A Bride and Child Worth Waiting For by Marion Lennox.pdf

(684 KB) Pobierz
“I don’t do dreams,” he said roughly.
“We’ve both been there, Jill. But what
we have…friendship. Respect. Lily.
Is it enough to build a marriage?”
“For Lily’s sake?”
“Not completely….” Charles said, taking Jill’s hand.
“A little bit for our sakes, too.”
“Because we love Lily,” Jill whispered.
He released her hand. “What do you say, Jill? For all
our sakes…will you marry me?”
992394521.001.png
“Charles, if you really mean it…”
“I really mean it.”
“Then I’ll marry you,” she whispered, and despite
the enormity of their decision, Charles’s eyes creased
with laughter.
“I’m supposed to get down on bended knee.”
“And I’m supposed to blush and simper.”
“I guess we make do with what we’ve got.” He
caught her hand again, and, before she guessed
what he intended, Charles lifted and lightly brushed
the back of her hand with a kiss. “It makes sense, Jill.
There’s no one I’d rather marry.”
Dear Reader,
Writing the CROCODILE CREEK Air Sea Rescue
Doctors series has been a highlight of my writing
career. Australian and New Zealand authors
Meredith Webber, Lilian Darcy, Alison Roberts and
I have cemented our friendships while writing a
series containing everything we most love in a
romance. Passion, cyclones, secret babies, death
by cone shell, medical emergencies, flying doctors,
weddings, births, family feuds—oh, and did I
mention passion? We’ve fed off each other as we’ve
written the best books we know how.
A Bride and Child Worth Waiting Forr is indeed
just that—worth waiting for. As medical director
of the Crocodile Creek Outback Medical Service,
Charles Wetherby has sat on the sidelines while
the young medics around him indulge in romance
after romance. We and our readers have grown to
love this wonderful, wounded hero. So finally here
you have it—Charles’s own romance. He deserves a
truly courageous and beautiful heroine, and we’ve
given him just that.
I trust you’ve loved the CROCODILE CREEK series as
much as we have.
For information about my next or previous releases,
see my Web site at www.marionlennox.com.
Meanwhile, happy reading!
Marion
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG
STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID
PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
CROCODILE CREEK:
24-HOUR RESCUE
A cutting-edge medical center.
Fully equipped for saving lives and loves!
Crocodile Creek’s state-of-the-art medical
center and rescue response unit is home
to a team of expertly trained medical
professionals.
These dedicated men and women face
the challenges of life, love and
medicine every day!
This month we see Crocodile Creek medical
director Charles Wetherby’s final bid to
make nurse Jill Shaw his bride.
A Bride and Child Worth Waiting For
by Marion Lennox
CHAPTER ONE
‘YOU’LL have to be married or she’s going to someone else.’
Tom’s words were a bombshell, dropped with devastating
effect into the quiet of Charles Wetherby’s office. Jill and
Charles stared at Lily’s uncle in disbelief and mutual shock.
It was Wendy who filled the silence. Wendy was Lily’s
social worker. She’d handled the details when the little girl’s
parents had been killed a year ago. There’d been immediate
agreement in the aftermath of tragedy. Charles and Jill would
care for her.
‘Let’s just recap, shall we?’ Wendy said, buying time in a
situation that was threatening to spiral out of control. ‘Tom,
the situation until now has seemed more than satisfactory.’
It had. Dr Charles Wetherby, medical director of Crocodile
Creek Air Sea Rescue Base, was a distant cousin of Lily’s
mother and a friend of Lily’s father. In this remote commu-
nity relationship meant family. Jill Shaw was the director of
nursing at Crocodile Creek, and it had been Jill who Lily had
clung to in those first appalling weeks of loss.
‘We’ve loved having her,’ Jill whispered.
They had. Neither Jill nor Charles could bear to think of six-
year-old Lily with an unknown foster-family. They’d rearranged
their living arrangements, knocking a door between their two
apartments, becoming partners so Lily could live with them.
They’d become partners in every sense but one, but that one
8
A BRIDE AND CHILD WORTH WAITING FOR
was what was bothering Tom now. Tom was Lily’s legal
guardian. He had six kids by two marriages and he didn’t want
his niece, but he’d become increasingly unhappy about her
current living arrangements.
‘Charles and Jill have both loved having her,’ Wendy reit-
erated, taking in Charles’s grim stoicism and Jill’s obvious
distress. ‘And it’s great for Lily to stay in Croc Creek. She was
born here. She’s friends with the local kids. Her father’s prize
bulls are housed locally and Lily still loves them. Crocodile
Creek provides continuity of identity, and that’s imperative.’
But it wasn’t an imperative with her uncle.
‘The wife’s been onto me,’ Tom retorted, sounding bellig-
erent. ‘People are asking questions. Why don’t we take her?

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin