“Are you going to try to get me into bed afterward?”

“No,” Jason said with what he hoped was an honest-sounding conviction. “No, I wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?” she posed in a puzzled tone. “You said you found me pretty and desirable. You also asked me to marry you. I imagined you fancied me, at least a little.”

“I do fancy you. And more than a little, Emma.”

“It’s perfectly all right, Jason. I’ve been brought up in a country town, not a convent. I just didn’t want to give you false hopes if I agreed to go out to dinner with you. You’re a very attractive, experienced man, and I’m sure you know how to get a girl. But I have no intention of sleeping with you, not this side of a wedding ring, anyway.”

Some of our bestselling writers are Australians!

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He’s big, he’s brash, he’s brazen—he’s Australian!

The Virgin Bride
Miranda Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT a glorious day, Jason thought as he stepped outside. Spring had finally come, and with it that delicious sunshine which encompassed just the right amount of warmth. The town had never looked better, nestled at the base of now lush green hills. The sky was clear and blue. Birds twittered happily in a nearby tree.

Impossible to feel discontent on such a day, Jason decided as he walked down the front path and out onto the pavement.

And yet…

You can’t have everything in life, son, he heard his mother say.

How right she was, that wise old mum of his.

His heart turned over at the thought of her, and of her wretched life: married at eighteen to a no-good drinker and gambler, the mother of seven boys by the time she was thirty, a deserted wife by thirty-one, worn out and white-haired by fifty, dead five years ago of a stroke.

She’d only been fifty-five.

He was her youngest, a bright and affectionate boy who’d grown into a discontented and fiercely ambitious teenager, determined to be rich one day. He’d gone to medical school not because of a love of medicine, but because of the love of money. His mother had worried about this, he knew. She’d argued that money wasn’t the right reason to become a doctor.

How he would like the opportunity to tell her that he’d finally become a good doctor, and that he was quite happy, despite not being rich at all.

Not perfectly happy, of course. He no longer expected that.

‘Morning, Dr Steel. Nice day, isn’t it?’

‘It surely is, Florrie.’ Florrie was one of his patients. She was around seventy and popped into the surgery practically every week to discuss one of her wide range of ailments.

‘Muriel’s having a busy morning, I see,’ Florrie said, pointing to the bakery across the street. A bus was parked outside, and people were streaming out from the shop’s door, their arms full.

Tindley’s bakery was famous for miles. It had almost single-handedly put the little country town back on the map a few years ago, when it had won first prize for the best meat pie in Australia. Travellers and tourists on their way from Sydney to Canberra had begun taking the turn-off from the main highway, just to buy a Tindley pie.

In response to the sudden influx of visitors, the once deserted shops which fronted the narrow and winding main street had thrown open their creaking doors to sell all sorts of arts and crafts.

The area surrounding Tindley had always been a haunt for artists because of its peaceful beauty. But before this new local market had become available they’d had to sell their wares to shopkeepers situated in the more popular tourist towns over on the coast. Suddenly, it wasn’t just pies which attracted visitors, but unique items of pottery and leather goods, wood and home crafts.

In further response to this popularity, even more businesses had opened, offering Devonshire teas and take-away food. Tindley now also boasted a couple of quite good restaurants, and a guest house filled most weekends with Sydney escapees who liked horse-riding and bush walks as well as just sitting on a wide verandah, soaking up the valley views.

Over a period of five years Tindley had been resurrected from being almost a ghost town into a thriving little community with a bustling economy. Enough to support two doctors. Jason had bought into old Doc Brandewilde’s general practice five months ago, and hadn’t regretted it for a moment.

Admittedly, he’d taken a while to settle to the slower pace after working twelve-hour days in a gung-ho bulk-billing surgery in Sydney. He’d found it difficult at first to resist the automatic impulse to hurry consultations. Old habits did die hard.

Now, he could hardly imagine spending less than fifteen minutes to treat and diagnose a patient. They were no longer nameless faces, but people he knew and liked, people like Florrie, here. Having a warm, friendly chat was a large part of being a family doctor in the country.

The bus started up and slowly moved off, happy faces peering out of the windows.

‘I hope Muriel hasn’t sold my lunch,’ Jason said, and Florrie laughed.

‘She’d never do that, Doctor. You’re her pet customer. She was saying to me just the other day that if she were thirty years younger, you wouldn’t have to put up with Martha’s matchmaking, because she’d have snapped you up already.’

Now Jason laughed, though a little drily. Matchmaking wasn’t just Martha Brandewilde’s domain. All the ladies in Tindley seemed to have got in on the act, his arrival in town causing much speculation among its female population. Apparently, it wasn’t often that an attractive unattached bachelor under forty took up residence there. At only thirty, and better looking than average, he was considered ripe and ready for matching.

Not that they’d had any success, despite Jason being invited to several dinner parties where lo and behold, there had just happened to be a spare single girl placed right next to him. Jason suspected he’d been a severe disappointment to his various hostesses so far. Martha Brandewilde was particularly frustrated with him.

Still, he found it reassuring that, despite his apparent lack of enthusiasm for the young ladies served up to him on a platter, there had never been the remotest rumour or suggestion he might be a confirmed bachelor. This was one of the things he found so endearing about Tindley’s residents. They held simple old-fashioned views and values.

Florrie gave him a frowning look. ‘How old are you, Dr Steel?’

‘Thirty, Florrie. Why?’

‘A man shouldn’t get too old before marrying,’ she advised. ‘Otherwise he gets too set in his ways. And too selfish. Still, don’t be pressured into marrying the wrong girl, now. Marriage is a serious business. But a fine, intelligent man like you knows that. Probably why you’re being so choosy. Oh, goodness, look at the time! I must go. The Midday Show will have started and I do so hate to miss it.’

Florrie hurried off, leaving Jason to consider what she’d said.

Actually, he agreed with her wholeheartedly. About everything. His life would be complete if he could find a good woman to share it with. He might have come to Tindley disillusioned with a certain lady doctor he’d left behind, but his disillusionment hadn’t extended to the whole female race. He wanted to marry, but not just anyone.

He shook his head at how close he had come to marrying Adele. What a disaster that would have been!

