Rescued—
By the brooding neurosurgeon
Neurosurgeon Josh O’Connor’s isolated island hideaway is on lockdown, but nothing will stop him entering a raging cyclone to rescue mom-to-be midwife Hannah Byrne. Hannah hasn’t found happiness since leaving her beloved Irish village. Yet stepping into Josh’s warm house, she starts to feel she might finally have found a home—for her and her unborn baby. Might Josh’s rescuing Hannah from the storm change both their lives for the better?
MARION LENNOX has written over one hundred romance novels, and is published in over one hundred countries and thirty languages. Her international awards include the prestigious RITA® award—twice!—and the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award for ‘a body of work which makes us laugh and teaches us about love’. Marion adores her family, her kayak, her dog, and lying on the beach with a book someone else has written. Heaven!
Also by Marion Lennox
A Child to Open Their Hearts
Falling for Her Wounded Hero
Reunited with Her Surgeon Prince
The Billionaire’s Christmas Baby
Finding His Wife, Finding a Son
English Lord on Her Doorstep
The Baby They Longed For
Cinderella and the Billionaire
Second Chance with Her Island Doc
Rescued by the Single Dad Doc
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.
Pregnant Midwife on His Doorstep
Marion Lennox
www.millsandboon.co.uk
ISBN: 978-0-008-90266-7
PREGNANT MIDWIFE ON HIS DOORSTEP
© 2020 Marion Lennox
Published in Great Britain 2020
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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With thanks to the wonderful Kate Hicks,
who delivered Maisie’s puppies with skill and friendship.
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
About the Author
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Dedication
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
Extract
About the Publisher
CHAPTER ONE
HIS NEIGHBOUR MUST be evacuating her dog—but this late?
Dr Josh O’Connor had been watching the forecast for the last twenty-four hours. Cyclone Alma was supposed to stay well north of Camel Island, but the weather was building to extreme. When the radio broadcaster had said, ‘An unpredicted change has the eye of the storm veering south,’ Josh had started to have serious qualms. Should he leave?
But he’d looked through his sturdy double-glazed windows and seen the heaving sea, he’d thought of the rickety bridge across to the mainland and he’d decided it’d be safer to hunker down. His house was new, long, low, solid and set on the lee side of the island. Heavy shutters provided protection. He had plenty of provisions. The storm might cut him off from the mainland for a few days but he’d be fine.
But what about the others? He barely knew the residents of the only two other houses on this remote island, but he knew enough to worry. By mid-afternoon, with the change in weather prediction, he’d tried to contact them.
The house on the far side of the island was occupied by a couple of artists and their kids, and his phone call had made him feel like he was overreacting. ‘We’ll be right, mate,’ Mick Forde had told him. ‘Skye and me have seen storms like this before. It’ll give us something to paint. We’re staying.’ Josh had thought of their ramshackle cottage with misgivings but there was nothing he could do in the face of their intransigence.
The only other house was on his side of the island, owned by the very elderly Moira Byrne. She was a loner. When Josh had first arrived and introduced himself, she’d been curt to the point of rudeness.
‘If you think we’re going to play happy neighbours think again. I bought this place because of its isolation and that’s the way I like it. Keep out of my way and I’ll keep out of yours.’
He had, though her frailty and solitude had him concerned. Once a week she drove her ancient white sedan across the bridge, presumably heading to the town on the mainland for supplies. Occasionally a little red car arrived and someone stayed for a few hours, but whoever it was kept to themselves as well. The driver of the red car seemed to be Miss Byrne’s only personal contact, but Josh was the last person to want to encroach on her solitude.
But this afternoon he’d been uneasy enough to intrude. Her phone had rung out so he’d battled his way over there. He’d heard a dog whining inside but there’d been no other response to repeated knocking. The house and garage were locked, curtained, shuttered.
He’d stood on her doorstep in the rising wind and decided she must have headed to the mainland because of the storm. He wished he could see inside the garage to confirm her car wasn’t there, but he imagined her staying in a mainland motel overnight, where a dog wouldn’t be welcome. She must have locked her dog inside to be safe.
