Return of Dr Irresistible

Dear Reader

I’d love to open this letter with something deep and philosophical that inspired me to write RETURN OF DR IRRESISTIBLE. Or I could go on at length about my fascination with the circus microculture, and about how it doesn’t matter because at heart people are people …

But really …? I just wanted to write about the circus! Who doesn’t like the circus?

My motivation was really that deep at the start. So, naturally, as I had no vested interest in the subject at the outset, writing the book provided me with insights into my own psyche. I should expect that to happen by now, but it’s always a surprise when it does.

It doesn’t matter if you grew up in the suburbs, in a circus, or in the hills of Appalachia: everyone feels like the weirdo or an outsider at some point. And you always have to step outside your safe zone to grow past that.

Take risks. Be brave. And, for the love of chocolate and fat, and roly-poly puppies, go to the circus whenever you can! :)

Amalie xo

www.amalieberlin.com

Twitter: @AmalieBerlin

Facebook: www.facebook.com/amalie.berlin

Return of Dr Irresistible

Amalie Berlin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Dedication

To my little brother Seth, a great writer whose name will be on the front of a book before long. He who read my first book (even though it’s a romance) and promotes my new releases to the point that my secret identity is no longer secret with my family (doh!).

If I end up on the prayer chain for acts of text-based naughtiness it’s all his fault.

To my editor, Laurie Johnson. She’s either very brave or she’s got a heck of a poker face. This was our first book together and she didn’t even hesitate when I emailed to let her know: ‘I WANT TO WRITE A MEDICAL ROMANCE SET AT THE CIRCUS!

YAY!’ Nerves. Of. Steel.

Praise for Amalie Berlin:

‘A sexy, sensual, romantic, heart-warming and pure emotional, romantic, bliss-filled read. I very much look forward to this author’s next read, and being transported to a world of pure romance brilliance!’

—goodreads.com on CRAVING HER ROUGH DIAMOND DOC

Contents

Cover

Dear Reader

Title Page

Dedication

Praise

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

FOR TEN YEARS Dr. Reece Keightly had been dreading this night.

He’d known it would come to this. Of course he’d known. It was all on his shoulders—the dynasty, the future of the company and the weight of the past. Two centuries of history all ending with him.

The tenth-generation owner of Keightly Circus was the one who would tear it all down. Nice round number, ten. Like Fate had decreed it. Like he was just filling the role assigned to him. Like it wasn’t his fault.

Except it was. That’s how they’d see it.

Reece took a step forward, shuffling with the crowded line to the ticket booth. The traditional last annual stop of the circus was always Atlanta due to its proximity to where they summered, but it was also the best crowd. The local, hometown circus returning triumphant from a season on the road, played out the last week near home. Traditional, like so many other things with his family’s circus. Keightly’s prided themselves on tradition.

Due to the coverage given to the impending closing—local television and radio stations had blared the news for weeks—they were enjoying record crowds for the last performances. For Atlantans, parents had been coming with their children for generations. Another tradition that would be violated after this year.

As excited as he was to see the show—and he never lost that excitement—the prospect of seeing people he cared for putting their lives in danger built in him a kind of extreme awareness of the world around him. It slowed things down, pulled him out of himself, and amplified every ounce of fear until it became a physical sensation, the taste of cold metal on the back of his tongue and he couldn’t swallow past it.

Excited terror. He almost longed for ignorance, to be just one of the crowd, another random person in line who only knew the fantasy. But Reece knew the horror too.

All around him children giggled and chattered happily. Ahead, inside the massive blue tent, the band tuned up, readying to start the show, and every note amplified the dread eating at him. The sawdust awaited him. A tradition he could do without.

Dwelling on the unpleasant details wouldn’t help him deal with them better. Shut it down. He just needed to see this show. One last time, make certain he was making the right decision. Not that he had any real doubts, but two hundred years deserved one last think. One last chance for them to change his mind.

Two people away from the ticket counter, he heard the first slow whistles of the calliope wheezing through the lot. Soon the ancient steam-powered contraption blanketed the area in sound—cheerful music silenced his chaotic thoughts.

He’d always loved the old calliope, but in the wake of those first warbling notes a surge of homesickness slammed into him. Nostalgia so strong it was like overlapping two realities—belonging and alienation, comfort and terror, peace and anger.

He latched on to the last emotion. Anger was better. He could do this—be angry enough to drown out the rest. But he should at least be honest with himself—he wanted to be there if for no other reason than to see her perform. He wanted to see them all, but the promise of Jolie Bohannon in the spotlight would see him through.

He just needed to see the show one more time. Everything would be fine.

Say goodbye.

Purge the sawdust from his blood, and all the rest of it.

One last time.

