Waves of Temptation

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 Mills & Boon® Medical Romances™, as well as for Mills & Boon® Cherish™. (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.) WAVES OF TEMPTATION is Marion Lennox’s 100th romance novel.

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!

CAROLINE ANDERSON has the mind of a butterfly. She’s been a nurse, a secretary, a teacher, run her own soft furnishing business, and now she’s settled on writing. She says, ‘I was looking for that elusive something. I finally realised it was variety, and now I have it in abundance. Every book brings new horizons and new friends, and in between books I have learned to be a juggler. My teacher husband, John, and I have two beautiful and talented daughters, Sarah and Hannah, umpteen pets, and several acres of Suffolk that nature tries to reclaim every time we turn our backs!'

Dear Reader

Last year I attended a writing retreat on Australia’s famous Gold Coast. The world surfing championships were taking place five miles down the beach. Then the weather turned wild, so the championships were relocated—right into our sheltered bay, right under our hotel! You can imagine how our retreat ended. We hung out of the windows and watched gorgeous surfers from all over the world, ‘hanging ten’ just beneath us.

But I was there to write … Virtuously I took my laptop out onto the balcony and searched for inspiration. Strangely, it wasn’t very far away.

I had fun on the Gold Coast, and I had fun writing this book. WAVES OF TEMPTATION lets me share that glorious surfing world, the inevitable medical needs of such an event, and the drama and passion that must inevitably lie beneath.

This is also my 100th romance novel. Writing for Mills & Boon® has been a wonderful journey. A huge thank you to all who’ve helped me along the way. And thank you to my writing friends and to my family.

Thank you, too, my readers, for sharing my passion.

Marion Lennox

‘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

Waves of Temptation

Marion Lennox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DEDICATION

For Marion

WAVES OF TEMPTATION is Marion Lennox’s 100th Mills & Boon® novel!

Recent titles by Marion Lennox:

Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™

GOLD COAST ANGELS: A DOCTOR’S REDEMPTION* MIRACLE ON KAIMOTU ISLAND† THE SURGEON’S DOORSTEP BABY SYDNEY HARBOUR HOSPITAL: LILY’S SCANDAL** DYNAMITE DOC OR CHRISTMAS DAD? THE DOCTOR AND THE RUNAWAY HEIRESS

*Gold Coast Angels **Sydney Harbour Hospital †Earthquake!

Mills & Boon® Cherish™

CHRISTMAS AT THE CASTLE

SPARKS FLY WITH THE BILLIONAIRE

A BRIDE FOR THE MAVERICK MILLIONAIRE* HER OUTBACK RESCUER* NIKKI AND THE LONE WOLF** MARDIE AND THE CITY SURGEON**

*Journey through the Outback duet **Banksia Bay miniseries

These books are also available in eBook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PROLOGUE

SHE WAS HUDDLED as far from the receptionist in the funeral parlour as she could get. Curled into one of the reception area’s plush chairs, she looked tiny, almost in a foetal position.

Her dirty, surf-blonded hair was matted and in desperate need of a cut. Her cut-off-at-the-thigh jeans were frayed, her too-big windcheater looked like something out of a charity bin and her bare feet were filthy. Her huge grey eyes were ringed with great dark shadows.

In ordinary circumstances, Matt Eveldene would have cast her a glance of sympathy. He might even have tossed her a few coins to get a decent meal.

Not now. Not this girl.

He knew as much about her as he’d ever want to know. Her name was Kelly Myers. No. Kelly Eveldene. She was seventeen years old and she was his brother’s widow.

She rose as she saw him. She must know what he’d been doing—identifying for himself that the body lying in the funeral home’s back room was indeed his brother’s.

‘I...I’m sorry,’ she faltered, but she didn’t approach him. Maybe his face stopped her. It was impossible to conceal his anger. The white-hot rage.

The waste...

He’d just seen Jessie. His beloved big brother. Jess, who’d laughed with him, teased him, protected him from the worst of their father’s bullying.

Jessie, who was now dead, aged all of twenty-four. Jessie, who for some crazy, unfathomable reason had married this girl two weeks before he’d died.

‘How can you be married to him?’ he snapped. It was a dumb thing to ask, maybe even cruel, but it was all he could think of. He knew so little of what Jessie had been doing for the last few years. No one did. ‘You’re only seventeen.’

‘He wanted to marry me,’ she said, almost as a ghost might talk. As if her voice was coming from a long way away. ‘He insisted. He even found my father and made him give permission. I guess...my father’s still my guardian, even if—’ She broke off and sat down again, hard, as if all the strength had gone out of her.

But Matt had no room left in his head for pity. Not now. He’d loved his big brother. Jess had been wild, free, bordering on manic, but he’d lit their lives. Or he’d lit Matt’s. In the big old mansion overlooking Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach, with its air of repressed elegance and propriety, and its walls echoing with his father’s displeasure, it had always been Jess who’d brought in life.

