How to Marry a Doctor (Celebrations, Inc.) Read online

  “I can find you your soul mate in five dates.”

  Dr. Jake Lennox took that bet from his best friend, nurse Anna Adams. And then he insisted on returning the favor. After all, he’s a commitment-phobic bachelor, while Anna wants the wedding ring and the white picket fence. So why can’t he find her Mr. Right while she finds him Ms. Right Now?

  Now, admittedly, in small-town Celebration, Texas, the dating pool is shallow. And Anna and Jake’s picks for each other are either too small or too tall, too old or too bold. Still, they’re determined that by dates number five, both of them will be diving headfirst into marriage. So why do they suddenly seem to think it could be with each other?

  “You just have to promise me one thing,” Jake said.

  Running the pad of her index finger over his tempting bottom lip, her wrist rubbed against the sexy stubble on his cheeks. Her body reacted with a warming shiver. He opened his mouth and gently caught her finger between his teeth. Nipped at it and sucked on it for a moment.

  It felt like she’d been waiting her entire life for this moment. Despite his words, he certainly didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get away. Yeah, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Not right now, at least.

  “Anything,” Anna said.

  She wasn’t going to let him tell her he wasn’t good enough for her.

  She knew what she wanted, and he’d just slipped his arms around her again.

  “No regrets,” he said.

  “No regrets,” she answered. “But tell me something. How do you know that you’re not good for me—that we’re not good together—if we’ve never…tried it out?”

  * * *

  CELEBRATIONS, INC.: Let’s get this party started!

  Dear Reader,

  In Louisa May Alcott’s book Little Women, there’s a part where she writes about being so scarred by love gone wrong that a person misses out on other—possibly better—chances because of that first bad experience.

  Anna Adams, the heroine of How to Marry a Doctor, would’ve saved herself a world of torment if she’d taken to heart that sage advice. Two years after her marriage ended, she wanted to believe in happily-ever-after, but she was too shell-shocked to even date. Still, that didn’t stop her from trying to fix up her lifelong best friend, Jake Lennox, with the “right kind of woman” (to end the parade of beautiful women who were hopelessly wrong for him). Jake countered: if Anna would let him fix her up, he’d let her fix him up. In fact, the first one to introduce the other to a person who stuck was the winner. It sounded like a good plan...until they finally realized the reason none of the dates were working out was because they were much happier in each other’s company.

  I hope you enjoy Jake and Anna’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please look me up on Facebook at facebook.com/nancyrobardsthompsonbooks, or drop me a line at [email protected].

  Warmly,

  Nancy Robards Thompson

  How to Marry a Doctor

  Nancy Robards Thompson

  National bestselling author Nancy Robards Thompson holds a degree in journalism. She worked as a newspaper reporter until she realized reporting “just the facts” bored her silly. Much more content to report to her muse, Nancy loves writing women’s fiction and romance full-time. Critics have deemed her work “funny, smart and observant.” She resides in Florida with her husband and daughter. You can reach her at nancyrobardsthompson.com and facebook.com/nancyrobardsthompsonbooks.

  Books by Nancy Robards Thompson

  Harlequin Special Edition

  Celebrations, Inc.

  A Celebration Christmas

  Celebration’s Baby

  Celebration’s Family

  Celebration’s Bride

  Texas Christmas

  Texas Magic

  Texas Wedding

  The Fortunes of Texas: Cowboy Country

  My Fair Fortune

  The Fortunes of Texas: Welcome to Horseback Hollow

  Falling for Fortune

  The Fortunes of Texas: Whirlwind Romance

  Fortune’s Unexpected Groom

  The Baby Chase

  The Family They Chose

  Accidental Heiress

  Accidental Father

  Accidental Cinderella

  Accidental Princess

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  This book is dedicated to everyone who believes in happily ever after.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Excerpt from Redemption Bay by RaeAnne Thayne

  Chapter One

  Anna Adams parked her yellow VW Beetle in Jake Lennox’s driveway, grabbed her MP3 player and took a moment to make sure it was loaded and ready to go.

  She was about to hold an intervention and music—just the right song—was the key component of this quirky job.

  Today, she was going to save Jake, her lifelong best friend, from himself. Or at least from drowning in the quicksand of his own sorrow.

  This morning, Celebration Memorial Hospital had been abuzz with rumors that Jake’s girlfriend, Dorenda, had dumped him. Anna might’ve been a little miffed that she’d had to hear about his breakup through the nursing staff grapevine, but the sister of one of Dorenda’s friends was an LPN who worked the seven-to-three shift at the hospital and she’d come in positively brimming over with the gossip.

  Jake had been scarce today. He hadn’t been around for lunch. Another doctor had done rounds today. When she’d tried to phone Jake after work, the call had gone to voice mail.

  The radio silence was what made Anna worry. She hadn’t realized that he’d been so hung up on Miss Texas. That’s what everyone called Dorenda, even though no one was sure if she’d actually held the title or if she’d gotten the nickname simply because she was tall and beautiful and looked like she should’ve worn a crown to her day job. Poor schlubs like Anna did well to make it to their shifts at the hospital wearing mascara and lipstick.

