Caroline Anderson, Anne Fraser, Kate Hardy, Margaret McDonagh

by Brides of Penhally Bay Vol. 04 (lit)

  ‘So nobody’s going to bat an eyelid about me asking you to be his guardian. You’re the obvious person. And,’ she said, holding his gaze steadily, ‘like it or not, you’re his father. If I don’t pull through, he’s going to need you.’

  Nick swallowed hard. ‘I need time to—’

  ‘To think about it?’ She shook her head. ‘You’ve had months to get used to the idea, Nick. Months to pull your head out of the sand. And now you want more time.’

  Her teeth had started to chatter, but when Nick went to put his arms round her again she pulled away. ‘The thing is, Nick, I might not have time. Yes, we gave in to our emotions. Took comfort from each other on one of the darkest nights of our lives. But it was years ago, we can’t change the past, and don’t you think we’ve paid enough for it? And do you really think it’s fair to take it out on Jem?’

  ‘Kate, this is all such a—’

  ‘Just forget it, Nick,’ she cut in. ‘I should’ve known that you’d let me down.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  And, before Nick could say another word, she walked out of the house.

  On Monday morning, Charlotte was sorting through her list when James walked into her office. ‘I would’ve knocked, but my hands are full,’ he said as she glanced up.

  Two paper cups of coffee and a paper bag containing something that smelled gorgeous.

  ‘I’ll try not to get crumbs on your desk,’he said, setting them all down on her desk and opening the bag. ‘But I’m prepared to share, if you like pain au chocolat.’

  She loved it. Though this felt as if James had somehow commandeered her into having breakfast with him. ‘You’re being a bit smooth for a Monday morning,’ she commented.

  ‘Actually, no. I haven’t had breakfast yet and this is about the only time I’m going to get to have it. Also, I know you’re a lark and I wanted to talk to you about this morning’s list.’

  ‘I see.’ She paused. ‘Well, thank you for the coffee.’ The scent of the warm pastries was too much for her, and she took one. ‘And the sugar rush.’

  He smiled at her. ‘Pleasure.’ His voice was almost a purr.

  Charlotte swallowed hard, willing her libido to behave. ‘So, the list.’ Talking to him about work was fine. She could do that. Even smile and laugh with him.

  And then he leaned forward. Dabbed the tip of his forefinger on the corner of her mouth—and then licked his finger.

  It felt almost as if he’d licked her skin, and her heart skipped a beat. She felt her eyes widen and her lips part, though she couldn’t get the question out.

  As if he’d realised that she wanted to know why he’d done it, he said softly, ‘You had chocolate on the corner of your mouth.’

  Oh-h-h.

  ‘I just about stopped myself doing what I really wanted to do,’ he said, his voice growing husky.

  And this time—when she wanted the words to stay back—they spilled out involuntarily. ‘What was that?’

  Time seemed to stretch. And then he leaned forward and kissed the corner of her mouth, just where his fingertip had touched her moments before.

  If anyone else had tried that, she would’ve pushed them away.

  But with James…she was shocked by how much she wanted to turn her head slightly, allow his mouth closer contact with hers. How much she wanted to slide her fingers into his hair and kiss him back.

  She pulled away and dragged in a breath. ‘That…’

  ‘Wasn’t very professional of me and it shouldn’t have happened,’ James said.

  And then, instead of the ‘I’m sorry’ she was half expecting, he added, ‘Not at work.’

  This was her cue to tell him it wasn’t going to happen out of work either. Except her mouth was refusing to be sensible and say it.

  She was sure he guessed at the turmoil going on in her head, because he said softly, ‘I’d better let you get on with your paperwork.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  But even after he left her office, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Couldn’t stop remembering how his mouth had felt against hers. A brief caress, cherishing rather than commanding.

  Not like Michael.

