Neurosurgeon . . . and Mum!

Praise for Kate Hardy:

‘THE CHILDREN’S DOCTOR’S SPECIAL PRO-POSAL is just as the title promises. Kate Hardy delivers a superb romance that resonates beautifully with the reader. Bravo, Ms Hardy!’

—bookilluminations.com

‘THE GREEK DOCTOR’S NEW-YEAR BABY is romantic storytelling at its best! Poignant, enjoyable and absolutely terrific, with THE GREEK DOCTOR’S NEW-YEAR BABY Kate Hardy proves once again that when it comes to romantic fiction she’s up there with the very best!’

—cataromance.com

‘SURRENDER TO THE PLAYBOY SHEIKH: I spent a lovely morning with this book, and I’d advise you to do likewise. Getit.You’ll love it. An unrestrained…Grade:A.’

—goodbadandunread.com

‘PLAYBOY BOSS, PREGNANCY OF PASSION: this story features a strong heroine who gains strength from her family and a hero who realises the importance of love and family before it’s too late. Add in their captivating romance and it makes for one great read.’

—RT Book Reviews

Tom turned round and smiled. ‘Hello, Amy. Let me introduce you. This is Perdy.’

Be polite, smile, but keep your distance, Amy told herself. It isn’t your job to fix this. ‘Hello, Perdy,’ she said, staying exactly where she was.

‘Hello, Miss Rivers,’ Perdy said dutifully.

That sounded so stuffy and formal. Completely not how Amy was. For a moment she was tempted to offer her own first name; then her common sense kicked in. Keep your distance. Formality would help her to do that. She gave the little girl a polite smile.

‘I’ll, um, let you get on,’ Amy said. ‘I just wanted to introduce myself—that was all. See you later.’ She fled for sanctuary.

Though not before she heard Perdy ask Tom, ‘Did she go because of me?’ And she could almost see the wobble in the little girl’s lower lip, the distress on her face.

‘No, honey, of course not. She’s just got things to do,’ Tom said.

Which made Amy feel even more horrible inside. She’d have to find some middle ground. Surely she could be kind to the little girl without taking down the barriers round her heart?

She’d make the effort later.

Just not right now, when the memories had come back to shred her heart all over again.

KATE HARDY lives in Norwich, in the east of England, with her husband, two young children, one bouncy spaniel, and too many books to count! When she’s not busy writing romance or researching local history, she helps out at her children’s schools. She also loves cooking—spot the recipes sneaked into her books! (They’re also on her website, along with extracts and stories behind the books.) Writing for Mills & Boon has been a dream come true for Kate—something she wanted to do ever since she was twelve. She now writes Medical™ romances and also writes for Modern Heat™. She says it’s the best of both worlds, because she gets to learn lots of new things when she’s researching the background to a book: add a touch of passion, drama and danger, a new gorgeous hero every time, and it’s the perfect job!

Kate’s always delighted to hear from readers, so do drop in to her website at www.katehardy.com

Recent titles by the same author:

Medical™ Romance

THE DOCTOR’S LOST-AND-FOUND BRIDE

FALLING FOR THE PLAYBOY MILLIONAIRE

(The Brides of Penhally Bay)

Modern Heat ™

GOOD GIRL OR GOLD-DIGGER?

TEMPORARY BOSS, PERMANENT MISTRESS

Dear Reader

I really enjoy second-chance stories—and in this case Amy, my heroine, needs a second chance at her career as well as at love. When life steamrollers over her, it’s natural for her to come home to the place where she was so happy as a child (which just so happens to be on the Norfolk coast—my own favourite place in the world). But when she ends up sharing a house with her uncle’s locum, she finds herself having to confront the distant past as well as her recent difficulties.

Tom also needs a second chance at love—with someone who’ll love him and be a real mother to his beloved daughter.

Perdy stole my heart (probably because she has much in common with my own beloved daughter at that age—beachcombing and baking are such fun). And getting them all to have a happy ending, as a family, was a real joy.

