Amy xxx




An Unexpected Proposal

Amy Andrews





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To Vicki Williams, homeopath, dedicated professional.

Many thanks for your time and expertise.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE (#u3d85fd60-dc0d-5bd5-b5f5-723cd9d88816)

CHAPTER TWO (#u7529ea07-d9ed-5530-82a6-4bea038c424a)

CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE


MADELINE HARRINGTON was grateful for the air-conditioning in her car as she pulled up at the roadworks. There was heavy earthmoving machinery blocking the way and as the heat rose in visible waves off the black tar of the road she’d never been more pleased to have an indoor job. The worker holding the stop sign looked hot and sweaty, his skin an unhealthy weathered brown. Skin cancer just waiting to happen, she mused absently.

It was hard to believe, watching Brisbane shimmer in the afternoon sun, that she’d been in the throes of a British winter only twenty-four hours ago. Jackets and gloves and woollen hats. As she’d flown out of Heathrow the temperature had just managed to struggle into positive figures. If London had been a fridge, Brisbane felt like a furnace!

She yawned and shut her eyes briefly as the overwhelming fatigue of jet lag took hold. She sighed as it gathered her into its folds but fought her way out again a minute later. Her eyes felt like they had sand embedded in the lids and she rubbed at them to ease the grittiness. The road blockage didn’t look like it was going to clear any time soon and she sighed impatiently. She wanted a shower. She wanted her bed.

Her gaze wandered to the neighbourhood skate park where teenagers rode their skateboards up and down the curved cement walls. The doctor in her saw all the horrible possibilities but the uncoordinated female admired their skill and lack of fear.

A man entered her line of vision, expertly negotiating the bumps and ramps and shooting up off the wall, his skateboard staying miraculously attached to his feet even in mid-air, and landing again like he was riding a wave instead of unforgiving concrete. He was at least twenty years older than the other riders but somehow managed not to look ridiculous despite the age difference.

He was wearing a raggedy pair of cut-off denim shorts and nothing else. His chest was magnificent, tanned, the abdominal muscles well defined—cut, wasn’t that what it was called these days? He pirouetted perfectly, one end of the board in the air, the other grounded, and her eyes were drawn downwards to his powerful quads that flexed and strained to maintain perfect balance.

She could see the hairs covering his legs were dark brown even from this distance. They matched his colouring. His head, too, was covered with brown hair, short around the back and sides and longer on top. Why isn’t he wearing a helmet? Macho idiot. A smattering of the same covered his pecs and narrowed to a fine trail that disappeared behind the waistband of his shorts.

He looked like the stereotypical bronzed Aussie, at home in the outdoors, kicking a footy or surfing. Except today his choice of wave was concrete instead of water. Maybe he was some kind of adrenaline junkie—any wave would do?

The thought horrified her almost as much as it fascinated her. How would it be to spend your life bumming around skate parks? Or the beach? No responsibilities. No worries. No patients to see. No lives to be responsible for. No beepers. No mobile phones.

Looking at him made her…restless. A feeling that something was seriously missing from her life reared its ugly head and was magnified by the stranger’s utter joy in the adrenaline-charged thrill.

He appeared to be with a little boy who looked about six or seven. His son? There were definite similarities between the two. The boy looked at him with total admiration and the man ruffled his hair as he helped him on his skateboard. He stood back as the boy performed a trick and clapped loudly as he successfully completed it. At least he’s wearing a helmet. The man lifted the boy up on his shoulders and spun him around. The little boy held on and laughed, his head thrown back, the sunshine accentuating his exhilaration.

Madeline felt a weird pull low down in her gut. The man had dimples. He was gorgeous! Pure male. One hundred per cent testosterone. She felt her body responding to his magnetism. The boy obviously loved him and strangely enough that made him even more attractive.

Oh, God! She must be tired. Since when had macho hemen been her type? Spoken for he-men at that? She glanced back at the roadworks, suddenly desperate to get away from this inexplicable transient attraction, but the red stop sign was still stubbornly facing her way. She glanced back at skater boy and found herself wondering what it would be like to be with a man like him.

Despite the unemployed look, there was a presence about him that reached across the fifty-odd metres that separated them. He looked like he knew what he was doing. What he wanted and where he was going. He looked dominant and in command. He laughed again as he jumped back on his board and she recognised something else about him. He looked like he knew how to have fun. To laugh at the world and himself. He looked like he knew how to kiss. How to please. How to pleasure.

She shivered and reached forward to turn the air-con down. Kiss? Pleasure? Where had that come from? OK, it had been a while. It had been seven weeks since she and her fiancé had split up, and several months more since they’d last been intimate. But hell, that had never really been the focus of their relationship anyway and re-establishing the practice had taken up all her time and energy over the last two years. She hadn’t had time for carnal thoughts.

Neither of them had. They’d barely seen each other for months, with her work and his long shifts at the hospital and studying for his exams. Him calling the engagement off in the middle of it all had been just one more thing on her plate. She’d been confused when he’d said he needed time apart. How much more apart did he want? But she doubted it would be permanent—a decade of history was hard to walk away from for ever.

Skater boy laughed again and oozed sex appeal all over the park. It brought her temporarily out-of-order relationship with Simon into sharp contrast. Frankly, she couldn’t remember the last time, if ever, just looking at Simon had made her think sexual thoughts.

She shook her head. Jet lag—that was it. It was responsible for these uncharacteristic thoughts. Sex and sexual urges had never ruled her life. She’d been thrown one too many curve balls to be a free-loving kind of girl. For goodness’ sake! She was a thirty-year-old doctor, she’d seen more naked men in her life than she’d had hot dinners—why should looking at barely dressed skater boy have an effect? Why did his chest and his thighs and his laugh make her want things she’d never wanted before?

A car horn blasted behind her and she looked back to the road to see the sign had been turned to the yellow ‘slow’ side and she accelerated away quickly, grateful for the respite from her jumbled jet-lagged thoughts. She caught a glimpse of the man again in her rear-view mirror and felt the feeling of discontent he had stirred intensify. Damn him. Her life was just fine.

Just. Fine.

Madeline pulled up outside work a few hours later. She’d unpacked. She’d had a shower. She felt slightly revived. But the fog of fatigue still clung to her and she’d known she’d had to get out of the house before she’d succumbed to her bed and the seductive lure of sleep.

It was way too early to go to bed despite her exhaustion. If she went now she’d be awake at three in the morning with no hope of going back to sleep. So a quick catch-up trip into work late on a quiet Saturday afternoon was the perfect diversion.

She noticed the next-door shop, which had been empty when she’d left, was in the process of a fit-out. A painter was admiring his handiwork, putting the finishing touches to the signage on the glass sliding door.

‘Dr Marcus Hunt,’ it read. ‘Natural Therapist.’

Madeline stared at it for a few moments, repeating it over and over in her head until her sluggish brain computed the full implications. She felt the slow burn of rising anger.

‘Over my dead body!’

There was nothing quite like anger to wake you up. She felt it white and hot and burning in her gut. She felt more than awake, she felt alive again. The fog cleared from her brain and the weariness that was deep within her bones dissipated in an instant.

