Free The Doctor's Proposal by Marion Lennox Page A

desperate.’
    He smiled. ‘I have a way of hiding my desperation with insouciance.’
    â€˜Insouciance, hey? Like ketchup but thicker.’
    His smile deepened. She loved it when he smiled like that. It made his eyes light up in a way that had her fascinated.
    Remember Robert, she told herself fiercely. Remember her parents, Rory, a life committed to medicine.
    Plus remember that this man was married. With kids. His girls…
    â€˜So exactly how desperate are you?’ she tried cautiously, and his smile faded a little, as if he was weighing what he ought to tell her.
    â€˜Pretty desperate.’
    â€˜I can look after Angus.’
    â€˜He needs a nurse here,’ Jake said slowly. ‘But I was thinking…’
    â€˜Wow. Can I watch?’
    The smile appeared again. A truly excellent smile. Well worth working for.
    â€˜Enough impertinence. I have an idea.’
    â€˜Another!’
    â€˜Shut up, you.’ He was grinning. There’d been lines of strain around his eyes since the first time she’d met him, and suddenly they were lightening. It made her feel good. Great even. She found she was grinning back, and she had to force herself to get back to the issue at hand.
    â€˜Tell me your idea.’
    â€˜My girls…’ he said cautiously, and she stopped feeling like smiling. Which was dopey. How could she be jealous of the family of someone she’d known for less than twenty-four hours?
    â€˜Tell me about your girls,’ she managed.
    â€˜I have a housekeeper.’
    â€˜That’s nice,’ she said cautiously, and once again got that flash of laughter.
    â€˜It is nice,’ he told her. ‘But it gets nicer. Margie Boyce is a trained nurse. She’s in her sixties but she’s very competent. She could come out here during the day and stay with Angus and Susie.’
    There were things here she wasn’t quite understanding. ‘You can manage without her?’
    â€˜No, but—’
    â€˜What about your girls?’
    â€˜That’s just it,’ he said patiently. ‘They could come, too.’
    â€˜Your girls could come here?’
    â€˜That’s right.’
    â€˜What about your wife?’
    He sighed. ‘I don’t have a wife.’
    There was a moment’s silence. ‘No wife.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜But girls.’
    â€˜You really are nosy.’
    â€˜I am,’ she agreed, and beamed.
    Her smile seemed to take him aback. He dug his hands in his pockets and stared at her like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of her.
    She continued to smile, waiting.
    Hospice work was a hard training ground, Kirsty thought reflectively. She’d spent the last few years working with terminally ill patients, and one thing she’d learned fast was not to mess around trying to find the right way to frame a question. The people she worked with had little energy and less time. She worked to get things as right for them as she could in the little time she had available, and she didn’t do it by pussyfooting around hard questions.
    So maybe it made her nosy. What did she have to lose?
    â€˜I’m divorced,’ Jake said grudgingly.
    She gave a grunt of what might be sympathy and went back to looking out at the garden. That was another trick she’d learned. Give people space.
    â€˜So the girls are your daughters?’ she asked at last.
    â€˜That’s right.’
    â€˜How old?’
    â€˜Four.’
    â€˜Both?’
    â€˜They’re twins.’
    â€˜Twins are great,’ she said, and smiled.
    He gave her a sideways look. Hmm. She stopped smiling, looking away, and he dug his hands deeper into his pockets. She thought that was the end of information but instead he started speaking again, carefully, as if explaining something distasteful.
    â€˜Laurel and I met at med school,’ he said flatly, as if he wasn’t sure whether he should be saying it, but now he’d