Free The Surgeon's Fatherhood Surprise by Jennifer Taylor Page A

sat down, stretching his long legs under the table and accidentally kicking her foot. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured as he lifted the cup to his mouth.
    ‘It’s OK,’ Alison replied, tucking her feet safely out of the way.
    She picked up her own mug, feeling very ill at ease all of a sudden. It had been some time since she’d thought about her ex-husband, and it was worrying to wonder why she had thought about him now. She’d steered clear of relationships since the divorce. It hadn’t been difficult when she’d been so busy looking after Sam and earning enough money to keep them, but there’d been a couple of occasions when she’d been asked out on a date. Each time she had refused.
    Although she hadn’t ruled out the idea of meeting someone else, she was wary of making another mistake. If she ever got involved again with a man, she would need a cast-iron guarantee that he wasn’t going to let her down. And a man like Jack Tremayne definitely didn’t come with awarranty. Any woman who got involved with him wouldn’t know what to expect—in or out of bed.
    The thought made her blush and she rushed into speech. ‘How are the boys—?’
    ‘The boys are fine—’
    They both spoke at once and both stopped. Jack grinned at her. ‘Ladies first.’
    ‘I was just going to ask if Sam and Freddie were all right.’
    ‘They’re fine. They’re playing some sort of complicated game involving lots of cars and building blocks.’ Jack put his mug on the table and sighed. ‘At least Freddie seems to enjoy playing with Sam. He completely blanked me when I offered to play with him earlier. He didn’t want anything to do with me, in fact.’
    ‘He’s probably still feeling very unsettled,’ Alison said quietly, thinking that the son took after his father in that respect. It was obvious how unsettled Jack was feeling, and the thought simply compounded all her fears about the dangers of getting involved with him.
    ‘That’s what I keep telling myself.’ Jack gave her a quick smile, then changed the subject. ‘So what would you do with this place if you lived here?’
    ‘It would depend how long I was planning on staying,’ Alison said cautiously. ‘It isn’t worth spending a huge amount of money if it’s only a temporary arrangement, is it?’
    ‘Bearing in mind how hard it is to find some where to live around here, I can’t see myself moving in the fore seeable future.’
    ‘No?’ She shrugged, clamping down on the bubble of happiness that had popped up inside her because Jack wasn’t planning on leaving.
    ‘No. The whole point of coming back here was so thatFreddie would have his family around him. I’m certainly not thinking about uprooting him again for a very long time.’
    ‘In that case, I suppose it depends what you’re allowed to do. The cottage is a holiday let, isn’t it? There must be restrictions on what tenants can do to the property.’
    ‘It was a holiday let, but it’s been taken off the market now.’ Jack shrugged. ‘It’s owned by a subsidiary company of Whitethorn Holidays.’
    ‘India’s family business?’ Alison exclaimed.
    ‘It was. Now it all belongs to Freddie.’
    ‘You mean that Freddie inherited the company after India died?’
    ‘Yep. The whole kit and caboodle.’ Jack waved a hand around the kitchen. ‘Including this place. India was an only child, and she left everything in trust to Freddie. He’ll come into his inheritance when he’s twenty-five, although there’s money set aside for his use before then—for school fees, university, that kind of thing.’
    ‘I had no idea,’ Alison admitted.
    ‘That’s because I don’t want people making a song and dance about it.’ Jack’s expression was sombre. ‘I want Freddie to grow up like any normal kid and not be burdened by the fact that he’s so wealthy. I firmly believe it was that which led to India going off the rails, and there is no way that I’m going to let the same thing happen to