The Australian's Desire (Mills & Boon By Request) Read online

  The Australian’s Desire

  Their Lost-and-Found Family

  Marion Lennox

  Long-Lost Son: Brand-New Family

  A Proposal Worth Waiting For

  Lilian Darcy

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Their Lost-and-Found Family

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  Long-Lost Son: Brand-New Family

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  A Proposal Worth Waiting For

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  Copyright

  Their Lost-and-Found Family

  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 wrote for Mills & Boon under a different name for a while—if you’re looking for her past romances, search for author Trisha David as well. She’s now had well over ninety novels accepted for publication.

  In her non-writing life Marion cares for kids, dogs, cats, chickens 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.

  PROLOGUE

  THE bus trip took a day—thirteen hours with occasional stops for refuelling. All that time Max sat in the far corner of the bus’s rear seat, trying to make himself invisible. He stroked Scruffy—Scruffy should be in the cargo hold but the driver had relented—and sang a tiny song into the dog’s lopsided ears.

  ‘We’re going to Georgie. We’re going to Georgie.’

  There was another kid on the bus, younger than Max’s seven years. He didn’t seem to speak, not to the lady he was with or to anyone else. Every now and then, as if drawn, the kid would slip away from the lady and come up to Max’s hidey-hole to share in the Scruffy stroking.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Max asked once, but the kid didn’t answer. No matter. It was enough that he was cuddling Scruffy.

  Was the kid going to Crocodile Creek, too? Maybe he and the lady he was with knew Georgie. The lady seemed nice, Max decided. She’d bought Max a sandwich and a drink at the last stop, and an extra sandwich and water for Scruffy. Dad hadn’t left him with any money for food. The more Max thought about it, the more he thought he’d been lucky Dad had paid his bus fare.

  Maybe he’d had to. Dad was on the run and if Max had been left alone on the streets of Mt Isa, Georgie might have got on her Harley and come and murdered Dad. Georgie’s anger was great. She’d never yelled at him, but she’d yelled at Dad. Dad had punched her once and Georgie had punched him right back.

  He was going to Georgie.

  How much longer?

  ‘Soon we’ll be there,’ he told Scruffy and the silent kid. ‘Soon we’ll be with Georgie and she’ll punch anyone who’s mean to us. If Dad comes and gets us, she’ll punch him again.’

  But she’d never been able to stop Dad taking him away every time he’d wanted to.

  ‘Dad won’t want me any more,’ he told his disreputable little dog and his silent friend. ‘We’ll be safe. Georgie can be our mum.’

  The little dog nuzzled into Max’s windcheater, infinitely comforting.

  ‘Yeah, Georgie can be your mum, too,’ he whispered to the little dog. ‘There’ll be you and me, and Georgie can be Mum to both of us. She’s waiting.’

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘GINA, you can have Alistair Carmichael or you can have me. But not both.’

  Gina chuckled.

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ Dr Georgie Turner’s reputation was that of drama queen—wild girl of Crocodile Creek Hospital. Georgie’s favourite party gear consisted of close-fitting leather pants, which showed every curve of her neat, trim body, and low-cut tops displaying an excellent cleavage. Her cropped curls were jet black and shining, and her lips were always glossed dramatic crimson. Her beloved Harley Davidson for normal travel and an off-road bike for the rough stuff completed the picture.

  Georgie. Ready for anything.

  Georgiana Turner, obstetrician extraordinaire.

  Georgie was Gina’s best friend. Gina loved her to bits. Underneath that admittedly really brash exterior Georgie had a heart as soft as putty.

  ‘To know you is to love you,’ Gina said simply. ‘I love you. All your patients love you. Let Alistair know you and he’ll love you, too.’

  ‘Right. Like he got to know me last time. He’ll use the occasion to lecture me on morals while you guys are signing the register.’ Georgie took a deep breath and glowered for added emphasis. ‘No. There are some things up with which I will not put.’

  Gina sighed. She and Georgie were doctors at Crocodile Creek, base for Air Sea Rescue and the Flying Doctor for most of far north Queensland. Gina was engaged to Cal, another Croc Creek doctor. Six months ago Alistair, Gina’s only cousin, had flown in from America to see what sort of set-up his baby cousin was getting herself into.

  Unfortunately his visit had coincided with a ghastly patch in Georgie’s life. Georgie’s stepfather had just dragged her small half-brother away to join him in the seedy life Georgie knew he led. Max was seven years old. Their mother had disappeared into the limbo of drug addiction soon after giving birth to him and Georgie had become Max’s surrogate mum. She loved him so fiercely it was as if he was hers.

  But he wasn’t hers. Half-sisters had fewer rights than fathers, no matter how creepy Georgie’s stepfather was. She’d had to let him go.

  So Georgie had waved Max off, and then she’d gone to Gina’s engagement party. She had been off duty. She’d been trying desperately not to cry. She’d hit the bar, and then Alistair-Stuffed-Shirt Carmichael had asked her to dance.

  Which had been … unfortunate.

