From Bachelor To Daddy. Meredith Webber

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СКАЧАТЬ for me, then hang on tight,’ he said, and before she could say thank you, or marvel at the fact that he had come for her, he had the craft moving again and they were off, the roaring motor preventing even the most basic of conversations.

      But she did hang on tight, very tightly indeed, for they were travelling at what seemed a ridiculous pace, bouncing over waves as they sped back to wherever he’d come from.

      Wetherby?

      The beach town she and the twins had visited last week?

      Was that the closest place?

      And was she thinking these thoughts to keep from considering the strange reaction she was experiencing with her arms around a man’s body, her breasts pressed against his back—the solidity of it, the different feel...

      The maleness...

      Not that she’d been clasping a woman’s back recently, but there was something decidedly odd going on within her body.

      Decidedly odd and totally unnecessary, but just as she considered not holding on quite as tightly, they leapt another wave and her arms tightened around him even more.

      Maybe as well as needing a father for the boys, she needed a man.

      Although friends and relations had been suggesting such a thing for some years now, she’d never given it a thought, probably because she’d never experienced a physical...

      What?

      She didn’t want to call it need, but it was certainly a male-female kind of thing she was feeling right now.

      Though this particular man—a commitment-shy lover boy—was definitely not for her.

      There was no way she could tarnish the memory of the intense and beautiful love she and Simon had shared with a quick affair to satisfy a...

      ‘Need’ did seem to be the word...

      Consumed by her thoughts, she was unaware of the silence that had fallen, but the jolt as the jet ski glided up a ramp onto the deck outside the surf lifesaving clubhouse told her the journey was over.

      She let go of the body that had started such bizarre thoughts in her head, and dismounted as quickly as she could, although the wet clothes she was wearing made that difficult, sticking to the plastic seat and tangling around her legs.

      ‘Thank you,’ she said, as Marty put out his hand to steady her. ‘And for rescuing me as well. I’d have been okay staying there till morning, but Dad would have worried.’

      ‘Only Dad?’ Marty queried, and it must have been the tiredness that was creeping over her that stopped her thinking the question at all odd.

      ‘Well, the boys as well, but they’ve grown up with my erratic hours of work, and my coming and going, and they don’t seem to mind. Dad’s been there for them far more than I have.’

      She’d smiled at him as she’d explained, this small, wet, matter-of-fact woman, and Marty didn’t know if it had been the smile or the love she somehow invested in the word ‘Dad’ that caused an uneasy lurch in his usually reliable stomach.

      ‘This way,’ he said, and although he would normally have slung an arm around a woman’s shoulders to lead her to the car, tonight he couldn’t do it, so he stomped ahead, slightly perturbed, although he didn’t do perturbed any more than he did stomach lurches. For most of his life he’d kept his demons at bay by being the joker, the light-hearted mate, just a ‘good bloke’ in the Australian vernacular...

      He grabbed a couple of towels Hallie had thrown into the ute, and handed one to Emma, using the other to dab himself dry before tying it around his waist. Woman-like, she wound hers around above her breasts, though not before he’d noticed the way her wet clothing clung to a very curvy figure.

      You like tall, slim, blonde women, don’t date hospital staff, and don’t do commitment, he reminded himself. And a woman with ‘boys’ would be looking for commitment. Would need commitment...

      ‘We’re both wet through and will be chilled to the bone by the time we get home so I’m taking you to Izzy and Mac’s,’ he told his passenger. ‘Izzy’s one of my foster sisters, and Mac, her husband, is the local doctor here in Wetherby. They actually met at the little cove where we rescued the kids, only they were rescuing a porpoise. Their daughter Nikki is about your size, and should be able to provide some dry clothes.’

      Sensible talk—that was the way to handle the strangeness he was experiencing, which, as he now considered it, was probably caused by his having to leave her alone on the beach in the first place. It had brought out all his protective instincts, nothing more...

      Izzy, obviously primed by Hallie, had Emma through the door and into the bathroom while he was barely out of the ute.

      Mac met him on the wide veranda of the centuries-old doctor’s house.

      ‘You can use the back bathroom, I’ve put some dry duds in there,’ he said, waving Marty along the veranda, following to ask about the rescues, about the injuries to the burns victim, the hospital network having already filled Mac in on what had transpired during the afternoon.

      ‘At least the temperature and the wind have dropped,’ he said, ‘and the forecast for tomorrow is rain, so it should dampen what’s left of the fires on the coastal fringe, although those in the national park will be harder to stop.’

      ‘Great news,’ Marty replied, pleased to have talk of bushfires diverting his brain from its seeming obsession with Emma. He could do bushfire talk! ‘The firefighters will get a break, and with decent rain these might be the last of the fires for the season.’

      ‘Let’s hope so,’ Mac said. ‘I’ll leave you to have a shower, then Izzy’s made some sandwiches. If you want to get straight back to Braxton you can eat them on the way.’

      Marty turned in the doorway of the bathroom that had been tacked onto the veranda at the back of the house.

      ‘Thanks, Mac, I appreciate it.’

      Mac smiled at him.

      ‘That’s what family’s for,’ Mac reminded him.

      Marty took the words into the shower with him and as the water splashed down over his body he thought of the main one—family. How lucky had he been to have landed with foster parents whose determination had been not merely to provide a home for abandoned or damaged children but to provide them with a family—to meld them into a family in the truest sense of the word—a group where they belonged?

      But as he dressed in dry, borrowed clothes, his mind returned to Emma and her family—boys, Dad, her—but no wedding ring and no mention of a husband.

      Not that it was any of his business, and neither was he interested in finding out more. He tried not to think about the fact that, given the gossip mill that was the hospital, he’d soon know everything there was to know about Emma Crawford, and probably far more than she wanted people to know.

      He was smiling to himself as he pushed open the door into the kitchen and greeted Izzy with a kiss.

      ‘No Nikki?’ he asked, looking around the room, taking in Emma’s appearance in long shorts and СКАЧАТЬ