Admittedly, she’d been a very exciting woman to live with. Beautiful. Brilliant. Sexy as hell. He’d been blindly in love with her, right up till that awful day when the wool had finally fallen from his eyes and he’d suddenly seen the real woman beneath the glittering façade: a coldly unfeeling creature who’d been capable of standing there and dismissing the death of a child with such chilling nonchalance, taking no blame whatsoever for her own negligence, saying that was life and it wouldn’t be the last time such an accident happened.

He’d decided to walk away from her then, as well as from his own increasingly selfish and greedy lifestyle. And it had cost him plenty. Rather than fight Adele in court for his half, he’d given her the place at Palm Beach, and the Mercedes, walking out with little in the way of material possessions. After paying Doc Brandewilde for his half of the practice, Jason had arrived in Tindley with nothing but his clothes, his video collection and a car which was as far from a red Mercedes sports as one could get. White, four-doored and Australian-made. Reliable, but not flashy. The sort of car a country doctor should drive.

Adele had thought him insane, had given him six months to come to his senses. But Jason knew he’d already done that. He wanted no more of the fast life, of the obsessive acquiring of wealth, or even the sort of wild, often kinky sex that women like Adele liked, and demanded. He wanted peace of mind and body. He wanted a family. He wanted marriage to a woman he could respect and like.

Being in love, however, he could do without.

Naturally, he wanted to want his wife. Sex was as important to Jason as any other red-blooded man. The town wasn’t the only thing being warmed up by spring, and, quite frankly, his celibate lifestyle was beginning to pall. He needed a wife and he needed one soon!

Unfortunately, his chances of marrying the only girl to seriously catch his eye since he’d come to Tindley were less than zero.

He glanced down the road to the small shop on the corner. Its doors were still firmly shut. Understandable, he supposed. Ivy Churchill’s funeral had only been last week.

Would Emma stay on and run her aunt’s sweet shop? Jason wondered. Even if she did, where would that get him? Her heart belonged elsewhere, stolen by some local creep who’d done her wrong and left town some time back. According to her aunt, she was still madly in love with this rotter, and probably waiting for him to return.

Jason had been told these scant but dismaying details on his second home visit to the old lady, perhaps because he’d cast one too many admiring glances Emma’s way during his first visit.

Not that the girl had noticed herself. She’d seemed oblivious of his admiration as she sat by the window in her aunt’s bedroom, doing some of her much admired tapestry work.

It had been impossible, however, not to look at her. Jason’s eyes had been drawn again and again to the exquisite picture she’d made, sitting there with her long, slender neck bent in an elegant arc, her eyes downcast, long curling eyelashes resting against her pale cheeks. She’d been wearing a white ankle-length dress with a lacy bodice and a flowing skirt. The setting sun’s rays had been shining over her shoulder, turning the soft fair curls hanging around her face into spun gold. A gold chain had hung around her throat, falling slightly away from her skin, swaying with each movement of the large needle she was moving in and out of the canvas.

Jason could still recall how he’d felt as he’d watched her, how he’d ached to slide his hand up and down the delicate curve of her neck, how he’d imagined taking that chain and pulling it gently backwards till her head tipped up and back. In his mind’s eye, he’d bent his lips to her startled mouth, before something his patient said had snapped him out of his dream-like, yet highly erotic reverie.

His thoughts had aroused him then. They aroused him now.

Scowling, Jason launched himself across the road and up onto the verandah of the bakery shop. But as he reached to open the shop screen door, he swiftly replaced the scowl with a more pleasant expression.

One minor drawback to life in Tindley was that nothing went unnoticed, not even a passing scowl. He didn’t want it getting around town that poor Dr Steel was having personal problems. He also knew not to ask any questions which might be misinterpreted. He was dying to enquire about Emma’s intentions, but suspected this might raise a few eyebrows.

‘Mornin’, Dr Steel,’ Muriel chirped straight away on seeing him. ‘The usual?’

‘Yes, thanks, Muriel.’ And he threw her a smile.

By the time he’d selected an orange juice from the self-serve fridge in the corner, his ‘usual’ of a steak and mushroom pie along with two fresh bread rolls was perched in paper bags on the counter. He was about to pay for it and just go, when curiosity got the better of him.

‘I noticed the sweet shop’s still closed,’ he said, as casually as he could.

Muriel sighed. ‘Yes. Emma said she just couldn’t face it this week. I feel so sorry for that girl. Her aunt was all she had in this world and now she’s gone too. Cancer is a terrible disease. Truly terrible!’

‘That it is,’ Jason agreed, and handed over a five-dollar note.

Muriel busied herself at the cash register. ‘When I go, I’d like to pop off in my sleep with a nice heart attack. Nothing slow and lingering. Frankly, I was surprised Ivy lasted as long as she did. When Doc Brandewilde sent her up to that hospital in Sydney last year for chemotherapy, I wouldn’t have given her more than a few days. But she lingered on for over a year. In a way, I suppose it’s a relief for Emma that she’s finally gone. No one likes to see someone they love in pain. But she’s going to be awfully lonely, that girl.’

‘I suppose so,’ Jason said. ‘Er…it’s surprising that a pretty girl like Emma doesn’t have a boyfriend,’ he ventured, trying to look innocent.

Muriel shot him a sharp look. ‘Surely you’ve heard about Emma and Dean Ratchitt. I would have thought Ivy would have said something, what with your visiting her so often these last few months.’

‘I don’t recall her mentioning anyone by that name,’ Jason said truthfully. Dean Ratchitt, eh? The only Ratchitt he knew was Jim Ratchitt, a cranky old so-and-so who lived on a run-down dairy farm just out of town. ‘Is he related to Jim Ratchitt?’

‘His son. Look, you might as well know the score,’ Muriel said as she handed over the change. ‘Especially if you’re thinkin’ of casting your eye in that direction.’

‘What score do you mean, Muriel?’

Muriel gave him a dry look. ‘About Emma and Dean, of course.’

‘They were lovers?’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that. Dean liked his girls free and easy, and Emma’s not that way at all. Ivy brought her up with solid old-world standards. That girl believes in white weddings and the sanctity of marriage. Still…who knows? Dean had a way with women, there’s no doubt about that. And they were engaged, however briefly.’

