Contents
About the Author
Other books by Brittany Dreams
1. Abby
2. Abby
3. Dylan
4. Dylan
5. Abby
6. Dylan
7. Abby
8. Dylan
9. Abby
10. Abby
11. Dylan
12. Abby
13. Abby
14. Dylan
15. Abby
16. Abby
17. Dylan
18. Dylan
19. Abby
20. Dylan
21. Abby
22. Dylan
23. Abby
24. Dylan
25. Abby
26. Dylan
27. Abby
Epilogue
Doctor’s Orders: Nick (Sample)
Introduction
Tania
Other books by Brittany Dreams
Copyright 2020 by Brittany Dreams
This book is licensed to you for our personal enjoyment only.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity of real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
About the Author
Brittany has always had a flare for writing about contemporary and fantasy romance. She fell in love with writing at a very young age and her love grew to include Western Billionaire Fantasy Romances. Her books are filled with twists and turns. Just when you think you have the series figured out, there will be a shift.
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Other books by Brittany Dreams
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Doctor’s Orders: Dr. Dawson
Doctor’s Orders: Dr. Sawyer
Doctor’s Orders: Cole
Doctor’s Orders: Dylan
Doctor’s Orders: Nick
Abby
Hey Babe,
How’s it going?
I was thinking since you liked sailing so much, how about a weekend getaway? I think you’ll enjoy the break.
Think about it and let me know later.
Wade xx
* * *
My finger hovers over the screen of my phone, getting ready to type my answer, only I can’t.
Just like the last twenty times that I read Wade’s message, I freeze up.
It’s so simple…all I have to do is type back and say yes.
I’m not sure what woman would say no to a man like him. Wade Denman is an investment banker who works for a prestigious Fortune 500 company.
He’s thirty-two years old, wealthy, and has his head screwed on right. He plans for the future and he loves sailing.
The man is drop-dead gorgeous and could have any woman on his arm, but chose to spend nearly every Saturday night over the last few months with me, understanding that my life can be busy with the way I work at the hospital.
Heck, the man even came to see me at work to drop off a box of doughnuts from Mario’s when I told him I craved them and wouldn’t be getting off work for hours.
That’s the kind of guy he is.
So I should say yes.
I should text Wade back and agree to a weekend getaway. Especially one that involves sailing. I love sailing.
Accepting would be the most normal thing in the world to do when you get a request like that, especially after dating for five months.
Five months suggests things are serious. He’s serious about me and I want to be serious about him too.
I should have said yes this morning when the message came through instead of chickening out and heading to Mac’s house. It should be a no-brainer, yet I’m sitting on the lawn of Mac’s back garden staring out at the vast expanse of Lake Michigan, in a bout of confusion.
The same confusion that takes me every year at this time.
I know it’s that.
That’s the problem. It’s that thing again. Always is, and time isn’t healing me. It feels like it’s just making me worse. Year in, year out, and I don’t feel any better. Not at all, not even a little bit.
I want to be serious about Wade, but there’s a few things I need to do before that can happen.
The biggest thing is moving on.
It’s the how part.
How do you move on when you’ve lost the love of your life and you have to acknowledge that they’re not coming back, no matter what you do?
That kind of guy is irreplaceable but I know I can’t keep finding fault with every guy I meet just so I can have an excuse to break up.
I scan over the view before me. It’s always so beautiful here with the sailboats in the distance, showing the slower-paced lifestyle against the Chicago skyline.
It’s barely midday but there’s a host of sailboats out on the lake making full use of the fantastic summer weather. I do love sailing. Always did. I love the feel of being out there on the water but mostly I love the way you can just relax and allow the water to guide you.
It’s freeing and most welcomed in the heart of serious stress like exams or living through your medical internship.
That was the last time I went sailing properly. I’d just finished my internship at Northwestern Memorial and sailing was more of a celebration than a distraction.
It was that day I knew I could hack it as a neurologist.
I knew I could and would make it.
Maybe it was that inner strength from the realization that helped me get through the months that followed because damn did my life turn every which way it should have, except the way I wanted it to go.
What followed after that last sailing trip was something else. Something I never saw coming.
In your first year of residency you’re supposed to be stressed about work, not saying goodbye to the boy you loved your whole life.
Jack Donovan was the love of my life. There’s no other way to describe him.
Setting the phone down on the patch of grass next to me, I hug my knees to my chest. I hope Mac will be home soon and we can do something to take my mind off my situation.
