by Radclyffe
Table of Contents
Synopsis
Applause for L.L. Raand’s Midnight Hunters Series
Acclaim for Radclyffe’s Fiction
By Radclyffe
Acknowledgments
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
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
About the Author
Books Available From Bold Strokes Books
Synopsis
There’d been a Rivers at the helm of Argyle Community Hospital for six generations, and Harper Rivers was set to take her father’s place whenever he decided to hang up his shingle. Unfortunately, the board of directors had other ideas—they accepted a buyout offer from a health care conglomerate with plans to close the hospital’s doors to the community that depended on it. And Presley Worth, a high-powered corporate financier, came to town to oversee the closure. Funny thing was, no one asked Harper, and she had no intentions of following anyone’s orders but her own—no matter how beautiful, smart, or commanding the new boss might be.
Applause for L.L. Raand’s Midnight Hunters Series
The Midnight Hunt
RWA 2012 VCRW Laurel Wreath winner Blood Hunt
Night Hunt
The Lone Hunt
“Raand has built a complex world inhabited by werewolves, vampires, and other paranormal beings…Raand has given her readers a complex plot filled with wonderful characters as well as insight into the hierarchy of Sylvan’s pack and vampire clans. There are many plot twists and turns, as well as erotic sex scenes in this riveting novel that keep the pages flying until its satisfying conclusion.”—Just About Write
“Once again, I am amazed at the storytelling ability of L.L. Raand aka Radclyffe. In Blood Hunt, she mixes high levels of sheer eroticism that will leave you squirming in your seat with an impeccable multi-character storyline all streaming together to form one great read.”—Queer Magazine Online
“The Midnight Hunt has a gripping story to tell, and while there are also some truly erotic sex scenes, the story always takes precedence. This is a great read which is not easily put down nor easily forgotten.”—Just About Write
“Are you sick of the same old hetero vampire/werewolf story plastered in every bookstore and at every movie theater? Well, I’ve got the cure to your werewolf fever. The Midnight Hunt is first in, what I hope is, a long-running series of fantasy erotica for L.L. Raand (aka Radclyffe).”—Queer Magazine Online
“Any reader familiar with Radclyffe’s writing will recognize the author’s style within The Midnight Hunt, yet at the same time it is most definitely a new direction. The author delivers an excellent story here, one that is engrossing from the very beginning. Raand has pieced together an intricate world, and provided just enough details for the reader to become enmeshed in the new world. The action moves quickly throughout the book and it’s hard to put down.”—Three Dollar Bill Reviews
Acclaim for Radclyffe’s Fiction
2013 RWA/New England Bean Pot award winner for contemporary romance Crossroads “will draw the reader in and make her heart ache, willing the two main characters to find love and a life together. It’s a story that lingers long after coming to ‘the end.’”—Lambda Literary
In 2012 RWA/FTHRW Lories and RWA HODRW Aspen Gold award winner Firestorm “Radclyffe brings another hot lesbian romance for her readers.”—The Lesbrary
Foreword Review Book of the Year finalist and IPPY silver medalist Trauma Alert “is hard to put down and it will sizzle in the reader’s hands. The characters are hot, the sex scenes explicit and explosive, and the book is moved along by an interesting plot with well drawn secondary characters. The real star of this show is the attraction between the two characters, both of whom resist and then fall head over heels.”—Lambda Literary Reviews
Lambda Literary Award Finalist Best Lesbian Romance 2010 features “stories [that] are diverse in tone, style, and subject, making for more variety than in many, similar anthologies…well written, each containing a satisfying, surprising twist. Best Lesbian Romance series editor Radclyffe has assembled a respectable crop of 17 authors for this year’s offering.”—Curve Magazine
2010 Prism award winner and ForeWord Review Book of the Year Award finalist Secrets in the Stone is “so powerfully [written] that the worlds of these three women shimmer between reality and dreams…A strong, must read novel that will linger in the minds of readers long after the last page is turned.”—Just About Write
In Benjamin Franklin Award finalist Desire by Starlight “Radclyffe writes romance with such heart and her down-to-earth characters not only come to life but leap off the page until you feel like you know them. What Jenna and Gard feel for each other is not only a spark but an inferno and, as a reader, you will be washed away in this tumultuous romance until you can do nothing but succumb to it.”—Queer Magazine Online
