Rescued by the single mom

As a nurse and single mom, Izzy Halliday has her hands full. The last thing she needs is the distraction of a man—even one as irresistible as new hospital director Nicholas Macpherson!

Former army doc Mac has come to Wetherby to heal his soul—but the sparks flying between him and stunning redhead Izzy aren’t bringing him much peace! Mac is in search of a quiet life, but time with Izzy and her daughter soon teaches him the unexpected joys of a chaotic family life...

‘What’s the problem?’

‘Well, at the risk of sounding embarrassingly ridiculous, I’d like you to understand it’s just dinner...not a date.’

Mac’s eyes twinkled—and her stomach churned.

‘I don’t date, you see,’ Izzy added, hoping to stop the churning with practicality. ‘Well, not at the moment.’

‘So dinner...not a date. That’s okay.’

The smile playing around his words only added to the stomach-churning!

She sighed again, shrugged, and finally said, ‘I can’t be late home.’

And if he thought she hadn’t noticed the satisfied expression on his face as she finally agreed he was wrong.

Used to getting his own way, was he?

A sure sign this was a man to be wary of.

Dear Reader,

In this book you’ll meet Izzy, a foster child brought up by an extraordinary couple who have opened their home and their hearts to waifs and strays, fostering many children over a long period of time.

The house is quiet now, the children all grown up, though Izzy remains living in The Old Nunnery with her foster parents and daughter Nikki. But because of the love they received from their foster parents, Hallie and Pop Halliday, the children are all close, and in the next three books you’ll meet more of them—Lila, Stephen and Marty—and follow their lives and their loves as they meet the people who will help them create their own families.

These stories—Lila’s in particular—have been in my head for a long time, and somehow this seemed the right time to tell them. I hope you enjoy meeting ‘the Halliday Mob’, as they were always known around town, and following their lives as they seek families of their very own.

Meredith Webber

A Forever Family for the Army Doc

Meredith Webber

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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!

Books by Meredith Webber

Mills & Boon Medical Romance

Wildfire Island Docs

The Man She Could Never Forget

A Sheikh to Capture Her Heart

Date with a Surgeon Prince

The Accidental Daddy

The Sheikh Doctor’s Bride

The One Man to Heal Her

Visit the Author Profile page

at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

When my sister and brother-in-law discovered they were unable to have children they began adopting babies and fostering older children, eventually adopting six of them. The family they blended together became very special—not only to each other but to our wider family—and brought fun and joy and laughter to all our lives. This particular sister has been my greatest support as a writer, and the first reader of all my books, so to Jenny, and all her family, this book and those that follow it are for you.

Praise for Meredith Webber

‘The romance is emotional, passionate, and does not appear to be forced as everything happens gradually and naturally. The author’s fans and everyone who loves Sheikh romance are gonna love this one.’

—Harlequin Junkie on

The Sheikh Doctor’s Bride

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Praise

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IZZY PACED HERSELF on the run along the coastal path, which, right now, bordered a small sheltered beach. Ahead, the path rose high over headland cliffs, and further on it wound through coastal scrub. A truly beautiful part of the world—the place she loved, the place she belonged.

She’d been working nights, so this early-morning run was in the nature of a reward. A little treat before returning to her real world—making sure Nikki was ready for the start of the new term, catching up with her parents to get the latest family news, walking the dogs across the lush paddocks around the house—relaxing!

Nikki!

Her daughter would be thirteen next month—thirteen going on thirty—sensible, loving, doing well at school. So why was there always a little knot of worry tucked beneath Izzy’s sternum where Nikki was concerned?

Izzy stopped—well, jogged on the spot—peering down onto the beach where an unidentifiable lump of something lay just beyond the lapping water.

Too big to be a body, she told the lurch in her stomach, but best she check.

Scrambling down over lumpy rocks from the path to the sandy beach, she caught a glimpse of movement up ahead.

Someone else heading towards the unknown object?

Or someone leaving the—

No! It was definitely too big for a body; besides, the movement had now resolved into a person, tall, dark-haired—lots of dark hair—definitely heading for the lump.

Izzy was the first to reach what was now apparent as a beached mammal, and knelt beside it, speaking quietly, touching it gently—a baby whale? Surely it must be because dolphins were a different shape, sleeker, their faces pointed, beaked...

Although the sun was not yet high in the sky, the animal’s skin was hot. Izzy ripped off her T-shirt, dunked it in the waves and spread it over the animal’s back.

‘Good idea,’ a deep voice said. ‘I’ve a towel in my pack, I’ll get that.’

He’d turned and was gone before Izzy could get a good look at him, nothing but an impression of a very unkempt man with a lot of facial hair and plenty more in a tangled mess all over his head.

‘Bring something like a bottle or a cup if you’ve got one, and clean water, too.’

She yelled the order after him then returned to studying the animal, trying to remember things she’d learned when she and Nikki had visited Sea World some years ago.

Sea mammals usually stranded themselves on their side.

Tick!

This one certainly had.

The stranger returned.

‘Porpoise,’ he said in an authoritative voice.

‘You think? I thought maybe baby whale.’

A shout of laughter made her look up, and up, to the tousled-haired man standing above her.

‘Whale calves are three times the size of this fellow and weigh a ton or more.’

‘Know-it-all,’ Izzy muttered to herself, but as the man had dunked his towel in the water and was efficiently covering the animal she could hardly keep arguing with him.

And why was she arguing?

Did it matter?

‘I think the first thing is to get it onto its belly.’

Bit late now to tell him she’d already thought of that.

‘But the fresh water?’

Ha, something she knew that he didn’t!

Deep inside she wondered at the petty thoughts flashing through her head but hopefully he wouldn’t have noticed the momentary pause before she answered.

‘Just pour a little over each eye, like where he’d have an eyebrow, so it will run down. I seem to remember you need to keep the eyes moist but—’

‘The salt gets encrusted on them if you use sea water,’ he finished for her, smiling, so white teeth flashed in the mess of dark hair.

And something gave a tiny tug in the pit of Izzy’s stomach...

No! Not that! No way!

Carefully he poured water to a point above first one eye, then the other, allowing the water to run down over both eyes.

‘I’m Mac,’ he said, screwing the lid back on the bottle to preserve the rest of the water.