‘Engaged!’ Ivy hadn’t mentioned any engagement.

‘Yes. Just before Ivy went up to Sydney last year. Took the town by surprise, I can tell you, since Dean had been squiring another girl around town the month before. Anyway, Emma was sporting his ring just before she went up to Sydney with Ivy. By the time they got back, a couple of months later, it was all over town that Dean had got the youngest Martin girl in trouble.’

‘The girl he was seeing before Emma?’

‘Oh, no, that was Lizzie Talbot. Anyway, he didn’t deny sleeping with the Martin girl, but refused to acknowledge the child, saying the girl was a slut and he wasn’t the only bloke who’d been having sex with her. Emma and he had this very public row, right outside Ivy’s shop. I heard some of it. Heck, the whole town heard some of it!’

Muriel lent on her elbows on the counter, enjoying herself relaying the gossip. ‘Dean had the hide to still ask her to marry him, you see. Emma refused and he lost his temper, claimed that everything was her fault, though how he figured that I’d like to know. I remember him yellin’ at her that if she didn’t marry him as planned, then they were finished. She yelled back that they were finished anyway. She threw his ring back in his face and said she’d marry the first decent man who asked her.’

‘Really?’ Jason said, unable to hide his elation at this last piece of news.

‘Don’t go countin’ your chickens, Doc,’ Muriel said drily. ‘She was only spoutin’ off, like women do. Pride and all. Her actions since then have been much louder than her words. It’s been a year and she hasn’t gone out on one date, despite being asked many times. No man’ll ask her to marry him when she doesn’t let them get to first base, will he? We all know she’s just waitin’ for Dean to show up on her doorstep again. If and when he does…’ Muriel shrugged resignedly, as though it was a foregone conclusion that Emma would fall readily into the arms of her long-lost lover.

And he had been her lover. Jason didn’t doubt that. Women in love were rarely sustained by old-fashioned standards.

Still, the thought of Emma falling victim to such a conscienceless stud churned his stomach. She was such a soft, sweet creature, warm and caring and loving. She deserved better.

She deserves me, Jason decided. Modesty had never been one of his virtues.

‘What happened to the girl?’ he asked. ‘The one Ratchitt got into trouble.’

‘Oh, she moved away to the city. Rumour has it she got rid of the baby.’

‘Do you think it was his?’

‘Who knows? The girl was on the loose side. If it was Dean’s child, it’s the first time he slipped up that way. Odd, since over the years he’d made out with just about every female under forty in town, married and single.’

Jason’s eyebrows lifted. ‘That’s some record. What’s he got going for him? Or dare I ask?’

Muriel laughed. ‘Can’t give a personal report, Doc, since I’m headin’ for sixty myself. But he’s a right good-lookin’ lad, is our Dean.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Oh, a few years younger than you, I would say, but a few years older than Emma.’

‘And how old’s Emma?’

Muriel straightened, her expression reproachful. ‘Doc, Doc…what have you been doin’ these past few months during your home visits? You should know these things already, if you’re serious about the girl. She’s twenty-two.’

Jason frowned. He’d thought she was older. There was a maturity and serenity in her manner which suggested a few more years’ experience in life. Hell, at twenty-two she was barely more than a girl. A girl who’d lived all her life in a country town. An inexperienced and innocent young girl.

Emma’s brief engagement to Dean Ratchitt came to mind, and Jason amended that last thought. Not so innocent, perhaps. Nor quite so inexperienced. Men like Ratchitt didn’t hang around girls who didn’t give them what they wanted.

‘Do you think Ratchitt will come back?’

‘Who knows? If he hears about Ivy passin’ on and Emma inheritin’ the shop and all, he might.’

Jason didn’t think Emma inheriting that particular establishment would inspire even the most hard-up scoundrel to race back home. The small shop had provided the two women with a living, he supposed, but only because they didn’t have to pay rent. The shop occupied the converted front rooms of an old weatherboard house, as did most of the shops in Tindley. But it was smaller and more run-down than most. As real estate went, it wasn’t worth much.

Jason couldn’t imagine Ratchitt returning for such a poor prize. But who knew? Those who had nothing…

‘If he did come back, do you think she’d take up with him again?’ Jason asked.

Muriel pulled a face. ‘Love makes fools of the best of us.’

Jason had to agree. Just as well he wasn’t in love with the girl. He wanted to make his decisions about her with his head, not his heart.

‘See you tomorrow, Muriel,’ he said, and gathered up his lunch. He’d already tarried far too long in Tindley’s bakery. Muriel was going to have a field-day gossiping about what she’d gleaned.

Not that it would matter. Jason had made up his mind, and he would make his move this evening, after afternoon surgery. He had no intention of waiting till the dastardly Dean showed up. He had no intention of wasting time asking Emma for a date, either. He was going to go straight to the heart of the matter…with a proposal of marriage.

CHAPTER TWO

JASON was beginning to feel a bit nervous, a most unusual state for him.

But understandable, he decided as he opened the side gate which led round to the back of Emma’s house. It wasn’t every day you asked a woman to marry you, certainly not a woman you didn’t love, whom you’d never even been out with, let alone slept with. Most people would say he was mad. Adele certainly would.

Thinking of Adele’s opinion had a motivating effect on him. Anything Adele thought was insane was probably the most sensible thing in the world.

Determined not to change his mind, Jason closed the gate behind him and strode down the side path to Emma’s back door. A light was shining through the lace curtains at the back window, he noted with relief. Some music was on somewhere. She was definitely home.

There were three steps leading up to the back door, the cement worn into dips in the middle. Jason put one foot on the first step, then stopped to straighten his tie and his jacket.

Not that any straightening was strictly necessary. He was wearing one of his suavest and most expensive Italian suits, a silk blend in a dark grey which never creased and always made him feel like a million dollars. His tie was silk too, a matching grey with diagonal stripes of blue and yellow. It was smart and modern without being too loud. He’d even sprayed himself with some of the cologne he was partial to, but kept for special occasions.