But that life had been more and more out of control. The last time Matt had seen him he’d been in a rehabilitation ward in West Sydney. Jess had been twenty-two. Matt had been eighteen, confused and desperately frightened at the state of his big brother.

‘I can’t go back home, Matt,’ Jess had told him. ‘I know what Dad thinks of me and it always makes it worse. The black dog...depression...well, when you’re older maybe you’ll understand what it is. When I get out of here I’m heading overseas. Following the surf. The surf gets me out of my head like nothing else can. If I’m to stay off the drugs, that’s what I need.’

What had followed then had been two years of intermittent postcards, the occasional press clipping of minor success in surf competitions, and demands that his parents didn’t try and contact him until he’d ‘found’ himself.

Had he found himself now, on a slab in a Hawaiian mortuary? Jess... He thought back to the last time he’d seen his brother, as a recovering addict. Recovery had been for nothing, and now he was facing this girl who was calling herself Jessie’s wife.

His anger was almost uncontrollable. He wanted to haul up her sleeves to expose the tracks of the inevitable drug use, and then hurl her as far as he could throw her.

Somehow he held himself still. He daren’t unleash his fury.

‘He wanted to be cremated,’ the girl whispered. ‘He wants his ashes scattered off Diamond Head, when the surf’s at its best. At sunset. He has friends...’

Matt bet he did. More like this girl. This...

No. He wasn’t going to say it. He wasn’t going to think it.

Married! His father was right—he needed to pay the money and get rid of her, fast. If his mother knew of her existence, she might even want to bring her home, and then the whole sad round would start again. ‘Please go to rehab... Please get help. Please...’

He was too young to face this. He was twenty years old but he felt barely more than a child. His father should be here, to vent his anger, to do what he’d ordered Matt to do. Matt felt sick and weary and helpless.

‘Can you afford cremation?’ he demanded. The girl—Kelly—shook her head. Her grey eyes were direct and honest, surprising him with their candour.

‘No,’ she replied, her voice as bleak as the death that surrounded them. ‘I hoped... I hope you might help me.’

In what universe could he help a woman who’d watched his brother self-destruct? Even if she looked...

No, he told himself. Don’t think about how she looks. Just get this over and get out of here.

‘I’m taking my brother home,’ he told her. ‘My parents will bury him in Sydney.’

‘Please—’

‘No.’ The sight of his brother’s body was so recent and so raw he could barely speak. Dear God, Jess... He needed to be alone. He felt like the world was closing in on him, suffocating. How could his father demand this of him? This was killing him.

Maybe his father was punishing him, too. Punishing him for loving his big brother?

Enough. He had to leave. He hauled a chequebook from his jacket and started writing.

The girl sank back down into her chair, tucking her feet back under her, assuming once again that position of defence. Her eyes became blank.

The cheque written, he handed it to her. Or tried to. She didn’t put out her hand and he was forced to drop it onto her grubby knee.

‘My father had an insurance policy in my brother’s name,’ he said, struggling to hold back his distress. ‘Even though we doubt the validity of your marriage, my father acknowledges that you may have a claim on it. This pre-empts that claim. This is the total value of the insurance policy, given to you on the condition that you make no contact with my parents, that you never attempt to tell my mother that Jess was married, that you keep yourself out of our lives, now and for ever. Is that clear?’

She didn’t pick up the cheque. ‘I would like to write to your mother,’ she whispered.

‘I can think of a hundred reasons why you shouldn’t contact my mother,’ he said grimly. ‘The top one being she has had heartbreak enough and doesn’t need to be lumbered with the mess you’ve made of your life as well. My father has decided not to tell her about the marriage and I understand why.’

She closed her eyes as if he’d struck her, and he found his fury fading.

This was unfair, he conceded. This girl was a mess, but, then, Jessie’s life had been a mess, too. He didn’t need to vent his grief solely on her—but he had to get out of there.

‘Use the cheque,’ he said. ‘Get a life.’

‘I don’t want your cheque.’

‘It’s your cheque,’ he said, anger surging again. ‘It’s nothing to do with me. All I want is for you—his widow—’ and he gave the word his father’s inflection, the inflection it deserved ‘—to sign the release for his body. Let me take him home.’

‘He wouldn’t have wanted—’

‘He’s dead,’ he said flatly. ‘We need to bury him. Surely my mother has rights, too.’

Her fingers had been clenched on her knees. Slowly they unclenched, but then, suddenly, she bent forward, holding her stomach, and her face lost any trace of remaining colour.

Shocked, he stooped, ready to catch her if she slumped, concerned despite himself, but in seconds she had herself under control again. And when she unbent and stared straight at him, she was controlled. Her eyes, barely twelve inches from his, were suddenly icy.