‘Izzy,’ Izzy replied, lifting her hand towards his so they shook above the body of what was apparently a porpoise. ‘We’ll have to roll him this way, towards the sea, to get him on his belly and I think if we dig a hole along this side, he might turn easily.’

‘You’ve done this before?’ Mac asked, joining Izzy on the seaward side of the animal, and digging into the sand.

‘Nope, but I once went to a lecture about beached mammals. Big ones you shouldn’t roll because you can break their ribs, and, oh, you should keep the tail and flippers and this fin on the back wet because they cool themselves through these thinner bits of their body.’

Mac, who’d brought a billycan as well as the bottle of water, began filling it and tipping it carefully onto the fins and tail while Izzy kept digging, focused on what she was doing so the tremor of—what? Awareness?—that tickled through her body when Mac settled beside her again, scraping sand away, almost passed unnoticed.

Almost!

What malign fate had brought him to this precise spot at this exact moment in time? Mac wondered as he knelt far too close to the half-naked woman and pulled sand away from the stranded animal.

A three-week trek down the coast path had been an opportunity to clear his head and prepare himself for the new job that lay ahead—literally ahead, for this particular section of the coastal path ended at Wetherby, not far from Wetherby District Hospital, currently awaiting its new director.

‘Director’ was a glorified title when the hospital, from what he’d learned, only boasted two doctors, with a private practice of four GPs in support—

‘I think he’s tilting this way.’

He glanced towards the speaker, who was completely oblivious to the effect she was having on his libido. She was kind of golden—like he imagined a sprite might be. She had golden skin, reddish-gold hair pulled ruthlessly back into a knot at the back of her head, but already escaping its confinement with damp little corkscrew curls flopping around her face. And golden eyes—well, probably brown, but with golden glints in them...

Better to think of the whole of her than individual bits, like the soft breasts, encased in a barely-there bikini top that brushed his arm as they dug—

He stood up, too aggravated by his wayward thoughts—not to mention the apparent return of his libido—to remain beside her.

‘I’ll lift the towel and shirt off it so we can replace them when it rolls,’ he said, and congratulated himself on sounding practical and efficient.

‘Good idea,’ the sprite said, stopping her digging and scraping for a moment to smile up at him.

Oh, for Pete’s sake, she had a dimple...

Fortunately for his sanity, the porpoise rolled into the hole they’d dug and now lay, snug on its belly, the rising tide sending wavelets splashing onto it.

The sprite had leapt away just in time, but she’d caught the full brunt of the splash, so water and sand were now splattered across her skin as she danced up and down in delight, clapping her hands and telling the uncaring animal how clever he was.

‘Why do you assume it’s a male?’ Mac demanded, his reaction to the sight of her capering happiness making the words come out grouchier than he’d intended.

Golden eyes lifted to his.

‘Honestly,’ she said, a smile barely hidden on her lips, ‘do you think a girl porpoise would be stupid enough to get into a fix like this?’

‘Hmmph!’

He couldn’t recall ever making a ‘hmmph’ noise before but that was definitely how it came out, but it was time to be practical, not argue over male versus female in the stupidity stakes. He’d certainly been the stupid one in his marriage, assuming it had meant things like love and fidelity on both sides...

Annoyed by the thought, he concentrated on the porpoise.

‘What do we do next?’

Izzy studied the still stranded animal. At least it was right way up now, but was she keeping her eyes on it, so she didn’t have to look at the man—Mac?

She’d been so delighted when their plan had worked, she’d looked up at him to share the success—straight into the bluest eyes she had ever seen. Right there, deep in the tangled mess of dark hair, was a pair of truly breathtaking blue eyes. She was pretty sure her heart hadn’t stood still, even for an instant, but it sure had seemed like it...

Think about the porpoise!

‘Maybe if we dig a trench, kind of extending our hole towards the sea, he might be able to slide forward as the tide rises.’

‘Or perhaps we should get help,’ the man with the blue eyes said, giving the impression he was done with the animal rescue business.

Or maybe he was just being practical.

‘We’re three kilometres from town and I don’t have a phone—do you?’

He looked put out as he shook his head, as if admitting he didn’t have a phone was some kind of weakness, but who in their right mind would want to carry a phone on a wilderness walk? There were small fishing and holiday villages along the route and anyone walking it was obliged to report each day’s destination so a search could be mounted if the walker didn’t turn up. And at this time of the year there’d be other people on the path—

She looked up towards it—hopefully...

No people right now.

‘So, it’s up to us,’ she said, hoping he’d stay so there’d be an ‘us’. ‘I don’t suppose you’re carrying a sleeping bag?’

‘A sleeping bag?’

He seemed confused so she added quickly, ‘Thing you sleep in—the nights have been cool, I thought you might—’

‘I do know what a sleeping bag is,’ he growled, ‘I just can’t see why you’re asking.’

Grouchy, huh?

‘For a sling,’ she explained, although the bemusement on his face suggested he still wasn’t with her. ‘Can you get it?’ she asked, very politely, and smiling as she spoke because she needed this man’s help and didn’t want to upset him any more than she already had.

‘We’ll try to slip it under him,’ she explained. ‘We probably should have done it before he rolled but it’s too late now, so we’ll just have to build a little pool for him. I don’t think we could lift him with the sleeping bag, but once the water rises and takes some of the weight, we’ll be able to guide him into deeper water.’

‘You want me to put my sleeping bag into the water for this animal?’

The disbelief in his voice stopped all thoughts of politeness.

‘Oh, stop complaining and go get it. This part of the track ends at Wetherby. I’ll buy you a new sleeping bag there.’

He didn’t move for a moment, simply looking at her and shaking his head, as if she, not the stranded porpoise, was the problem.

Muttering something under his breath—something that could have been about bossy women—he turned and strode away, long, strong legs eating up the distance back to the track.

Izzy realised she was staring after him, shook her head in turn, and returned to digging with renewed determination.

Better by far than thinking of the blue eyes or strong legs or the fact that the rest of him, now his T-shirt was wet and clung to a very well-developed chest, wasn’t too bad either.

Aware that he was behaving like a loutish imbecile, Mac returned to his already diminished pack and pulled out his sleeping bag, unrolling and unzipping it so it was ready when he reached the water.

