was eyeing him dubiously.
‘You’ll have people talking.’
He laughed and her face tightened.
‘Maybe it’s time I gave them something to talk about.’
‘I could help with that,’ she said skittishly.
‘I was joking, Maxine,’ he told her. ‘Anna would be a hard act to follow and I don’t see suitable replacements on every street corner.’
He could tell that had gone down like a lead balloon but she didn’t get a chance to reply as a patient she’d seen earlier was hovering. Relieved to be away from her, Blake set off on his rounds with the intention of making Helena’s house his first stop.
‘Why didn’t you stay for breakfast?’ he asked when she opened the door to him.
She looked awful. There were dark smudges beneath eyes that were red-rimmed with weeping and her face was even paler than the day before.
‘How much sleep did you get?’ he asked, as the doctor in him took over.
‘Some,’ she replied, with her face warming again at the memory of how he’d held her in his arms and comforted her in the dark hours of the night. To cover her confusion she said, ‘I’d like to invite you for a meal to make up for all you’ve done for me, but I haven’t got around to doing any food shopping, and as Dad lived rather frugally there isn’t much in the fridge.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of letting you cook for me,’ he said immediately. ‘You’re in no fit state. But there’s no reason why we can’t eat out. I’ll take you for a meal. It will be one way of making sure you’re managing to get some food down.’
His glance was taking in the uncluttered worktops and a sink bare of used pots. ‘Unless you’re a very tidy person I would guess that you’ve had nothing so far.’
Was he overdoing the caring neighbour bit? he wondered. She’d turned away and was staring through the window. Maybe she was finding him too overpowering.
Yet she was saying, ‘I’d like that. To dine out. It will help to take my mind off everything for a little while.’
He was smiling and Helena thought that this attractive stranger really was doing his best to be supportive, but there was still one thing that Blake Pemberton couldn’t make right for her, even though he’d done his best.
She pointed to the early edition of the evening paper lying on the kitchen table, and as his gaze transferred to it she said, ‘On the inside page.’
Blake picked it up and turned to where she’d said and his eyes narrowed as they focused on a short piece at the top of the page. The police had done as he’d suggested. It said that James Harris, the main witness in a recent gangland trial, had died of natural causes the previous day. That was all, but hopefully it would be sufficient.
It was the kind of scenario that he’d been on the edge of in some of the incidents where the police had asked for his assistance in recent months. Especially in some of the more run-down parts of the city. So it wasn’t all that new to him.
But to this innocent woman who’d come back from Australia, expecting life to be as it had been before, what she’d been met with must seem like a nightmare. Not only was she having to cope with losing her father, she’d been touched by the seamier side of life in the process.
‘I’m still wondering if I should go back to Australia to get away from all this,’ she said, breaking into his thoughts.
‘Yes, but do you want to?’
She’d thought she did, but now she wasn’t sure. If she went back she would never see Blake Pemberton again. Their meeting would end up as just ships that had passed in the night and she didn’t want that. She liked him. Liked everything about him. If that woman from last night was special, it didn’t matter. She would be happy to have him as just a friend.
CHAPTER TWO
‘I DON’T know whether I want to go back or not,’ Helena said into the silence that had followed Blake’s question. ‘There was nothing to keep me there and now there’s nothing to keep me here.’
It wasn’t the moment to mention that there was a vacancy at the practice, but he would bring it up while they were eating tonight, he decided. It would give Helena the chance to be thinking about it while she waited for the funeral to take place.
He had another suggestion that he was going to tag onto it and felt that it might influence whatever decision she came to, but that could wait until that evening, too.
And so he sidetracked the issue by saying, ‘There’ll be time to worry about that when you’ve laid your father to rest. And with regard to tonight, you are welcome to use my spare room again if you don’t want to be on your own in this place.
‘Or, if you want, I’ll come and sleep on the sofa here. But, Helena, do remember that no one, apart from those involved in the witness protection scheme, knows where your father had been moved to. There are no details of where he was living in the piece in the paper, so you should be quite safe here until you decide what to do.’
She nodded, turning away from him again as she did so, and he hoped she wasn’t thinking that he was implying she was making too much of the situation she found herself in.
‘Yes. I know, Blake,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m not usually so reliant on others. It’s just that I can’t seem to gather my wits after finding out from my father what’s been happening while I’ve been away, and then you bringing me the news of his death so soon afterwards. Of course I’ll be all right here. I’ve intruded into your life enough as it is.’
He was wishing that he hadn’t said anything now. In trying to reassure her he’d put her on the defensive. Made Helena feel she was letting everything get out of proportion. He was going to have to tread more carefully. The last thing he wanted was to alienate her at such a time.
‘You haven’t done anything of the kind,’ he assured her and changing the subject, he went on, ‘I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock if that’s all right. There’s a small restaurant not far from here where I dine when I want something special. The food is good and so is the service.’
Blake found he was holding his breath. He sensed that she’d gone into her shell. Was she going to say she’d changed her mind?
‘Yes, all right,’ she agreed listlessly. ‘I’ll see if I can find something decent to wear.’
She was dressed in old jeans, a sloppy coarse-knit jumper and had taken her hair off her face with a rubber band. It would be nice to see her in something else, he thought. Yet he knew that beneath the nondescript outfit were slim hips, firm breasts and skin that had been soft and fragrant to the touch when he’d held her close.
Helena Harris had been propelled into his life and he didn’t want her to disappear from it as suddenly as she had come. She was the first woman he’d really looked at in a long time, but he was pretty sure that she saw him as if through a fog. In her present state, he didn’t think it would register with her if he were seven foot tall and wore a leopardskin.
*
