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

somewhere about the place. I’ll find a vase for those flowers, too. Just forget that I’m here—I think that’d be for the best. Don’t you?”
    Sensibly?
Yes. Realistically? Impossible. Oliver turned and watched as she disappeared into the clinic’s tiny kitchen. He knew it was ridiculous but it seemed as if the very light of the waiting room had dimmed when she left.
    He pulled a hand through his hair and gave his head a good shake. Hurricane or fresh spring breeze, he needed to keep his wits about him. This was the trip that was meant to serve as proof that a life at Bryar Hall was not his future. From the moment he’d arrived it had felt like an alternate universe. A Bryar Estate buzzing with life and possibility and Julia.
    Must be sentiment playing tricks on him. It had been a while since his last visit. He gave his head another shake. Dr. Carney and a good game of chess. That would put him back in familiar territory.
    * * *
    Julia opened the tiny door to the freezer compartment and stuck as much of her face in as possible.
    Could her cheeks have been burning any brighter? Talk about mortifying! She’d been hoping for a fresh start with Oliver—but this? Behaving like a complete and utter blithering idiot? Not really what she’d had in mind.
    She pulled out an ice cube, closed the door and let herself slide to the floor. She ran the tiny cube along her face and let herself imagine the scene she’d actually hoped for. A cool, calm and collected Julia. One who had filled out all of the funding forms and had positive responses. One who ran a clinic that wouldn’t need a single penny from the estate. Or, at the very least, one who’d crafted an immaculately refreshed waiting room. The walls were done up with the beautifully pale green paper she’d found for next to nothing on a trip into Manchester to see the kids on one of those days when she’d needed a dose of Mini MacKenzie hugs.
    She could do with some of those now. The children came home most weekends and it was then that she felt she could really call this place home. The house would be filled with music and chatter and Dr. Carney would insist on one or both of the children playing for him in his room. Then the clinic would fill with music and Julia would see drop-in patients, or garden, or pootle around the kitchen and forget for whole swathes of time that she was a widow and that all of this wonderfulness had come to pass because Matt was no longer here. Her hand curled into a fist around the melting remains of the ice cube.
    The click of the kettle coming to a boil pulled her back into the room. She wiped her hands dry with a tea towel, pushed herself up and started making some tea. The ordinary, everyday action of swishing warm water into the brown pot, opening the dented canister for the tea bags and pouring milk into the small pitcher settled her. So much had been churning up inside her these past two days. She must be missing the children.
    No. That wasn’t it. She always missed the children.
    Quit dodging the obvious, Julia!
There was one tall, dark-haired and very handsome reason she was feeling off-kilter and, from the click-clack of chess pieces coming from Dr. Carney’s room, she had a premonition she would be feeling this way for a while.
    Now, if only she could channel some of this energy into putting up wallpaper...
    * * *
    “Are you kidding me?”
    Julia wailed the words in disbelief as she saw her Wellington boots float past the bottom of the stairs. Barely sleeping had been bad enough, but now this.
    The late spring frost she’d enjoyed from her upstairs window had quite obviously not been entirely benign. If floating footwear was anything to go by, the pipes in her aging cottage had burst. Terrific! Her children would be home over the Easter break and that was only a fortnight away.
    Sucking in a deep breath, she took a step into the water. Cold, cold, cold, cold! She stuffed her feet into the boots, not that they did any good,