Her idea was a good one—he should have thought of it himself.

Was he annoyed because he hadn’t?

Or because of his inexplicable awareness of the woman who had?

Wasn’t he done with that kind of attraction?

Not with women in general—he had several good women friends, some of whom, from time to time, he had taken to bed.

Until that had become awkward—more than physical attraction creeping in—though not on his side.

And the one thing he’d learned from his marriage was that physical attraction was dangerous. It messed with a man’s head, leading him to make rash decisions.

And wasn’t his head holding enough mess already? The Iraq posting, then finding out about his wife and her physical attractions...

Ex-wife!

He shook his head to free it of the past and studied the animal as he approached, determined to take control of this situation.

Wasn’t that what ED specialists did?

‘I’m deepening the hole—not easy because the sand just washes back in with the next wave but I think if we persist we can do it,’ the woman, Izzy, said. ‘Do you mind wetting his eyes again?’

So much for taking charge!

But as the tide rose and the water in their porpoise paddling pool grew deeper, he forgot about messy heads and wars and women, determined now to get this creature back into the deeper water where it belonged. He dug until his arms ached, pushing the sleeping bag beneath the heavy body, reaching for Izzy’s fingers, grasping towards his from the other side.

By the time the water in the hole was knee deep they had their sleeping bag sling in place, each holding one side, lifting as the waves came in and easing the docile creature inch by inch into deeper water.

‘Look, he’s floating now,’ Izzy said, and Mac was surprised to realise the weight had gone from their sling.

‘You’re right,’ he said, feeling a surge of relief for the animal. ‘But just keep the bag underneath him. We need to roll him back and forth so he gets the feel of his body moving in the water. Well, I think that’s the idea. I just know when you catch, tag, and release a big fish, you have to ease it back and forth in the water until it swims away.’

He pushed at the huge body and Izzy pushed back, the pair of them moving into deeper and deeper water until, with a splash of his tail, the rescued animal took off, diving beneath the surface and appearing, after an anxious few minutes, further out to sea.

‘He’s gone! We did it—we did it!’ Izzy yelled, leaping towards Mac and hugging him so the sloppy, wet sleeping bag she was still holding wrapped around him like a straitjacket and he sank beneath the waves.

But once untangled and in shallower water, he returned the hug, the success of their endeavour breaking the reserve of strangers.

He was beginning to enjoy the armful of woman and wet sleeping bag when Izzy eased away, hauling the sleeping bag out of the water and attempting to fold it.

‘I don’t usually hug str—’ she began, then frowned as if something far more important had entered her head.

‘Oh, I do hope he doesn’t come back,’ she said anxiously. ‘I hope the rest of the pod are somewhere out there looking for him and he can find them. Do you know that when a whole pod is beached, and rescued, they try to let them all go at once so they can look after each other?’

Well, that got us over the awkwardness of the ‘stranger hug’.

He’d have liked to reply, Not our problem, but now she’d mentioned it, he did feel a little anxious that the porpoise—their porpoise—would be all right.

Nonsense—he wasn’t even certain porpoises swam in pods, and probably neither was she. The job was done and he needed to resume his walk—without his sleeping bag and without drinking water.

Alone?

‘I don’t suppose you’d like to walk with me as far as Wetherby, or as far along the track as you’re going?’

She looked up at him and he noticed surprise in the gold-flecked eyes.

Noticed it because he’d felt it himself, even as he’d asked the question. Wasn’t he off women?

Taking a sabbatical from all the emotional demands of a male-female relationship?

Not that it mattered because she was already dismissing the idea.

‘Oh, no,’ she was saying—far too quickly, really. ‘I have to run. I’m just off nights and I’ve got to check my daughter’s ready for school on Monday and my sister’s up from Sydney for the weekend, and I think my brother might be in town—’

‘Okay, okay!’ he said, holding up his hands in surrender, then he smiled at the embarrassment in her face, and added, ‘Although in future you might like to remember something my mother once told me. Never give more than one excuse. More than one and it sounds as if you’re making them up on the spot.’

‘I was not! It’s all true.’

Indignation coloured her cheeks and she turned to go, before swinging back to face him.

‘There’s a fresh water tap just a few hundred metres along the track; you can refill your bottle there.’

After which she really did go, practically sprinting away from him along the track—

For about twenty paces.

‘Oh, the sleeping bag,’ she said, pointing to the wet, red lump on the beach. ‘You can’t carry it wet, so hang it on a tree. I’ll be back this way in a day or two and collect it so it’s not littering the track, and if you tell me where you’ll be staying I’ll get you a new one.’

Izzy was only too aware that most of her parting conversation with the stranger had been a blather of words that barely made sense, but she did need to get back, or at least away from this stranger so she could sort out just what it was about him that disturbed her.

Had to be more than blue eyes and a hunky body—had to be!

‘I won’t be needing the sleeping bag.’

The shouted words were cool, uninterested, so she muttered a heartfelt, ‘Good,’ and turned away again, breaking stride only to yell belated thanks over her shoulder. Duty done, she took off again at a fast jog, hoping she looked efficient and professional, instead of desperate to get away.

By the time she slowed to cool down before reaching the car park, she’d decided that the silly connection she’d felt towards the man had been nothing more than the combined effects of night duty and gratitude that there had been someone to help her with the porpoise.

Which, hopefully, would not re-beach himself the moment they were out of sight!

* * *

Mac resumed his walk with a lighter pack.

But vague dissatisfaction disturbed the pleasure he’d been experiencing for the past three weeks. Maybe because his solitude had been broken by his interaction with the woman, and it had been the solitude he’d prized most. It was something that had been hard to come by in the army, even when his regiment had returned from overseas missions and he’d been working in the barracks.

Strange that it had been the togetherness of army life, the company of other wives and somewhat forced camaraderie, that had appealed to Lauren—right up to his first posting overseas.

‘But you’re a doctor, not a soldier,’ she’d protested, although she’d seen other medical friends sent abroad. ‘What will happen to me if you die?’

He could probably have handled it better than promising not to die, which he didn’t on his first mission. But by the second time he was posted to Afghanistan she’d stopped believing—stopped believing in him, and in their marriage—stopped believing in love, she told him later, while explaining that the excitement of an affair gave her a far bigger thrill than marriage could ever provide.

