The Rebel Surgeon's Proposal (7 page)

His touch, his taste, inflamed and excited her. She couldn’t breathe but decided she didn’t care. Who needed oxygen? She was plugged into Luke’s life force and everything she needed for survival came from him. He was familiar and yet enticingly different. Better. So much better the man than the boy. She gave herself up to the magic, drugged by the consuming, deeply erotic sensuality of the man, her whole body trembling
as his arms tightened around her, his hands skimming down her back to cup her rear, drawing her against him, making her intensely aware of his arousal.

Kissing him back, matching him move for move, her tongue twining with his, she gave everything and he took it, the flare of passion between them so strong and unexpected and remarkable that she could think of nothing else, of no one else but Luke and how wonderful he made her feel. She wanted him to lay her down there and then on the hall floor and take all of her.

It was the shock of that very realisation that brought her senses struggling back. They broke apart, gasping air into parched lungs, and she saw that the hot passion in Luke’s green eyes matched what she was feeling.

‘Dear God,’ she whispered hoarsely.

‘Yeah.’

She forced her hands to loosen their hold on him and stepped back, frightened by what had happened and all she had felt, part of her wanting it, part of her fighting just as hard against it.

‘Luke—’

Two fingertips pressed against swollen, well-kissed lips, silencing her. ‘Don’t say anything. Don’t close your mind to this, Chessie, please. Give it time—give
us
time.’

His plea brought a lump to her throat, her whole body quivering as he whispered the pad of his thumb across her cheek in a heart-stopping caress. Green eyes shone with sincerity, vulnerability and the kind of sinful sensuality that always undid her. She couldn’t form a single word to deny him.

Taking advantage of her momentary docility, Luke brushed his lips across her forehead, released her and moved back. ‘Sleep well, Chessie. We’ll talk later,’ he decreed.

And then he was gone. It was several moments before
Francesca could gather her scattered wits, then she closed the front door, locked it and sagged back against the solidness of the wood, every atom of her being zinging in reaction and craving more of Luke. Much more.

Once again she had failed to stick to her plan. She had not sent Luke away. Legs shaking and feeling as if they no longer belonged to her, she made her way to her bedroom, drawing her curtains against the low April sunshine before stripping off her clothes and crawling under the duvet.

She was bone weary and yet she felt too wired to sleep. And she knew, when sleep did come, it would be filled with dreams of Luke…of his touch, of his taste, of his musky masculine scent, and of the sincerity of his words.

What was she going to do?

‘I
F YOU
want to help yourself to some coffee, I’ll just take a quick shower and get changed.’

As Francesca disappeared, Luke let out a shaky breath and, following her invitation, headed to the kitchen. He hadn’t handled things well in the last twenty-four hours and he was well aware he had ground to make up if he wasn’t to unnerve Francesca even further. Having been unable to sleep all day on Friday after their steaming kiss had left him hot and hard, he had phoned her in the evening, desperately needing to hear the sound of her voice.

She had been edgy, confirming what he had already acknowledged to himself—that he had succumbed to the temptation to kiss her far too soon. But all that stuff in the hospital canteen about first kisses had brought
their
first kiss vividly to mind, and he hadn’t been able to resist finding out what it was like to kiss her ten years on, the woman rather than the girl. Magical, he had discovered. But just as it had the first time, things had spun out of control at the first taste of her and it had turned into something much more than a simple kiss. Now Francesca was trying to distance herself.

When he had asked about today, Saturday, she’d told him she already had plans. He wasn’t sure how genuine that was
but it had made him think. He’d realised how arrogant he had been to assume Francesca would spend her time with him, but he had needed to see her straight away, to steady things between them before she had too much time to think, to talk herself out of getting close to him and back away.

So he had been hugely relieved to finally persuade her to have breakfast with him after her morning jog. That she was running at all, given her background, interested him, and he wanted to know more about that. What he hadn’t expected was to arrive early and walk to the park to meet her, only to find her jogging with another man. That had nearly doubled him over with shock and alarm.

Pottering around her kitchen, he tried to block out the sound of the shower, his imagination far too fertile as he pictured her stripping off her baggy tracksuit and stepping under the spray, water sluicing over her silky soft, freckle-dusted ivory skin. His body reacted in a predictable way and it was pure effort of will that prevented him storming down the corridor and joining her in the hot, steamy cubicle.

‘Damn.’

Cursing himself, he focused ruthlessly on his task, setting out the treats he had brought from the nearby bakery for breakfast…still-warm, soft granary rolls, local honey and a couple of fruity Danish pastries. He poured glasses of juice and helped himself to a cup of the coffee Francesca had left brewing when she had left the house. Which brought him back to her jogging and seeing her with another man.

