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Winter Wonderland Wishes: A Mummy to Make Christmas / His Christmas Bride-to-Be / A Father This Christmas?
Abigail Gordon
Susanne Hampton
Louisa Heaton
Winter Wonderland WishesA Mummy to Make ChristmasDr Phoebe Johnson might have sworn off all men and moved all the way to Australia to escape her cheating fiancé, but her new boss – dashing Dr Heath Rollins – is just so hard to resist…Could the single dad make her Christmas dreams come true?His Christmas Bride-to-BeDr Glenn Bartlett never expected to find love again after losing his beloved wife. But when Dr Emma Chambers tumbles into his life at Christmas she shows him how to live again and fills him with hope for the future. But first he has one very important question to ask!A Father This Christmas?Dr Eva Corday never expected to see Jacob Dolan ever again – especially not working as the new doctor in her A&E department! Now he’s back, Jacob’s more irresistible than ever. Yet Eva must protect the secret she’s kept hidden– their adorable three-year-old son!
About the Authors (#uac37a972-452e-56b1-a828-7026e8ac2f2f)
Married to the man she met at eighteen, SUSANNE HAMPTON is the mother of two adult daughters—one a musician and the other an artist. Susanne loves everything romantic and pretty, so her home is brimming with romance novels, movies and shoes. With her interest in all things medical, her career has been in the dental field and the medical world in different roles—and now Susanne has taken that love into writing Mills & Boon Medical Romance.
ABIGAIL GORDON loves to write about the fascinating combination of medicine and romance from her home in a Cheshire village. She is active in local affairs, and is even called upon to write the script for the annual village pantomime! Her eldest son is a hospital manager, and helps with all her medical research. As part of a close-knit family, she treasures having two of her sons living close by, and the third one not too far away. This also gives her the added pleasure of being able to watch her delightful grandchildren growing up.
LOUISA HEATON first started writing romance at school, and would take her stories in to show her friends, scrawled in a big red binder, with plenty of crossings out. She dreamt of romance herself, and after knowing her husband-to-be for only three weeks shocked her parents by accepting his marriage proposal. After four children—including a set of twins—and fifteen years of trying to get published, she finally received ‘The Call’! Now she lives on Hayling Island and, when she’s not busy as a First Responder, creates her stories wandering along the wonderful Hampshire coastline with her two dogs, muttering to herself and scaring the locals.
Visit Louisa on Twitter, @louisaheaton (http://twitter.com/@louisaheaton), on Facebook, LouisaHeatonAuthor, or on her website, louisaheaton.com (http://www.louisaheaton.com).
Winter Wonderland Wishes
A Mummy to Make Christmas
Susanne Hampton
His Christmas Bride-to-Be
Abigail Gordon
A Father This Christmas?
Louisa Heaton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08178-8
WINTER WONDERLAND WISHES
A Mummy to Make Christmas © 2015 Susanne Panagaris His Christmas Bride-to-Be © 2015 Abigail Gordon A Father This Christmas? © 2015 Louisa Heaton
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u613d2f39-ba71-51d8-90ba-cb039998ff40)
About the Authors (#ub33d78f7-6a4a-5196-94a6-a9619e5f418d)
Title Page (#ud9f76277-9e2e-51a7-babd-3dae9876ad30)
Copyright (#u4be6deb7-785c-5a37-a1f0-2038dc845cbb)
A Mummy to Make Christmas (#u75976aae-9fb5-5ff1-902e-9a67852b4d43)
Dedication (#u2e0a3d32-613d-5770-93da-f09b4f0f8f91)
CHAPTER ONE (#u326ba799-178d-5420-81d6-09a300cc2ac9)
CHAPTER TWO (#u8109b038-f7fe-5f49-b662-a534f093d043)
CHAPTER THREE (#ud7ea79f8-bdc3-5139-91b2-65a771984b66)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ub1b2bd0d-822d-5a09-a1f6-59b3bb749987)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ue86ab133-309f-5cd6-a88a-7f0d2bf40660)
CHAPTER SIX (#u80942ba6-d21b-5ef3-baeb-33922c745ca1)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u392852a6-a53f-5e62-9a27-c7347f85e4d4)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#u48f84e0f-2f2e-56a3-9f6e-a4fc83f60efa)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
His Christmas Bride-to-Be (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
A Father This Christmas? (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
A Mummy to Make Christmas (#uac37a972-452e-56b1-a828-7026e8ac2f2f)
Susanne Hampton
As I was putting the final touches to this book I was
given the news that my amazing editor Charlotte was
moving along her career pathway and would no longer
be working with me. So this will be my final dedication
to her and my last written recognition of her guidance,
patience, much needed honesty and unwavering belief
in my work. However, what I have learnt from her over
the last five books will travel with me on my writing
journey, so in many ways all of my books and writing
success in the future will be a dedication to
Charlotte Mursell.