There was a dog flap set in the back d
oor. The dog could come outside if it wanted to, but it obviously wasn’t interested enough in Josh’s knocking or calling to investigate. Fair enough, Josh decided, thinking of his own dog’s fear of storms. He’d check again in the morning but he could do no more. He’d headed home, hunkered down in his office and immersed himself in his work.
Technology’s role in medicine had always fascinated him, and the use of external robotic skeletons in the hope of restoring function to patients with spinal damage had become his passion. After his own accident it had been easy enough to leave hands-on testing to his staff. Retreating to the complexities of techno-science, he led his team from the seclusion of his office. He drove to the city when he was most needed. He attended overseas conferences, but otherwise he worked alone.
The project he was working on was vital and enthralling, but it wasn’t enough to block out the storm. Dudley—the misbegotten mutt he’d been landed with when he’d bought this place—didn’t help. He was cowering under Jock’s office chair in what Josh imagined was the doggy equivalent of the foetal position, and his whimpers were getting louder.
‘It’s okay, boy,’ he told him, but Dudley looked at him as if he was a sandwich short of a picnic and went back to whimpering.
By dusk the phone lines were out and his generator had cut in to augment battery storage from his solar power. This place was designed for self-sufficiency. Josh had power for refrigeration and lights, a slow combustion stove providing central heating and hot water, plus enough driftwood to keep both the stove and the open fire in the living room lit for months. He had a pantry and freezer full of supplies. His very expensive satellite dish was still giving him connectivity to the outside world if he needed it. Dudley might be worried, but he wasn’t.
‘Let’s cook some dinner,’ he told him.
Dudley was still looking at him as if he was nuts. He was under Josh’s chair and he was staying there.
‘Wuss,’ Josh told him, but got down on his hands and knees and started scratching Dudley’s ears. Dudley just whimpered.
Okay, he’d bring out the big guns—Dudley’s favourite thing in the whole world. Josh lay on his back, patted his chest and waited.
His strategy worked. The scrawny kelpie gave a final worried whine, but this was a ruse Josh had used since he’d found the half-starved, flea-ridden mutt when he’d moved here. The anxiety-ridden dog could never resist. Now he inched forward from under the chair, then slithered cautiously up onto Josh’s chest. Josh rubbed Dudley’s spine in the way dogs the world over loved, and hugged him tight.
Which worked both ways. Josh might be self-reliant, he conceded, but the storm was a big one and he wasn’t completely impervious to it. A hug from a dog was okay.
‘We’re both wusses,’ he told Dudley, and Dudley signified his solidarity with a lick from throat to chin.
Bleah.
‘Dinner,’ Josh said, grinning as he wiped away spit. Dudley heaved a resigned sigh that said he ought to worry more about the storm but maybe he’d put dinner first. Josh hugged him again, then headed to the kitchen, with Dudley slinking cautiously after him. He filled Dudley’s bowl with kibble, then decided to check outside. He’d closed the shutters this afternoon, making it impossible to see through the windows, but now he cautiously opened the back door.
Josh’s house, made of stone and hunkered among a couple of rocky outcrops, still seemed solidly safe, but outside seemed just plain scary. The wind was screaming. Debris was blasting against the walls. Josh’s instinct was to close the door fast—but then he paused. There were car lights heading along the track from Moira’s house, down toward the bridge.
Had Moira had second thoughts and come back for her dog? He hadn’t seen her return, but then his windows had been shuttered. She must have come back, collected her dog and decided to retreat again.
Across the bridge? His vague worries about his elderly neighbour suddenly coalesced into fear.
He’d had qualms about the bridge when he’d bought this place, but a call to the local council had reassured him. An unmanned but essential lighthouse on the far side of the island meant the bridge always had to stay connected. Council had budgeted for a rebuild in the next financial year.
But this wasn’t the next financial year, and no one had predicted a cyclone this far south. There’d be waves smashing against the pilings, and Josh had seen the ancient timbers creak and sway in the last storm. Which hadn’t been as bad as this.
Now he was watching the car lights head toward it, and he found he’d forgotten to breathe.
He was overreacting, he told himself. The bridge had withstood weather for decades and it’d take the car less than a minute to cross.
