Read Online Career Girl in the Country / The Doctor's Reason to Stay by Fiona Lowe / Dianne Drake - Free Book Online

aloof from people and coupled with the townsfolk not seeming to know how to treat him, but the fact he’d joined them at the table had caught her off guard. His offer to leave with her had totally floored her. From the moment he’d sat down next to her she’d struggled to keep up with the conversation as every part of her had been absorbed by his closeness.
    Now his gaze stayed fixed on her, and she shivered.
Find your strength, defuse the tension.
‘Where’s your car?’
    ‘At home.’ He had no trouble matching her stride. Unlike her stiff and jerky gait, his was fluid. ‘I walked because I’d planned to drink more than the legal driving limit.’
    He didn’t look drunk and she wouldn’t call him relaxed but something about him was different. Less guarded perhaps? ‘And have you?’
    ‘Probably.’ He leaned casually against the car, waiting, with his toned arms crossed over his T-shirt-cladchest and the light from the streetlamp spilling over him. It gave him the quintessential look of a bad boy.
    Her mouth dried and her well of strength drained away. Flustered, she dropped her gaze and fumbled in her handbag, searching for her car keys. She breathed out in relief when her fingers closed over metal and she quickly activated the lock release button and swung up into the vehicle. She just had to get through a short drive. How hard could that be?
    He sat down next to her, filling the cabin with his fresh scent of laundry soap and everything male. She let it fill her nostrils, pour into her lungs, and suddenly her hands trembled.
    Intelligent brown eyes zeroed in. ‘You OK to drive? We could always walk.’
    ‘I’m fine.’
Liar.
She wasn’t drunk but she was a long way from fine. With Matt so close her brain had closed down under the assault of her body’s wayward pleasure-seeking mission and she couldn’t think straight. She hit the on button of the radio with the palm of her hand, filling the cabin with music, and then she planted her foot. She tried valiantly to focus on the music but even that was against her with a raunchy song about make-up sex. Her hand wanted to leave the steering wheel, reach out and press her palm against the stubble on his cheek. She turned left at the first intersection and right at the second, and then drove straight.
    ‘Uh, Poppy?’
    ‘What?’ It came out far too snappy as her body mocked her every good intention to stay aloof by sending rafts of hot and cold streaking though her.
    He tilted his head, a lock of hair falling forward. ‘I’m not so drunk that I don’t notice where we are.You’re going the wrong direction and the house is back that way.’
    She squinted through the windshield. Oh, God, he was right. With her mind complete mush, she’d taken the wrong turning at the first intersection and now she had no clue where she was. ‘It all looks the same at night.’
    ‘Sure, it pretty much does except for the bright lights of the port, which gives you a whopping big navigational tool.’ His voiced teased as he turned towards her, his face clear in the moonlight. His mouth was curved up into a broad smile, a smile that banished the usual hovering sadness as it raced to his eyes, creasing the edges and making them dazzle with fun and wicked intent.
    She almost drove off the road.
    She’d wondered what he’d look like when he truly smiled and now she knew—completely devastating. Hauling her gaze back to the road and loathing herself on so many levels for her total lack of control over her body, she tried desperately not to sneak another look at his sexy grin. Usually when she was proved wrong she got defensive, but there was something about the unexpected softness that had momentarily surrounded him that made her laugh. ‘I’ll concede you have a point.’ She slowed in preparation to do a U-turn.
    ‘Keep going. We’re pretty close to Estuary Road and you get a great view of the town from there. It looks pretty at night.’
    She changed gears. ‘What, no