How many patients had she ‘fixed up’ after they’d seen alternative medicine characters? People who had let their conditions and diseases run out of control while some charlatan had used voodoo or a spell book and given them false hope? And then there was Abby.

She’d see about this! She brushed abruptly past the painter, slid back the door and entered the room. She blinked, removing her sunglasses as her eyes adjusted to the dim light in stark contrast to the glare of a summer’s afternoon in the Sunshine State. The chemical smell of paint assaulted her nostrils as she quickly scanned the room littered with boxes and painters trestles.

‘I’m sorry, we’re not open for business until next week.’ A deep, masculine voice drifted towards her from somewhere beyond the clutter of the immediate surroundings.

It resonated around the room and Madeline felt goose-bumps break out on her arms despite the stuffiness of the room. His voice made her think of the guy at the skate park and she gave herself a mental shake.

The man entered from a doorway to the right and leant lazily against the jamb, filling the space easily. She almost did a double-take as skater boy smiled at her and Madeline was pinned to the spot by his laughing blue eyes and boyish dimples.

He was dressed this time. Well, more dressed anyway. He wore a white long-sleeved shirt, completely unbuttoned, revealing that perfectly muscled abdomen. The impulse to touch him, run her fingers down the dark trail of chest hair and watch his abdominal muscles twitch beneath her nails was shocking.

His face was rugged, with a square jaw covered in light stubble. His dimples should have looked ridiculous on anyone older than five but they didn’t. They added to the alluring mix of pure man, giving him a shot of angelic boy.

In his right hand he held a well-used paintbrush and she thought absently that she’d been wrong about his employment status. He did have a job. A painter, or decorator, or something similar. He had some flecks of paint in his hair and the desire to touch them was compelling.

She couldn’t help but compare him to Simon. Physically they weren’t too dissimilar. Her ex-fiancé was a little shorter, a little less bulky, a little paler and his chest hair a little sparser. But there was something intangible about this man, something quite magnetic that frankly Simon just didn’t have.

Simon’s face was pleasant to look at, with a ready smile that put you at ease and oozed nice. Skater boy’s was sexy with a wicked smile that put you on edge and made you forget nice. Simon was your average good-looking guy. There was absolutely nothing average about this man. And in their whole ten years as a couple Simon had never made her body hum like it was right now.

Madeline frowned, confused by her uncharacteristic thoughts. Labourers were not her type. Buff wasn’t her type. Men that knew their way around skateboards weren’t her type. Men with children weren’t her type. What the hell was happening to her?

‘May I help you?’

His voice was rich and deep and barely contained his obvious amusement at her appraisal. She was standing a few metres away but Madeline could feel the caress of the air currents, disturbed by his voice, swaying seductively over her. It was as if he had physically touched her.

She blinked at him blankly, trying to remember why she was there. His amused gaze eventually worked its way into her consciousness and she made an effort to pull herself together. So, the man had a nice body. She’d come to talk to the naturopath, not to ogle the removalist or the decorator or whoever in the hell this man was.

‘Ah…no. I came to talk to Dr Hunt, but it appears he’s not here…so I’ll let you get back to your…duties.’

Marcus smothered a smile, suppressing the urge to throw back his head and laugh out loud. Put in your place, Marcus, old boy! The woman had just looked him over, summed him up and dismissed him as nothing in about thirty seconds flat! What a snob, he thought. What a sexy, beautiful snob.

She was tall and her head was crowned with the most magnificent red hair he’d ever seen. It was curly and looked slightly wild despite her efforts to tame it into a neat bundle at the back of her head. He had a sudden vision of it spread over his chest and he blinked.

Her emerald-green eyes sparkled above high cheekbones and two luscious lips. Kissable lips. Very kissable lips.

Her serious, obviously expensive suit did nothing to hide her fantastic figure. He felt his loins stir as he speculated on the bits of her long legs that were hidden by her skirt. She looked prim and proper and he was hit by the urge to get her dirty and messy. It was powerful, bordering on primitive.

She looked tired but there was an undercurrent, a vibe of tension around her that was almost palpable. Like a fully wound spring ready to unfurl at a second’s notice. He’d never met anyone so uptight in his life. A large diamond flashed on the ring finger of her left hand. Surely someone getting regular sex couldn’t be this tense?

‘I’m Dr Marcus Hunt,’ he stated, burying his left hand deep into his shorts pocket.

Madeline watched the movement hypnotically, until she became aware that she was staring at a particular part of his anatomy that she shouldn’t be staring at. She dragged her eyes away, shocked at herself. She could see that he found her amusing. His grin, barely suppressed, added a sparkle to those blue, blue eyes.

‘You’re Dr Hunt?’ she enquired with just the right amount of mingled sarcasm and disbelief. She had to get back some control here.

‘Yes.’ He swapped the paintbrush to his left hand, wiped his right on his denim-covered buttock and offered it to her.

She ignored it. Her rudeness seemed to amuse him even further and Madeline got the impression that nothing fazed Marcus Hunt.

‘And you are?’

‘Madeline Harrington. Dr Madeline Harrington.’

‘Ah…from next door.’ He smiled. ‘We’ll be neighbours, then.’ The thought, despite the bling on her hand, was immensely appealing.

‘Ah, no…I don’t think so,’ she stated with just the right amount of disdain.

‘Oh?’ he queried, not particularly worried. ‘Problem?’

‘Two, actually. One…’ Madeline counted on her hand ‘…I object, most strenuously, to you using the title of Doctor. Naturopaths or any other alternative medicine nuts are not permitted to call themselves doctors.’

‘They can if they hold a medical degree,’ he stated matter-of-factly. ‘And I’m a homeopath, actually.’

‘You’re…you’re a real doctor?’ Madeline spluttered in disbelief.

He threw back his head and laughed at the frank incredulity obvious on her face.

The long column of his neck was exposed to her view and, despite her embarrassment, an errant brain cell dared her to lick it.

‘Is that so hard to believe?’

‘Quite frankly, yes,’ Madeline admitted. He didn’t look like any kind of doctor she had ever known. Her father had been a doctor, his two nearing-retirement partners were doctors. Simon was a doctor! Those men were what doctors looked like.

‘I believe there was a second…?’ Marcus prompted after some time had elapsed and Madeline hadn’t continued.

She made a supreme effort to drag her eyes away from his mouth and concentrate on the conversation.

‘Yes. Secondly…’ she cleared her throat, her chin jutting determinedly ‘…it will be a cold day in hell before I will allow you to practise this…quackery, this medieval…mumbo-jumbo, right next door to our practice. My partners and I will not legitimise this hocus-pocus by allowing you premises next to ours.’

Marcus stared intently at Madeline Harrington, listening carefully as she laid down the law. Two red spots of colour stained her cheeks and there was a breathy quality, almost a tremble, making her voice husky. He wondered what it would be like to have her breath trembling against his skin. His loins stirred again and he had to remind himself she was not on the market.

‘And just how do you propose to stop me, Maddy?’