On top of the disaster that had been his second deployment, this news had simply numbed him, somehow removing personal emotion from his life. He knew this didn’t show, and he had continued to be a competent—probably more than competent—caring doctor, a cheerful companion in the officers’ mess and a dutiful son to both his parents and whichever spouses they happened to have in their lives at the time.

He’d always been reasonably sure that his parents’ divorce, when he was seven, hadn’t particularly affected him. He’d seen both regularly, lived with both at various times, got on well with his half-siblings, and had even helped them, at different times, when their particular set of parents had divorced. Walking the coastal path, he’d had time to reflect and had realised that perhaps it had been back then that he’d learned to shut his emotions away—tuck them into something like a memory box and get on with his life.

Had this shut him away, prevented him from seeing and understanding what had probably been Lauren’s very real fear that first time he’d been sent abroad?

She’d contacted him, Lauren, when she’d heard he was back this time—an email to which he hadn’t replied.

He’d wondered if the thrills she’d spoken of had palled, but found he didn’t want to know—definitely didn’t want to find out. In fact, their brief courtship and three-year marriage seemed more like some fiction he’d read long ago than actual reality.

A dream—or maybe a nightmare...

Not wanting his thoughts to slide back into the past where there were memories far worse than that particular nightmare, he shut the lid on his memory box and turned his thoughts to what lay ahead.

Inevitably, to the golden girl—woman—who’d popped into his life like a genie from a bottle, then jogged right back out again.

She must live in Wetherby, he realised, but the seaside town and surrounding area had a population of close to ten thousand, probably double that in holiday time.

It was hardly likely they’d run into each other...

And he’d be far too busy getting used to his new position, getting to know his colleagues and learning his way around the hospital and town to be dallying with some golden sprite.

Besides which, she had a child to get ready for school so was probably married, although he had checked and she didn’t wear a ring.

Not that people did these days, not all the time, and there were plenty of couples who never married, and women, and men, too, he supposed, who had a child but weren’t necessarily in a relationship.

But she had a child, and even if she wasn’t partnered, he was reasonably certain that women with children would—and should—be looking for commitment, for security, in a relationship.

Not that he did relationships.

He was more into dallying, and since he’d been a single man again, the only dalliances he’d had were with women who felt as he did, women who were happy with a mutually enjoyable affair without any expectation of commitment on either side.

The path had wound its way to the top of a small rise and he halted, more to stop his rambling, idiotic thoughts than to look at the view.

But the view was worth looking at, the restless ocean stretching out to the horizon, blue and green in places, fringed with white where the surf curled before rolling up the beach.

Off the next headland he could see surfers sitting on their boards, waiting for the next good wave, and beyond that what must be the outskirts of the town.

Wetherby!

CHAPTER TWO

THE KITCHEN TABLE at the Halliday house could have seated twenty people quite comfortably, but Izzy and her sister Lila were under orders to set it for eight.

‘I thought it was just us—how did we get to eight?’ Izzy asked, as she obediently laid placemats while Lila added cutlery.

‘Uncle Marty’s coming and he’ll probably have a new girlfriend,’ Nikki, who was arranging a bowl of flowers for the centre of the table, volunteered.

‘But that’s you and me, two, and Lila, Hallie and Pop, five, then Marty and presumably his latest flirt, that’s seven.’

‘Plus the new doctor from the hospital. As chairman of the hospital board it seemed only right I get to know him,’ the woman her foster children all called Hallie explained.

‘She’s matchmaking again,’ Lila whispered to Izzy.

‘Hopefully for you, not me,’ Izzy retorted.

‘But Lila doesn’t live here,’ Nikki pointed out. ‘And, anyway, Mum, he might be The One.’

Izzy groaned. Thirteen-year-olds—nearly thirteen-year-olds—shouldn’t be acting as marriage managers for their mothers!

‘Now, don’t start that again. I am perfectly happy with my single state, besides which he’s the new doc and I’ll be working with him, and while some people seem to manage to combine their work and social lives, it’s always been a disaster for me.’

‘It was only a disaster once,’ Hallie reminded her, ‘and that was probably my fault. He seemed like such a nice man when the board interviewed him. How was I to know he had two ex-wives he didn’t happen to mention?’

‘Two ex-wives and a jealous lover who damned near shot our Izzy.’

They all turned towards the back door and chorused Marty’s name as he spoke. Nikki was first into his arms for a hug.

But Izzy hung back, shuddering at the memory of that ill-fated relationship, only looking up when Marty added, ‘Okay, I’m home and it’s great to see you all but just stand back, girls, because I found this bloke out in the garden, looking a little lost, and apparently he’s come for dinner. Hallie’s latest stray, I’d say, the new doc in town. Says his name’s Mac.’

Izzy could feel her face heating while her body went stiff with shock. A long drawn out no-o-o-o was screaming somewhere inside her, while her hitherto reliable heart was beating out a little tattoo that had more to do with how the stranger looked than who he was.

Clean-shaven, with his long shaggy hair trimmed and slicked neatly back, his blue eyes framed by dark arched brows, he was possibly the most attractive man she’d ever seen.

Any woman’s body would react to him, she told herself, glancing at Lila to see if she was similarly struck.

But, no, her beautiful, dark-haired, doe-eyed sister was shaking hands with the man called Mac and asking where he’d come from, where he’d trained, doctor-to-doctor questions.

Not that Mac had time to answer them, for Hallie had taken charge and was introducing him to the family.

‘Marty you’ve met—he doesn’t live here, just arrives from time to time, though usually not alone...’

Hallie frowned and looked around as if realising for the first time that Marty hadn’t brought a woman.

‘I took Cindy straight upstairs,’ he explained. ‘She wanted a shower before dinner, then I went out to see Pop in the shed and met Mac on the way back.’

‘Ah,’ Hallie said, nodding as if the world was now back in its rightful place. ‘So, Mac—you do like to be called Mac, don’t you? Isn’t that what you said at the interview?’

The poor bewildered man nodded, and before Hallie could go off on another tangent—something they were all only too used to—Marty stepped in.

‘Mac, the smallest of the women in the room is Nikki, and the redhead cowering in the corner is her mother, Izzy. It’s not your fault that the last hospital director had a mad ex-lover who tried to shoot Izzy.’

