Read The Virgin Bride (The Australians) for Free Online

handsome in my book. But he has something, has Dean. And he has a way about him with the women, no doubt about that.’
    â€˜So everyone keeps telling me,’ Jason said testily. ‘But he’s not here in Tindley, Nancy, and I am. So let’s leave it at that, shall we? Now, I must shake a leg or I’m going to be late.’
    â€˜What time did you say you’d pick Emma up?’
    â€˜Seven-thirty.’
    â€˜Just as well she lives down the road, then, isn’t it? Off you go. I’ll lock up here.’
    Jason dashed up the stairs, stripping as he went.
    Like Ivy’s sweet shop, the surgery was part of an old house which fronted the main street of Tindley. But where Ivy’s place was small and one-storeyed, the house Doc Brandewilde had bought thirty years before was two-storeyed and quite spacious. Doc and his wife had raised three boys in it.
    But they’d always wanted a small acreage out of town, it seemed, and once Jason had expressed interest in the practice Doc had bought his dream place and moved, leaving the living quarters of the house in town to his new partner.
    Jason had been thrilled. He’d liked the house on sight. It had character, like those American houses he’d often seen in movies and which he’d always coveted. Made of wood, it had an L-shaped front verandah, with wisteria wound through the latticed panels, and a huge front door with a brass knocker and stained glass panels on either side. Inside, the ceilings were ten feet high, and all the floors polished wood. A wide central hall downstairs separated two rooms on the left and two on the right. It passed a powder room under the stairs, and led into a large kitchen which opened out onto a long, wide back verandah.The two rooms on the left—which had once been the front parlour and morning room—had been converted into the waiting room and surgery. The two on the right remained the dining and lounge rooms.
    Upstairs, there had been four bedrooms and one bathroom till a few years back, when Doc’s wife, Martha, had brought in the renovators and combined the two smallest bedrooms on the right into a roomy master bedroom and en suite bathroom.
    Jason rushed into this bathroom now, snapping on the shower and reaching for the soap. No time to shave, he realised. Pity. He’d wanted to be perfect for Emma. Still, he wasn’t one of those dark shaven men who grew half a beard by five o’clock in the afternoon. His father had been dark—according to his parents’ wedding photos. But his mother fair. He’d ended up being a mixture of both, with mid-brown hair, his father’s olive skin and his mother’s light blue eyes.
    And a blessed lack of body hair, he thought as he lathered up his largely hairless chest.
    With time ticking away, he didn’t shampoo his hair. No way did he want to front up with wet hair. Snapping off the taps, he dived out of the shower, grabbed a towel and began to rub vigorously. Five minutes later he was standing in his underpants, scanning his rather extensive wardrobe.
    No suit tonight, he thought. Tonight called for something a little less formal, which didn’t really present a problem, except in making a choice. During his days as a dashing young Sydney doctor, he’d bought clothes for every occasion.
    His eyes moved up and down the hangers severaltimes. Damn, but he had too many clothes! Finally, he grabbed the nearest hanger to his hand, and had already dragged on the cream trousers, pale blue silk shirt and navy blazer before remembering Adele had chosen that very outfit the last time they’d gone shopping together. She’d said it made him look like a millionaire, fresh from winning the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. She’d liked the image, said it turned her on. Nothing turned Adele on, Jason thought ruefully, like the thought of money.
    He scowled at the memory, but had no time to change, consoling himself with the