Her Leading Man Read Online Free PDF

Martin
Tafft had terrible flaws that would overwhelm his good qualities. After all,
anyone could present a pleasant facade to the world for however long it took to eat
a meal.
    A glance at her grandmother made her revise her prior thought.
Almost anyone could present a pleasant façade to the world. Other people
didn’t want to do even that much. At present, Gran was scowling at the menu as if it
had affronted her on purpose. “See anything you want to eat, Gran?”
    Martin, she noticed, had an amused glint in his sensitive brown
eyes.
    Her own choice of descriptive words gave her pause. Now why, she
wondered, had she decided Martin’s brown eyes were sensitive? Was she
falling victim to some sort of physiological imperative that had somehow been
triggered in her body, and that had judged Martin Tafft’s body an
appropriate mate for itself?
    Christina, no shrinking violet when it came to
matters of
human bodily functions, including those of a sexual nature, considered this
possibility seriously. She was, after all, twenty-one years old. Most
young women
her age were at least thinking about getting married and producing offshoots,
if they weren’t already in full spawn. While Christina knew that
human physiology wasn’t so entrenched in animal instinct as that of most
mammals, she also knew that instinct was a strong motivating force in most
human activities.
    It was, therefore, possible that her body was
telling her
it was time to mate. Maybe it, in its instinctive way, had even chosen
Martin Tafft as a likely candidate for matehood.
    Fascinating. She’d have to think about this further. Study her reaction
to Martin more closely. See if she could affect it by using the force of her
formidable brain.
    Christina had great faith in herself. She believed that no matter how
much her body might urge her to fulfill her function as a reproductive member
of the
species, she was strong-minded enough to keep herself from knuckling under to
its pressure. She had goals. Aims in life. She was going to be a
doctor, and
her body could just hold its horses until she decided it was time to
unleash them.
    As far as her heart, which kept giving these
disturbing twinges whenever she was in Martin Tafft’s company. . . Well,
Christina wasn’t sure what that meant, but she had trust in herself. She
wasn’t going to let herself get distracted. She was going to be a doctor, and that was
that. Everything else could just wait.
    Having cleared up that issue in her mind, she felt better about life
until she realized both her grandmother and Martin were gazing at her, as if
they expected her to say something. Fiddle. She’d been so engrossed in her own
thoughts, she must have missed a question. She arched her eyebrows in a gesture
she knew to be quelling. She’d learned it from her
grandmother. “I beg your pardon?”
    Martin, apparently taken aback by her abrupt
question, tilted his head and lifted his eyebrows, although he didn’t appear to
be particularly quelled.
    Gran wasn’t so circumspect. “Pay attention, girl. That man asked you
what you want for dinner.” She pointed at Martin to make sure Christina knew
who “ that man” was.
    “ Oh. I
see.” Christina felt foolish.
    Gran grumbled, “I’ve never known you to go off in a fog, girl. I
think this picture-making nonsense is warping your character.”
    “ Fiddle,” Christina said, feeling heat creep up
the back of her neck. “I was merely thinking about something.”
    “ Heh,” said Gran. “You were woolgathering,
and you’ve never done that before. Get a hold of yourself, girl.”
    “ Care to
share?”
    When she glanced at him, Martin gave her one of his lovely, warm
smiles. That smile of his fairly begged to be allowed access to her most
intimate secrets. Darn it, every time he smiled at her that way, her heart did its
nonsensical hitching maneuver. Christina didn’t approve of her heart doing
undisciplined things. Christina was not given to frivolity. She smiled