More Than Caring

More Than Caring
Josie Metcalfe

Intensive careLauren Scott has never found it easy to invest her feelings in relationships. Instead she’s invested her care and attention in her nursing patients. Then handsome hospital administrator Marc Fletcher comes to her rescue. As Lauren becomes caught up in a case of mistaken identity, Marc becomes ever more protective—and attentive. Finally Lauren has found a man she can trust. But Marc has also been running away from relationships, and if they are to have a chance of a life together, Lauren must persuade Marc to accept some TLC in return.

“Lauren?” he murmured, but if it was a question she had no idea of the answer

Suddenly he tightened his grip again, wrapping his arms completely around her, and then he was rolling the two of them over.

He stared down at her for a moment that stretched into infinity and she could see the battle he was fighting with himself. She held her breath, trying to tell herself that she didn’t care one way or another, then she saw his head angle toward her and she knew she’d lied.

Then his lips met hers in the briefest and most gentle of kisses, just a fleeting impression of sweetness and warmth. It was perfect, and yet almost as soon as it started it was over, and she was definitely disappointed when he lifted his head again. She’d wanted so much more.

Dear Reader (#u69137f72-860d-5962-943f-a33df590d5b1),

When I started planning this book along with the sequel in the duet, More Than a Gift, I wanted to explore the effect that families—or lack of them—can have on us. So Lauren and Laurel were born.

Take a woman who’s never really felt as if she’s belonged anywhere and put her together with a man who needs her to stay—and there are bound to be sparks! Then throw in the accusation that this highly recommended woman, just appointed by this man, might not be everything that she seems…and yet, she’s everything that he hadn’t realized he wanted.

Lauren is strong and self-sufficient because she’s had to be. She’s been on her own long enough to learn how to look after herself, but then she meets Mac and needs to learn a whole new lesson: how good it can feel when someone cares for you. And when it becomes more than caring….

Laurel’s story will be coming in December. I hope you enjoy finding out about each of them as much as I enjoyed the writing.

Josie

More than Caring

Josie Metcalfe

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

CONTENTS

COVER (#u90229caf-102b-5a99-bac1-5012d8858f86)

Dear Reader

TITLE PAGE (#u3baa799b-88f0-5bf9-88f7-84bb404f997e)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

COPYRIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#u69137f72-860d-5962-943f-a33df590d5b1)

LAUREN stepped outside the hospital’s side door, paused just long enough to hear the night safety lock catch, then closed her eyes in pleasure as she breathed in.

Even though she’d been in Edenthwaite ten days now, she was still amazed that the air was scented by the myriad things it had passed on its way from the distant fells. Perhaps in time she would become used to it, but after a busy first week on the staff at Denison Memorial, this was one of her newest pleasures.

She drew another draught deep into her lungs and let it out on a sigh. She really hoped that this would be the place that finally made her feel as if she could settle her roots permanently. She was so tired of feeling restless, especially as she didn’t know what she was looking for.

Perhaps, surrounded by the wild beauty of such an unspoiled region of the country, she wouldn’t feel the urge to see what lay over the next hill…unless she was wearing her new walking boots and doing the exploration just to familiarise herself with her new home.

‘Only time will tell,’ she murmured briskly as she set off towards the staff car park, then scowled at the darkness that enfolded her once she’d turned the first corner.

‘The dratted man still hasn’t done anything about those lights,’ she muttered, and made a mental note to beard the lion in his den. No matter what her personal feelings about Marc Fletcher, he was the hospital’s chief administrator and, as such, ensuring staff safety was his responsibility.

It wasn’t that the hospital was in a high-risk city—Edenthwaite couldn’t have been more idyllic in the fading warmth of a September evening. Unfortunately, there were some facets of modern life that had permeated even this little corner of paradise, and one way to guard against them was to have safety lighting working once darkness fell.

‘I told him about it the other day,’ she grumbled under her breath, remembering the way the senior administrator had appeared in her department yet again. It was almost as though he didn’t trust her to be able to do her job, although she knew for a fact that he’d checked every one of her references.

What was it about the man?

He knew that she was perfectly well qualified for the post, so it couldn’t be that. And she hadn’t had time to do or say anything to upset him.

‘Mind you, I’m not sure how you’d tell if he was upset,’ she added snidely, remembering the stony face he’d turned on her each time they’d encountered each other.

Not that he was bad-looking, by any means. His dark hair might be a little shorter than she preferred and the occasional silver strands at his temples made him look distinguished rather than older. His eyes were a strange smoky grey, almost as though the colour was a deliberate screen against anyone reading his thoughts.

As for his body, she was quite ashamed to admit that she’d actually found her eyes following him as he’d stalked off down the corridor the other day. She’d been almost mesmerised by the lithe, ground-eating strides and the evidence of taut, compact muscles camouflaged by his impeccably pressed suit, and she wasn’t someone prone to ogling men.

He certainly wasn’t ogling her when he appeared in the ward, at least once every day. It was almost as if… ‘As if he expects to find me pocketing the silver,’ she finished on an exasperated laugh.

Well, if this continued she was going to have to confront him…ask him if he had some sort of problem with her. She was thoroughly enjoying her new post and if there was something she could do to remove the single fly in the ointment—a rather large fly going by the name of Mr Marcus Fletcher—then she just might have found that elusive niche she’d been searching for all her life.

In the meantime, she was going to have to mention the safety lighting again. One of the staff nurses had mentioned seeing someone loitering at one end of the staff car park, and as they hadn’t been smoking, she’d known it hadn’t been just a fugitive from Denison Memorial’s strict no-smoking policy.

The thought of deliberately seeking out the openly disapproving man sent a shiver up her spine. There was just something about him that set all her nerves on edge; something she’d never encountered before and made her wary of him.

It wasn’t that Marcus Fletcher was one of those enormous hulking brutes she’d grown accustomed to seeing when she’d started frequenting the gym a few years ago. He certainly didn’t seem to be the type to waste his time building muscles for the sake of measuring the number of inches gained. He struck her as more the lean, predatory type—quietly fit and ready for anything that came his way. Or at least he might have been before he’d settled into his administrative job. There certainly wouldn’t be much call for muscles when his day was spent wrestling with columns of figures.

Still, national statistics detailed a year-on-year increase in the number of attacks on all hospital employees, not just accident and emergency staff, a fact she’d seen for her own eyes in her last post at a busy city hospital. An injured friend had actually prompted her to offer her services to run several self-defence courses for her colleagues. Before she’d left, she’d had the satisfaction of knowing that at least two of her pupils had been able to use what they’d learned to ward off attackers.