Conceived in paradise...

When beautiful embryologist Fran Hawthorne is offered the opportunity to work on a Pacific island for a month, she seizes the chance to escape the humiliation of her ex-husband’s betrayal.

But Fran isn’t prepared for Steve Ransome, the handsome doctor heading the clinic. After years of struggling to conceive with her ex, Fran is tempted to give in to the pure passion that burns between them. Only their “temporary” fling results in her carrying the child she thought she’d never have...

MEREDITH WEBBER lives on the sunny Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, but takes regular trips west into the Outback, fossicking for gold or opal. These breaks in the beautiful and sometimes cruel red earth country provide her with an escape from the writing desk and a chance for her mind to roam free—not to mention getting some much needed exercise. They also supply the kernels of so many stories it’s hard for her to stop writing!

SUSAN CARLISLE’S love affair with books began in the sixth grade, when she made a bad grade in mathematics. Not allowed to watch TV until she’d brought the grade up, Susan filled her time with books. She turned her love of reading into a passion for writing, and now has over ten Medical Romances published through Mills & Boon. She writes about hot, sexy docs and the strong women who captivate them. Visit SusanCarlisle.com.

Dear Reader,

Those of you who have been following the stories of the children brought up in foster care by the wonderful Hallie and Pop will have heard of Stephen—or Sir Stephen, as the boys called him when they teased. Well, he was tired of being teased and he wanted a story of his own.

I have touched on IVF in other stories, but as Stephen is a specialist this had to be a book about it. Embryologists, who take care of the eggs and sperm, are as important as the doctors—more so, according to some of them, like Francesca, especially now there is increasing use of IVM—In-Vitro Maturation. IVM saves women having to undergo a long series of injections in order to produce ripe eggs at the right time.

With IVM immature eggs are taken from the woman and matured in an incubator, and as Fran is proficient at this procedure she has ended up working with Steve on the lovely island of Vanuatu, in the South Pacific. The pure white sand beaches, the swaying palms and the heady scent of tropical flowers do the rest…

Meredith Webber

PS Marty, the playboy, gets his turn to tell his story in the next book!

A Miracle for the Baby Doctor

Meredith Webber

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Books by Meredith Webber

Mills & Boon Medical Romance

The Halliday Family

A Forever Family for the Army Doc

Engaged to the Doctor Sheikh

Wildfire Island Docs

The Man She Could Never Forget

A Sheikh to Capture Her Heart

The Accidental Daddy

The Sheikh Doctor’s Bride

The One Man to Heal Her

Visit the Author Profile page at at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Dear Reader

Title Page

Booklist

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

PROLOGUE

FRANCESCA LOUISE HAWTHORNE put down the phone with a sigh.

A deep sigh!

Why had she stayed in Sydney?

Why hadn’t she fled to the far ends of the earth after the divorce?

Sheer stubborn pride, probably!

She shrugged her shoulders and sighed again.

‘Trouble?’

She turned at the sound of her boss’s voice and smiled at the man who was part of the reason she hadn’t fled. Dr Andrew Flint was one of the foremost IVF specialists in Australia—the best in Sydney as far as Fran was concerned—and his, admittedly early, work into IVM could revolutionise the way couples who had difficulty conceiving could have babies.

Could bring hope...

And she knew a lot about hope...

Andy had been the first specialist in Australia to work on in vitro maturation, where immature eggs were taken from women and grown to maturity in an incubator, and this work had excited Fran so much she hadn’t considered leaving.

‘Andy?’ she said, when he’d been standing just inside the door of her office for a few moments.

This prompt was obviously not enough so she added, ‘You wanted something?’

He smiled and shook his head.

‘I did, but now I’m realising just how much I’ll miss you if you say yes to what I’ve come to ask.’

Fran shook her head. Used as she was to deciphering her rather absent-minded boss’s pronouncements, this one had her stumped.

‘Which was?’ she tried.

He was still smiling as he came closer to her.

‘I’ve been asked to lend you to someone. Have you ever run across Steve Ransome? He runs an IVF clinic in the Alexandria area. He offers couples on limited incomes from some of the inner-city areas a reduced rate but his clinic has a high success rate so he has plenty of regular fee-paying clients.’

Fran shook her head.

‘Doesn’t ring a bell,’ she said, refusing to think about high success rates and concentrating instead on where on earth this conversation might be going.

And why had he mentioned missing her?

At least trying to make sense out of Andy’s rambling was distracting her from the mother’s phone call—from the image of a smugly pregnant Clarissa that had lodged in her head...

‘Well, no matter, he’s a good bloke, and he’s asked me to lend you to him.’

‘Lend me to him?’

This was bizarre, even for Andy!

‘For his clinic in Vanuatu.’

Andy made this pronouncement as if it cleared up the whole conversation, and beamed at her as if he’d managed something wonderful.

Fran rose to her feet and walked around her desk, pulling up a chair and turning to her boss.

‘Please sit, Andy, then tell me this story from the beginning. I gather this doctor contacted you. Let’s start there.’

Looking mildly put out, Andy sat.

‘But I told you,’ he protested. ‘Vanuatu! Only for a few weeks—four, I think Steve said. I thought it would be great for you—tropical island, balmy breezes, getting out of Sydney when the weather’s so lousy. It’s work, of course, and he particularly asked if I had someone on staff who’d done some IVM work. I thought of you straight off. You’ve been looking a little peaky lately. The change will do you good. Hard to manage here without you, of course, but you’ve got all the staff trained so well, I’m sure they’ll cope.’

Sufficiently intrigued to swallow yet another sigh, Fran pieced the random bits of information together.

‘This man has a clinic in Vanuatu?’

Andy smiled again, practically applauding her grip on the situation.

‘It’s a giving-back thing, you see, or maybe paying forward—that’s what he might have said,’ he said, and although Fran didn’t see or follow the paying forward part, she pressed on.

‘And he needs an embryologist for four weeks?’

‘I think it was four, or maybe six,’ Andy said, his forehead crumpling as he tried to remember. Then he obviously gave up on that bit of irrelevant information and added, ‘I said I was pretty sure you’d go. Friend in need—doing good work—that kind of thing. Right up your alley, I thought, and a lovely holiday thrown in.’

Realising she wasn’t going to get much more from her boss, Fran changed tack.