She opened her mouth to lay down exactly how she intended to stop him and stopped abruptly at his casual familiarity. No one, but no one had called her that since Abby. Sorrow and pain lanced through her as an image of her younger sister formed in her mind. Why did it still have the power to take her breath away?

‘The name is Madeline,’ she snapped.

‘Maybe. But I think I’ll call you Maddy anyway,’he stated, and enjoyed the glitter he caused in her emerald depths.

‘You won’t be getting the chance, Dr Hunt. You’re being evicted first thing Monday.’

‘I have a lease, Maddy.’

Madeline laughed coldly even as her insides melted at the way he said her name. Almost a sigh. A purr. ‘My partners and I own this building, Dr Hunt. Once they discover that a quack has set up shop next door, you won’t last five minutes. Not even your magic wand will be able to help you. Why not leave graciously now? Go perform your witchcraft elsewhere.’

Madeline glowed triumphantly, having placed her trump card on the table. He smiled back at her, obviously unconcerned.

‘Why stop at eviction, Maddy? Why not just burn me at the stake and be done with it?’ he enquired softly.

‘Don’t tempt me.’

Oh, she tempted him all right. ‘What are you afraid of? Have you forgotten that Hippocrates was a homoeopath? Surely this world is big enough for both conventional and alternative medicine?’

‘Not in this street it isn’t.’ Madeline turned on her heel, head high, and made for the door.

He chuckled. ‘See you, Maddy.’

She shivered despite the blast of invading heat.

‘Count on it,’ she muttered, and stepped into the street.

Madeline breathed in great refreshing gulps as she walked the short distance next door to the GP surgery. She was quaking inside at the confrontation with Marcus Hunt and confused at the nagging sense of longing still crashing around inside her from when she had first spied him on his skateboard.

She let herself through the front gate of the inner-city terrace house that had been given a recent facelift, as had all the terraces in the area. The practice had been here for almost all of Madeline’s life, her father having bought the row of five terraces before she’d been born and setting up with two other partners. The practice now took up two of the terraces, then there was the soon-to-be-empty-again one next door and the last two were leased by solicitors.

She looked at the gold lettering on the wooden door—Dr Blakely, Dr Baxter, Dr Harrington and Dr Wishart. Strangely, today she didn’t feel the pride seeing her name in gold lettering usually engendered. She felt…disconnected. Unfulfilled.

She shook her head to clear the vague feeling of disquiet. Madeline had never wanted to do anything else. Most of the people that she’d been through med school with had been horrified at her lack of ambition. They’d been keen to specialise in the more glamorous areas of medicine. But she had grown up seeing the difference a good general practitioner could make to their patients’ lives and had never considered anything else. And after her father’s death she had grown even more determined to continue his legacy.

She pushed the door open. There was twenty minutes before closing.

‘Madeline! Oh, my God,’ squealed an excited Veronica from behind the front desk. The receptionist jumped from her chair and enveloped Madeline in an enthusiastic hug.

Veronica was one of the changes that Madeline had made since starting at the practice. Reasons for dwindling patient numbers had been multi-factorial, the new twenty-four-hour health centre in the next block being one but an aging reception staff not helping either. Veronica was twenty-five and a total godsend. She was bright and perky with a sparkly personality. The patients adored her.

‘Fine,’ Madeline responded distractedly. Not even Veronica’s enthusiasm could curb her indefinable restlessness. ‘Who’s on today? George, Andrew or Tom?’ Madeline asked, looking around at the empty waiting room.

‘George. He’s at a house call.’

George Blakely had been her father’s partner since the dawn of the practice. He and his wife Mary had also taken Madeline and Abby under their wing when their parents had died within a year of each other in Madeline’s final year of high school.

Andrew Baxter had also been one of the founding partners. Thomas Wishart was a newer edition, a thirty-three-year-old father of four, brought in by Madeline a year ago. He was an excellent practitioner who Madeline had first met at med school. They had desperately needed new blood to bring in new clients and Thomas, who lived locally, had been perfect.

Both George and Andrew would be retiring in the next five years so it was important to put strategies in place for that eventuality. Thomas had been an excellent start. The practice was building back up again and Madeline hoped that it would be thriving when George and Andrew hung up their stethoscopes.

‘Quiet day?’ Madeline asked.

‘Forget that!’ said Veronica, her blue eyes sparkling merrily, ‘tell me all the gossip. I want to know everything!’

‘I went to an international general practitioners’ symposium, Veronica. No gossip to tell.’

Veronica rolled her eyes. ‘In London, Madeline, London! Don’t tell me you didn’t take my advice?’

Madeline smiled. ‘About the rebound sex?’

Veronica nodded her head vigorously. ‘Those English lads love Aussie girls.’

‘Ah, it’s not really me, Veronica.’

‘Well, of course it’s not,’ she said exasperatedly. ‘That’s the point. Simon dumps you just before a six-week overseas working holiday. It’s perfect for rebound sex. Anonymity. Perfect.’

Madeline smiled at Veronica’s grab-life-by-the-balls attitude and envied the younger woman. She herself was more tiptoe through life cautiously. One-night stands, rebound sex…she’d been with one guy for ten years. And, besides, their split was just temporary.

‘I didn’t really fancy anyone,’ she said lamely as Veronica continued to look at her expectantly. Now, if Marcus Hunt had been there…

‘Madeline,’ Veronica sighed.

‘Hey, no one offered either,’ she said defensively.

‘I don’t reckon that helped,’ said Veronica, tapping Madeline’s ring with the end of her pen.

Madeline looked down at the two-carat diamond. It had been part of her hand for four years, and even if it was really over between them, she wasn’t ready to take it off yet. And truth was, it did keep men away. If she counted Simon, that was four people she’d loved and lost, and she wasn’t sure she would be capable of ever loving again. She felt emotionally frigid. Her heart buried in a block of ice.

She glanced at her watch. It was five. ‘Why don’t you go home? It’s time. I’m going to do a bit of catching up, I’ll lock up on my way out.’

‘OK, I get it, I get it. Mind my own business,’ Veronica grumbled good-naturedly as she gathered her stuff. She gave Madeline a quick peck on the cheek and left.

Alone, Madeline walked around the surgery, absently re-familiarising herself with the tastefully decorated waiting area. She checked the appointment book and whistled out loud, recognising quite a few of her regulars. It was going to be a busy Tuesday! Her colleagues had insisted she didn’t start work again until then, to fully recover from her jet lag.

Madeline felt the odd restlessness again and found it difficult to concentrate on the book. She yawned—she was tired but it was still too early for bed. She wandered into her office and sat in her chair. She picked up the various drug company ‘toys’ she kept on her desk to amuse children and opened her drawers, checking she had plenty of prescription pads and stationery.

The checks done, she sat back in her ergonomically designed black leather swivel chair and her tired mind drifted to Marcus Hunt. She saw the flecks of paint in his hair and heard his wicked laugh, and her nipples hardened at the image of his sheer masculine beauty. She’d never met a man who’d had such an instantaneous effect on her. Marcus Hunt was potent. Marcus Hunt was lethal.

