by Tina Beckett
Color swept into her face as she caught his meaning. Because he did indeed intend to try it on—her, that was—as soon as he gave her his own wrapped gift.
He slung his arm around her waist as the kids bounded toward the tree to see who else had a present hidden beneath it. Glancing up, he found her watching him. “Love you,” he murmured.
“Love you too.”
Jess’s parents—especially her mum—seemed a little softer and sweeter as they watched their children and grandchildren laugh and carry on. Their hands had found each other’s and clasped tight.
Their happiness seemed in keeping with the holiday, known for its love and gifts.
He squeezed Jess just a little bit tighter, knowing that being here with her was the greatest gift he could ever hope to receive.
It was enough. It was more than enough.
And he planned to savor each and every moment of it, for the rest of his life.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460389751
Playboy Doc’s Mistletoe Kiss
Copyright © 2015 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Tina Beckett for her contribution to the Midwives On-Call at Christmas series.
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Melting his frozen heart
Heiress Dr. Pollyanna Hargreaves has been wrapped in cotton wool all her life—now she’s determined to strike out on her own! But she never expected to get stuck with handsome GP Dr. Hugo Denver for Christmas. He’s meant to have left on holiday with his adorable niece already—not to be tempting her at every turn!
As they’re forced to work together Hugo’s icy exterior soon begins to thaw. And it’s not long before Polly realizes that she’s falling for him…and for little Ruby, too!
She really was fragile, Hugo thought, bending down to give his niece a hug. Last year had been a tragedy for Ruby, and it still showed. She expected calamity.
“This isn’t ruined,” he said gently. “It’s just flour.”
“It’s snow. To make Polly feel better when we’re not here.”
“And Polly loves it,” Polly said, and then sneezed as if she needed to accentuate the point. “Ruby, it’s still great. Look what we’ve done, Dr. Denver. All we need you to do is chop down a tree, so I suggest you stop dripping and start helping while I clean up your mess...”
“My mess?”
“Your mess,” she said, and grinned. “Walking in on artists at work...you should know better.”
“I’m glad I didn’t,” he said faintly as he looked around at the mess and thought for the first time in...how long?...that this place looked like home.
What was better than this? he thought. What was better than Polly?
Dear Reader,
I was raised in a farming community, where everyone knew everyone and where our doctor seemed the linchpin of our lives. Doc—he needed no other name—was known to walk fifteen miles between clinics during wartime gas rationing. By the time he delivered me he was in his eighties, and he worked on until I was in my teens. We never called him unless we truly needed him, but when we did he gave his all. I remember his grandson telling me what it was like at Doc’s house at Christmas. You couldn’t move for whiskey, he said, and grateful gifts of home-baked goodies and produce were almost an embarrassment. When Doc died, the entire district mourned.
In a way, this book is a testament to Doc and to the caring community I was raised in. My husband and I have recently—joyously—moved back to a small town. As I write this I’m looking forward to Christmas in our new/old home, in our new/old community, and I’m wishing you the magic of belonging. I’m also wishing you the love shown by Doc, and by so many medical staff who follow his tradition of care, and I’m wishing you a very happy Christmas.
FROM CHRISTMAS TO FOREVER?
Marion Lennox
Books by Marion Lennox
Harlequin Medical Romance
The Surgeon’s Doorstep Baby
Miracle on Kaimotu Island
Gold Coast Angels: A Doctor’s Redemption
Waves of Temptation
A Secret Shared...
Meant-to-Be Family
Harlequin Romance
A Bride for the Maverick Millionaire
Sparks Fly with the Billionaire
Christmas at the Castle
Nine Months to Change His Life
Christmas Where They Belong
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
To the many people who’ve already made us welcome in our new home.
To Jacky, to Gail, to Colleen, to Alison, and to all on Fisherman’s Flat, to all who welcome us as we walk our dog, paddle our kayaks, or simply yak over the front fence.
You’re stuck with us for life, and we love it.
Praise for Marion Lennox
“Marion Lennox’s Rescue at Cradle Lake is simply magical, eliciting laughter and tears in equal measure. A keeper.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Best of 2010: a very rewarding read. The characters are believable, the setting is real, and the writing is terrific.”
—Dear Author on Christmas with Her Boss
CONTENTS
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
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHRISTMAS IN THE middle of nowhere. Wombat Valley. Hooray!
Dr Pollyanna Hargreaves—Polly to everyone but her mother—beefed up the radio as she turned off the main road. Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’ wasn’t exactly appropriate for Christmas deep in the Australian bush, but it didn’t stop her singing along. She might be a long way from snow, but she was happy.
