Had she met the man before?
Surely not, for how could she have forgotten someone so mesmeric? Tall, dark and handsome he most certainly was, with eyes—were they dark blue or black?—deep set under black brows. Tanned olive skin, slightly scarred, stretched across a strongly boned face, while a long straight nose drew the eye to well-shaped lips.
Kissable lips!
Kissable lips indeed! What was she thinking?
And why?
Because her body had responded to the touch of his hand? Because her skin had tingled when he’d clasped her fingers?
Meredith Webber says of herself, ‘Some ten years ago, I read an article which suggested that Mills and Boon were looking for new medical authors. I had one of those “I can do that” moments, and gave it a try. What began as a challenge has become an obsession—though I do temper the “butt on seat” career of writing with dirty but healthy outdoor pursuits, fossicking through the Australian Outback in search of gold or opals. Having had some success in all of these endeavours, I now consider I’ve found the perfect lifestyle.’
Recent titles by the same author:
CHILDREN’S DOCTOR, MEANT-TO-BE WIFE†
THE SHEIKH SURGEON’S BABY*
DESERT DOCTOR, SECRET SHEIKH*
A PREGNANT NURSE’S CHRISTMAS WISH
THE NURSE HE’S BEEN WAITING FOR†
*Desert Doctors †Crocodile Creek
THE HEART SURGEON’S SECRET CHILD
BY
MEREDITH WEBBER
JIMMIE’S CHILDREN’S UNIT
The Children’s Cardiac Unit, St James’s Hospital, Sydney. A specialist unit where the dedicated staff mend children’s hearts…and their own!
Don’t miss the second book in this long-awaited return to Jimmie’s Children’s Unit—coming next month from Meredith Webber and Mills & Boon® Medical™ Romance!
JIMMIE’S CHILDREN’S UNIT …where hearts are mended!
PROLOGUE
‘IT’S a love letter, you can’t deny that!’
The tall, slim young woman stood in front of him, anger sparking from her greeny-brown eyes, hurt and defiance yelling at him from the taut white face and tense lines of her body. ‘You’ve a wife at home, and you’ve betrayed her with me! Men!’
‘But it was over with. There—’
She didn’t let him finish, turning away to lift one, then two, then three babies into her arms, while outside the orphanage an even wilder storm raged, nature gone berserk.
‘Not as far as she was concerned, that’s obvious from an envelope festooned with pink hearts,’ Lauren snapped. ‘Not to mention “Je t’aime” which even an Aussie idiot can recognise as French for I love you. And the name—Therese Fournier—I doubt she’s your sister!’
She stood there, clasping the babies, her body vibrating with her rage. Jean-Luc wrapped a threadbare blanket around her shoulders then around the babies. It would offer poor protection from the slashing rain that fell outside but he had to try. He had to try to calm her, too, to explain, although he knew he’d failed, her rejection obvious as she shrugged off the fingers he let linger on her arm.
‘I should have known,’ she continued, anger still reverberating from every cell as she walked swiftly towards the door, body bent above the precious bundles in her arms. ‘Should have known a man as good-looking and sophisticated and worldly as you are wouldn’t really have been interested in a naïve little idiot like me! Except for sex, of course!’
‘It wasn’t like that but this isn’t the time—’ Jean-Luc began, but Lauren was too wound up—too wounded—to listen to anything he had to say.
‘Of course it’s the time,’ she retorted, as quick as a pistol shot. ‘There’s a typhoon raging out there, and we’re all about to be swept away. If we can’t tell the truth now, when can we? Now, open the door so I can get these little ones over to the church. It’s bad enough they have to hear the storm without them hearing us argue as well, poor wee darlings.’
He opened the door, dodging so the force of the wind behind it didn’t knock him over, then he put his arms around Lauren and the babies and they pushed into the wind, dodging as flying debris came close, needing the strength of their combined efforts to get them across the twenty yards separating the orphanage and the church.
Once inside, Lauren threw off the sodden blanket and took her damp charges up towards the altar beneath which she and Jean-Luc had already nestled five other infants and laid in a supply of water, powdered milk, feeding bottles and dry biscuits. Father Joe had suggested they put the babies beneath the altar, thinking the tiny church building, built of brick, was more likely to stand against the typhoon’s force than the larger but less well-built orphanage building. The only trouble was the church was little more than a chapel, too small for the older children and staff to cram into, so he, Jean-Luc and the nuns had built a kind of fortress within the orphanage, using beds and tables for walls and mattresses for a ceiling. There they intended to huddle until the typhoon passed over them and the wild winds and seas diminished.
‘Lauren—’ Jean-Luc began, hating to leave her alone with the babies but especially hating to leave her like this—angry and hurt.
‘Go, Jean-Luc, the others need you.’
‘But…’
She looked at him across the stone altar, babies cradled in her arms and such sadness in her face he thought his heart would break.
‘It’s as much my fault as yours,’ she said bitterly. ‘I loved you, so I trusted you. I believed you when you said you loved me. Look at you—how could I not love you, and, loving you, how could I not believe? Put it down to my stupidity! Now, go!’
She disappeared from view, kneeling down to put her babies with the others, to lift and soothe one already there, crying softly, as all the babies did from time to time.
Indecision held him—he wanted so much to stay, to explain he and Therese had been separated for months, and to offer whatever protection he might to this woman with whom, against all the odds, he’d fallen in love—but the nuns were old and frail and Father Joe needed him to help with the older children. If he hesitated a moment longer, getting back to the orphanage building might be impossible.
‘We’ll talk later,’ he said desperately, torn in two by having to leave her but hurrying anyway towards the door.
‘Oh, no, we won’t.’
The words came from beneath the altar, ominous words, cold and angry, although he had no idea how prophetic they would be. Three days later, lying in hospital with a shattered leg, and less serious injuries too numerous to list, he recalled how, only two hours after he’d left Lauren and the babies in the church, the freak wave that had washed away the orphanage and carried him up into the foothills beyond the village had also reduced the church to a pile of bricks and rubble.
Lauren was dead…
CHAPTER ONE
JEAN-LUC sniffed the air as he walked the short distance from the hospital to his temporary home. The huge park that stretched out on the opposite side of the road made it hard to believe he was in a big city. Not that he’d seen much of it, apart from