‘Oh…you’re just afraid to live dangerously,’ Jessica said with a dismissive shake of her head. ‘He can come and ring my bell any time.’
Phoebe laughed. ‘You’re a sucker for a handsome face and a winsome manner, aren’t you?’ She held out a packet of potato waffles. ‘How about these? Do we grill them or put them in the microwave?’
Jessica’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Neither. I don’t think I could stomach them first thing in the morning.’ She frowned, her mind diverted only briefly. ‘Where is our new housemate, anyway? I haven’t seen sight or sound of him this morning. The door to his room was open, but he wasn’t in there when I went by.’
Phoebe’s blue eyes sparkled. ‘You couldn’t resist looking, could you?’ She chuckled. ‘I’ve no idea where he might be. Connor Broughton was always a law unto himself.’
‘Do I hear someone taking my name in vain?’
The back door opened and the subject of their discussion walked in, his arms filled with packages. He elbowed his way into the kitchen, shutting the door behind him with a deft flick of his leather-clad foot.
Jessica made a quick intake of breath. ‘Is that food I smell? And coffee?’ Her nose twitched and her hazel eyes widened as Connor walked over to the table and put the packages down. ‘It is, isn’t it?’ She sniffed the air, going over to him and watching him as he shrugged off his jacket and laid it over the back of a chair.
Phoebe glanced at him. ‘We were wondering where you were,’ she murmured.
He was everything Jessica had said, and more. His long legs were encased in expensively tailored dark trousers that moulded his hips to perfection, while his immaculate linen shirt, in a deep blue that reflected the colour of his smoky grey-blue eyes, outlined the flat plane of his stomach. He was way too good looking for any woman’s peace of mind, Phoebe decided, and he was altogether too much for her to handle this early in the morning, or at any time, come to think of it.
Distracted and unwilling to allow herself to be sucked any further into his magnetic field, Phoebe averted her gaze and busied herself in a search for plates.
Connor had always been trouble with a capital T and the very fact that he had turned up here in Devon, in this sleepy coastal town, was enough to set her nerves jangling.
‘I went out for food,’ Connor said as he began to open up the brown paper cartons. ‘I called in at the bakery down the road on the off chance they were open for business. Luckily they were, so I bought hot pasties, baguettes, croissants and apricot preserve. I wasn’t quite sure what to choose so I decided to bring a selection. The cupboards were empty when I glanced through them this morning and I couldn’t face starting the day without anything to eat.’
‘Me neither.’ Jessica’s mouth wavered a fraction as she sent him an appealing glance. ‘Were you by any chance planning on sharing any of this feast?’
‘Of course.’ Connor’s brows shot up as he returned her gaze. ‘I’m hardly going to sit here and scoff this lot all by myself, am I?’
‘Oh, I love you.’ Jessica flung her arms around him in delight. ‘I’m so hungry. You’re my salvation. I think I want to have your babies.’
Connor’s mouth curved and his eyes danced with glimmering amusement. ‘Really?’ He hugged her in return. ‘That’s not an offer I get every day, but it’s certainly one worth thinking about. How many did you have in mind?’
‘Oh, a dozen or so, I should think,’ Jessica answered, with a grin. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve eaten and my head’s back to thinking straight.’
‘Ah.’ He nodded sagely, looking glum. ‘That could put a bit of a damper on things, I expect. There’s nothing to beat a good breakfast for getting the world back to normal and allowing you to see things clearly.’
He released her with a resigned sigh, and went to hunt for crockery, but Phoebe had already beaten him to it. ‘Here you are,’ she said, handing him plates that she had heated in the microwave. ‘Take these. You’d better sit down and eat before it all gets cold. You’ve cheered us up no end by doing this, you know. We were feeling starved, and now we definitely owe you one.’
‘You’re very welcome.’ He sent her a shrewd glance. ‘It was the least I could do since I foisted myself on you with hardly any warning. I know it must have come as something of a shock to have a new tenant land among you.’
Phoebe kept her feelings to herself on that score, saying only, ‘We knew the landlord wouldn’t leave the room empty for long.’ She still hadn’t managed to work out what he was actually doing here, choosing to share a house with them.
The Connor she knew from way back in their teens would never have opted for a career in medicine, and consequently, when he’d announced that he was travelling to London to start a new life, that had fulfilled all her expectations. He was always skirting danger and living life on the edge. London was full of exciting possibilities for him.
Something had happened along the way, though, causing him to alter course, and here he was, back in their home county, a qualified doctor in his last few months of hospital training as a senior house officer. A sea change had come about, inasmuch as he was now part of a respectable profession, but Phoebe was wary of how deep that change actually went. Was he still a sleeping tiger, dangerously unpredictable and a hazard to her emotional well-being?
He pulled out a chair and seated himself beside Jessica, who was already chomping on a sausage pasty.
‘Mmm…mmm…mmm,’ Jessica said with a satisfied groan. ‘This is scrumptious—I’m in heaven. It’s so tasty, it’s wonderful.’
Connor smiled. ‘It certainly sounds as though it is.’ He inspected the selection of food, as though he was trying to decide what to choose. ‘I was a bit surprised to find the cupboards here were bare—do you have some kind of rota for doing the shopping, or is it down to everyone to fend for themselves?’
‘We do have a rota,’ Phoebe said, coming to sit down at the table opposite him. ‘It was Alex’s turn to fetch the groceries, but I think he must have been knocked sideways by the news that he didn’t get the rotation he wanted. It was all a bit last minute, and he couldn’t quite get his head around it.’
‘So the groceries were forgotten?’ Connor gave a faint smile, then picked up a breakfast baguette and bit into it. ‘Knowing Alex, I can see how that might happen. He’s always been fine with the big, important things, and you can rely on him wholeheartedly to deal with those, but I expect anything as mundane as shopping could quite easily pass him by.’
He opened up a carton and the wonderful aroma of coffee escaped and wafted on the air, teasing Phoebe’s nostrils.
‘I thought the senior house officer posts were all decided well in advance,’ he said after a moment or two, pushing a polystyrene cup towards her. ‘Did things not go to plan?’
She accepted it gratefully and shook her head. ‘I’m not sure what happened, really. He had pinned his hopes on working in A and E, but there was a delay in getting back to him, and he was offered a post in Orthopaedics instead. The powers that be said something about another candidate pipping him to the post.’
She was saddened for a second or two, remembering. ‘He was disappointed, but I think he made up his mind that perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to accept the orthopaedic job after all. I imagine he’ll have the chance of doing a stint in Emergency later.’
‘Hmm.’ Connor watched as she began to munch thoughtfully on a cheese and bacon pasty, and then asked softly, ‘So what rotation will you be working on? As I understand things, we’ll all be based at Mount View Hospital. That’s what makes living here the perfect choice. Apart from the obvious advantage of being close to the sea, it’s only a hop and a skip to work from here.’
She