Jason knew his mission tonight was a difficult one and he was leaving nothing to chance, using everything in his available armoury to present an attractive and desirable image to Emma. He wanted to be everything he was sure Dean Ratchitt wasn’t. He wanted to offer her everything Dean Ratchitt hadn’t. A solid, secure marriage to a man who would never be unfaithful to her, and whom she could be proud of.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, he stepped up, lifted his hand and knocked. In the several seconds it took for her to come to the door, a resurgence of nerves set his empty stomach churning. He should have eaten first, he thought irritably. But he hadn’t been able to settle to a meal before hearing Emma’s answer.

That she might think him mad as well suddenly occurred to him, and he was besieged by a most uncustomary lack of confidence.

She’ll turn you down, man, came the voice of reason. She’s a romantic and she doesn’t love you.

The door handle slowly turned and the door swung back, sending a rectangle of light right into his face. Emma stood, silhouetted in the doorway, her face in shadow.

‘Jason?’ came her soft and puzzled enquiry. It had taken him weeks of visiting Ivy to get her to call him Jason, he recalled. Even then, she still called him Dr Steel occasionally. He was glad she hadn’t tonight.

‘Hello, Emma,’ he returned, amazed at his cool delivery. His heart might be jumping and his stomach doing cartwheels, but he sounded his usual assured self. ‘May I come in for a few minutes?’

‘Come in?’ she repeated, as though she could not make sense of his request. He hadn’t been to visit since her aunt’s death. He’d attended the funeral, but not the wake, an emergency having called him back to the surgery. She probably thought that their friendship—such as it was—had died with her aunt’s death.

‘There’s something I want to ask you,’ he added.

‘Oh…oh, all right.’ She stepped back and turned into the light.

Jason followed, frowning. She looked more composed than she had the day of the funeral, but still very pale, and far too thin. Her cheeks were sunken in, making her green eyes seem huge. Her dress hung on her, and her hair looked dull, not at all like the shining cap of golden curls which usually framed her delicately pretty face.

It came to him as he glanced around the spotless but bare kitchen that she probably hadn’t been eating properly since her aunt’s death. The fruit bowl in the centre of the kitchen table was empty, and so was the biscuit jar. Maybe she didn’t have much money to spend on food. Funerals and wakes did not come cheap. Had it taken all her spare cash to bury Ivy?

Damn, but he wished he’d thought of that before. He should not have stayed away. He should have offered some assistance, seen to it she was looking after herself. What kind of doctor was he? What kind of friend? What kind of man?

The kind who thought he could bowl up here out of the blue and ask this grief-stricken young woman to marry him, simply because it suited his needs. He hadn’t stopped to really consider her needs, had he? He’d arrogantly thought he could fill them, whatever they were.

God, he hadn’t changed at all, he realised disgustedly. He was still as greedy and selfish as ever. When would he learn? Would he ever really change? Hell, he hoped so. He really did.

But knowing what he was didn’t change his mind about his mission here tonight. He decided he was still a good catch for a girl whose circumstances weren’t exactly top drawer.

‘I’ll get us some coffee, shall I?’ she said dully, and without waiting for an answer moved off to fill the electric kettle and plug it in.

It wasn’t the first time she’d made him coffee. She’d done the honours every time he’d come to visit Ivy. She already knew he liked his coffee in a mug, white with one sugar, so she didn’t have to ask.

Jason closed the back door behind him and sat down at the old Formica-topped table, silently watching her move about the kitchen, seeing again what he’d seen that first time. The unconscious grace of her movements. The elegance of her long neck. The daintiness of her figure.

Once again, he felt the urge to touch her, to stroke that tempting neck, to somehow seduce her to his suddenly quite strong desire, a desire as strong and almost as compelling as he’d once felt for Adele.

Yet she was nothing like Adele, whose dark and very striking beauty had a sophisticated and hard-edged glamour. Adele’s long legs and gym-honed body had looked incredibly sexy in those wicked little black suits she wore to work. And what she did for a red lace teddy had to be seen to be believed.

Somehow Jason couldn’t see Emma dressed in either red or black, or having the body to carry off the kind of sexy lingerie Adele had been addicted to.

But, for all that, he found the delicacy of her shape incredibly sensual, as he did the feminine free flowing dresses she favoured. He imagined she probably donned long frilly-necked nighties for bed. But he wouldn’t mind that. There was something perversely alluring in a woman covering up her body. It gave her a sense of mystery, a touch-me-not quality that was challenging and arousing.

Jason realised he had no idea what Emma might look like naked, other than slender. Her breasts looked adequate in clothing, but who could say what was bra and what was not? Not that he found small breasts a turn-off. He liked tiny, exquisitely formed things.

She was petite in height as well, head and shoulders shorter than his own six feet two, unlike Adele, who in heels matched him inch for inch. To be honest, he rather liked Emma having to tip back her head to look up at him. He liked everything about her. And, whilst he had no doubt now that he was still a selfish man, Jason vowed never to do anything to deliberately hurt her, anything at all.

‘Sorry I haven’t got any biscuits or cake to offer you,’ she apologised as she carried the two mugs over to the table and sat down opposite him. ‘I haven’t felt like shopping. Or cooking. Or eating, for that matter.’

‘But you should eat, Emma,’ he couldn’t help advising. ‘You don’t want to get sick, do you?’

A wan smile flitted across her face, as though she didn’t think her getting sick was a matter which would overly trouble her at that moment. Jason frowned at the awful thought she might do something silly. She had to be very down and depressed after her aunt’s death.

Yet he could not think of the right thing to say. It seemed his newly acquired bedside manner had suddenly deserted him.

They both sat for a few moments, silently sipping their coffee, till Emma put hers down and looked over at him.

‘What did you want to ask me?’ she said in that same flat, bleak voice. ‘Was it something about Aunt Ivy?’

She wasn’t really looking at him, he noted. He might have been wearing anything, for all she cared. Her lack of interest in his swanky suit and spruced-up appearance didn’t do much for his already waning confidence.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘No, it wasn’t about Ivy. It was about you, Emma.’

‘Me?’

The soft surprise in her voice and eyes showed she was taken aback by his displaying any personal interest in her at all. But he’d gone too far in his mind to back down now. ‘What are you going to do, Emma,’ he asked gently, ‘now that Ivy’s gone?’

She sighed heavily. ‘I have no idea.’

‘Do you have any other relatives?’

