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Her Hard To Resist Husband
Tina Beckett
Praise for Tina Beckett: (#u43604465-13f5-593d-913c-7933d7b6c34e)
‘… a tension-filled emotional story with just the right amount of drama. The author’s vivid description of the Brazilian jungle and its people make this story something special.’
—RT Book Reviews on DOCTOR’S GUIDE TO DATING IN THE JUNGLE
‘Medical Romance™ lovers will definitely like
NYC ANGELS: FLIRTING WITH DANGER
by Tina Beckett—for who doesn’t like
a good forbidden romance …?’
—HarlequinJunkie.com
Born to a family that was always on the move, TINA BECKETT learned to pack a suitcase almost before she knew how to tie her shoes. Fortunately she met a man who also loved to travel, and she snapped him right up. Married for over twenty years, Tina has three wonderful children and has lived in gorgeous places such as Portugal and Brazil.
Living where English reading material is difficult to find has its drawbacks, however. Tina had to come up with creative ways to satisfy her love for romance novels, so she picked up her pen and tried writing one. After her tenth book she realised she was hooked. She was officially a writer.
A three-times Golden Heart finalist, and fluent in Portuguese, Tina now divides her time between the United States and Brazil. She loves to use exotic locales as the backdrop for many of her stories. When she’s not writing you can find her either on horseback or soldering stained glass panels for her home.
Tina loves to hear from readers. You can contact her through her website or ‘friend’ her on Facebook.
SUSAN CARLISLE’s love affair with books began when she made a bad grade in math in the sixth grade. Not allowed to watch TV until she’d brought the grade up, she filled her time with books and became a voracious romance reader. She has ‘keepers’ on the shelf to prove it. Because she loved the genre so much she decided to try her hand at creating her own romantic worlds. She still loves a good happily-ever-after-story.
When not writing Susan doubles as a high school substitute teacher, which she has been doing for sixteen years. Susan lives in Georgia with her husband of twenty-eight years and has four grown children. She loves castles, travelling, cross-stitching, hats, James Bond and hearing from her readers.
Her Hard to Resist
Husband
Tina Beckett
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader
There comes a time in our lives when we’re confronted with tough challenges or painful decisions. When those decisions are of a life-changing nature there’s a temptation to draw inward and isolate ourselves, locking out those who love us the most.
Tracy Hinton faces just such a situation. And at a time when she should lean on her husband the most she shuts him out completely, creating a rift that soon grows too wide to bridge.
That could have been the end of the story, but sometimes we’re given a second chance—an opportunity to right the wrongs of the past. What we do with that chance will set the course for our future. Will we waste it? Or will we embrace it and accept the good things life has to offer?
Thank you for joining Ben and Tracy as they embark on a very special journey of healing and second chances. In confronting the mistakes of the past they rekindle a love that has never quite died. These two characters stayed with me long after I wrote ‘The End’. I hope you enjoy reading their story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Love
Tina Beckett
Dedication (#u43604465-13f5-593d-913c-7933d7b6c34e)
To my husband, who stands beside me through thick and thin.
And to my editor, Suzy,
for making me dig deeper than I ever thought I could.
Table of Contents
Cover (#u84bf57c2-9187-5e63-9e1f-c0079b8f617d)
Praise for Tina Beckett
About the Authors (#u15fb77af-573a-55cb-83fe-8b0a125ea2fd)
Title Page (#u76734add-1199-5989-b90c-52729235b757)
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u43604465-13f5-593d-913c-7933d7b6c34e)
TRACY HINTON DIDN’T faint.
Her stomach squirmed and threatened to give way as the scent of death flooded her nostrils, but she somehow held it together. Calming herself with slow, controlled breaths was out of the question, because breathing was the last thing she wanted to do right now.
“How many are there?” She fitted the protective mask over her nose and mouth.
“Six deaths so far, but most of the town is affected.” Pedro, one of her mobile clinic workers, nodded towards the simple clay-brick house to his left, where an eerily still figure was curled in a fetal position on the porch. Another body lay a few yards away on the ground. “They’ve been dead for a few days. Whatever it was, it hit fast. They didn’t even try to make it to a hospital.”
“They were probably too sick. Besides, the nearest hospital is twenty miles away.”
Piauí, one of the poorest of the Brazilian states, was more vulnerable to catastrophic infections than the wealthier regions, and many of these outlying townships relied on bicycles or their own two feet for transportation. It was hard enough to make a twenty-mile trek even when one was young and healthy, which these poor souls had not been. And cars were a luxury most couldn’t afford.