  Anna wasn’t sure what the real story was. When Jake had a girlfriend, he tended to disappear into the tunnel of love. Or at least he never seemed to bring his girlfriends around her. And Dr. Jake Lennox usually had a girlfriend.

  Anna didn’t celebrate Jake’s breakups, but she had to admit she did relish the intervals between his relationships, because, for as long as she’d known him, that was when she’d gotten her friend back. Sure, they usually saw each other daily at the hospital. It was not as if he completely disappeared. But in those times between relationships, he always gravitated to her.

  She would take the spaces in between any day. Because those spaces ran deeper than the superficial stretches of time he spent with the Miss Texases of the world.

  Anna rapped their special knock—knock, knock-knock, knock, knock—on Jake’s front door, then let herself in.

  He never locked the door, but then again, they never waited to be invited into each other’s homes. “Jake? Are you here?”

  Really, she wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer. In fact, she had a pretty good idea of where he was. So, she closed the door and let herself in the backyard gate and followed the mulch path down to the lake, the crowning jewel of his property.

  Yep, if he was back here brooding, it clearly called for an intervention or, as they’d come to call it over the years, the Sadness Interven
tion Dance.

  It was their private ritual. Whenever one of them was blue about something, the other performed the dumbest dance he or she could come up with for the sole reason of making the other person smile. The dance was always different, but the song was always the same: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin.

  Jake had invented it way back in elementary school. Gosh, it was so long ago—back when the song had just hit the airwaves—she couldn’t even remember what she’d been upset about that had compelled him to make a fool of himself to jolt her out of it. But it stuck and stayed with them over the years and now, even though they were both in their thirties, it was still their ritual. The SID was as much a part of them as all those New Year’s Eves their families had rung in together or all those Fourths of July at the lake they’d shared. Back in the day, the mere gesture was always enough to push the recipient out of his or her funk. Or, on the rare occasion that it didn’t, the SID was the kickoff of the pity party and the guest of honor was officially put on notice that he or she had exactly twenty-four hours to get over whatever was bringing him or her down. Because whatever it was, it wasn’t worth the wasted emotion.

  Nowadays, it was usually performed at the end of a love affair, as was the case today and the time that Jake had basically saved her life when her marriage had ended—metaphorically speaking, of course. But then again, he was a doctor. Saving lives was second nature to him.

  Love was no longer second nature to Anna.

  Sure, once upon a time, she’d believed in true love.

  She’d believed in the big white dress and the happily-ever-after. She’d believed in spending Saturday nights snuggling on the couch, watching a movie with her husband. She’d believed in her wedding vows, especially the part where they’d said ’til death do us part and forsaking all others. From that day forward, the promises she and Hal had made were etched on her soul.

  Then it all exploded right in front of her face.

  After nearly four years of marriage, she discovered Hal, who had also looked her in the eyes and made the same vows on their wedding day, had been sleeping with his office manager.

  That was when Anna had stopped believing in just about everything. Well, everything except for the one person in the world who had ever been true to her: Jake Lennox.

  Jake had been her first friend, her first kiss, and the first guy to stick around after they realized they were much better friends than anything more.

  He’d never stopped believing in her.

  After finding out about Hal’s infidelity, the only thing Anna had wanted to do was to numb the pain with pints of Ben and Jerry’s and curl up into the fetal position in between feedings. Jake, however, was having none of that. He’d arrived on her doorstep in San Antonio and pulled her out of her emotional sinkhole and set her back on her feet. Then one month ago, after the divorce was final, he’d come back to San Antonio, single-handedly packed Anna’s belongings and moved her to Celebration. He’d even helped her find a house and had gotten her a nursing job at Celebration Memorial Hospital.

  But before he’d done any of this, he’d done the SID.

  There he stood: a tall, handsome thirty-four-year-old man doing the most ridiculous dance you could ever imagine to “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

  Was it any wonder that Anna felt duty-bound to be there for him on a day like today?

  It was her turn to perform the SID. As humiliating as it was—well, that was the point. Anna was fully prepared to make a colossal fool of herself.

  The gardenia bushes were in full bloom. Their heady scent mixed with the earthy smell of the lake perfuming the humid evening air. She swatted away a mosquito who had decided she was dinner.

  Instinct told her she’d find Jake on the dock, most likely sitting on the ground with his feet in the water and a beer in his hand. Her intuition didn’t let her down.

  There he sat, with his back to her, exactly as she had imagined. His lanky body was silhouetted by the setting sun. She could just make out his too-long brown hair that looked a little mussed, as if he’d recently raked his fingers through it. He was clad in blue jeans and a mint-green polo shirt. A symphony of cicadas supplied the sound track to the sunset, which had painted the western sky into an Impressionistic masterpiece in shades of orange, pink and blue.