‘Perhaps I should speak to him, find out exactly what the job entails.’

Andy shook his head.

‘Afraid not,’ he said. ‘He left yesterday. Asked me last week but I forgot and he phoned from the airport. Gave me the name of his practice manager and said she’d sort you out with flights and stuff. I’ve got the number here.’

Andy fished in his pocket, producing several screwed-up scraps of paper, uncrumpling them and glancing at each for a moment before stuffing them back into their hiding place.

‘Ah, here we go! Name’s Helen and the phone number’s there.’

He handed the scrap of paper to Fran, who surveyed it dubiously. It certainly said Helen and there was a phone number but...

‘I think he wants you soon—like yesterday,’ Andy added, standing up and heading for the door. ‘You’ll still get your pay from here, of course, and he said something about having accommodation for you. Do keep in touch.’

On which note he disappeared out the door.

Having worked with Andy since graduating ten years earlier, Fran knew that was all she’d get out of him. In fact, if she asked him anything about it later in the day, he would probably stare blankly at her, the entire conversation lost in whatever was currently holding his attention.

So Fran leaned back in her chair and wondered about serendipity.

Ten minutes earlier she’d been pondering her stupidity in letting pride keep her in Sydney after her divorce from Nigel and his subsequent marriage to Clarissa.

Well, pride, and her attachment to Andy and his work!

Now here was an invitation to escape—if only for four weeks—plumped right into her lap in the most unlikely manner.

Piecing together what little she’d gleaned from Andy, she assumed this man he’d spoken of—Steve Ransome—was running some kind of IVF programme on the island of Vanuatu and needed a embryologist—in particular one with experience in the very new field of IVM.

She knew of Vanuatu, of course. An island nation in the South Pacific, originally under French rule, if she remembered rightly.

Sun, sand, crystal-clear water, palm-tree fronds waving languidly over brilliantly coloured flowers...

She looked at the rain lashing against her window and shivered because September, which should be bringing a little warmth, and a promise of spring, had so far provided nothing but rain and more rain, with temperatures more like winter.

And Clarissa was pregnant...

Her ex-husband’s wife, Clarissa.

Her ex-husband, who’d hated every visit to the IVF clinic when Fran had been trying to get pregnant, who’d found the whole idea of IVF somehow humiliating—a slight on his manhood—and who now had a naturally pregnant wife...

And as Fran’s mother’s best friend, Joan, was Nigel’s mother, there’d no doubt be regular progress reports on the pregnancy of the wonderfully fertile Clarissa.

Doubt stabbed at her, making Fran wonder if the whole thing subtly underlined her mother’s disappointment in Fran’s failure to produce a child. Fran shook her head again.

No, her mother had been upset over the divorce, but more because of the two families’ friendship.

But the friendship had survived between her mother and Joan and although her mother was nearly always travelling these days, they were obviously still in close contact. Blame mobile phones and the internet!

Which meant Fran would doubtless get updates on the pregnancy at regular intervals, each one probing all the still sore spots in Fran’s heart and mind.

Getting away, if only for a month, was exactly what she needed.

Although...

She looked around the lab, seeing her workmates busy at their jobs.

After all the treatment she’d had, plus three unsuccessful IVF cycles, people had been surprised that she’d come back to work.

To work that was such an integral part of IVF programmes.

But here, in the big lab that dealt with so many specimens and eggs and tiny embryos to care for, she didn’t ever know which couple had success, and who had failed. She was shut off from their success or their pain.

And her own remembered pain...

Fran smoothed out the piece of paper, checked the number and phoned a stranger called Helen.

CHAPTER ONE

STEVE PARKED THE battered four-wheel drive in the short-stay area of the car park and hurried towards the arrivals hall.

When he realised he hadn’t a clue what the woman he was to meet looked like, he hurried back to the car, tore the top off a carton and hurriedly scrawled ‘Dr Hawthorne’ on it.

Okay, so the name on a card made him look like a limo driver, except that in flip-flops, shorts and a vivid print shirt he didn’t even come close to their tailored elegance.

And the limo drivers, he noticed, now he was back in the crowd outside the customs area, were holding professionally printed signs.

He should have done better. After all, this woman was doing him a huge favour, coming out here on a moment’s notice to cover for his usual embryologist.

He could at least have worn a quieter shirt.

It was the pelican’s fault!

He’d been heading for the shower when two young boys had appeared with an injured pelican—hauling it behind them in a homemade go-cart. The bird had appeared to have an injured wing but its docility had made Steve suspect it had other injuries as well.

He’d explained to the boys that they needed a vet, then realised they could hardly drag it all the way to the north of the island where the vet had his practice. Packing all three of them—and the cart—into his car and driving them out there had seemed the only solution, which had left him too late to shower and change.

So now he was late, and probably smelling of fish.

It couldn’t be helped. He was sure the woman would understand...

Passengers began to emerge, and he studied each one. The holidaymakers were obvious, already in party mode, smiling and laughing as they came through the doors, looking around eagerly for their first glimpse of the tropical paradise. Returning locals he could also pick out quite easily. Men in business suits or harassed mothers herding troops of children.

Then came a tall woman, light brown hair slicked back into some kind of neat arrangement at the back of her head, loose slacks and a blue shirt, a hard-case silver suitcase wheeling along behind her.

Elegant. Sophisticated.

Not Dr Hawthorne, he decided, as the embryologists he knew were more the absent-minded professor type, usually clad in distressed jeans and band name T-shirts beneath their lab coats.

The elegant woman paused, scanning the names held up in the crowd, passed by his and started towards someone else.

It was stupid to feel disappointed, there were plenty more passengers to come. Apart from which, she’d be a work colleague—work being the operative word.

‘Dr Ransome?’

He turned, and there was the woman, strange green eyes studying him quite intensely.

Green?

He checked—maybe blue, not green, or blue-green, hard to tell.

‘You are Dr Ransome?’ she said with an edge of impatience. ‘Helen told me you would meet me.’

‘Sorry, yes,’ Steve said, and held out his hand, realising too late that it was still holding his makeshift sign.

‘Oops,’ he said, tucking the sign under his arm.

He reached out to take the handle of her suitcase.

