IT WAS her perfect house.

And there was no one home. Louisa tried the doorbell again and cuddled her long wool coat around her to keep out the freezing wind. It had started snowing again and soft flakes settled on the ground and clung to her tumbling dark hair. She'd only stepped out of her car a few minutes before and already her fingers were freezing and she couldn't feel her toes.

If she was going to spend Christmas here, she needed more clothes.

She gave a shiver and pressed the bell again, this time keeping her finger on it for much longer. Someone had to be there. Josh had assured her that his brother would be at home. That he was expecting her.

Giving up on the bell, she took a step backwards and looked at the huge white house. It was gorgeous. The sort of house she'd dreamed about as a child. The sort of house that should have been full of kids and dogs and laughter. She stared, wistfully. On the ground floor, huge glass windows faced out to sea across a wide deck, piled with drifted snow. A large, rambling garden stretched all the way down to the sand dunes, wild and neglected.

It was a house with a story to tell. And today there were no signs of life.

Remembering everything that Josh had told her about his brother and why he hated Christmas, Louisa stared anxiously at the house.

Just how much did Mac Sullivan hate Christmas? Did he hate it enough to — to...? She gazed up at the huge windows and bit her lip. Christmas was a bad time of year for lots of people, even without tragedy in their lives. What if he was lying in there, an empty bottle of tablets by the side of his bed? Maybe he'd left a note —

No.

She shook herself and wished her imagination wasn't quite so lively. He was probably just watching TV or something. He probably couldn't hear the doorbell.

Wishing she'd worn a thermal vest under her jumper, Louisa walked up to the window and peered inside, hoping to see signs of life.

She'd been told to arrive at lunchtime and this was lunchtime.

The living room was elegantly furnished with large white sofas set on a rich wooden floor, but the room had a formal feel that suggested that no one actually sat on the sofas. The cushions were plumped and smooth, like something prepared for a photographic shoot for an upmarket magazine.

It didn't look lived in.

She frowned thoughtfully. A house like this was meant to be a home and this didn't look like any home she'd ever imagined. Especially not at Christmas. A room like that should be filled with holly and presents and a massive tree.

Did Mac Sullivan have no one to buy presents for? Had he shut everyone out since his wife had died?

Blowing on her fingers to warm them, Louisa gazed up at the upstairs windows but they were all firmly shut.

Worry started to gnaw at her brain again and she gave a shiver and mentally listed the options. She could stand still and wait for someone to turn up, but that could take for ever and would be of no help at all if he was really in trouble. Or she could give up on the whole idea and drive back to London, but that would mean being unemployed. And being on her own at Christmas. Not to mention letting Josh down when she'd promised she'd step in and help.

And, anyway, she couldn't possibly leave before she knew that Mac was all right.

Which meant finding another way into the house so that she could check that he wasn't lying in a heap somewhere.

Deciding that living in rural Cornwall meant being resourceful, she picked her way through the snow to the back of the house and immediately saw the open window.

Her eyes narrowed as she measured the space. Just large enough for her to wriggle through.

It had been a while since she'd used a window to gain access to a building but in this case it seemed like the only option. And she was expected so it could hardly be classed as breaking and entering, could it?

Mac heard the muffled thud the moment he switched off the shower. Someone was in the house.

He was being burgled.

Questioning the sense of tackling a burglar half-naked, he grabbed a towel from the heated rail and looped it round his hips before padding barefoot onto the landing to investigate.

There was another clatter and he winced. Whoever it was didn't have a great future as a burglar.

Probably someone who knew he was a doctor and thought he might keep drugs on the premises. Some crazed addict looking for a fix?

His dark hair was wet from the shower and he raked it out of his eyes with an impatient hand before reaching for a hammer that he'd used a few days before to put up a shelf.

His dark eyes gleamed with anticipation and he walked softly downstairs, his feet leaving damp marks on the carpet. As he reached the bottom, he wondered whether it was better to take the man by surprise or make a din and warn him of his presence.

In the end he went for the surprise option. Growing up with a brother, he'd never been afraid of the physical. He was six feet two and he had a black belt in judo. He was pretty confident that he could take most people, even dressed only in a towel.

The noise came from the visitors' toilet and Mac's mouth tightened as he recalled the number of occasions he'd asked Nicola, the last and most determined of his housekeepers, to sort out a lock for that window. It hadn't closed for months but it was one of the many things that she hadn't managed to fix before she'd walked out on him. Once he'd made it clear that he wasn't interested in a relationship it had appeared that she was no longer interested in working for him.

And his house was falling apart. He spent too long at the hospital to do more than the most basic maintenance and this house needed far more than basic.

And now he was paying the price. Shifting his weight to prepare for a fight, Mac pushed open the door to the toilet and pounced, his weight taking the other person down hard. "Don't move!"