‘Some cousins in Queensland. But I don’t know them very well. In fact, I haven’t seen them for years.’

‘You wouldn’t want to move away from Tindley, anyway,’ he argued. ‘All your friends are here.’

And me.

‘Yes,’ she said, and sighed another deep and very weary sigh. ‘I suppose I’ll open the shop next week, and just…go on as before.’

Go on as before…

Did that mean waste her life waiting for Dean bloody Ratchitt to return? Didn’t she know any relationship with him was a dead loss, even if he did come back?

‘I see,’ Jason said. ‘And what about the future, Emma? A pretty girl like you must be planning on marrying one day.’

‘Marrying?’

He saw the pain in her face and wanted to kill that bastard. ‘You would make some man a wonderful wife, Emma,’ he said sincerely.

She flushed and looked down into her coffee. ‘I doubt that,’ she muttered.

‘Then don’t. I think any man you agreed to marry would have to be very lucky indeed.’

His words sent her head jerking up, and Jason saw the dawning of understanding over his visit. Shock filled her eyes.

‘Yes,’ he said before his courage failed him. ‘Yes, Emma, I’m asking you to marry me.’

Gradually, her shock gave way to confusion and curiosity. Her eyes searched his face, looking for God knew what.

‘But why?’ she said at last.

He should have expected such a question, but it threw him for a moment. Don’t lie, his conscience insisted.

‘Why?’ he stalled.

‘Yes, why?’ she insisted. ‘And please don’t say you’re in love with me, because we both know you’re not.’

Jason was tempted to lie. He knew he could be very convincing if he tried. He could say he’d hidden his feelings because Ivy had warned him off. He could say a whole load of conning garbage. But that was not what he wanted. If and when he married Emma, he wanted no lies. No pretence. From either of them.

‘No,’ Jason replied with a degree of regret in his voice. ‘No, I’m not in love with you, Emma. But believe me when I say I find you very pretty and very desirable. I have right from the first time I saw you.’

He took some comfort from the colour which zoomed into her cheeks. Had she been aware of his admiration all along? If she had, she’d never given him any indication, although, to be fair, she’d always been prepared to spend time with him after he’d visited her aunt, always offered him coffee and conversation.

‘A man like you could have any girl he wanted,’ she countered. ‘Ones far prettier and more desirable than me. There’s not a single girl in the district who wouldn’t throw herself at your feet, if you turned your eye her way.’

But not you, it seems, Jason thought. Damn, but this was not going to be one of his greatest moments. Failure was always a bitter taste in his mouth. In the past, there hadn’t been a girl he’d fancied whom he hadn’t been successful with.

Keeping his voice steady and calm, and his eyes firmly on hers, he went on. ‘I don’t want any other girl in the district, Emma. I want you.’

Now she flushed fiercely, and his confidence began to return.

‘As I’ve already said, Emma, I think you’d make a wonderful wife. And a wonderful mother. I watched you with your aunt. You’re so kind and caring. So patient and gentle. In the weeks I’ve known you, I’ve come to like you very very much. I thought you liked me in return. Was I mistaken?’

‘No,’ she returned, although warily. ‘I do like you. But just liking someone is not enough for marriage. Neither is finding them attractive.’

So she found him attractive, did she? That was good. That was very good.

‘You think you have to be in love?’ he probed softly.

‘Well, yes, I do.’

‘Six months ago I might have agreed with you,’ he said ruefully, and her eyes narrowed on him.

‘What do you mean? What happened six months ago?’

Jason hesitated, then gambled on telling her the complete truth. There was a bond in revealing one’s soul to another. And one’s secrets. He wanted no secrets between them, not if they were to be man and wife. And, by God, they would be, if he had anything to do about it.

‘Six months ago I was working with and living with a woman in Sydney. A doctor. I was madly in love with her and we were planning to be married this year. One day, one of her patients died. A little boy. Of bacterial meningitis.’

‘Oh, how sad! She must have been very upset.’

‘One might reasonably have thought so,’ he said bitterly. ‘I have no doubt you would have been devastated in her position. But not Adele. Oh, no. The child’s death meant nothing to her, other than a slight blow to her ego. She was briefly annoyed she hadn’t matched the child’s symptoms with the cause, but then how could she, in a mere five minutes’ consultation?’

‘Five minutes?’ She was shocked, he could see.

‘That was the average length of a consultation in our surgery. Get ’em in and get ’em out as quickly as possible. Turn-over meant money, you see, and money was the name of the game. Not people. Or lives. Just money.’

She was staring at him, perhaps seeing the truth behind that vitriol, that it wasn’t just Adele who’d been greedy and heartless in those days. He’d been just as bad.

He sighed. ‘Yes, it’s true. There, but for the grace of God, go I.’

‘Oh, no, Jason,’ she said softly. ‘Not you. You’re not like that at all. I watched you with Aunt Ivy. You’re a very caring man, and a very good doctor.’

His heart squeezed tight. ‘You flatter me, Emma. But I would like to think I finally saw the error of my ways and made changes for the better. That’s why I left the city and came here, to find my self-respect again, and to find a better way of life.’

‘What about your relationship with this Adele?’ she asked, her expression thoughtful.

‘I could hardly continue to love a woman I despised,’ he said.

Her laugh startled him. ‘Do you think love is finished as easily as that? Do you think finding out something unpleasant—or even wicked—about the person you love, smashes that love to smithereens? Believe me, Jason, it doesn’t.’

Her words were like a kick to his stomach. She still loved Dean Ratchitt, regardless of his faithless character. And she believed he still loved Adele.

Jason tried to give that concept some honest thought. Perhaps he did still love her. He certainly thought about her a lot. And he missed her, especially in bed.

But neither of these factors would deter his resolve for a future between himself and Emma. Nor would he let her think he wasn’t aware of her unrequited passion for another man.

‘I’ve heard all about Dean Ratchitt,’ he said abruptly, and her green eyes flared wide with shock.

‘Who from? Aunt Ivy?’

‘Amongst others.’

‘And what…what did they say?’

‘The truth. That you were engaged to be married and he betrayed you with another girl. That you argued and told him you would marry the next man who asked you.’ He set steady eyes upon her own stunned gaze. ‘So I’m the next man, Emma, and I’m asking you. Marry me.’

