Read Online The Doctor's Rebel Knight by Melanie Milburne - Free Book Online Page A

pretty secluded. You can see it from the rock pools if you know what you’re looking for. It’s on the top of the cliff.’
    ‘You must have great views.’
    The corner of his mouth twitched slightly. ‘Sometimes the view is better than others.’
    Fran dropped her gaze, wondering if he had seen her on the beach more than once. She had often taken a book down and sat under the spindly sheoak trees near the rock pools. Once, only a couple of days ago, she had taken her bikini top off so she could feel the sun warming her naked flesh. Caro had assured her it was totally private, that hardly anyone came along and if they did you could see them for miles and had time to cover up.
    ‘Nice cake,’ Jacob said, brushing some crumbs onto his plate.
    ‘Thank you,’ Fran said, feeling a blush steal over her cheeks. God, she was so pathetic, clutching at the slightest compliment as if it might be the last she’d ever get. ‘Um…would you like another slice?’
    ‘No, thanks, but another coffee would be good.’
    She poured him another cup and passed him the milk and sugar, watching as he spooned in two and a half teaspoons and a generous dash of milk.
    ‘You didn’t finish telling me what happened to your father,’ she said.
    His expression clouded as it had in the car earlier and she noticed his grip on his coffee mug tightened. ‘It was an armed robbery,’ he said, putting his mug on the bench as if he was afraid he was going to snap its handle. ‘My father was on his own that evening. Two men came in and one cleaned out the till and the other shot my father. He would have lived but by the time help arrived it was too late to save him.’
    Fran felt a shudder of horror go through her. ‘I’m so sorry. How dreadful for you and your poor mother to lose him that way.’
    ‘Yeah,’ he said, picking up his cup and looking at the contents for a moment. ‘It was.’
    ‘Is that why you became a police officer?’ she asked.
    ‘One of the reasons,’ he said, and then after a small silence asked, ‘Have you given any thought to my suggestion?’
    ‘What suggestion was that?’ Fran asked, even though she knew and had been silently dreading this conversation ever since they had left Candi Broderick and her father with the Careflight crew.
    ‘Filling in at the clinic for an hour or two,’ he said, holding her gaze with magnetic force.
    Fran finally dragged her gaze away and toyed with the barely touched cake on her plate, squishing a crumb beneath the pad of her index finger as if it was a tiny ant. ‘It’s not that simple, Sergeant…‘
    He didn’t speak, which she knew was a clever tactic to keep her talking. She’d seen enough crime shows to know how it worked. She would start out determined to keep her mouth closed, but the silence would grow teeth that would gnaw at her until she began to fidget. And he would stand there, like he was doing now, his arms folded against his broad chest, his hips leaning back against the kitchen bench, silently watching her with his I’ve-got-all-the-time-in-the-world pose. And then she would blurt out everything, all the hurt, all the shame of not being able to cope, the sheer terror of reliving it all. And then the nightmares would begin again, and then the panic attacks, and the zombie-like days when it was all she could do to get out of bed, let alone out of the house.
    Fran pulled her shoulders back, her neck protesting as she locked gazes with him. ‘I’m not prepared to commit myself to anything until I have thought it through. I am supposed to be having an extended holiday as well as looking after my sister. I haven’t even visited her in hospital yet. Pelican Bay will have to do without me, Sergeant Hawke, as I have other priorities right now.’
    Fran was proud of her speech. She had made it sound so in control and assured, so nothing-you-can-say-will-sway-me. But then he came around the island bench where she was standing and stood right in front of her, invading