Dating the Millionaire Doctor by Marion Lennox Read Free Book Online

at her previous show of emotion.
    â€˜Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you so much. I… When do you want your house back?’
    â€˜Let’s look at it now,’ he said and held out his hand. She looked at it but she didn’t take it. Her reserve was back again. The woman who’d sobbed her heart out was well hidden.
    â€˜Of course,’ she said, stiffly, and led the way back down to the house, with Rusty limping along behind them. She ushered him into one room after another, letting him see it all.
    Apart from yesterday he’d never been in this house. Whenhis father died it had already been let to tenants who’d wanted to keep renting. A realtor had acted as intermediary, and there’d been no opportunity or need for him to see it.
    The grand old homestead was battered now, from years of renting, from six months of being used as an animal hospital and from the fires themselves. The building hadn’t burned but it was still smoke stained and grim. The only furniture was what they’d needed for the animal hospital.
    The last room Tori showed him was what was obviously the master bedroom. He stood at the door and saw how she’d been living for the past six months, and he drew in his breath in dismay.
    There was a camp stretcher in the corner. There were half a dozen cardboard cartons acting as storage and as a bedside table. A basket lay in the corner for Rusty.
    Nothing else.
    At speed dating he’d thought she’d looked dowdy. It was a miracle she’d managed to look presentable at all.
    â€˜No mirror?’ he asked, trying to make it sound as though he was joking.
    â€˜No mirror.’ She’d recovered a little now; her voice was firmer. Moving on. ‘Just as well, as I suspect I’d scare myself silly.’
    â€˜You look all right to me.’
    â€˜Said the man who looked at me like I was a porrywiggle on our five-minute date.’
    â€˜A what?’
    â€˜A tadpole. Something that wiggles out of pond scum.’
    â€˜I never said…’
    â€˜You never had to. Have you seen enough?’
    â€˜More than enough. Are these all your possessions?’
    â€˜I live light,’ she said, in a tight voice. ‘I can be gone in half an hour.’
    â€˜Where are you staying tonight?’
    â€˜You’re not kicking me out tonight?’ she demanded, alarmed, and he shook his head.
    â€˜I’m not kicking you out at all. I’m asking if you have an alternative—something a bit less appalling than here.’
    â€˜Here’s fine.’
    â€˜Here’s not fine. This place needs an army to make it habitable.’
    â€˜It’s a lovely house.’
    â€˜It could be a lovely house. It’s anything but now. Do you have anywhere you can go?’
    â€˜Of course I do,’ she retorted, but he thought that she was lying.
    There were all sorts of emotions twisting inside him right now. He didn’t want to get involved—when had he ever?—but walking away from her…
    He’d be as bad as Toby if he left her anchored to this place, to her grief, to her loss.
    â€˜Come down to Manwillinbah Lodge,’ he found himself saying. ‘You know the lodge?’
    â€˜I know it, but…’
    â€˜But what?’
    â€˜I can’t.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜It’s your place.’
    â€˜It’s a guesthouse and it’s almost empty. So I’m offering, and I believe you’d be sensible to accept.’ He spread his hands. ‘Tori, either you stay here tonight in this bleak and lonely place and, I suspect, cry your eyes out again for a little koala called Manya, or you come down the mountain and let Rob take care of you while you regroup.’ Then, as she hesitated, he added, ‘You know, you’d be doing Rob a favour. He loves the lodge being full and he loves company. Since the fire, all his guests have come and stared out into the night and not