Doctor...to Duchess? by Annie O'Neil Read Free Book Online Page A

roll of wallpaper. Things had quite obviously not gone to plan.
    “Flowers!” Julia’s eyes opened wide with delight. She swiveled round on the ladder, and Oliver automatically lurched forward, dropping the flowers so he could grab her with a steadying hand as she swayed on the top of the steps.
    “Argh! Wrong hand!”
    “Sorry, sorry.”
    Julia held her left hand aloft as he shifted his hands to her waist, her right hand grabbing ahold of his shoulder as she tried to regain her balance. “I love daffodils! You shouldn’t have!”
    Still holding her waist, Oliver looked down at the daffodils then back up at her beaming smile. Awkward moment!
    “Ah—you didn’t,” she interjected before he could change his embarrassed expression. “They’re not for me, are they?” A soft flush crept onto her cheeks as she shifted her hips to release his hold on her waist. Shame. He quite liked being here so close to her. Holding her.
    Should he just lie and give the flowers to Julia? Her eyes had positively glittered at the sight of the spring bouquet. Then again, he was a terrible liar.
    “I had intended them for Dr. Carney,” Oliver confessed. “They’re his favorite, and I thought they might brighten the place up a bit, but it seems you pipped me to the post.”
    “Hardly!” Julia tried to untangle herself from the soft green wallpaper speckled with daisies. “I don’t know why I thought I’d be any good at DIY and now you’re a witness to the fact that I’m a first-class disaster.”
    It was impossible not to smile along with her goofy grin but his gut was actively disagreeing with the “disaster” pronouncement. She looked like she’d stepped straight out of a nineteen-forties “Women Do It Well” war poster with blond hair caught up in a polka-dotted scarf, deep blue blouse knotted at the waist and pedal-pushers resting on her hips.
    “See? You can’t even speak, it’s such a palaver. And this was meant to be your big surprise!”
    “Surprise?” What on earth for? Stepping into—onto—her life and making about the worst series of impressions he could?
    “Don’t be coy, Oliver,” Julia teased as she climbed down from the ladder, wallpaper crumpling to the floor as she went. “Your face spoke volumes when you saw that the waiting room hadn’t changed since the queen’s coronation. I have been planning on doing this for weeks, and this led to that... Then there was the fun run, and that took ages to organize, and all of the sudden you were here and everything’s a big fat mess—and I’d so meant for it to look just perfect for you whenever it was you were meant to come back, which turned out to be now. I’d wanted everything to be perfect.”
    Just staring at her red-as-they-come lips as she spoke a mile a minute had Oliver in a daze. It was little wonder everyone had fallen under her spell.
Hurricane Julia?
    “Oliver?”
    “Yes, sorry?”
Focus, man!
    “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”
    “What’s that?” Oliver forced himself to move his gaze from her lips to her eyes. Cornflower-blue—that was what they were. A very lovely shade of cornflower-blue.
    “Talking and talking and talking until the other person gets brave enough to stop me because it turns out everything I’m saying is absolute rubbish.” She put her hands on her hips and squared off with him as if daring him to interject.
    I could lift you off that stepladder and kiss you. That would change the flow of conversation.
Oliver forced himself to take a physical step back, incredibly grateful he hadn’t said the words out loud. This was all going in a very different direction than he had intended.
    Whoosh!
There goes one quiet visit with Dr. Carney out the window
.
    “I know!” Julia zipped past him and headed down the corridor before he could stop her. “I’ll just pop the kettle on and get you and Dr. Carney a nice cup of tea, then you can get on with your visit. I think we’ve got some biscuits from yesterday