Since he had been introduced to her running companion, Frazer McInnes, a flight doctor on Strathlochan’s air ambulance—and his six-months-pregnant wife, Callie—his heart was slowly settling back into its normal rhythm again. The event had shown him not only how little he still knew about Francesca’s life now, and her friends, but how compla
cent he had become. He had a lot of work to do yet before he could ever relax and feel he had won her over to give a relationship between them a fair chance.

Now they needed to talk about deeper issues, the topics they had been avoiding for the last ten days…the past, his father, her mother. He hoped to persuade Francesca to spend the day with him tomorrow and accompany him on an errand he’d been asked to run for the prof—visiting another of his former protégées now living in a village some miles west along the Solway coast. The journey would give them captive time to talk about difficult things. And spending a bit of time with husband-and-wife doctors Conor and Kate Anderson would allow Francesca to see that a healthy, functioning, equal relationship was not only possible, it was normal. Quite different from the homes either Francesca or he himself had grown up in.

As for today, it had started with a setback but he had not lost all hope of them spending the day together. The shower stopped and a few moments later he heard a door close. He had a only few moments left to compose himself and prepare to break through the new defences Francesca was trying to place between them. Stage one was to find out what she was doing today and to wangle an invitation to join her. Stage two was to win her acceptance to go with him tomorrow.

And top of his mental list was the instruction to exercise some self-control. Whatever the temptation, he was
not
to kiss her again anytime soon, at least not until he had regained lost ground. Quite how difficult it would be to keep all his good intentions was obvious the moment Francesca joined him in the kitchen.

She was wearing walking boots, the soft, leg-hugging jeans with the rip in the thigh that had already given him sleepless nights, and a purple fleece top that enhanced the grey of her
eyes and should have clashed with the vibrancy of her red hair, but didn’t. Her face was bare of make-up, her ivory skin tinged with a dewy glow from the warmth of her shower, and her riot of long corkscrew curls was tied back in a loose ponytail, a few damp tendrils clinging to her neck. She looked natural, sexy and good enough to eat. And he was
very
hungry. Swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat, feeling the kick of his heart against his ribs, he hastily sat down at the table to hide his instant reaction to the sight of her.

As Francesca cast him a wary glance and took the seat across from him, Luke briefly closed his eyes and prayed for strength and deliverance.

How did she end up in these situations?

From beneath her lashes Francesca watched as Luke opened the gate and allowed her to precede him onto the path. She was strong, independent and used to being alone, so why had all her willpower and common sense deserted her? Despite the stern lecture she had given herself in the shower and all the good intentions she had mustered as she had walked into the kitchen, she had caved like a weakling under Luke’s subtle persuasion during breakfast.

And here she was, spending the day with him in spite of her determination to the contrary. Not that she could fault his attitude when she had explained how she spent some of her time off volunteering at a local animal rescue centre. He’d been keen to come along, cheerfully throwing himself into the tasks he had been set, exercising dogs in the field and showing no sign of complaint or that he found the dirty job of cleaning out rows of dog and cat kennels distasteful or beneath him.

Now, after a snack lunch with the centre staff, came the best part of the day as far as Francesca was concerned—taking her two favourite dogs out for a long ramble. Sometimes she
walked in the extensive grounds of Strathlochan Castle. The private gardens were closed to all but paying visitors on certain days of the year, but the current laird had opened up the rest of the estate for locals. Francesca enjoyed the rolling fields and the native woodlands. At other times she went further afield, up into the hills for longer, wilder, more solitary walks.

Today, with Luke, she chose the castle. The estate bordered one side of the loch that gave the town its name. The castle building itself was impressive, as was the magnificent scenery in which it was set with the backdrop of the hills. They passed the grand building and, beside it, the small chapel where Frazer and Callie had married on Christmas Eve.

The azaleas and rhododendrons, whose fat buds were almost ready to open, would make a spectacular show any day now but for the moment the last daffodils lined the more manicured pathways near the buildings. As they walked deeper into the countryside, the cultivated plants gave way to wildflowers, including celandines and wood anenomes. In another month or so the woods would be awash with bluebells. Pale blue skies held wispy streamers of white cloud, and she saw the first swallows skimming across the fields and around the farm buildings. They were early. Was that a sign of a good summer to come?

‘How long have you been working at the rescue centre?’ Luke asked as they headed deeper into the woods, the two dogs, Murphy and Harry, enjoying the freedom of being off the lead.

‘Ever since I came back to Strathlochan. I was never allowed to have pets when I was a child,’ she admitted, recalling her youthful disappointment and her craving for a friend, even a four-legged one.

Luke nodded, understanding in his eyes. ‘Neither was I. I always wanted a dog.’

