by Lucy Clark
Home is where her heart is…
GP Stacey Wilton is back in her beloved hometown to run her family’s medical practice. As guardian to her younger siblings, Stacey has had to put her love life on hold—especially after being abandoned by her fiancé—and now she’s so over men!
Then she meets delectable Dr. Pierce Brolin on the doorstep of her childhood home, and suddenly all bets are off! Stacey might have had her fair share of Mr. Wrongs, but could Pierce be her Dr. Perfect?
“You’re leaving?” Pierce was half on the veranda, half on the threshold as she walked past him.
“I need to.” Before she made a complete fool of herself and begged him not to listen to a word she was saying.
“Stacey—wait.”
She unlocked her car and put her bag inside before turning to face him, the driver’s door between them.
“What about us? Isn’t what we feel for each other worth pursuing?”
She reached out and placed a hand to his cheek, determined she wouldn’t cry. “If you love someone, set them free.” She smiled lovingly at the man who had stolen her heart, now and for evermore. “You are going to be amazing. You are going to achieve such great things, and those great things are going to help so many people. I could never stand in the way of that.”
Her voice broke, and before she completely lost her resolve to set him free, she turned from him, climbed into the car, shut the door and started the engine.
“Stacey!”
She tried not to hear the pleading in his tone as she carefully reversed out of the driveway, belatedly remembering to switch on her headlights. Even though they lived only a few blocks from each other, she still had to pull over to wipe her tear-filled eyes because she couldn’t see properly.
After she’d reached her house she headed quietly for her bedroom and, uncaring that she hadn’t changed or brushed her teeth, lay down on her bed and allowed the tears to fall. She loved him. She loved Pierce with all her heart. But she could never live with herself if he sacrificed his own dreams for her. His dreams were his, and he deserved the chance to achieve them.
“If you love someone, set them free. If they come back to you, they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were.” She recited the words into her pillow, hoping against hope that one day Pierce would return to her—because she would always be waiting for him.
Dear Reader,
I’ve always loved reading linked stories—really getting to know characters and their family and friends—and now, with Stacey Wilton stepping out and leading the way, the Wilton triplets are making their mark. Stacey, Cora and Molly are three very different women, but they’re joined in the bonds of sisterly love.
Forever the down-to-earth, sensible sister, Stacey thinks she’s lost her chance at love—until she meets handsome Pierce Brolin. Such a gorgeous but determined man… I loved Pierce from the start. I love the way that he, like Stacey, who is guardian to her younger siblings, has such a strong grasp on the importance of family, on not taking the people he truly cares about for granted. It’s inevitable that when these two meet they’ll have an instant connection that will help them embrace all the various siblings—and rabbits—that weave their way throughout the story.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the very important research required to write this story, it’s that you’re never too old to go on a swing!
Warmest regards,
Lucy
DR. PERFECT ON HER DOORSTEP
Lucy Clark
Recent titles by Lucy Clark:
HER MISTLETOE WISH
THE SECRET BETWEEN THEM
RESISTING THE NEW DOC IN TOWN
ONE LIFE-CHANGING MOMENT
DARE SHE DREAM OF FOREVER?
FALLING FOR DR. FEARLESS
DIAMOND RING FOR THE ICE QUEEN
TAMING THE LONE DOC’S HEART
THE BOSS SHE CAN’T RESIST
WEDDING ON THE BABY WARD
SPECIAL CARE BABY MIRACLE
DOCTOR DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH
These books are also available in ebook format from www.Harlequin.com.
Praise for Lucy Clark:
“A sweet and fun romance about second chances
and second love.”
—HarlequinJunkie.com on
Dare She Dream of Forever?
Dedication
To our gorgeous Abby. You are such a delight.
Never stop!
Psalms 121:7–8
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
STACEY WILTON PULLED the car to the side of the road. She looked across at the house, nostalgia rising within her. Turning the key to cut the engine, she unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door, her gaze never leaving the house. The late-afternoon rays from the sun combined with the blue of the September sky only enhanced the beauty of the place.
It looked so different—smaller, somehow. Which was ridiculous, because houses didn’t grow or shrink. And yet it was still the same as her memory recalled. The front garden had been re-landscaped, the large tree she and her sisters had used to climb was gone, and no shade fell over the front windows, but instead the garden was alive with rows of vibrantly coloured flowers, enjoying the spring weather. Stacey smiled. Her father would have loved that.
She leaned against the car and drank her fill of the place she’d called home for the first fourteen years of her life. It was a place she’d never contemplated leaving, but she’d soon learned that life was never smooth. Her mother had walked out, abandoning them all.
Stacey and her sisters had been almost five years old, excited to start school, when their mother had declared that she’d had enough. Their father had been the local GP, working long and erratic hours. He’d employed a young nanny—Letisha—who, many years later, he’d married.
When he’d been head-hunted to run a new palliative care hospice in Perth Arn Wilton had accepted the position without consulting his teenage daughters.