Jason was taken aback when her shock swiftly became anger. ‘They had no right to tell you that,’ she shot back at him. ‘I didn’t mean it. I never meant it. I can’t marry you, Jason. I’m sorry.’ And she tore her eyes away from his to smoulder down into her coffee.

Her passionate outburst stripped away the cool, calm façade Jason had been hiding behind. He was never at his best when his will was thwarted, especially when he believed what he wanted was for the best for everyone all round.

‘Why not?’ he demanded to know. ‘Because you’re waiting for Ratchitt to return?’

‘Dean,’ she snapped, glittering green eyes flying back to his. ‘His name is Dean.’

‘Ratchitt matches his character better.’

Her gaze grew distressed and dropped back down. ‘He…he might come back,’ she mumbled. ‘Now that I’m alone, and…and…’

‘An heiress?’ he supplied for her cuttingly. ‘I don’t think this place will bring him running, Emma.’ And he waved around the ancient and shabbily furnished room. ‘Men like Ratchitt want more out of life than some old house in a country backwater, even if the front rooms have been turned into a sweet shop.’

She was shaking her head at him. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘I think I understand the situation very well. He stole your heart, then broke it, without a second thought. I’ve met men like him before. They can’t keep their pants zipped for more than a day, and they love no one but themselves. He’s not worth loving, any more than Adele was. I’ve consigned her to my past. The best thing you can do is consign Ratchitt to your past, and go forward.

‘Marry me, Emma,’ he urged, when her eyes became confused. ‘I promise to be a good husband to you and a good father to our children. You do want children, don’t you? You don’t want to wake up one day and find that you’re a dried-up old spinster with nothing to look forward to but loneliness and rheumatism.’

She buried her face in her hands then, and began to cry. Not noisily, but deeply, her shoulders shaking. Jason was moved as he’d never been moved before. He raced round the table to squat down beside her chair. He reached out to take her small, slender hands in his and turned her tear-stained face towards him.

‘I won’t hurt you like he did, Emma,’ he promised her with a fierce tenderness. ‘I give you my word.’

‘But it’s too soon,’ she choked out.

Jason wasn’t sure what she meant. ‘Too soon?’ he probed. ‘You mean since Ivy’s death?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you saying you might marry me later on?’

Her eyes lifted, betraying a haunted, hunted look. She was tempted to say yes, he could see. But something was stopping her.

‘A month,’ she blurted out. ‘Give me a month. Then ask me again.’

Jason sat back on his heels and exhaled slowly, his surge of elation dampened by a prickle of apprehension. It wasn’t a long time, a month. But it worried him. He didn’t believe the wait had anything to do with Ivy’s death. It was all to do with Ratchitt. She still hoped he’d come back for her.

The possibility of that scum showing up again was slight, Jason believed. But even that slight possibility sickened him. The thought of Emma falling back into his filthy arms sickened him even further.

And it did something else. It sparked a jealousy which startled him.

He’d never been a jealous man before. Not even with Adele. Emma was evoking emotions in him that were alien to all his previous experiences with women. Along with the jealousy, he also felt fiercely protective.

Still, he would imagine most men would feel protective of a girl like Emma. She was so fragile-looking. And so sweet. Someone had to stand between her and the Ratchitts of this world. She wasn’t experienced enough to see just how bad his type were. How depraved and conscienceless.

‘All right, Emma,’ Jason agreed. ‘A month. But that doesn’t mean I can’t see you during that month, does it? I’d like to take you out on a regular basis. We could get to know each other better.’

‘But…but everyone with think that…that…’

‘That you’re dating Dr Steel,’ he finished firmly. ‘What’s wrong with that? You’re single. I’m single. Single people date each other, Emma. That’s hardly grounds for gossip.’

Her eyes almost smiled through their wet lashes. ‘You don’t know the good ladies of Tindley.’

‘Believe me, I’m beginning to. So what about dinner tomorrow night? It’s Friday, and I always eat out on a Friday. We could drive over to the coast if you don’t want to be seen with me here in Tindley for a while.’

She blinked the last of her tears away and looked at him with that searching gaze he found quite discomfiting. ‘Are you going to try to get me into bed afterwards?’

Jason had trouble stopping the guilt from jumping into his eyes. Not that he’d had seduction on the menu for tomorrow night. He’d actually been going to leave that course of action for a week or two.

‘No,’ he said, with what he hoped was honest-sounding conviction. ‘No. I wouldn’t do that.’

She looked at him with frowning eyes. ‘Why not?’ she posed in a puzzled tone. ‘You said you found me pretty and desirable. You also asked me to marry you. I imagined you fancied me, at least a little.’

‘I do fancy you. And more than a little. Hell, Emma.’ He stood up and raked his hands back through his hair. She’d thrown him for a loop by being so sexually direct. He hadn’t expected it from her. Did she want him to try to seduce her or not?

‘It’s perfectly all right, Jason,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ve been brought up in a country town, not a convent. I’m well acquainted with the way men think and feel when it comes to sex. I know you haven’t had a girlfriend since coming here to Tindley, and I’m sure you’re fairly frustrated by now. I just didn’t want to give you false hopes if I agreed to go out to dinner with you. You’re a very attractive, experienced man, and I’m sure you know how to get to a girl. But I have no intention of sleeping with you. Not this side of a wedding ring, anyway.’

He stared at her, and her chin tipped up, revealing a side to Emma he hadn’t seen before. A very stubborn side. A decidedly steely light gleamed in her green eyes and her attitude was definitely defiant.

One part of him admired her strong old-world standards, till he remembered Ratchitt. He’d bet London to a brick on that she hadn’t given him the same ultimatum.

Or had she? he suddenly revised. Was that what had happened between them? Had she refused to sleep with Ratchitt till he’d walked with her to the altar? Had he given her an engagement ring, then simply had other girls on the side till the prize would finally be his without any more arguing, for ever and ever?

‘Do you want to take back your proposal now?’ she asked challengingly. ‘And your dinner invitation?’

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘But I would like an answer to one simple question.’

‘What question’s that?’

‘Are you a virgin, Emma?’

