by Amy Andrews
When that guy on the train turns out to be your boss!
Nurse Felicity Mitchell’s train journey of a lifetime is even more unforgettable when she meets Callum Hollingsworth. Neither is looking for temptation, but that doesn’t stop them from sharing one hot, wild night!
Except when they disembark, they learn that what happened on the train won’t stay on the train. Because the gorgeous stranger is Flick’s new boss...and it’s increasingly difficult to keep their chemistry under control and leave it at just one night!
The Christmas Swap
A holiday they won’t forget!
Nurse Luci Dawson and Dr. Cal Hollingsworth have both had their lives turned upside down. So when they get the chance to swap houses in the run-up to Christmas, it could be just what they need to start fresh for the festive season!
Find out what happens in:
Waking Up to Dr. Gorgeous
by Emily Forbes
and
Swept Away by the Seductive Stranger
by Amy Andrews
Available now!
Dear Reader,
When I was asked to write a duo with Emily Forbes centering around a house swap, I leaped at the chance. I simply adored the movie The Holiday, and thought the concept would be great to play around with. There are no snowy cottages or Jude Laws in this one, but there is Outback Australia, a delicious wounded doc and a no-nonsense small-town nurse who’s superwary of love—particularly when it comes in the form of a very temporary locum.
I was also thrilled finally to be able to put a train in a book! In 2012 my husband and I travelled on the Indian Pacific from Sydney all the way across the country to Perth, and I have been wanting to put that trip in a book ever since. Growing up as the daughter of a railway man, I’ve always felt trains are in my blood, and some of my happiest childhood memories involve train trips with the family. There’s just something so romantic about saloon cars, moonlit landscapes flitting by and two strangers making love all night to the clickety-clack of the rails against the track.
I hope you enjoy the journey through this book as much as I did bringing it to you.
Happy reading—and all aboard!
Amy
SWEPT AWAY BY THE SEDUCTIVE STRANGER
Amy Andrews
Books by Amy Andrews
Harlequin Medical Romance
Rescued by the Dreamy Doc
Just One Last Night...
Waking Up With Dr. Off-Limits
Sydney Harbor Hospital: Luca’s Bad Girl
How to Mend a Broken Heart
Sydney Harbor Hospital: Evie’s Bombshell
One Night She Would Never Forget
Gold Coast Angels: How to Resist Temptation
200 Harley Street: The Tortured Hero
It Happened One Night Shift
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
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To my dear friend and colleague Emily Forbes.
It was a blast—let’s do it again some time!
Praise for Amy Andrews
“A lovely and sweet romance, but with plenty of heat and some ripping sexual tension.”
—Goodreads on It Happened One Night Shift
“A sensual, sexy, hot and steamy read! I highly recommend this read for lovers of romance.”
—CataRomance on One Night She Would Never Forget
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
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM ONE KISS IN TOKYO... BY SCARLET WILSON
CHAPTER ONE
CALLUM HOLLINGSWORTH WOULD have had to be completely blind not to notice the sexy blonde in his peripheral vision. Thanks to a combination of excellent medical care, the passage of time and her being on his right, he wasn’t.
Although it was her laugh he’d noticed first.
She was talking on her phone and even though her tone was hushed her occasional laughter practically boomed around the busy café. It was so damn...unrestrained, so carefree, he couldn’t help but stare.
Callum hadn’t had much to laugh about in recent times and a hot streak of envy tore through his chest as he ogled her from behind his sunglasses. Long honey-coloured hair with curly ends that brushed her shoulder blades. A glimpse of sun-kissed skin at her throat and on toned, tanned arms. Legs clad in denim that were shapely rather than skinny and knee-high fringed boots that looked more country girl than dominatrix.
She didn’t wear any make-up or jewellery. In fact, there was a lack of anything flashy or ostentatious about her yet she shone like a jewel in the old-fashioned café in Sydney’s Central Station as the sun streamed in through the high windows overhead.
Maybe it was the way she laughed—with her whole body—that held his attention. Maybe it was the jeans and the boots. Maybe it was her lack of pretension. Whatever, he was just pleased to be provided with some relief from the burden of his thoughts as he sat waiting for his train to depart.
For God’s sake, he was about to embark on one of the great train journeys of the world. He was leaving Sydney and going somewhere else for two months where nobody knew him or about the tumble his career had taken. He could reset the clock. Reinvent himself.
Come back refreshed and show them all he didn’t give a damn.
The sooner he got to grips with his old life being over, the sooner he could get his act together. This was his chance to finally get his head out of his backside and work on being impressively happy once again. Because he sure as hell was sick of himself and the dark cloud that had been following him around for the last two years.
Nothing like moving fourteen hundred kilometres away to send a strong message to himself about the new direction of his life.
