Tempted by Dr. Daisy by Catherine Anderson

a little light-headed, or the conversation. ‘I’m going to heat up this ready meal.’
    â€˜Or we could share a takeaway,’ he said, changing tack, not quite ready to end this time with her, needing to get their relationship as friends and colleagues and neighbours firmly on track and lay the ghost of that kiss. ‘I have an ulterior motive. I want to ask your advice about my house.’
    She stared at him, bit her lip, shrugged. ‘I don’t know that I can be much use, I know very little about your house. Apart from the other day, I’ve only been in it a few times, and I’ve never been upstairs except to fetch something for Mrs Leggatt once.’
    â€˜But you know this house, and I love what I’ve seen of it, which let’s face it is pretty much all of it. Come and have a look. I’ll order a takeaway, and while it’s coming, you can cast your eye over it and tell me what you’d do,’ he coaxed. ‘Unless you’d rather not?’
    She laughed softly. ‘I’d love to see round it,’ she said honestly, and tipped her head on one side. ‘Can we have Chinese?’
    â€˜Sure. Got a menu?’
    â€˜Of course I have. I’ve got a stack of them. They get put through the door all the time. We’re quite civilised round here.’
    â€˜Great. And we can wash it down with the bubbly you gave me yesterday. It seems only fair to share it.’
    â€˜I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ she said carefully.
    â€˜Maybe not,’ he conceded with a rueful smile, and held his hand out. ‘Let’s have the menu, then. I’m ravenous.’
    Â 
    He saw Florence the following evening.
    He couldn’t bring her home for the night, which was the eventual plan for Wednesdays, because it was in chaos following the ceiling collapse and would be for some time, so he spent the evening with her at Jane’s.
    Difficult, because although they’d parted on reasonable terms, it was her house, and technically speaking her night off.
    â€˜Do you mind if I go out?’ she asked, and he agreed readily. It would be easier without her, would give him a more relaxed and focussed time with Florence, and would mean less of a change when she did eventually come to him.
    So he stayed there with Florence, and he cooked her supper and bathed her, and then tucked her up into bedand lay beside her with her snuggled into the crook of his arm while he read her a bedtime story.
    â€˜Again,’ she said when he’d finished.
    He read it again. It was easier than arguing, and easier than reading her another book—because that could lead to another, and another, and another—and he’d been suckered before. Not yet three, and she was a clever little minx.
    He adored her.
    â€˜Again,’ she said, but sleepily this time, her thumb in her mouth. She’d started nursery school full time because Jane wanted to go back to work, and she was loving it, but she was tired by the end of the day and he guessed that if Jane had been reading the story, she would have fallen asleep sooner.
    Bedtime with Daddy was a novelty, though, her time with him limited, and she was often clingy.
    So he read it again, and then eased his arm incredibly carefully out from under her head, lowering it to the pillow and kissing her softly on her rosy little cheek as she slept.
    â€˜Goodnight, my precious,’ he murmured, smoothing the hair back from her face as his eyes filled. ‘Sleep tight.’
    He kissed her again, and left the room, her door ajar and a nightlight on in case she woke, and then he went downstairs and sat on the sofa they’d had in London and watched his old television until Jane came home at ten.
    â€˜Everything all right?’ she asked brightly, and there was something in her tone of voice that made him search her face as he got to his feet.
    â€˜Fine. She’s asleep. We read Goldilocks and the Three