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to but loneliness and rheumatism.’

      She buried her face in her hands then, and began to cry. Not noisily, but deeply, her shoulders shaking. Jason was moved as he’d never been moved before. He raced round the table to squat down beside her chair. He reached out to take her small, slender hands in his and turned her tear-stained face towards him.

      ‘I won’t hurt you like he did, Emma,’ he promised her with a fierce tenderness. ‘I give you my word.’

      ‘But it’s too soon,’ she choked out.

      Jason wasn’t sure what she meant. ‘Too soon?’ he probed. ‘You mean since Ivy’s death?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Are you saying you might marry me later on?’

      Her eyes lifted, betraying a haunted, hunted look. She was tempted to say yes, he could see. But something was stopping her.

      ‘A month,’ she blurted out. ‘Give me a month. Then ask me again.’

      Jason sat back on his heels and exhaled slowly, his surge of elation dampened by a prickle of apprehension. It wasn’t a long time, a month. But it worried him. He didn’t believe the wait had anything to do with Ivy’s death. It was all to do with Ratchitt. She still hoped he’d come back for her.

      The possibility of that scum showing up again was slight, Jason believed. But even that slight possibility sickened him. The thought of Emma falling back into his filthy arms sickened him even further.

      And it did something else. It sparked a jealousy which startled him.

      He’d never been a jealous man before. Not even with Adele. Emma was evoking emotions in him that were alien to all his previous experiences with women. Along with the jealousy, he also felt fiercely protective.

      Still, he would imagine most men would feel protective of a girl like Emma. She was so fragile-looking. And so sweet. Someone had to stand between her and the Ratchitts of this world. She wasn’t experienced enough to see just how bad his type were. How depraved and conscienceless.

      ‘All right, Emma,’ Jason agreed. ‘A month. But that doesn’t mean I can’t see you during that month, does it? I’d like to take you out on a regular basis. We could get to know each other better.’

      ‘But…but everyone with think that…that…’

      ‘That you’re dating Dr Steel,’ he finished firmly. ‘What’s wrong with that? You’re single. I’m single. Single people date each other, Emma. That’s hardly grounds for gossip.’

      Her eyes almost smiled through their wet lashes. ‘You don’t know the good ladies of Tindley.’

      ‘Believe me, I’m beginning to. So what about dinner tomorrow night? It’s Friday, and I always eat out on a Friday. We could drive over to the coast if you don’t want to be seen with me here in Tindley for a while.’

      She blinked the last of her tears away and looked at him with that searching gaze he found quite discomfiting. ‘Are you going to try to get me into bed afterwards?’

      Jason had trouble stopping the guilt from jumping into his eyes. Not that he’d had seduction on the menu for tomorrow night. He’d actually been going to leave that course of action for a week or two.

      ‘No,’ he said, with what he hoped was honest-sounding conviction. ‘No. I wouldn’t do that.’

      She looked at him with frowning eyes. ‘Why not?’ she posed in a puzzled tone. ‘You said you found me pretty and desirable. You also asked me to marry you. I imagined you fancied me, at least a little.’

      ‘I do fancy you. And more than a little. Hell, Emma.’ He stood up and raked his hands back through his hair. She’d thrown him for a loop by being so sexually direct. He hadn’t expected it from her. Did she want him to try to seduce her or not?

      ‘It’s perfectly all right, Jason,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ve been brought up in a country town, not a convent. I’m well acquainted with the way men think and feel when it comes to sex. I know you haven’t had a girlfriend since coming here to Tindley, and I’m sure you’re fairly frustrated by now. I just didn’t want to give you false hopes if I agreed to go out to dinner with you. You’re a very attractive, experienced man, and I’m sure you know how to get to a girl. But I have no intention of sleeping with you. Not this side of a wedding ring, anyway.’

      He stared at her, and her chin tipped up, revealing a side to Emma he hadn’t seen before. A very stubborn side. A decidedly steely light gleamed in her green eyes and her attitude was definitely defiant.

      One part of him admired her strong old-world standards, till he remembered Ratchitt. He’d bet London to a brick on that she hadn’t given him the same ultimatum.

      Or had she? he suddenly revised. Was that what had happened between them? Had she refused to sleep with Ratchitt till he’d walked with her to the altar? Had he given her an engagement ring, then simply had other girls on the side till the prize would finally be his without any more arguing, for ever and ever?

      ‘Do you want to take back your proposal now?’ she asked challengingly. ‘And your dinner invitation?’

      ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘But I would like an answer to one simple question.’

      ‘What question’s that?’

      ‘Are you a virgin, Emma?’

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE following day felt interminable to Jason. Several times his mind wandered to that moment the evening before when Emma had looked him straight in the eye and told him the truth. Yes, she was a virgin. So what? Did he have a problem with that?

      Did he have a problem with that?

      Yes, and no.

      Virginity wasn’t something he’d encountered before in his personal life. Not once. Adele hadn’t been a virgin. Not by a long shot. None of his other girlfriends over the years had been virgins, either.

      The thought of making love to a virgin was a little daunting. Unknown territory usually was.

      At the same time, the thought of making love to an untouched Emma on their wedding night appealed to a part of him he’d never known existed. He’d never thought of himself as a romantic before. But with Emma he was a different man. He recognised that already. She brought out the best in him.

      And perhaps the worst.

      Possessiveness and jealousy in men weren’t traits he’d ever admired. He didn’t like the way such men treated their girlfriends and wives. The females in their lives were flattered for a while—seeing their partners’ passion as evidence of the extent of their love. Till reality set in and the flattery gave way to fear. He vowed to fight the temptation to be like that with Emma. He wanted her to be happy as his wife, never afraid.

      And she would be his wife. He felt confident of that now. It was just a matter of time.

      Time…

      Jason glanced up at the clock on the wall. Five o’clock. And the small waiting room was still full of wheezing, sneezing patients. The beautiful spring weather had brought a rash of hay-fever sufferers, along with the blossoms.

      Sighing, Jason rose from his desk and went to call in the next patient.

      ‘I hope to heaven that’s it, Nancy?’ Jason said at long last, popping his head around the consulting-room door and sighing with relief when he spied the empty waiting room. The clock on the wall now said five to seven. Surgery usually finished around five-thirty and, whilst it sometimes ran late, it was rarely this late.

      ‘Yes, all finished for the day, Dr Steel,’ Nancy returned, in a sighing tone which Jason knew didn’t denote tiredness, but a reluctance to leave the love of her life and go home to an empty house.

      Not him. The practice!

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