Lambda Literary Award winner Stolen Moments “is a collection of steamy stories about women who just couldn’t wait. It’s sex when desire overrides reason, and it’s incredibly hot!”—On Our Backs
Lambda Literary Award winner Distant Shores, Silent Thunder “weaves an intricate tapestry about passion and commitment between lovers. The story explores the fragile nature of trust and the sanctuary provided by loving relationships.”—Sapphic Reader
Lambda Literary Award Finalist Justice Served delivers a “crisply written, fast-paced story with twists and turns and keeps us guessing until the final explosive ending.”—Independent Gay Writer
Lambda Literary Award finalist Turn Back Time “is filled with wonderful love scenes, which are both tender and hot.”—MegaScene
Against Doctor’s Orders
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Against Doctor’s Orders
© 2014 By Radclyffe. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-268-7
This Electronic Book is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, New York 12185
First Edition: November 2014
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editors: Ruth Sternglantz and Stacia Seaman
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])
By Radclyffe
Romances
Innocent Hearts
Promising Hearts
Love’s Melody Lost
Love’s Tender Warriors
Tomorrow’s Promise
Love’s Masquerade
shadowland
Passion’s Bright Fury
Fated Love
Turn Back Time
When Dreams Tremble
The Lonely Hearts Club
Night Call
Secrets in the Stone
Desire by Starlight
Crossroads
Homestead
Against Doctor’s Orders
Honor Series
Above All, Honor
Honor Bound
Love & Honor
Honor Guards
Honor Reclaimed
Honor Under Siege
Word of Honor
Code of Honor
Justice Series
A Matter of Trust (prequel)
Shield of Justice
In Pursuit of Justice
Justice in the Shadows
Justice Served
Justice For All
The Provincetown Tales
Safe Harbor
Beyond the Breakwater
Distant Shores, Silent Thunder
Storms of Change
Winds of Fortune
Returning Tides
Sheltering Dunes
First Responders Novels
Trauma Alert
Firestorm
Oath of Honor
Taking Fire
Short Fiction
Collected Stories by Radclyffe
Erotic Interludes: Change of Pace
Radical Encounters
Edited by Radclyffe
Best Lesbian Romance 2009-2014
Stacia Seaman and Radclyffe, eds.
Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments
Erotic Interludes 3: Lessons in Love
Erotic Interludes 4: Extreme Passions
Erotic Interludes 5: Road Games
Romantic Interludes 1: Discovery
Romantic Interludes 2: Secrets
Breathless: Tales of Celebration
Women of the Dark Streets: Lesbian Paranormal
Amore and More: Love Everafter
By L.L. Raand
Midnight Hunters
The Midnight Hunt
Blood Hunt
Night Hunt
The Lone Hunt
The Magic Hunt
Acknowledgments
Not far from here is the Mary McClellan Hospital, a rural community hospital that sits high on a hill above the small town of Cambridge, New York. The hospital was financed entirely by a single individual, as was not unusual several centuries ago, and opened in 1919. It closed in 2003 and stands empty now, a silent testament to a bygone era. I found some pictures on the Internet that show the interior as it is now, with much of the equipment still in the rooms—old hospital beds, bent IV stands, monitors with blank faces. The halls seem eerily empty, beyond deserted, abandoned and forgotten.
For eight years of my life I was a surgery resident, and for most of that time, I spent every third night on call in the hospital. I walked the dark halls, listened to the murmurs of patients and staff, and wondered what the world was like beyond the glass where I could see the shimmering lights of the city. I can remember sitting with my fellow residents in the surgical lounge as morning approached, having spent a sleepless night taking care of in-house patients, responding to emergency calls, and finishing up the work of the day that never seemed to end, silently congratulating one another at having survived another day. Much has changed in medicine in the last decades, much for the better, but I think losing our community hospitals is not one of the benefits of progress. Now we must drive far from home to places with which we are not familiar, to be taken care of by strangers, often in surroundings where we become lost among the many.
This book did not start out as a commemorative to those lost hospitals, or lost moments in time, but as I wrote it, I felt the loss and wondered if we have not done a disservice by depersonalizing what must, after all, be one of the most human and humane experiences. This is not a book about hospitals or medicine, but a love story like all my novels are, which takes place in a singular community with the hospital near its heart. In the end, the heart of a romance novel always resides within the characters. I hope you enjoy these.
