Praise for Alison Roberts:
‘Readers will be moved by this incredibly sweet story
about a family that is created in the most unexpected way.’
—RT Book Reviews on THE HONOURABLE MAVERICK
‘I had never read anything by Alison Roberts
prior to reading TWINS FOR CHRISTMAS,
but after reading this enchanting novella
I shall certainly add her name to my auto-buy list!’
—Cataromance.com on TWINS FOR CHRISTMAS
‘Ms Roberts produces her usual entertaining blend
of medicine and romance in just the right proportion,
with a brooding but compelling hero
and both leads with secrets to hide.’
—Mills and Boon® website reader review on NURSE, NANNY … BRIDE!
Heartbreakers of St Patrick’s Hospital
The delicious doctors
you know you shouldn’t fall for!
St Patrick’s Hospital: renowned for
cutting-edge lifesaving procedures …
and Auckland’s most sinfully sexy surgeons—
there’s never a shortage of female patients
in this waiting room!
The hospital grapevine buzzes with
rumours about motorbike-riding rebel
doc Connor Matthews and aristocratic
neurosurgeon Oliver Dawson—
but one thing’s for sure … They’re the
heartbreakers of St Patrick’s and
should be firmly off limits….
So why does that make them even more devastatingly attractive?!
About the Author
ALISON ROBERTS lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, and has written over sixty Mills & Boon® Medical™ Romances. As a qualified paramedic, she has personal experience of the drama and emotion to be found in the world of medical professionals, and loves to weave stories with this rich background—especially when they can have a happy ending.
When Alison is not writing, you’ll find her indulging her passion for dancing or spending time with her friends (including Molly the dog) and her daughter Becky, who has grown up to become a brilliant artist. She also loves to travel, hates housework, and considers it a triumph when the flowers outnumber the weeds in her garden.
The Legendary
Playboy Surgeon
Alison Roberts
CHAPTER ONE
WHAT on earth was going on here?
As she stepped out of the lift, Dr Kate Graham found herself staring at the expanse of linoleum lining the floor of this hospital corridor. The flecked beige was clearly marked by … tyre tracks?
Very odd.
Not that a lot of hospital equipment didn’t have wheels and it was conceivable that a particularly heavy item—a portable X-ray machine, for example—might have pneumatic tyres on its wheels, but these marks suggested the kind of wheels that belonged to something that needed a roadway to get from A to B.
The track marks were leading towards the children’s ward, which was also Kate’s intended destination, but she would probably have followed them anyway. Any distraction from what was waiting for her down in the bowels of St Patrick’s hospital was welcome. Something that seemed highly inappropriate and might need sorting out was even better. Kate could potentially defuse the horrible tension that had been building in her for some time now by directing it elsewhere.
Whatever idiot had thought it might be OK to bring a motorbike, for heaven’s sake, right into a ward full of seriously sick children? Kate could see the machine now, as she rounded a corner. A gleaming, bright red monstrosity at the end of the corridor, just outside the double doors that she knew led to the wide playroom, which was a space enjoyed by any child deemed well enough.
The playroom was well past the nurses’ station where Kate had been headed to collect some urgent samples for the pathology department but she didn’t even slow down as she passed the doorway. Not that the area was attended at the moment, anyway, because staff members and patients alike were crowded behind the astonishing spectacle of the motorbike and the leather-clad figure beside it, who was at that moment lifting a helmet from his head.
Connor Matthews.
Well, no surprises there. The orthopaedic surgeon who specialised in child cancer cases might be something of a legend here at St Pat’s but he failed to impress Kate. He was … disreputable, that’s what he was. He might fit in just fine when he was in an operating theatre but when that hat and mask came off he looked, quite frankly, unprofessional. He was weeks behind a much-needed haircut for those shaggy, black curls and at least several days behind basic personal grooming such as shaving. If he wasn’t in scrubs, his appearance was even worse. Jeans with badly frayed hems. Black T-shirts under a leather jacket. Cowboy boots!
Worse than his physical appearance, though, Connor Matthews broke rules. All sorts of rules, and many of them were far less superficial than a dress code. He was renowned for not following established protocols and he seemed to enjoy being in places he wasn’t supposed to be. Good grief, last week he’d not only delivered a pathology sample to her department in person, in order to queue-jump, he’d hung around and peered through microscopes himself until a diagnosis had been made. If she’d been in the laboratory when he’d turned up he wouldn’t have got away with it just by flashing that admittedly charming smile.
Was that how he’d engineered the appalling demonstration of rule flouting that was going on here now? The paediatric nursing staff had probably melted under the onslaught of his careless charm, the way the lab technicians had last week. They were certainly bedazzled right now. Nobody had noticed Kate’s arrival and they weren’t making room for her to get any closer to the centre of attention. Everybody was riveted by what was happening in front of them.
Connor Matthews was not a small man. As he sank to his haunches in front of a small, pyjama-clad boy, the leather of his pants strained across muscular thighs and the rivets on the back of the biker’s jacket were put under considerable stress as it stretched taut across his broad, strong shoulders. Kate could almost hear a collective, wistful sigh from all the women present.
Connor was oblivious to her glare, of course. He had the motorbike helmet cradled in hands that looked too big to be capable of the delicate skills she knew he displayed in Theatre. She’d also heard how good he was with children too and that was more believable, given the way he was talking quietly to the boy as though they were the only two people in existence. And then he eased the oversized helmet onto the boy’s head, got to his feet and lifted the child onto the seat of the motorbike with a movement that was careful enough not to compromise a tangle of IV lines and gentle enough to elicit an audible sigh from the women this time. The boy’s mother was holding the IV pole steady with one hand. She was pressing the fingertips of her other hand to her face to try and stem her tears as Connor showed the boy how to hold the controls.
And then he did the unthinkable. He reached out and turned a key and the engine of the motorbike roared into life, emitting a puff of black smoke from the wide, shiny silver exhaust pipe. There