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‘Marion Lennox’s RESCUE AT CRADLE LAKE is simply magical, eliciting laughter and tears in equal measure. A keeper.’
—RT Book Reviews
‘Best of 2010: A very rewarding read. The characters are believable, the setting is real, and the writing is terrific.’
—Dear Author on CHRISTMAS WITH HER BOSS
Dear Reader
It’s autumn as I write this, and the weather’s closing in on Southern Australia where I live, so right now I’m packing my togs and thongs (that’s Aussie-speak for bathing costume and flip-flops) and heading for an extension to my summer. I’m flying up to the Australian Gold Coast. Why not? In Southern Queensland it’s almost perennially summer, the beaches are superb, the surf’s excellent—and there are lots of places that sell drinks with little umbrellas!
I’m sure the characters in Gold Coast City Hospital didn’t have drinks with umbrellas in mind when they applied to work in the hospital we’ve set our stories in. Surely not! Our Gold Coast Angels are a dedicated team of young medics, whose every thought must be tuned to the medicine they live and breathe. But we’ve nobly allowed them some down time. We’ve thrown in a little surf, plus a touch of intrigue and drama, and we’ve definitely included romance. A lot of romance.
Your four dedicated Aussie authors have thus had a wonderful time playing on the Gold Coast, researching everything we needed to bring you four fantastic romances. But I’ve been away for too long, writing and not sun-soaking. Now there’s a sun lounger with my name on it waiting up north. I can hear it calling. I can hear the surf calling. The Gold Coast’s a wonderful place for lying on the sand and reading romance. Maybe I’ll meet you there. I’ll be the one with the umbrella.
Happy reading!
Marion Lennox
MARION LENNOX is a country girl, born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows just weren’t interested in her stories! Married to a ‘very special doctor’, Marion writes Medical Romances™, as well as Mills & Boon® Romances. (She used a different name for each category for a while—if you’re looking for her past Romances search for author Trisha David as well.) She’s now had well over 90 novels accepted for publication.
In her non-writing life Marion cares for kids, cats, dogs, chooks and goldfish. She travels, she fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost). Having spun in circles for the first part of her life, she’s now stepped back from her ‘other’ career, which was teaching statistics at her local university. Finally she’s reprioritised her life, figured out what’s important, and discovered the joys of deep baths, romance and chocolate. Preferably all at the same time!
Gold Coast Angels:
A Doctor’s Redemption
Marion Lennox
Table of Contents
Praise
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
WHY DID ACCIDENTS seem to happen in slow motion?
There seemed all the time in the world to yell a warning, to run down the beach and haul the dog out of harm’s way, to get the fool driving the beach buggy to change direction, but in reality Zoe Payne had time for nothing.
She’d been sitting admiring the sunset at the spectacular surf beach five minutes’ drive from Gold Coast City Hospital. A tangerine hue tinged the white crests of the breaking waves, the warm sea air filled her senses and the scene was breathtakingly lovely.
She’d also been admiring a lone surfer, far out in the waves.
He was good. Very good. The surfable waves were few and far apart, but he had all the patience in the world. He waited for just the right wave, positioned himself before the rising swell with casual ease, then rode seamlessly in before the breaking line of white water.
The scene was poetry in motion, she’d decided, and the surfer wasn’t bad either. When the wave brought him close to the shore she saw him up close. He was tall, sun-bleached, ripped, and the way he surfed said he was almost a part of the sea.
But she’d also been watching a dog. The dog was lying partly concealed among the dunes, closer to the shore than the place she sat. She wouldn’t have known he was there, but every time the surfer neared the shore the big brown Labrador leaped from its hiding place and surged into the shallows. The surfer came in the extra distance to greet the dog, they exchanged exuberant man-dog hugs, and then the surfer returned to the sea and the dog to its hiding place.
She’d been thinking she’d kind of like to go and talk to the dog. This was her first week at Gold Coast City and she was feeling a bit homesick, but there was something about man and dog that said these two were a team that walked alone.
Only now they weren’t alone. Now a beach buggy was screaming down from the road above.
There was no way a beach buggy should be on this beach. There were signs everywhere—protected beach, no bikes, no horses, no cars.
And this wasn’t a local fisherman driving quietly down for an evening’s fishing. This was a hoon driver, gunning his hired beach buggy—she could see the rental signs—for all he was worth.
He hit the dunes and the buggy became almost airborne.
The dog…
She was on her feet, yelling, running, but her feet wouldn’t move fast enough, her voice wouldn’t yell loud enough.
Oh, dear God, no!
For the buggy had hit the dune in front of the dog and hurled right over. It crashed down, hit the next dune, was gunned to further power and roared off along the beach, leaving whatever had happened behind it.
One minute Sam Webster was paddling idly on his board, waiting for the next wave. He was about to call it a day. Surfing after dark was dumb. He knew the risks of night-feeding marine life, and risk-taking was for fools. Besides, the waves were growing fewer, and the current was taking him out. If he couldn’t catch a wave soon, he was faced with a ten-minute paddle to get back to shore.
It