Add in a gorgeous dog, the history of medicine, a medical specialty that really fascinates me, and a house with a turret (my fantasy house!), and I think you can see why I found NEUROSURGEON…AND MUM! such a pleasure to write.

I’m always delighted to hear from readers, so do come and visit me at www.katehardy.com

With love

Kate Hardy

Chapter One

TOM finally found Perdy curled up in a chair with a book in the corner of the room; her face was wary, and she was clearly trying to be quiet and keep out of the way. Not for the first time, his heart burned in his chest. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Eloise should have been here beside him, making a proper family: the two of them and their precious daughter. And Perdy should have been a normal child, messy and laughing and seeing rainbows in every corner instead of shadows.

He clenched his jaw for a second, willing the anger to die down. Stop being an idiot, he told himself. You know it’s irrational, being angry with Eloise. Just stop blaming her for getting that tropical fever and dying.

But he couldn’t.

On my own, he thought, am I making a complete mess of bringing up Perdy? Eloise hadn’t exactly been a hands-on mother, but at least he’d been able to talk to her and come to a joint decision; on his own, he had nobody to bounce ideas off, nobody to warn him that he was doing the wrong thing.

He smiled at his daughter, but she didn’t smile back. Had he made the wrong decision, bringing her here, away from London? Maybe he should’ve toughed it out instead of dragging his daughter off in the middle of the school year to make a new start in a place where nobody knew them. But London hadn’t really been healthy for Perdy, either. All that pity for the poor motherless child had made Perdy withdraw further and further inside herself.

And he hadn’t been able to reach her.

Seeing the ad for a locum GP in a coastal town in Norfolk had seemed like the answer to his problems. Three months. Long enough to give Perdy a chance to settle and give them both the new start they so badly needed. He could rent out their little terraced house for three months; if it worked out in Norfolk, he could find a permanent job there and they could sell up, but if Perdy missed the bustle of the city too much they could still move back. Doing it this way kept all their options open. And Joe and Cassie Rivers had been so warm, so welcoming, even offering him somewhere to stay; the way they’d put it, they needed someone to house-sit while they were in Australia, so he and Perdy would be doing them a favour.

But although they’d been here for almost two weeks now, Perdy was still quiet. She’d been perfectly polite to everyone, but it seemed she’d put up this huge glass wall.

And Tom didn’t have anyone to ask to help him break it down.

His own parents were old, growing fragile; he couldn’t lean on them. And Eloise’s parents…well, they were the reason why his wife had been the way she was, why she’d never been satisfied with her achievements but had always striven to do more. No way was he going to let them do the same thing to his daughter.

‘Hey.’ He sat on the arm of her chair and ruffled her hair. ‘You OK?’

She looked up from her book. ‘Yes, Daddy.’

‘Good book?’

‘Yes, Daddy.’

He tried again. ‘What’s it about?’

She shrugged. ‘A boy who has to dig holes.’

He could’ve guessed that from the title and the picture on the front cover. Clearly she didn’t want to discuss it; she kept glancing back at the page, as if wanting to be polite to her father but desperate to get back to her story.

Hell, hell, hell. He didn’t want polite. He wanted her to love him, the way he loved her. He wanted a normal child, one who was noisy and messy and cheeky…and secure.

He reached down to hug her, breathing in the scent of her hair. His little girl. She’d been the light of his life for the last eight years. Even now he looked at her and marvelled that she was his. ‘OK, honey. I’ll let you get back to your reading.’ Though he wasn’t going to stop trying to get through to her. He’d push just a little, each day. To let her know that he was there, that he’d still be there when she was finally ready to talk. He swallowed hard. ‘You do know I love you very, very much, don’t you?’

‘Yes, Daddy. I love you, too.’

They were the words he wanted to hear but her voice was quiet, colourless, and he didn’t quite believe them. The loss of Eloise had broken his little girl’s heart, and all the love inside her had seemed to drain away. And he didn’t know how to begin to fix things.

Should he try to find her a new mother, maybe?