CHAPTER THREE

THE following day felt interminable to Jason. Several times his mind wandered to that moment the evening before when Emma had looked him straight in the eye and told him the truth. Yes, she was a virgin. So what? Did he have a problem with that?

Did he have a problem with that?

Yes, and no.

Virginity wasn’t something he’d encountered before in his personal life. Not once. Adele hadn’t been a virgin. Not by a long shot. None of his other girlfriends over the years had been virgins, either.

The thought of making love to a virgin was a little daunting. Unknown territory usually was.

At the same time, the thought of making love to an untouched Emma on their wedding night appealed to a part of him he’d never known existed. He’d never thought of himself as a romantic before. But with Emma he was a different man. He recognised that already. She brought out the best in him.

And perhaps the worst.

Possessiveness and jealousy in men weren’t traits he’d ever admired. He didn’t like the way such men treated their girlfriends and wives. The females in their lives were flattered for a while—seeing their partners’ passion as evidence of the extent of their love. Till reality set in and the flattery gave way to fear. He vowed to fight the temptation to be like that with Emma. He wanted her to be happy as his wife, never afraid.

And she would be his wife. He felt confident of that now. It was just a matter of time.

Time…

Jason glanced up at the clock on the wall. Five o’clock. And the small waiting room was still full of wheezing, sneezing patients. The beautiful spring weather had brought a rash of hay-fever sufferers, along with the blossoms.

Sighing, Jason rose from his desk and went to call in the next patient.

‘I hope to heaven that’s it, Nancy?’ Jason said at long last, popping his head around the consulting-room door and sighing with relief when he spied the empty waiting room. The clock on the wall now said five to seven. Surgery usually finished around five-thirty and, whilst it sometimes ran late, it was rarely this late.

‘Yes, all finished for the day, Dr Steel,’ Nancy returned, in a sighing tone which Jason knew didn’t denote tiredness, but a reluctance to leave the love of her life and go home to an empty house.

Not him. The practice!

Nancy had been Doc Brandewilde’s resident receptionist - cum - secretary - cum - book - keeper - cum-emergency nurse for the past twenty years. She worked six days a week—seven, if and when required—and overtime without ever asking for an extra cent. Rising sixty now, she was as healthy as a horse and would probably be presiding over the practice for another twenty years at least.

She’d been a bit pernickety with Jason when he’d first arrived, till he’d discovered through Muriel that Nancy was afraid he’d fire her, if and when Doc retired, and Jason took on a new partner. Once Jason had reassured Nancy the job was hers for as long as she wanted it, their relationship had improved in leaps and bounds, although there’d been a temporary hiccup when Jason had suggested they get a computer system for the files and the accounts. He’d made the mistake of saying a computer would be more efficient and cut down on her workload. He hadn’t realised, at that point in time, that Nancy didn’t want to cut down on her workload.

Nancy had gone into an instant panic, then flounced home in a right snip, saying if Jason thought a machine could do a better job than twenty years’ experience, then she didn’t want to work for such a fool. After one day’s mayhem in the surgery, Jason had gone crawling on his hands and knees, begging for her to return. He’d grovelled very well, calling himself an idiot from the city who didn’t understand the workings of a country practice, saying if she could be gracious enough to forgive his ignorance and help him wherever possible, he was sure to get the hang of things in due time.

After that, they got on like a house on fire, even though Nancy maintained an old-fashioned formality in addressing him as Dr Steel all the time, which sometimes irritated Jason. Still, that seemed to be the way with people in country towns. They held their doctors in high esteem. Put them on a pedestal, so to speak. And while that was rather nice, Jason sometimes felt a bit of a fraud. If they knew his original motives for choosing medicine as a profession, they might not be so respectful.

‘Sorry to love you and leave you, Nancy,’ he said briskly, when it became clear she was going to linger, ‘but I have to go upstairs and change.’

‘Going out for dinner, Doctor?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Where are you off to tonight?

‘I thought I might drive over to the coast.’

‘Seems a long way to go to eat alone,’ Nancy returned on a dry note.

Jason opened his mouth to lie, but then decided against it. The people of Tindley would like nothing better than to see their second and much younger doctor safely married to a local girl. Doctors were as scarce as hen’s teeth in some rural areas. They would exert a subtle—or perhaps not so subtle—pressure on Emma, to be a sensible girl and snap up the good doctor while she had the chance.

‘Actually, no, I’m not going alone,’ he said casually. ‘I’m taking Emma Churchill.’

If he’d been expecting shock on Nancy’s face, then he was sorely disappointed. Her smile was quite smug. ‘I suspected as much.’

‘You sus—’ Jason broke off, grimacing resignedly. The small town grapevine never ceased to amaze him. ‘How on earth did you know?’ he asked, with wry acceptance and a measure of curiosity. No way would Emma have told anyone.

‘Muriel said you were asking about Emma yesterday. Then Sheryl spotted you going through Ivy’s side gate last night. Then Emma dropped in to Beryl’s Boutique at lunch-time and bought a pretty new dress. On top of that, you’ve been clock-watching and jumpy all day. It didn’t take too much to put two and two together.’

Jason had to smile. Jumpy, was he? You could say that again. He’d hardly slept a wink last night for thinking about Emma.

‘And what will the good ladies of Tindley think about such goings-on?’ he asked, still smiling.

Nancy laughed. ‘Oh, there won’t be any goings-on where Emma is concerned, Dr Steel, so you can save your energy and keep your mind above your trouser belt till the ring’s on her finger. You are planning on proposing, aren’t you?’

Jason saw no point in being coy. ‘I am…but that’s doesn’t mean she’ll say yes.’

‘She will, if she’s got any sense in her head. But there again—’ She broke off suddenly, and frowned.

‘If you’re thinking about Dean Ratchitt, then I know all about him,’ he said brusquely. ‘Muriel filled me in.’

Nancy’s expression was troubled. ‘He’s bad news, that one. Emma was really stuck on him. Always was, right from her schooldays.’

‘I hear he’s very handsome.’

Nancy frowned. ‘Not handsome, exactly,’ she said. Not like you, Dr Steel. Now, you’re handsome in my book. But he has something, has Dean. And he has a way about him with the women, no doubt about that.’