For a moment a car’s headlights illuminated the timbers as the car slowed. Moira had obviously paused to assess the situation.
The decision was made. The headlights inched forward, onto the bridge itself.
And then lurched violently and disappeared.
‘Hell.’
And that was the least of the swear words he uttered as he hauled on his boots and headed through the internal door to the garage. He hit the remote on the doors, the wind blasted in—and seconds later he was out in the teeth of the storm.
At least his truck was sturdy. He’d bought it because it was tough, because he valued the ease of driving along the rough tracks to the island’s isolated beaches. Now he valued its sheer weight.
He thought of Moira’s tiny sedan. No one should be driving in these conditions, and the swerve of those lights... They’d pointed upwards and then disappeared.
He was gunning down the track like a madman. If the bridge had gone... If Moira’s car had crashed into the sea...
There’d be nothing he could do. He knew it even before he reached the bridge. The channel across to the mainland was deep and fast flowing. This side of the island was in the lee of the storm but even so, the waves would be crashing through with force. A tiny car, submerged...
He needed help.
He didn’t have it.
The phone lines and cell-phone connectivity had failed hours ago. With self-sufficiency in mind—and because he relied on video conferencing for his work—Josh had paid the horrendous price for satellite connection, but anyone in that water would be dead long before outside assistance could arrive.
He reached the bridge—or what was left of it. His headlights lit the scene and he saw a storm-washed wreck.
The bridge had crashed, its timbers now a jumbled mass, tilted sideways into the sea, already separating and being washed away.
A car was in that jumble.
It was still on this side, though, in the water but only just. The bridge must have crumbled almost as soon as it was fully on its timbers.
And it wasn’t Moira’s car. Moira’s car was white. This was a tiny, indeterminate red thing. The car he’d seen occasionally visit.
And whoever was in it was in dire trouble. Its bonnet was almost submerged. Timbers were all around it and waves were thumping the wood. The car was slewing sideways...
He was out of his truck before he knew it, plunging down the bank, around the mass of loose planking, leaving his headlights playing the scene.
A massive plank was wedged against the driver’s door. It was being shoved by more timbers. The car was being pushed further in.
He could see a face at the driver’s window. A woman’s face, framed by a mass of copper-red curls. A mask of terror.
He couldn’t get to her.
He stopped for a millisecond, giving himself time to evaluate. Training kicked in. From the moment he’d enrolled in medical school, procedure had been drilled in, over and over. No matter what the emergency, assess the whole situation before acting.
This must be the world record for speed assessment, but it was worthwhile. The waves were hammering the plank against the car so strongly it’d be usel
ess to try to reach the driver’s door and attempt to pull it away. He couldn’t do it. But the plank was angled, and the biggest force of the waves would be at the front of the car, where the water was deepest.
It felt counterintuitive but he backed away, further up the bank from the driver’s door, to the far end of the plank holding the door.
Could he? He had no choice. He got behind the end of the plank, trying to brace himself against the water, against the blasting wind. He pushed with all his might.
The force of the water at the other end was now his friend. He could feel the timber tremble, then shift...
And suddenly move. The plank was suddenly caught by the current, tumbling out to midstream to be tossed away to the sea.
That left the little car without the plank’s protection from the waves, but at least it wasn’t wedging the door closed.
He surged in and grabbed the door handle. The woman inside was obviously pushing. He pulled—no, he hauled. The water was holding it shut, but with their combined strength the door finally opened. He shoved it back against the water’s force, made his body a wedge to stop it slamming shut again and reached in.
The woman was struggling. She was youngish. Soaked. Small but bulky. Terrified.
He grabbed her, hauled her out to him, steadied her.
‘Is there anyone else in the car?’ He was yelling but the wind was tossing his words to oblivion. He put his mouth hard against her ear. ‘Is Moira in there?’
‘No. But her dog’s in there.’ Her yell was fear-filled, loud enough to be heard. ‘On the back seat.’
‘No one else. Sure?’
‘Just the dog.’ She was pushing against him, struggling to reach the back door handle.
His first instinct was to fight her, to simply drag her up the bank and get her safe, but she’d already grabbed the handle. If they were hit by another of the timbers...
But they had this moment. There was a chance...
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