Sue MacKay - Their Marriage Miracle

There it was. As clear as an autumn sky.

Her stomach clenched, squeezed, made her catch her breath. How could she not have known her own feelings? Love was a huge emotion. She should have been aware of it, should have felt it in her bones, in the very air she breathed.

What now? She loved this wonderful, caring man, and on Saturday she’d have to walk away from him. Again. She couldn’t do it.

Dear Reader

Hanmer Springs is a beautiful alpine village set north of Christchurch, in New Zealand’s South Island. The hot pools that feature in these pages are a well-known tourist attraction and, for me, very soothing for sore muscles after enduring a gruelling mountain bike race in the region.

I have family living in Hanmer Springs, and on one of my visits there the idea of snow-covered mountains and warm pools intertwined with a love story began to grow. There are many community-minded people living there who have snuck into the background of my story. It is the perfect locale for a specialist children’s hospital.

Tom and Fiona are city-dwellers who have both learned to appreciate life away from high-rise buildings and a fast pace of living. But the journey hasn’t been easy for either of them, and there is still a long way to go. The past looms large between them, and in Hanmer Springs they find the courage to deal with it. Only then are they able to move forward to the future together they both desired when they were first married eight years earlier.

I hope you enjoy Tom and Fiona’s story.

Cheers!

Sue MacKay

With a background working in medical laboratories, and a love of the romance genre, it is no surprise that Sue MacKaywrites medical romance stories. An avid reader all her life, she wrote her first story at age eight—about a prince, of course. She lives with her husband in beautiful Marlborough Sounds, at the top of New Zealand’s South Island, where she can indulge her passions for the outdoors, the sea and cycling. She is currently training as a volunteer ambulance officer.

suemackay.co.nz

Their Marriage Miracle

Sue MacKay

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Lindsay and Hannah.

Your unfailing support has been awesome.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

FIONA SAVILLE shivered. It wasn’t the unfamiliar ice and snow covering the tiny Hanmer Springs airstrip that sent a chill down her spine, but the battered four-wheel drive approaching along the grass runway. More particularly, the driver of the vehicle.

She leaned back against the Cessna for support. Heaven knew she needed it. Her legs were quivering. Oh, for goodness’ sake, get a grip. You’ve had ten days to be ready for this. Her mouth dried. No amount of preparation could have stopped the butterflies now batting around in her stomach. It had been six long, distressing years since she’d last seen Tom.

At least try to look calm. She shoved her shaking hands in her jacket pockets and crossed her ankles. An old pose Tom would recognise as nonchalance. She hoped.

A car skidded to a halt five metres from the tail of the plane and the door cracked open. Fiona’s eyes were fixed on the space behind that door, watching the man straightening up as he stepped down on to the ice-encrusted grass.

The ground rolled under her feet. Her shoulderblades dug into the metal body behind her. Tom looked so—good. So Tom. Lean and tall, strong and loose-limbed, tanned. The door slammed shut, giving her a bigger picture. He was dressed in his usual butt-hugging jeans and open-necked shirt, with the addition of a thick ski jacket. His unruly black curls had fallen prey to a very short cut. Those steely grey eyes held the same alluring temptation she’d once fallen in love with, despite the way they now appeared hard and uncompromising as they focused on her.

A breath trickled through her dry lips. No turning back now. She pushed away from the fuselage and stepped out to face him. ‘Hello, Tom. It’s good to see you.’ If ever there was an understatement that was it. ‘I’m glad you came to pick me up and not one of your staff.’

He held her gaze, just for a moment, the tension electric between them. ‘Fiona, it’s great to see you, too.’ He strode across the gap separating them and placed his arms around her in a brief, barely squeezing hug.

She gasped. He smelt the same. That freshly shaven male scent that seemed peculiar to Tom. She jerked away, striving for control over her highly sharpened senses.

‘It’s been a long while,’ he said.

A mental shake and she managed a reply. ‘Yes, and I hear you’ve been busy in that time. Your own specialist children’s hospital, no less.’

‘We have got a bit to catch up on, haven’t we?’ He stepped back. ‘How was the flight down from Auckland?’

‘Moderately turbulent over the Cook Strait and the South Island. There’s a storm on the way, due to hit this area late tonight.’

‘So I saw on the weather channel. Not unexpected in the middle of winter.’ His gaze slid over her, unreadable. ‘Thanks for stepping into the breach. I had a mild panic when Jerome had his accident, poor guy. I thought I’d have to cancel the surgery roster for the week.’

He seemed so relaxed, unperturbed at her presence here. How could he be like that after all this time? After the awful way they’d separated? Damn it, but she was about to move into his hospital to work with him and he didn’t appear at all flustered.

Take a leaf out of his book. Don’t show him the turmoil going on inside. Fiona tugged her shoulders back harder, lifted her chin in an attempt to negate the effect of the flood of anxiety pooling in her stomach, and stretched a smile over her lips.

‘It was a bit of luck that I approached the agency when I did.’ The medical personnel agency in Auckland had been quick to respond to her initial enquiries about locum work when she returned to New Zealand. Never in a million years would she have expected her first job to be working for Tom.

‘I guess it was.’

Was that disappointment lacing his words? Of course he’d have preferred another plastic surgeon to her, but there hadn’t been anyone else. ‘I’m looking forward to working with you and learning more about your hospital. And to spending some time catching up on what else you’ve been doing since I left.’

A grimace this time. ‘Let’s keep everything on a professional level and I’m sure the week will be problem-free.’

‘We can’t avoid the fact we had a life together.’

He had to have heard the strain in her voice, but he only said, ‘You’re right. We can’t. But it doesn’t have to take over and dominate the reason you are here—which is to perform plastic surgery on my young patients.’

Right, I get the message. She wouldn’t avoid trying to broach the past with him—they’d been married after all—but she’d let it go for now. ‘Do you come into Theatre to observe the operations done by your specialists?’

‘More than that. I assist whenever I can so I know what’s going on with each child. And, on a more basic level, it saves me having to employ another surgeon.’

‘That’s great.’ She gulped. Working with Tom this week had just taken on a whole new meaning.

He lifted his sleeve to check his watch. ‘Nearly four. We’d better get moving. It’ll be dark soon.’