* * *
They were married in the hospital chapel just before Christmas. It was meant to be a small ceremony, but as word of their wedding got around to the staff, and through them to their patients, more and more people crowded the room.
Frannie had asked little Sarah to be her flower girl and only attendant, and the little girl was dressed in a pink ruffled dress with a matching scarf over her head, beaming as she threw the petals in front of her.
Frannie had chosen a simple gown of white lace, with a fitted high waistline that flowed down over the rest of her body. Her baby bump was on its way and she made no attempt to hide it.
As she stepped into the chapel on her father’s arm she saw the smiling faces of her patients and decided that she was glad they had been able to attend. There were days when the hospital could be a very somber place, but today was not one of those days. It was a happy place today, with all the staff and patients she’d come to care for there to celebrate with her and Ian.
Ian stood at the front, with his brother standing beside him, and he looked so handsome in his dark suit.
As they stood in front of the hospital chaplain her father bent down and whispered in her ear. “Your mother would be very proud of the woman you’ve grown up to be,” he said, “and so am I.”
She looked at her father and saw the approval she had sought all her life. Then she turned and smiled at Ian as her father gave him her hand.
Holding hands, they laid them over their child and turned toward the chaplain as they promised to love and honor each other for as long as the two of them should live.
Her heart was full. There would be rough times throughout their lives, as there would be in everyone’s, but she knew that as long as they stood together they would be able to make it through.
EPILOGUE
IAN WATCHED AS FRANNIE, dressed as a pregnant superhero, tried to organize the kids on the float. He’d been given a costume too, even though he’d sworn he didn’t want a place on the float, but Frannie had explained that she’d need to keep his superpower eyes on Danny and Ashley, who had been caught kissing behind the float.
He considered it as training. They had found out that their baby was a girl, and he knew he would need to use all his superpowers to keep the boys away if their daughter took after her beautiful mother.
“Carrie, do you want to sit next to me?” he asked when he saw the young girl standing alone. Instead of dressing like one of the heroes the girl was dressed like a villain.
A tall man came around the side of the float, calling out that it was time to start, and Ian looked at his wife.
He watched as she explained to James once again that the chocolate-covered marshmallow treats were to be thrown, not eaten, and then handed him a box of colored beads to throw along with the treats.
Everyone on the float yelled as the tractor pulling the float revved its engine and they headed to St. Charles Avenue, following one of the local high schools’ bands.
Ian reached for his wife’s hand as she wove her way over to him. He wrapped his arms around Frannie to help her balance as the float bumped down the road. He’d learned that his wife was more than a little accident-prone, and he wasn’t going to take any chances of her falling. They stood looking over the side of the float as they worked their way down the street and onto the historical Avenue.
The noise level tripled as the float passed the revelers who had lined the street. They rode along, throwing beads and treats as people young and old called out to them.
“We could name her Mardi, after Mardi Gras,” Ian said to his wife.
They hadn’t found a name the two of them agreed on yet, so he had begun coming up with off the wall names to tease her with.
“We’re not going to name our child Mardi,” she said as she took a handful of beads from the box and sent them flying to the back of the crowd.
The parade soon ended and the float returned to the warehouse, where a party had already started.
“It’s always sad when the carnival season is over. And it will be at least six months till we start on next year’s float. What are we supposed to do till then?” Frannie asked.
“Oh, I think I can keep you busy,” Ian said, then dipped her down and gave her a loud kiss.
Beside him Carrie made gagging sounds, while James let out a wolf whistle.
“Did I ever tell you I had a thing for superheroes?” he asked.
“No, you didn’t,” she said.
“Oh, yeah—it goes way back into my childhood.”
He watched as her eyes lit with laughter, and then she moved closer and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“And what is it exactly about a woman in a superhero costume that turns you on?” she asked. “It’s the boots, isn’t it? Men always go for women in boots.”
“Boots or no boots—you are my superhero, Dr. Francis Spencer-Wentworth,” Ian said as he tightened his arms around her.
“And you, Dr. Spencer, will always be mine. And together the two of us can take on anything the world throws at us.”
* * *
If you enjoyed this story, check out this other great read from Deanne Anders
From Midwife to Mommy
Available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from Second Chance with Her Island Doc by Marion Lennox.
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Second Chance with Her Island Doc
by Marion Lennox
CHAPTER ONE
‘HEAD LACERATIONS ALWAYS look worse than they are. If you’ll help me to a washbasin I’ll stop wasting your time. I’m not dizzy any more. Really.’
The woman’s voice drifting from the treatment room was warm, husky and a little bit shaky. She was speaking the Tovahnan language, with an English accent overlaid.