‘The car’s out this way,’ he said, heading for the door. ‘It was so good of you to come—so good of Andy to spare you. My usual embryologist had a skiing accident in New Zealand last month and is still in traction.’

Was he talking too much?

He usually did when he was rattled, and the cool, sophisticated woman walking beside him had rattled every bone in his body.

But why, for heaven’s sake? It wasn’t that there weren’t—or hadn’t been—other such women in his life.

He slid a sidelong glance towards her.

Composed, that’s what she was, which put him at a disadvantage as, right now, he was...well, badly dressed and almost certainly in need of a shower. The boys had been trying to feed the bird small fish.

‘Sorry about the rough sign, not to mention the clothes. There was this pelican, you see...’

She obviously didn’t see, probably wasn’t even listening.

He changed tack.

‘Do you know Vanuatu? It’s a great place—not only the islands themselves but the people. Originally settled by the French, so many people still speak that language, although they speak English as well—tourism has made sure of that.’

He reached the battered vehicle and immediately wished it was more impressive—a limo perhaps.

Because she looked like a woman who’d drive in limos rather than battered four-wheel drives?

But some demon of uncertainty had set up home in his mind, and he heard himself apologising.

‘Sorry it’s not a limo, but the budget is always tight and I’d rather spend money on the clinic.’

‘Sounds reasonable to me,’ she said coolly.

He lifted the silver case into the rear, and came around to open the door for her, but she was already climbing in. Elegantly.

He held the door while she settled herself, then held out his hand.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t even know what to call you. It’s been a strange morning.’

She offered a cool smile but did take his hand in a firm clasp.

‘Francesca,’ she said. ‘But just call me Fran.’

He forcibly withdrew his hand, which had wanted to linger in hers, and closed the door.

But not before noticing that her hair was coming just slightly loose from its restraints, a golden-brown strand curling around to touch her chin.

The sun would streak it paler still. And suddenly he pictured this woman on one of the island’s deserted beaches, a sarong wrapped around her bikini, sun streaks in the hair blowing back from her face as she walked beside him.

His body stirred and he shook his head at the fantasy. For a start she was a colleague, and just looking at her he could see she was hardly the ‘strolling on the beach in a sarong’ type, not that that stopped the stirring.

‘Have you been to the islands before?’ he asked, as he settled behind the wheel, coaxed a muted grumble from the engine, and drove towards the exit gates.

‘No, although I know many Australians holiday here.’

‘I hope you’ll like it. The climate’s great, although it can get a trifle hot at times, and the people are wonderful.’

She turned towards him, the blue-green eyes taking in his bright shirt and, no doubt, the stubble on his unshaven chin.

The pelican again...

‘Did you holiday here? Is that why you’ve come back here to work?’

He smiled, remembering his co-workers’ disbelief when he’d told them of his plans to start the clinic.

‘No, but we had a couple—Vanuatuans—who came to my clinic in Sydney. They were so desperate to have a child they had sold everything they had, including the fishing boat that was their livelihood, to fund their trip.’

The words pierced the armour Fran had built around her heart and she felt again the pain of not conceiving. Of not having the child she’d so wanted.

You’re over this, she reminded herself, and concentrated on Steve’s explanation.

‘But to sell their boat—their livelihood?’

He turned more fully to her now, and the compassion she read in his face warmed her to the man with whom she would work—a scruffy, unshaven, slightly smelly, yet still a darkly attractive man.

Attractive?

What was she thinking?

But he was speaking, explaining.

‘Why not sell the boat if they had no child to inherit it?’ he said softly, and she felt the barb go deeper into her heart.

She nodded, thinking of the couple.

‘Few people consider the side-effects of infertility,’ she said softly, remembering. ‘The loss of self-esteem, the feelings of pointlessness, the loss of libido that failure can cause, which must be devastating for any man, but would, I imagine, be even worse for people of proud warrior races like the islanders.’

He glanced her way, questions in his eyes, and she realised she’d spoken too passionately—come too close to giving herself away.

Talk work—that was the answer.

‘So you came here? But not permanently? How does that work?’

He smiled.

‘You’ll see, but for now you should be looking about you, not talking work. This is Vila, capital of the island nation. You can still see a lot of the old buildings that have survived from the days the French ran the country.’

Fran looked around obediently and was soon charmed by the riot of colour in the gardens around all the buildings, from small huts to old colonial buildings, no longer white but grey with age, some in a state of disrepair, but all boasting trailing bougainvillea in rich red or purple, and white lilies running riot in unkempt garden beds. Ferns and big-leafed plants provided lush greenery, so altogether Fran’s immediate impression was one of colour.

They drove up a hill, the buildings becoming smaller and more suburban, and right at the top sat what could only be a mansion with another large building further along the ridge.

They turned that way and an ambulance streaking towards it told her it was the hospital.

‘Is the clinic at the hospital?’ she asked.

‘Not quite—but we’re around the back here. A kind of adjunct to it,’ her chauffeur told her. ‘Our building used to be nurses’ quarters but the hospital doesn’t have live-in nurses any more.’

He pulled up in a driveway beside an enormous red bougainvillea that had wound its way up a tall tree.

Colour everywhere!

And warmth, she realised as she stepped out of the vehicle.

A warmth that wrapped, blanket-like, around her.

They had stopped beside a run-down building that seemed to ramble down the hill behind the hospital. It had cracks in the once white walls, and dark, damp-looking patches where plaster had fallen off. Vines seemed to be growing out of the top of it, and the overall impression was of desertion and decay.

A tall local man came out to greet the car, holding out his hand to Fran.

‘I am Akila. I am the caretaker here and will also take care of you,’ he said, pride deepening an already deep voice. ‘We are very pleased to have you come and work with us.’

He waved his hand towards the building.

‘Outside this must look bad to you, but wait until you see inside,’ Akila told her, obviously aware of strangers’ first impressions.

And he was right.

The foyer was painted bright yellow, making it seem as if the sunshine from outside had penetrated the gloomy walls. A huge urn of flowers—long stems of something sweet-scented and vividly red—stood against the far wall, grabbing Fran’s attention the moment she came through the door.

A cheerful young woman appeared in a brightly flowered long flowing dress Fran recognised as a muumuu. Zoe hugged Fran as Steve introduced her.

