He might have done exactly that if it hadn’t been for the sudden loud noise from inside the cottage. A crashing sound not dissimilar to the one he’d heard in the canteen earlier in the week.
No scream followed the sound but he could hear the dismay in Anna’s voice.
‘Oh … no!’
‘ANNA?’ Luke didn’t bother knocking. He tried the doorhandle and found it turned, so he shoved the door open. ‘Are you all right?’
There was no response. Cautiously, Luke advanced along the narrow hallway. He could hear Anna’s voice again. It was much quieter now. Soft and soothing.
‘It’s all right,’ she was saying. ‘Poor baby, you gave yourself a big fright that time, didn’t you?’
Maybe he was in the wrong house.
‘Anna?’
‘Who’s there?’
‘Me,’ Luke said as he stepped into a doorway on his right.
‘Luke? Good grief! What on earth are you doing here?’
She sounded surprised. No, more like appalled. Luke opened his mouth but no words emerged. This was Anna?
She was sprawled on the floor, her arms around a large dog that was virtually in her lap and making enthusiastic attempts to lick her face. There were newspapers spread around them both, a collection of paintpots and an aluminium stepladder lying on its side.
‘I was just on my way to Penhally. I heard the crash.’
‘From the road?’
‘No … I … er … had an article I wanted to give you.’ It was weirdly hard to string a coherent sentence together so Luke gave up. He stared at Anna instead, trying to take in the faded, ripped denim jeans she was wearing. The paint-stained jumper. The soft waves of her loose hair that reached her shoulders. Those amazing green eyes that were staring at him in utter bewilderment right now.
Luke dropped his gaze. The dog was staring at him too. Warily. Pressing itself further into Anna’s arms and visibly shaking.
‘What’s wrong with the dog?’
‘He’s scared.’
‘Of what?’
‘You.’
She should probably be scared herself, Anna thought. A large man she hardly knew had just come into her house uninvited. Into her bedroom. Well, it would be her bedroom again when she’d finished renovating it. Right now it was just a mess.
Like her head.
Luke was wearing some jeans that were probably as old as her own. He had a black woollen jumper on with the sleeves pushed up to reveal bare forearms. His hair looked windswept and there was a tension about him that suggested he could leap into action at any moment. To save a life or rescue a damsel in distress.
He’d thought she was in distress.
He’d come into her house to rescue her.
And here he was, looking rugged and grim and … and … gorgeous.
Thank goodness she had her arms full of warm, shivery puppy. She hugged him more closely.
‘He’s a rescue puppy,’ she told Luke. ‘I’ve only had him a couple of weeks. My neighbours, Doug and June Gallagher, own a farm and they found him in the creek. In a sack. They would have kept him but they’ve already got a lot of dogs and he was terrified of Doug. June reckons he’s been badly treated by a man.’
‘So you took him? You’re going to keep him?’
He sounded as though she’d just informed him that she intended to fly to the moon. Anna almost laughed but she felt absurdly close to tears. This wasn’t supposed to happen and the earth had just tilted beneath her feet.
Dr Bartlett didn’t do feminine or personal. She didn’t do attraction to her colleagues.
Mr Davenport wasn’t supposed to meet Anna. And there were no rules about Anna feeling attracted to a man. There hadn’t needed to be for too long to remember.
This was threatening to do her head in completely so she dragged her gaze away from the towering figure by the doorway and buried her face in the expanse of woolly hair in her arms.
‘You’re all right,’ she soothed. ‘He’s not going to hurt you.’ The reassurance seemed to bounce back at her and it sounded good. The warmth and smell of her dog was good too. Comforting. Anna raised her head to find that Luke was closer. He had dropped to a crouch and he was looking at the puppy.
‘What is he, exactly?’
‘We’re not sure. The vet thinks he’s about four months old. She reckons he’s part poodle because of the wispy hair. Or maybe there’s some wolfhound in there. A designer dog gone wrong, we decided, and that’s why nobody wanted him.’
‘A poodle and a wolfhound?’ Luke seemed to be making a valiant attempt to imagine such an unlikely combination.
He looked intrigued and, with his focus so completely on the puppy, Anna got the chance to look at him.
He looked so different. Was it the casual clothing or the fact that he was here, in her home? No. It was more than that. The grimness she was getting accustomed to in his face had lightened. The puppy had distracted him and caught his interest. Was it possible it might even amuse him? Make him smile?
Anna really wanted to see Luke smile.
‘It could be possible,’ she said, her tone deadpan. ‘As long as they’d had a staircase handy.’
Luke’s gaze flicked up. He gave a huff of sound that could have passed for laughter but there was no matching curl to his lips. Instead, there was an incredulous expression in those amazingly blue eyes. As though he was seeing someone he didn’t recognise at all.
Because she’d cracked a fairly pathetic joke?
Or because of the reference to parentage? Canine sex.
Sex …
Oh, Lord! Anna closed her eyes. She couldn’t hold the puppy any more tightly because she could feel his ribs too well already. Poor thing, he’d had a hard time in his short life so far. At least he’d stopped shaking, though.
‘What’s his name?’
‘I can’t decide. Every time I come up with one, I try using it but it doesn’t feel right. Herbert was my last effort.’ To her dismay, Anna realised that Luke would make the connection. That the surname of his first surgical case had seemed like a good name for her pet. How unprofessional would that seem?
Probably not as bad as talking about dogs mating on the stairs.
And did it really matter? This wasn’t work. It was home. Different.
Confusing. ‘He’s got big feet.’
‘Mmm. He’s growing fast, too. I think that’s why he’s so clumsy. He got underneath my ladder and tried to turn around and that’s how it tipped over.’
Luke was silent for a moment but then he looked at Anna and she saw that the grim lines were still missing from his face. There was a hint of amusement there but it was lapped by a sadness she could feel all the way to her bones.
‘I knew someone once,’ he said quietly. ‘He grew too fast and