Madeline’s gaze fell on the framed photo of Simon. Something else she hadn’t been able to bring herself to dispose of just yet. She remembered Veronica’s pursed disapproving lips. It was all right for her. She’d spent her teens and twenties having a good time, experimenting with men and life, secure in the arms of a loving family. Madeline had spent them reeling from one tragedy to another while trying to study hard and be there for Abby, too. Simon had stuck by her side through all of it.

She traced her fingers over his face. So he wasn’t skater boy but he had a nice smile and despite everything she still loved him. They’d been together for ever—since they’d been twenty. You couldn’t just wipe that love out overnight. And she’d be damned if she’d let some inexplicable attraction to a bit of rough derail her conviction that the split with Simon was just temporary.

She heard the bell ding over the door and was pleased at the distraction. She thought it would probably be George back from his house call so she was surprised to see young Brett Sanders looking as white as a ghost, supporting his very grey, very sweaty mother.

Madeline hurried over. ‘Mrs Sanders, what’s wrong?’ she demanded, quickly assessing the woman’s cool, clammy skin, breathlessness and racing pulse.

‘It’s her indigestion,’ said Brett. ‘I wanted to take her to the hospital but she said she was fine and that you were closer. But she got worse in the car…’ He trailed off, his voice cracking with fear and unshed tears.

‘It’s OK,’ Madeline soothed, sitting Mrs Sanders down next to the emergency trolley near the front desk. It was basic, holding just oxygen, an ambubag, some adrenaline mini-jets and a portable defib unit. She quickly assembled a face mask and placed it on her patient’s face, cranking up the oxygen. She hoped it wasn’t too little too late. Mrs Sanders was in a lot of pain and it was extending down her left arm.

‘Brett, go and ring the ambulance on the phone at the desk. Triple zero.’

Even at seventeen, people in a panic could forget the number that had been drummed into them since they could talk. And Brett Sanders was about as panicked as she’d ever seen anyone.

‘Tell them that your mum is having a heart attack. OK, Brett? Do you understand?’

He looked at Madeline, alarmed, and she thought he was about to cry. ‘Brett.’ Madeline shook him. ‘I can’t leave your mother. You must do it now.

You’ve done so well. I need you to do this.’ Her voice was calm but firm.

He got up and made the call, while Madeline took Mrs Sanders’s blood pressure. Suddenly, the woman let out a pained moan, clutched at her chest and lost consciousness. Madeline knew immediately without having to feel for a carotid pulse that the woman was in cardiac arrest. With Brett’s help she dragged the obese Mrs Sanders onto the floor, rolled her on her side and cleared her airway.

‘Brett, run next door. There is a doctor there called Dr Hunt—get him. Go now, Brett—now.’ Madeline knew from experience that CPR was much easier with two people. She just hoped he’d be able to see past their earlier confrontation. The youth took one look at his mother and fled.

Madeline dragged the recently purchased semi-automatic external defibrillator off the trolley, switched it on and followed the electronic voice prompts. She ripped open Mrs Sanders’s blouse, buttons flying everywhere, cut open her bra with scissors from the trolley and slapped the two defib pads in the right positions on her chest.

While the machine analysed her patient’s heart rhythm, Madeline assembled the mask-bag apparatus and hooked it up to the oxygen to deliver mechanical breaths to Mrs Sanders as soon as the machine had analysed the heat rhythm.

‘Shock not recommended,’ the electronic voice announced. ‘Commence CPR.’

Madeline was in the middle of chest compressions when Marcus and Brett came through the door.

‘What happened?’ he demanded, shirt flapping wide.

‘Fourteen, fifteen,’ Madeline counted out loud with each downward compression of the sternum. She passed him the bag-mask and was grateful that he expertly took over the respirations, holding the mask and the patient’s jaw with the practised ease of an anaesthetist.

‘Myocardial infarction. She’s arrested. The ambulance is on its way.’

They worked together as a team. Marcus gave one breath to Madeline’s five compressions, stopping every two minutes for the defib to analyse the rhythm again.

‘Shock recommended,’ the voice said after nearly ten minutes.

Madeline almost cheered. They’d gone from an unshockable rhythm to one the defib deemed it could help. Had she moved from asystole into VF? Were they making real headway with their CPR?

Madeline checked they were well clear of Mrs Sanders’s body before she pushed the shock button.

‘Brett,’ she said, ‘why don’t you go and wait for the ambulance outside? They’ll be here soon.’ The poor kid had seen enough today and was barely holding it all together. He didn’t need to see how his mother’s body would jump as the current arced through her chest.

‘I don’t want to leave her.’ The boy’s voice cracked with emotion he was desperately trying to keep in check.

‘Brett,’ Marcus said calmly, ‘we have everything under control here.’ He gave a reassuring smile. ‘You can be a bigger help by greeting the ambulance and guiding them to us.’

Brett nodded miserably and left reluctantly.

‘Stand clear,’ said Madeline in a loud voice as they both backed away from the patient, making sure no part of them was touching Mrs Sanders in any way.

Madeline hit the green ‘deliver shock’ button and they both watched as the patient’s chest bucked with the electricity. The machine told them to wait as it reanalysed.

‘We need IV access,’ Madeline said, slightly puffed from the exertion of depressing the patient’s sternum. Her arms were beginning to ache.

‘Shock not recommended,’ the defib pronounced.

‘Intubation gear, too,’ said Marcus, as he resumed his position at Mrs Sanders’s head.

She admired his skill but found herself wishing he’d do up his buttons. ‘What? No eye of toad or wing of bat, Dr Hunt? No magic wand?’ she taunted unreasonably, going back to her compressions. It was bitchy and uncalled for, given his willingness to help after she had called him a quack, but puh-lease! How could she even be thinking about his barely dressed body at such a time?

‘Too late for that now, Maddy,’ he stated, his lips tightening. Her gibe might have been amusing at another time but he too was way more distracted than he should have been by how her skirt had ridden up, exposing a generous length of thigh, and the way the silk of her blouse pulled tautly, sliding seductively over her pert breasts with each downward compression. There was a time and a place and this was definitely not it!

Madeline heard the sirens wailing somewhere close by and breathed a sigh of relief. Locked in this battle with Marcus to save Mrs Sanders’s life seemed deeply intimate and she was pleased that other health-care professionals would soon join them and break the connection.

The two ambulance officers were there within the minute and Madeline explained what she knew and the four of them worked together. One of the ambulance team worked on intravenous access while Madeline and Marcus continued CPR. The other drew up first-line drugs.

‘We need to intubate,’ said Marcus when the machine recommended no shock again.

The officer handed him a laryngoscope and Marcus inserted the cold heavy metal into the patient’s mouth as he manoeuvred her head with his other hand. The light on the instrument shone down her throat and Marcus angled it around slightly until he could visualise the white vocal cords.

‘Size eight endotracheal tube, please.’

Marcus skilfully inserted the plastic airway into the trachea and removed the mask from the bag-mask apparatus, connecting the bag to the top of the tube and squeezing oxygenated air into the lungs. The paramedic tied the tube in place.