Marty waved his arm.

‘Come on over, Iz, and say hello to your new boss.’

‘We’ve already met,’ Izzy said bluntly, her anger at Marty for singling her out overcoming all her weird reactions to Mac.

‘And I’m Lila.’

Bless her! She’d read the tension in the room, had probably felt it emanating in waves from Izzy, and had stepped in to defuse things.

Now she was doing doctor talk again with the newcomer, smoothing over the earlier awkwardness and giving Izzy time to recover.

* * *

Mac tried to make sense of the place and people around him. He’d been directed to walk up the hill from the hospital and the only place on the hill was a big, old, stone-built building that looked as if it could house the hospital as well as all the staff.

He’d walked around it, wondering if the chairman of the hospital board might have a real house hidden somewhere behind it, and had ended up in a huge vegetable garden.

The man called Marty had rescued him, leading him into the old building through a cave-like back entrance and directly into a kitchen where, amidst what seemed like a dozen chattering women, stood his sprite. She had clothes on now, stretch jeans that hugged her legs and lower body and a diminutive top that showed a flash of golden skin at her waist when she moved.

Mrs Halliday he recognised, and the young girl with long golden-brown hair—okay, that was the daughter—while the real beauty of the room, the exotic dark-haired, black-eyed Lila, was finding it hard to hold his attention so his replies to her questions were vague and disjointed.

The sprite rescued him.

‘This is the man I was telling you about,’ she said to the room at large. ‘The man who helped me with the porpoise.’

After which she finally turned her attention to him.

‘Sorry about the chaos here tonight, Mac, but with—’

‘With your sister up from Sydney, and your brother might be home...yes, I know,’ he teased.

He saw the colour rise in her cheeks, but the flash of fire in her eyes suggested anger rather than embarrassment.

Bloody man! Izzy muttered inwardly. Now the whole family was looking at her.

Waiting for her famous temper to flare up?

No way! She would not react to this man’s teasing. Bad enough her body was reacting to his presence, sending messages along her nerves and excitement through her blood. If this kept up she’d have to leave—town, that is—given that a distracted nurse was no help to anyone.

But Nikki—school...

Pop saved her from total, and quite ridiculous, panic by appearing through the kitchen door with a long, and remarkably dangerous-looking spear in his hand.

It stopped both the conversation and the sizzle in her blood.

‘This’s the best I can do, Nik,’ he said, passing the lethal weapon to Izzy’s daughter. ‘I don’t know if the aboriginals in this area made ceremonial markings on their spears but old Dan at the caravan park will know. You can ask him, and he’ll show you what it needs.’

‘Put that away right now!’ Izzy ordered as Nikki began to caper around the room, flourishing the spear dangerously close to several humans.

Nikki disappeared, Hallie introduced Mac to Pop, she and Lila finished setting the table, and peace reigned, if only momentarily, in the Halliday kitchen.

Pop was explaining to Mac the project Nikki would be doing when school resumed, and why she needed a spear.

‘I’ve made so much stuff for so many kids over the years,’ he added. ‘Izzy, was it you who was the robot? That was probably my most ingenious design, although I did go through a lot of aluminium foil.’

Any minute now he was going to dig out the old photos and she’d be squirming with embarrassment all night!

‘Okay, dinner is ready.’

Hallie saved the day this time. She set the roasted leg of lamb on the table and handed Pop the carving knife and fork, Lila brought over dishes filled with crisply roasted potatoes and sticky baked pumpkin, while Izzy did her bit, taking the jugs of gravy from the warming drawer in the big oven and setting them on the table.

‘Right!’ Hallie said. ‘Guest of honour—that’s you, Mac—at the head of the table. Izzy, you’ll be working with him so you might as well get to know a bit about him. You sit on one side and Lila on the other, and no descriptions of operations of any sort, please, Lila. Pop, you sit next to Lila, and then Nikki, and on the other side Marty and Cindy, and I’ll sit at the end because—’

‘Because you have to get up and down to get things,’ the family chorused, and Izzy began to relax.

This was home, this was family, this was where she was safe, so who cared if her body found Mac whoever he was—did he have a last name?—attractive? Of course she’d felt attraction before—although not for quite a while, now she thought about it.

‘Are you going to sit?’

Heat crept up her neck and with her hair piled haphazardly on top of her head, the wretched man would see it! How was she to know he’d hold her chair for her?

She thumped down in the seat, too quickly for him to guide it into place, pulled it in herself and turned to offer a brusque thank you. She met the blue of his eyes and felt herself drowning.

This wasn’t attraction, this was madness.

‘So, why Wetherby?’

Lila saved her again, asking the question that had been in Izzy’s mind, only hers had been phrased more as ‘Why the hell Wetherby?’.

Now he was smiling at Lila—well, what man didn’t smile at Lila?—and the kind of dark voice she remembered from the beach was explaining in short, fairly innocuous sound bites: army doctor, Middle East on and off over the last few years—

‘—so when I decided to get out of the service I looked for somewhere green, and close to the surf, yet small enough to be peaceful.’

‘Well, it’s certainly that—I’m guessing a month here and you’ll be bored to tears,’ Cindy told him.

‘Hey, Cindy, this is my home!’ Marty protested.

‘And this is only the second time you’ve been here, Cindy, and then only for a night,’ Nikki pointed out.

‘Are all small-town people as defensive as Wetherbyans?’ Mac murmured to Izzy, who felt the heat of his body radiating towards her and the breath of his words brush against her skin so all she could do was look blankly at him.

‘Of course,’ Lila said briskly, and although she’d once again saved the day, she was also studying Izzy closely. Probably trying to work out what was happening.

As if I know, Izzy thought desperately, passing the potatoes to their guest, while Lila piled slices of meat from the platter Pop had filled onto Mac’s plate.

Mac took the offerings of vegetables as they arrived and passed them on, poured gravy on his meat, and when his hostess picked up her knife and fork, he began to eat.

He tried to make sense of this family—anything to forget the woman by his side and the effect she was having on him. But how big, blond, blue-eyed Marty could be related to the beautiful Lila, let alone the petite redhead by his side, was beyond him.

‘We’re foster kids.’

He wasn’t sure whether he was more surprised by Izzy speaking to him or the fact that she’d read his thoughts.

