St. Piran's: The Wedding!

by Alison Roberts

  Everyone at St. Piran’s Hospital is holding their breath…

  The last thing Dr. Megan Phillips did before leaving St. Piran’s was to save the lives of tiny twins: the babies of the man she loved—the man with whom a future was impossible.

  Now, with Megan forced to come home, back to St. Piran’s, she’s turning single father Josh O’Hara’s world on its head…again! But for these two star-crossed lovers is forgiveness really possible? They’ve been through so much—will St. Piran’s ever really see the wedding they’ve been waiting for? The wedding of a lifetime….

  By popular demand…

  The most anticipated love story at St. Piran’s Hospital!

  ST. PIRAN’S: THE WEDDING! by Alison Roberts

  Devilishly handsome Dr. Josh O’Hara and beautiful, fragile Megan Phillips have a secret that once ripped them apart. But now, under the warmth of the Cornish sun, the most unlikely of happy endings finally has its chance....

  And if you’ve missed any of the stories in our fabulous St. Piran’s Hospital series, why not go back to where it all began?

  ST. PIRAN’S: THE WEDDING OF THE YEAR

  by Caroline Anderson

  ST. PIRAN’S: RESCUING PREGNANT CINDERELLA

  by Carol Marinelli

  ST. PIRAN’S: ITALIAN SURGEON, FORBIDDEN BRIDE

  by Margaret McDonagh

  ST. PIRAN’S: DAREDEVIL, DOCTOR…DAD!

  by Anne Fraser

  ST. PIRAN’S: THE BROODING HEART SURGEON

  by Alison Roberts

  ST. PIRAN’S: THE FIREMAN AND NURSE LOVEDAY

  by Kate Hardy

  ST. PIRAN’S: TINY MIRACLE TWINS

  by Maggie Kingsley

  ST. PIRAN’S: PRINCE ON THE CHILDREN’S WARD

  by Sarah Morgan

  These books are available in ebook format from www.Harlequin.com

  Dear Reader,

  I had the pleasure of being part of the original St. Piran’s Hospital series.

  I loved my story about Luke and Anna, and adding to the conflict of the characters Josh and Megan, whose tense relationship ran throughout each of the stories in the St. Piran’s series.

  When the series finished, it certainly looked as if these two star-crossed lovers could never get a happy ending of their own. Not only was there a wife still in the picture but, shockingly, she was now pregnant! I was honored to be asked to revisit St. Piran’s and find a happy ending for Josh and Megan, but I also thought, hmm...this will be quite a challenge. Challenge is a good thing, I reminded myself. It takes us out of our comfort zone and makes us stretch our wings and achieve more than we might have thought we could. And isn’t it true that the more you put into something, the more you get out of it?

  I really hope you love this story as much as I did in the end.

  Happy reading!

  With love

  Alison

  St. Piran’s: The Wedding!

  Alison Roberts

  Praise for Alison Roberts

  “Readers will be moved by this incredibly sweet story about a family that is created in the most unexpected way.”

  —RT Book Reviews on The Honourable Maverick

  “I had never read anything by Alison Roberts prior to reading Twins for Christmas, but after reading this enchanting novella I shall certainly add her name to my auto-buy list!”

  —Cataromance.com

  “Ms. Roberts produces her usual entertaining blend of medicine and romance in just the right proportion, with a brooding but compelling hero and both leads with secrets to hide.”

  —Harlequin Mills & Boon® website reader review on Nurse, Nanny...Bride!

  Did you know that The Honourable Maverick won the 2011 RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Harlequin® Medical™ Romance? It’s still available in ebook format from www.Harlequin.com.

  Recent titles by Alison Roberts

  FALLING FOR HER IMPOSSIBLE BOSS**

  THE LEGENDARY PLAYBOY SURGEON**

  SYDNEY HARBOR HOSPITAL: ZOE’S BABY*

  THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

  THE TORTURED REBEL

  THE UNSUNG HERO

  THE HONOURABLE MAVERICK

  ST. PIRAN’S: THE BROODING HEART SURGEON+

  *Sydney Harbor Hospital

  **Heartbreakers of St. Patrick’s Hospital

  +St. Piran’s Hospital

  These books are also available in ebook format from www.Harlequin.com.

  Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Alison Roberts for her contribution to the St. Piran’s Hospital series.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  ‘CODE ONE, DR Phillips.’ The registrar slammed down the phone as he swung his head. ‘Theatre Three.’

  Megan’s pager began sounding at precisely the same moment, with the particular sound reserved for an absolute emergency.

  The surge of adrenaline made everything else irrelevant. Even signing her resignation. Her ticket to finally escape.

  She dropped her pen on top of the paperwork and leapt to her feet.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  A code one was a life-threatening emergency. A life was at stake. More than one life, potentially, if Megan was being summoned. For a paediatrician to be called in with the same paging system used for something like a cardiac arrest meant that a newborn baby could be in need of specialist resuscitation. For it to be happening in Theatre meant the baby was arriving by emergency Caesarean. There were no scheduled Caesareans for the St Piran’s maternity department today so this one must have come in via the emergency department.

