their marriage—stopped believing in love, she told him later, while explaining that the excitement of an affair gave her a far bigger thrill than marriage could ever provide.
On top of the disaster that had been his second deployment, this news had simply numbed him, somehow removing personal emotion from his life. He knew this didn’t show, and he had continued to be a competent—probably more than competent—caring doctor, a cheerful companion in the officers’ mess and a dutiful son to both his parents and whichever spouses they happened to have in their lives at the time.
He’d always been reasonably sure that his parents’ divorce, when he was seven, hadn’t particularly affected him. He’d seen both regularly, lived with both at various times, got on well with his half-siblings, and had even helped them, at different times, when their particular set of parents had divorced. Walking the coastal path, he’d had time to reflect and had realised that perhaps it had been back then that he’d learned to shut his emotions away—tuck them into something like a memory box and get on with his life.
Had this shut him away, prevented him from seeing and understanding what had probably been Lauren’s very real fear that first time he’d been sent abroad?
She’d contacted him, Lauren, when she’d heard he was back this time—an email to which he hadn’t replied.
He’d wondered if the thrills she’d spoken of had palled, but found he didn’t want to know—definitely didn’t want to find out. In fact, their brief courtship and three-year marriage seemed more like some fiction he’d read long ago than actual reality.
A dream—or maybe a nightmare...
Not wanting his thoughts to slide back into the past where there were memories far worse than that particular nightmare, he shut the lid on his memory box and turned his thoughts to what lay ahead.
Inevitably, to the golden girl—woman—who’d popped into his life like a genie from a bottle, then jogged right back out again.
She must live in Wetherby, he realised, but the seaside town and surrounding area had a population of close to ten thousand, probably double that in holiday time.
It was hardly likely they’d run into each other...
And he’d be far too busy getting used to his new position, getting to know his colleagues and learning his way around the hospital and town to be dallying with some golden sprite.
Besides which, she had a child to get ready for school so was probably married, although he had checked and she didn’t wear a ring.
Not that people did these days, not all the time, and there were plenty of couples who never married, and women, and men, too, he supposed, who had a child but weren’t necessarily in a relationship.
But she had a child, and even if she wasn’t partnered, he was reasonably certain that women with children would—and should—be looking for commitment, for security, in a relationship.
Not that he did relationships.
He was more into dallying, and since he’d been a single man again, the only dalliances he’d had were with women who felt as he did, women who were happy with a mutually enjoyable affair without any expectation of commitment on either side.
The path had wound its way to the top of a small rise and he halted, more to stop his rambling, idiotic thoughts than to look at the view.
But the view was worth looking at, the restless ocean stretching out to the horizon, blue and green in places, fringed with white where the surf curled before rolling up the beach.
Off the next headland he could see surfers sitting on their boards, waiting for the next good wave, and beyond that what must be the outskirts of the town.
Wetherby!
THE KITCHEN TABLE at the Halliday house could have seated twenty people quite comfortably, but Izzy and her sister Lila were under orders to set it for eight.
‘I thought it was just us—how did we get to eight?’ Izzy asked, as she obediently laid placemats while Lila added cutlery.
‘Uncle Marty’s coming and he’ll probably have a new girlfriend,’ Nikki, who was arranging a bowl of flowers for the centre of the table, volunteered.
‘But that’s you and me, two, and Lila, Hallie and Pop, five, then Marty and presumably his latest flirt, that’s seven.’
‘Plus the new doctor from the hospital. As chairman of the hospital board it seemed only right I get to know him,’ the woman her foster children all called Hallie explained.
‘She’s matchmaking again,’ Lila whispered to Izzy.
‘Hopefully for you, not me,’ Izzy retorted.
‘But Lila doesn’t live here,’ Nikki pointed out. ‘And, anyway, Mum, he might be The One.’
Izzy groaned. Thirteen-year-olds—nearly thirteen-year-olds—shouldn’t be acting as marriage managers for their mothers!
‘Now, don’t start that again. I am perfectly happy with my single state, besides which he’s the new doc and I’ll be working with him, and while some people seem to manage to combine their work and social lives, it’s always been a disaster for me.’
‘It was only a disaster once,’ Hallie reminded her, ‘and that was probably my fault. He seemed like such a nice man when the board interviewed him. How was I to know he had two ex-wives he didn’t happen to mention?’
‘Two ex-wives and a jealous lover who damned near shot our Izzy.’
They all turned towards the back door and chorused Marty’s name as he spoke. Nikki was first into his arms for a hug.
But Izzy hung back, shuddering at the memory of that ill-fated relationship, only looking up when Marty added, ‘Okay, I’m home and it’s great to see you all but just stand back, girls, because I found this bloke out in the garden, looking a little lost, and apparently he’s come for dinner. Hallie’s latest stray, I’d say, the new doc in town. Says his name’s Mac.’
Izzy could feel her face heating while her body went stiff with shock. A long drawn out no-o-o-o was screaming somewhere inside her, while her hitherto reliable heart was beating out a little tattoo that had more to do with how the stranger looked than who he was.
Clean-shaven, with his long shaggy hair trimmed and slicked neatly back, his blue eyes framed by dark arched brows, he was possibly the most attractive man she’d ever seen.
Any woman’s body would react to him, she told herself, glancing at Lila to see if she was similarly struck.
But, no, her beautiful, dark-haired, doe-eyed sister was shaking hands with the man called Mac and asking where he’d come from, where he’d trained, doctor-to-doctor questions.
Not that Mac had time to answer them, for Hallie had taken charge and was introducing him to the family.
‘Marty you’ve met—he doesn’t live here, just arrives from time to time, though usually not alone...’
