Marie Ferrarella - The Prodigal M.D. Returns

“Stop.”

“Stop what?” Without thinking, Ben pushed back the curl that fell into her face.

Heather willed her knees to return to their previous solid state and concentrated on the words and not the butterflies that were materializing.

“That,” she said thickly. “You don’t have to say nice things to me.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to say nice things to you?”

Words floated away from her brain like so many shards of ice, melting into nothingness. She shrugged. “You don’t have to.”

“Why don’t you leave that decision to me?” he suggested.

Before she could answer, before she could even draw a single breath into her suddenly grossly oxygen-depleted lungs, Ben was framing her face with his hands, mingling her space with his own.

And then, just like that, there was no space left between them at all.

Dear Reader,

Well, by now you must have realized that I hate letting go. The last book in this series was supposed to be the last book. However, a reader wrote and asked me what happened to Shayne’s brother, Ben, the man who in effect was the reason behind the series in the first place. I never had any intentions of giving him his own story—until I was faced with saying goodbye to Hades permanently. And then, I began to think that this might be a perfect way to end the series, to bring it full circle to Ben, whose flight from Hades was the reason for his brother eventually finding the love of his life. So here now is Ben, an older, wiser, contrite Ben, back after all this time to make amends because he, like that little girl with the scarlet shoes ahead of him, has come to realize that there’s no place like home and nothing like family.

I wish you all much love in your lives,

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA ®Award-winning author has written over 150 books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

To Katherine Orr,

with thanks.

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

The warm, late-June breeze ruffled Ben Kerrigan’s dark-blond hair as he raised his hand to knock on the door of the rustic, two-story house that stood just outside of the town of Hades, Alaska. This was the house where he had grown up. The house he had abruptly left early one morning seven years ago.

He’d been standing on the porch for the past few eternal moments, and he’d already raised his hand twice. His knuckles had made no contact with the weathered wood either time. Instead he’d dropped his hand to his side, as if all the energy had drained out of it.

Cowardice was something new for him.

For most of his thirty-four years, he’d sailed swiftly and happily through life. He’d had so much zest, it all but oozed out of him. Yes, there’d been mistakes, a whole host of them. God knew he would be the first to admit that, but somehow he managed to continue sailing because somehow, almost magically, difficulties always managed to get smoothed over.

A rueful smile twisted his lips as he stared at the door. In large part, the “smoothing over” had been due to Shayne, his older brother, the brother who had watched out for him, who’d raised him from the time their parents had died. Shayne had been the one who’d worked like a dog to put Ben through medical school so that when he graduated, he would return and work alongside him in the tiny medical clinic that was the only one of its kind within a hundred-mile radius. It was Shayne who had always been there to pick up the slack, the pieces, to fix whatever it was that needed fixing for him.

He hadn’t seen Shayne for seven years now.

Hadn’t seen Shayne or heard from him. Not since he had left town with Lila when she’d unexpectedly told him that she’d marry him, but only if they left Hades. That was seven years ago.

So he left with her. He’d run off, leaving Shayne to cope not just with the myriad of patients at the clinic, but with the two children that his ex-wife’s recent death had deposited on his doorstep—two children he hadn’t been allowed to see since almost infancy.

Then there was the woman that Ben had asked to come up to Hades. To marry him. That had evolved almost without his realizing it, at a time when his relationship with Lila had seemed impossible. The woman had written to him, commenting on an article he’d written in a travel magazine. He wrote back. One thing led to another and it turned into a love affair rooted in words. Photographs had been exchanged, but they had never laid eyes on each other before he’d proposed and she had accepted.

Looking back, he knew he’d been impetuous, but that was the way he’d always conducted himself. That word, more than any other, best described him. Impetuous. He’d tried to work on this in recent years. Especially this past one, after Lila walked out on him again.

The back of his neck prickled and he rubbed his hand over it, shifting uncomfortably, but remaining where he was. In front of the door. Knowing he had to knock, yet not being able to quite get himself to do it.

Having Lila walk out on him had taught him that being impetuous sometimes carried with it undesirable consequences. Waking up alone in their house had accomplished what years of Shayne’s lectures hadn’t. It had brought home the fact that he needed to become a little more responsible.

Hell, a lot more responsible. And he had, as time went on. Remaining in Seattle, he’d managed to attach himself to a very lucrative medical practice.

Working there with four other partners soon gave him everything he’d ever wanted.

Everything except a feeling of satisfaction.

Satisfaction continued to elude him, and this bothered him no matter how much he told himself it didn’t.

As each month passed, his feeling of emptiness became stronger.

And the women who passed through his life didn’t seem to matter. Sadly, they became interchangeable, their faces never leaving an impression on his mind. On his soul. Something else gnawed away at him. Something that went beyond primal appetites. He realized that there had to be more to life than this.

Ben began to think of himself in terms of the main character in Coleridge’s epic poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Though his outward demeanor never changed, inside was a different story. Inside he needed to atone for what he had done. He needed to find peace.

And then one evening, it came to him. He understood the source of his unrest. And, quite possibly, saw the source of his eventual healing.

On one of the public stations, there’d been a week devoted to Mother Nature’s natural disasters. Leading off had been a story about cave-ins. One of them had lasted perhaps a whole ten seconds and had occurred in Hades, his hometown. It wasn’t even a recent cave-in, just part of some old footage captured by a local station about mine cave-ins around the country and how they still occurred with more frequency than anyone was happy about.

That night, as he sat on the edge of his chair, recalling events from his childhood, he thought of Shayne. Shayne, who’d undoubtedly been in the thick of it, working madly to help with the wounded. Shayne, battling to make things right, the way he always did, and doing it almost single-handedly. Because that was the way Shayne was, a little larger than life and working for the good of others.