скачать книгу бесплатно
Hot Single Docs: Happily Ever After: St Piran's: The Brooding Heart Surgeon / St Piran's: The Fireman and Nurse Loveday / St Piran's: Tiny Miracle Twins
Kate Hardy
Alison Roberts
Maggie Kingsley
Their dreams are about to become reality…Flora Loveday never thinks about dating – until smoking hot fireman Tom Nicholson enters her life. Tom’s going to awaken the passion she tries desperately to hide…Brianna Flannigan’s warm smile hides her tragic past. When Dr Connor Monahan walks back into her life he stops at nothing to show her that miracles really can happen…For children’s doctor Tasha O’Hara it seems bad things always happen to her… But sinfully sexy Prince Alessandro Cavalieri is about to change that!
About the Authors
ALISON ROBERTS is a New Zealander, currently lucky enough to be living in the south of France. She is also lucky enough to write for the Mills & Boon Medical Romance line. A primary school teacher in a former life, she is also a qualified paramedic. She loves to travel and dance, drink champagne and spend time with her daughter and her friends.
KATE HARDY has always loved books, and could read before she went to school. She discovered Mills & Boon books when she was twelve and decided this was what she wanted to do. When she isn’t writing Kate enjoys reading, cinema, ballroom dancing and the gym. You can contact her via her website: katehardy.com (http://www.katehardy.com).
MAGGIE KINGSLEY says she can’t remember a time when she didn’t want to be a writer, but she put her dream on hold and decided to ‘be sensible’ and become a teacher instead. Five years at the chalk face was enough to convince her she wasn’t cut out for it, and she ‘escaped’ to work for a major charity. Unfortunately—or fortunately!—a back injury ended her career, and when she and her family moved to a remote cottage in the north of Scotland it was her family who nagged her into attempting to make her dream a reality. Combining a love of romantic fiction with a knowledge of medicine gleaned from the many professionals in her family, Maggie says she can’t now imagine ever being able to have so much fun legally doing anything else!
Hot Single Docs: Happily Ever After
St Piran’s: The Brooding Heart Surgeon
Alison Roberts
St Piran’s: The Fireman and Nurse Loveday
Kate Hardy
St Piran’s: Tiny Miracle Twins
Maggie Kingsley
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08531-1
HOT SINGLE DOCS: HAPPILY EVER AFTER
St Piran’s: The Brooding Heart Surgeon © 2012 Harlequin Books S.A St Piran’s: The Fireman and Nurse Loveday © 2012 Harlequin Books S.A St Piran’s: Tiny Miracle Twins © 2012 Harlequin Books S.A
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 (#u30ecd3c1-6885-5474-b5de-ceecc870f353)
About the Authors (#u05fa872d-5e35-50eb-9bbe-13afbbeefed3)
Title Page (#ud61d85d0-592b-5456-83fd-a2031bb2ee32)
Copyright (#ue93764bc-99b2-54cf-8e5f-1cac22ae3708)
St Piran’s: The Brooding Heart Surgeon (#uc9a9c6d6-f479-5dae-80ee-d89462f9e400)
CHAPTER ONE (#uf8afc625-5fa1-5558-bb4a-337827820461)
CHAPTER TWO (#u26f1de1f-908b-5794-9927-74e9e0bfb975)
CHAPTER THREE (#ube083fa2-baf9-5926-9ff3-7828f629ac22)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u73e1c605-bde5-50dc-89f7-7e9bea4e9721)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u8ab5a0da-fe76-5be4-b3fa-a934708dcf7c)
CHAPTER SIX (#u73bbc116-117d-5b61-9a4e-85be81d1c6e6)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ufd149f47-cf53-523b-828d-6e38d4308e07)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#u6f6c8aa0-2ef6-50cc-a144-587157f4952f)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
St Piran’s: The Fireman and Nurse Loveday (#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)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
St Piran’s: Tiny Miracle Twins (#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)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
St Piran’s: The Brooding Heart Surgeon (#u0fd9fa9e-8b67-504f-afb7-a274a4ec0db3)
Alison Roberts
CHAPTER ONE (#u0fd9fa9e-8b67-504f-afb7-a274a4ec0db3)
IF LOOKS could kill, Luke Davenport would be a dead man.
Dr Anna Bartlett had finally deigned to join him in Theatre for her assigned job of assisting him in a potentially complicated procedure, and she was clearly less than impressed that he had decided to go ahead without her.
Sure, he’d received a message while reviewing his patient’s notes that she was caught up in the emergency department of St Piran’s hospital with a chest trauma case requiring a thoracotomy and would therefore be late, but what had she expected? That he would delay the case until she arrived? This patient had already had to wait longer than he should have for his surgery. In any case, if the patient in Emergency survived the aggressive procedure to try and stabilise him, Dr Bartlett would be the only person available to take them to another theatre and that left Luke in precisely the same place— having to find someone else to assist him in surgery. Thankfully, this wasn’t that difficult given the talented staff this hospital could boast, and paediatric cardiac surgeon James Alexander had been available and only too willing to assist the returning head of department.
James had joined the staff in the eighteen months Luke had been away. He was not only settled in the area but married to Charlotte, a senior registrar in the cardiology department. Just one of a countless number of changes. So many it was hard for Luke to imagine he’d once been a part of all this. It was frightening how one’s world could change in a heartbeat.