Then he’d take care of everyone. See them settled. And go back to his safe and orderly life. Find a place to build his practice. Buy a home with a foundation beneath it. He could have people relying on him for their health—it’s what he’d been raised to do—but not while he had to stand by and watch them put their lives in jeopardy to make people cheer.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught his first glimpse of the steam-powered calliope rolling across the lot. His mother sat at the back, playing the piano-like keyboard that operated the old steam whistles, while Mack Bohannon drove the carriage.

Jolie’s family had traveled with Keightly Circus since before the Civil War. They might as well be family for real, and soon there would be a link when his mother married Mack and left Reece as the last Keightly standing.

Not yet ready to be seen, Reece pulled down the brim of his fedora, hunching his shoulders like that would make him stand out less. Keightly men grew tall. Every one well over six feet. But nobody expected him to be here tonight, and he didn’t know how they’d react to his presence. He wanted to just be an observer.

He had a right to be angry. Reece harbored no illusions, though—if this were a movie, he’d be wearing black and twirling a weird mustache in the corner. Only villains closed circuses... Even if he was making the right call for the right reasons, something beloved was dying. Making the death of the circus quick rather than letting it limp along on life support was a kindness.

If he wasn’t going to take the reins, if he wasn’t going to step up as the last Keightly and lead, he had to take care of laying the show to rest. And he would do that. With the respect and honor it deserved.

But first he’d see one last show and say goodbye on his own.

And maybe somewhere along the way he’d find a way of convincing himself he wasn’t a monster.

* * *

Jolie Bohannon stood at the back of the tent, holding Gordy’s leash. The miniature white stallion always had to be held back until it was absolutely time for him to enter the ring. He lived to perform, a feeling she could once have identified with. It was still there—in theory—but she had other important responsibilities to handle now. Like making sure the full-sized mounts and the Bohannon Trick-riders didn’t accidentally trample Gordy because someone let him off his leash too soon. Calm and orderly, that’s how everything and everyone stayed safe.

She listened for the change in the music—everyone in the circus learned to gauge where the performance was by the music—and adjusted Gordy’s flashy silver bridle and the wee matching and no less flashy saddle. His costume.

At the first trumpet, she unclipped his harness and reached for the tent flap, barely getting her hand in before he barreled through the flap and down the causeway. She stepped through in time to see him enter the ring. Darting between the other horses ridden by the Bohannon Trick-riders, he stopped dead center, reared on his back legs to stretch to his tallest—four feet and some change—and whinnied.

One by one, the other horses in the ring bowed to him, the little king. The little clown to end the act, the segment of the horse act that reached out to the children and in the audience, drew them in, and got their minds away from the scary excitement of moments before. Jolie smiled. Gordy could still make her smile.

The show was almost over. One more act and then the finale.

She stepped back outside, listening and watching the bustle of the crew getting ready to change the ring for the next act.

Watching the show was a little too much for her right now. She never let her emotions get out of control. Never. But with the circus closing down for good, emotions she’d long ago buried seemed closer to the surface. The last thing she needed was for something to set her off. Watching the show, getting sentimental and weepy over the last performances? Would interfere with her job. Everyone had a job to do and they’d do it with or without her, but she had to hold up her end. That meant right now she had to stand here and wait while Gordy played the fool and the crew changed the set, but she didn’t have to watch the well-oiled machine.

The music stopped suddenly, snapping Jolie’s attention back to the present. In a well-oiled machine, the music never stopped for no reason.

A cold feeling crept up over the back of her head. That emotion could never be buried or ignored. But fear could be used.

Cries had barely begun rising from the crowd before Jolie was inside the tent, running toward the ring. There she found her family off their mounts, surrounding something.

Where was Gordy?

She burrowed through and found him lying on his side, all playfulness gone. He thrashed about, repeatedly trying and failing to rise. She didn’t have to look hard to see that his front left leg was injured. Not again.

Three of her cousins stepped in to try and get him to his feet, but he bit at them.

‘Get out of the way. Call a vet. We need a vet.’ Her order was loud enough to be heard above the din. Gordy was her responsibility. Her job... But more than that, she loved him. He depended on her to take care of him.

Grabbing her phone from her pocket, she thrust it at her uncle as she moved past, holding on to her calm. Gordy needed orderliness and calm from her. ‘Whoa, Gordy. It’s okay. Whoa...’

He was just scared and in pain. She squatted at his side and, despite his thrashing, got the straps circling his belly unbuckled and the spangled saddle off. Freeing him from the extra weight didn’t help him rise on his own, and she needed to see him on his feet.

He wouldn’t bite her. He’d never bitten her.

Taking a breath, she leaned in, arms surging for his chest and belly to try and help the small stallion to his feet.