No. It wouldn’t help Perdy and it certainly wouldn’t help him. Eloise had broken his heart, too, and he never wanted to get involved with anyone again. Though that wasn’t because he thought he’d be in love with his wife for the rest of his days; at times, he really hated Eloise. And then he felt guilty for resenting her so much, and the cycle of hurt began all over again.

‘Don’t read too late. You’ve got school tomorrow. Jammies, teeth and bed in twenty minutes, OK?’

‘Yes, Daddy.’

A nasty thought struck him. Perdy was quiet and booky. A bully’s dream. Was she…? ‘Is school all right?’ Please, God, let her have made friends. Children who could make a better job of protecting her against the world than he had.

She nodded, and Tom had the distinct feeling that, if anything, his little girl was trying to protect him. Maybe he’d call her teacher tomorrow after morning surgery, have a quiet word with her and find out how Perdy had really settled. ‘OK, honey. I’ll let you get on with your book. And in half an hour I’ll come upstairs to tuck you in.’

This time her smile was pure gratitude.

And it broke the pieces of his heart into even smaller fragments.

Amy wrapped her hands round the mug of hot milk, but it wasn’t soothing her or making her feel warm. It wasn’t keeping the nightmare away.

The same nightmare she’d had for months. Seeing Ben on the operating table in front of her. Trying so hard to fix the nerves in his spine and the crack in his vertebra, trying to keep the emotion blocked off while she worked, trying to stem her growing horror when she realised that she couldn’t do it. And Laura’s voice in her head, full of pain and betrayal and misery: I trusted you…

The dream always made her wake in a cold sweat.

Worse still, because when she woke she knew it hadn’t been a dream.

Every single bit of it had happened.

She shivered, more from misery than cold. Right now she couldn’t see a way forward. A way to get rid of the shadows.

Fergus Keating had told her to take three months off.

What on earth was she going to do with herself for three whole months?

Though she knew the head of neurosurgery was right. She wasn’t capable of doing her job properly, she was a liability to the team, and she needed to sort her head out. He’d been kind enough to refuse her resignation and suggest a sabbatical instead.

He’d also suggested that she tried going to counselling, but she couldn’t see the point. Talking to someone wasn’t going to get Ben’s mobility back, was it? Or make her best friend forgive her. Her best friend of half a lifetime, who never wanted to see her again. She dragged in a breath. The loss of Laura hurt more than anything else. Now was the time she should’ve been able to support Laura through a rough patch, listen to her, be there for her. But how could you support someone when you were the one who’d caused all the problems?

Fergus’s other suggestion sat more easily with her: to get out of London, away from everything, and give herself enough space to decide what she wanted to do. And Amy knew exactly where she wanted to go.

Not that she was selfish enough to call her favourite aunt at four in the morning.

Somehow, she managed to stumble through the day, promising herself that she wouldn’t ring before the evening. That she’d pull herself together before she rang.

And at five to seven she punched the number into her phone with shaking fingers.

Please, please, let her be there.

‘Cassie Rivers speaking.’

‘Aunt Cassie? It’s Amy. I was wondering…can I come down at the weekend and stay for a bit, please?’

Amy’s aunt blew out a breath. ‘Love, you know you’re always welcome here, but I’m afraid Joe and I are off to Australia, the day after tomorrow.’

Of course they were. Her cousin Beth’s first baby was due in a month, and Cassie and Joe wanted to go and spend some time with their only daughter and their very first grandchild. Cassie had been bubbling about it for weeks. What kind of selfish, thoughtless person could forget about something like that?

The same kind of person who’d wrecked her best friend’s life.

She dragged her thoughts back together. ‘Sorry, Cassie. I wasn’t thinking.’

But maybe some of the misery in her voice communicated itself to her aunt, because Cassie said gently, ‘More like you’re too tired to remember. You drive yourself too hard, love.’

And had done so ever since she’d started her neurosurgeon’s training. She’d wanted to be among the best in her field. She’d been bang on target, until she’d screwed up so badly with Ben. And since then everything had fallen apart. Not that she’d talked to anyone about it; even if her parents hadn’t been thousands of miles away in the States, she couldn’t have talked to them about her failure, and she hadn’t wanted to lean on her aunt and uncle. In the circumstances, talking to Laura wasn’t an option: so she’d just had to suck it up and deal with it by herself.