The machine reanalysed again and everyone moved back as it recommended a shock and Madeline pushed the green button. They moved back in and Marcus felt for a pulse.

‘Got one,’ he said.

There was no time for congratulations. ‘Let’s load her and go,’ said the paramedic who had established the intravenous access. They swapped the defibs for one of theirs, which had a full-screen cardiac monitor attached, and Madeline helped load their patient onto the trolley as Marcus continued to administer breaths.

Madeline noted the tachycardia, relieved that they had got Mrs Sanders back, but she was having runs of VT and Madeline knew that her condition was still critical and unstable. They had her ready for transport quickly and Madeline put her arm around Brett who was silent and pale, obviously shocked by everything that had just happened.

‘Come on, son,’ Marcus said gently, passing over the bag to the paramedic. ‘You can ride up front.’ Brett nodded absently, following his stretchered mother like a zombie.

‘I’d like to ride in the back with her—is that all right?’ Madeline asked the paramedics, who gave her a nod. If she arrested again, another pair of hands would be helpful.

‘I’ll follow in my car,’ said Marcus.

She turned to face him and took an abrupt step back, not realising how close behind her he was.

‘There’s no need,’ she said, trying not to sound ungrateful. After all, she couldn’t have done it without him. Now the immediate emergency was over, the ebb of the adrenaline that had surged through her system was making her nauseous. Combined with her jet lag, she was shaking badly.

He put his hands gently on her shoulders and frowned at their trembling. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, applying slight pressure to her shoulders.

She looked into his face and then wished she hadn’t. She felt absurdly close to tears. She didn’t want this man to be kind to her. She wanted him and the unsettling feelings she felt when she was near him to go away.

‘I’m fine.’ She shrugged her shoulders and his hands fell away.

Marcus lifted his hand and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, which had loosened from the tight knot at the nape of her neck. Madeline pulled back as the urge to lay her head against his chest took hold.

‘Dr Harrington,’ one of the paramedics called. ‘Coming,’ she replied, and stepped away from Marcus on shaky legs.




CHAPTER TWO


MADELINE was sitting in the family waiting area with Brett when Marcus finally tracked her down. On their arrival the hospital staff had efficiently taken over. After briefing them, Madeline had left to call Mr Sanders. She hated that part the most. Talking to shocked families in grave situations always made her feel helpless.

She was feeling really weary now, staring blankly at the opposite wall, her eyes gritty again. Marcus pushed a steaming cup of coffee towards her face. She blinked, staring at him, unseeing at first until her body pulsed betrayingly and recognition dawned. Overwhelming tiredness made her irritable.

‘I told you there was no need to come,’ she said, ignoring the coffee. Didn’t he have a child to get back to?

‘Take it, Maddy,’ he ordered in a soft voice which nonetheless brooked no argument. The pungent aroma of coffee hit her and her stomach growled. Madeline realised she hadn’t eaten since breakfast on the plane. She took the polystyrene cup.

He handed Brett a cold can of soft drink and sat down beside her. They drank in silence, Madeline desperately trying to quell the frisson of awareness just sitting next to Marcus was causing. Their arms occasionally brushed and she was awake again. Fully, completely awake.

Pull yourself together, she lectured herself. He is unavailable. So are you, or you will be again soon anyway. And you’re going to squash this man like an ant on Monday—you don’t want to be lusting after him as you’re giving him his marching orders. The thought kept her focussed and a smile curved across her full mouth and glittered in the emerald depths of her eyes.

She imagined the look on his face as she handed him the notice of eviction. The fantasy was marred by a sudden pang of guilt. They may not see eye to eye on treatment methodologies but he was an actual doctor and obviously very skilled, and had helped her tonight without question, despite her previous hostile threats.

‘Plotting my demise, Maddy?’

His low growl in her ear caused a riot of sensations to surge through her. Startled that he could so accurately read her thoughts, she turned to face him, composing her features to disguise her inner turmoil. ‘How did you guess?’ she parried lightly.

‘Maddy, Maddy.’ He laughed and stroked the dark stubble on his jaw. ‘Don’t ever play poker.’

Madeline followed the caress intently, sidetracked by sudden wanton thoughts of his stubble brushing against her skin. Her nipples hardened and as she watched him his eyes widened and his hand stilled at her blatant arousal.

She stared for an age, caught in his intense blue gaze. The bustle of hospital life continued around them, oblivious to the sexual energy arcing between them.

‘Dr Harrington.’

A young nurse interrupted. Madeline blinked and looked at her in a slightly disorientated fashion. ‘Y-yes?’

‘Mrs Sanders has just gone up to Intensive Care.’

‘Oh,’ said Madeline, pulling herself together, ‘Thanks, I’ll go right up.’

The nurse’s attention, however, had strayed to Marcus. She was smiling at him, an invitation in her eyes. Marcus winked at her and Madeline rolled her eyes. Thank goodness she’d never been a slave to her hormones. How did people get things done? Stay focussed? Function?

She left him to it, taking Brett up to see his mother and waiting with him until his father arrived, leaving shortly after. She was surprised to see Marcus lounging at the nurses’desk, waiting for her, but was unsurprised to hear the tinkle of laughter as two more nurses fell under the skater boy’s charm.

‘I’ll give you a lift home,’ he said, straightening as she approached.

‘I’ll catch a taxi,’ she threw over her shoulder as she walked past him.

‘Don’t be silly, Maddy,’ he said, in a voice that made her feel like a disobedient child. ‘You look exhausted. Do you know how long it’s going to take to get a taxi on a Saturday evening?’

She stopped walking and sighed. He was right and she was tired, so very tired. What could it hurt? She nodded her assent. He raised his eyebrows at her, obviously not having expected such easy capitulation, but she was just too exhausted to care.

A few minutes later Madeline eyed the fire-engine red MG convertible doubtfully. ‘This is yours?’

‘Yes,’ he smiled lazily.

‘Hocus-pocus pays, huh?’ she gibed.

‘What did you expect me to drive?’

She looked him up and down. He was still in the same clothes—buttoned this time. She could see the paint in his hair and remembered him flying up off the concrete wall, his skate-board attached to his feet. ‘Something old and beat up,’ she said.

He threw back his head and laughed—a rich, throaty noise that weakened her knees. ‘You are a shrew,’ he stated. ‘Get in, Maddy.’

She obeyed meekly, fearing that her knees wouldn’t support her for much longer. She sank into the well-worn soft leather of the bucket seat.

‘Not much room for a child seat in here, Dr Hunt.’

He laughed again. ‘The name is Marcus.’

‘Maybe…but I’m going to call you Dr Hunt,’ she mimicked his earlier words and he laughed again.

‘Touché, Maddy. Touché.’

They rode with the top down and, apart from Madeline giving him the directions to her house, they drove in silence. The steady purr of the engine and the caress of the warm night air against her skin lulled Madeline to sleep.

Marcus took the opportunity to study her and felt a stupid little flutter somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. She was utterly gorgeous. Completely intriguing. The diamond on her finger mocked him and he almost sighed out loud. Pity. He lived by a strict code—no attached women, no matter how much his body insisted.