Like Luke’s had done when the news of his younger brother’s death had rocked the seemingly solid foundations of his life and prompted the radical decision to join a military medical unit. Nothing would ever be the same and yet here he was, trying to pick up the pieces of his old life.
If it felt wrong to him, it was no wonder he was an unwelcome disturbance in Anna Bartlett’s world. She’d had enough time to become part of this medical community. To stake a claim and make this department her own. Maybe that was the real reason for the resentment he could detect. That he was in charge again.
It would be a bit of a blow to anyone’s ego, wouldn’t it, being bumped from a position as top dog? Everybody had known that his replacement was temporary but nobody had expected him to return so abruptly. Maybe Anna had secretly thought he might never return from Iraq. To add insult to injury, it wasn’t the first time Luke had taken the position from her. He’d been the winner three years ago when he’d been chosen over her for the prestigious role of head of St Piran’s specialist heart surgery unit.
Yes. That could well explain the death glare he’d caught from over the top of the mask as Anna had finally entered the theatre. She stood outside the cluster of staff around the operating table now, gowned and masked, her gloved hands held carefully away from her body. Taller than average, he noted in that split second of noticing her arrival, and her eyes were green. Very cool right now because she was displeased and that made them seem hard—like uncut emeralds. Unusual enough to make a lasting impression. As did her body language. The way she was standing so absolutely still. It advertised the kind of attention to detail, like not contaminating anything, that came from being not only well trained but highly disciplined.
He’d heard that about her from James as they’d scrubbed in together. That his missing assistant was skilled and meticulous. Uncompromising. Single because she chose to be. Or maybe no man could compete with a job that someone lived and breathed to the exclusion of anything else.
‘She’s good,’ James had added. ‘Very good. You’ll be pleased she’s taken on the job of Assistant Head of Surgery. With the reputation she’s built here, she could have gone anywhere she chose.’
James obviously respected Dr Bartlett but he’d also said he didn’t really know her. Not on a personal level. The way his sentence had trailed off in a puzzled tone had suggested that maybe she didn’t have a personal level.
It was James who acknowledged her presence now, however.
‘Anna! That was quick.’ He gave his colleague a closer glance and frowned. ‘No go, huh?’
‘No.’ The word was crisp. The attempt to save someone in the emergency department had failed. That was that. An unsuccessful case. Time to move on to the next. ‘Want me to take over?’
‘If that’s all right with Luke. I am rather late to start my ward round now and I’ve got my own theatre slot this afternoon.’ James sealed another small blood vessel with the diathermy rod and then looked up at the surgeon across the table. ‘Luke? Have you met Anna already?’
‘No.’ His response was as curt as Anna’s verdict on her emergency case had been.
He carried on with the long, vertical incision he was making in his patient’s chest, not looking up until James moved in to control the bleeding.
She was standing closer to the table now. A mask covered the lower half of her face and a disposable hat hid her hair and ears. All he could see were those green eyes and for a split second the accusation in them hit home.
Yesterday he had been supposed to meet the woman who’d looked after his job for eighteen months, but there’d been that hassle at his house with a burst pipe and there had been no water supply. There’d been a problem getting power reconnected as well, after such a long period of being empty, so he’d had no way of recharging the battery for his mobile phone when it had died. The hassles had underscored the fact that he wasn’t exactly thrilled to be back here anyway and … and she hadn’t waited for him, had she? He’d been less than an hour late but she had gone home and hadn’t left any message other than the theatre list for this morning.
And now she was glaring at him as if accepting her belated assistance for this surgery was only the first challenge he had coming his way. Well, she could take her attitude and deal with it on her own time.
‘If you plan to assist,’ he said curtly, ‘now’s the time to start. I don’t like my surgeries being disrupted and I’d prefer to start the way I mean to go on.’
A tense silence fell around them as James stepped back and Anna smoothly took his place. The familiar ache in Luke’s leg kicked up a notch but that only served to increase his focus. He turned his head to the scrub nurse hovering over the trolley beside him.
‘Sternal saw, thanks.’
The nurse jumped at his tone and handed him the requested item with commendable speed. Then the whine of the saw cut into the silence he could still feel around him. Luke concentrated on splitting the bone beneath his hands. For a short time at least, he had no need—or inclination—to look at the woman now opposite him.
So this was Luke Davenport.
The war hero she’d been hearing so much about in the last few days. Too much. As if it hadn’t been bad enough to have her position as head of department cut short, no one hesitated in rubbing salt in the wound by telling her how marvellous Luke was. What a great surgeon. And soldier. How he’d single-handedly saved everybody he had been with when they had come under attack, dragging them from a burning vehicle despite his own badly broken leg and then providing emergency care that had kept them alive until help arrived.
She could believe it. One glance from a pair of the most piercing blue eyes Anna had ever seen and she knew she was meeting someone just as ambitious and determined as she was herself. Two horizontal frown lines at the top of his nose, between dark eyebrows, added to the intensity of the glance and made her catch her breath. To have him treating her like a junior fresh out of medical school might be unacceptable but it wasn’t totally surprising. This man had seen and dealt with things she couldn’t begin to imagine experiencing.
‘An honourable discharge from the army,’ someone had said. ‘He’s up for a medal.’
St Piran’s was so lucky he had come back. The hospital, the patients, the whole damn community was feeling lucky. Anna had had to hide disappointment strong enough to morph very easily into burning resentment. Had to try and smile and pretend she felt lucky that she was being given the opportunity to be the hero’s assistant from now on.
