Dr Marcus Hunt. Natural Therapist.
Madeline stared at it for a few moments, repeating it over and over in her head until her sluggish brain computed the full implications. She felt the slow burn of rising anger.
Over her dead body!
There was nothing quite like anger to wake a person up and Madeline felt it white and hot and burning in her gut. She was more than awake now - she felt alive again. The fog cleared from her brain and the weariness that was deep within her bones dissipated in an instant.
How many patients had she fixed up after they’d seen alternative medicine characters? People who had let their conditions and diseases run out of control while some charlatan had used voodoo or a spell book and given them false hope?
And then there was Abby.
Maddy shook her head – no freaking way. Brushing abruptly past the painter, she slid back the door and entered. It was dim in stark contrast to the glare of summer afternoon sunshine and she removed her sunglasses. The chemical smell of paint assaulted her nostrils as she quickly scanned the room littered with boxes and painter’s trestles.
‘I’m sorry, we’re not open for business until next week.’ A deep, masculine voice drifted towards her from somewhere beyond the clutter of the immediate surroundings.
It resonated around the room and goose-bumps broke out on her arms despite the stuffiness of the room. His voice made Madeline think of the guy at the skate park and she gave herself a mental shake as he entered from a doorway to the right and leant lazily against the jamb, filling the space easily.
Madeline blinked. What the hell? Skater boy was smiling at her, pinning her to the spot with his laughing blue eyes and boyish dimples.
At least he was dressed this time. Well...mostly, anyway. He was sort of wearing a shirt. White, long-sleeved but, completely unbuttoned, revealing that perfectly muscled abdomen. The impulse to touch that stomach, to run her fingers down the dark trail of hair and watch his abdominal muscles twitch beneath her nails was shocking.
In his right hand he held a well-used paintbrush and she thought absently that she’d been wrong about his employment status. He did have a job. A painter, or decorator, or something similar. There were flecks of paint in his hair and the desire to touch them, too, was compelling.
She couldn’t help but compare him to Simon again. Physically they weren’t too dissimilar. Her ex-fiancé was a little shorter, a little less bulky, a little paler and his chest hair a little sparser. But there was something intangible about this man, something magnetic that Simon just didn’t have.
Simon’s face was pleasant with a ready smile that put everyone at ease. It oozed nice. Skater guy’s was sexy with a wicked smile that put her on edge and made her forget all about nice. Simon was your average good-looking guy.
There was absolutely nothing average about this man.
And in their whole ten years as a couple Simon had never made her body hum like it was right now.
Madeline frowned, confused by her uncharacteristic feelings. Labourers were not her type. Buff wasn’t her type. Men that knew their way around skate parks weren’t her type. Men with children weren’t her type.
What the hell was happening to her?
‘May I help you?’
His voice was rich and deep and barely contained his obvious amusement at her appraisal. She was standing a few metres away but the caress of the air currents his voice had disturbed, swayed over her seductively.
It was as if he had physically touched her.
She blinked at him blankly, trying to remember why she was there. His amused gaze eventually worked its way into her consciousness and Maddy made an effort to pull herself together. So, the man had a nice body. She’d come to talk to the naturopath, not to ogle the removalist or the decorator or whoever in the hell this man was.
‘Ah...no. I came to talk to Dr Hunt, but it appears he’s not here...so I’ll let you get back to your...duties.’
Marcus smothered a smile, suppressing the urge to throw back his head and laugh out loud. Put in your place, dude. This woman had just looked him over, summed him up and dismissed him as nothing in about thirty seconds flat!
What a snob. What a sexy, beautiful snob.
She was tall, her head crowned with the most magnificent red hair he’d ever seen. It was curly and looked slightly wild despite her efforts to tame it into a neat bundle at the back of her head and he had a sudden vision of it spread over his chest.
And his pillows.
Emerald-green eyes sparkled above high cheekbones and two luscious lips. Kissable lips. Very kissable lips.
Her serious, obviously expensive suit did nothing to hide her fantastic figure. Marcus’s loins stirred as he speculated on the bits of her long legs that were hidden by her skirt. She looked prim and proper and he was hit by the urge to get her dirty and messy.
It was powerful, bordering on primitive.
She looked tired but there was an undercurrent, a vibe of tension around her that was almost palpable. Like a fully wound spring ready to unfurl at a second’s notice.
He’d never met anyone so uptight in his life.
A large diamond flashed on the ring finger of her left hand. Surely someone getting regular sex couldn’t be this tense?
‘I’m Dr Marcus Hunt,’ he stated, burying his left hand deep into his shorts pocket.
Madeline watched the movement hypnotically, until she became aware that she was staring at a particular part of his anatomy that she should not be staring at and dragged her eyes off him, shocked at her behaviour.
He found it amusing, she could tell. His grin, barely suppressed, adding a sparkle to those blue, blue eyes. ‘You’re Dr Hunt?’ Maddy’s tone found the perfect mix of sarcasm and disbelief.
She had to get back some control here.
‘Yes.’ He swapped the paintbrush to his left hand, wiped his right on his denim-covered buttock and offered it to her.
She ignored it, her rudeness seeming to amuse him even further. Madeline got the impression that nothing fazed Marcus Hunt.
‘And you are?’
‘Madeline Harrington. Dr Madeline Harrington.’
‘Oh, right...from next door.’ He smiled. ‘We’ll be neighbours, then.’ The thought, despite the bling on her hand, was immensely appealing.
‘Ah, no...I don’t think so.’
‘Oh?’ Marcus queried, not particularly worried. ‘Problem?’
‘Two, actually. One...’ Madeline held up one finger. ‘I object, most strenuously, to you using the title of Doctor. Naturopaths or any other alternative medicine nuts are not permitted to call themselves doctors.’
‘They can if they hold a medical degree,’ he stated matter-of-factly. ‘And I’m a homeopath, actually.’
Madeline blinked. ‘You’re...a real doctor?’
Apparently not insulted by her frank incredulity, he threw back his head and laughed. The long column of his neck was exposed to her view and, despite her irritation, an errant brain cell dared her to lick it.
‘Is that so hard to believe?’
‘Quite frankly, yes,’ Madeline admitted. He didn’t look like any kind of doctor she had ever known. Her father had been a doctor, his two nearing-retirement partners were doctors. Simon was a doctor!
Those men were what doctors looked like.
‘I believe there was a second?’ Marcus prompted after some time had elapsed and Madeline hadn’t continued.