He pulled the car up outside her apartment block in the valley and switched off the engine. He didn’t want to wake her but felt compelled to touch her at the same time.

‘Maddy,’ he said quietly, lightly stroking her cheek. She wiggled and murmured something unintelligible.

‘Maddy,’he said, louder this time, and watched with regret as she opened her eyes. She sat up abruptly and Marcus’s hand fell away.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, embarrassed. ‘I didn’t mean to fall asleep.’

He shrugged. ‘You were tired.’

They were quite close in the car and even in the dim light Madeline knew that something was happening inside her that had never happened with Simon. Marcus dominated the small space—his blatant sexuality too big for such close confines. This wouldn’t do at all.

Oh, God! She was so confused. She needed a sleep! She was losing control of the situation completely. He rode a skateboard. He had a child. OK, that didn’t mean he was married but he had responsibilities.

She cleared her throat. ‘Anyway…thank you…for before. After the way I carried on I’m surprised you came.’

He shrugged. ‘I would never ignore a medical emergency. Some things are bigger than petty differences.’

‘Still, I think I owe you an apology.’ ‘Accepted,’ he said, half bowing in the small space. ‘Does this mean my imminent eviction is not on the cards?’

‘It means seeing that you are a real doctor and you came to my aid and gave me a lift home, I guess I can tolerate you. But I’m a sceptic through and through, Dr Hunt. It’ll take more than good CPR technique to convince me.’

He laughed. ‘Ah, a challenge. I do so like a challenge.’ She shivered at the intimate promise in his words. This was crazy—he had a child and she was still wearing her engagement ring. She needed to put this conversation back onto even ground. ‘I’d better go, I’m keeping you from your family.’

‘Well, that would be difficult given I don’t have any.’ Her heart did a crazy leap. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I saw you earlier today in the skate park with a little boy. I thought…’

She had seen him earlier? Interesting… ‘He was my child? No. He’s my nephew. My sister lives here in Brisbane and Connor’s a mad keen skater. I promised I’d take him to the park on the weekend. Not married. Not in a relationship. No kids.’

He smiled at her and she thought, Free agent. No wife or girlfriend. And no child. ‘I’m sorry. You seemed really close, I just automatically assumed…’

‘Yeah, I guess we’re pretty close. He’s a great kid.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Six. When Nell, my sister, moved to Brisbane for her work I decided to follow. Connor’s father took off when he was a baby and I know what it’s like to grow up without a father.’

‘What happened to your dad?’ she asked, curious despite telling herself not to be.

‘He and my mum divorced when I was five. He was kind of absent really. He married again and sort of forgot about us for large periods of time.’

‘So now you’re Connor’s father figure?’

He laughed. ‘Let’s just say stable male role model.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Ah, a man afraid of the F word. How unusual.’

He grinned. ‘I’m not afraid. I just prefer being an uncle. I like being fun Uncle Marcus. But he’s pretty full on. I’m glad when I can hand him back. I like my life a little too much to tie myself down to something like that permanently.’

‘You make it sound like a death sentence,’ she chided.

‘Let’s just say—once bitten, twice shy.’

So there was something in his past. ‘Ouch,’ she joked. ‘Sounds painful.’

He shuddered, thinking about it. ‘It was.’

Madeline yawned despite her interest being piqued. The weariness had returned with gusto. ‘I’d better go. Thanks for the ride.’

He captured her gaze and the wrong kind of ride came to mind. Trying desperately to evict it from his brain, he cleared his throat. ‘Any time,’ he said.

Her hand stilled on the handle. Had she imagined the innuendo? She opened the door, exited the car and turned to face him. ‘Goodbye, Dr Hunt,’ she said, emphatically shutting the door.

His laughter followed her as she walked away on wobbly legs.

Madeline arrived at the hospital the next day just before lunch. She entered the main foyer, past the line of die hard smokers braving the midday sun, and into the blast of cool air. Madeline inhaled deeply, re-familiarising herself with the sterile smell found in hospitals the world over. She loved that smell and felt a pang of regret that she was no longer a part of the hospital system.

She made her way to the ICU only to discover her patient had stabilised and been moved to the coronary care unit. She spoke briefly to the registrar who had been caring for Mrs Sanders, and was told she had suffered a large inferior wall MI, evidenced not only on her ECG but by a massive rise in her cardiac enzymes.

Fortunately, with the swift administration of a thrombolytic agent they had managed to halt any further damage. Mrs Sanders’s condition had stabilised overnight, with fewer and fewer ectopic beats, and they had been able to extubate her in the early hours of the morning.

Madeline was relieved as she made her way next door to the coronary care unit. Mrs Sanders had five kids who needed her. Hopefully now she would start following medical advice and do something abut her diet and exercise. It was a drastic wake-up call but unfortunately her patient had been a heart attack waiting to happen for a long time—overweight, hypertensive, high cholesterol and a family history of heart disease.

Madeline smiled at Mrs Sanders, who was looking much better. She took her patient’s hand as her eyes sought the cardiac monitor. A regular sinus rhythm blipped on the screen. The last blood pressure taken had been good and the oxygen saturation also displayed was excellent. No doubt this was helped by the prongs sitting inside Mrs Sanders’s nose, blowing a steady supply of oxygen.

Mrs Sanders greeted Madeline warmly, thanking her profusely for saving her life.

‘Nonsense,’ Madeline said dismissively, blushing at the praise. ‘I just did what anyone who had that knowledge would have done. Besides, I didn’t do it all by myself.’

‘Yes, Brett said that a nice male doctor helped, too.’

Madeline grimaced. That wasn’t exactly how she would have described Marcus Hunt. Smug, yes. Sexy, yes. But nice…?

‘Did I hear my name?’ Marcus’s deep voice behind her made Madeline jump.

‘Maddy,’ he said to her suddenly erect back as he entered the room.

Madeline, perched on her patient’s bed, sat very still, awareness of Marcus stiffening her spine. He sauntered around the front of Madeline and sprawled himself in the low chair beside the bed. He offered Mrs Sanders the bunch of flowers he had.

Marcus introduced himself and proceeded to charm the socks off the middle-aged woman. Madeline sat rooted to the spot, unable to move and only vaguely aware of their conversation. Her eyes were irresistibly drawn to his powerful denim-clad legs. He was wearing one of those trendy T-shirts that looked like a toddler had scribbled on it and it clung to his biceps and chest wall perfectly. He laughed and it drew her gaze higher, to his mouth.

Marcus chose that moment to look at her with his strong, direct gaze. It broke her trance-like state and she looked away hastily, heat suffusing her face. I have to get out of here, she thought. I can’t think straight around this damned man.

‘Well, I think I’ll be off now.’ Madeline broke into the conversation with an unsteady voice and made a great show of gathering her things.

Mrs Sanders protested but Madeline could see how even the short visit had taken it out of her patient.

‘Yes,’ said Marcus, rising. ‘I’d better be off, too.’

