Miracle Times Two

Miracle Times Two
Josie Metcalfe

‘Calm down, sweetheart,’ he said, thwarting her half-hearted efforts by drawing her closer to his chest. ‘It’s not a problem.’

‘It’s difficult to calm d-down,’ she sobbed against his throat. ‘All I can think of is those poor people and everything they’ve l-lost and … and …’

She turned her head to look up at him just as he angled his to press his face against hers, and somehow, accidentally, fleetingly, their lips brushed.

He froze, unable to breathe, convinced that even his heart had stopped beating for several timeless seconds as he savoured the softness of her mouth against his for the first time.

‘Daniel?’ she whispered huskily, and he was utterly amazed that she hadn’t immediately broken the contact between them …

About the Author

JOSIE METCALFE lives in Cornwall with her long-suffering husband. They have four children. When she was an army brat, frequently on the move, books became the only friends that came with her wherever she went. Now that she writes them herself she is making new friends, and hates saying goodbye at the end of a book—but there are always more characters in her head, clamouring for attention until she can’t wait to tell their stories.

Also by Josie Metcalfe:

A WIFE FOR THE BABY DOCTOR

SHEIKH SURGEON CLAIMS HIS BRIDE*

THE DOCTOR’S BRIDE BY SUNRISE*

*Brides of Penhally Bay

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

‘PLEASE, Colin, I said no,’ Jenny repeated, wondering why it seemed so hard to get the words out. It almost felt as if her tongue was tied. ‘Th-thank you for bringing me home, but now it’s time for you to go.’

‘You don’t really mean that, sweetie … not after all these weeks. Your family is just waiting to see my ring on your finger.’ Colin nuzzled the side of her neck and when she could barely breathe for the pungent aftershave he was wearing, she remembered all too clearly why she’d always hated the smell of scent on a man.

She hitched her shoulder and tried to twist her head out of reach when his lips started to slide their way towards her mouth.

‘Well, my family will just have to w-wait,’ she said, but the words just didn’t seem to emerge with the same degree of vehemence that they left her brain … and her tongue now felt as if it was too big for her mouth … and as for her eyes … it was almost impossible to focus and the lids were so heavy …

‘I only w-went out with you tonight because … because it had been arranged before we … we broke up.’

‘We didn’t break up, sweetie,’ he argued in that patronising way that managed to set her teeth on edge even when it seemed as if it came from several miles away.

‘You must have had a bit too much to drink if you think that was anything more than a minor tiff. Anyway, you’ll have forgotten all about it by the time you wake up in the morning with my ring on your finger …’

‘N-no! No ring!’ she said as vehemently as she could, but when she shook her head she lost her balance and nearly fell over.

‘Excuse me?’ said another male voice from an impossibly long way away. ‘Is there a problem, here?’ There was something very familiar about that new voice and she just about managed to focus on the face of the man who was able to grab her before she landed on her bottom in the hallway.

She felt curiously disconnected from everything around her, almost as if she was watching it all happening to someone else; watching as her rescuer retrieved her key and sent a clearly furious Colin away.

When her knight in shining armour swept her up into his arms she couldn’t even summon up the coordination to wrap her arms around his neck, but with her head lolling on his shoulder she drew in a deep breath of soap and male skin that was oh, so familiar … trustworthy … safe.

The last fleeting memory she had was of this new but familiar man carrying her into her flat and depositing her on her bed, shoes and all, and pulling the covers over her.

Miracle

Times Two

Josie Metcalfe

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CHAPTER ONE

‘UM … THANK you for the other night,’ Jenny said, the heat of embarrassment crawling visibly up her throat and into her face.

‘No thanks necessary,’ Daniel Carterton said lightly, guessing that the newest member of his team must have spent the whole of her day off working up to this apology. ‘I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.’ And if she believed that, there was a rather ornate bridge in central London on special offer.