Thank you, Charlotte.
CHAPTER ONE (#uac37a972-452e-56b1-a828-7026e8ac2f2f)
DR HEATH ROLLINS momentarily looked away from the emails on his laptop computer, across the living room of the family home, to see his father sitting by the lace dressed bay window in his favourite armchair. With the mid-morning sunlight streaming into the room, he was intently reading the paper. Heath smiled a bittersweet smile as his gaze roamed to the old oversized chair, upholstered in green and blue tartan. It was a piece of furniture his mother had tried to have re-covered or removed from their home for many years but Ken Rollins had been adamant that it stayed. And stayed exactly as it was. It was a Clan Sutherland tartan, of the Highland Clans of Scotland, Heath would hear his father tell his mother, and it had direct links to the maternal side of his family. She would tell him that family connections or not, it was an extremely unattractive chair that looked out of place in their new French provincial decor. Frankly, it was hideous and it just didn’t belong.
His mother and father had argued about very little except that chair. But, unlike all those years ago, now his father was stuck in that now slightly worn chair for hours on end, his leg elevated and his knee freshly dressed after surgery. And there were no more arguments about the chair as Heath’s mother had passed away twenty years ago.
Heath then caught sight of his own suitcases, stacked against the hall wall, with the airline tags still intact. He would shortly be taking them to the room that would be his for the next month. His attention returned to the email he was drafting to the Washington-based podiatric surgeon travelling to Australia to work with his father. As he perused her résumé to find an email address, he couldn’t help but notice her impressive qualifications and certifications. A quizzical frown dressed his brow as he wondered why she had chosen to relocate to Adelaide and consult at his father’s practice. Then he dropped that line of thought. It was not his concern.
‘I hope you don’t mind the last-minute change in plans, Dr Phoebe Johnson,’ he muttered as he pressed ‘send’ on the keyboard, hoping that even if she had turned off her computer she would receive the notification via her mobile phone. ‘It looks like you’ll be working with me not my father. At least until he’s back on his feet again.’
Phoebe Johnson had switched off her cell phone an hour earlier. There was no point in having it on as there was only one person who would try to reach her and she would go to any lengths to avoid another conversation with her mother.
Unfortunately her mother had found her.
‘Why on earth are you leaving Washington? It’s been over three months since you postponed the wedding, Phoebe. It’s time you set a new date.’
‘I cancelled the wedding, Mother. I didn’t postpone it.’
Completely dumbfounded, and shaking her head, Phoebe stood on the steps of her rented brownstone apartment, her online printed boarding pass and her passport both gripped in one leather-gloved hand while the other searched for keys in her oversized handbag. The second of her matching tweed suitcases was balanced precariously by her feet, and her heavy woollen coat was buttoned up against the icy December wind that was howling down the narrow car-lined street.
She found her keys and, aware that the meter was running on the double-parked cab, hurriedly locked the front door. She was in no mood for another confrontation and frustrated that at the eleventh hour it was happening again. Her mind was made up. She was not looking back.
‘How can you work things out if you go rushing off to another country? Surely you’ve punished Giles enough for his indiscretion?’ her mother continued, not at all deterred by anything Phoebe had said, nor by her imminent travel plans. ‘I’m certain he’s learnt his lesson.’
Phoebe tugged down her knitted hat, at risk of blowing away in a chilly gust, then made her way down the snow-speckled steps with her last suitcase and handed it to the cab driver, who had been tapping his foot impatiently on the kerb.
‘It isn’t a punishment, Mother. I ended it. I gave the ring back, returned the wedding presents and told Giles that I never want to see him again. It’s about as final as it gets. And I’ve thought this through until I’ve gone almost mad. You don’t seem to understand—I no longer love Giles and I don’t want to see him again. Ever. To be honest, I’m surprised that after everything he’s put me through you’d want him to have any part in my life.’