‘All of you?’

‘Oh, yes, and there’s heaps more of us. It was a nunnery, you see, and Pop bought it for a song when he and Hallie married, and they intended filling it with their own kids, but that didn’t happen so they went out and found the strays that careless parents leave behind, or kids whose parents died, in Lila’s case. And they gave us all unquestioning love, and stability, and the confidence to be anything we wanted to be. But more than that, they gave us the security of a home, a family.’

‘It’s true,’ Lila said, nodding from his other side.

‘And it’s been the best thing that happened in all of our lives,’ Marty put in, although Hallie was telling them to hush, it was nothing anyone else wouldn’t have done.

But for some reason Mac’s thoughts had stopped earlier in the conversation so although he’d heard the rest, and been impressed, the question that came out was, ‘A nunnery?’

How could these beautiful women be living in a nunnery? Except it wasn’t a nunnery, of course it wasn’t, it was just that his brain wasn’t working too well. There was nothing immodest about the sprite’s clothing, but from where he was sitting he could see the tops of the soft roundness of her breasts, and blood that should have been feeding his brain was elsewhere.

‘It was cheap,’ the man they all called Pop offered. ‘And not that hard to knock two or three of the little cells together into decent-sized bedrooms.’

‘You’re a carpenter? Builder?’

Pop smiled and shook his head.

‘Truckie—mainly long haul. I’ve taught all the kids to drive trucks.’

‘I’m learning now,’ Nikki announced, adding, rather to Mac’s relief, ‘Though only in the paddocks behind the house at the moment.’

The talk turned to the animals kept in the paddocks—did Mac ride? That was Nikki. Hallie mentioned the vegetable garden—‘Feel free to help yourself to any vegetable...we always have far too many!’—and with the simple, delicious meal, and the general chat, Mac found himself relaxing in the midst of this strange family.

‘You’ve family yourself, Mac?’ Pop asked.

‘Parents, of course,’ he said. ‘Though I don’t see much of them. The army, you know—you never know from one day to the next where you’ll be.’

He didn’t add that their regular divorces and remarriages had dulled any filial emotion he’d ever felt for them.

‘Married?’

This time the question came from the beautiful Lila and he didn’t miss the wink she sent to Izzy.

Best to get that sorted once and for all, and quickly.

‘Was once,’ he replied, forcing himself to speak normally, although what felt like a very unsubtle third degree had his temper rising.

‘And once was more than enough,’ he added, to underline the point.

He glanced at Izzy, who was blushing furiously, and realised the questions weren’t so much for him but to tease her.

Marty put a stop to it.

‘Enough!’ he said, directing the word at Lila. ‘Pop asked a normal, everyday question, but all you’re doing, Lila, is teasing Izzy.’

He turned to Mac.

‘Izzy had an unfortunate experience with a doctor we had here a few years ago and it’s become a bit of a family joke.’

The shrill tone of a mobile phone broke up the conversation, and it was Marty who pulled one from his pocket, glancing at it and moving away.

‘Work. I’ll probably have to go,’ he explained as he moved into a small room off the kitchen.

‘Marty’s a pilot on the rescue helicopter,’ Lila explained, as the whole family turned anxious eyes towards the small room.

He returned briskly, grabbing a jacket from the back of his chair.

‘Got to go! Cindy, you coming or staying? If you’re coming there’s no time to get your stuff.’

Cindy, too, pushed back her chair.

‘Coming,’ she said.

The pair had barely left the room when another mobile sounded, and, having been free of its tyranny for three weeks, it took Mac a moment to realise it was his.

He glanced at the message on the screen before he, too, stood up.

‘Looks like I’m starting work early. I’m sorry, Mrs Halliday. The meal, what I managed to eat of it, was wonderful.’

‘Wait, I’ll come with you,’ the sprite announced.

‘I know the way.’

He didn’t really snap, it just came out a bit sharp, images of the tops of her soft breasts still lingering in his head.

‘Sure, but you only arrived in town this morning so I doubt you know your way around the hospital. Hallie might have given you the basic tour, but if it’s an emergency—and it will be if Marty’s flying someone in—then you need the best help you can get, and that’s me.’

She paused, then added with a teasing smile, ‘So, lucky you!’

She couldn’t possibly have known what he was thinking—not possibly, but it was obvious she intended coming with him as she rushed around the table kissing Hallie, Pop, Nikki and Lila, before linking her arm through his and practically dragging him out the door.

Escaping?

It certainly seemed that way as she led him headlong down the hill to the small hospital.

‘But aren’t you just off night duty?’

Good, he’d not only remembered something she’d said this morning, but had also managed a question, so his brain must be back in gear.

‘Yes, but in case you didn’t notice there was a certain amount of conspiracy stuff going on around that table tonight.’

‘Conspiracy?’

He didn’t want to admit he’d been more than slightly distracted by his neighbour at the table.

‘Never mind,’ Izzy said. ‘Silly family stuff! I was just glad to get away.’

She moved a little further from him now she had him out of the house.

Sitting next to him, conscious of every movement of his body, had been torture, especially since she’d noticed the silky hairs on his forearms.

Dark, silky hairs...

Mesmerising dark silky hairs...

She shook her head, glad of the darkness so he didn’t see her shaking loose her thoughts.

They were going to work and this was actually a good opportunity to see if she could detach herself from the idiotic attraction and concentrate solely on whatever they had to get done.

Never in her twenty-six years with the Hallidays had she been diverted from the sheer gluttonous enjoyment of one of Hallie’s roast dinners, yet there she’d been, her fork toying with a piece of pumpkin as she’d wondered if his arms would feel as silky as they looked.

‘But you have just come off night duty?’ Mac asked, successfully getting her mind off silky hairs—though only just...

‘Yes, but I’ve had a good sleep today. It’s why I jog. The steady pace seems to get rid of any leftover work tension and I can sleep like a baby.’

‘Some babies don’t sleep all that well,’ Mac muttered.

What babies did he know?

Not that it mattered...

‘We can go in this way,’ she told him, leading him to the kitchen door at the rear of the building. ‘We’ve only eleven patients at the moment with another seven in the nursing home at the back, so there’ll be two registered nurses and two aides on duty in the main hospital, with another RN on call. Actually, there should be one of the local GPs on call, but there’s a wedding...’

