The Secret Doctor Read Free Page A

started to prepare the fillings for the empanadas, layering strips of chicken, bacon and cheese on top of the pastry.
    â€˜Yes, all of it. It’s just a hobby. There’s something incredibly satisfying about working with wood…the smell, the feel of it, the finished product.’
    â€˜What wood are you using? Oak’s a good hardwood, isn’t it?’
    He nodded. ‘It is. Actually, I’ve been using a variety of wood-oak for the timbers and floors, cedar for the planks. The inwales, thwart risers and sheer strakes are larch.’
    She had been folding the pastry into little dough packets, crimping the edges, but now she paused, giving him a long look from under golden lashes. ‘I beg your pardon?’
    â€˜Sorry.’ He grinned. ‘It all gets a bit technical and I get carried away sometimes. Boat building tends to bring out the fanatic in me.’
    Her mouth made a faint upward curve. ‘So I see.’ She placed a baking tray, loaded with empanadas, into the hot oven. ‘I’m not sure I understood quite what you were doing back there, hammering thick cotton wadding between the planks.’ She rubbed her hands on a clean towel and lifted the mug of coffee to her lips, taking a satisfying swallow. Then she arched her spine and rubbed at a knot of tension in the small of her back. It had been a long day.
    He watched her, his gaze moving languorously over her, stroking her feminine curves, a flicker of interest darting in the blue depths of his eyes.
    Lacey straightened. She knew that entirely male look, and she was suddenly all too conscious of her actions. The last thing she needed was to have him pay her that much attention. She was through with men, at least relationship-wise. They complicated things,promised the earth and a lifetime of love and then let you down when things didn’t go their way.
    Jake smiled. ‘They call it caulking.’
    She frowned. ‘Caulking?’ For a second or two, she had completely lost the drift of their conversation. The plain truth was the male of the species was a liability. You never knew where you were with them. And this man was probably no exception. He was only here in her kitchen because he had set her on a path of investigation.
    â€˜Think of it as padding,’ he said helpfully, and she struggled to bring her thoughts under control once more. ‘The material fills in the wedge between the planks and makes sure that they don’t move…they swell, of course, or shrink, depending on different levels of moisture. You need a boat to be watertight as well as mechanically sound, so I’ll apply a coat of epoxy resin, and then I’ll paint it.’
    â€˜Oh, I see.’ At least, she thought she did. Whatever procedures he was following, he was building a good-looking boat back there in his barn. ‘You already have a couple of boats moored alongside the dock, as far as I could see. Do you collect them? What’s this one for?’
    â€˜Lobster fishing. As to the others, they were inherited from my father and my grandfather. I guess you could say that boats and the sea are part of my heritage.’ He gave her a crooked smile, and for some reason she had the idea that it was an ironic kind of smile, as though he was holding something back. Perhaps Rob had been right when he’d said that Jake was not quite like other men. There was a hidden side to him, Rob had said, a part of him that you couldn’t quite fathom.
    The scent of hot cheese and bacon filled the kitchen, and she pulled herself together and went to check the oven.
    â€˜These are done,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to mind that you don’t burn your tongue. We don’t want you being injured for a second time today, do we?’
    â€˜Oh, I don’t know about that…you make a very lovely medic.’ He gave her a wickedly sexy glance that immediately set her temperature rising. ‘You can tend to my