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A Sheikh To Capture Her Heart
Meredith Webber
Running from her past…into his arms?Four years after the tragedy which drove her to Wildfire Island, flying surgeon Sarah Watson is truly ready to live again. Starting with a steamy affair with mysterious Harry…But the island’s resident hunk is doing some running of his own—from the injury that ended his career as a paediatric surgeon and his responsibilities as Sheikh Rahman al-Taraq of Ambelia!When their one-week fling turns into two, it’s time for Sarah and Harry to choose: keep running or stand firm…together.Wildfire Island DocsWelcome to Paradise!
Praise for Meredith Webber (#ulink_697df351-ef2d-5dc6-b70d-98c3b1140e44)
‘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.’
—HarlequinJunkie on The Sheikh Doctor’s Bride
‘The One Man to Heal Her by Meredith Webber was a well-written romance with a well-constructed storyline which was both enjoyable and believable.’
—HarlequinJunkie
Wildfire Island Docs (#ulink_6caccae8-a4e2-5a32-a65c-f3d0396a0cb6)
Welcome to Paradise!
Meet the small but dedicated team of medics who service the remote Pacific Wildfire Island.
In this idyllic setting relationships are rekindled, passions are stirred, and bonds that will last a lifetime are forged in the tropical heat …
But there’s also a darker side to paradise—secrets, lies and greed amidst the Lockhart family threaten the community, and the team find themselves fighting to save more than the lives of their patients. They must band together to fight for the future of the island they’ve all come to call home!
Read Caroline and Keanu’s story in
The Man She Could Never Forget by Meredith Webber
Read Anna and Luke’s story in
The Nurse Who Stole His Heart by Alison Roberts
Read Maddie and Josh’s story in
Saving Maddie’s Baby by Marion Lennox
Read Sarah and Harry’s story in
A Sheikh to Capture Her Heart by Meredith Webber
All available now!
Dear Reader (#ulink_eb951381-83b0-50cf-abb4-b0f67010a38b),
The very best thing about writing this book was that I shared the experience with two very good friends. Together we set up Wildfire Island, and over a couple of years we got together to refine the stories and make them work together.
Recently Marion Lennox, from Victoria, Alison Roberts, from New Zealand, and I were on the Gold Coast in Queensland, where I live. They’d rented a lovely apartment high on a hill above the beach, from where they could look out at the whales passing south after the annual pilgrimage to our shores. Together we sat watching the stunning views and talked about our characters, who were very real people to us by then, and we sorted out the very last chapter of the last book so all our readers would know what had happened to everyone a year or so later.
Such fun! We hadn’t done a series together since Crocodile Creek, and it was a great challenge to have.
All the best,
Meredith Webber
MEREDITH WEBBER lives on the sunny Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, but takes regular trips west into the Outback, fossicking for gold or opals. These breaks in the beautiful and sometimes cruel red earth country provide her with an escape from the writing desk and a chance for the 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!
A Sheikh
to Capture
Her Heart
Meredith Webber
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To all my writing friends,
but in particular Marion and Alison.
Table of Contents
Cover (#u69ed4022-1423-5c9d-9156-f8d8bfcac678)
Praise for Meredith Webber (#uc97f3de5-9178-5f98-ba9a-a134dba44cd4)
Wildfire Island Docs (#u9b14e2d7-e3e6-517e-bbf2-1cc52400e2a8)
Dear Reader (#ua2f2fa86-0abd-5f81-bed3-496abed7fa87)
About the Author (#u7ce85cd7-2a3d-5d3f-858d-ccd234bb7030)
Title Page (#uffdafeb9-3202-5cae-9f73-476cc2858323)
Dedication (#udd4e08cc-3f9a-5f96-9842-39c0b9460527)
CHAPTER ONE (#ubc9ce17f-2354-5b69-a1e0-ed65b787eff4)
CHAPTER TWO (#ub770ecd9-4266-52b2-9681-92c8538610d2)
CHAPTER THREE (#uce3e7064-11a9-5d7a-a414-6a0b168051a8)
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)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_a632a6a6-5bb5-58ef-9d04-a2ec3123b25b)
RAHMAN AL-TARAQ WAS BROODING. At least, that was what he assumed he was doing, but, never having been what he’d consider a moody man, it had taken a while to reach that conclusion.