‘Why do we need to go?’ Stacey had asked him, tears streaming down her face as he’d packed yet another box.
‘Because this job is too good to pass up, Stace. I get to be a part of something new and exciting as well as incredibly important. This is the first palliative hospice just for children.’
‘But what about all your patients here? What about your practice? I was going to become a doctor and then one day work with you here.’
‘Stace.’ Arn had sighed with resignation and placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s time to move on.’
‘Just because of a job? It doesn’t make sense, Dad.’
‘Well, then, think of Letisha. You love Letisha, and now that we’re newly married it’s not really fair to ask her to start her married life in a home where there have been so many unhappy memories. Tish deserves better, don’t you think?’
When Stacey had opened her mouth to continue arguing her father had given her a stern look, which had meant the discussion was over.
Stacey and her sisters had packed their lives into boxes, said tearful goodbyes to their school friends, and hugged their neighbours, Edna and Mike, with tear-stained faces.
‘I’ve never lived next door to anyone else,’ Stacey had told Edna, who had been like a second mother to her.
‘Adventures are good,’ Edna had told her. ‘An
d we’ll keep in touch. I’ve given you enough letter paper and stamps to last you for a good two years at least.’ Edna had smiled at her. ‘We’ll see each other again, Stacey.’
‘Promise?’ Stacey had asked.
‘Promise.’
Then the Wilton family had left Newcastle, on Australia’s east coast, and headed to Perth on the other side of the country. There they’d settled into their new life, and many years later Letisha had given birth to Stacey’s new sister. Indeed, over the years their family had grown from three to six children.
Now, finally, after almost two decades, Stacey was returning to the job she’d always dreamed of: taking over the old family medical practice her father had once run. She hoped it would provide stability for all of them—especially after the events of the past eighteen months. Her father and beloved stepmother had passed away in a terrible car accident, leaving Stacey and her sisters as guardians of their younger siblings. Not only that, but Stacey had been jilted at the altar by the man who’d been supposed to love her for the rest of her life.
No, the past eighteen months had been soul-destroying, and her coming back to a town she’d always regarded as a place of solace was much needed.
‘Can I help you?’
Stacey was pulled from her reverie by a man standing just at the edge of the driveway next to the house she was staring at. He was very tall, about six foot four, and wore an old pair of gardening shorts and a light blue T-shirt which he’d clearly used as a painting smock, if the splatters of green, yellow and pink paint were anything to go by. He had flip-flops on his feet, a peaked cap on his head, and a pair of gardening gloves on his hands. A pile of weeds was on the concrete driveway near his feet. How had she not seen him there before?
‘Can I help you with something?’ he repeated, taking off his gloves and tossing them carelessly onto the pile of weeds.
Stacey shifted her car keys from one hand to the other. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Are you sure? You seem to be quite entranced, just looking at my house.’ He angled his head to the side, giving her a more concentrated look. ‘Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’
She waved away his concern and smiled politely. ‘I’m fine… It’s just that—well I used to live here.’ She pointed to the house. ‘When I was little.’ She called her words across the street, feeling a little self-conscious as one or two cars drove between their impromptu conversation. When the man beckoned her over it seemed like the most logical thing in the world to cross the road and go and chat with a complete stranger.
‘You’ve cut down the tree,’ she said, pointing to where the tree used to be.
‘Had to. It was diseased.’
‘Oh. How sad. I guess it has been a while, but I do have such happy memories of climbing it—and swinging on the tyre swing.’ Her sigh was nostalgic as she continued to peruse the garden. ‘I really like the flowers. Very pretty.’
‘Thank you. I don’t mind doing a spot of gardening. I find it relaxing.’
‘And painting? The house used to be a cream colour, but I think the mint-green looks much better. Good choice.’
The man nodded. ‘I found painting very…therapeutic. I’d never painted a house before, but now I have. Both inside and out. One more thing crossed off my bucket list.’
Stacey gave him a puzzled look. ‘Bucket what?’
‘Bucket list. You know—a list of things you’d like to do before you pass away.’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve never heard it put like that before. A bit morbid, isn’t it?’
The man grinned—a full-on gorgeous smile that highlighted his twinkling blue eyes. Bedroom eyes, her sister Molly would have called them. Eyes that could mesmerise a woman from across the room…or across the road.
‘Not morbid,’ he continued, shaking his head a little. ‘Adventurous. For example, if you had on your bucket list, Talk to a strange man about bucket lists then you could go home and cross that right off, feeling like you’ve actually accomplished something new today.’
Stacey’s brow creased further. ‘Why would I have that on a list of things I’d like to accomplish before I die?’
The man surprised her further by laughing. Was he laughing at her? Or at this bucket list thing he kept gabbing about?
‘Never mind.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m Pierce.’
She put her hand into his, ignoring the way the heat from this hand seemed to travel up her arm and explode into a thousand stars, setting her body alight.