‘Jolie, his leg is broken.’ She heard a deep man’s voice, winded but loud. Someone who’d been running too, familiar and unfamiliar even if he said her name. Too busy to question it further, she tried again to lift Gordy. So heavy. Jolie adjusted her arms and tried harder, straining to get the tiny stallion off the ground without putting any pressure on that leg.

He got on his knees, but she wasn’t strong enough to get him all the way up. The position put pressure put on his leg and her favorite friend peeled his lips back and bit into her forearm. The shock of the bite hit her almost as sharply as the pain radiating up her arm.

She must have hurt him because it wasn’t a quick bite. His jaw clenched and ground slightly, like he was holding back something intent on hurting him. He held on, and so did Jolie.

Someone stepped to the other side of the horse and put his arms around Gordy’s middle. ‘On three.’ She gritted her teeth, counted, and the excessively large man lifted with her.

This time Gordy’s back legs came under him and they got him to his feet, or least to the three good ones. She needed to see him standing, assess how bad the break was. It occurred to her that she should be more freaked out about this.

Veterinary medicine had come a long way since the days when a broken leg had been a death sentence for a horse, but Gordy may as well be living in the Wild West. He had a history of leg problems. Jolie remembered what they’d gone through the last time and what Gordy had gone through. Someone would make that terrible suggestion. Someone would say they should put him down... She needed to keep that from happening.

She also really needed him to stop biting. A few deep breaths and she’d be able to control the pain, but it’d be easier if he’d let go. Having her screaming at him would freak the tiny horse out and he was already afraid.

‘Let go now,’ the man said, pulling her attention back to him over Gordy’s pristine white back. She expected to see a vet, or maybe someone who had traveled with the circus in the past...

Ten years had changed his face. Broadened it. Made it more angular. But she knew those eyes—the boy she’d known ten years ago. The boy she’d loved.

Reece wasn’t supposed to be there yet. And he probably wasn’t supposed to be looking like he was about to throw up.

‘I can’t let go.’ Jolie grunted. Speaking took effort. Suddenly everything took effort. Controlling the pain. Controlling her voice. Breathing... ‘He’s got me.’ And letting go might just mean that he fell again, hurt himself worse, and maybe his teeth would take her flesh with him.

As much as Jolie might normally appreciate the value of distraction to help her control wayward emotions, Reece was the wrong kind of distraction. He just added a new dimension of badness to the waves racing up her arm. She didn’t want him there. He wasn’t supposed to come until they were all on the farm, where she’d have room to avoid him. He’d stayed gone for ten years so why in the world would he come to see the show now?

Because she didn’t want it. But here he was, helping with Gordy and being gigantic. Good lord, he was big.

She could use that to help Gordy.

Get the horse and the show back on their feet.

The throng of people gathered around, children in the audience pressed against the raised outside of the ring, getting as close as they could... The weight of all their emotions pressed into her.

It had to be their emotions she was feeling. She’d mastered her own emotions several years ago, and maintained proper distance from anything hairy, she reminded herself. And she’d regain control of them as soon as she got Gordy out of there and Reece the hell away from her.

First things first. ‘We have to get him out of here.’ She needed out of there too.

A single nod and Reece reached for the horse’s mouth while she kept him standing. Large, strong hands curled around the snout and lower jaw and he firmly pried the miniature horse’s jaws apart, all the while speaking to him gently, making comforting sounds that did nothing to comfort her—but which seemed to do the trick with Gordy.

Or the combination of comfort and brute strength did the trick. Gordy released her bleeding arm and immediately Reece slid his arms under the horse’s neck and through his legs to support his chest and hind quarters. Then he did what she’d never seen anyone do before: He picked the horse up.

‘Which way?’ Strained voice to go with strained muscles, and the look of nausea was still on his face. How had Reece gotten so strong? She thought doctors studied all the time and played golf... Even as small as Gordy was, he was still a horse and weighed a good one hundred and eighty pounds. But Reece carried the miniature horse out of the ring. By himself.

Right. Not the time to think about that. Gordy was hurt. She was hurt. The show had stopped. Children were probably very scared and upset. ‘This way.’ She cleared a path and led Reece and his load out the back of the tent, the way she’d come, off toward the stables.

He could carry Gordy to the stable and then go away, let her have her mind back. The stable was Bohannon property, she would just order him out and take care of her horse.

Someone else would step in, get the show moving again, and she didn’t care who that task fell to. As long as the vet came soon.

The stable wasn’t far, but by the time they reached it, Reece was breathing hard. Maybe harder than she was while desperately trying not to feel nothing—not the pain in her arm, and really not the anger and betrayal bubbling up from that dark place she stuffed all her Reece emotions.