If asked, he’d have described himself as a—well, driven was probably the only word—man. Driven to succeed, to prove himself, to be the best he could and garner admiration for his achievements rather than for having, purely by chance, been born into royalty.
Wealthy royalty!
It wasn’t that the servants at the palace where he’d grown up had bowed and scraped, but very early on he’d realised that every whim would be granted and treats of all kinds supplied, not because he’d done something to deserve them but because of who he was.
What other six-year-old boy would be given an elephant for his birthday, simply because he’d happened to mention in passing that the elephant he’d seen in a travelling show shouldn’t have to live with a chain around its foot?
That thought made him smile!
Imagine bringing Rajah here, to this tropical paradise in the South Pacific! He’d love the rainforest, but would decimate the villagers’ gardens in a week.
Maybe less.
Besides which he was getting too old to travel.
He sighed, a sure sign he was brooding, and as brooding was a totally pointless occupation and achieved precisely nothing, a man who was into achievement—or had been—should do something about it.
He stood up and paced the bure he’d had built for himself as part of his exclusive resort on Wildfire Island, his eyes barely registering the beauty of the natural stone, the polished, ecologically sourced timber, the intricately woven local mats. From outside it might look like a typical island home, but inside …
In truth, he might be driven to achieve recognition for his work, but he didn’t mind a few trappings of luxury.
Work!
There was that word again.
No matter how hard he tried to convince himself the work he was doing now was important and worthwhile, which it was, there was always a but.
His drive to be himself apart from his background had begun as a child sent to England at ten to a top boarding school. On arrival he’d introduced himself as Harry so his more exotic name didn’t mark him out.
And as Harry, he’d been driven to succeed, to be the best, and his rise through school and university had been marked with success. But he’d found his true passion to be for surgery—general at first then specialising in paediatric surgery, helping save the lives of the most vulnerable small humans.
But one could hardly operate on a newborn with a right hand that trembled, legacy of a touch-and-go brush with encephalitis. His initial reaction to the loss of the work he loved had been fury—fury with the weakness of his body in doing this to him.
Eventually he’d realised the pointlessness of his anger, so he’d sought and found a new focus—to provide facilities for scientists working on a variety of vaccines for the disease, as well as developing mosquito eradication programmes in the worst affected areas.
It was worthwhile work, and it had him roaming the world almost continually, checking up on the services he’d set up. Which left him tired. But it didn’t become the passion his surgical work had been, and he felt a lesser man because of it.
He sighed and went back to brooding, but on the woman this time—better, surely, than brooding on the past and the loss of the work he’d loved.
What was done was done!
The woman!
Sarah Watson …
He had met her before, he was certain of that.
But having come close to death from the encephalitis virus had obviously killed some brain cells and though his memory of her was vivid in his mind, he couldn’t place it in context anywhere.
He’d asked her at the cocktail party, caught up with her in the crush at the opening of the refurbished research station and resort, reminded her they’d met.
And she’d denied it—brushed away from him—telltale colour in her cheeks suggesting it was a lie.
But why?
And why in damnation did he care?
Worse, care enough to have returned to the island in order to see her again when he could have been in Africa, or, if he really needed a woman, in New York, where there were beautiful, fun, sophisticated women who wanted nothing more than a brief sexual relationship with no strings attached?
It was her hair!
How many women had hair the colour of rich, polished mahogany?
And the scent of it—tangy—like vinegar mixed with the rose perfume his mother always wore, and the rose-scented water that splashed in the fountains at home.
But vinegar?
Could he really have picked up vinegar in the scent—and been drawn to it?
Who was drawn to vinegar?
Whatever!
The fact remained he had to have brushed against her some time in the past, for the scent to have been so evocative as they’d passed in the crush of people at the cocktail party! He’d asked his friend Luke about the woman and had learnt nothing more than that she was the general surgeon who flew into the island for a week every six weeks, and that she was English.
Big help!
Although her being English did make it possible he’d met her before, as he’d been based in London all his working life.
It was now six weeks since the cocktail party to celebrate the opening of the luxury resort and the reopening of the research station funded by him in the same small piece of paradise.
Six weeks, and here he was back on Wildfire when he should be at another research facility he’d set up in West Africa, or in Malaysia, organising the mosquito eradication programme. Should have been anywhere but here.
Brooding!
