Running from her past...
Towards a future together?
In this Single Dad Docs story, recovering from career-ending injuries, dancer Fleur Miller is impatient to get off Maple Island. But handsome new arrival, English doctor Rick Fleming seems determined to push her buttons! The island Fleur once called home now only holds painful memories, but her intense connection with single dad Rick soon challenges Fleur to reimagine life on the island—with a family of her own.
Single Dad Docs quartet
Book 1 – Tempted by Her Single Dad Boss by Annie O’Neil
Book 2 – Resisting Her English Doc by Annie Claydon
Look out for the next two books, coming soon:
Book 3 – The Single Dad’s Proposal by Karin Baine
Book 4 – Nurse to Forever Mom by Susan Carlisle
“The way this story started drew me into the story immediately.... However, it was the epilogue that wrapped this story up perfectly....
—Harlequin Junkie on Forbidden Night with the Duke
“... Ms. Claydon has delivered a really good read in this book where the connection between this couple was intense; the romance was heart-warming and special...and the ending had me loving the hero’s determination to prove to the heroine that she’s the one for him.”
—Harlequin Junkie on From Doctor to Princess?
Single Dad Docs
Finding their forever family!
Alex Kirkland and Cody Brennan are both dedicated doctors and doting single dads! So setting up their own prestigious clinic, with built-in childcare, seems like the perfect solution. And when the Maple Island Clinic opens its doors, they’re joined by two more gorgeous single dad docs.
Juggling patients and parenthood doesn’t leave much room for romance, until they meet the four women who are about to capture their hearts and make their families complete!
Find out more in
Tempted by Her Single Dad Boss by Annie O’Neil
Resisting Her English Doc by Annie Claydon
Available now!
And look out for
The Single Dad’s Proposal by Karin Baine
Nurse to Forever Mom by Susan Carlisle
Available February 2019!
Dear Reader,
One of my favorite parts of the process of writing is building places for my characters to live and work in, and Maple Island has been very special for me. It’s been an honor and an absolute joy to work with Annie O’Neil, Susan Carlisle and Karin Baine to create the island and its clinic.
Together, we explored every part of Maple Island, planning out orchards, beaches, holiday homes and a harbor town. We built a library, a sheriff’s office and two rival bakeries. My hero, who, like me, is an English visitor to Maple Island, was given a home in the old lighthouse. The Maple Island Clinic had found its place in the world.
And, of course, no place is complete without people. The island’s harbor town was populated with a close-knit and varied community. We imagined crews for the fishing boats in the harbor, and patients and staff for the clinic.
Thank you for reading Rick and Fleur’s story. I couldn’t have found a better place as a setting, and for the second time in this quartet of stories...
...Welcome to Maple Island!
Annie x
Resisting Her English Doc
Annie Claydon
Books by Annie Claydon
Harlequin Medical Romance
Stranded in His Arms
Rescued by Dr. Rafe
Saved by the Single Dad
The Doctor She’d Never Forget
Discovering Dr. Riley
The Doctor’s Diamond Proposal
English Rose for the Sicilian Doc
Saving Baby Amy
Forbidden Night with the Duke
Healed by the Single Dad Doc
From Doctor to Princess?
Firefighter’s Christmas Baby
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
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To Susan Carlisle, Annie O’Neil and Karin Baine.
The very best people to share an island with.
Praise for Annie Claydon
“This is such a beautiful story filled with lots of emotion as two people get a second chance at love and one that is so well deserved.”
—Goodreads on Rescued by Dr. Rafe
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
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM THE SURGEON'S ONE NIGHT TO FOREVER BY ANN MCINTOSH
CHAPTER ONE
RICK FLEMING FELT as if he was more than two weeks away from London. Much more than an ocean away. His old job and his family and friends seemed as if they were a world away.
Coming to the Maple Island Clinic was much more than just a new job. The island itself, situated two miles off the coast of Boston, was more than just a new place to live. It felt as if it just might be the end of a journey, one that had taken on the quality of a pilgrimage in his mind.
He’d promised his wife this before she’d died, four years ago. Their daughter had been just a baby, and all Ellie knew of her mother was what Rick could tell her. This was a chance for Ellie to see more of her grandparents in Boston, and for her to call America home, the way that Lara had done. And it was Rick’s chance to learn whether he might call somewhere home, too.
“I hope you’re settling in.” Alex Kirkland, the director responsible for rehabilitation, was ensconced in one of the easy chairs in his office, clearly the spokesperson for the two-man welcoming committee. His co-director, Cody Brennan, who led the surgical team, sat silently to one side.
“Yes, thank you.”
“And how’s Ellie?”