Once in Gordy’s stall with the fresh hay she’d put down earlier, Jolie directed, ‘Lay him in the straw.’ That was something she could think to say. One step at a time, that’s as far ahead as she could make her mind work. It took more effort than it might have otherwise done if she hadn’t been bitten and her arm didn’t ache to the point she was considering that maybe the bone had fractured...

The rest of her mental capacity was filled to the brim with the echoes of voices reminding her of Gordy’s history, the way Mack would undoubtedly react, and all the animals she’d lost over the years. Of everything she’d lost...

Ignoring those voices took effort.

Nothing was going to happen to Gordy. He was practically a sibling. Her first mount when she’d been little more than a toddler herself.

Jolie forced herself to still. Reece gently laid the injured but considerably calmer animal in the bedding. ‘I think he remembers you,’ she murmured. Gordy remembered Reece, even if he looked loads different—even if he’d bitten her. He remembered Reece enough to go docilely into the straw.

Still not a good enough reason to keep Reece in the stable. She couldn’t focus with him there. ‘Thank you. Go watch the rest of the show.’ She got in between him and the horse, focusing with all her might on first-aid training for horses.

Reece stood behind her, looking down over her shoulder. ‘Let me look at your arm.’

‘It will wait.’ Gordy might have thrashed himself into a bad intestinal situation...so the next step should be...

Reece’s hands closed around her waist, dragging her attention away from what she should be doing. He lifted her to her feet and secured her left arm with his horse-lifting grip locked around her wrist. Fire and ice, his touch was like peppermint, an utterly inexplicable combination of heat and chill that momentarily cut through the fear of losing Gordy and made her think...so many different things. Primarily it reminded her of one thing: He needed to leave. But Gordy needed to stand up more, and she’d failed at lifting him to his feet twice already.

‘My arm can wait,’ she repeated. And it could wait outside his grasp. She twisted her wrist free, ignored the deep ache the motion caused, and pointed to Gordy. ‘He needs to be on his feet.’

‘He can rest a moment. You’re hurt.’

He sounded so sincere, genuinely concerned... Which was crap, of course. ‘He needs to be on his feet,’ she repeated, ‘resting a moment is the last thing he needs.’ Don’t look him in the eyes. Don’t look him in the eyes.

‘Jolie...’

‘Reece...’ she replied, and looked him in the eyes. Right. No time to waste. She started moving again, toward the stall door so she could get to the supplies and away from him. Something in his touch, in the fact that he had helped them, and the concern in his eyes made her feel weak, muddied her thinking. Roused emotions she couldn’t afford right now.

She knew what needed to happen for Gordy, not him. ‘You can stay here until I get him in a sling. He needs to be in a sling. And don’t think you get to tell me what to do just because you went all strongman and carried my horse to the stable. You don’t get to dictate anything in here. The circus might be yours to destroy, but Gordy is a Bohannon, so I’ll take your help with him, and then you can get the hell out of my stable.’

Not calm. Not calm at all. What had happened to her calm? Her arm. Pain and fear did this to her. That and the weirdness of seeing Reece. But it would all go away again soon enough. Losing Gordy on top of everything else would be a pain she couldn’t ignore. Sling. She needed one of the horse slings.

Flipping open the lid of the trunk where various first-aid implements were kept, Jolie dug through, using her injured arm even if every second the ache grew worse. The only sling she knew they had was for the big horses...

‘Tell me what you’re doing.’ Reece said, apparently deciding it wasn’t worth fighting with her.

Good. She didn’t have time to fight.

Reece moved to the side of the trunk. ‘I’ll help you if you tell me what you need.’

More Good. Be helpful. The sooner Gordy was on his feet, the sooner Reece could go away. ‘I didn’t see him fall,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how much he could have jarred his insides when he went down, but I saw him thrashing to get up and that could have twisted his bowel. I don’t want him fighting colic while his body needs to be focused on healing his leg. We need a sling. And some way to hang it. I’ll work on the sling, you see if you can find a couple of pieces of lumber that will stretch across the top of the stall.’

He left immediately. Of course he knew the way. The circus might be somewhere new every week, but it was always set up in the same layout. And that layout hadn’t changed in the last ten years. She’d changed. He’d changed—God, had he ever—but the circus was the same.

A few minutes later Reece came back with two especially thick posts thrown over one shoulder and found her crouched in Gordy’s stall, stringing together belts and harnesses.

‘Lay them across the top. This isn’t a proper sling, but it should work until the vet gets here.’ She stretched the leather across Gordy’s chest, noting the labored breathing, and fought down another wave of panic. Once she had it in place over the shoulder she could access, she looked at Reece. ‘Think you can pick him up again? I need to get this around the other side and I need him on his feet, so I need you just supporting that place where his leg is compromised. Then I’ll climb the stall and get it all hitched to the lumber.’