‘All passengers for the Indian Pacific, your train is now ready for departure from platform ten.’
Callum gathered his backpack at the announcement over the loudspeaker. The woman on the phone crossed her legs and kept talking and a pang of disappointment flared momentarily. She obviously hadn’t been waiting for the same train. Visions straight from a James Bond movie of a glamorous night between the sheets with a mystery woman on a train as a brilliant way to kick-start his new life fizzled into the ether.
He gave himself a mental shake, his lips twisting at the insanity as he headed towards the exit to the platforms.
* * *
A thrill of excitement shot through Felicity Mitchell’s system as she stepped into the luxurious carriage and was ushered to her compartment by a man in a smart uniform who had introduced himself as Donald, her personal attendant. She passed several other compartments with their doors open and smiled at the couples who beamed back at her.
Booking a double suite in platinum class on the Indian Pacific was a hideous extravagance. She could have done the Sydney to Adelaide leg in the sitting c
ompartment or even the gold class and saved a lot of money, but it had been a lifelong dream of hers to watch the world chug by as she lay on her double bed, looking out the window. She’d spent the last of her inheritance on the fare but she knew her grandpa, wherever he was now, would be proud.
They passed a compartment with a shut door before Donald stopped at the next one along. ‘Here you are,’ he said, indicating she should precede him.
Felicity entered the wood-panelled compartment dominated by a picture window. A small plate of cheese and biscuits sat on a low central wooden table. A long lounge that would become her double bed sat snugly against the wall between the window and a narrow cupboard where her bags had already been stowed.
‘This is your en suite,’ he said, opening a door opposite the lounge to show her the toilet and shower. It was a reasonable size considering the space constraints.
Donald gave her a quick run-down on her compartment and other bits of information about the service before asking if she’d like a glass of wine or champagne as the journey got under way.
Would she? Hell, yeah.
‘Thank you, Donald, I would love a glass of champagne.’
He smiled at her. ‘One glass of bubbles coming up.’
Felicity waited for him to leave before she danced a crazy little jig then collapsed onto the lounge in a happy heap. Workers scurried around on the platform outside, ready for the train’s departure in a few minutes. She couldn’t believe she was finally sitting in this iconic train about to begin the trip of a lifetime.
Donald returned quickly and handed her a glass full of fizz. ‘You’re just with us until Adelaide, that’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, that’s right. I’d love to go on all the way to Perth. Maybe one day.’
The Indian Pacific was so called because it travelled the width of Australia between the Indian and Pacific oceans. The full trip from Sydney to Perth took three days. Her leg of the journey was only twenty-four hours.
‘I think you’ll enjoy yourself anyway,’ Donald said.
‘Oh, yes,’ Felicity agreed. ‘I have absolutely no doubt. I’ve been looking forward to this for most of my life.’
‘So, no pressure, then?’
Donald laughed and Felicity joined him as the train nudged forward. ‘And we’re away,’ he said.
Felicity looked out the window. The platform appeared to be moving as the train slowly and silently pulled away. ‘Let me know if you need anything. Dinner’s served at seven.’
Felicity nodded then turned back to the window, sighing happily.
* * *
Felicity emerged from her compartment half an hour later. She’d stared out the window, watching the inner city give way to cluttered suburbs then to the more sparse outlying areas as it headed for the Blue Mountains. And now it was time to meet her fellow travellers.
Her neighbour’s door was still firmly closed as she headed out. Maybe she didn’t have one yet. Maybe they’d be joining the train at a later stop? Quelling her disappointment, she headed for the place she knew people would be—the lounge.
And she hit the jackpot. Half a dozen couples smiled at her as she stepped into the carriage, her legs already adjusted to the rock and sway of the train. She stopped at the bar and ordered a glass of bubbles from a guy called Travis. It was poured for her immediately and she made her way over to the semicircular couches where everyone was getting acquainted.
‘Hi,’ she said.
The group greeted her as one. ‘Sit down here with us, love,’ said an older man with a Scottish accent. The woman with him moved over and made some room. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t exactly look in the same demographic as the rest of us.’
Felicity laughed. ‘I have an old soul.’
Every other person in the lounge would have to have been in their sixties. At twenty-eight that made her the youngest by a good thirty years. Luxury train travel was clearly more a retiree option than a hip, young, cool thing to do.
But that was okay. She’d never been particularly hip or cool. She was a small-town nurse who genuinely liked and was interested in older people. She had a bunch of oldies at the practice who she clucked around like a mother hen and she knew this lot would probably be no different despite what would be a short acquaintance.
‘What do you do, dear?’ a woman with steel-grey hair over the other side of the lounge asked.