She’d failed at that, too.

‘I’m OK,’ she said neutrally.

‘Look, love, even though we’re not going to be here, you’re welcome to come and spend some time here. How long were you thinking of staying?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘A few days? A week?’ Cassie suggested.

‘I’m, um, taking a sabbatical. Maybe a couple of weeks, if that’s OK?’

‘A fortnight isn’t a sabbatical, it’s a break. But you’re not on holiday, are you?’ Cassie asked perceptively. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I just need a bit of time to think things through,’ Amy prevaricated.

‘All right, love.’

Amy heard the subtext clearly: I won’t push until you’re ready to talk about it.

Bless her.

‘Stay for as long as you like. We’ll be back in six weeks, and you’re more than welcome to stay after we get back,’ Cassie continued. ‘You can house-sit for us while we’re away. And your being here means we won’t have to put Buster in kennels.’

Typical Cassie. Putting it in a way that made Amy feel she wasn’t doing all the taking—and in a way that she couldn’t refuse. ‘Thanks, Cassie. I’d like that. And I’ll make sure I take him for a walk every day.’ The chocolate Labrador was elderly now, but Amy could still remember her aunt and uncle getting him as a pup, when she’d stayed for the summer holidays before her finals.

‘Joe’s locum is staying, too, but there’s plenty of room—he won’t get in your way.’

Joe’s locum was the real house-sitter, Amy guessed. So Cassie probably hadn’t even booked Buster into kennels in the first place. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’

‘Of course we don’t, love.’ There was a pause. ‘Amy, why don’t you throw your stuff in a bag, get in the car and come down right now? It sounds as if you could do with a good meal and a chat.’

Amy almost cracked. Unconditional love and support was something she wanted so badly—but something she knew she really didn’t deserve. Not after what she’d done. Besides, Joe and Cassie were so excited about Australia and the new baby. She couldn’t bring herself to worry them with her own problems when they were about to go to the other side of the world. ‘Thanks, but I have a few things I need to sort out in London.’

‘All right, then we’ll talk now.’

Panic made Amy catch her breath. ‘You must be in the middle of packing. Don’t let me hold you up, Cassie. Honestly, I’m fine. I just need a bit of time off. You know how you’re always nagging me about working too hard.’

Cassie didn’t sound so sure about it, but to Amy’s relief she didn’t push it. ‘Well, we’ll leave the key in the usual place. And I’ll text you when we get to Australia. You know you can me call any time—though remember we’re nine hours ahead of you, in Melbourne.’

‘I will. And thanks, Cassie.’ For the bolthole. For the breathing space. For not pushing her.

‘Any time, love.’

‘Give my love to Beth. I hope she gets an easy de-livery—and I want to see a picture of the baby as soon as you’re allowed to take one, OK?’

‘You can count on it, love,’ Cassie said. ‘Drive safely.’

‘I will,’ Amy promised. ‘Have a good trip.’

Chapter Two

ON Thursday morning, just as the rush hour ended, Amy left London for Norfolk. By lunchtime, she’d reached the large seaside town where her uncle had lived ever since Amy was tiny. The place where she’d spent many happy summers. The place that might just help her to sort her head out.

She parked on the gravelled area in front of Marsh End House; there was no other car there, so she assumed that the locum was on duty at the surgery, unless maybe he didn’t have a car. She went to the fifth large cobble stone in the flower border to the right of the front door and lifted it; as she expected, the front door key sat underneath it. She let herself in and heard a volley of excited barks from the kitchen; as soon as she opened the door, Buster nearly knocked her flying.

She knelt down on the floor and made a fuss of him. ‘You’re meant to be a staid old dog, not a bouncy pup,’ she admonished him with a smile. ‘Look at all the grey in your face. And you’re still just like you were twelve years ago.’

Buster responded by resting his front paws on her shoulders and licking her face enthusiastically.

