A Family To Come Home To. Josie Metcalfe

      Except he didn’t want to go, he admitted reluctantly and sighed.

      For three years he’d had an absolute rule of non-involvement, but within hours of meeting Kat and her little family—and in spite of ending up with a broken leg—there was something about all three of them that made him reluctant to leave Kat to struggle on alone. So, he had a major problem. He didn’t want to leave, at least until she’d found someone suitable to take his place, but in his present state he was worse than useless. If only there was some way he could…

      Kat had come to a decision while she’d been finishing off the evening’s list in the never-ending round of chores.

      It didn’t matter that he couldn’t do anything to help her at the practice, it was her responsibility to take care of Ben until he was well enough to travel back to his home. And it was time she reassured him of that fact. After all, if she were in the same position, she would want to know exactly where she stood…or sat in his case, she tacked on with a wry smile.

      ‘Ben…’ she called softly, tapping on the door to what had been her sanctuary since Richard’s death.

      ‘Come in,’ the husky voice invited, but when she opened the door and saw him propped up in her bed, naked to the waist, she almost dropped the steaming mug in her other hand.

      ‘I…I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have disturbed you if I’d known that you were…I only wanted to…’ For heaven’s sake! What was the matter with her? She’d seen a semi-naked man in that bed every night of her married life.

      But never one with such a broad muscular chest, decorated with a thick swathe of dark silky-looking hair from one dusky nipple to the other, countered that dratted voice in her head.

      ‘I heard you telling the boys that you still enjoyed a mug of hot chocolate,’ she said, hastily diverting her eyes from the stunning view in front of her to the prosaic white mug. ‘And I thought I ought to have a word with you…’

      ‘Come in and shut the door,’ he invited, and he must have seen her surprise at the unexpected request because he quickly added, ‘So that we don’t disturb Sam and Josh.’

      Kat felt a swift rush of heat scorching her cheeks. As if she had to worry about her reputation with a man like him. If he was looking for a relationship, he certainly wouldn’t be interested in a permanently exhausted mother of two.

      ‘I was thinking…about you and the job,’ she began tentatively. ‘Of course, you’re welcome to stay here until you’re fit enough to go home, but—’

      ‘Kat, before you say any more, can I ask you a favour?’ he interrupted, just when she was getting into her stride. ‘You see, I haven’t got a home to go to at the moment.’

      ‘What?’ she exclaimed, unable to believe such an outlandish statement.

      ‘It’s true,’ he said with a tired smile. ‘It had been on the market for ages and suddenly I had a purchaser who was in a hurry to buy. So, rather than lose the sale, I packed everything up and moved it into storage just a couple of days ago, then was told about the vacancy here.’ He caught her eyes with his, their clear green almost seeming to envelop her in the calming hush of a leafy sunlit glade before he continued, ‘If you kick me out, I’ll have nowhere to go…at least, nowhere so suitable for life in a wheelchair or on crutches.’

      ‘But…the job,’ Kat said helplessly, even as a minor war was being fought inside her. She had a niggling feeling that she was being manipulated in some way but that was completely vanquished by the impossible elation caused by the fact that he might not be leaving after all.

      ‘Yes. The job.’ He paused for a moment in thought, looking up at her from under those thick dark lashes. ‘I’ve been thinking about that, and I wondered…Well, I know it’s going to take me a few days before I’m really competent on the crutches, but once I am, I should easily be able to get from here to the practice. And if you’re happy to do the leg-work…the home visits and so on…I would still be pulling my weight.’

      How could she refuse? she asked herself even as she admitted that she really didn’t want to refuse. To put it bluntly, she needed his help. And it was all very well rationalising that it was her duty to accommodate him because it was her fault that he’d been injured, but the plain fact of the matter was that there was something about the man that called to her…that made her feel things that she’d believed were gone for ever.

      ‘It’s pointless thinking about him that way,’ she whispered into the darkness, once she’d silently made her way up the spiral staircase and slipped into the bed that should have been his. ‘He’s a drifter, so he’s the last person I could ever get involved with, no matter if he does set my hormones buzzing.’

      The boys wouldn’t understand, and would be hurt if she had a relationship with the man, only to have him leave at the end of his contract. They’d been devastated when Richard had died. Heaven only knew what sort of psychological damage it would do to them if they grew close to another man, only to have him leave.

       CHAPTER THREE

      ‘HOW soon will it be before Dr Leeman finishes surgery?’ enquired a male voice, just as Ben was preparing to leave the room Kat had allocated to him.

      ‘Oh, hello, Mr Sadowski,’ Rose said cheerfully. ‘Did you want an appointment?’

      ‘Not this time,’ he said, and something about his tone of voice set every one of the hairs up on the back of Ben’s neck.

      Depositing the pile of patient notes in their tray, ready for Rose to collect, he reached for his crutches.

      He arrived in the reception area just as Rose put the call through to Kat’s room.

      ‘Dr Leeman, there’s a gentleman here to see you,’ she said formally. ‘It’s Mr Sadowski, from the chemist,’ she added. She waited a moment for Kat to speak then said, ‘I’ll tell him,’ and put the phone down. ‘She’ll be out in a minute,’ she told the newcomer. ‘If you’d like to take a seat while you’re waiting?’

      Ben took the last few hobbling steps to the counter, envying the other man the easy way he sauntered across the room. It felt like years since he’d been able to do that when, in fact, it had only been a little over a week. At least most of that time had been spent in a modern lightweight fibreglass cast rather than the heavy temporary plaster of Paris one.

      ‘I’ve left the files on the desk, Rose,’ he murmured to the bustling receptionist. ‘I’m sorry it’s giving you extra work to fetch them, but I just can’t manage to carry the basket through with these wretched things.’ He waved a battered crutch.

      ‘Don’t you worry about that, Dr Ben,’ Rose said with a fond smile, using the more formal form of address in front of the other man. When it was only the practice staff on the premises, they all went by first names. ‘You’ve taken such a load off Dr Leeman just by being here that I’d gladly fetch and carry all day.’

      ‘Hmm! Perhaps you shouldn’t have told me that,’ he teased, liking the down-to-earth little woman more and more the longer he knew her, not least for the way she clucked over Kat and her boys. ‘I might be tempted to take advantage of you.’

      It sounded almost as if the man waiting impatiently by the pile of magazines and children’s books muttered something like, ‘As if you aren’t already,’ but the words were half-buried under Rose’s laughter.

      And then Kat came out with her own basket of patient notes and when Ben saw the avid expression on the other man’s face he suddenly understood only too well what was going on.

      ‘Mr Sadowski?’ she said politely when she recognised him, and the sharp claws of jealousy loosened their grip a little.

      ‘Greg,’ he said with a smile, but Ben could see from the tension around the man’s eyes that he was not