I thought that going sailing for the first time in three years was a big step because Jack and I used to sail all the time. I thought the fact that I went with Wade was great, and suggested I was healing emotionally.
What it did though was stir everything up. I know I should give Wade a chance but it’s not fair to lead a guy on when you know there’s no positive end in sight.
I need Mac to tell me I’m doing the right thing by being levelheaded. He’s the only one that gets it. He understands me and yes, he’s going to think it’s weird to see me here today, and he’ll probably think I’m even stranger than he already finds me, but he’ll get it.
He’s known me long enough to get it, and saw me go through all the pain. So while it might not be normal to hang out so much with your boss/mentor outside of work, it’s normal for us.
My phone buzzes again. I glance down and see a message from Tania. She was the first person I messaged earlier when Wade texted. I wanted to know what she’d say.
I frown as I open the message and see her colorful advice.
Abby,
Girl please say yes.
Please don’t turn away a dirty weekend filled with lots of sex and orgasms.
Sex is good for the soul, food for the soul, so much the better on a boat.
Hugs and love,
Tania
I don’t know why I bothered to ask her advice.
What do I expect from my sex-crazed best friend who thinks men exist only to give good orgasms and please her? She is the kind of girl who uses her looks to lure men to her bed every chance she gets, and she can’t understand why I don’t do that, or at least try. That’s what she said to me once.
Like with Wade, I don’t text back.
This requires tact and care. It requires someone who’s been through what I’m going through.
Everyone has always tried to offer their support in some way. Sometimes a broken heart tends to reach out to those who are in a similar boat. That’s why I cling to Mac so much. He’s lost people he loved too, so he understands.
I want to shake this mood before next week.
It’s the start of the third year of my residency and while every year counts, this is the year to bring it to the table. That’s another reason for being here today. Next week I’m supposed to let Mac know if I want to stay on his team or move to another area of research. I want to let him know I’m staying for good.
That means hard work so he’ll keep me.
I hear the front door to his house open and snap my gaze around to look at the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors lining the back of the house.
Mac knows I’m here and knows where to look. I always come out here when I’m over because I live in an apartment in the city, and I love his garden and the view of the lake.
When I don’t see him come out I get up and go inside the house.
I stop short when I notice the front door is wide open and there’s a bag on the ground by the staircase. A duffel bag.
Mac doesn’t have a bag like that. He mainly carries a briefcase.
A glance outside shows no sign of his black station wagon. There’s no car, no sign of any vehicle at all, but the door’s wide open.
I used the spare key to get in the house earlier. The others on the team would use it too, but I don’t know anyone as lame as me who’d be here on a bright afternoon like this, and on a Saturday.
Footsteps echoing against the floorboards upstairs make me jump.
Jesus Lord, there’s someone upstairs.
Who?
Maybe Mac took a taxi home or something.
I go to call out his name but stop myself.
What if it’s not Mac? It would be unusual for him to know I’m here and not come straight to me. It’s been close to ten minutes since I heard the door open.
So…maybe calling for him would be foolish.
Am I paranoid? Maybe it’s someone I know. Chances are it is. Mac lives by himself and has his team over all the time. We’ve been like that since college.
Me, Tania, Celine, and Chad. Chad is never far from Mac because they’re like Sherlock and Watson, and Celine is like their assistant, even though she’s not really. It’s just the way it works. We’re all neurologists and we spend most of the time bouncing ideas off each other to thrash out a diagnosis for our patients.
Mac uses this section of the house for work and keeps the rest private.
So the person upstairs could be any one of them. Except maybe Tania. Knowing that girl she’s either still in bed with whatever guy she went out with last night.
Just to be on the safe side I walk into the kitchen quickly and reach for the only thing I can see to use for a weapon—a frying pan.
Aunt Lurlene always said you can never be too careful. She didn’t make deputy sheriff by buffing her nails and curling her hair. That’s what she’s always telling me. Never be too careful, and everything can be used as a weapon. Or as something to get you out of trouble, just like in MacGyver.
Having lived with her for most of my young life, I grew up on that show. It was practically gospel in the house.
Carefully, I make my way upstairs. One foot at a time. I even avoid the step that always creaks.
It could be any of the guys…but what if it’s not?
I get to the top of the stairs and look around. I can either go across the way to the bedrooms, to the study, or to my left where the bathroom is.
I go that way. For some reason my mind tells me it may be safer.
“Those motherfuckers can go to hell!” comes a man’s rough voice from inside the bathroom that I definitely don’t recognize. My heart stops along with my feet.
