But it had caused him to wonder if it had been a hint. He was the only person she knew, both inside and outside the surgery, and he’d invited her to dine with him. It had been out of politeness and with the feeling of responsibility that had been there ever since he’d brought her to the village. He hoped she wasn’t reading anything else into it. To feel responsible for someone who had joined the practice from choice and who was already proving her worth was ridiculous, he’d thought afterwards. Amelie was no shrinking violet, yet neither was she streetwise and provocative, like some of the members of her sex who sought him out. As he took her up the wooden staircase leading to the apartments that had been one of the focal points of Phoebe and Harry’s romance, he was thinking that all his efforts in the kitchen were going to be well past their best because she’d panicked at the thought of meeting strangers. Yet wasn’t that what she needed to do, and wasn’t that what he was, in spite of them being forever in each other’s company since she’d arrived…a stranger?