  The registrar, Matt, was keeping pace with Megan as she ran for the elevator.

  ‘Suspected uterine rupture,’ he said.

  Megan nodded, holding her finger on the button as if that would speed up the arrival of the lift. Then she turned away.

  ‘Stairs,’ she snapped. ‘It’ll be quicker.’

  ‘She’ll be bleeding out, won’t she?’ Matt was right behind her. ‘The baby won’t stand much of a chance.’

  ‘Depends.’ Megan was taking the stairs two at a time. ‘Internal blood loss can sometimes slow down or even stop simply because it’s filled the available space and that puts pressure on ruptured vessels. The real danger comes when you open that space and release the pressure.’ She blew out a hard breath as she pushed open the fire stop door on the theatre suite level. ‘But you’re right. It’s critical for both of them.’

  The main corridor in St Piran’s theatre suite was deceptively quiet. The flashing orange light above the door of Theatre Three was a beacon. But so was something else that Megan hadn’t expected to see.

  A lone figure, at the end of the corridor, in front of the tall windows. A figure that stopped pacing and was now poised, reminding her of a wild animal sensing danger.

  There was no mistaking the intensity of the stare Megan knew was directed at her.

  ‘Get some scrubs on,’ she ordered Matt as they reached the door to the change rooms. ‘Then go in and make sure we’ve got everything we might need on the resus trolley. Check the incubator. I’ll be right there.’

  The figure was moving towards her. It might only be a silhouette because of the background light of the fading day beyond the windows but Megan knew exactly who it was.

  Josh O’Hara.

  Oh...God...

  Why now? When she’d successfully avoided being alone with
him for months.

  Ever since that final, devastating kiss.

  She could have avoided it now, too. Why hadn’t she gone straight into Theatre with her registrar?

  Because there was only one reason why Josh would be pacing the corridor like this. Why he wouldn’t be in the Theatre with a case that would have been in his emergency department only minutes ago.

  Megan was holding her breath. She’d never seen Josh look this tense. Distraught, even. Not even when he’d come to tell her that he loved her but they had no future.

  Or...maybe she had. Once. So long ago now that the memory of his face was only a faint chord in the symphony that nightmare had been.

  They’d had more than one turning point in their star-crossed history, she and Josh.

  Clearly, this was another one. The third.

  Bad things came in threes, didn’t they?

  That meant that this had to be the last. Of course it was, because escape was only days away for Megan now. She’d be on the other side of the world very soon. Just not quite soon enough.

  Megan sucked in enough air to be able to speak. ‘It’s Rebecca, isn’t it?’

  His wife. They might not be living together as man and wife at the moment but they were still married.

  A single nod from Josh. God, he looked terrible. He always looked like he could use a shave but right now his face was so pale it looked like he hadn’t been near a razor for a week. And he must have been virtually scrubbing at his hair with his fingers for it to look so dishevelled. The expression in his eyes was worst of all, however. Blue fire that was born of desperation. Guilt. Despair.

  And shame, perhaps, for what he had to beg for?

  ‘The babies...’ The words came out strangled. ‘Please, Megan. Do your best for them. They...they won’t let me in.’

  Of course they wouldn’t. He was far too emotionally involved. This was his family in Theatre Three. The whole family. As if it hadn’t been hard enough for Megan that Rebecca was going to give him a child, she had to go one step further and present him with a complete family. Two babies.

  And it might be up to her to save the lives of Josh’s children.

  The irony would be unbearable if she gave herself even a moment to think of it. Fortunately, she didn’t have a moment to spare. As if any reminder of the urgency was needed, her registrar burst out of the changing room and went into the theatre.

  Even then, something made Megan hesitate for just a heartbeat and, without any conscious thought, she reached out to touch Josh’s arm in a gesture of reassurance. Not that she needed to touch him to ramp up the tension. Megan opened her mouth to say something but there were no words available.

  With a curt nod, she turned away and went to throw on some scrubs.

  Of course she would do everything she could to save his family. She would do it for any of her patients but if heroics were called for in this case, she wouldn’t hesitate.

  After all, it was Josh who had saved her life all those years ago.

  * * *

  That touch on his arm was almost enough to utterly unravel Josh.

  His breathing ragged, tiny sounds escaping that could have been the precursors of gut-wrenching sobs if he couldn’t pull himself together, Josh went back to his pacing.

  Back to the window end of the corridor where he was far enough away to keep his agony private but close enough to see who came and went from Theatre Three.

  He got his breathing back under control and silent again but guilt was still threatening to crush him.

  This was his fault. If Rebecca died, he would know where the blame could be laid. Why had he allowed himself to be pushed so far away? In recent weeks she had refused to see him. Or talk to him even. The only information he had been given had been that Rebecca was ‘fine’. That her GP was looking after her, with the implication that he was doing a better job than Josh ever had.

  God...if it hadn’t been so hard, he would have been able to ask the questions that might have told him something wasn’t right. He might have given in to the urge to turn up on her doorstep and make sure she was ‘fine’ for himself.

