The Doctor's Society Sweetheart Read Free Page A

of the hut, making sure the mosquito screen door was shut behind her. Meeree was walking towards her and after quickly relaying Dr Freeman’s request, Emmy headed back into the makeshift hospital.
    ‘Where is it?’ Dart asked.
    ‘Meeree is bringing it,’ she said, once more calm and in control. She crossed to the patient’s side, smiling warmly. She decided that if Dart Freeman wanted to be brisk and annoyed with her—for whatever reason, that didn’t mean the patient should suffer. ‘Hello. I’m Emmy,’ she said. The patient was lying down now, a light blanket covering him even though the air was sticky and humid outside.
    ‘Hunklu doesn’t speak English,’ Dart muttered as he administered an injection of antibiotics.
    ‘He doesn’t have to,’ Emmy remarked, a touch of haughtiness in her tone as she continued to smile down at the man. She’d been visiting sick people in hospital since the age of eight years, her parents raising her to be a dutiful patroness of different charities and organisations. The fact that she’d followed in her grandmother’s footsteps and gone into the medical profession was something neither of her parents had expected or understood but, then, Emmy had come to realise that in doing the unexpected she often unwrapped another layer of who she really was deep down inside. Perhaps one day she would be content and eventually come to like herself just as she was.
    ‘The barrier of language is irrelevant where a kind-hearted smile can mean a thousand words.’ She spoke softly, taking the man’s free hand in hers in a gesture of reassurance.
    Dart watched closely as his patient did indeed start to relax, smiling back at the pretty redhead who, at some point, had removed her hat. There were wisps of the auburn strands here and there, some having come loose during her long day travelling. Her blue eyes were bright and filled with compassion as she continued to smile at their patient. There were no cameras around and she was still giving this man all her attention. Was the show for his sake or was she genuine?
    When the man asked something in Tarparnese, she glanced at Dart, waiting for a translation.
    ‘Er…’ Dart frowned, trying to decipher in his mind what the man had just said. In truth, he hadn’t been listening properly. Instead he’d been intently watching Emerson-Rose, still amazed that the woman he’d seen on television and in the media was now standing here in this hut in the middle of a Tarpanese village, miles from Australia. She had beauty andbrains—a lethal combination. He asked Hunklu to repeat the sentence then nodded.
    ‘He would like for you to stay until he falls asleep.’
    ‘Oh.’ She smiled down at Hunklu and nodded. ‘Of course I’ll stay.’ Without looking up, she ordered softly, ‘Bring me a chair and I’ll sit by his side.’
    Dart was stunned to receive such a command but there was something in her tone that made him obey instantly and that perplexed him even more. After that, he headed out to see what was taking Meeree so long with getting one of Jalak’s shirts, but once outside the hut he raked a hand through his hair and shook his head.
    Emerson-Rose Jofille had been in the village all of half an hour and already she was acting as though she owned the place. The rich always thought they were more important than everyone else in the world. He’d learned that lesson at a very young age. What the rich wanted, they took, and without care or thought to anyone else.
    Dart clenched his teeth. That simply wasn’t going to happen here, in this village, with these wonderful people. If the society princess wanted to be waited on hand and foot, giving out orders and expecting people to bow and scrape to her, she had another think coming. He squared his shoulders, knowing he was just the man to put Ms High-and-Mighty Jofille back in her place.

Chapter Two
    W HEN the rest of the medical team returned to the village just after two o’clock that