‘This is where we live when we’re here. Zoe will show you our quarters. Both she and Akila live locally and work at the hospital, but come down to help out when we are working on the island,’ Steve said. ‘Zoe keeps the place tidy for us and makes sure there is always food in the cupboards and refrigerator so we don’t starve to death, while Akila is on call for any emergencies—of which we get plenty—power outages, et cetera. But don’t worry we have generators which kick in to keep your incubator warm.’

Fran felt a niggle of apprehension, and for a moment longed to be back in her nice, safe, big, anonymous lab. These people were all too friendly. They were a team, but clearly friends as well. Why hadn’t she considered that it would be a small and intimate staff in this island clinic?

Friendly!

A queasy feeling in her stomach reminded her just how long it had been since she’d done friendly! At first, the pain of the IVF failures had made her curl into herself, erecting a cool polite barrier that outsiders saw.

Then the divorce and the humiliating knowledge that Nigel and Clarissa had been involved for months had made her draw away from the few friends she hadn’t shut out earlier. The only good thing that had come out of the whole mess was a better understanding of her mother, who had also built a protective shell around herself when her husband had departed. At last she now understood her mother’s detached behaviour during her childhood years.

Hurt prevention...

Fran had drifted across the hall to touch the leaves and flowers in the big display while these thoughts tumbled through her head.

‘I will show you your room,’ Zoe said, bringing Fran abruptly back to the present.

‘And I’ve got to check on something but I’ll be over later and will take you through the whole facility then,’ Steve added.

Fran felt a new wave of...not panic perhaps but definite uncertainty. Did she really need to see the whole facility? Of course she wanted to see the laboratory—it was where she would be working—and seeing how the place was set up would be interesting, but...

Something about the warm friendliness of the people was beginning to unsettle her—the realisation that they were all one big happy family, with Steve at the centre of it. It was threatening to cause cracks in barriers she had carefully erected between herself and others.

And all because they were welcoming her, were friendly? She could hardly resent that...

It had to be the heat, she decided, following Zoe across a courtyard filled with rioting plants, most with broad leaves and drooping fronds of flowers, and the same sweet, indefinable perfume.

‘Ginger,’ Zoe explained when Fran asked, and she looked more closely at the plants, not exactly surprised but trying to relate the small, bulbous roots she bought at the greengrocer to these exuberant, leafy plants.

The living quarters were adequate, freshly painted and clean, two bedrooms, a shared bathroom—she could live with that—and a combined living, dining, kitchen area.

‘Steve, he barbecues,’ Zoe told her, leading Fran out the back door onto a beautiful, shaded deck area, with a barbecue bigger and more complex than the kitchen back at her flat. ‘He brought the barbecue here but it is for everyone who stays. Patients bring fish and chicken and he says they are best on barbecue.’

Fran smiled. It was obvious the giant barbecue was the subject of much conversation among the staff at the clinic.

Zoe then indicated which bedroom would be hers and left her to unpack. It was a spacious room, with two beds—king singles or small doubles, she couldn’t tell—two wooden dressers with drawers, and a built-in cupboard. A vase filled with wide leaves and bright flowers stood on one of the dressers, welcoming her.

Uncertain of what lay ahead, Fran opted not to shower but simply to freshen up. She unclipped her hair, then made her way to the bathroom. She’d washed her face and was brushing out her hair when Steve arrived, calling hello from the front door.

She came out of her room, hairbrush still in her hand, anxious to tell him she’d only be a moment.

Steve stood in the doorway. Okay, so he’d assumed she’d be a very attractive woman with her hair waving softly around her face, but this attractive? She was smiling, saying something, but all he could do was stand and gawp.

Fortunately for his peace of mind she disappeared back into her room, returning seconds later with her hair neatly restrained, though this time more casually in a low ponytail at the base of her skull, one tail of the scarf that held it dangling forward over her white shirt, drawing his attention to—

No, his attention wasn’t going there.

‘I’ll show you our set-up,’ he said, aware his voice sounded rough. And why wouldn’t it because his mouth, for surely the first time in his life, had gone dry.

But his pride in the little clinic diverted his mind away from Fran as a very attractive woman—or almost diverted it—while he showed her around the rooms.

‘It’s very well set out, and far more complex than I’d imagined. You spoke about the couple who came to you in Sydney for IVF, and wanting to have something here, but this is impressive—it’s got everything you need, just on a smaller scale.’

‘I wanted to set up a place where couples can come and have their infertility investigated right from the start,’ he explained. ‘I can’t help feeling people are sometimes prey to exploitation. As you know, the most common cause of women not ovulating is PCO, and polycystic ovary syndrome can be treated with drugs. I believe, before IVF is even mentioned, ethical specialists must determine the underlying cause of the problem, and if possible treat it.’

Fran gave a little shake of her head. These were thoughts she’d had herself. Not that any of the specialists she’d seen had been unethical, but it had often seemed to her that they rushed towards IVF as an answer without considering alternatives.

‘I imagine drugs like clomiphene are a case in point,’ she said, seeing the way his mind worked. ‘With very little in the way of side-effects they can encourage the production of follicle-stimulating hormone, so the ovaries are better able to produce follicles. That in itself can lead to a previously infertile couple conceiving.’

‘Or, unfortunately, it could sometimes lead to cysts in the ovaries, which means the patient needs to be checked regularly. That’s why we employ a full-time O and G specialist who works at the hospital as well as here at the clinic. We want to be able to take a patient right through any treatment available, even Fallopian tube repairs, before resorting to IVF.’

‘So you need a specialist on the ground, so to speak?’ Fran said, following the conversation with increasing interest.

‘Exactly! He does regular obstetric and gynae work at the hospital but he’s also available for all the preliminary IVF checks and organises the counselling all couples need, as well as supervising the weeks of injections for any woman who will be using IVF.’

‘Wow!’ Fran muttered, unable to believe so much was happening from this small, run-down-looking building.

She looked again at the scruffily dressed man, and shook her head.

‘Did you achieve all of this on your own?’ she asked, and he smiled at her.

The smile surprised her. She’d seen versions of it before and thought it a nice smile, but this one set his whole face alight, shining in his dark eyes and wrinkling his cheeks with the width of his grin.

