Dare She Date the Dreamy Doc?. Sarah Morgan

about her within thirty seconds of meeting her. She’d looked fragile and battered, as though she’d emerged from a terrible storm. ‘Evanna asked me to meet her, remember? She looks as though she’s holding it together by a thread.’

      Suddenly Logan wasn’t smiling. ‘You’re worried about her ability to do the job?’

      ‘No. She handled Mrs Parker, which proves she’s more than capable of doing the job. I’m worried about her!’ Ryan shot him an impatient look. ‘What do you know about her personal circumstances?’

      With a sigh, Logan opened his drawer and pulled out a file. Scanning the papers, he paused. ‘Divorced with a teenage daughter. That’s all it says.’

      Divorced.

      Ryan prowled to the window of Logan’s consulting room and stared across the fields. Remembering the white circle on her ring finger, he was willing to bet the divorce was recent. Was that why she was so pale and drawn? Divorce did that to people, didn’t it? Was that why she jumped when a man touched her? ‘Was her ex-husband abusive?’

      ‘I have absolutely no idea. This is her CV, not a police statement. Are you sure you’re not going a little over the top here? You seem very concerned about someone you only met a few hours ago.’

      Ryan turned. ‘She’s a colleague,’ he said evenly. ‘It’s in our interest to make sure she’s happy here.’

      ‘And that’s all that’s going on here?’ Logan closed the file. ‘You seem very interested in her.’

      ‘I didn’t say I was interested. I said it was in our interest to make sure she’s happy.’

      ‘Good. Then I’ll leave it to you to make sure she is.’ Logan pushed the file back in the drawer. ‘Plenty of people get divorced, Ryan. It’s a fact of life in our society. It doesn’t mean she has problems. You could be barking up the wrong tree. Has she seen the cottage yet?’

      ‘I’m taking her at the end of morning surgery.’

      ‘Let’s just hope she likes isolation, otherwise we’ll be looking for a new practice nurse. Ted Walker has a flat vacant in the village if you think that would be better.’

      ‘I know she’s going to like the cottage.’ He didn’t know how he knew, but he did.

      She was running—wounded—looking for a place to hide and recover.

      And the cottage was the perfect place for her. Whether her teenager daughter would survive the isolation was another matter.