  Alistair had a great body. He was big and warm and strong, and she’d had too much to drink, too fast. She’d seen him earlier in the day and had thought—vaguely—that he was gorgeous. Now, at the party, battered with shock and grief, she’d let her hormones hold sway. She’d let him hold her as she’d needed to be held. She’d flirted unashamedly, and then …

  He’d half carried her from the hall and they’d both known what his intentions had been. She hadn’t cared. Why the hell should she care when her life was going down the drain?

  Only Gina had intercepted them at the door. ‘Georgie,’ she’d said in that soft voice, the one tha
t said she cared, and suddenly Georgie had pushed away from Alistair, then sat down on the hall steps and sobbed her heart out, while the rest of Crocodile Creek had streamed in and out around her.

  ‘What the hell …?’ Alistair had demanded.

  And Georgie had looked up at him and said, through tears, ‘I’m sorry, mate. It’s not that I don’t fancy you. I’m just drunk.’

  He’d turned, just like that. From the big, gentle man he’d seemed to the prissy, disapproving toad he really was.

  ‘This is your best friend, Gina?’ He’d said it incredulously.

  ‘Yes. She’s just—’

  ‘I’ve just had too much to drink,’ Georgie had said, cutting across his question and glaring daggers at Gina, sending visual refusal for Gina to tell him more. ‘Gina’s right. I gotta go to bed.’

  ‘I’ll take you,’ Gina had said.

  ‘But it’s your engagement party,’ Alistair had objected, staring at Georgie as if she’d been some sort of pond scum.

  ‘That’s OK,’ Gina had said. ‘I’ll come back soon, but I’m taking my friend home first.’

  ‘You don’t need to take me. I have wheels. Hey, you want a ride on my bike?’ Georgie had asked, veering off on a tangent and motioning to her beloved Harley parked nearby.

  ‘I think we might leave your bike where it is, don’t you?’ Gina had said, and had smiled and tugged the decidedly wobbly Georgie to her feet. ‘I know you take risks on that thing but we don’t want to push it.’

  So that had been Georgie’s introduction to Alistair. The next day Gina had taken him for a tour of the hospital and he’d been flabbergasted to find Georgie was an obstetrician.

  ‘She’s a really good one,’ Georgie had heard Gina tell Alistair as they’d disappeared from sight. They’d thought she’d left the ward but she’d forgotten something and returned just in time to hear them talk about her. ‘We’re lucky to have her.’

  ‘I know you’re desperate for doctors,’ Alistair had said. ‘But I sure as hell wouldn’t let her within a mile of any patient of mine.’

  So that had been that. Alistair had left the day after, flying back to his very important career as paediatric neurosurgeon in a prestigious US hospital. Georgie had been delighted to see the end of him. But now …

  ‘He’s giving you away,’ she moaned to Gina. ‘We’ll have to be in the same church as each other.’

  ‘It’s not like he’s best man. You won’t have to partner him.’

  ‘He thinks I’m a slut.’

  ‘Hey, he was taking you to bed. His behaviour wasn’t exactly above reproach.’

  ‘He was taking me to bed because he thought I was a slut.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So two sets of appalling behaviour cancel each other out?’ She flopped onto the bed and groaned theatrically. ‘Agh, agh, agh.’

  ‘You could always turn over a new leaf,’ Gina said cautiously. ‘Greet him in twin set and pearls.’

  Georgie choked. ‘Yeah. I could.’

  ‘That’s what his fiancée wears.’

  Georgie lifted her head from the pillows and gazed at Gina in astonishment. ‘He has a fiancée?’

  ‘Eloise. He’s been engaged for years.’

  ‘So he was engaged when he carted me off the dance floor?’

  ‘See what I mean? Two sets of bad behaviour, and yours is the lesser.’

  ‘Twinset, eh?’ Georgie said, and looked thoughtfully at her reflection in the mirror. Her soft black top had crept up a little. She tugged it down to make it more revealing. Which was very revealing.

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ Gina said nervously. ‘Behave.’

  ‘I don’t have to wear twinset and pearls as bridesmaid?’

  ‘I was thinking you might like to wear purple tulle.’ And then, as Georgie stared at her in horror, Gina giggled and threw a pillow at her friend. ‘Gotcha.’

  ‘Cow. Purple tulle?’

  ‘Wear what you want,’ Gina said. ‘You’re my only bridesmaid so the choice is yours. Leathers if you want.’

  ‘Sleek black,’ Georgie said, and grinned. ‘Not trashy.’

  ‘Trashy if you want.’

  ‘I only do that—’

  ‘I know. When you’re angry. But, Georgie …’ She hesitated. ‘Do you know where Max is now?’

  Georgie’s smile faded. She picked up the pillow Gina had just tossed at her and hugged it, like it was a baby.

  ‘I have no idea. I had a phone call five months ago, saying he was in Western Australia, but they were moving on that day. My stepfather’s always one step in front of the law.’

  ‘Oh, Georg …’

  ‘I wish he’d get caught,’ Georgie said fiercely. ‘I know he’s involved up to his neck in drugs. I want him to go to prison.’

