Life Support: Escape to the Country Read Online Free

winced as soon as she realized what she’d said and how it sounded. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Josh’s grin. Again, she glared at him. “And I’m sure you don’t want to have a late night either, Josh. Your session starts at eight.”
    Thankfully for her, understanding dawned. “Yes, you’re right. We’ve had a lovely walk around the harbor but it is getting late and cold so we should keep moving. Thank you for your kind offer Mrs. Chirnside, but I’ll see Emma safely to the hotel now. It was lovely meeting you both.”
    Win muttered something under his breath before shaking Josh’s offered hand. Mary-Margaret leaned in and kissed Josh on the cheek. She was such a snake and Emma didn’t trust her for a moment.
    “Good-bye dear. I’m sure we’ll catch up with you when you’re back in Melbourne. Perhaps you and Lleyton might like to come over for dinner one night.”
    Her mother-in-law’s eyes held a glint of steel. Damn. The whole thing was one big charade. Not for one minute was Mary-Margaret Chirnside fooled. She’d definitely seen them kissing. Which, unfortunately, meant Lleyton would know about it too, in less than five minutes.
    Emma and Josh walked in stony silence until they were well out of the Chirnsides’ earshot. Emma kept her arms crossed, hugging her body tightly, partly to keep warm and partly to stop herself from hitting something. Or someone.
    “Want to tell me what that was all about?” Josh asked when she finally stopped at the corner.
    She jiggled on the spot, waiting for the traffic lights to change. “No,” she snapped. The last thing she wanted to do was talk. The lights changed and she took off like a sprinter out of the blocks.
    Josh almost had to jog to keep up with her. “Is Lleyton your boyfriend?”
    Swinging her arms, she power-walked up the steep sidewalk in the direction of her hotel. Her breathing was ragged. She needed to get in shape. “No.” she panted.
    “Fiancé?” The question was more tentative.
    “No!”
    Josh exhaled. After two more blocks, he grabbed her elbow gently. “Would you slow down and talk to me?”
    Emma sighed and let out a shaky breath. She begrudgingly slowed her pace and put her hands on her hips, breathing heavily. “Look, I’m sorry. I appreciate you walking me back to my hotel, but tonight was a big fat stupid mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking leaving the bar with you. Actually I do know what I was thinking. I was thinking you reminded me of someone I once knew and I let the memories of the past carry me out the door with you and into the biggest dumbest predicament I’ve ever been in.”
    She attempted to run her fingers through her hair but the wind had lashed it into an untidy tangle of knots. She gave up, her hands falling loosely at her sides. Her shoulders slumped.
    “What a disaster,” she cried.
    “I don’t think it’s a disaster.” His voice was soft. “We both felt it.”
    She shook her head, although Josh was right. There was an undeniable physical attraction between them, but that was all it was. A purely physical pull because she felt lonely and her husband had let her down too many times. And because Josh reminded her of Tom. She sighed heavily. Everything about this night was a case of wrong time, wrong place, wrong person. Definitely wrong person.
    She started walking again. “I don’t do this.”
    “Do what?”
    She flung her hands in the air. “ This.  Leave bars with complete strangers and kiss them in the dark.”
    Back at the hotel she stopped and faced him, arms folded across her body. They stared at one another in stony silence.
    Eventually Josh spoke. “Would you have felt the same way if we hadn’t bumped into your parents tonight?” he asked.
    “The Chirnsides are not my parents,” she snapped. “They are my parents- in-law .”
    He blinked rapidly, but she ignored the look he was giving her. She shrugged out of his coat and thrust it at his chest.
    “Lleyton is my