âIâd like to make love to you. Very, very much,â Jonas stated.
âEm, thereâs no need for you to look like youâre being asked to commit for life here. Weâre old enough to know we can take pleasure where we find it.â
âAnd walk away afterward?â
âThatâs right.â
âExcept it doesnât work like that,â Em told him sadly. âLike me and Robby.â
âI donât understand,â Jonas said.
âI thought I could just love Robby for a little bit, so I let myself become involved. And the longer it goes on, the more itâll tear my heart out when he leaves.â
âYou could adopt Robby.â
âOh, yes?â she jeered. âHow could I do that when Iâm on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. What sort of mother would I make?â
âI think youâd make a fine one.â
DR. EMILY MAINWARING had been awake all night, delivering twins. She was probably asleep and dreaming, but right in her waiting room wasâ¦
Her ideal man!
But⦠This was Bay Beach. She was in the middle of morning surgery, and staring was hardly professional. Instant marriage wasnât on the cards either. So somehow she forced herself back to being a twenty-nine-year-old country doctor instead of a lovesick teenager staring at a total stranger.
âMrs Robin?â
The elderly Mrs Robin rose with relief. Sheâd been waiting far too long. Every other patient looked at her with envy, and the stranger looked up as well.
Whew! He was even more good-looking eye to eye, and when their gazes lockedâ¦
For a moment, Em allowed herself to keep looking. Doctor assessing potential patient.
Ha! There was nothing professional in the way she was looking at this man.
For a start, he was large, in a strong-boned, muscular, six-feet-of-virile-male sort of way. Then he had the most gorgeous, burnt-red hair, crinkling into curls that were a bit unruly, and made you just want to run your fingersâ¦
âThatâs enough of that! Concentrate on work!â she told herself sharply. The last thing she needed this morning was distraction, and if a pair of twinkling green eyes had the capacity to knock her sideways then maybe she was even more tired than sheâd thought.
âIâm very sorry,â she told the rest of the waiting room, the stranger included. âBut Iâve had a couple of emergencies. Iâm running almost an hour late. If anyone would like to sit on the beach and come back in a whileâ¦â
It wasnât likely. These people were farmers or fishermen, and a visit to the doctor was a social occasion. Theyâd sit placidly enough, outwardly reading magazines but in reality soaking up every piece of gossip they could get.
Such as who the redhead was.
And she might have known theyâd find out.
âHeâs Anna Lunnâs big brother,â Mrs Robin told her before she even started on her litany of ills. âHeâs three years older than Anna, and his nameâs Jonas. Ooh, isnât he lovely? When he came in with Anna, I thought maybe she had a new fella, and that wouldnât hurt at all since that no-good Kevin walked out. But if this canât be her new man, then itâs good that she has a brother kind enough to bring her to the doctorâs, donât you think?â
Yes. It was. Anna Lunn was barely thirty, yet already weighed down with poverty and kids. But whyâ¦Em glanced down her list and saw the appointment, and she couldnât suppress her misgivings.
Anna had made a special appointment and sheâd brought her brother along for support. Em just knew this wasnât going to be a five-minute consultation for a pap smear.
But there was little point in worrying about it now. With an inward sigh she mentally added another half-hour to her day and turned her attention to Mrs Robinâs blood pressure.
Charlie Henderson collapsed before sheâd finished. Booked in for his regular coronary check, the fisherman was so old that he looked shrivelled and preserved for ever. Heâd tucked himself into a corner of the waiting room and had been contentedly observing the kids and chaos and general confusion. Now, just as Em started writing Mrs Robinsâs prescription, his eyes rolled in his head, he crumpled and slid soundlessly onto the floor.