He’d chosen his seat at the banquet honouring her father so that he could lighten the boredom of the affair by catching glimpses of Jenny across the room. That self-indulgence had been the only reason why he’d noticed the surreptitious way her companion had been topping up her glass throughout the evening. His suspicions were raised by the smug look of satisfaction on the man’s face when Jenny had been less than steady on her feet when she’d finally got up from the table, but that didn’t stop him from feeling almost like a stalker when he’d decided to follow them to make sure she arrived home safely.

‘Do you want to answer that thing?’ Daniel asked as Jenny’s phone rang.

‘Not in this lifetime,’ she said grimly after a glance at the screen, silencing the noise with a press of a button to send the call direct to voicemail. ‘And if I knew how to bar him from connecting with my mobile at all, I’d be happier still.’

‘Trouble in paradise, Jennywren?’ he teased, knowing he should go straight to hell for crossing his fingers that he was right. Jenny Sinclair was a genuinely lovely person who deserved a happy life with someone her equal … something he could never be. He’d been born so far on the other side of the tracks that he couldn’t even hear the train from there.

And it certainly wouldn’t make any difference that he’d worked his cotton socks off to become one of the youngest consultants in his field. As someone who’d only scraped into one of the lesser medical schools at his second attempt, he wouldn’t stand a chance of gaining her parents’ approval. Their blatant professional elitism meant that the fact that he’d been self-supporting and working crazy hours to earn every penny necessary to put himself through his training would count for nothing … even if he were ever to tell them about it. It certainly wouldn’t make them look any more favourably on him for daring to look at their daughter.

So, he’d resigned himself to the fact that the only woman who could make his heart give that extra beat just by thinking about her was the one he could never have.

Well, if he was forever condemned to the role of colleague, occasional guardian angel and potential friend, he might just as well enjoy it while he could. Since Jenny had joined his unit he’d already seen a number of men make a blatant play for her, but without apparent success. Whoever was trying to ring her wasn’t going to fare any better, if the expression on her face was anything to go by, but it wouldn’t be long before another took his place, not with someone as special as his little Jennywren.

Except … there was something different, this time. A shadow that hadn’t been there before?

‘Come on. Spill the beans,’ he coaxed lightly, knowing he was venturing into new ground. ‘Which one’s causing a problem? Tell big brother all about it.’

‘Big brother?’ She threw him an old-fashioned look from those fascinating hazel eyes before she pondered darkly for a moment.

He was almost holding his breath hoping she would confide in him when she suddenly burst into speech.

‘It’s Colin Fletcher,’ she revealed grimly. ‘He’s obviously so thick-skinned that he can’t take a hint … even after you sent him off with a flea in his ear the other night.’

‘That man was Colin Fletcher? As in, your father’s blue-eyed boy, Fletcher?’ That did surprise him. He knew the name from hospital gossip but hadn’t realised the man had been Jenny’s escort that night. He was reputed to be a born social climber from an apparently well-to-do family, and it had been hinted that the man had his eye set firmly on taking over Jenny’s father’s prestigious position at the hospital, to say nothing of inheriting his lucrative private practice when the great man could be persuaded to retire. It was now blindingly obvious to Daniel that, as his son-in-law, Fletcher would be the obvious choice, and if he were to have a glowing recommendation from the great man himself, it would practically make any interviews for a replacement unnecessary.

He saw her shudder with something more than distaste in her expression, and knowing that she was remembering what had happened that night, every protective instinct leapt to attention.

‘He must be the slimiest, most insincere, self-serving … weasel in the whole hospital,’ she continued heatedly, sparks almost radiating from her. ‘He insisted on holding me to the arrangement to sit at my parents’ table at that big “do” the other night—in spite of the fact we weren’t going out any more. He then plastered himself to my side as if we were Siamese twins, and even though I never have more than two glasses of wine when I go out, he must have been topping up my glass on the sly all evening, so he’d have the perfect excuse to see me home.’

‘You’d already told him you wouldn’t be going out with him any more?’ Daniel gave her points for working out exactly what had happened at the same time as he added another item to the list of why he didn’t like this Fletcher character. Top of the list was the fact that the man was the immaculately groomed poster boy for the perfect man for Jenny, unlike himself.