  But she was trembling. She dragged in a breath, and went through the grounding technique she’d learned and was teaching others—she sat down, held the arms of her chair and set her feet flat on the floor to make herself feel grounded. And then she focused on naming five things she could see. ‘Desk, chair, door, window, computer.’ Five things to hear, five things she could touch, five scents, five tastes…She went through each in turn, took a deep breath, and finally she felt still and calm inside.

  Just as long as she didn’t think about James.

  On Tuesday, James dropped in casually to Charlotte’s office. Considering that even her cousin had said she was too serious, it was time for Charlotte to realise that it was OK to have fun.

  Preferably with him.

  Which meant she needed to get used to him being around.

  Then he noticed the framed photograph on her desk. ‘Is that your cat?’

  She nodded. ‘Pandora.’

  The name he’d puzzled over before…and it turned out that Pandora was a cat. He was careful not to let the relief show on his face. ‘Nice cat,’ he commented. ‘What sort is she?’

  ‘A Burmese blue.’

  ‘How long have you had her?’

  ‘Since a couple of weeks after I came to Cornwall.’

  He smiled. ‘You’re determined not to talk to me, aren’t you?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘You’re going to have to talk to me a lot more, you know. When your team loses tonight and you have dinner with me.’

  ‘My team isn’t going to lose.’

  He laughed. ‘Tell me that later tonight.’ He blew her a kiss. ‘Catch you later.’

  Charlotte set the cookies she’d made earlier on the table with the other refreshments. She always enjoyed these evenings, but tonight she was nervous. Because of that stupid bet. She’d better hope that James had a weak spot, because she couldn’t back out of it now. And if he won…

  She joined her team at the table and tried to chat normally with Steffie and Tim and the others, but she knew the very second that James walked in the door. She couldn’t help turning round, and he looked utterly stunning. It was the first time she’d seen him in casual clothes—OK, they were clearly designer jeans and probably cost more than her entire outfit put together, but the faded denims suited him. They clung in all the right places. He’d teamed it with a white shirt, but it was casual rather than the formal ones he wore at work, with an open neck and sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He looked utterly gorgeous, very touchable, and the question slipped insidiously into her head: was James the man who could make her forget the past?

  The first three rounds of the quiz were all fairly close, and then it started getting serious. And somehow Charlotte had ended up sitting in a position where she could see James’s face. His expression told her that he was playing to win.

  Charlotte looked utterly gorgeous in jeans, scoop-necked pastel pink T-shirt and just a hint of lipstick. James was pretty sure she’d changed and got ready in less than five minutes—unlike his previous girlfriends and Sophia, who’d taken almost two hours to get ready, with immaculately coiffed hair and flawless full make-up. With her hair loose, Charlotte looked like the girl next door and he’d just bet she didn’t have a clue about just how beautiful she was.

  In the first couple of rounds, when she’d been laughing with her team, she’d looked relatively carefree, but he noticed in the break that she looked slightly tense. Because of him?

  Maybe he could tease her out of it. ‘We’re neck and neck, Miss Moneypenny.’

  ‘Don’t count your chickens, Bond. There are still five rounds to go.’

  Dave from the emergency department came over. ‘You know, Charlotte, considering you come down to our place so often to work with us, I reckon you ought to be on our tea
m.’

  ‘Not a chance! She’s ours,’ Tim declared, draping his arm round her shoulders. ‘Hands off.’

  Jealousy flickered through James, shocking him. For pity’s sake, he knew that Tim was married and Charlotte saw him simply as her colleague. But at the same time he noticed that she was so much more relaxed with Dave and Tim than she was with him—and it rankled.

  ‘I want more cake,’ Charlotte said, gently disengaging herself from Tim’s hug.

  ‘Ah, now I know the way to you is through your stomach, I’ll learn how to make fabulous cakes—and I’ll woo you over to my team,’ Dave teased.

  ‘In your dreams, Davey-boy,’ Charlotte said with a grin.

  She’d clearly worked with both of them for a long time and got on well with them, James thought, but she wouldn’t let either of them put their arms around her for long. So maybe it wasn’t just him.

