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For Mama
You are the smartest, strongest, most engaged and loving woman I know. Every single day, I’m grateful for you.
Acknowledgments
Writing a book seems like a solitary effort, but it definitely is not! I couldn’t do it without my fabulous team of some of the most amazing women in publishing: my insightful editor, Rose Hilliard and her crack assistant, Lizzie Poteet; the talented Elsie Lyons, who designs my lovely covers; the SMP marketing gurus led by Anne Marie Tallberg and Eileen Rothschild; and my soul sister/agent, Deidre Knight. My thanks go out to all the people I haven’t named, behind the scenes at St. Martin’s—I feel lucky to be in such good hands!
And then there are my writing friends, the other writers in the trenches with me day to day, brainstorming and encouraging and supporting and just generally being indispensable. All the gratitude in my heart goes to Kristen Painter, Roxanne St. Claire, Tracie Stewart, Ana Farish, Sarah MacLean, Amanda Carlson, Kresley Cole, Gena Showalter, Kate Pearce, and so many more. Romance writers know how to do friendship!
Special thanks to my beta reader, Bria Quinlan, who has her fingerprints all over Dr. Ben Fairfax. Sorry, ladies, she claimed him first!
I couldn’t write a single romantic word without the love and support of my parents, my sister, my in-laws, and most of all, my handsome, charming, wonderful husband. Always ready to talk through a sticky plot or deconstruct a story, perfectly happy to eat out or order in every night I’m on deadline, and the first person to celebrate every milestone with me—Nick, I love you to pieces. I’ll never be able to name one of my heroes Nicholas, because no fictional character I create could ever live up to the reality of you.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
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
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Also by Lily Everett
Praise for Sanctuary Island
Copyright
Prologue
May 2013
Rain lashed across the cracked windshield of Dr. Ben Fairfax’s ancient pickup truck as it roared over the pitted inland roads, churning up mud and gravel as he raced across Sanctuary Island.
Ben raked wet hair out of his eyes and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. A single thought repeated itself over and over in his head.
Get to her. Get to her. Get to her.
He bared his teeth at the clash of thunder that rocked his truck, rattling the state-of-the-art large animal trailer hooked to his trailer hitch.
Go ahead and do your worst. Nothing’s going to stop me from getting to Merry’s house in time.
The same cold wash of fear he felt when he got the call froze his belly again, but there was no time to fool around with doubts and worries.
Meredith Preston was in labor. At least three weeks early, in the middle of the worst spring storm he’d ever seen roll in off the Atlantic Ocean. And according to her mother’s phone call, Merry’s contractions were approximately three minutes apart and lasted a full minute each.
No time to get Merry to the ferry that would shuttle her the hour from Sanctuary Island to the big hospital in Winter Harbor, Virginia. No telling if the ferry was even running in this weather.
No choice but to step up and do what he could to make sure both mother and new baby made it out of this alive.
Which wasn’t all that different from Ben’s normal practice—he’d helped countless mothers deliver healthy newborns over the course of his seven years on Sanctuary.
Of course, most of those newborn babies had been foals or calves. There was the occasional lamb or goat kid.
Animals were easy. Even when things went wrong, they knew what to do—lie there and let Ben handle the situation. People were more annoying, which was why he tended to avoid them.
Not an option tonight. He had to push everything aside and focus on helping Merry.
Even though the last time Ben had been involved with a human birth was before he’d chucked it all to study veterinary medicine. He hadn’t been the attending physician, he’d been the father.
Grimly beating back the dark surge of memories, Ben refocused his gaze on the road.
I was better off when all I was thinking about was getting to Merry’s bedside.
With that in mind, he pushed the grumbling engine as hard as he dared, making the half hour trip from his farm on Shoreline Drive to Windy Corner, the big, dilapidated plantation house on the northeastern end of the island where Merry lived with her mother, Jo Ellen Hollister.
Hauling his canvas duffel off the truck’s bench seat, Ben tore up the wooden porch steps, heedless of the rain. He swerved to avoid the ragged, gaping hole in the sagging boards and crashed through the front door just as thunder boomed overhead.
Silence.
Ben stood in the dim hallway for an instant and held his breath, listening. A soft murmur of voices from down the hall had his adrenaline pumping and instincts clamoring.
Merry.
Shoving down the terror and worry, Ben gritted his teeth. He had to get these … feelings under control. Merry’s life, and the life of her soon-to-be-born baby depended on Ben keeping a clear, level, unemotional head.
So what if Merry was pretty, and his body reacted inconveniently to being around her. He’d been attracted to women before. Sure, maybe never one as sweet, vivacious, and universally adored as Meredith Preston, but all that meant was that she was even less likely to ever think about a man like Ben that way.
Rationally, he knew he needed to get over this ridiculous infatuation. And since Ben was a man who prized rationality, he would. End of story.
