Charlotte Hawkes - The Army Doc's Baby Secret

His wife is back...

...with his secret son!

Since losing his leg on a mission, soldier Zeke Jackson has worked hard and come a long way. Now a multimillionaire, he’s also committed to helping others. Yet nothing can prepare him for the moment his wife, army doctor Tia Farringdale, walks back into his life and reminds him just how powerful their connection still is... And Tia isn’t alone—she’s brought his son with her!

Born and raised on the Wirral Peninsula in England, CHARLOTTE HAWKESis mum to two intrepid boys who love her to play building block games with them and who object loudly to the amount of time she spends on the computer. When she isn’t writing—or building with blocks—she is company director for a small Anglo/French construction firm. Charlotte loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her at her website: charlotte-hawkes.com.

Also by Charlotte Hawkes

The Army Doc’s Secret Wife

The Surgeon’s Baby Surprise

A Bride to Redeem Him

The Surgeon’s One-Night Baby

Christmas with Her Bodyguard

A Surgeon for the Single Mum

Hot Army Docs miniseries

Encounter with a Commanding Officer

Tempted by Dr Off-Limits

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Army Doc’s Baby Secret

Charlotte Hawkes

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09008-7

THE ARMY DOC’S BABY SECRET

© 2019 Charlotte Hawkes

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Text to speech

To my husband.

I may forget birthday cards

(in my defence, I remembered one last year—

I just forgot to sign it),

but I can dedicate a book to you. xxx

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

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

Extract

About the Publisher

DR ANTONIA FARRINGDALE was adroit at smelling trouble.

She had first learned it at her father’s knee, watching the oft-churning grey expanse of the Atlantic Ocean from the salt-sprayed windows of Westlake lifeboat station, as her mother piloted a boat out for a rescue. Learning to read the signs for when the crew was in for an easy night, or the omens for when they could expect an arduous night of dangerous shouts.

She had honed it as a doctor, often knowing instinctively with her patients when she was hearing horses, and those rare occasions when she was hearing zebras.

And she had perfected it as a battlefield trauma doctor working from twelve-by-twelve tents of field hospitals on missions in whichever conflict-hardened country du jour she was in.

Yes, she could certainly smell trouble.

So why, she wondered as she peered uneasily into the hallway at Delburn Bay lifeboat station—a mere hour and a half further up the coast from Westlake, and therefore the closest she’d managed to get herself to going home in over a decade—did she smell it so unnervingly strongly, right at this instant?

Immobile yet alert, she stood in her doorway. Scarcely even daring to breathe as her eyes scanned for anything out of the ordinary.

But the sea was agreeably calm beyond the launch slipway, and the corridors were quiet, most of the crew being volunteers who had day jobs but who would be at the station within minutes if they were called to be. There was nothing there which should set her chest thumping the way that it was.

Unless a guilty conscience counted.

Shaking her head as if that would be sufficient to dislodge the censorious thought, Antonia ducked back into the medical supply room, which doubled as her consultation room and office whenever she was on site as the station’s new Medical Officer, telling herself it was more likely to be just her overactive imagination.

Telling herself that she had nothing to feel guilty about.

Telling herself...what? That she’d made the right choices—as impossible as they had been—five years ago?

It was true, but it didn’t help. It never really had. She still felt like a terrible person.

But then, wasn’t that why she was back here? To set the record straight.

Spinning around on the ball of her foot, Antonia strode determinedly back into her office and consultation room even as her mind skittered down the coast to Westlake, back to the past, to the man who had finally brought her back home now. Or, at least, that mere ninety minutes up the coast from home. A man to whom she owed the two biggest apologies of her entire life. Neither of which she had any idea how to even begin to make.