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Dear Reader
Almost everyone in Australia would associate the Gold Coast, Queensland, with theme parks, beaches, holidays and fun. Everyone except, of course, the people who live there. For them it’s just home. They get to enjoy the lovely beaches and the tranquillity of the rainforest in their own back gardens. Last year, when I was at a conference of romance writers on the Gold Coast, I wondered what it would be like to live in a tourist town—because everyday life isn’t vacation…it’s everyday life! How often do the residents get to the beach or the rainforest?
So, when my editor asked me if I would like to be part of the Gold Coast Angels series, I leaped at the chance—because this was my opportunity to explore living and working in a place that ticked 24/7 with a holiday vibe but was still home to so many people.
Chloe hasn’t really ever had a vacation, even though she’s lived on the Gold Coast for a decade. She’s been too busy supporting her brother Nick and getting her own life back together after being abandoned by her parents at sixteen. Now she’s just turned thirty, and she’s reflecting on her life and where it’s headed. Have the sacrifices she’s been forced to make been worth it?
Luke loved the casual Gold Coast lifestyle in the huge house on the canal that he shared with his wife and daughter, but one moment in time stole all that from him. Now he’s living in a town known for its fun, and yet he’s cloaked in sadness and not able to see a way out of it.
I hope you enjoy Chloe and Luke’s story, set against the backdrop of sun, surf and life lived to the full, and seeing how they manage against the odds to find their place in it and each other.
For photos of the Gold Coast, and tourist information to help you plan your next vacation, head over to my website: www.fionalowe.com. I love to hear from my readers, and you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, my website and blog, or e-mail me at [email protected]
Happy reading!
Fiona x
Always an avid reader, FIONA LOWE decided to combine her love of romance with her interest in all things medical, so writing Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™ was an obvious choice! She lives in a seaside town in southern Australia, where she juggles writing, reading, working and raising two gorgeous sons with the support of her own real-life hero!
Gold Coast Angels:
Bundle of Trouble
Fiona Lowe
To Kath for sharing her story
and to Christine for telling it.
Wishing you both good health and happiness.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY!’
The cheers rained over Chloe Kefes and she didn’t know if she wanted to laugh, cry or run. Truth be told, she wanted to do all three as she stared in shocked surprise at the smiling faces of her colleagues.
Somehow she managed to get her legs to move and as she stepped forward into the meeting room, the staff enthusiastically rushed her with balloons and hugs before pressing a polystyrene cup containing a small drop of champagne into her hand. So much for this being a vital patient review meeting on the busy Gold Coast City Hospital’s plastic surgery ward—instead it was a well-meant ambush.
‘To Chloe.’ They raised their cups.
‘Many happy returns, Clo.’
‘Have a good one.’
Her shoulders were squeezed, she was patted on the back, and her arm was pummelled with birthday bumps as half the room—the afternoon shift—rushed past her, dashing back to work.
‘Don’t let Richard eat all the Tim Tams,’ Julie, the radiographer, called out over her shoulder.
Their departure left behind the now off-duty day staff, which comprised a student nurse, a medical student and the plastics registrar, Richard, who had a reputation for eating all the chocolates.
Chloe finally found her voice. ‘Oh, you guys, you didn’t have to do this.’ Really, I wish you hadn’t.
Keri Letterman, the unit nurse manager, gave her a wide smile. ‘You didn’t think we’d let the big three-oh go past without acknowledging it, now, did you?’
‘Wow,’ muttered the barely twenty-year-old student nurse to the twenty-one-year-old med student, ‘I didn’t think she was that old.’
Chloe tried to give the bright and breezy smile she was known for but, despite her very best attempt, her ‘I guess not’ came out a tad strangled.
Up until a few minutes ago she’d really thought she’d managed to slip under the birthday police’s radar, otherwise known as Keri and Kate. Given the fuss they’d made of Lizzie, the ward clerk, on her fiftieth birthday, Chloe probably should have known better. Except that, unlike the rest of the staff, she hadn’t spent the preceding days giving a birthday countdown to anyone who’d listen.
In fact, she hadn’t told anyone it was her birthday and she certainly hadn’t told them it was the dreaded thirtieth.
‘Lucky for you,’ Keri continued, ‘I met Nick, Lucy and those gorgeous twins in the cafeteria and they told me it was your special day. If we were depending on you to tell us, we’d never have known.’
That was the general idea. ‘Who needs enemies when you’ve got a big brother, right?’ Chloe joked, hearing the slight criticism in her boss’s voice. She worked on letting it slide over her. Unlike many of her colleagues, she didn’t bring her private life to work—mostly because she didn’t have one.
Instead, she chatted about her new apartment with the sea view—a ten-centimetre glimpse of the ocean from her kitchen sink—her bushwalks in the rainforest hinterland around Mt Warning, and her latest adventures with sea kayaking. All