Braced and ready, he opened the door. Meredith Preston paused in her pacing of the hardwood floorboards, one hand at the small of her no doubt aching back, the other arm hooked around her mother’s strong shoulders.
“Up and walking? Good,” Ben said, moving to lay out his medical instruments on the dresser top.
“I didn’t know what else to do.” Jo sounded more afraid and uncertain than he’d ever heard her, the tremor in her voice noticeable even for a man who did his level best never to notice other people’s emotions.
“I’m fine. Oh—” Merry gasped out. Her pretty, even features tightened as a spasm of pain gripped her abdomen. With a clinical eye, Ben took in the hectic flush over her high cheekbones, the rapid throb of the pulse at the hollow of her throat. The bow of her back and the whiteness of her knuckles as her bloodless lips moved silently to count out the seconds of the contraction.
Without conscious thought, Ben
moved to her and nudged Jo gently out of the way just as the contraction released Merry. Exhausted, she swayed on her feet. Ben caught her as gently as he could, supporting her weight against his chest, and froze.
He had his arms around Merry Preston.
Shaking his head to rid it of the frustratingly persistent thoughts, Ben slanted a glance at Jo, wringing her hands a few feet away. “Can you boil some water for me? And we’ll need clean towels or sheets, a big stack.”
Looking grateful to have a task, Jo straightened and leaped for the door. “Yes! Sure, only … Merry, honey, I hate to leave you.”
Merry lifted a shaking hand to wipe her damp, dark hair off her sweaty forehead and attempted a smile. “It’s okay, Mom. Dr. Fairfax will take care of me.”
But as soon as the bedroom door shut behind Jo, Merry pulled away from Ben. He tried not to notice how empty and cold his arms felt.
Irrelevant, Ben told himself firmly, appalled at his lack of focus.
“Ready to get back in bed?” he asked, hands out and ready to steady her if she wobbled. “You can walk some more, if you want.”
“What I want is to get this baby out of me.” She panted for a moment, then looked up at him from under her dark, sooty lashes. Ben read the fear and nerves in her gaze as clearly as if she were shouting it in his ear. “You can handle the delivery, right?”
Forgoing the usual sneer at anyone who questioned his incredibly overqualified competence, Ben still couldn’t quite force the gentle, soothing bedside manner they’d talked about in his residency program.
There was more than one reason he’d dropped out of the neurosurgery program and redirected toward veterinary medicine.
“Yes,” he told her, giving it to her straight, no waffling. “I’ve delivered healthy babies in far worse conditions than a clean, dry, warm, well-lit room.”
Not human babies, but he had enough sensitivity not to remind her of that. The brief flash of humor in her blue eyes said she hadn’t forgotten, but her only response was to climb up onto the high mattress and settle in the nest of downy white pillows.
“Birth is birth.” Ben rolled up his shirtsleeves and went back to setting out his tools. “It’s the first clue we get that life is going to be messy and painful, but the actual process of baby entering world isn’t complicated.”
“Unless there are complications.” She sounded calm, but Ben saw the way her fingers clutched, white-knuckled, at the quilted bedspread. “I’m three weeks early.”
He wanted to tell her to stop worrying, the baby was done cooking and everything was going to be fine—but he wouldn’t say that until after he’d examined her.
It was weird, almost like an out-of-body experience, to stare down at Merry’s pale, strained face and the taut, swollen line of her stomach. With a conscious effort, Ben made the switch in his head.
Merry wasn’t a person right now. She wasn’t the woman who reminded him he was human and made him want to snarl and snap and avoid her for it. She wasn’t beautiful or sexy or funny or stubborn or kind.
She was his patient, and she was in pain. Nothing else mattered.
The next hour passed in a blur. Merry showed a surprising amount of backbone and determination for someone who generally faced the world with a sunny grin and a twinkle in her eye. She battled her own body and the forces of nature to bring her son into the world.
Hands moving on automatic, the dance of his fingers and muscles a response choreographed by hours of practice and an unswerving instinct, Ben was there for all of it. For Merry’s heaving breaths and near-silent cries of pain to her exhausted, incandescent smile when he said, “It’s a boy.”
Ben stared down at the wrinkled, red-faced infant in his hands and felt his heart thrill strangely at the first thin cry from his mouth. The baby clenched his tiny fists in rage and bewilderment at being suddenly thrust into the bright cold air, and it was as if those perfect little fingers gripped Ben’s heart and squeezed.
Doing a quick count, Ben said, “All ten fingers and toes.” He barely recognized his own voice, it was so hoarse. Another reedy cry from the baby jerked Ben back into motion, and he dealt quickly and efficiently with the umbilical cord before laying the naked, squirming infant on Merry’s quivering stomach.