‘Stacey.’ If she was the type of person to believe in instant attraction then she might be flattered by his smile. Thankfully she left that sort of emotion and nonsense up to Molly.
‘Nice to meet you, Stacey.’ Pierce gestured towards the house. ‘Would you like to come inside? Take a look at some of the other changes we’ve made?’
We? He was most likely married, and as this house was perfect for children no doubt he had a couple of those as well. He seemed honest, personable and quite kind, but first impressions could be deceptive. Perhaps she should ask him some more questions, just to be sure.
She knew the Edelsteins still lived next door, as Edna had called her earlier that morning asking her to make a house call to review Mike.
‘He’s too stubborn to come to the clinic,’ Edna had told her. ‘But he’ll listen to you, Stace.’
That was how Stacey found herself here, coming to see Mike and Edna. But now she was being invited by a stranger into the house where she’d grown up. Still, she should test the waters before going inside with him. Better to be safe than sorry.
‘Do the Edelsteins still live next door?’
He nodded. ‘That Edna… She’s a talker, isn’t she? Yesterday she stood at her fence for a good two hours and chatted to me while I did some gardening. I kept asking if she’d like to come and sit down on the veranda on the swing and have a nice cool drink—but, no, she was quite happy leaning on the fence and telling me all about her gallstone removal.’
Stacey smiled and nodded, pleased with the way Pierce’s words held no impatience as he spoke of Edna. ‘Same old Edna. And Mike? How’s he doing?’
A frown furrowed his brow. ‘Not too good, I’m sorry to say. I popped over last night just to check on him after Edna told me he’s been getting increasingly dizzy when he stands up. Plus his asthma has flared, due to all the pollen.’ Pierce pulled on his gardening gloves as he spoke and started tidying up the mound of weeds, placing them into the gardening recycle bin. ‘His asthma meds are only just keeping things at bay.’ He shook his head, concern evident in his tone.
Stacey nodded. This information was marrying up with what Edna had told her.
‘Of course in typical fashion Mike’s refusing to admit there’s anything really wrong with him, but if things aren’t brought under control soon he runs the risk of contracting pneumonia.’
‘You sound very concerned.’ Again she watched his expression, and when he met her eyes his gaze was quizzical.
‘Of course I’m concerned. That’s why I offered to give him a private check-up.’
Stacey’s eyebrows hit her perfectly straight fringe. ‘You’re a doctor?’
Pierce nodded. ‘GP. I’ve been doing locum work at the local hospital in the A & E department—just a few shifts a week while I finish getting things sorted out around here.’
A doctor? Her level of trust for Pierce increased. He was a doctor as well as passing her test regarding his neighbours. ‘Well, thank you for checking up on Mike. What was your clinical assessment?’
‘Clinical assessment, eh?’ Pierce pondered her words as he removed his gardening gloves and then snapped his fingers. ‘That’s right. Edna said a doctor used to live in this house and that some of his kids were also doctors.’
‘That would have been my dad—Arn Wilton.’
‘She said he was the only one who could ever make Mike see sense about health matters.’
Stacey’s smile was nostalgic. ‘He and Mike were always good fr
iends.’
‘Were? Did they have a falling out?’
‘No. Not those two. Mates until the last.’ Stacey looked down at the ground. ‘My father and stepmother passed away eighteen months ago.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Stacey.’
Pierce’s tone was filled with compassion as well as understanding. She met his gaze once more and shrugged, annoyed with the tears that instantly sprang to her eyes. She blinked them away, wondering why she was telling this stranger so much about her life. It had to be this house—the memories it brought back.
‘Losing parents is never easy. Mine both passed away almost a decade ago and still there are days when I miss them a lot.’ He exhaled slowly, then shrugged one shoulder. ‘I have questions. Ones only they would know how to answer.’
‘Yes.’ The word was heartfelt, as though somehow the loss of parents and the pain it caused had formed a bond between the two of them. ‘Instead it leaves us floundering around, trying to figure things out on our own.’
He nodded, but didn’t stop looking intently at her, and for some reason Stacey found it nigh impossible to look away. Pierce seemed to be a decent and caring man—a family man content to care for his home as well as his neighbours. She had no idea why he was only working as a locum at the local hospital, but presumably he had his reasons for not wanting to take on a more permanent position. Perhaps he wanted to spend some time working his way through his bucket list.
She paused as a different thought occurred to her. Perhaps he had a terminal illness, or was recovering from one. He didn’t look gaunt. In fact he looked positively healthy. Stacey stopped her thoughts. This man was not her patient. He was not a puzzle for her to solve, to figure out what was wrong with him and then try to find a solution. But it was such an integrated part of her personality—especially being the oldest sibling in her family.
‘By five minutes.’
She instantly heard her sister Cora’s protest, which came every time Stacey stated that fact. Nevertheless, five minutes was five minutes, and Stacey took her responsibilities seriously.