  A gentle wind stirred, rippling the lake water and providing welcome relief to the oppressive heat.

  Obviously, Jake hadn’t heard her coming.

  Good. The element of surprise always helped with the SID.

  She took advantage of the moment to ready herself, drawing in a couple of deep breaths and doing some shoulder rolls. With one last check of the volume on her MP3 player, she pushed Play and Bobby McFerrin’s whistling reggae strains preempted the cicadas’ night song.

  Jake’s head whipped around the minute he heard the music. Then he turned the rest of his body toward her, giving her his full attention.

  Anna sprang into action attempting to do something she hoped resembled the moonwalk. Thank goodness she didn’t have to watch herself and the shameless lengths she was going to tonight.

  Once she’d maneuvered off the grass and was dancing next to him on the dock, she broke into alternate moves that were part robot and part Charleston and part something...er...original.

  As she danced, trying her best to coax a full-on smile from him, she tried to ignore the sinking feeling that maybe he’d been more serious about Dorenda than the others. That his most current ex had sent him into a Texas-sized bad humor.

  She reminded herself that was exactly why she was here today. For some quality time with her best bud. To bring him out of his post-breakup funk. She knew she looked ridiculous in her pink nurse’s scrubs that were slightly too big and clunky white lace-up shoes, but Jake’s initial scowl was beginning to morph into a lopsided smile, despite himself. She could actually see him trying to fight it.

  Oh, yeah, he was fighting it, but he couldn’t fool her. She knew him much too well.

  In fact, it only made her unleash the most ridiculous of her dance moves: the sprinkler, the cotton-swab, and the Running Man. Dignity drew the line at dropping down onto her stomach and doing the worm. Although that move hadn’t been below Jake a month ago when he’d been there after she’d signed her divorce papers.

  That intervention had been a doozy and a true testament to the depth of their friendship.

  But he wouldn’t have to perform another intervention for her anytime soon.

  After losing herself and getting burned so badly, Anna wasn’t in any hurry to get involved again.

  For now, she was happy to serve as Jake’s intervener.

  Sprinkler-two-three-four, cotton-swab-two-three-four, Running Man-two-three... She was just getting into a groove, ready to transition from the Running Man back to the robot when, in the middle of possibly the best sequence yet, her foot hit an uneven plank on the dock, causing her to lose her balance.

  She saw the fall coming in slow motion and she would have face-planted if not for Jake’s quick reflexes. Instead of kissing the dock, she found herself safe in the strength of his strong arms, looking up into his gorgeous blue eyes.

  * * *

  Anna smelled good.

  The kind of natural good that made him want to pull her closer, bury his face in her neck and breathe in deeply.

  But this was Anna, for God’s sake.

  He couldn’t do that.

  He respected her too much and owed her so much more than that.

  Especially after she’d gone to such crazy lengths to cheer him up. Did he dare tell her that he really didn’t need cheering up? Not in the way she thought he did. Sure, Dorenda had ended things, but the breakup had come as more of a relief than anything.

  Before he did something stupid that would be awkward for both Anna and him, he set her upright and took a step back, allowing both of them to reclaim their personal space.

  “That was graceful,” he said, hoping humor would help him regai
n his equilibrium.

  “You know me,” Anna said. “Grace is my middle name.” Actually, it really was. “I aim to please. How are you doing, Jake? You okay?”

  Her long auburn hair hung at her shoulders in loose waves. Her clear, ivory skin was virtually makeup-free. She had this look in her blue eyes that warmed him from the inside out.

  He tried not to think about the strange impulse he’d had just a minute ago, an impulse that lingered even if he was trying not to acknowledge it.

  “I’m great,” he said. “Want a beer? I’d like to toast your latest choreography. You’re getting really good at it. I’ll give your Running Man a nine-point-five. I have to take off a half point since you didn’t stick the landing.”

  She swatted him and quickly crossed her arms in front of her.

  “Yes, I’d love a beer. Thank you. I need one after that.”

  He smiled. “Come on. Let’s go back up to the house. I have five of a six-pack in the fridge.”

  She was eyeing him again. “Well, good. I was afraid that maybe you’d been at home all day drowning your sorrows.”

  “I was seeing patients all day. In case you haven’t noticed, I usually don’t take off midweek to go on a bender.”

  He and Anna both worked at Celebration Memorial Hospital, but she was an OB nurse on the third-floor maternity ward and he was a hospitalist on the general medical-surgical floors. Unless they sought each other out, their paths usually didn’t cross at work.

  “I must say, you’re taking this awfully well,” she said.

  “What?”

  “The breakup. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that you were fine.”

  “Do I act like I’m not fine?”

  “Well, no. That’s what I just said. You seem remarkably unfazed by Miss Texas’s departure. Sorry, by Dorenda’s breaking up with you.”

  He pulled open the back door for her and stepped aside so she could enter the house first.

  “Dorenda was a great woman, but our relationship had run its course. I’ll miss her, but it was time to move on.”