The Doctor's Rebel Knight by Melanie Milburne Page A

against his eye. ‘This town needs a doctor but if you feel you’re not up to the task then that’s fine. The last thing we need around here is someone who is less than enthusiastic or—worse—lacking in confidence.’
    Fran bristled, trying to hold on to her temper. ‘I will do the clinic but only once and only because there are patients waiting there for me, not because you’ve engineered it.’
    He put the ice pack on his desk. ‘I had nothing to do with engineering anything.’
    She tried to stare him down but she couldn’t help noticing how the cut on his cheekbone just below his eye was seeping a slow but steady trickle of blood. He was going to have a bruiser, if she was any judge.
    ‘How did you get that?’ she asked.
    ‘One of the perks of the job,’ he quipped. ‘Believe me, today has been a good day.’
    She rolled her eyes before she could stop the impulse. ‘You should get that checked. It might need stitching.’
    He leaned back even further in his chair, the leather creaking in protest. ‘It’s just a scratch,’ he said, reapplying the cold pack as he crossed one ankle over his muscular thigh. ‘Now, what did you want to see me about?’
    Fran slapped the parking infringement notice on the deskin front of him. ‘If this is how you do things around here then you’re going exactly the wrong way about convincing me to commit to this community,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect a police officer of your rank to be so petty.’
    His eyes briefly scanned the notice before meeting hers. ‘You do the crime, Dr Nin, you pay the fine.’
    She ground her teeth and, snatching up the notice, tore it into shreds, letting them scatter like snowflakes on his desk. ‘So book me, Sergeant Hawke,’ she challenged him.
    Jacob put the ice pack on his desk and, pushing back his chair, got to his feet. ‘You seem pretty convinced I wrote that ticket,’ he said, holding her stormy gaze.
    She curled her top lip at him. ‘You’re going to deny it?’
    ‘I am not the only cop in town, Dr Nin,’ he reminded her.
    She tilted her chin, her eyes still flashing at him. ‘Maybe so, but I bet there isn’t another J. Hawke, is there?’
    ‘No, there’s not,’ he said. ‘There is, however, a John Hank.’
    Her blue-grey eyes widened for a second before dropping to the little snowstorm on his desk. ‘Oh…’
    ‘I can ask him to show you the duplicate,’ Jacob offered. ‘But either way, if you parked in the wrong zone you need to pay the fine.’
    Her eyes slowly came back to his, her tongue sweeping over her lips in a tell-tale movement of discomfiture. ‘I—I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just when I saw the J and the H and the K, I assumed it was your signature.’
    ‘It’s an easy mistake to make,’ he acknowledged.
    Her eyes went to the shredded ticket on his desk again. Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward. ‘I’ll clean this up for you. It won’t take a—’
    Jacob put his hand down over her smaller one, pinning it to the desk. ‘Leave it.’
    Fran looked into his unusual blue eyes, her heart giving a little stumble. She glanced down at the desk. His hand dwarfed hers, his long fingers warm and dry and determined. Her mind began to wander…to imagine how it would feel to have his long, strong body pinning hers beneath his, to have his warm, beautifully sculpted mouth feasting hungrily on hers, to have his hands shape her breasts, each one in turn, exploring the tightly budded nipples, bringing his hot, moist mouth down, licking, stroking, sucking on her until she writhed with pleasure.
    ‘Um…I should go now…’ she said, trying to slide her fingers out from under his. Like right now.
    ‘Wait.’ The pressure of his hand was firm but not brutally so.
    Fran could feel the slightly rougher skin on the pads of his fingers, as if he was no stranger to manual work. She suddenly thought of each of her past boyfriends, none of whom had seemed able to change a toilet roll, let alone a