‘So everyone keeps telling me,’ Jason said testily. ‘But he’s not here in Tindley, Nancy, and I am. So let’s leave it at that, shall we? Now, I must shake a leg or I’m going to be late.’

‘What time did you say you’d pick Emma up?’

‘Seven-thirty.’

‘Just as well she lives down the road, then, isn’t it? Off you go. I’ll lock up here.’

Jason dashed up the stairs, stripping as he went.

Like Ivy’s sweet shop, the surgery was part of an old house which fronted the main street of Tindley. But where Ivy’s place was small and one-storeyed, the house Doc Brandewilde had bought thirty years before was two-storeyed and quite spacious. Doc and his wife had raised three boys in it.

But they’d always wanted a small acreage out of town, it seemed, and once Jason had expressed interest in the practice Doc had bought his dream place and moved, leaving the living quarters of the house in town to his new partner.

Jason had been thrilled. He’d liked the house on sight. It had character, like those American houses he’d often seen in movies and which he’d always coveted. Made of wood, it had an L-shaped front verandah, with wisteria wound through the latticed panels, and a huge front door with a brass knocker and stained glass panels on either side. Inside, the ceilings were ten feet high, and all the floors polished wood. A wide central hall downstairs separated two rooms on the left and two on the right. It passed a powder room under the stairs, and led into a large kitchen which opened out onto a long, wide back verandah. The two rooms on the left—which had once been the front parlour and morning room—had been converted into the waiting room and surgery. The two on the right remained the dining and lounge rooms.

Upstairs, there had been four bedrooms and one bathroom till a few years back, when Doc’s wife, Martha, had brought in the renovators and combined the two smallest bedrooms on the right into a roomy master bedroom and en suite bathroom.

Jason rushed into this bathroom now, snapping on the shower and reaching for the soap. No time to shave, he realised. Pity. He’d wanted to be perfect for Emma. Still, he wasn’t one of those dark shaven men who grew half a beard by five o’clock in the afternoon. His father had been dark—according to his parents’ wedding photos. But his mother fair. He’d ended up being a mixture of both, with mid-brown hair, his father’s olive skin and his mother’s light blue eyes.

And a blessed lack of body hair, he thought as he lathered up his largely hairless chest.

With time ticking away, he didn’t shampoo his hair. No way did he want to front up with wet hair. Snapping off the taps, he dived out of the shower, grabbed a towel and began to rub vigorously. Five minutes later he was standing in his underpants, scanning his rather extensive wardrobe.

No suit tonight, he thought. Tonight called for something a little less formal, which didn’t really present a problem, except in making a choice. During his days as a dashing young Sydney doctor, he’d bought clothes for every occasion.

His eyes moved up and down the hangers several times. Damn, but he had too many clothes! Finally, he grabbed the nearest hanger to his hand, and had already dragged on the cream trousers, pale blue silk shirt and navy blazer before remembering Adele had chosen that very outfit the last time they’d gone shopping together. She’d said it made him look like a millionaire, fresh from winning the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. She’d liked the image, said it turned her on. Nothing turned Adele on, Jason thought ruefully, like the thought of money.

He scowled at the memory, but had no time to change, consoling himself with the thought that at least the woman had had taste in men’s clothes.

She came to mind again as he slipped on the sleek gold watch and the onyx dress ring he always wore. Both had been presents from Adele, bought in the first year of their three together. She’d given him quite a few personal gifts in those early days, mostly to enhance his new status as her partner.

Jason felt no personal attachment for the gifts any more. Usually he wore them without a second thought. But it didn’t seem right to wear them when he was going out with the woman he was going to marry. He compromised by leaving the ring off but wearing the watch, because he liked knowing the time. Still, he determined to buy himself another watch in the morning. Something less flashy.

Scooping up his wallet and car keys, he turned and went forth to make his destiny.

Emma was ready and waiting for him, as pretty as a picture in a dress just made for her pale colouring and willowy slenderness. Round-necked and long-sleeved, it was mainly cream, but tie-dyed with splashes of peach and the palest orange. The material was light and crinkly, the style on the loose side, skimming over the gentle rise of her bust and falling in soft folds to her ankles. Her fair curly hair had obviously been shampooed and especially conditioned, for it shone in contrast to the previous night’s dullness. Her face had some colour too—thanks to some lipstick and blusher, perhaps? Her eyes looked huge, even though he could see no visible make-up around them. When her neck craned back to look up at him, a faint smell of lavender wafted from her skin.

She looked like something from another world. A unique treasure to be cherished and cared for.

Was that how Ratchitt had seen her when he’d pursued her? Or was Emma just another notch on his belt? Had her purity enraged or enslaved him? Jason couldn’t see the rotter who’d been described to him as having any sensitivity. He’d probably only asked Emma to marry him because he thought she’d come across once a ring was on her finger.

Jason was glad he’d failed to get what he wanted. He didn’t deserve her. Men like him didn’t deserve any decent woman, let alone his Emma.

And that was how he saw her now. His Emma.

‘You look lovely,’ he said, his eyes raking over her with what he hoped wasn’t too impassioned a gaze. But, dear heaven, he did desire her. Yet so differently from the way he’d desired Adele.

Adele, he’d wanted to ravage. With her, he’d wanted to take, never to give. After all, Adele was one of those liberated females who shouted to the rooftops that they were responsible for their own orgasms, and she had been, at times. He and Adele hadn’t made love, he now saw. They’d had sex. Great sex, it was true. But still just sex, the only aim being mutual physical satisfaction.

Emma made him want to give. Jason had no doubt that his priority when he made love to her would be to give her the most wonderful experience in her life, an experience which would banish Ratchitt from her mind for ever. His own pleasure would be secondary…which was an extraordinary first for him when it came to sex. Maybe he had changed, after all!

‘You look very nice yourself,’ she was saying. ‘Very…handsome.’

At least she hadn’t said rich.

‘Thank you. Shall we go? My car’s out in the street. There again,’ he added, smiling a wry smile, ‘my car’s always parked out in the street.’

That was one thing his new house didn’t have. A garage. There was room in the back yard, but no access down the side.

You can’t have everything in life, son…

Jason glanced over at Emma, and his smile softened.

Maybe not, Mum. But I’m getting closer.

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