Thanks go to senior editor Sandy Lowe, who daily makes my job easier and gives me more time to write; to editor Ruth Sternglantz for understanding my work and where I’m going, sometimes before I do; to Stacia Seaman for careful reading and essential corrections; and to my first readers Connie, Eva, and Paula for constant encouragement.
Sheri found just the images I wanted for this book, and came up with a memorable cover—like always.
And thanks to Lee, who wanted to sneak up to the hospital at night with a flashlight for a glimpse of the past. Amo te.
For Lee, for always saying “why not?”
Chapter One
Harper Rivers ran along the shoulder of the narrow, twisting country road, the rising sun at her back and the broad Hudson lazily flowing to her left across a half mile of freshly plowed floodplain. The brisk early summer breeze cooled the sweat on the back of her neck, and the aroma of tilled earth burgeoning with life teased her senses. Her skin tingled with the pulse of blood through her veins, and the crisp air filling her lungs chased away the lingering exhaustion from a sleepless night. The rhythmic thump-thump-thump of her Sauconys on the cracked blacktop kept pace with her pounding heart, and her mind slowly emptied of everything except the inevitable joy that came with the resurgence of spring. She slowed as a pickup overtook her from behind and waved as the driver blew his horn before she turned down a crushed-gravel drive, wide enough for two good-sized tractors to pass, bordered on either side by apple and pear trees, their leaves a vibrant green and the first blush of blossoms glistening on the tangled boughs. A half mile ahead, a stately white country house reminiscent of a Southern plantation home with a pillared two-story front porch sat on a hill above the river. Smoke curled from one of the four stone chimneys, carrying the sweet, yeasty scent of baking bread from the kitchen hearth. She angled away from the flagstone walk leading to the formal front entrance, followed the winding rough stone path around the side of the portico to the rear of the house, and bounded up the broad wooden steps to the wide-planked rear porch. Just as she reached the screen door, a voice from inside greeted her.
“Don’t come in here with those muddy shoes, Harper Lee Rivers.”
“Yes, Mama,” Harper said as she always did in response to the familiar order. She toed off her running shoes, left them by the door, and walked in her socks into her mother’s domain. The kitchen, the informal meeting room for the entire family and most visitors, stretched almost the entire length of the rear of the home, dominated by a fifteen-foot-long timber table that had been carved from the hickory trees that once dominated the hilly profiles of upland New York farms. The rough-hewn wood had been worn down by decades of pots and dishes sliding across its surface and the vigorous polishing of generations of Rivers wives and children. The appliances had been updated, but everything else about the kitchen was as it had once been when the home was built 250 years before. The counters were of the same dark red-brown hickory as the table, the long thin grain interrupted here and there by darker knots and whorls. Hand-cut beams bearing the square scars of the axman’s blade supported the white board ceiling, and gray-green flagstone formed the entrance floor adjacent to the oak floorboards. An open hearth, four feet square and just as deep, held an early morning fire to chase away the chill.
Her mother pulled a pan of biscuits from the double-stacked oven and slid it with practiced efficiency onto a stone trivet on the wood counter. Harper made a fast grab for one and just as quickly snatched her hand back when her mother swatted at her with a wooden spoon.
“You know they’re best when they’ve coole
d a little. Sit and drink your coffee.”
Harper pulled out a straight-backed wood chair with a leather seat shaped to comfort by decades of occupants, plopped down at the table in her usual place, and stretched her legs toward the hearth.
“You’re up early,” her mother said, sliding a mug of coffee in front of her. She regarded Harper with the direct gaze guaranteed to make Harper squirm when she was keeping something secret, although she hadn’t had secrets in a long time. At least none that her mother needed to know about. She tried hard not to fidget and searched her memory for a forgotten birthday or a missed family gathering. Ida Rivers was big on meeting family obligations.
“Or,” her mother went on, “have you not been to bed at all?”
Relaxing now that she realized she hadn’t committed a family sin, Harper sipped the strong black coffee and gave a sigh of contentment. The run and the familiar scents and sights of her mother’s kitchen drained away the lingering twists of tension from the last few hours. “Mary Campbell decided to deliver a little early. Her labor took most of the night.”
“First times can be like that. Everybody doing all right?” Her mother sounded interested despite having undoubtedly heard the same story in countless ways from Harper’s father over the last thirty years. Maybe truly caring helped make up for all the times Harper’s father hadn’t been around when her mother would have liked him to be.