There was a shocked gasp from beneath him. "How can I possibly move? You weigh a ton! And you're soaking wet!"

Registering a distinctly feminine voice, Mac gave a grunt and shifted his weight slightly, his hands grasping hers firmly and holding them above her head. He didn't intend to drop his guard just because his intruder was a woman.

He stared down into the widest, brownest eyes he'd ever seen and felt something stir inside him. She was soft and yielding under him and she smelt like a dream. Clouds of dark hair dusted with snow framed a perfect heart-shaped face and her soft cheeks were pink from the cold. And she was laughing.

"OK, muscle man — are you going to lie on top of me all day?" She sounded slightly breathless as she gazed up at him, her smile almost as wide as her face, 'because I ought to warn you that you're making it jolly hard for me to breathe."

He rolled away from her, thinking that she looked nothing like a burglar.

She looked like something straight out of a bad boy's dream.

Reminding himself that he wasn't interested in becoming involved with a woman, especially one who had just wriggled through his toilet window, he frowned down at her.

"What the hell are you doing, climbing through my window? You were looking for a doctor?"

"Well, in a manner of speaking, I was looking for a doctor, yes." She struggled to sit upright, her long legs going in different directions like a foal who still hadn't quite got the hang of standing. "But I'm not a patient. Or at least I wasn't until you landed on top of me. Now I'm not so sure. I think there's a distinct possibility that I'm injured. Possibly seriously. Were you planning to use that hammer on me?"

"Only if you proved to be especially violent," Mac said dryly, placing the hammer on the window-seat and holding out a hand to help her up. Her skirt had ridden up almost to her bottom and he found his attention snagged by her legs. She had fabulous legs. "Do you always climb through windows when you're looking for a doctor?"

"Never before. But I was worried that you might be lying unconscious at the top of the stairs, unable to call for help. I thought you might need rescuing." She reached out and took his hand and he pulled her to her feet, surprised to find that she wasn't as tall as he'd thought. Obviously most of her was leg.

He dragged his eyes away. "Why on earth would you think that?"

"Because I rang the doorbell and no one answered." He lifted an eyebrow. "And that meant I was lying unconscious? You didn't think I might be out buying a loaf of bread?"

"I have a vivid imagination," she confided happily, her wide smile lighting up her whole face. Her eyes were the colour of rich coffee and a few freckles dusted her nose. "There didn't appear to be a shop open in the village, so you couldn't have been buying bread."

"So you thought you'd break in?" He stared at her with incredulity. "Is that a frequent habit of yours?"

"Only when essential. It's part of my naturally interfering personality." She brushed herself down and shook the snow out of her hair. "I'm so relieved you're all right. So, if you weren't lying unconscious, why didn't you answer the door?"

His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. "Because I was in the shower."

"At lunchtime?"

Mac sighed, wondering why he was explaining himself to this woman. "I was up all night in the unit. Motorbike accident. The roads are lethal at the moment. When I came in I spent ten minutes arguing with my brother and then got stuck into some paperwork before deciding to take a shower. Are there any more details of my life that you feel you need to know?"

She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. "Probably, but they can wait until later. The most pressing thing is to dry myself off and get settled in. Where do I put my things?"

Deciding that he must be more tired than he'd thought, Mac stared at her blankly. "Put your things? What do you mean, put your things?"

She waved a hand towards the window. "I left my bags in the car but the boot leaks terribly so I really ought to bring them in before they get damp. It's snowing again. But, of course, you know that because it's all over me." As if to prove her point, she shook herself like a kitten and more snow drifted onto the floor. "Let's look on the bright side. At least I didn't fall head first down your toilet. That would have been an unhappy experience."

Mac studied her in silence, an uneasy suspicion forming in his mind. "You haven't told me what exactly you're doing here..."

"No, I haven't, have I?" She smiled warmly and held out a hand. "Your brother said I could come. I needed somewhere to stay and he told me you needed help. So here I am. Apparently I'm your Christmas present. Pleased to meet you, Dr Sullivan."

Her new boss had a fantastic body and at the moment virtually every delicious inch of him was on display.

Louisa stood in the corner of the small room, trying not to focus on that broad chest or the well-defined muscles of his abdomen. If she'd needed the perfect illustration of the male anatomy then it was standing in front of her. His body was hard and tough with no soft edges. The body of a man used to strenuous physical activity.

And as for the rest of him... With a huge effort of will she stared into his cold, handsome face and forced herself to breathe normally.

Josh had told her that the house was huge. He'd told her that the Cornish seaside fishing village was so small that you couldn't sneeze without the entire population asking you about your cold the next morning.

What he'd failed to mention was the fact that his brother was drop-dead gorgeous.