‘Me, too. I’d take these two home today, but it’s against my
rental agreement to keep animals at the flat.’ She sighed, watching what looked like two huge black teddy bears, hairy and cuddly, frolicking through the undergrowth, feathery tails wagging rhythmically. ‘Besides, there’s not enough space there for two hulking great Newfoundlands. It’s such a shame, they’ve been at the centre for months and haven’t found a home. Their former owners moved abroad for work and no one seems to want to take on two such big dogs at once. And such young, bouncy ones. They’re only two years old. As brothers they’ve been inseparable, and they need to stay together, if possible.’

‘One day…’ Luke murmured, taking her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.

‘Yes.’

Lacking the motivation to pull away, she allowed Luke to link their fingers as they walked on along the path. Thoughts nagged at her. Why, when she was so bad with people, so awkward around them, did she always find Luke so easy to talk to? Being close to him generated discomfort but of a very different kind—because he made her burn with need and desire. And it took tremendous effort not to dwell on the spine-tingling, amazing kiss they had shared the previous morning. She was so aware of him, so attracted to him. It was as if all the cells and molecules in her body were somehow programmed and magnetised to be drawn to his. Two halves of one whole. But why? How could that be?

‘I was interested to hear that you were still running,’ Luke commented after a while, holding back a low tree branch so she could pass by without catching herself.

‘I jog to keep fit now, nothing else.’ She glanced at him, surprised that he had brought the subject up. ‘Why?’

‘Ma and I looked out for mentions of you in the local paper and watched when the junior trials and any other races were on
television. But I always wondered why you did it. The running, the intensive training. If your mother pushed you as much I thought or if being a top athlete was what
you
really wanted.’

Amazed by his astuteness, she dragged her gaze from the disturbing intensity of his, halting as they emerged from the wood and turning to look at the view of the castle, loch and town spread out below them. Murphy and Harry, panting from their enthusiastic exertions, flopped to the ground in a patch of shade nearby, doggy grins on their faces.

‘Chessie?’

‘I did enjoy athletics—at first. When I was young and it was a hobby, it was fun,’ she allowed after a long pause. ‘You’re right, it was my mother’s dream, not mine, that I should become a success. She had delusions of grandeur and started thinking Olympic medals and the kind of substantial sponsorship deals that would give her a luxurious retirement.’ Francesca paused, hearing the bitterness lacing her tone but unable to help it. When Luke’s fingers tightened on hers, conveying his support, she continued. ‘Once things became an obsession with her, it ruined any enjoyment for me. She started her rigid schedule, the strict diet, her rules for me and my behaviour—no friends, no distractions, no outside interests, just running and school. School came a poor second in her eyes and she’d take me out for days to travel to athletic meets around the
UK.
’

‘How did you cope with all that pressure?’ he asked, a frown on his face.

The breeze blew some escaped tendrils of hair across her face and she absently tucked them behind her ear with her free hand. ‘I don’t know. I hated standing out as so different from everyone else. Being shy didn’t help. Despite my mother’s ambivalence about education, I recognised the importance of it for my future, and hid myself away with my books whenever I could.’

‘Yeah, that sounds just like me.’ Luke’s smile had a hard edge and it was her turn to express her understanding of how difficult his upbringing had been, squeezing his fingers as he had hers. ‘My father demanded I leave school at sixteen but I battled to stay on, knowing that my brain was my only way out. I had no intention of ending up like my father and brothers.’

‘Your mum told me your father died a few years ago. What happened to Jon and Pete?’ she asked now, giving in to her curiosity.

‘Jon followed in our father’s footsteps—last we heard he was in prison for armed robbery. Pete woke up to the mistakes he was making. After my father died in jail, Pete cut out, moving to America to make a new life for himself. Neither of them keep in touch with Ma or me.’

Francesca turned more to face him, trying to pick up the nuances in his changing expressions. ‘That must be hard on her. Your mum is an amazing lady, doing her best for all of you in horribly difficult circumstances. I always admired her. She didn’t deserve all the hassle the others gave her, but how proud she must be of you.’

‘Thanks, Chessie.’ His soft words were accompanied by the gentlest of caresses as he brushed the back of his knuckles across her cheek. Her skin tingled with sensation. ‘That means a lot to me. And despite all the bad stuff, I always knew I was blessed to have her. I wish you’d had that, too.’

Embarrassed, she shifted and turned back to stare at the view. Somehow, despite the difference in their backgrounds and upbringing, and the material privileges she’d had access to that had been denied to him, Luke had always seemed to understand that her life was less than perfect.

As the dogs stirred, gaining a second wind, they all started walking again, more slowly this time, taking the track that climbed slightly over open ground towards another stand of
woodland. They paused by a stream that wound down the hillside, water-loving Murphy and Harry taking the chance for a drink and a paddle.