Dr Leo Aretino knew this voice well. For the last few weeks he’d been expecting her arrival on the island, but hoping he could avoid her.
He hadn’t been expecting her here, in his territory.
The language she was speaking was Leo’s native tongue. The first time he’d heard her use it had been over ten years ago. She’d been standing over a microscope, trying to focus. The ’scope had been fiddly, but Anna had been patient. She’d started humming, and then softly singing to herself. In Tovahnan.
It was a tune his mother had taught him as a child.
Leo had doubted if anyone at their prestigious English medical school had even heard of his birthplace, the island of Tovahna, much less known how to speak its language. He’d cut across her song, incredulous. ‘Wh
ere did you learn that?’
‘From my mother,’ she’d said. She’d had the slide in focus at that point and had been looking intently at the nasty little pathogen the tutor wanted them to see.
‘Your mother’s Tovahnan?’
‘Yes, she is. Or she was. She left Tovahna before I was born.’ Anna had checked the slide again. ‘But it’s this little guy we’re interested in. You want to look?’
There was a queue. He needed to look at the bug.
His attention was solidly diverted.
Tovahna was a Mediterranean island, sparsely populated, fought over for centuries until its big neighbours had decided it wasn’t worth the bother. It was now mostly ignored by the outside world. Few foreigners made the effort to visit, much less learn the language. The women of Tovahna were generally olive skinned and dark haired. Anna had red hair and freckles. This didn’t make sense.
‘Your mother taught you Tovahnan songs?’
‘She taught me the language.’ She’d moved away from the microscope, allowing the student after Leo access. ‘I think she used it to assuage homesickness. But you’ve missed your turn,’ she’d told him, switching effortlessly into speaking Tovahnan. She’d smiled, a wide, happy smile that had made him feel even more astounded. ‘Don’t tell me you’re...’
‘Tovahnan.’ And suddenly he’d been close to tears.
Tovahna was tiny, impoverished, its assets gouged for generations by a single family dynasty. Most of its people were trapped in a ceaseless cycle of poverty, but Leo had been so smart at school that the community had rallied to send him to England.
‘Get yourself a medical degree and then come home and help us,’ they’d told him, and off he’d gone, aged all of fifteen.
At nineteen he’d been doing brilliantly. His English had been flawless. He’d fitted in with his fellow students. He’d even been enjoying himself, hardly homesick at all. So there’d been no reason why he should gaze at this redheaded, freckled, fellow student speaking his language and feel like...he’d wanted to take her into his arms.
Of course, he hadn’t. Not right then. It had been two whole days before he’d kissed her.
It wasn’t just that they’d shared a language. Anna had been special.
But that was past history, he told himself as he listened to her voice carrying from the next room. What was between them had been a long time ago. Right now he needed to focus on medical imperatives. A woman he’d met years before was being carried into his emergency room on a stretcher.
He was a doctor and he had to deal with whoever needed to be treated. He needed to haul himself together and go see what the problem was.
The medical problem.
* * *
Wow, her head hurt.
The thump against stone had been stupid and entirely predictable. When she’d insisted she wanted to see everything—she now owned a castle and who wouldn’t want to see it all?—her late cousin’s agent had given her a torch.
‘Watch your head,’ he’d told her as he’d led her deep into the depths of Tovahna Castle.
What she’d seen had been a maze of tunnels, some built almost a thousand years ago. Secret passages led in and out from the castle walls, to be used in times of siege. There were hidden living areas, ventilation shafts, storage spaces for weapons, for food and water, all dark and dusty and so fascinating it was no wonder she’d finally forgotten to watch her head.
The thump had been solid and the results immediate. The world had spun and then disappeared. She’d surfaced to find blood oozing down her forehead. Victoir, the agent, had been useless, torn between wanting to help and not wanting to get blood on his suit. Finally she’d ripped off her windcheater and applied pressure herself, then had him help her to the surface.
‘I don’t want paramedics coming down here,’ she’d told him. ‘This looks worse than it is. You’ll have a team of split heads instead of one.’
But emerging to daylight, Victoir’s authority reasserted itself. ‘I’ve called the ambulance,’ he told her. ‘I said those passages were dangerous. They need to be closed off, filled in, before someone’s killed. Kids get in and we can’t stop them. You’ve seen the parts that are crumbling. And now this...’
And then a rattletrap ambulance had come blaring down the cobblestoned street to the castle forecourt, and Anna had been bundled inside before she could object.