That’s not anybody I know at all.
No one who comes here talks like that.
He’s inside the bathroom. Inside there. Inches away from me. And I’m so scared I can’t move.
“Fucking assbackwards shit,” the gruff voice booms, and I’m frozen with fear. “I just needed time to heal. I was shot for fuck’s sake. Three fucking bullets. What the hell do they expect, superhuman healing? I’ll kill that asshole.”
Kill?
Shot three times…
Oh my God, Mac has some kind of burglar. He sounds like a gang member or some kind of criminal.
Oh girl what the hell are you saying? This is Chicago, there’s a lot of mafia guys around the city. What if this guy is one of them?
The bathroom door flies open and I jump out of my damn skin when a tall muscular guy with a crew cut and a face for Hollywood steps out. Bright blue piercing eyes stare back at me wildly, almost making me forget I don’t know him, and just for a second I’m tempted to get lost in the sheer perfection of him standing before me in a black leather biker jacket and Levi’s hung low on his hips.
Just for a second.
It’s thinking of Aunt Lurlene that snaps me out of my daze. Her words come back to me, reminding me the devil wears many faces. As the words fly to my mind I swing the frying pan and hit him with it.
He throws his hands up and yelps. I slap him again on the other side this time.
“What the hell!” he yells, grabbing the frying pan and lunging for me.
I scream and that’s when common sense kicks in and I whirl around to make a run for it back down the stairs. Back the way I came.
What the hell is wrong with me? Why did I go up the stairs in the first place?
He’s coming after me and all I can do is run. Then fear and terror makes me stumble and I trip over my feet and fall.
A panicked scream sounds from my soul as I fall forward, smash into the wall, and knock my head.
I remember hitting the ground.
Then darkness.
Abby
Voices
Low voices…
I hear them but I’m so far away. Or maybe it’s them who’s far away.
I don’t know.
I…don’t know. My head is throbbing.
I can’t open my eyes.
“Thought you hated your students,” a harsh voice hisses and pulses through my head. “She hit me with a frying pan.”
“Dylan…what is the matter with you?” That’s Mac.
“Nothing. You said the whole lot of them were like the plague coming to cause black death, so of course I can’t imagine why you’d have one in your house. Unless…hell. Uncle, don’t you think she’s a little too young for you?”
My eyes flutter open and everything’s a blur. I move my head from side to side then my vision clears and a face comes into view.
Eyes…that’s the first thing that grabs my attention.
Bright blue eyes like the blue of the sea in Tuscany, but there’s a touch of green there too mingling with the blue of the iris.
Blue-green eyes are rare. It’s an actual genetic mutation in the HERC2 gene.
Jack told me that. He was the only person I knew who had eyes like that.
Bright blue-green eyes and black hair just like Jack. But this isn’t Jack, and Jack wouldn’t scowl at me like that.
Panic threatens to take me again when the memory of what happens surfaces in my mind. I remember this guy! Just as I shuffle to try and run, Mac rushes up to me.
“
Abby are you okay? Please keep still.”
“Mac, there’s a man in your house. I think he’s a burglar,” I mutter. Somehow I know that sounds stupid saying it but the words just fall from my lips. It doesn’t help that the little shuffle makes my head hurt worse than it already did.
“I can’t deal with this shit now,” the guy says, and shakes his head. “She’s alive, I’m out.”
He heads to the door and glances back at me once over his shoulder before he leaves the room.
We’re in Mac’s office and I’m lying on the long sofa.
“Abby, that was Dylan, my nephew,” Mac says with a small smile, and embarrassment cascades over me in abundance.
“Mac, I’m so sorry! I thought he was…” My voice trails off. I won’t make myself sound more stupid than I look. I hit Mac’s nephew with a frying pan…twice. “Is he okay? I hit him hard.”
Mac starts to laugh. “Dylan’s the nephew who’s a marine. He’s a lieutenant. I’m sure a frying pan won’t do much damage.”
Why is my life such shit?
I suddenly remember something from a few months back about Mac’s nephew. He has three nephews who are in the armed forces. Two in the Navy and one a marine. One of them got injured. I can’t remember which. Dylan mentioned being shot earlier so it must be him.
“Is he the nephew who got injured a few months ago?”
Mac nods and the slight humor that previously tickled his expression recedes.
“Now I feel so much worse.”
“It’s okay. Let’s focus on you for a few seconds.” Mac nods and that fatherly warmth I always appreciate comes back into his dark brown eyes.
Dylan Page 1