Page 12 of Greek Island Fling to Forever

‘So that’s the way you want it, eh?’ Ben growled, lifting his son up into the air and then threatening to dunk him in the waves.

Jonas shrieked with joy, his arms and legs flailing, and as Ben lowered him he sent a plume of water in his father’s direction, hitting him full in the face. Arianna heard herself laugh.

Two blond heads turned in her direction. Jonas flung his arms above his head, beckoning to her to join the game. Ben’s smile was less demonstrative, but much more compelling.

Could she cross the line in the sand? The line that had been drawn when her brother died and she’d suddenly been sucked into the emptiness of a family bound by grief. Arianna had thought that the chance to play with other kids was long gone now, but Ben’s smile was irresistible...

She walked down to the water’s edge and, as soon as she was in range, Jonas sent a splash of water in her direction. She sidestepped out of the way and Ben picked Jonas up, holding him clear of the water.

‘Careful, mate. Don’t get Arianna’s dress all wet.’

Suddenly, she didn’t care about that. Arianna gathered her skirts up in one hand, wading into the water and sending a splash in Jonas’s direction, then another larger one towards Ben.

‘Hey! How come I’m so wet...?’

Because...he looked so much better wet than dry. His T-shirt was sticking to his skin, clearly outlining an impressive pair of shoulders. The temptation to run her fingers across his chest, to see if it felt as good as it looked, was almost too much. His blue eyes were ninety per cent laughter but the other ten per cent were all smouldering heat, which burned right into her soul.

Jonas had decided to even the odds a little, and when his father let him down into the water he filled one of his pails, running over to his father and drenching him.

‘Uh...two can play at that game...’ Ben filled one of the larger buckets and Jonas ran squealing away to hide behind Arianna.

One look from those mischievous blue eyes that seemed entirely for her, and all about play of a much more adult nature. Then he stepped back, filling the other bucket and walking away up the beach, leaving Arianna to help Jonas dunk his pails into the sea. He gave her one to carry, taking her hand as they walked back to the sandcastle.

Ben carefully emptied the water into the moat, grinning as he passed them on his way back down to the sea. Sudden blinding desire gripped her, and she tried to focus her eyes on his face. But she couldn’t resist turning to watch him for just a moment, before Jonas tugged on her hand, impatient to add their water to the moat.

When she looked again towards the water’s edge, she saw that Ben had stripped off his T-shirt and was wringing it out in the sea, sunshine glistening on his skin. Its warm fingers seemed to caress him as he moved, and Arianna froze.

‘We need more water.’ Jonas nudged her and she jumped, pulled back into the moment.

‘Yes, we do.’ Arianna reached for the last bucket, grabbing her sunglasses at the same time and settling them firmly on her nose. They were a meagre enough defence against the golden lines of Ben’s body, but at least it wasn’t quite so obvious that she couldn’t drag her gaze away from him.

As she walked back down the beach with Jonas, Ben flapped his T-shirt in the breeze and pulled it back over his head. That didn’t help as much as it should have done; his image was already burned into her mind. He gave her a cheery smile, dodging out of the way as Jonas splashed more water in his direction, and filling the buckets in the sea.

When the moat was full, and Jonas was busily engaged in building a causeway across it made from stones and shells, Ben came to sit next to her on the steps that ran down from the veranda.

‘Would you like a towel?’ He smelled of sun, sand and the sea. Like the faraway, much missed summers that she’d spent with her family, here on the island.

‘No, I’m fine, thank you. Almost dry now.’

She’d noticed. Had watched as dry patches appeared on his T-shirt, wanting to trace their edges with her finger. They’d spread and begun to join and now she could almost...almost look at him without feeling that her heart was going to stop.

‘Your practice here is very different from mine.’ He leaned back on his elbows, basking in the sun. ‘Different and yet the same.’

‘Yes. Some of the problems are unique, but many of them are the same as the ones I saw when I was working in London. I learned a lot there.’

He nodded. ‘My practice would kill for the kind of facilities you have here, at the health centre. But it’s a lot easier for me to send people to the hospital for things like blood tests and X-rays.’

‘That’s true.’ Arianna quirked her lips down. ‘Although we do have better facilities than some island practices.’

He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t ask. Arianna couldn’t help answering anyway. There was no holding out against a man who combined beauty and brains.

‘When I came here there was no doctor, and no medical centre. If someone was ill they had to go to the mainland. There were funds available to start up a practice, but we would have had to raise a lot more money to afford anything approaching what we have now. Then an...anonymous donor made a very large gift.’

Ben nodded slowly. ‘That sounds extremely well timed.’ The humour in his eyes left Arianna in no doubt that he’d put two and two together and that four was the correct answer.

‘Doesn’t it. My father had just about come around to the idea that I was serious about being a doctor, and had been hoping I’d opt for a smart practice in Athens when I came back to Greece. He knew I couldn’t turn the donation down.’

‘Because it wasn’t really for you; it was for your patients.’

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