The country around her was wild and mountainous. The twisting road meant this last section of the journey could take a while, but the further she went, the further she got from the whole over-the-top celebration that was her parents’ idea of
Christmas.
‘You can’t be serious!’ She could still hear her mother’s appalled words when she’d broken the news that she wouldn’t be spending Christmas with them. ‘We’ve planned one of the most wonderful Christmases ever. We’ve hired the most prestigious restaurant on Sydney Harbour. All our closest friends are coming, and the head chef himself has promised to oversee a diabetic menu. Pollyanna, everyone expects you.’
Expectation was the whole problem, Polly thought, as she turned through the next curve with care. This road was little more than a logging route, and recent rain had gouged gutters along the unsealed verge. The whole of New South Wales had been inundated with weeks of subtropical downpours, and it looked as if Wombat Valley had borne the brunt of them. She was down to a snail’s pace.
But she wasn’t worried. She wasn’t in Sydney. Or in Monaco, where she’d been last Christmas. Or in Aspen, where she’d been the Christmas before that.
Cute little Pollyanna had finally cut and run.
‘And I’m not going back,’ she told the road ahead. Enough. She felt as if she’d been her parents’ plaything since birth, saddled with a preposterous name, with nannies to take care of every whim and loaded with the expectation that she be the perfect daughter.
For Polly was the only child of Olivia and Charles Hargreaves. Heiress to the Hargreaves millions. She was courted and fussed over, wrapped in cotton wool and expected to be...
‘Perfect.’ She abandoned Bing and said the word aloud, thinking of the tears, the recriminations, the gentle but incessant blackmail.
‘Polly, you’ll break your mother’s heart.’ That was what her father had said when Polly had decided, aged seven, that she liked chocolate ice cream, eating a family tub behind her nanny’s back and putting her blood sugars through the roof. And ever since... ‘You know we worry. Don’t you care?’
And then, when she’d decided she wanted to be a doctor...
‘Pollyanna, how can you stress your body with a demanding career like medicine? Plus you have your inheritance to consider. If you need to work—which you don’t—then at least take a position in the family company. You could be our PR assistant; that’s safe. Medicine! Polly, you’ll break our hearts.’
And now this. Breaking up with the boy they wanted her to marry, followed by Not Coming Home For Christmas. Not being there to be fussed over, prettied, shown off to their friends. This was heartbreak upon heartbreak upon heartbreak.
‘But I’m over it,’ she said out loud. ‘I’m over families—over, over, over. I’m an independent career woman so it’s time I started acting like one. This is a good start. I’m five hours’ drive from Sydney, in the middle of nowhere. I’m contracted to act as locum for two weeks. I can’t get further away than this.’
And it was exciting. She’d trained and worked in city hospitals. She didn’t have a clue about bush medicine, but the doctor she was relieving—Dr Hugo Denver—had told her things would be straightforward.
‘We’re usually busy,’ he’d said in their phone interview. ‘The valley could use two doctors or more, but over Christmas half the population seems to depart for Sydney or the coast. We run a ten-bed hospital but anything major gets helicoptered out. Mostly we deal with minor stuff where it’s not worth the expense of sending for the Air Ambulance, or long-termers, or locals who choose to die in the Valley rather than in acute city hospitals.’
‘You provide palliative care?’ she’d asked, astonished.
‘Via home visits, mostly,’ he’d told her. ‘Most of our oldies only go to the city under duress, and it’s an honour to look after them at home. I also deal with trauma, but the logging industry closes down for three weeks over Christmas and the place is quiet. I doubt if you’ll have much excitement.’
‘But I wouldn’t mind a bit of excitement,’ she said aloud as she manoeuvred her little sports car around the next bend. ‘Just enough to keep me occupied.’
And then, as if in answer to her prayers, she rounded the next bend—and got more excitement than she’d bargained for.
* * *
Dr Hugo Denver was well over excitement. Hugo was cramped inside a truck balanced almost vertically over the side of a cliff. He was trying to stop Horace Fry from bleeding out. He was also trying not to think that Ruby was totally dependent on him, and his life seemed to be balanced on one very unstable, very young tree.
The call had come in twenty minutes ago. Margaret Fry, wife of the said Horace, had managed to crawl out of the crashed truck and ring him.
‘Doc, you gotta come fast.’ She’d sobbed into the phone. ‘Horace’s bleeding like a stuck pig and there’s no one here but me.’
