Read Online The Surgeon's Family Wish by Abigail Gordon - Free Book Online

opportunity to establish myself in one place and if the chance came now I wouldn’t know how to go about it.’
    He sighed.
    â€˜Why do I feel that you’re making excuses? I’m the one who should be having doubts. I have Lucy to think about... and my mother. I owe her a lot, and with that thought in mind I need to be going. I told her I would only be out a matter of minutes. Maybe you’re right in what you say, Annabel. I shouldn’t have come.’
    â€˜What was she like?’ she asked, as he turned to go.
    He swivelled round to face her again.
    â€˜Who?’
    â€˜Your wife.’
    â€˜Small, blonde, bubbly.’
    â€˜So I’m nothing like her. A tall, brunette, whose fizz has gone flat.’
    â€˜A good shake-up usually brings it back.’
    â€˜Not always.’
    â€˜Look, Annabel,’ he said impatiently, ‘I’m tired of listening to you talk in riddles. Let me know when you’re ready for some plain speaking. In the meantime, goodnight.’
    You’re a glutton for punishment, Annabel told herself when he’d gone. That man is something else! And you’ve just fobbed him off. What is the matter with you? He’s in a different league to Randolph Graham. Way above him in looks, stature, integrity... and the way he kisses. So why put a dampener on him?
    It was a good question and she didn’t know the true answer. Or maybe she did. The sadness she’d felt when they told her she’d miscarried was still there like a dull ache inside her.
    She’d longed for a child, vowing as the wonder of her pregnancy had taken hold that it would never be made to feel unwanted as she had been. Even after Randy had made his uncomfortable confession, her joy at the coming birth had kept her spirits from falling too far. Until the day when she’d been hurrying to Theatre to deal with an emergency and had slipped.
    Yet she was coming alive again and it was because of the man who’d just left her with his mind in a state of irritation and confusion. They were both as bad as each other. She was like a seesaw. No sooner had her life taken an upward thrust than it was plunging backdown again, and as for Aaron, he was just as unpredictable.
    Less than a week ago he had made it clear he had no wish to remarry and yet tonight he’d made no bones about the fact that he was attracted to her. But that didn’t have to mean that he was considering her for the role of the second Mrs Lewis. Lots of men were interested in sex, but weren’t necessarily rushing to put a ring on the woman’s finger.
    Though something told her he wasn’t like that. He’d said she was the first woman he’d touched in years. She’d believed him, and four years was a long time.
    * * *
    Aaron’s thoughts were running along different lines. He felt he’d made a prize fool of himself. He should have remembered that Annabel had never shown she was interested in him in any shape or form. Why he was so obsessed with her he didn’t know. He’d never sensed any warmth in her towards him, with the exception of when he’d had Lucy with him and during those moments when she’d been in his arms.
    Apart from that she was cool, cold almost, and he doubted that it was only an unhappy childhood that was to blame for that. Annabel was right when she’d said she was nothing like Eloise. But if he married again he didn’t want to be living with a carbon copy of his first wife.
    He would want it to be a fresh start in every way and was constantly amazed that it had only been since he’d met her that he’d been thinking along those lines.
    Let it rest, he told himself irritably as he undressed. You were living in a state of muted contentment before Annabel came. Revert back to that. But it was easiersaid than done with the memory of his mouth on hers and his loins aching at the contact.
    * * *
    The first-year children of a neighbouring