hospital later,’ Mac said to Abby. ‘I’m due to do some teaching there this afternoon.’
Abby raised an eyebrow.
‘I keep my hand in at the hospital when we’re not busy. It helps keep me up to date and it only takes me a couple of minutes to get back here if we get a callout.’ He smiled. ‘You don’t fancy a drink later, by any chance? I can tell you all about Penhally.’ His expression was teasing, his eyes glinting.
Abby was horrified to feel a tingle run down her spine. Damn it! Why did she have to find him so damn sexy? Even sexier and better looking than twelve years ago. And the fact that he had a caring side made him all the more attractive. What was she thinking? There was no way she could be attracted to her dead sister’s ex-lover; it was too weird. What was more, she had to remember that Mac was the type of man for whom flirting was as natural as breathing. It didn’t mean anything. Wasn’t the way he’d treated Sara evidence of that?
He was looking at her, waiting for her reply, certain she would say yes. He was so supremely confident she would love to turn him down. And she would have, if it wasn’t for Emma. Her antennae, honed by years of being let down by men just like him, were on red alert. Of all the men in all the world, why did she have to be working with him?
Despite every nerve cell in her brain telling her to keep her distance from this man, for her daughter’s sake, she needed to learn more about him. Emma was going to a friend’s after school and wouldn’t be home until seven. Abby made up her mind.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ she said. ‘I like to go for a walk after work. You can join me if you want.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s up to you.’ Smiling to herself as she saw the look of surprise in his eyes, she whirled on her heel, ignoring the feeling that two blue eyes were watching her speculatively.
Mac watched Abby’s retreating back until she was out of sight. He would have bet a hundred bucks she had been about to turn him down, and her acceptance had taken him by surprise. Not that a walk was what he had in mind and not that he would have let one refusal put him off. In fact, it would have heightened the excitement of the chase. He tried to ignore the unpleasant feeling lurking somewhere deep down that felt uncomfortably like shame. Should he really be going after Abby? Although she intrigued and excited him, there was a certain wariness about her that suggested she had been hurt before, perhaps badly. And then there was the odd way she had kept looking at him during the callout. For someone as experienced as she was supposed to be there was an edginess about her that, while not quite alarming him, concerned him a little.
There was something else about Abby that was niggling him. He could have sworn he had met her before, but he had to be mistaken. He might have been with a lot of women in his life, but he would never have forgotten someone like her.
What was her story anyway? Not that it really mattered. He liked women, enjoyed their company and had a lot of respect for them, but he had no intention of having a long-term relationship with one. Once they made demands on him, he couldn’t help but lose interest. But he was getting way ahead of himself. This was simply a walk with a colleague, albeit a beautiful one. What was the harm in that? Nevertheless, however much he tried to dismiss the feeling of unease, he couldn’t quite shake it. A sixth sense he had relied on all his life was telling him that something extraordinary had arrived in the form of Abby Stevens and he wasn’t sure he liked the feeling one little bit.
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