One Summer At The Lake: Maid for Montero / Still the One / Hot-Shot Doc Comes to Town

‘Zoe is not going to die.’

‘No…?’ Her niece sounded scarily uncertain.

‘What has happened to your aunt Zoe?’ he asked, ruthlessly reining in his imagination and struggling to keep his tone light.

‘She says she’s fine but she doesn’t look fine and she—’

He held up a hand. ‘Wait there. I will be with you momentarily.’

Snatching up his jacket on the way out, he paused only to close his laptop before leaving the house. Outside Georgie was trotting around the side of the house to meet him when he emerged.

‘Zoe sent you?’

She shook her head. ‘She’ll be mad with me,’ she predicted gloomily.

‘She doesn’t need to know that you came to get me.’

Her eyes flew wide with shock. ‘That would be lying!’ Children were a minefield.

‘Of course it would, and of course you should never lie…especially to your aunt.’

The child looked unconvinced as she climbed into the passenger seat of his car.

‘Now tell me what is wrong.’

When they arrived at the lodge they entered through her open back door where Harry, his face scrunched in concentration, was standing on a kitchen chair trying to open a tin with an opener that looked like an antique. His small fingers looked perilously near the razor-sharp edges.

Conscious it might not be a good idea to startle him, Isandro walked across and, after a friendly pat on the shoulder, extricated the tin from his grip.

‘Let me—there’s a knack to this. There you go.’ He glanced at the label. ‘Chicken soup.’

‘Mum always gave us chicken soup when we were sick. I thought I’d make Zoe some.’

‘Good idea, but let’s wait until we see if she wants to eat just now.’

‘Until she stops throwing up, stupid,’ his sister inserted critically.

‘I’m not stupid.’

Isandro cleared his throat. ‘How about if you two go?’ Two expectant faces turned to him. ‘Go to the shop and get me some…’ He paused. ‘Are you allowed to walk to the shop?’

They both shook their heads.

‘Right, well…’ Madre di Dios, give me a room of CEOs any day of the week.

‘We could clean out your car. It was very messy. For money,’ Georgie offered.

Her brother cast her a sideways warning look. ‘For free.’

His sister sighed heavily.

‘That would be very helpful.’ His car had been valet cleaned the previous week. ‘I will go and see how your aunt is feeling, but don’t worry. It sounds like she has the flu bug that is doing the rounds.’ He moved towards the hallway.

‘Are you Zoe’s boyfriend?’

Isandro might not be good with children but he did not fall into that trap. He paused and turned. His amused expression was not a direct denial but he hoped they took it as such. ‘Is that why you came to get me? Because you think I am her boyfriend?’

‘No, we came to get you because she was saying your name in the night. She woke us up and when we went in she was awake but really hot.’

‘I told you it was just a nightmare,’ Harry said.

A woman’s nightmare…children certainly had a way of keeping a man’s ego in check.

Isandro made his way to the bedroom at the front of the cottage. The door was ajar, and he pushed it open and found the curtains in the airy room pulled shut. The light filtering through the striped fabric illuminated the figure in the bed lying with one arm curled around her head.

He was used to feeling the tug of sexual attraction when he looked at her, used to feeling the electrical tingle when she was close. As he stared at her now, looking both vulnerable and utterly desirable—they were both there but there was something else in the mix, something he struggled to define as he stood nailed to the spot while something imploded in his skull.

Then she moved and shifted, groaning softly before she licked her lips as her eyelashes fluttered against her cheek. ‘Harry.’

‘Not Harry.’

The eyelashes parted to reveal blue blurry eyes. ‘Oh, God,’ she groaned. ‘What are you doing here?’

He had had more enthusiastic welcomes. ‘How are you feeling?’

She raised herself groggily up on one elbow, causing the nightdress she wore to slip over one shoulder. He felt a stab of inappropriate lust.

‘Fine,’ she croaked.

‘I admire the stiff upper lip, naturally, but an honest answer would be more helpful.’

Zoe turned her head on the pillow and aimed a look of simmering dislike on him. He wanted to know what she felt like? Fine, she’d tell him.

‘I feel like death warmed up. Happy?’ She lowered herself with a groan onto the pillow. ‘And I suppose I look that way, too.’

‘Pretty bad,’ he agreed, his mocking smile vanishing as her lips began to tremble. ‘Are you crying?’

‘Oh, well, so sorry I couldn’t manage to put on my make-up for your benefit, but nobody asked you here.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’

‘Georgie came to get me.’

‘Oh, God, she shouldn’t have.’

‘They are worried.’

Zoe clapped a hand to her aching head and groaned. ‘I told them I’m fine. It’s just a bug or something.’

‘Symptom-wise, could you be a little more precise?’