Wild and Willing! Read Free Page A

topped Rosalind’s five feet nine by two inches and was long-limbed and athletically built rather than waiflike.
    Hope had the same basic ingredients as any other good-looking female, with some indefinable extra thrown in. Her mouse-brown hair had been lightened to sun-streaked glory and her lashes were dyed, but the features were the same perfect ones she’d been born with.
    Men might like to drool over her on the TV screen or on glossy covers, but Anna had seen that many were intimidated when they came face to face with the real thing.
    ‘This is a real pleasure.’
    Adam Deacon wasn’t one of that number, Anna noticed, seeing the look of interest in her sister’s eyes as Adam clasped her outstretched hand and raised it to his lips. Anna rolled her eyes; how corny! The fact that Hope could look up into his face was in his favour: Hope was still slightly self-conscious about her height.
    ‘Lindy tells me you’re a doctor too.’ The smile that launched a thousand products blazed forth. ‘What have you been doing to Anna to make her lose it?’ she was unable to resist asking. An impish grin replaced the sophisticated smile.
    ‘He kissed me.’
    ‘That was pretty daring of him.’ The look Lindy exchanged with Adam was not as light-hearted as her voice; it carried a degree of censure and dismay.
    ‘No one’s told him about the left hook,’ Hope added with a chuckle.
    ‘So much for sisterly solidarity,’ Anna muttered. ‘Asfor you, Hope, I thought you were going to spend the entire evening on the phone to New York.’
    ‘Are you trying to change the subject by any chance, Anna?’ Hope enquired.
    ‘I’ve got things to do,’ Anna said airily. She turned and walked briskly away. Her sisters were welcome to Adam Deacon.
    Organising a surprise party for their parents had been a mammoth task. At least, the secret part had been in the close-knit community where everyone knew her parents. Anna had been amply rewarded for her efforts by the expression on her parents’ faces when they arrived expecting a candlelit table for two and had found the whole hotel taken over for the occasion.
    Anna didn’t mind that they were so ecstatic to see her sisters. She was always around, but it was a treat for them to see Lindy, who was a senior house officer in a busy London hospital, and Hope, who thought nothing of visiting several countries in one week. Her visits home had been infrequent since she’d based herself in New York.
    Now Anna managed to make sure everyone had a full glass to toast the couple before she joined her sisters on the podium to say a few simple words.
    Charlie Lacey responded in his gruff manner, tears of emotion in his eyes and his arm around his wife.
    ‘What can I say? Anna has kept a secret for the first time in her life!’ He held his hand up and the laughter died away. ‘I’m a lucky man,’ he said simply, his eyes on the four women in his life.
    Anna smiled insincerely as later in the evening her mother introduced her to this nice doctor friend of Lindy’s who was going to be living locally.
    ‘We’ve met,’ Anna said, her dark brows meeting in a straight line over her nose.
    ‘You’ve so much in common.’ Beth Lacey gave a pleased smile.
    ‘We have?’ They both spoke in unison, and their eyes clashed as they each recognised the scandalised disbelief in their voices. Anna bit back the smile that quivered on her lips.
    ‘Of course you have; you’re both medical.’
    ‘Are you a doctor too?’
    ‘She could have been if she’d had less outside interests,’ the fond mother informed him. ‘She did train as a nurse, after—’
    ‘I don’t practise,’ Anna interrupted smoothly. ‘I found the hierarchical structure a little too confining for my taste; I branched out.’
    ‘Into what?’ Nursing must have breathed a sigh of relief to lose this anarchic spirit, he thought, watching her small hands moving expressively.
    ‘Therapeutic massage and