‘Take him home, then. Give him to his mother.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I don’t want your thanks. I want you to go away.’

Which fitted exactly with how he was feeling.

‘Then we never need to see each other again. I wish you luck, Miss Myers,’ he said stiffly. Dear God, he sounded like his father. He no longer felt like a child. He felt a hundred.

‘I’m Kelly Eveldene.’ It was a flash of unexpected fire and venom. ‘I’m Mrs Eveldene to you. I’m Mrs Eveldene to the world.”

‘But not to my parents.’

‘No,’ she said, and she subsided again into misery. ‘Jess wouldn’t have wanted his mother hurt more than she has been. If you don’t want to tell her, then don’t.’ Her face crumpled and he fought a crazy, irrational impulse to take her into his arms, to hold her, to comfort her as one might comfort a wounded child.

But this was no child. This girl was part of the group that had destroyed his brother. Drugs, surf, drugs, surf... It had been that way since Matt could remember.

Get out of here fast, he told himself. This girl has nothing to do with you. The cheque absolves you from all responsibility.

Wasn’t that what his father had said?

‘Sign the papers,’ he told her roughly, rising to his feet with deliberation. ‘And don’t shoot the entire value of that cheque up your arm.’

She met his eyes again at that, and once again he saw fire.

‘Go back to Australia,’ she said flatly. ‘I can see why Jessie ran.’

‘It’s nothing to do—’

‘I’m not listening,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll sign your papers. Go.’

* * *

Kelly sat where she was for a long time after Matt had left. The receptionist would like her gone. She could understand that, but she was the widow of the deceased. The funeral home would be repatriating the body to Australia. It’d be a nice little earner. It behoved the receptionist to be courteous, even if Kelly was messing with the décor.

She needed a wash. She conceded that, too. More, she needed a change of clothes, a feed and a sleep. About a month’s sleep.

She was so tired she could scarcely move.

So tired...

The last few days had been appalling. She’d known Jess’s depression had deepened but not this much, never this much. Still, when he’d disappeared she’d feared the worst, and the confirmation had been a nightmare. And now... She’d sat in this place waiting for so long...

Not for him, though. For his father. She hadn’t expected a man who was scarcely older than she was.

Matt Eveldene. What sort of a name was Eveldene anyway?

A new one. She stared at the bright new ring on her finger, put there by Jess only weeks ago. ‘You’ll be safe now,’ he’d told her. ‘It’s all I can do, but it should protect you.’

She’d known he was ill. She shouldn’t have married him, but she’d been terrified, and he’d held her and she’d clung. But she hadn’t been able to cling hard enough, and here she was, in this nightmare of a place.

She’d been here for almost twenty-four hours, waiting for whoever came as the representative of Jess’s family. She knew they’d have to come here.

She had to ask.

‘If ever something happens, will you scatter my ashes out to sea, babe?’ Jess had asked her. Had that only been a week ago? It seemed like a year.

She’d failed at that, too. Matt had simply overridden her.

Like father, like son? Jess had told her of his bully of a father. She’d been gearing herself up to face Henry Eveldene, but Matt’s arrival in his father’s stead had thrown her.

She’d failed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said to the closed door behind which Jessie’s body lay. ‘I’m so sorry, Jess.’

There was nothing more she could do.

She rose and took a deep breath, trying to figure how to find the strength to walk outside, catch a bus, get away from this place of death. Nausea swept over her again but she shoved it away. She didn’t have the energy to be sick.

‘Mrs Eveldene?’ The receptionist’s voice made her pause.

‘Yes?’ It was so hard to make her voice work.

‘You’ve dropped your cheque,’ the girl said. She walked out from behind her desk, stooped to retrieve it and handed it to her. As she did, she checked it, and her eyes widened.

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t want to lose this, would you?’

* * *

Matt stood outside the funeral parlour, dug his hands deep into his pockets and stood absolutely still, waiting for the waves of shock and grief to subside. The image of Jess was burned on his retinas. His beautiful, adored big brother. His Jess, wasted, cold and dead on a mortuary slab.

He felt sick to the core. The anger inside him was building and building, but he knew deep down that it was only a way to deflect grief.

If he let his anger take hold he’d walk right back in there, pick up that piece of flotsam and shake her till her teeth rattled, but it would do no good at all. For that was all she was, a piece of detritus picked up somewhere along Jessie’s useless mess of a life.

What a sickening waste.

But suddenly he found himself thinking of the girl inside, of those huge, desperate eyes. Another life heading for nothing.

But those eyes...that flash of anger...

That was more than waste, he thought. There was something that Jess had loved, even a kind of beauty, and, underneath the anger, part of him could see it.