Felicity almost told them the truth but a sudden sense of self-preservation took over. If she told them she was a nurse, one of two things would happen. She’d have to give medical advice about every ache, pain or strange rash for the next twenty-four hours because, adore them as she did, too many people of the older generation loved to talk obsessively about their ailments. Or they’d pat her hand a lot and tell her continually that she was an angel.
If she was really unlucky, both would happen.
She might be a nurse but she was no saint and certainly no angel. In fact, that kind of language had always made her uncomfortable.
And she didn’t want to be the nurse from a small community where everyone knew her name on this train journey of a lifetime. She didn’t want to be the girl next door. She wanted to be as sophisticated and glamorous as her surroundings. She wanted to dress up for dinner and drink a martini while she had worldly conversations with complete strangers.
Nursing wasn’t glamorous.
‘Oh, I’m just a public servant,’ she said, waving her hand dismissively as she grabbed hold of the first job that came to mind. She doubted it was very glamorous either but it was one of those jobs that was both broad and vague enough to discourage discourse. Nobody really understood what public servants did, right? They certainly didn’t ask them about their jobs.
Or tell them about their personal medical issues.
‘What do you do?’ Felicity asked, and relaxed as the woman, called Judy, launched into a spiel about her job of forty years, which kicked off a conversation amongst them all about their former jobs, and that segued into a discussion about the economy and then morphed again into chatter about travel.
Felicity was in heaven. She was on a train surrounded by witty and enthusiastic companions on the inside and the rugged beauty of the Blue Mountains on the outside. For twenty-four hours she was determined to be a different person.
Tomorrow afternoon she’d be back home where everyone knew her name and stopped her in the street for advice about their baby’s fever, their weird allergies or their shingles. Where everyone called her ‘Flick’ and the guys called her ‘mate’ and the older women of the town tried to matchmake her with any remotely available male.
Tomorrow would be here soon enough. Today nobody knew her and she was going to revel in it for as long as she could.
* * *
The first thing Callum noticed when he entered the restaurant at seven sharp was the sexy blonde from the café. He blinked once or twice just to make sure it was her—his vision wasn’t the best after all. Then she laughed at something her companions were saying and it went straight to his chest and spiked through his pulse.
It was definitely her.
If he’d known she was in the platinum carriage too he wouldn’t have wasted the last few hours catching up on some essential reading his new boss had emailed and insisted he read before he started work.
‘Can I find you a dining companion, sir?’ Donald asked.
‘No,’ Callum said. The beautifully dressed tables seated four and there were several spare chairs around the elegantly appointed dining car but his gaze was glued to the empty one beside her. ‘I’ve found one.’
The corner of Donald’s mouth lifted a fraction. ‘Good choice, sir.’
It took him only a few more seconds to reach the empty chair next to blondie. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. The conversation stopped as all three
diners turned to look at him. ‘Is this seat taken?’
Her eyes widened slightly. They were smoky grey and fringed by sable lashes. She stared at him for long moments and he stared right back. He liked that she seemed as confused by her reaction to him as he was to her.
She’d changed into a dress, a slinky black thing that showed off her neck and collarbones and crisscrossed at her cleavage. She was wearing lip gloss. Pink. Light pink—the colour of ballet shoes. The ends of her honey hair seemed curlier or maybe that was just a trick of the overhead light.
The old guy sitting opposite welcomed him heartily. ‘Sit down, young fella. Save this pretty young thing from having her ear bent off by us old fogies.’
Callum didn’t wait to be asked twice. He wasn’t someone who believed in instalove but he sure as hell believed in instalust. He may be rusty but he knew sexual interest when he saw it.
She sure as hell wasn’t looking at him with pity, like too many women had these past couple of years.
No more pity sex for him.
‘I’m Jock, this is my wife Thelma and the odd one out is Felicity.’
Callum shook Jock and Thelma’s hand and reached for blondie’s. Felicity. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he murmured, their eyes meeting again, an awareness that was almost tangible blooming between them.
‘You were in the café,’ she said after a beat or two, sliding her hand out of his.
He let it go reluctantly. ‘Yes.’ A purr of male satisfaction buzzed through his veins. She remembered him. Had she been checking him out at the same time he’d been ogling her?
‘I didn’t realise you were in the same carriage.’
‘I had some work to do.’ Callum grimaced. ‘I shut myself away for a while. I’m in number eight.’
‘Hey, you’re in nine, right?’ Jock asked Felicity jovially. ‘You’re neighbours.’
Callum smiled at her as he sent a quick thankyou up into the universe. Things were definitely looking up for him. She smiled back and for the first time in a long time his belly tightened in anticipation. His libido had taken a real battering since the accident, so it was a revelation to feel it rousing.