“She’s good. I brought her in to visit the clinic’s daycare center yesterday, and this morning she didn’t even look back to say goodbye to me when I left.”
Alex chuckled. “I know that feeling. I’m really happy that Jake looks forward to spending time in daycare after school while I’m still at work, but he might spare a thought for his dad’s feelings and pretend that he’s sorry to see me go. You’re both settling in at the lighthouse?”
“Ellie loves it. We stayed with her grandparents in Boston for a week before we came here, and on a clear day you can just see the tip of the lighthouse from the roof of their apartment block. She’s been insisting on going up to the viewing gallery every evening to wave them goodnight before she goes to bed.”
Alex and Cody both smiled. Being able—no, encouraged—to talk about Ellie’s needs as part of his own work experience was novel, but Rick had already realized that it was the norm here at the Maple Island Clinic. Two single fathers, who’d wanted to give their children the best, had founded a clinic that combined professional excell
ence with the very best daycare facilities. This was Rick’s dream job, in more ways than one.
“I’ll be going through your case-load with you over the next couple of days.” Alex picked up a patient file from the coffee table in front of him, slipping effortlessly from childcare to clinic business. “But I’d like to draw your attention to one of the patients I’m considering adding to your list. I think that your background in counseling, as well as physical rehabilitation, might put you in a unique position to help her.”
Rick took the file, opening it and scanning the details quickly, before his eye was drawn to the photograph stapled inside the front cover. One look at the blue eyes, staring candidly at the camera, and he forgot about everything else. Long, dark hair framed a face that no one in their right mind could fail to consider beautiful, but her eyes held something more. The promise that this woman was a force to be reckoned with.
“Fleur Miller came to us before Christmas.” Alex’s voice cut through the spell that seemed to bind Rick to the image. “She was part of a theater group—See the Beat.”
“I think I’ve heard of them. They specialize in theatrical dance and acrobatics.” He remembered them from one of those late-night arts programs that he’d had a habit of dozing through, instead of going to bed.
“Yes, that’s right. Fleur had a bad fall and sustained extensive injuries. They’re all in the file.”
Rick concentrated on the print, trying to ignore the photograph. Severe concussion, a broken shoulder and collarbone, a fractured hip and a knee that had been so badly damaged that the joint had required replacement.
“Is all her surgery complete?”
“Everything major. She has a ganglion on her wrist, probably caused by the trauma of the fall, but that’s relatively insignificant and we’ve decided to wait until she’s moving around without crutches. Cody will take care of it then.”
“She should be almost recovered by now, though. Eight weeks at the Boston Harbor Hospital, and then several more weeks here.”
“Yes, physically she’s doing well. Emotionally, not so much. She’s a model patient, smiles at all the nurses, does what she’s told when the physio’s watching her. But when she’s alone, she just lies down on her bed and stares at the ceiling. We reckon she’s having a good day when we find her staring out of the window.”
Rick frowned. He wasn’t usually mistaken about a face, and he thought he’d seen determination in Fleur’s. “Has the clinic’s mental health team been involved?”
“Yes, they have, but she’s stonewalled them. Her attitude is that loss is a perfectly normal thing for a person to feel, and that we should just leave her alone while she deals with it.”
“She has a point. With these injuries it doesn’t look likely that she’ll be returning to a career in dance anytime soon, if ever. Everyone needs a bit of time to grieve, whatever the nature of their loss.”
Alex and Cody knew that too. And all three men knew that there must be a time for moving forward as well. In the time it had taken Rick to kick-start his own life, after Lara’s death, he’d almost lost everything else that he’d cared about. It sounded as if Fleur was in danger of making the same mistake that he had.
Alex broke the short silence. “We think that Fleur has found herself a comfort zone, and she won’t venture out of it. She’s made up her mind that she can just sit her time out here.”
“Which isn’t what the clinic’s all about,” Rick mused. It was one of the topics that Alex and Cody had discussed with Rick during a series of in-depth video interviews. The clinic aimed to prepare its patients for life, and not just attend to their medical needs.
“No, it isn’t. We’d like to hear some ideas on how you think you might get through to her.”
“Everyone else has failed,” Cody interjected with a frown. It was clear that both Alex and Cody were taking this personally. Committed doctors had a habit of thinking that way.
Rick took a few moments to read through the patient profile. Fleur had grown up on the island, leaving when she was fifteen to go to theater school in Boston... Her parents were still on the island, visited every day and were supportive... No financial issues...