She led him down a short corridor, waving to a woman sitting at a curved desk in a room to the left.

‘That’s Abby,’ she told him. ‘Abby, Mac, Mac, Abby.’

‘Good thing you had your phone on,’ Abby told him. ‘I wouldn’t have known where to find you otherwise. I know you haven’t officially started work but there’s been an RTA on the highway, helicopter will bring in one patient for stabilisation and onward transport, and there are two ambulances also on the way.’

A patient requiring stabilisation was a tough introduction, but Mac was intrigued.

‘And how do you get this information? Know to be prepared?’

He’d asked the question into the air between her and Abby, so Izzy answered him.

‘First on scene is almost always police. They radio for ambulance support, a paramedic with the ambulance team assesses the injured and organises everything until the patients are safely removed.’

‘He can order a helicopter?’ Mac asked.

‘Providing one can land,’ Izzy responded. ‘And Marty can land just about anywhere. Roads are great if they’re flat and straight, but around here it’s been dairy country since for ever, and there are fields close to the roads even in the hills.’

Izzy was leading him towards the large room that was their ‘emergency department’, as she explained. The room had a desk, curtains that could be drawn to allow privacy for patients and on the far side, three small rooms.

‘The first one is the resus room,’ Izzy told him. ‘Next to it is a quiet room for mental health patients who sometimes find other people disconcerting, then a kind of all-purpose room, used for everything from resus to upset kids, to talking quietly to relatives when necessary.’

Mac heard a hitch in her voice and knew that talking to relatives—usually with grim news—wasn’t one of her favourite things. In a small town, a death would probably be someone she knew...

He wanted to touch her shoulder, say he was sorry, but why?

An excuse to touch her?

To feel that golden skin?

Fortunately, while totally irrational and unmedical thoughts flashed through his mind he heard the whup, whup, whup of the helicopter.

Not a big army helicopter carrying injured troops—a smaller chopper, light, one patient. He was fine, but as sweat broke out on his forehead he wondered why he hadn’t considered rescue helicopters when he’d chosen Wetherby.

Because he’d thought it was too small?

Or because he’d doubted the noise of the little dragonfly helicopters he’d encounter in civilian life would affect him?

‘You okay?’

He shook his head, then realised she’d probably take it as a negative reply, so he said, ‘Of course,’ far too loudly and followed her out the door, presumably to meet their patient.

The rotors were still moving when a crewman ducked out to open the door wider so they could access the stretcher. Marty appeared from the front cabin to help and Mac was left to follow behind as his patient was rushed with admirable efficiency into the hospital.

Following behind, in the lights that surrounded the landing circle, he could see the patient was in a neck brace and secured onto a long spine board, with padded red supports preventing any head movement. One arm was in a temporary splint, and a tourniquet controlled blood loss from a messy wound on his left leg.

Mac’s mind was on procedure, automatically listing what had to be done before the patient was transferred on to a major trauma centre.

‘No obvious skull fracture,’ the paramedic reported, ‘but the GCS was three.’

So, some brain damage! A subdural haematoma with blood collecting inside the skull and causing pressure on the brain?

A CT scan would assess head injury, but would moving him for the scan cause more complications?

This was a patient with spine and head secured and moving on to a major hospital.

Leave the CT scan to them!

Intubation?

Definitely!

A young woman, presumably the paramedic, was using a manual resuscitator to help his breathing.

‘The paramedic is intubation trained,’ Izzy explained, somehow picking up on his thoughts once again, ‘and I know the literature is divided about whether or not to intubate at the scene, but if we’re doing the main stabilisation here, the paramedics tend not to intubate as that way they get the patients to us faster.’

Mac nodded. The patient’s worst enemy, with severe trauma, was time. The sooner he or she had specialised help, the better the outcome.

So, intubation first, Izzy already checking for any obstruction in the mouth, before passing Mac what he needed for rapid sequence intubation. While he checked the tube was in place, she attached it to the ventilator.

The medical personnel from the helicopter were assisting, one taking blood for testing, the other setting up for an ECG.

‘We coordinate our rosters,’ Izzy explained as she set up the portable X-ray machine. ‘Ambulance, helicopter and hospital, so we always have emergency-trained personnel to assist in a crisis. These two both work at Braxton Hospital when they’re not rostered on ambulance or helicopter duty. The helicopter is based at Braxton, an hour and a half away, but the patient was brought here for stabilisation because we’re closer.’

Mac wanted to ask why the helicopter pilot was in Wetherby if he was on call, but the screen was in place, the picture showing a shadow that suggested a subdural haematoma and, anyway, he had other things to worry about.

Do a CT scan to be sure?

It meant moving the patient to the radiography room, maybe doing further damage to his spine—

No time!

Mac had already decided he’d have to drill a small hole into the patient’s skull and insert a catheter to drain off some blood to relieve the pressure before he could be sent on.

Apparently Izzy had also read the situation correctly and had already shaved and prepped the area of scalp the shadow indicated.

The two paramedics—Mac had decided that’s what they must be—had been making notes of all the findings, although all the information would also go directly into the computer. Mac knew the notes would travel with the patient in case of computer glitches.

‘Are you okay in helicopters? Did Hallie ask you that?’ The gold-flecked eyes were fixed on his face as Izzy asked the questions.

‘Practically never out of one,’ he told her as he carefully drilled through the patient’s skull. ‘Why?’

He sounded confident but Izzy was sure he’d gone pale and sweaty when the helicopter had come in.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘another statistic shows better outcomes for serious trauma patients if a physician travels with them. I can stay here and Roger—have you even met our other resident doctor, Roger Grey?—he’ll come if I need him. Would you be okay with going along?’

She paused, watching for any hint of a reaction, but Mac’s attention was on the delicate job of inserting a catheter into the wound he’d created.

That done, he looked up at her, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere above her head so she couldn’t read any reaction in them.

‘Of course,’ he said, but so shortly, so abruptly she guessed he’d rather poke a needle in his eye. ‘We’ll start a drip, and make sure there’s saline, swabs and dressings available on the chopper. I’ll look at his leg on the way.’