‘Not quite,’ he admitted. ‘The partners back at my clinic in Sydney have given a lot in that they cover for me two or three times a year when I’m over here, and various patients I’ve had have talked to me about what they’d like in a clinic.’

She nodded, knowing exactly what she’d have liked in the places she’d seen so much of, but Steve was still talking.

‘Then there are the people here. They are laid-back, casual and very family-oriented so something like an inability to have a child can cause them tremendous pain. I knew I had to set things up to make it as relaxed as possible for them. After all, they are the prime concern.’

‘And you fund it all yourself?’

The question was out before she realised how rude it was.

Not that it appeared to bother him—he just ignored it.

‘And here’s the laboratory, such as it is,’ Steve announced,

He’d left it until last, hoping she’d want to stay on and have a look around, check out where things were kept and see from the case notes, both written and on the computer, how things were done. Then he could go back to their quarters and, no, he refused to consider the cliché of a cold shower, but he could get away from her for a while and regroup.

Work out why this unlikely attraction was happening.

Attraction should be something that grew as you got to know someone—grew out of liking and respect...

Forget attraction, getting rid of the fish smell and doing something about the stubble on his chin were far more important issues right now.

Oh, and catching up with Alex to find out whether their new equipment had arrived...

But still he looked at Fran, bent over the boxes of coloured tags she’d pulled from one of the cupboards. She poked around in the contents for a while, then glanced up at him and smiled.

So much for his thoughts on attraction...

‘You’ll probably laugh at me,’ she was saying, ‘but I brought a whole heap of these things with me in my luggage, thinking maybe you wouldn’t have the ones I’ve always used, but someone whose mind runs along the same lines as mine does has set up a basic identification system.’

‘That someone was me.’

She looked surprised, and, probably because he was already off balance with the attraction business, he spoke more sharply than he need have.

‘Lab staff aren’t the only ones afraid of making a mistake, of giving a woman someone else’s embryo. It’s always in the back of my mind, even in the clinic back home where everything is computerised to the nth degree and ID is made with bar codes.’

Now she was taken aback, frowning at him.

‘Of course you must worry, it’s everyone’s biggest concern, but usually it’s left to the lab staff to make sure mistakes don’t happen.’ She grinned at him, defusing his mild annoyance but aggravating the attraction. ‘It’s certainly the lab staff who get blamed when things go wrong.’

She lifted a red wristband, a red marking pen, a roll of red plastic tape and a card of small red spots.

‘How many patients are you expecting? I know you said earlier, but I can’t recall the number,’ she said. ‘I’ll make up packs of what we need for each of them—that way I won’t be fishing in boxes later and will be less likely to make a mistake.’

She was here to work and she was making that abundantly clear, which was good as he could forget all the weirdness he’d been experiencing and get on with his job.

‘Five, or maybe six,’ he told her. ‘I’ve just heard that there’s one couple we’re not sure about. Apparently it took longer than expected to shut down her ovaries and then to begin the stimulation so she may not be ovulating yet.’

‘But surely she would be before we leave?’ Francesca asked, the slight frown he was beginning to recognise as one of concern puckering her forehead.

‘Yes, and although I do have other volunteers come out here to work, we like to have the same team on hand for the whole cycle of taking the eggs through to implantation, then confirmation of pregnancy.’

‘Or confirmation that it didn’t work that time,’ Fran said, remembering her three thwarted attempts.

‘That too,’ Steve said, his voice sombre. ‘It’s the main reason I like the team to stay until we know, one way or another. At least then we can talk to the couple about what they would like to do next. Whether they want to try again later—explain the options, talk it all through with them.’

He’d really thought about it, Fran thought, studying the man who seemed to understand just how devastating a failed IVF treatment could be. But couldn’t they still work with the sixth couple? Hadn’t Andy said...?

‘But rather than have them miss out, couldn’t we stay a little longer?’ she asked. ‘I’m sure Andy said that it could be longer—six weeks he might have mentioned. Wouldn’t that give us time?’

Fran realised she was probably pushing too hard—especially as a newcomer. But it seemed inconceivable to her that a woman would get this far into treatment then be told they couldn’t go ahead until Steve could return or someone else could come over.

Steve shook his head, but it wasn’t the headshake that bothered her, it was the look on his face—discouragement?

‘And if six weeks isn’t long enough?’ he said quietly.

‘Then we’d just have to stay on,’ Fran declared. ‘I know you must feel guilty about leaving your own practice longer than necessary, but a few days? Surely we can’t just ignore this couple as if they’re nothing more than names on a list.’

She waited for a reply, but all Steve did was look at her, studying her as if she was a stranger.

Had she let emotion seep into her words? She knew, better than anyone, that she had to separate her emotion from her work—that she had to be one hundred per cent focussed on whatever job she was doing—no room for emotion at all. But hadn’t her argument been rational?

‘Let’s wait and see,’ he finally replied, but he was still watching her warily.

Assessing her in some way...

Wondering if he’d made a serious mistake in asking for her...

He turned and walked away, leaving her with all the red markers in her hands, no doubt remembering she’d said she wanted to sort the separate colours into packs. Well, she did intend to do that. Keeping track of everything in the laboratory was of prime importance, and as far as she was concerned, the laboratory’s responsibility stretched across every sample taken. So she settled on a stool, marking syringes, specimen jars, test tubes, specimen dishes—everything—with coloured stickers or tape or even paint for things that wouldn’t hold the coloured tape.

But her fingers stilled, and she looked towards the door through which Steve Ransome had disappeared.

Was it because he thought as she did about fertility treatments, or because he obviously cared so much about his patients that she found him attractive?

She considered the word. Certainly he was tall and well built, with dark hair, and eyes set deep beneath thick black brows. Nice enough nose, good chin...

But carelessly dressed, unshaven—scruffy!

Scruffily attractive?

Work, she reminded herself.

Five couples, five colours—no, she’d do six. Mr and Mrs Number Six were going to get just as good treatment as the others. Red, green, blue, purple, yellow and brown—she never used black as somewhere along the chain someone might use a black pen to write a note on a sample and confuse things. From this point on she usually thought of the couples in colours—Mr and Mrs Yellow’s egg might be dividing beautifully, Mr Green’s sperm was very healthy.