‘Oh, please,’ said Madeline, panicking slightly, not wanting to spend any longer in his company than she had to. ‘Don’t leave on my account, you’ve only just arrived. Stay. I’m sure Mrs Sanders would love the company.’

‘No, no,’ Marcus assured her. ‘I don’t think we should tire her out.’

‘Yes, I am a little weary.’ Mrs Sanders finally admitted the truth.

‘Righto, we’ll be off, then,’ said Marcus, covering the older woman’s hands with his own. ‘If there is ever anything I can do for you, Mrs Sanders, please, don’t hesitate.’ He pulled a business card out of his back pocket and placed it on her bedside table.

Madeline stared at him, gobsmacked! She fumed silently as she stalked out of the unit. OK, she’d made up her mind to tolerate him but how dared he try and poach her patient? Once they had pushed through the swinging doors and were out in the corridor, Madeline let fly.

‘What the hell was that?’ she demanded.

‘Shh, Maddy…it’s a hospital.’ He wagged his finger at her playfully.

He looked so fresh and vital and she still felt tired and irritable. She wasn’t in the mood for his teasing. ‘I don’t give a damn,’ she snarled.

‘Maddy!’ He feigned a shocked expression.

‘How dare you try and steal one of my patients? How…how…unethical! You’re not doing a very good job of convincing me of your professionalism,’ she snapped, striding off.

He contemplated just ambling along behind her, because her annoyed strut in her snug three-quarter cargoes was very cute, but thought better of it. He caught her up.

‘Conventional medicine doesn’t seem to have done her much good.’

Madeline halted and whipped around, cheeks flushed and eyes glittering. ‘Don’t you dare preach to me, Doctor. You know nothing about this case. It just so happens that conventional methods only work if you follow your doctor’s advice! Mrs Sanders is notoriously uncompliant.’

Madeline’s chest heaved, a fact not missed by Marcus. But unfortunately she didn’t give him that long to appreciate it before she stormed ahead again.

Madeline was dismayed to find that some idiot had parked her in. Her dismay grew to anger when she realised it was Marcus’s MG. She gritted her teeth. She was going to need thousands of dollars’ worth of dental work done in the not too distant future if this kept up!

She kicked one of his car’s tyres out of pure pique and leant impatiently against her boot, foot tapping. She watched his lazy swagger as he approached. Even his strut was sexy.

‘I hope you’re better at your hocus-pocus than you are at parking.’

He laughed and she shivered despite the thirty-degree day. ‘Someone got out of bed on the wrong side. Look I’m sorry, OK? I think we got off on the wrong foot this morning.’

‘Just shift your car, Dr Hunt. I have no desire to speak with you.’ She just wanted to go. Get out of his radius. His presence was too unsettling.

‘Maddy,’ he said, coming nearer, ‘I thought we’d called a truce last night? I’m really a great guy when you get to know me.’

He was too close for her sanity. She found it hard to remember to breathe around this man. He made her inexplicably want to throw caution to the wind and hop on the back of his skateboard and roll off into the sunset.

‘Your car,’ she repeated.

Marcus gave a frustrated sigh at her stonewalling. He’d never had to work this hard in his life. And it just made him more intrigued. More fascinated. More sorry about the diamond rock on Madeline Harrington’s left hand.

He gave her a long, hard look then moved away from her. He put the key in his door and decided she looked just as good in profile. ‘Why don’t we go and have a coffee or something? Get to know each other a little?’ he asked her.

‘Are you still here?’ she said, ignoring his question.

He laughed. ‘OK, OK. I guess I’ll see you later.’

‘Don’t hold your breath,’ she replied, and was pleased with just the right amounts of indifference and ice she’d injected into her voice.

Marcus gunned the engine and gave her another confident grin. ‘It may be sooner than you think.’ His laughter reached out and touched her even after he’d accelerated away.

The muscles of her neck ached and she didn’t have to be a chiropractor to know the cause. Stress. Also known as Marcus Hunt. He made her wary. Tense. On guard. She massaged them one-handed as she drove out to George and Mary’s acreage property for lunch.

Mary handed her a nice cold Chardonnay as soon as she arrived and they sat out on the back deck in squatters’ chairs, looking out over the gorgeous mountain view. George joined them and she filled them in on London and the events of the previous day.

‘So you’ve met Marcus,’ George said.

Madeline rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, I have. Did you know he was a homeopath when you leased the premises to him?’

‘Of course,’ he said.

‘What were you thinking, George?’

He looked at her calmly. ‘I thought you might have a problem with it.’

‘I threatened to have him evicted,’ she said bluntly.

Mary gasped and held her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, no, dear! I’ve invited him to lunch.’

‘What?’ demanded Madeline, staring at Mary like she’d just grown another head.

‘He’ll be here any time soon.’

Oh, great, she thought. Was it too late to leave? Then she became annoyed. Why should she have to? George and Mary had been nothing but wonderful since her parents had died and she hadn’t seen them for six weeks.

‘Why on earth would you threaten to evict him?’ asked a shocked George.

‘Because I expected you to be as outraged as me. I thought you’d been hoodwinked by the estate agents and were oblivious to the identity of the new leaseholder.’

‘Why would you think that?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said sarcastically. ‘How about all the botched-up patients we’ve seen? How about Abby?’

George looked at Madeline over the top of his glasses. She looked so much like her father. But Paul Harrington’s daughter had been through a lot over the years and it had made her much tougher than the gentle soul who had been his dearest friend. She had been emotionally guarded since high school and Simon breaking off the engagement had made her even more wary.

He sighed and took his glasses off. ‘I know she’s your sister and you know how much we cared for her, but Abby was a grown woman who made her own decisions about her health care, Madeline,’ he reminded her gently. ‘Yes, she was foolish but ultimately it was her choice who she consulted that day. You can’t brand the entire industry because of a few bad eggs. Abby must also share some of that responsibility.’

Madeline knew he was right but Abby had paid such a high price for her stupidity. ‘I know that. I’m just surprised that suddenly we appear to be endorsing this stuff,’ Madeline said.

‘Madeline,’ George sighed, getting up and moving closer, ‘Marcus is one of Melbourne’s top people in alternative medicine. He’s even worked with elite athletes, helping them find alternative medicines to treat their ailments because so much conventional stuff is on the banned list. We had him thoroughly checked out. He holds a bona fide medical degree. He’s not some radical quack. Just a good doctor offering people choices based on sound medical and homoeopathic principles. The best of both worlds.’

She knew George was making sense but an image of Marcus’s dimpled smile was stuck in her brain and she wanted it gone. ‘Why wasn’t I consulted?’

‘You’ve been away for six weeks.’

‘There are such things as telephones.’

‘It wasn’t a decision we made lightly, Madeline. We all discussed it and agreed that it would be good for the practice to promote holistic care. You’re not the only one keen to make changes so we can attract new clients. You opened the box and you’ve really helped revive the practice, but we have ideas, too. So many people come in these days wanting alternatives to pills and intrusive medical procedures. At least we can refer them to someone with an impeccable reputation.’

‘You mean you’re actually going to refer patients to him?’

‘If I feel it’s warranted. If it’s what they want—yes.’ He shrugged.