  As recently as this morning, he’d thought of doing exactly that on his way to work but it had been all too easy to talk himself out of it. He hadn’t really wanted to start his day by stopping by his old house, had he? If he was really honest, he wanted to avoid laying hands on the woman he’d once loved but should never have married.

  But the way he felt about Megan had been the reason he’d married Rebecca at all, wasn’t it?

  Oh...God...the threads of his life were so tangled. So confused... The pain of his childhood, knowing how much his mother had loved his father and seeing how she’d been destroyed bit by bit as she had been cheated on time and again. The conviction that, if this was what love was all about, he wanted nothing to do with it.

  Knowing that he was falling deeper in love with Megan with every passing minute of that night they’d spent together.

  Turning his back on her and everything that that kind of love could lead to.

  Marrying Rebecca because he had been lonely. And because it had been safe. He had liked her. Respected her. Loved her the way you could love a good friend. A safe kind of love.

  Had he allowed himself to be pushed so far out of Rebecca’s life because it had been so hard to face the irrefutable evidence that he’d cheated on Megan by having sex with Rebecca that one, last time? When he’d known the marriage was over and it was only a matter of time before he and Megan could finally be together.

  But Megan believed he had cheated on his wife when he’d gone to her bed.

  He couldn’t blame her for hating him for it.

  At least he’d had the chance to save Megan’s life that time, ironically in not dissimilar circumstances, but right now he’d been rendered useless. He couldn’t even try to save Rebecca.

  Did people think he wouldn’t want to?

  She was the mother of his children, for God’s sake. Still his wife, even if it was in name only.

  He had loved her once.

  Just...not the way he’d loved Megan.

  A part of him, so ruthlessly and successfully squashed months ago, was still capable of reminding him that he still loved Megan in that way. And always would. Not that Josh was going to acknowledge the whisper from his soul. It was a love he had chosen to forsake.

  For his career and his sanity, that first time.

  The second time it had been for his unborn children.

  What would he have left if things weren’t going well in Theatre Three?

  He’d lose his wife.

  His children.

  And he knew what that pain was like. It was years ago now but the memory of holding that tiny scrap of humanity in his hands would never leave him. He’d known, on some level, that it had been his own son that Megan had lost that day. That he had been holding. It was too neat a fit, not only with the dates but with the power of that night. The connection that had felt like it would last for ever. The kind of connection that made it feel right to create a baby. Make a family.

  He’d lose Megan again, too, if things weren’t going well in Theatre Three.

  No. A fresh wave of pain ramped up the confused agony Josh was grappling with.

  He’d already lost Megan. Months ago.

  * * *

  Something made him stop the caged-in prowl back and forth across the corridor end. Made him freeze and whip his head sideways.

  Of course it was Megan. In green theatre scrubs now, with her hair covered by a cap. Moving decisively from the door of the changing room to the one beneath the flashing orange light. She didn’t look in his direction.

  Despite, or perhaps because of, the overwhelming emotions he was having to deal with, Josh allowed himself to be distracted from the agonising, lonely wait for just a heartbeat.

  Baggy, shapeless clothes like theatre scrubs did nothing to stop Megan being the most beautiful woman Josh had ever known. It didn’t matter what she
wore. Scrubs. Tattered old jeans. The gorgeous gown she had worn as a bridesmaid in a royal wedding party.

  Oh...no...Tasha. Josh reached for the mobile phone clipped to his belt. He needed to let his sister know what was happening. She could be the one to break the news to their mother.

  What time would it be in San Saverre?

  As if it mattered. Tasha would want to know the trouble that both her brother and her best friend were in right now.

  Her loyalty would be tested. She knew the empty space he was in now, having sacrificed a relationship with the woman he truly loved for the sake of his children. To keep a marriage, even in name only, so that he wouldn’t repeat history by being the kind of man their father had been. She would know how devastating it would be, being faced with the prospect of losing those children.

  But she would also know how hard this had to be for Megan. To be expected to save his babies that were being carried by another woman. The babies she could never have given him because losing their son, all those years ago, meant she could never have another child.

  Josh had to stifle an audible groan.

  He was a reasonably intelligent man. He was damned good at the job he did, running the emergency department of St Piran’s.

  How was it that he always messed things up so badly when it came to his relationships with women?

  He could save lives.

  But he was just as good at breaking hearts.

  It was his fault Rebecca hadn’t had medical help in time to prevent this catastrophe.

  His fault that Megan had become pregnant with his first child.

  His fault that she’d lost the baby. That she’d never have another.

  No wonder Megan had blanked him at Tasha’s wedding. He’d done it to her, hadn’t he?

  Twice.

  Every time he’d come to a point in his life where he was losing control...faced with the absolute vulnerability of loving someone—Megan—enough to give them the power to make or break him...he had frozen. Backed away and stayed with what he knew. What seemed to work.

  He was an emotional coward.

  Or a control freak?

  As a modus operandi it was fine as far as his career went. Kept him on top. Moving forward. He could deal with a thousand people professionally and win acclaim. But he didn’t seem to be able to deal with even one person on an intimate level and not cause serious harm.