  ‘Are you enjoying yourself, James?’ Lisa asked. ‘I know it’s probably a far cry from the kind of fundraisers you’re used to—we have the Christmas ball, but that’s the only really big one.’

  ‘It all adds up, and the important thing about fundraising is to have fun,’ James said.

  ‘Oh, I’m all for fun,’ Lisa said with a bright smile, flicking her hair back. ‘I was wondering…seeing as you’re fairly new around here, maybe you’d like me to show you around a bit. Show you where the night life is in St Piran.’

  ‘That’s really kind of you to ask me,’ he said, smiling at her, ‘but, as you say, I’m still finding my feet a bit. I’m not really ready to start seeing anyone.’It wasn’t strictly true. If Charlotte had made the same offer, he’d have taken it up in a nanosec-ond—but he didn’t see the point in being rude and hurting the younger doctor.

  It was still neck and neck between the cardio team and the surgeons when the last round started. And James smiled to himself at the last question: the location of a really obscure island.

  He knew exactly where it was.

  His father owned it.

  And, given the level of muttering around the room, nobody else had a clue where it was.

  Which meant that his team was going to win.

  Then he remembered what Nick had said. She’s not a challenge for you to conquer…She’s had a rough time in the last couple of years.

  He glanced over at her at almost exactly the moment she glanced at him.

  And the worry in her eyes decided him. He’d fib and say he didn’t know the answer; the teams would tie, and the bet would be off. Along with all the pressure.

  ‘Don’t have a clue,’ he said blandly.

  But when the answers were read out, he discovered that he’d miscalculated.

  It wasn’t a draw.

  Charlotte’s team had won.

  There was something fishy about this, Charlotte thought. Although James had looked surprised when her team had won, she’d seen the expression on his face at the last question. He’d known the answer. And yet his team had got the question wrong.

  Had he deliberately let her win?

  She drew a slip of paper from the old chocolate tin. ‘The money goes to the Friends of the Hospital for their Christmas fund.’

  ‘That’s brilliant.’ Dave took the envelope. ‘I’ll drop the money in to them tomorrow before I go on duty.’

  She said her goodbyes, then hurried after James and laid her hand on his arm. The feel of his bare skin against hers sent a shiver down her spine. ‘James, have you got a moment?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said politely.

  She didn’t want this discussion in front of everyone. ‘Maybe I can walk you to your car?’

  ‘I came by bike.’

  She blinked. ‘Motorbike?’ She could just imagine him as a bad boy in black leathers. Like the picture of the Australian actor that Steffie kept on the pinboard behind her desk. Shockingly, it made her knees feel weak.

  ‘Pushbike,’ James corrected.

  ‘Right.’ She walked with him over to the bike shelter. Once she was sure there wasn’t an audience, she said softly, ‘That last question—you knew the answer.’

  ‘I thought I did. Obviously I got it wrong.’

  She shook her head. ‘Don’t lie to me, James. You deliberately got it wrong so you wouldn’t beat me. Why?’

  ‘Honestly?’

  She nodded. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘That bet I made with you. It wasn’t fair. I was bullying you and I was wrong—and, actually, I thought we were level pegging so I threw the question to make us even.’

  ‘Making all bets off.’

  He nodded.

  ‘I still don’t understand why.’

  ‘I’ve been involved with someone who didn’t want to be involved with me. I’m not going to make that mistake again.’

  There was nothing she could say to that without prying. She spread her hands helplessly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You won,’he said. ‘And I made a deal with you. So I’ll leave you alone.’

  ‘You miscalculated, and you meant to do the right thing,’she said. ‘So I think we’ll stick with your original intention. All bets off.’

  ‘A new deal.’

  His gaze flickered from her mouth to her eyes and back again. And again. And when she didn’t pull away, he bent his head. Brushed his lips very, very gently against hers.