It made sense, especially in a foreign country where the names might be difficult to pronounce, and it kept things clear in her mind. A psychologist would tell her she did it to prevent herself bonding too closely with the couples and that was probably true as well, but her main function was to run the lab efficiently so every couple had the best chance of success. She packaged up what would be needed for each coloured couple, turning her mind now to all the questions she hadn’t asked Steve.

Normal questions, like did they add a little serum from the mother’s blood to the media in which they’d place the egg, and was serum extracted from the blood on site or at the hospital? It was a job she could do and she had a feeling adaptability was an essential attribute when working here, but was this lab purely for the fertilisation and maturation process or was it multi-purpose?

She finished her packages, two for each colour, one for use by the nurses and doctor interacting with the couples, and one for lab use, and went in search of Steve, wandering around the little clinic first, checking the procedure room, the ultrasound machine Steve would use to measure the size of the women’s follicles to see if an egg was ready for collection, then use again to guide him when collecting them.

He’d lamented not having a laparoscope and perhaps when she returned home she could find an organisation willing to donate one.

‘Were you looking for me?’

He was so close behind her that when she spun around she all but fell against him, needing to put her hand on his chest to steady herself.

Something sparked in Steve’s eyes but she was too concerned with her own reactions to be thinking of his. The long-dormant embers of desire that an earlier smile had brought back to life flared yet again.

With nothing more than an accidental touch?

He mustn’t guess!

That was her first thought.

So cover up!

That was her second.

Although it was far too late. They’d stood, her hand against his chest, for far too long, the tension she could feel in her body matched by what she felt in his—something arcing through the air between them—pulsing, electric.

She stepped back, sure she must be losing her mind that such fantasy could flash through it.

Talk work!

‘I was thinking I could probably find an organisation or service club back home that could donate a laparoscope,’ she said, backing off as far as the doorjamb would allow.

‘It would come in handy, especially as a diagnostic tool,’ he said, ice cool for all she’d seen something flicker in his eyes, and felt the tension—sure she’d felt an accelerated pulse. ‘But since I started coming here, I’ve become adept at removing eggs with the ultrasound to guide me.’

‘Imagine going back to the days when women needed an operation to remove them, sometimes in the middle of the night, because ovulation wasn’t timed as well as it is today.’

This was good, carrying on a normal conversation with him for all the sudden heat and awareness flaring inside her.

‘There are some funny stories of those days,’ he said, smiling at her, although he seemed slightly surprised that she knew the history of IVF.

But, then, he didn’t know her history.

He didn’t know anything about her, which made her feel just a little sad as she walked with him across the courtyard towards their quarters.

‘So, if you’ve seen enough, how about I take you for a quick drive around the town and we grab something to eat down on the foreshore? There’s a great French restaurant on the front that most of the visiting staff use as a home away from home.’

‘But Zoe said that monster barbecue is yours—that you cook?’

He grinned at her, alerting all the bits she’d just damped down.

‘You make it sound somehow shameful,’ he protested. ‘I enjoy cooking—well, barbecuing—and patients bring us food so I feel obliged to cook it. Some of them have so little, yet they give whatever they can. But tonight there’s no free gift so we might as well eat out.’

He hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘You probably want to shower and change before we go. We’ll leave in an hour? Is that okay with you?’

‘I won’t need an hour to shower and change,’ she said. ‘Embryologists still get called out at night from time to time, so I’ve retained my get up and go skills.’

He smiled again, something she was beginning to wish he wouldn’t do because being attracted to a man she’d only just met was ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as reacting to something as simple as a smile.

‘Ah, but in our case, remember, we share the bathroom, and after a morning wrestling with a pelican I, too, need to use it.’

‘A pelican?’

‘I’ll tell you later,’ he said, and for some obscure reason it sounded like a special promise.

‘So the shower? You’ll use it first?’ he prompted, before adding with a teasing grin, ‘Unless, of course, we shower together.’

She didn’t blush—she hadn’t, even when she was young—but she knew if she was a blushing type she’d have been ruby red. Not that she could let him guess that reaction.

‘And wouldn’t the other staff view that as unprofessional behaviour?’ she asked, hoping she sounded far cooler than she felt.

‘Maybe they wouldn’t know,’ he replied, the teasing note lingering in his voice. ‘They don’t live in, you know.’

He wasn’t serious, she was one hundred per cent sure of that, yet there’d been an undertone in his voice that unsettled her even more than she was already unsettled.

An undertone she didn’t want to think about.

Except the conversation did suggest that he had felt whatever it was that had arced between them...

‘I just want to check something back at the lab,’ she said, turning on the spot and hurrying away, calling over her shoulder, ‘so you can have first shower.’

She was being ridiculous.

As if he’d be interested in her.

It was his way. Teasing and maybe a bit flirtatious—laid-back like the islanders—he was that kind of man.

Could she flirt back?

The idea excited her but deep down she knew she couldn’t play that game. She’d never been able to flirt.

Oh, for Pete’s sake, what was she doing, standing in this makeshift lab having a mental conversation with herself about flirting!

CHAPTER TWO

SHE STALKED BACK to the little apartment and shut herself in the bedroom where she stared at her ‘casual’ clothes and realised just how different the concept of ‘casual’ was here in the islands. Thinking of photographs she’d seen of Pacific islands, she’d thrown in one long, silky shift, not as voluminous as the muumuus all the women seemed to wear, but at least it would look more relaxed than slacks. It was pretty, too, a mix of blue and green in colour, a gift from a friend who’d claimed she’d bought it for herself before she realised the colours didn’t suit her.

It was still unworn because it was then that Fran had found out about Nigel and Clarissa—such a cliché that had been! Coming home from work early because she wasn’t feeling well! Desperately hoping it was a sign that she was pregnant—the test kit in her handbag—and Clarissa in her bed!

To make it a thousand times worse, the test strip had been, like all the others, negative...

So the lovely new shift had been inevitably tied to that devastating day and had been consigned to the back of her wardrobe.

At least now she could laugh about it—almost!

‘Bathroom’s free!’

Damnation! Even the man’s voice was unnerving her. But as long as he didn’t realise the effect he was having on her, it wouldn’t matter, would it?

She had a shower and pulled on the dress, brushed her hair and turned to the mirror so she could twist it into a neat knot on the top of her head, but upswept hair didn’t go with the neckline of the dress and she let her hair fall so it brushed her shoulders and hung softly about her face.

