Bachelor Dad, Girl Next Door. Sharon ArcherЧитать онлайн книгу.

      CHAPTER ONE

      LUKE DANIELS ran an idle glance over the sleek silver motorcycle stopped in the lane beside him at the traffic light. Through his closed windows he could hear the throb of the powerful engine. An unexpected spark of interest fought with deep unease.

      It’d been years since seeing a bike had had any sort of effect on him. How odd that it should be now, when he was back in Port Cavill to stay—at least for the year-long term of his contract.

      But perhaps that was why.

      Port Cavill. The scene of his first medical failure.

      ‘Are we nearly there?’ His daughter’s sulky voice interrupted his dark thoughts.

      ‘Not far, Allie.’ He rolled his neck, feeling the tiredness and tension in his muscles.

      ‘Alexis,’ she corrected with all the disdain a ten-year-old could muster.

      Luke stifled a sigh. He wasn’t popular and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

      Except get on a plane back to England.

      Even the weather conspired to make things unpleasant. The earlier sunny heat had given way to oppressive humidity, which the car’s air-conditioning was struggling to cope with. Glowering banks of cloud still pressed down with the threat of more rain to come.

      He studied Allie’s sullen profile and debated whether to point out again that they’d only be here for a year. Long enough for him to help his father get back on his feet. Long enough to seem like a lifetime in a child’s eyes. Times like this he longed for Sue-Ellen’s wise counsel. But his wife, Allie’s mother, had been buried two years ago. So loving, so giving. And too damned young to die.

      ‘That person on the bike’s waving at you, Dad. Who is it?’

      He looked in the direction of Allie’s pointing finger.

      ‘I don’t know.’

      The pillion passenger began pulling at the rider’s shoulder until the person must have retaliated with an admonition to keep still. Catching Allie’s eye, Luke smiled. ‘Kind of hard to tell with that helmet on, isn’t it?’

      His daughter shrugged, letting him know a moment of shared humour couldn’t woo her.

      The lights changed and the bike pulled away sedately enough to merge into his lane ahead. Following slowly, he allowed the distance to stretch because of the wet road. The pillion passenger turned to check behind. Luke shook his head in irritation. The action would shift the weight, unbalance the bike. He felt a twinge of sympathy for the poor rider.

      Movement from a side road caught his peripheral vision. A car fishtailed into the intersection.

       Had the motorcyclist seen it?

      Heart pounding, hands clenched on the steering-wheel, he waited for the inevitable disaster. Suddenly the rider reacted, the brake light flicked on.

      ‘Too late,’ Luke muttered. ‘Counter-steer.’

      A split second later, the rider obeyed his command. Relief quickly swooped into despair as the wheels skidded precariously on the slick surface.

      In the time it took for rider to control the bike, graphic memories of another, less fortunate motorcycle