He could turn around and try and help.

Yeah, like he’d tried to help with Jess. Useless, useless, useless.

He’d given her money to survive. ‘Don’t waste it all,’ he found himself saying out loud, to no one, to the girl inside, to the bright Hawaiian sun. But it was a forlorn hope, as his hopes for Jessie had always been forlorn.

Enough. It was time to move forward. It was time to forget the waif-like beauty of the girl inside this nightmare of a place. It was time to accompany his brother’s body home for burial.

It was time to get on with the rest of his life.

CHAPTER ONE

SHE HAD THE best job in the world—except right now.

Dr Kelly Eveldene was the physician in charge of the International Surf Pro-Tour. For the last four years she’d been head of the medical team that travelled with the world’s top surfers. She was competent, she was popular, she understood the lingo, and she knew so many of the oldtimer surfers that the job suited her exactly.

There were a couple of downsides. This year the pro tournament had moved to Australia for the world championships. She wasn’t happy about coming to Australia, but Australia was big. The other Eveldenes lived in Sydney and the surf championship was to be held on the Gold Coast in Queensland. Her chances of running into...anybody were minuscule.

She’d done the research now. Henry Eveldene—her ex-father-in-law—was a business tycoon, rich beyond belief, and Eveldene was an uncommon name. Still, surely the presence in the country of a couple of inconspicuous people with similar names wouldn’t come to his attention.

Her other quibble was that Jess was competing this year, his first time out of juniors. He was seventeen years old, surf mad and as skilled as his father before him. She couldn’t hold him back and she didn’t want to try. Her son was awesome. But now, at this level, with the surf so big and Jess trying so hard, she had qualms.

She had qualms right now.

She was in the judging tent on the headland, as she always was during competition. There were paramedics on jet skis close to the beach, ready for anything that happened in the surf. In the event of an accident she’d be on the beach in seconds, ready to take charge as soon as casualties were brought in. If it looked like a head or spinal injury—and after long experience with the surf she could pretty much tell from seeing the impact what to expect—she’d be out there with the paramedics, organising spinal boards from the jet ski, binding open wounds so they didn’t bleed out in the water, even doing resuscitation if it was needed.

The job had its grim moments, but at this professional level she was seldom needed for high drama. What she dealt with mostly were cuts, bruises, rashes and sunburn, plus the chance to combine her medicine with the surfing she loved. It was a great job.

But now Jess was competing and her heart was in her mouth.

He had thirty minutes to show the judges what he could do. The first wave he’d caught had shown promise but had failed to deliver. It hadn’t given him a chance to show his skills. He’d be marked down and he knew it. He hit the shallows, flagged down an official jet ski and was towed straight out again.

Then there was an interminable ten minutes when the swell refused to co-operate, when nothing happened, when he lay on his board in the sun while the clock ticked down, down. Then, finally, magically, a long, low swell built from the north-east, building fast, and Kelly saw her son’s body tense in anticipation.

Please...

She should be impartial. She was an official, for heaven’s sake.

But she wasn’t impartial. She wasn’t a judge. For this moment she wasn’t even Dr Eveldene. She was Jessie’s mother and nothing else mattered.

He’d caught it. The wave was building behind him, swelling with a force that promised a long, cresting ride. The perfect wave? He rode to the lip and crested down, swooped, spun, climbed high again.

But...but...

There was another wave cresting in from the south-east. The surfers called this type of wave a rogue, a swell that cut across the magic wave that had seemed perfect for the best of the rides.

Jess wouldn’t be able to see it, Kelly thought in dismay, but maybe it wouldn’t matter. Maybe his wave would peak and subside before it was interfered with. And even the waves crashed together, surely he’d done enough now to progress through to the next stage.

But then...

Someone else was on the rogue wave.

The surf had been cleared for the competition. No one had the right to cut across a competitor’s wave. Only the competitors themselves were in the catching zone—everyone else was excluded. But a pod of enthusiastic juniors had set themselves up south of the exclusion zone, lying far out, hoping to get a better view of the surfer pros. This must be one of those kids, finding a huge swell behind him, unable to resist catching it, too much of a rookie—a grommet—to see that it would take him straight into a competition wave.

Uh-oh. Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh.

The judges were on their feet. ‘Swing off. Get off,’ the judge beside Kelly roared. His voice went straight into the loudspeaker and out over the beach but the surfers were too far out, too intent on their waves...

Jess was in the green room, the perfect turquoise curve of water. He’d be flying, Kelly knew, awed that he’d caught such a perfect wave at such a time, intent on showing every ounce of skill he possessed. He’d be totally unaware that right behind...

No. Not right behind. The waves thumped into each other with a mighty crest of white foam. The grommet’s surfboard flew as high as his leg rope allowed, straight up and then crashing down.