Yes, it went with the dress this way, but was the woman in the mirror really her? And if not, was she being someone else because she was going out to dinner with an attractive man?

An attractive stranger, she reminded herself.

The questions racing through her mind left her as nervous and uncertain as a teenager on her first date, and it was that thought which brought a return to sanity.

It was not a date, she was not a teenager. Steve was a colleague, nothing more. She swept the brush through her hair again, hauling it back, but the restraining rubber band she’d been going to use to hold it while she twisted it into a knot had slipped from her fingers and as she bent forward, searching the floor for it, she heard a knock on the far bathroom door and heard Steve’s voice.

‘Hour’s up,’ he said, and although she was fairly certain he was teasing and not desperate to get going, she opened the door, her hair still held up in her hands.

‘Lost the band,’ she explained, ‘but I’ve more in my luggage. Won’t be a minute.’

‘Leave your hair down—you’re in the islands,’ he said. ‘The expression “hang loose” belongs in Hawaii rather than Vanuatu, but it’s just as pertinent here. Everything’s fluid—time in particular—and once you get used to the fact that a ten o’clock appointment might arrive at eleven-thirty you’ll be surprised how relaxed you become.’

The idea of an appointment being more than an hour late horrified her, but maybe she could get used to it.

Maybe.

She’d think about that later. In the meantime...

‘And this has what to do with my hair?’

‘Let it hang loose,’ he suggested, producing the gentle smile that melted her bones. ‘Let it hang loose and we’ll find a flower to put behind your ear.’

There was a longish pause, during which she actually let go of her hair, running her fingers through it so it fell without tangles, wanting to tell him she wasn’t a flower behind the ear kind of person, but before she could say anything he spoke again.

‘Of course it will be up to you to decide which ear,’ he said, leaving Fran so bemused she fled to her bedroom, muttering something about fetching her handbag while her mind searched for the source of the little ping it had given when he’d spoken of flowers and ears.

It did mean something, but in her befuddled state she had no idea what. She’d just have to hope they didn’t find a flower so she wouldn’t have to make a fool of herself doing the wrong thing.

* * *

She was stunning.

Steve watched her beat a hasty retreat into her bedroom, the long, silky dress clinging to the curves of her body, her hair, darkish but shot with light, bouncing on her shoulders.

This was the second time he’d seen her in the bathroom doorway with a brush in her hand, yet this time...

Maybe it was the dress. This time, with her arms raised to hold her hair, she’d reminded him of a painting he’d once seen, or a statue, something of spectacular beauty that had stuck in his mind, yet she seemed totally unaware of her allure.

Which made her all the more attractive...

There had to be at least a dozen reasons why he shouldn’t get involved with this woman. At the top of the list was the probability that she wasn’t interested in him, then the fact that they worked together, and he wasn’t in the market for a serious relationship just yet, and he was fairly certain she was a serious relationship kind of person.

Although...

Experience told him that it was rare to be drawn to a woman who wasn’t interested in him—attraction as strong as he was feeling was almost always mutual and although Francesca Hawthorne had given no hint of interest in him, he could put that down to the fact that women were more reluctant to reveal how they felt, as if being physically attracted to a man was somehow shameful.

Particularly, he guessed, women like Francesca.

Or was he kidding himself?

There was only one way to find out. He headed into the garden in search of a flower...

‘Which ear?’ he asked when he returned, brandishing the bright red hibiscus in front of Francesca.

‘What do you mean, which ear?’ she demanded, causing him to wonder if she would be bossy in bed?

The thought was so irrelevant—so irrational—he shocked even himself, yet he couldn’t help a surge of anticipation as well.

‘Availability,’ he explained, coming closer to her, breathing in the scent of woman beneath a light, flowery fragrance that might be nothing more than hair shampoo. ‘It’s an age-old custom—right ear for available women, left ear if you’re taken. Left because it’s closer to the heart, and in truth it’s probably a tourist legend, not a local custom at all.’

He was too close. Fran’s nerves were skirmishing with her brain, urging her to move closer, while her brain yelled for restraint.

Restraint!

It was practically a byword in her life, preached by her mother, confirmed by her husband, restraint in everything.

Not that her ex-husband had shown any restraint when it came to Clarissa...

Did that explain this sudden urge to fling it all away? To move out of the confining bounds of the life she’d always led? To forget the stupid guilt she’d felt when her father had left her and her mother, and the restraint she’d imposed on herself since that day.

Don’t rock the boat had become her motto.

Foolishly?

‘Definitely not taken,’ she muttered, disturbed as much by the memories and the fight within her as the closeness of the attractive man.

‘Good,’ he said quietly as he slid the flower’s delicate stem behind her right ear, letting his fingers brush against her jaw as he withdrew his hand, his eyes holding hers, sending messages she didn’t want to understand.

Or didn’t want to acknowledge?

‘Now, should we drive or walk? It’s up to you. The walk down is beautiful because you look out over the town and the sea, but coming back up the hill isn’t fun if you’re tired after your flight.’

Fran took his words as a challenge. Tired after her flight indeed!

‘I hope I’m not so feeble I can’t manage a flight and a walk up a hill all in one day,’ she retorted, trying in vain to remember just how high the hill they’d driven up earlier might be.

Ha! So she’s got some spirit, this sophisticated beauty, Steve thought, though all he said was, ‘That’s great.’

They set off, up past the hospital, along the ridge that looked out over a peaceful lagoon with small islands dotted about it.

‘I love this view,’ he said. ‘You’re looking down at the centre of Port Vila, and out over a few of the smaller islands. Some of the other islands in the group are much larger than this one, but Vila, or Port Vila, the proper name, is the capital.’

He continued his tourist guide talk as they walked, pointing out the smart parliament building, telling her of the cyclone that had hit just east of the town a few years back, and the earthquakes the island group had suffered recently.

‘Yet people still live here—they rebuild and life goes on?’

She turned towards him as she spoke, obviously intrigued.

‘It is their home,’ he reminded her, and she nodded.

‘Of course it is.’

‘And your home? Has it always been in Sydney?’

Normal, getting to know you talk, yet it felt more than that. Something inside him wanted to know more of this woman who’d come into his life.

‘Always Sydney,’ she replied.