  ‘Because then you’d get Max back?’

  ‘I’m all he’s got.’

  ‘Your stepfather must love him to keep him with him.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ Georgie said fiercely. ‘He’s just using him. Last time he was here—last time Ron spent time inside—Max told me he does the running. He acts as lookout. Max shops for them when Ron doesn’t want to get recognised. Ron even used him for drops. When he was six years old!’

  ‘Oh, Georg …’

  ‘Ron’s rotten,’ Georgie muttered. ‘My whole family’s rotten. That’s why I’m here in Crocodile Creek—I’m as far as I can get from any of them. Except Max. My one true thing. Max—and I can’t do a thing about him.’

  There was a long silence. Gina stared at her friend in real concern. Georgie, who’d hauled herself up the hard way, who’d fought her way through medical school, who’d come from the school of hard knocks and was tough on the exterior, but underneath …

  ‘If you really don’t want to be my bridesmaid …’ she said tentatively, and Georgie’s eyes flew up to meet hers.

  ‘Who said I didn’t want to be your bridesmaid?’

  ‘But Alistair …’

  ‘I can cope with Alistair Carmichael,’ she said grimly. ‘He’s the least of my worries. Engaged, huh? I can cope with Alistair Carmichael with my hands behind my back.’

  ‘Georgie …’

  ‘Nothing outrageous,’ she said, and threw up her hands as if in surrender. ‘I agree.’

  And then she added, under her breath, ‘Or nothing outrageous that you’re going to know about.’

  It had been some flight. Alistair emerged into the brilliant sunshine of Crocodile Creek feeling almost shell-shocked. He’d been coping with sleepless nights before he’d left. They were setting up a new streamlined process to move patients from Theatre to Intensive Care—not such a difficult process when you said it like that, but in reality, with paediatric problems the transfer was too often a time of drama. He’d orchestrated a whole new method of processing transfers, and he’d hoped to have it securely in place before he’d left, but there’d been last-minute glitches. He’d spent the days before he’d left going through the procedures over and over, supervising mock transfers, timing, making sure the team knew exactly who was doing what.

  In the end he’d been satisfied but Eloise had driven him to the airport and even she had been concerned.

  ‘You’re pushing yourself too far.’

  ‘Says the youngest ever professor of entomology.’

  ‘I know my limits, Alistair.’

  ‘I know mine, too. I can sleep on the plane.’

  But as it had turned out, he hadn’t. There’d been turbulence and the plane had been diverted to New Zealand. There he’d endured eight hours in an airport lounge and finally clearance to fly on. More turbulence—this time so severe that some passengers had been injured. Apparently there was a cyclone east of Northern Australia.

  Luckily it was southeast of Crocodile Creek and the last short leg had been drama free. Thank God. He descended the plane steps, looking forward to seeing Gina. Trying not to look exhausted. Trying to look as if he was eager for this visit to begin.

  Gina wasn
’t in the small bunch of waiting people. Instead …

  His heart sank. Georgie. Dr Georgiana Turner.

  He’d hoped she’d have left town by now. What Gina saw in this … tramp, he didn’t know.

  ‘Hey, Alistair.’ She waved and yelled as he crossed the tarmac.

  She was chewing gum. She was wearing tight leather pants and bright red stilettos. She had on a really tight top—so tight it was almost indecent. She was all in black. The only colour about her was the slash of crimson of her lips, her outrageous shoes and two spots of colour on her cheeks.

  ‘How’s it going, Al?’ she said, and chewed a bit more gum.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, trying to be polite and not quite succeeding. ‘Where’s Gina?’

  ‘See, she was expecting you yesterday. So today she and Cal are running a clinic out on Wallaby Island. The weather’s getting up so they thought they ought to go when they could.’

  ‘You couldn’t have taken her place?’

  ‘Hey, I deliver babies. Gina’s the heart lady. There’s not a lot of crossover. You got bags?’

  ‘One. Yes.’

  She sniffed, in a way that said real men didn’t need baggage. She turned and headed for the baggage hall, her very cute butt wiggling as he walked behind her.

  It was some butt.

  OK, that’s what he couldn’t allow himself to think. That was what had landed him into trouble in the first place. She was a tart. Somehow she’d gained a medical degree but, no matter, she was still a tart.

  But even so, he shouldn’t have tried to pick her up.

  Now they stood side by side at the luggage carousel, waiting for his bag. It took for ever. There were other doctors there from the plane.

  ‘There’s some other wedding happening here,’ he ventured for something to say, and Georgie nodded, looking at the baggage carousel as if it was she who’d recognise his bag.

  ‘Yep. One this Saturday, one next. Planned so those going to both needn’t make two trips. We were starting to think there’d be no guests for the first one.’

  ‘It’s some storm down south,’ he said reflectively. ‘That’s how I met these guys. The trip from New Zealand should have been cancelled. We hit an air pocket and dropped what felt like a few thousand feet. Anyone who wasn’t belted in was injured.’