‘He’s still in the truck?’
‘Steering wheel jabbed him. Blood’s making him feel faint.’
‘Bleeding from where?’
‘Shoulder, I think.’
‘Can you put pressure on it?’
‘Doc, I can’t.’ It was a wail. ‘You know blood makes me throw up and I’m not getting back in that truck. Doc, come, fast!’
What choice did he have? What choice did he ever have? If there was trauma in Wombat Valley, Hugo was it.
‘Ring the police,’ he snapped. ‘I’m on my way.’
Lois, his housekeeper, had been preparing lunch. She’d been humming Christmas carols, almost vibrating with excitement. As was Ruby. As soon as the locum arrived they were off, Lois to her son’s place in Melbourne, Hugo and Ruby to their long-awaited two-week holiday.
Christmas at the beach... This was what his sister had promised Ruby last year, but last year’s Christmas had become a blur of shock and sorrow. A car crash the week before. A single car accident. Suicide?
Hugo’s life had changed immeasurably in that moment, as had Ruby’s.
Twelve months on, they were doing their best. He was doing his best. He’d moved back to Wombat Valley so Ruby could stay in her home, and he fully intended to give her the longed-for beach Christmas.
But commitment meant committing not only to Ruby but to the community he lived in. The locals cared for Ruby. He cared for the locals. That was the deal.
Lois had been putting cold meat and salad on the table. She’d looked at him as he disconnected, and sighed and put his lunch in the fridge.
‘Ring Donald,’ he’d told her. Donald was a retired farmer who also owned a tow truck. It was a very small tow truck but the logging company with all its equipment was officially on holidays since yesterday. Donald’s truck would be all the valley had. ‘Tell him Horace Fry’s truck’s crashed at Blinder’s Bend. Ring Joe at the hospital and tell him to expect casualties. Tell him I’ll ring him as soon as I know details, and ask him to check that the police know. I need to go.’
‘Aren’t you expecting the new doctor?’ Lois had practically glowered. She wanted to get away, too.
‘If she arrives before I get back, you can give her my lunch,’ he’d said dryly. ‘I’ll eat at the hospital.’
‘Should I send her out to Blinder’s? She could start straight away.’
‘I can hardly throw her in at the deep end,’ he’d told her. ‘Hopefully, this will be the last casualty, though, and she’ll have a nice quiet Christmas.’ He’d dropped a kiss on his small niece’s head. ‘See you later, Ruby. Back soon.’
But now...
A quiet Christmas was just what he wanted, he thought grimly as he pushed hard on the gaping wound on Horace’s shoulder. The steering wheel seemed to have snapped right off, and the steering column had jabbed into Horace’s chest.
And he’d bled. Hugo had stared in dismay into the truck’s cab, he’d looked at the angle the truck was leaning over the cliff, he’d looked at the amount of blood in the cabin and he’d made a call.
The truck was balanced on the edge of the cliff. The ground was sodden from recent rain but it had still
looked stable enough to hold. He’d hoped...
He shouldn’t have hoped. He should have waited for Donald with his tow truck, and for the police.
It didn’t matter what he should have done. Margaret had been having hysterics, useless for help. Hopefully, Donald and his tow truck were on their way but he’d take a while. The police had to come from Willaura on the coast, and he hadn’t been able to wait.
And then, as he’d bent into the cab, Horace had grasped his wrist with his good arm and tried to heave himself over to the passenger seat. He was a big man and he’d jerked with fear, shifting his weight to the middle of the cabin...
Hugo had felt the truck lurch and lurch again. He’d heard Margaret scream as the whole verge gave way and they were falling...
And then, blessedly, the truck seemed to catch on something. From this angle, all he could see holding them up was one twiggy sapling. His life depended on that sapling. There was still a drop under them that was long enough to give him nightmares.
But he didn’t have time for nightmares. He’d been thrown around but somehow he was still applying pressure to Horace’s arm. Somehow he’d pushed Horace back into the driver’s seat, even if it was at a crazy angle.
‘You move again and we’ll both fall to the bottom of the cliff,’ he told Horace and Horace subsided.
To say his life was flashing before his eyes would be an understatement.
Ruby. Seven years old.
He was all she had.
But he couldn’t think of Ruby now. He needed to get back up to the road. Horace had lost too much blood. He needed fluids. He needed electrolytes. He needed the equipment to set up a drip...
Hugo moved a smidgen and the truck swayed again. He glanced out of the back window and saw they were ten feet down the cliff.