‘I don’t know, George. It’s one thing to tolerate him but to legitimise him by passing work his way is another thing entirely. You know we have to strive for best practice. And that has to be evidence-based.’

‘Come on, Madeline, so much of modern medicine and pharmacology is based on old remedies.’

She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Maybe. But that’s the problem with all this alternative nonsense, isn’t it? There’s no written studies to back up their claims. If it isn’t written somewhere, proven in some double-blind study somewhere, I don’t think I’ll be referring any of my patients.’

And she wanted as little to do with him as possible. There was something strange that happened inside her when she was around him. It was confusing and she didn’t need it in her life. As it was, she was going to have sit through lunch with him. Him and his blue eyes and wicked dimples.

‘You will be nice to him, won’t you, dear?’ said Mary.

Manners were very important to Mary. ‘Of course, Mary. I’m always polite,’ she said, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. Since when had she ever not done the right thing?

The phone rang, interrupting their conversation. Madeline hoped it was Marcus cancelling lunch but when George didn’t come back from answering it she assumed it was for him. Mary went to check on lunch, ordering Madeline to stay where she was and relax.

Which she did. Despite the frisson of apprehension about Marcus, the combination of the heat and wine and jet lag and the quiet tranquillity of the Blakely residence had her eyelids growing heavy. Horses neighed and cows mooed and the smell of freshly cut grass filled her senses. I’ll just shut my eyes for a second, she thought sleepily.

Madeline vaguely heard the chiming of the doorbell but was still lost in the nether world of sleep when Mary directed their guest outside. ‘Madeline’s out on the deck. I’ll be there in a moment, Marcus, dear. George won’t be long.’

Marcus strolled out, steeling himself for uptight Maddy, still annoyed at him about what had happened at the hospital. He almost did a double-take when Madeline’s sleeping form came into view. She wasn’t remotely uptight in slumber. Her hair was loose and her eyes were closed and her disapproving mouth was soft and her frown was gone. He suddenly knew how the prince in Sleeping Beauty must have felt.

She lay reclined in the chair, her long legs stretched out on the leg supports of the squatter’s chair. A half-empty wine glass balanced on the broad arm. His eyes drifted to the steady rise and fall of her chest. She wore a jade-green T-shirt with a rounded neckline that clung to her female form.

The temperature outside suddenly got a lot hotter. Marcus felt his mouth go dry as the heat started to suffocate him. God! She was beautiful. He felt his groin stir and tighten. He sat at the table and watched her as she slept. This time he wasn’t going to wake her, not when just looking at her gave him pleasure. He had no idea who the man was that Maddy had committed herself to but he was one lucky guy.

Madeline frowned slightly as an image of Marcus floated in front of her. His bare chest and dimples mocked her. She awoke with a start, disorientated, her subconscious trying to drag her back into the lingering folds of her dream.

Her unfocussed gaze came to rest on Marcus. He was staring at her and she frowned. The fog shrouding her brain, intensified by her out-of-sync body clock, couldn’t compute the image in front of her. Was she still dreaming? Had she only dreamt that she’d woken up? Or was she dreaming that she was awake?

Marcus waited for the confusion to clear from her gaze. She was looking at him like he was an alien. Which was fine by him because when she finally did realise who he was she was going to be as mad as hell.

Madeline blinked rapidly a few times and rubbed her eyes. Yep—she was definitely awake. And Marcus was definitely sitting at the table, drinking a beer. Looking at her.

‘Maddy.’ He nodded. ‘Long time, no see.’

Madeline felt vulnerable in her reclining position and struggled out of the chair. ‘Madeline,’she grouched, annoyed that he’d showed up. ‘The name is Madeline!’

‘Do you need a hand?’ he asked, amused at her attempts to get out of the chair.

She ignored him, finally rising to her feet and walking down to the far corner of the deck, wineglass in hand. He was dressed as he’d been at the hospital. His comment about seeing her sooner than she thought flashed back.

‘You knew! You knew at the hospital you were coming here,’ she accused.

‘Mary invited me this morning. It seems she’s rather keen for us to meet. Besides…I never refuse a home-cooked meal.’

Madeline was just about to retaliate when Mary came out to join them. ‘Everything OK?’ she asked.

Madeline could see Mary looking at the distance between the two of them and the little frown drawing her eyebrows together.

‘Great,’ said Madeline, and smiled enthusiastically.

‘Marcus…’ Mary wagged her finger at him ‘…you never said you and Madeline had already met.’

Madeline stared incredulously at sensible, level-headed Mary. She was practically flirting with the younger man, her cheeks a delicate pink.

‘I confess.’ He dazzled a brilliant smile in Mary’s direction.

So it wasn’t just her he had an effect on? Madeline suppressed the sudden urge to scream. ‘Where’s George?’ she asked instead.

‘Here I am,’ he said, joining them, giving his wife a hug from behind. ‘Let’s eat!’

Mary was an excellent cook and Madeline was sure it tasted divine, but she found herself having to force down each mouthful. She was acutely conscious of Marcus and his witty chat. She could barely string two words together, which added to her irritation.

‘So, Marcus,’ Mary said, ‘tell us a bit about yourself.’

Marcus told them a lot about his earlier life growing up in Melbourne and Madeline was interested despite telling herself she didn’t care.

‘I’m surprised a nice young man like you hasn’t been snapped up with a couple of kids by now,’ Mary pressed.

He laughed. ‘Can you call thirty-five young?’ he asked.

George snorted. ‘You can when you’re sixty.’

Madeline was just thinking how smoothly Marcus had avoided that question when she saw his smiling face grow serious.

‘Actually, I was married once, a long time ago.’

Madeline stopped eating. His cryptic comments in the car the previous night now made some sense.

‘Too young?’ asked Mary.

‘Something like that,’ he said dismissively with a quick shrug of his shoulders.

‘Do you still see her?’ Mary asked.

‘From time to time,’ he said noncommittally, thinking about how stupid he and Tabitha had been the last time they’d caught up.

They ate a little more without speaking and then Mary said, ‘Have you had much of a chance to do any sightseeing, Marcus?’

‘Not really,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve been so busy since I arrived, setting up the practice, I haven’t really been anywhere. I’ve found South Bank, I swim there most afternoons. Oh, and the local skate park.’

Yes, indeed he had, thought Madeline as she pushed her food around her plate. She thought back to when she had first seen him—had it only been yesterday?—shirtless, riding the concrete curves. His six-pack abs and his perfectly muscled quads returned in full Technicolor detail. If only she’d known then, sitting in her car at roadworks, that in less than twenty-four hours she’d actually be acquainted with skater boy, she might just have turned around and flown back to the UK.

She became aware that the other occupants of the table were staring at her expectantly. She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry…what did you say?’

‘I was just telling Marcus what a wonderful tour guide you are. You won’t mind showing him some of the local sights on your day off tomorrow, will you?’ Mary said.

Madeline blinked at her. Of course she minded! Was Mary not listening when she’d told her about the eviction threats? Was she insane? She groped around desperately for a way to wriggle out of it.





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