Emily Forbes
Luci Dawson’s guide to getting over your ex:
1. Leave your troubles behind and escape to Sydney for a temporary house swap.
2. When a gorgeous stranger walks into your bedroom, smile—you’ve hit the jackpot!
3. Indulge in a hot fling with said stranger!
But little does nurse Luci know that her fling is about to become so much more. Because Dr. Seb Hollingsworth has ways of making her feel alive again. With Christmas just around the corner, suddenly Luci knows exactly what she wants under her tree!
I wrote my first ten books with my sister, and in my experience the first thing everyone asked was, ‘How do you do it?’ The truth was I’d never written a book any other way—that was all I knew. I have now written fifteen stories solo, but when I was asked if I would be interested in writing a duo with Amy Andrews of course I said yes. We have known each other for a long time, and Amy has also written books with her sister, so we’re both used to plotting with other writers—and sometimes negotiating! ☺
Working out our characters and our stories and how we were going to fit them together was great fun. Our brief was simply to write two stories in which our characters swapped houses; the rest was up to us. We took one character from the country and sent her to the city, and moved one hero in the other direction. One country girl, one city boy—both out of their depth.
Seb and Callum Hollingsworth are gorgeous, smart, sexy brothers, and Luci and Flick are best friends. Even though it might have made sense to make the girls sisters, as that is what we both know so well, it was more interesting to make the boys siblings—two brooding loners in need of a bit of loving.
I really hope you enjoy both stories.
Happy reading,
Emily
EMILY FORBES is an award-winning author of Medical Romances for Mills & Boon. She has written over 25 books and has twice been a finalist in the Australian Romantic Book of the Year Award, which she won in 2013 for her novel Sydney Harbour Hospital: Bella’s Wishlist. You can get in touch with Emily at [email protected] or visit her website at emily-forbesauthor.com.
For anyone who has ever fallen in love when they didn’t intend to—it’s never the wrong time!
‘The Honourable Army Doc was a wonderful, emotional and passionate read that I recommend to all readers.’
—Goodreads
‘OMG, FLICK, I wish you’d been able to see this place.’
Luci had spoken to her best friend several times already today but she couldn’t resist calling her again to update her on her good fortune.
‘It’s nice, then?’ She could hear the smile in Flick’s voice.
‘Nice! It’s amazing.’ Luci wandered around the apartment while she chatted. ‘It’s right on the harbour. The beach is just across the road. I’m looking at the sea as we speak.’ She could hear the waves washing onto the shore and smell the salt in the air. ‘I don’t know how Callum is going to manage in my little house.’
It was a bit odd to be walking around a stranger’s apartment. Luci had spent her whole life surrounded by people she knew so to travel halfway across the country to swap houses with a stranger was odd on so many levels. It had all happened so quickly she hadn’t had time to consider how it would feel. Callum Hollingsworth’s apartment on the shores of Sydney Harbour was modern and masculine. While her house wasn’t particularly feminine it was old and decorated in what she guessed people would call country style. No surprises there, it was definitely a country house. It was clear that her house-swap partner’s taste in decorating was quite different from hers. She felt self-conscious, wondering what he would think of her place, before she realised it didn’t matter. She didn’t plan on meeting the guy.
She heard the whistle of the Indian Pacific through the phone. The two friends had spent the past few days chilling on Bondi Beach, a girls’ getaway that Flick had suggested before Luci settled into her house swap and study course in Sydney, and Flick returned to South Australia on the iconic trans-continental train.
‘Are you on the train?’ Luci asked.
‘Not yet,’ Flick replied. ‘I’m just grabbing a coffee and waiting to board.’
‘Make sure you call me when you get home,’ she told her.
‘Of course I will. What are you going to do with the rest of your day?’
‘I think I’ll take a stroll around my new neighbourhood. The hospital is a half-hour walk away so I might head in that direction. Work out where I have to be tomorrow. I don’t want to be late.’ Luci was enrolled in an eight-week course in child and family health being run through the North Sydney Hospital and she needed to get her bearings. ‘Look after my mum and dad for me.’
That was her one big concern. As an only child of elderly parents—her mother called her their ‘change of life’ baby—Luci was nervous about being so far away