She wouldn’t know for sure what had caused the deaths until she examined the bodies and gathered some specimens. The nearest diagnostic hospital was a good hundred miles from here. In any case, she’d have to report the possibility of an epidemic to the proper authorities.
Which meant she’d have to deal with Ben.
Pedro shook his head. “Dengue, you think?”
“Not this time. There’s some blood on the front of the man’s shirt, but nothing else that I can see from this distance.” She stared at the crude corral where several pigs squealed out a protest at the lack of food. “I’m thinking lepto.”
Pedro frowned. “Leptospirosis? Rainy season’s already over.”
The area around the house consisted of a few desiccated twigs and hard-packed clay, confirming her colleague’s words. The sweltering heat sucked any remaining moisture from the air and squeezed around her, making her nausea that much worse. Situated close to the equator, the temperature of this part of Brazil rarely dipped below the hundred-degree mark during the dry season. The deadly heat would only grow worse, until the rains finally returned.
“They have pigs.” She used her forearm to push sticky tendrils of hair from her forehead.
“I saw that, but lepto doesn’t normally cause hemorrhaging.”
“It did in Bahia.”
Pedro’s brows went up. “You think it’s the pulmonary version?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Do you want to take samples? Or head for one of the other houses?”
Reaching into the back pocket of her jeans, she eased out her cellphone and glanced hopefully at the display. No bars. What worked in São Paulo obviously didn’t work here. “Is your phone working?”
“Nope.”
She sighed, trying to figure out what to do. “The tissue samples will have to wait until we come back, I don’t want to risk contaminating any live patients. And maybe we’ll come within range of a cellphone tower once we hit higher ground.”
Benjamin Almeida pressed his eye to the lens of the microscope and twisted the fine focus until the image sharpened, making the pink stain clearly visible. Gram negative bacteria. Removing the slide, he ran it through the digital microscope and recorded the results.
“Um, Ben?” His assistant’s hesitant voice came from the doorway.
He held up a finger as he waited for the computer to signal it had sent his report to the attending physician at the tropical disease institute of Piauí. The man’s office was fifteen steps away in the main hospital building, but Ben couldn’t take the time to walk over there right now. Dragging the latex gloves from his hands and flicking them into the garbage can to his right, he reached for the hand sanitizer and squirted a generous amount onto his palm.
“Yep, what is it?” He glanced up, his twelve-hour shift beginning to catch up with him. There were two more slides he needed to process before he could call it a day.
“Someone’s here to see you.” Mandy shifted out of the doorway, the apology in her cultured Portuguese tones unmistakable.
“If it’s Dr. Mendosa, tell him I just emailed the report. It’s a bacterial infection, not a parasite.”
A woman appeared next to Mandy, and Ben couldn’t stop his quick intake of breath. Shock wheeled through him, and he forced himself to remain seated on his stool, thankful his legs weren’t in charge of supporting his weight at that moment.
Inky-dark hair, pulled back in its usual clip, exposed high cheekbones and a long slender neck. Green eyes—right now filled with worry—met his without hesitation, her chin tilting slightly higher as they stared at each other.
What the hell was she doing here?
The newcomer adjusted the strap of a blue insulated bag on her shoulder and took a small step closer. “Ben, I need your help.”
His jaw tensed. Those were almost the exact words she’d used four years ago. Right before she’d walked out of his life. He gave a quick swallow, hoping his voice wouldn’t betray his thoughts. “With what?”
“Something’s happening in São João dos Rios.” She patted the bag at her side, words tumbling out at breakneck speed. “I brought samples I need you to analyze. The sooner the better, because I have to know why people are suddenly—”
“Slow down. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She bit her lip, and he watched her try to collect her thoughts. “There’s an outbreak in São João dos Rios. Six people are dead so far. The military police are already on their way to lock down the town.” She held her hand out. “I wouldn’t have come if this wasn’t important. Really important.”
That much he knew was true. The last time he’d seen her, she had been heading out the door of their house, never to return.
He shouldn’t be surprised she was still roving the country, stamping out infectious fires wherever she went. Nothing had been able to stop her. Not him. Not the thought of a home and family. Not the life she’d carried inside her.
Against his better judgement, he yanked on a fresh pair of gloves. “Do I need a respirator?”
“I don’t think so. We used surgical masks to collect the samples.”
He nodded, pulling one on and handing another to her, grateful that its presence would hide those soft pink lips he’d never tired of kissing. Ben’s attention swiveled back to her eyes, and he cursed the fact that the vivid green still had the power to make his pulse pound in his chest even after all this time.
He cleared his throat. “Symptoms?”
“The commonality seems to be pulmonary hemorrhage, maybe from some type of pneumonia.” She passed him the bag. “The bodies have already been cremated, unfortunately.”