Almost against his will, his gaze was drawn back to the photograph. The confidence in Fleur’s gaze suggested that this was someone who knew how to meet the world headlong. Someone who could fight. Rick dismissed the thought that if she could be persuaded to fight him there was the strong possibility that he might enjoy every moment of it, and then come crawling back for more. Fleur Miller would be nothing more than a patient who presented him with a medical conundrum.
“If Fleur’s reached the kind of standard she has in dance, then she’s clearly no stranger to meeting a challenge.” Rick ventured an opinion. “Perhaps the difficulty for her now is that she can’t see any challenge ahead of her. I can imagine that for someone like her, that must be very demotivating.”
“And your solution?” Alex pursed his lips.
Rick grinned. “This is a wonderful place, but maybe that’s just the problem. It’s making everything a bit too easy for Fleur. We need to find something that will confront her and give her a reason to start fighting. I think that then the underlying emotional issues that are getting in the way of her recovery might become more apparent and we’ll have a chance to address them.”
Alex exchanged a glance with Cody, and then nodded. “Agreed. And we can rely on you to pursue that approach?”
It made sense. He was a new face, and that meant a fresh start and a chance to succeed where others had failed.
“Yes. I’d welcome the challenge.”
* * *
The next hour was devoted to a bombardment of names, smiles and handshakes as Alex and Cody took him on a whistle-stop tour of the clinic. This place had everything. But the smiling faces, the state-of-the-art gym equipment and the beautiful setting didn’t provide the one thing that he guessed his newest patient might need.
He spent half an hour with Ellie at lunchtime. She had obviously been exploring her new surroundings, and excitedly showed him around the daycare center. Their second goodbye of the day was only marginally less harrowing than the first, but Ellie took it in her stride, running back to the play area where she’d already made some friends.
Rick walked determinedly to the private room marked on Fleur’s notes. The door was open, and he could see a figure lying on the bed, her back to the door. She didn’t move when he knocked so Rick walked inside.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Richard Fleming. I’m going to be overseeing your rehab for the next few weeks.”
The woman rolled slowly onto her back, giving him a smile that was clearly a matter of doing what was expected of her. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
It was like a before and after. The woman in the photograph didn’t know the meaning of failure. The one in front of him looked beaten. It was nothing to do with the fact that her dark hair was in a messy plait instead of a shining waterfall around her shoulders, or that she had a small healed scar on her lip. It was everything to do with the blank look in her eyes.
“Yes. Fresh off the plane.” Rick sat down in the easy chair beside her bed to signal that this wasn’t a flying visit.
“You’re... English?”
“Yes, from London.”
She gave a small nod. Rick reckoned he could have told her that he was from Mars and she probably would have shown the same indifference. But he was going to get a reaction out of her, and if he had to work for it, then so be it.
He opened the file he’d brought with him, deliberately angling it on his lap so that Fleur couldn’t see the contents. “As I’m going to be your new doctor, I’d like to review your case notes with you.”
“All right.” She didn’t move.
“And that’s better done while you’re sitting up.”
The sudden, momentary flash of de
fiance in her eyes stirred something deep in Rick’s gut. If he managed to succeed in what he was setting out to do, there would be a whole new set of problems to contend with. But he’d deal with those, because Fleur was going to start fighting, and the most obvious place to start was to give her a reason to fight him.
He resisted the temptation to position one of the pillows behind her back, leaving her to do it for herself. When she was settled, he unclipped his pen from the top of the file, scanning the paper in front of him as if he was reading something that she wasn’t allowed to see.
“You’ve completed all of your physiotherapy sessions...”
“Yes.”
“And...your progress is satisfactory. Shall we say three out of five?”
From the look on Fleur’s face, Rick would bet that she had never been marked as a three out of five for anything.
“Three out of five?”
“Yes, I think that’s fair.” Rick ticked one of the boxes on the form he’d prepared. “And how do you rate the clinic, in terms of meeting your needs?”
“The clinic’s great. It’s the best there is.”
Rick nodded. “Well, the clinic’s only as good as the results we can achieve. So I suppose that’s a three out of five as well.” He shook his head disapprovingly, and marked it down on the form.
Fleur sighed. “Alex and Cody aren’t going to like that very much.”
“I imagine not.” Rick glossed over the matter and turned his attention to the next question.
* * *
The first thing Fleur had noticed about him was that he was handsome. Tall, with a shock of corn-colored hair and a square jaw. It looked as if he was nicely built under that white jacket as well. And the accent...
His accent was to die for. He sounded like a gentleman, but his blue eyes had just a hint of the rogue in them. But this Dr. Fleming seemed intent on diverting her attention from his very obvious appeal by making himself as obnoxious as possible. Fleur endured the three out of five. And since the two out of five that he then gave her for motivation was clearly intended to annoy her, she ignored that as well.
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