She could hardly blame them, she decided. She probably did look like something out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and, to be honest, she was still a bit woozy. So she’d lain back and let the paramedics put in a drip to compensate for blood loss. She’d felt every bumpy cobble as they’d made their way who knew where, until finally she’d been carried into what looked a plain, businesslike emergency entrance.
‘The doctor’s on his way,’ a middle-aged nurse told her. She didn’t attempt to remove the windcheater-pad Anna was still holding. ‘Don’t worry. Our Dr Leo’s on duty and he’s the best we have.’
And her bad day suddenly got worse.
Dr Leo. No! Please...
But then the door swung open and a guy in a white coat was beside her trolley. ‘Maria, what do we have here?’
And her worst fears were realised.
Leo Aretino. Her first love.
Her greatest love.
How could you be truly in love at nineteen? You couldn’t be, she’d decided. What they’d had had been a teenage fling.
He’d broken her heart, but teenagers’ hearts were made to be broken. She’d told herself that over and over in the years between then and now. She’d met other men. She’d even fancied herself in love with them, but the thought of Leo had always stayed with her. Tall, dark, intense, speaking the language of her mother, making her laugh, studying with her, making her body sing...
And then walking away...
She closed her eyes. Her head felt like it was about to explode and it wasn’t just the pain from the accident.
She’d guessed she might meet him when she came here, but to meet him now, like this...
‘It’s Anna Raymond.’ The nurse’s voice held suppressed excitement. ‘Anna Castlavara. Katrina’s daughter. Victoir was showing her the tunnels under the castle.’
‘Of course.’ Leo’s voice was smooth, unfussed, as if the name meant nothing to him. Had he known she’d be in the country? He must have, she thought. For Tovahna this must have been big news.
It had been big news to her. Her cousin’s death. An inheritance so huge she could hardly take it in.
Leo.
‘Anna and I have met before.’ Leo still sounded calm. Professional. Like she was one of the scores of patients he saw each day. She was a fellow student he’d had a casual fling with ten years ago. No more.
A fellow student who’d inherited most of his country?
‘Anna.’ His voice gentled and he spoke in English. ‘Are you with us?’
‘I’m with you.’ She couldn’t keep ten years of resentment from her voice. ‘Unfortunately.’
‘Can you open your eyes?’
‘I can but I don’t want to.’
‘Because the light hurts?’
‘Because I don’t want to see you.’
And the man had the temerity to chuckle.
‘Still the firebrand I remember, then, Anna? Okay, keep those eyes closed and I’ll check out the rest.’
His hand was on her wrist and the touch made her...what? She should want to pull away.
She didn’t do that either.
He didn’t touch the pad on her head. He was doing an overall assessment, she thought, checking the IV line, blood pressure, the paramedic notes. Taking in the whole picture.
He was a fine doctor. She remembered that comment at their graduation ceremony. Leo hadn’t been there. As soon as his last exam was behind him he’d left to do a fast track course
in surgery before heading home. To Tovahna. But at the graduation his name had been read out with pride by the head of the medical faculty. ‘Dr Leo Aretino has topped almost every class during his time here and he intends returning to serve his country. He’s a doctor we can be proud of, now and into the future.’
So she was in good hands. Leo’s hands.
She hurt.
‘Is it just your head?’ The laughter was gone now—he was all doctor—and that gentle voice she remembered so well was almost enough to bring tears to her eyes. ‘Anna, have you hurt anything else?’
‘Just m-my head,’ she managed, and was ashamed it came out as a stammered whisper.
‘Do you remember what happened?’
‘There was a cavern with ancient pottery urns. I bent to see and then stood up.’ She managed to dredge up a bit of indignation but it was directed at herself. ‘Victoir said it was dangerous and I didn’t listen.’
‘The notes said you lost consciousness.’
‘Victoir said I was out of it for a few seconds, but all I can remember is bang and then feeling dizzy.’
Leo would be thinking of internal bleeding, she thought. Did they have the facilities to treat that here?
She’d read about Tovahna over the years—of course she had.
Still almost a feudal economy, with one family controlling much of the wealth. Most of the population pay rent to the Castlavaran family, and little is put back into infrastructure. Schools, hospitals, public services are minimal, to say the least.
Tourist sites reported on the medical facilities, too.
Travellers are advised to carry extra health insurance to cover transport to a neighbouring country. Medical services are basic. Complex medical situations often mean either evacuation or a less than satisfactory outcome.
A less than satisfactory outcome. Death?
‘If I did lose consciousness it was only for seconds,’ she said, more surely now. Wanting to reassure herself as well as him. ‘You know split heads bleed enough to make people think you’re at death’s door.’
The Surgeon's Baby Bombshell Page 14