‘You big old softie,’ she said. ‘OK, let me bring my stuff in and have a cup of tea and then I’ll take you for a run.’

His tail thumped madly, and she grinned. ‘It’s so good to be home.’ Funny, Cassie and Joe’s place had always been home to her—more so than her parents’ house in London or her own flat, even. Marsh End House was a Victorian Gothic masterpiece, built of red brick with arched windows, lots of pointed gables and an elaborate turret that had been the centre of the games she’d played with Beth and her two younger brothers in those long, hot summers. Games of wizards and princesses and magic castle—followed by sandcastle competitions on the beach, games of cricket and football and exploring the rockpools at low tide. Here was where she’d always been happiest.

And best of all was the kitchen, right in the heart of the house. Where scraped knees had been washed, kissed better and covered with a dressing; the cake tin had always been full; and, as they had grown older, the kettle had always been hot and Cassie always there to listen and not judge.

So many wonderful memories.

Would they be enough to heal her now?

There was an envelope with her name on it propped against the biscuit tin in the middle of the kitchen table. Recognising her aunt’s handwriting, Amy opened it.

Have made a bed for you in your old room.

In the turret. Fabulous. She’d be overlooking the marshes towards the sea, her favourite view in the world, and the sun would wake her every morning. And maybe here she wouldn’t have the nightmares.

Tom will introduce himself and Perdy to you at some point.

So the locum was married? Well, that wasn’t a problem; the house was big enough for them not to get in each other’s way.

Make sure you eat properly.

She couldn’t help smiling. The first thing Cassie did to everyone was to feed them. Though Amy knew her aunt had a point; she hadn’t been able to summon up the energy to make a proper meal for months. She’d been living on sandwiches and canteen food, and picking even at those. Maybe the sea air would help to bring back her appetite.

There was a postscript in Joe’s atrocious handwriting: if she found herself at a loose end, there was a box in his study with some of Joseph Rivers’s casebooks. She might want to take a look through them and put them in some sort of order. There were more in a box in the attic, if she wanted to bring them down.

Joseph had been the first surgeon in the family, back in the late 1820s; for years both Joe and her father had talked of sorting out his papers and doing something with the casebooks. But her father had been offered a professorship in cardiac surgery in the States and Joe had been busy with his GP practice, so it had never happened. Once or twice Carrie had suggested that maybe the next generation would like to do it but, the last time the subject had been raised, Beth had been busy carving out a career in computing, Joey and Martin had been studying for their finals and Amy had just switched specialties to neurosurgery, which had absorbed every second of her time. And so nothing had ever happened with Joseph’s papers.

Maybe looking through his papers might help her remember why she’d become a doctor in the first place, Amy thought. Or give her a clue as to where her path led now. Because, right now, she had no idea what was going to happen with the rest of her life. It was like staring into a tunnel without even a pinprick of light at the end. Even thinking about it made her feel as if she were suffocating in blackness. And she felt so very, very alone.

She lugged her suitcase upstairs to her room and left it at the end of the bed before heading back to the kitchen to put the kettle on. She was halfway through a cup of tea, a sandwich and the cryptic crossword in the newspaper she’d bought on impulse that morning when the front door opened.

Buster gave a sharp bark to warn her that someone was there, and then a warmer, more welcoming woof, and skidded up the hallway to greet the person who’d just walked in.

‘Hey, Buster. Go find your Frisbee and we’ll have ten minutes in the garden.’

This must be Tom, the locum, Amy thought. He had a nice voice, deep and calm with the slightest trace of a London accent.

Just as she registered it, he walked into the kitchen. ‘Hello. You must be Amy. I’m Tom Ashby.’

He was in his early thirties, she’d guess, around her own age; he had a shock of dark wavy hair that he’d brushed back from his forehead, very fair skin, and hazel eyes hidden behind wire-framed glasses. His smile was polite enough, but there was a seriousness to him and an intensity that made her wonder what he’d look like if he let himself relax and laughed. Whether his mouth would soften into a sexy grin and his eyes would crinkle at the corners.