The Surgeon's Family Wish Read Online Free PDF Page B

something, the sunblock cream to be exact, and I’d taken Lucy, who was only a toddler then, back to the hotel with me to get it.
    â€˜While I was gone my dad got into difficulties. He was a strong swimmer but wasn’t aware of the dangerous currents there, and on seeing his distress Eloise went in after him. By the time I got back they’d gone. Swept out to sea. The next time Mum and I saw them was when their bodies were washed up further along the coast a few days later.’
    â€˜That is awful,’ she choked.
    He nodded. ‘My mother thinks I should be looking for someone to take Eloise’s place, that I’ve been on my own long enough. But who is to say that the right wife for me would be the right mother for Lucy?’
    Annabel averted her gaze from his. She would have settled for being just a one-parent family, given the chance, and no child of hers would ever have been subjected to the awful feeling of rejection that had tarnished her life. But she understood what this caring father was saying.
    â€˜I would imagine that is a problem that faces many single parents when they consider remarrying,’ she said slowly, ‘but a child can be just as miserable with its birthparents as with someone not of its own blood. I don’t know you all that well, Aaron, but you strike me as a person who would rarely make a wrong decision, either in your work or in your personal life, because you are cool and calm in everything you do.’
    She wasn’t to know that he was feeling anything but cool and calm at that moment. She was getting to him as no other woman had since he’d lost Eloise, and it was much more than just sexual chemistry.
    In the car earlier she’d told him about her loveless childhood and he’d wanted to hold her close and soothe away the hurt from a friendship point of view, nothing more. And now, with a wisdom that no doubt came from her own experience, she was putting him right about his own life. Making him see that it could be possible to find happiness with someone else.
    Sitting beside him with cheeks warming at her own temerity, Annabel was facing up to the fact that she liked this man a lot. She’d had respect for him from the moment of their meeting, even though on that awful morning he’d been brusque and dubious of her capabilities. But now it was something deeper than that. To compare Randy Graham with Aaron would be like putting a fake next to the real thing.
    It wouldn’t be wise to let her feelings run away with her, though. The fact that they were having this discussion showed that Aaron saw her as merely someone to talk to. He would never have said what he had if he’d any yearnings towards her. And was it surprising? He must see her as the person she had become, a washed-out, grieving loner, and for the first time in months she wanted to be different.
    Aaron was smiling to conceal his own thoughts.
    â€˜I don’t know about me. But you have a wisdom allof your own. It’s good to be able to talk to someone who understands.’ He took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze.
    It was just a friendly gesture, but she felt some of the chill leave her blood and for a crazy moment wondered what it would be like to sit in this charming room with him every evening after a hard day on the wards and in Theatre, with Lucy sleeping contentedly above.
    His mother came in at that moment carrying a tray with coffee and pastries on it, and Aaron got to his feet.
    â€˜Lucy is waiting for a goodnight kiss,’ she said, smiling up at him. ‘I won’t pour the coffee until you come down.’
    When he’d gone Mary said, ‘And how are things with you, Dr Swain? Are you settling in all right in your new surroundings?’
    Annabel wasn’t sure whether she was referring to the dismal flat or Barnaby’s itself, so she just said, ‘Yes, fine, thank you, Mrs Lewis. And it’s not Dr Swain when I’m