She went off to check, returning in time for Mac to give the order to return the patient to the chopper. However, a grim set to the new doctor’s face made her wonder just what horrors he had seen in the helicopters that were used to ferry casualties in war zones.

A wailing ambulance siren recalled her to the other casualties coming in. Megan, the most experienced of the two paramedics, had given up her place in the helicopter for Mac and stayed at the hospital to help with the incoming patients.

There were three, none too serious, but two needing limbs set and the other slightly concussed. Izzy and Megan began the initial assessment, GCS and ECG, palpated skulls for signs of injury, set up drips with analgesia. One by one they were wheeled through to the radiography room for X-rays, and for the concussion patient a CT scan, Izzy blessing the radiography course she’d completed.

It was painstaking work, but needed to be completed swiftly in case some major problem showed up, so time passed without them realising that dawn was breaking outside the hospital, the sun rising majestically out of the ocean.

They were studying the films of the second of the limb injuries, a compound fracture of the ankle, when they heard the helicopter returning.

‘That’s your lift home,’ Izzy told Megan. ‘And I think you should take Mr Anderson back to Braxton with you. That ankle will need pins and plating, and you’ve got an orthopod on tap up there.’

‘Good idea. Of course we’ll take him. I’ll get Marty and Pete in to give a hand loading him.’

Izzy started on the paperwork for admitting the other two patients, one for observation, the other to have further X-rays then a temporary cast fitted on his leg, which would keep the bone stable until the swelling went down and a firmer cast could be used.

‘And now we’re all done, here comes the cavalry.’ Megan nodded to the door where Roger Grey had appeared, accompanied by two of the day-shift nurses.

‘Big night, do you need a hug?’ Roger said, heading for Izzy with every intention of providing one.

She ducked away. Not that there was anything remotely sexual or untoward in Roger’s hugs—he was just a touchy-feely kind of man, and there were often times when a member of the staff appreciated a quick hug.

But ducking away had her backing into someone else—someone who’d come in through the patient entrance, someone with a rock-solid body who steadied her with his hands, holding her in such a way she could see those dark silky hairs...

Moving hurriedly—escaping, really—she made the introductions, gave Roger a brief précis of what they’d already done for the two new patients, explained the third would go to Braxton, then, as exhaustion suddenly struck her, she turned towards the cloakroom. There’d be a bikini, shirt, shoes and socks in her locker. She would run off the tension of the night, then swim, before heading home to sleep.

She peeled off the scrubs she’d been wearing since the ambulances had come in and threw them into the bin by the door—the opening door.

Mac’s head poked around it.

‘Sorry,’ he said, though in bra and pants she was quite respectable. ‘I wondered if you were going for a run. It’s definitely what I need and we’d look silly running separately along the path.’

She’d have liked to say she was taking the path south but that would sound petty; besides, she wanted to collect the sleeping bag.

So she nodded, in spite of knowing that she was making a rash decision.

‘I imagine you’ll have to go home and change. I’ll wait by your gate.’

CHAPTER THREE

I’LL WAIT BY your gate!

How stupid could she be?

This man, Mac, was causing her enough problems without her agreeing to go jogging with him—actually making arrangements to be with him instead of as far away from him as possible, which would have been the really sensible decision.

Although they’d be colleagues so she couldn’t escape him forever.

She began some routine stretching so she wouldn’t have to think about him—well, not as much...

He emerged in shorts and a faded T-shirt, his hair loose and tangled again, hanging just long enough to hide his ears.

Her body reacted with the little flutters and zings, but she was getting used to them now.

Nearly!

‘Sorry to keep you waiting, and sorry to barge in on your run as well, but there were things I wanted to know.’

He brushed against her as he shut the gate, and, yes, the hairs were just as silky as they looked, and, no, she was not going to touch them...

‘Such as?’ she said instead.

‘If your brother was on duty last night, shouldn’t he have been in Braxton where the helicopter is based?’

They were walking briskly through the town and fortunately it was too early for many of the locals to be around.

‘He has his own—his own helicopter, I mean. He can be back in Braxton as quickly as if he’d driven from his house there to the hospital. The paramedics load any extras he might need while his crewmate checks the machine. All he really does is get in and fly the thing, although he was a trained paramedic as well as the pilot.’

She paused, wanting to ask her own question about helicopters, but realised it was probably far too personal.

So she stuck with Marty.

‘Even when he was young he had a passion for them. Pop made him a little model one that had some string around the rotor stem and you wound it up then pulled and the helicopter took off. But most of the time he just ran around with it in the air, making helicopter noises, diving, and rising, and chasing the rest of us.’

They’d reached the track and set out in a slow jog.

‘You were a happy family, then?’ he asked, turning to look at her as he asked the question, his eyes studying her face.

Looking for a lie?

‘Very,’ she said firmly. ‘Oh, we had our fights like any family and there were always kids who found it hard to fit in.’

She faltered, paused, looked out to sea before adding, ‘Some of them had been so traumatised, so badly abused, they hated being happy, I guess.’

Mac nodded. You couldn’t get through training as a doctor without seeing the horrific things people could do to one another—could do to children. At least, that was what he’d thought until he’d gone to war.

‘Hallie and Pop must be remarkable people,’ he said, forcing his mind back to the present as they resumed their jog, speeding up slightly.

‘They are,’ Izzy agreed, and the simple confirmation, the love in her voice, told him far more than the words.

They jogged in silence, and he breathed in the sea air and marvelled at the might of the waves crashing against the cliffs, the beauty in the scraggly, wind-twisted trees along the path, the little cove...their porpoise cove?

‘The helicopter bothered you last night?’

He’d been so lost in his contemplation of the scene—concentrating on the details of the beauty around him to avoid his reactions to the woman beside him—that the question startled him.

He didn’t have to answer it, he decided, but within a minute realised his companion—colleague, as he should be thinking of her—wasn’t so easily silenced.

‘Just the sound of it coming in made you go pale, yet you agreed to accompany the patient to the city.’

She was stating a fact, not asking a question, so now he didn’t have to...

Except...

Except he wanted to!

For some reason, in this beautiful place, with this woman he barely knew by his side, he did want to talk about it.

‘It wasn’t fear so much as memory,’ he said, stopping to look out to sea while he found the words.

Not the words for the unimaginable horror—no words could cover that—but enough words to explain, to her and to himself.

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