They were heading downhill now, traffic thickening on the road as they came closer to the waterfront.

‘And you?’ she asked, moving closer to him as they passed a group of riotous holiday makers.

‘Sydney, then a little town on the coast, Wetherby, then Sydney again. It’s complicated.’

She smiled at him.

‘Like the pelican?’ she teased. ‘Seems you’ll have a lot to tell me over dinner.’

Was she interested or just being polite?

Not that it mattered. He might be attracted to this woman but everything about her told him she wasn’t a candidate for a mutually enjoyable affair and anything more than that was still a little way down his ‘to-do’ list.

Not far down but still...

He returned to tour guide mode, pointing out various buildings, and soon they were down at the waterfront, and she stopped, looking out over the shining water.

‘It’s a beautiful setting for a town, isn’t it?’

‘It is indeed,’ he agreed. ‘It’s one of the reasons I never mind coming back here.’

‘The people being another?’ she said, and he turned towards her and smiled.

‘Of course!’

He led the way along the boardwalk built out over the water’s edge towards the restaurant in a quieter part of the harbour. But a cry made them both turn. A group of Japanese tourists was talking excitedly and pointing down into the water, crowding so closely to the edge they were in danger of falling in.

Steve ran back, Fran following more slowly, arriving in time to catch Steve’s shirt as he threw it off and stepped out of his sandals, before diving into the inky depths beneath them.

‘Ambulance!’ he yelled when he resurfaced, before diving back down out of sight.

Fran turned to one of the locals who’d joined the group, and said, ‘Ambulance?’

He nodded, holding up his cell phone to show he was already on it.

Which left Fran free to push back the excited onlookers and beckon the burly local who’d phoned the ambulance to come and join her.

Steve’s head reappeared, a very dark head beside it.

‘If you can lean over, I think I can pass him up.’

The breathless words weren’t quite as clear as they might have been, but Fran understood and she and the local man lay down so they could lean forward towards the water.

With what seemed like superhuman strength, Steve thrust the slight form of a young man upwards, to be grabbed by the stranger next to Fran, then Fran herself.

Together they hauled him up, with a couple from the tourist party helping to lift him clear. Fran waved the crowd away again and rested their patient in the recovery position, while Steve swam towards some steps fifty yards away.

Fran cleared the young man’s airway and felt for a pulse. Not even a faint one!

Rolling him onto his back, she pinched his nose and gave five quick breaths, then changed position to begin chest compressions.

Steve arrived as she reached the count of thirty, so she let him take over the compressions while she counted and did the breaths. The ambulance siren was growing louder and louder as it neared them but they kept pumping and breathing until, finally, the young man gave a convulsive jerk, and Steve rolled him back into the recovery position before he brought up what seemed like a gallon of sea water.

He was breathing on his own, though still coughing and spluttering, when the ambos arrived to take over.

Fran and Steve stood together as the lad was strapped onto a gurney and loaded into the ambulance, and it was only when his shorts brushed against her that she realised he was still wet.

And somewhere in the chaos she’d lost his shirt.

Fortunately a backpacker appeared, holding the shirt and Steve’s sandals.

‘You two made a good team,’ he said. ‘No panic and straight into action. Done it before?’

Steve shook his head.

‘Instinct,’ he explained.

‘And a bit of medical knowledge,’ Fran added, feeling unaccountably pleased by the young man’s words.

After handing over the shirt and sandals, the backpacker offered Steve a pair of board shorts.

‘Might not be your style, mate, but better dry than wet,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You can keep them. I’m heading home and I could use a bit more space in my backpack.’

Obviously pleased by the offer, Steve stripped off his wet shorts, revealing a pair of lurid boxer shorts.

‘Staff joke,’ he explained as he pulled the dry shorts over them, then finished dressing with his shirt and sandals.

He turned to Fran, his arms out held.

‘So, teammate, I might not be quite the picture of sartorial excellence you expected to be dining with, but will I do?’

‘Definitely!’ she said, then wondered why she felt there’d been a double meaning in her answer.

They finished the walk to the restaurant in companionable silence as if their brief response to the young man’s drowning had somehow drawn them together.

‘This is wonderful,’ she said, as the waiter seated them at an outside table. ‘And across there?’

She pointed to a small island with a row of thatched huts along the water’s edge.

What she’d really wanted to know was how the young man might be faring, but common sense told her to leave that little interlude alone and not to make too much of it.

‘One of many resorts,’ he explained. ‘Vanuatu’s a tourist destination now. But that island over there, tiny as it is, has been settled for a long time. One of the colonial governors had a house there, and bits of it remain.’

‘And it’s only accessed by boat?’

Steve nodded. ‘Look, the little boat is crossing now. It’s about a five-minute trip but it does make that resort seem a bit special.’

A waiter interrupted them with menus and offers of drinks.

‘Light beer for me,’ Steve said. ‘Fran?’

‘I’d like a white wine, just a glass,’ she told the waiter, who then rattled off a list of choices.

‘Pinot Gris,’ she said, getting lost after that in the list. And by the time their drinks arrived, they’d settled on their meals—steak for Steve and swordfish for Fran.

‘Cheers,’ he said, lifting his glass. ‘And here’s to a pleasant stay for you in Vanuatu. Hopefully you won’t be called upon to save any more lives, although I must say you handled the situation enormously well.’

‘Anyone would have done the same,’ she said, ever so casually, although the compliment pleased her.

She touched her glass to his bottle, and echoed his ‘Cheers’ then took a sip of the wine, and nodded appreciation.

It was all Fran could do not to gulp at the wine.

Somehow, it seemed, the simple act of working together to save the young man had formed a bond between them.

Or maybe that was just her imagination! Running riot because the walk to the restaurant had set her nerves on fire?

The walk had certainly been fascinating, Steve pointing out special places, telling stories of the early European settlement, but it had been his presence—the nearness of him as they’d walked side by side—that had unsettled nerves she’d forgotten she had.

Oh, she’d been out with other men since her divorce, but none of them had made something—excitement—thrum along her nerves.

Maybe there was something in the richly perfumed tropical air—a drug of some kind—that heightened all the senses.

Or maybe seeing his broad, tanned chest, water nestling among the sparse hairs on his sternum, had stirred long-forgotten lust!

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.