Read Career Girl in the Country / The Doctor's Reason to Stay for Free Online

and empty period of time.
    She frowned at him as if she didn’t quite believe him. ‘Every motel between here and a hundred k up and down the coast is fully booked out with anglers hoping to catch a two-hundred-and-twenty-kilo marlin. God, I hate this dust-impregnated town.’ She picked up her phone and stared at it as if willing it to ring with news of a bed.
    A mouse scuttled between his feet.
    She can’t stay here.
    She’s not staying with me.
    Why not? You don’t care about much any more so why care if she stays a few nights?
    She sighed. ‘I don’t suppose you know if my office at the hospital has a couch?’
    Her tone was unexpectedly flat, as if all the fight had gone out of her, and a tiny crack appeared in the blackness of his soul. His mouth started to work before his brain had fully thought it through. ‘You can stay at my place until this joint is clean and mouse-free.’
    Her smooth brow creased in uncertainty. ‘That’s kind of you but don’t you think you should discuss it with your wife first?’
    Your wife.
He felt the darkness sucking at his heart and soul, threatening to drown him over again the way it had so many times in the last year and a half. His heart thumped faster, pumping pain with every beat, but he somehow managed to growl out, ‘No need. Come on, grab your stuff. It’s late.’
    He turned and strode out of the house, not waiting for her, not offering to carry her case, and not looking back because if he did he might just change his mind. Not even Poppy deserved that.
    Poppy lugged her unopened and mouse-free case the short distance to what she assumed was Matt’s house—lights on, front door open—and wondered what on earth this man’s deal was. He lurched from sarcastic to ironic, friendly to downright rude and a thousand emotions in between. Why offer her a bed if he clearly wasn’t happy about her staying? She assumed he’d gone on ahead to let his wife know theyhad an unexpected guest. She thought of her gorgeous apartment in south Perth with a view of the river and silently cursed William and the hospital board.
    She stepped into the empty foyer of a house considerably larger than her hospital residence, and unlike the minimalist furnishing of rental accommodation she could see the hand of a woman in the decor. Silence hovered and given it was close to midnight she didn’t want to call out and wake anyone. For all she knew, there could be children asleep.
    A closed door on her left was probably a bedroom so she left her case by the front door and padded down the well-lit hall, which opened into a formal lounge-dining area. Despite its stylish couches and polished wood table, it had an air of ‘display only’, lacking the personal touches like ornaments or photos that created living spaces. She kept walking and passed through a doorway into another huge space, which wasn’t well-lit but she made out a kitchen and assumed beyond was a family room and bedrooms.
    She spoke softly. ‘Matt?’
    He appeared through a door off the kitchen, his arms full of bed linen and his face set in unforgiving lines. ‘Your room’s this way.’
    She expected him to turn towards the yet unexplored part of the house but instead he headed back from where she’d come from and entered the bedroom at the front of the house. A stripped white-wood queen-size bed dominated the room, which had a feature wall wallpapered in alternating cool blue and white stripes. Matching white-wood bedside tables held reading lamps with gold stands and white shades, although Poppy noticed the plugs had been pulled from the sockets. No books or boxes of tissues adorned any surfacesbut gauzy curtains hung softly in front of a white blind, which was pulled down. The room should have said, ‘restful haven for adults’ but instead it looked abandoned.
    Matt threw out the bottom sheet and Poppy moved to grab her side. She was almost certain this room had been designed to be the master bedroom. ‘Are you sure