No matter how many times he witnessed it, Ben knew he’d never get tired of the rush he felt at the awe-inspiring spectacle of birth. What he’d told Merry was true—it was painful and messy, for sure.
But it was also the closest a man like Ben was ever going to get to touching pure joy.
Ben kept his head down through the confusion and chaotic happiness of Jo Ellen crying and her older daughter, Ella, rushing in dripping rainwater all over the floor with Ben’s best friend, Grady Wilkes. He resisted being included in the round of hugs and chatter, preferring to spend the time shoring up his defenses against Merry Preston.
It was simple relief that made him feel light-headed and raw—relief that he’d been in time, been there to help, and that his patients were doing well. It was the satisfaction of a job well done that made his hands shake as he packed up his medical kit.
Ben studiously ignored the memory of crippling fear that had gripped him when he got the call from Jo. Obviously, he would’ve helped any woman in Merry’s situation. She wasn’t special.
“What’s your middle name, Doc?”
Ben frowned at Merry. His heart rate picked up—due to being startled, obviously.
“Why?” he countered.
Merry rolled her eyes. “I’m not planning to steal your identity or something. Come on, answer the question.”
Ben paused, debated. Couldn’t come up with a reason not to tell her. “Alexander.”
Her bright, open face went thoughtful.
“Alex. Ooh, or Zander. I like it.”
“Like it for what?” Ben ducked his head over his canvas satchel, staring sightlessly at the tidy array of medical instruments. He was holding his breath, and he didn’t even know why.
“For Baby,” Merry said, and Ben’s lungs contracted as if he’d taken a punch to the solar plexus.
“Alexander Hollister Preston,” Merry continued, oblivious to the fact that she’d just destroyed any hope Ben had of maintaining his emotional distance.
Rummaging unnecessarily through his kit had the dual advantage of allowing Ben to keep his expression to himself while he tuned out most of Jo Ellen and Merry’s conversation.
His overactive brain couldn’t help but latch on to the fact that Merry hadn’t chosen to name her son after the kid’s absentee father. She’d severed ties in a meaningful way by keeping Preston as the baby’s surname. And giving him the middle name of Hollister meant Merry wanted him to have a connection to her mother’s family.
Maybe all of that meant that Merry planned to move to Sanctuary Island permanently.
The intense flare of hope in Ben’s chest resisted any attempt by his brain to question why he should care.
Merry had named her son Alexander—nicknamed “Alex” within an hour of being born—for Ben.
At some point after Grady and Ella cleared out to let Merry get some much-needed sleep, Jo excused herself to take a phone call in the front parlor, leaving Ben to watch over her daughter and new grandson.
“Thank you.” Merry sighed, eyelids fluttering as she struggled to stay awake with her son lying on her chest under the sheet.
“You said that already,” Ben reminded her, but his usual sharpness was blunted around the edges. He felt … shaken. Unsure of how he felt about any of this.
Part of it was exhaustion—now that the adrenaline was draining out of his system, he was aware of every ache and pain—but even more unsettling was the simple happiness that suffused his chest as he gazed into Merry’s bright blue eyes.
Propping his hip on the edge of the bed, Ben struggled for his normal cool composure. “Besides, the hard part was all you. I was basically just here to be your catcher.”
Merry gave him a slight smile. “Y
ou’re not as much of a jerk as you want everyone to think you are.”
“No, I really am,” he told her honestly. “Doesn’t mean I can’t give credit where it’s due.”
Beneath the sheet, baby Alex snuffled against Merry’s breast and made a sound that was like nothing so much as a piglet rooting for its mother’s milk. Merry winced as he latched on, an odd expression on her face.
“Hurts?” Ben stood up, ready to dig through his canvas bag for … what? He didn’t exactly keep plastic nipple guards in human sizes on hand.
“A little. It’s weird.” She let her head fall back against the headboard with a muted thunk. “But also kind of satisfying.”
You’re going to be a good mother, he wanted to say. Ben clamped his lips shut stubbornly. Sentimental idiocy. There was no guarantee Merry would be any better at parenting than anyone else.
The only guarantee was that she’d mess up that kid the way all parents messed up their kids, even the loving parents. Maybe especially the loving parents.
But at least she’d have the chance to try and get it right.
A familiar ache swelled and bloomed under his breastbone, like a spreader inserted between his ribs, cracking him open wide.
Dr. Ben Fairfax stared down at Merry Preston nursing her baby for the first time, and all of a sudden, he knew exactly how he felt about having that kid named after him.
He liked it.
But it wasn’t enough. He wanted more.
Merry yawned, a real jaw cracker, without a trace of self-consciousness, her deep blue eyes hidden under the sweep of long lashes a shade or two darker than the spill of wavy brown hair over the pillow. Alex was an impossibly small, perfect bump under the sheets.
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