  It was like fireworks going off in her head. Fireworks that really shouldn’t be there. She wasn’t in the market for a relationship, and she wasn’t the kind of glamorous woman James normally dated.

  And yet…

  One more kiss, so sweet and soft and fleeting that she wondered if she’d dreamed it.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That’s sealed it. Friends?’

  Friends didn’t kiss each other like that. Friends didn’t look at each other like that.

  ‘Friends,’ she said shakily.

  ‘Would I be pushing my luck if I offered to walk you home?’

  ‘James, I’m twenty-eight.’

  He smiled wryly. ‘You’re a grown woman and you can look after yourself. Message received and understood.’He unlocked his bike. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  When Charlotte got home, she sat on the sofa with her cat draped over her and purring away. What James had said about being involved with someone who didn’t want to be involved with him…She had a feeling he was talking about his ex-wife. The paparazzi had shown him as partying away regardless of their marriage breakdown, but maybe that had been as much of a false front as the one she’d learned to put up, something to hide how hurt he really was.

  Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t who she’d thought he was.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE following morning, James walked onto the cardiology ward.

  ‘Here’s our hotshot surgeon,’ Steffie teased. ‘I thought you said you were going to make us eat crow?’ She made the shape of an L on her forehead and laughed. ‘Actually, it was pretty close. You gave us a real run for our money—everyone’s still buzzing about what a good night it was.’

  He wondered if that included Charlotte. ‘I enjoyed it, too. And was that lemon cake yours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you weren’t already married,’ he said with a grin, ‘I’d think about asking you. Just so I could have cake like that every single day.’

  Steffie flapped a dismissive hand. ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  He smiled. ‘By the way, is your team captain around? I wanted a quick word with her about Brianna on my list.’

  ‘Sorry, she’s not in today.’

  ‘She’s off duty?’ Though she hadn’t said a word to him about it yesterday.

  ‘Actually, she’s off every Wednesday from now on.’

  Surprise turned to worry. ‘Steffie, I hope I’m not asking out of turn—but is everything all right?’

  ‘It’s fine. She’s just negotiated different working hours—she spreads her time over four days a week at the hospital instead of five, and on Wednesdays she’s working in Penhally, just down the road.’ />
  He knew Penhally. The seaside village where Jack lived. ‘What’s she doing in Penhally?’

  ‘Her uncle’s the senior partner in the GP practice there.’

  He knew Nick, too.

  ‘She’s doing some sessions at the women’s clinic.’

  ‘The women’s clinic? Not what I’d expect from a cardiologist.’ Strange: it was out of her specialty. Then the penny dropped. ‘Of course. With obesity and diabetes on the rise, it makes sense to talk to people about heart health, and drop-in sessions at a GP clinic is a good way to do it—if she’s doing the women’s clinic, she must be talking to the women on the surgery’s obesity register, the diabetics and the postmenopausal women.’

  ‘That’s what she thought—she says that preventive medicine is the way forward to relieve pressure on us.’

  ‘Great idea.’

  ‘And then there’s her rape crisis centre.’

  ‘Rape crisis centre?’ James echoed. Hmm. For Charlotte to change her hours at the hospital so she could work a day a week pro bono…that had to be personal.

  ‘She’s a bit cagey on the subject,’ Steffie said, ‘but I think it happened to someone close to her, a while before she moved to Cornwall. This is her way of doing something to help. Putting something back. That’s Charlotte all over.’

  He’d met plenty of doctors who’d chosen their specialty because of something personal to them; it was the obvious reason why someone would choose to do something outside their own speciality.

  But then something else clicked. Nick had said that Charlotte had been through a rough time. He could’ve meant that she’d supported a friend through an ordeal and had found it draining; but he could also have meant that Charlotte herself had gone through the ordeal.

  And that would explain why Charlotte had gone to the lengths of negotiating different hours at the hospital.

  So maybe it hadn’t happened to someone close to her. Maybe it had happened to Charlotte herself—not that he could possibly ask her. But it would explain a lot.