Sarah Morgan - Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 1

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Welcome to Penhally Bay!

Mills & Boon ®welcomes you to the picturesque town of Penhally, nestled on the rugged Cornish coast! With sandy beaches and breathtaking landscapes Penhally is a warm, bustling community, cared for by the Penhally Bay Surgery team, led by the distinguished and commanding Dr Nick Tremayne.

There are sixteen stories in all to enjoy, available in four bundles of four, set in this idyllic coastal town, where fishing boats bob up and down in the bay, friendly faces line the cobbled streets and romance flutters on the Cornish sea breeze! We’ve got gorgeous Mediterranean heroes, top-notch city surgeons, a royal scandal, little miracle babies and Penhally’s very own bad-boy rebel! But that’s not all…

With Brides of Penhally Bay you get double the reading pleasure…as each book also follows the life of damaged hero Dr Nick Tremayne. His story will pierce your heart—a tale of lost love and the torment of forbidden romance. Dr Nick’s unquestionable, unrelenting skill would leave any patient happy in the knowledge that she’s in safe hands, and is a testament to the ability and dedication of all the staff at Penhally Bay Surgery. Come in and meet them for yourself…

Caroline Andersonhas the mind of a butterfly. She’s been a nurse, a secretary, a teacher, run her own softfurnishing business, and now she’s settled on writing. She says, ‘I was looking for that elusive something. I finally realised it was variety, and now I have it in abundance. Every book brings new horizons and new friends, and in between books I have learned to be a juggler. My teacher husband John and I have two beautiful and talented daughters, Sarah and Hannah, umpteen pets, and several acres of Suffolk that nature tries to reclaim every time we turn our backs!’ Caroline also writes for the Mills & Boon ®Romance series.

Recent titles by this author:

Medical™ Romance

HIS VERY OWN WIFE AND CHILD

A WIFE AND CHILD TO CHERISH

MATERNAL INSTINCT

Mills & Boon® Romance™

CARING FOR HIS BABY

THE TYCOON’S INSTANT FAMILY

A BRIDE WORTH WAITING FOR

‘LUCY.’

‘Ben!’ She spun around, her heart tripping and a smile she couldn’t hold breaking out at the sound of his voice. ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’

Hoped, yes, stupidly much, even though she’d known it was an outside chance, but here he was, the answer to a maiden’s prayers—well, hers, at least—and her knees had turned to mush.

‘Oh, you know me, ever the sucker,’ he replied with that lazy, sexy grin that unravelled her insides. ‘I had my arm twisted by one of my patients, and it would have been churlish to refuse. Besides, if I remember rightly, the food’s amazing.’

So, he hadn’t come to see her, then, but what had she expected? Two years was a long time, and so very much had happened. Too much.

Stifling the strangely crushing disappointment, she looked away from those piercing eyes the colour of a summer sky and glanced behind her at the barbeque. ‘It certainly smells fabulous. I wonder when we can get stuck in? I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and that was before seven.’

‘Sounds as if your day’s been like mine,’ he murmured, and she realised he’d moved closer. Much closer, so that she could not only hear his voice more clearly, but smell the clean, fresh scent of his skin. He never wore aftershave, but he didn’t need to, not to enhance him, because the combination of soap and freshly laundered clothes, underscored by warm, healthy man, was a potent combination.

She felt herself sway a little towards him and wrenched herself back upright. ‘Sorry—my heels are sinking into the grass,’ she said, not untruthfully, but it gave her an excuse to shift her position and move a fraction away from him. Just far enough so she couldn’t smell that intoxicating blend of citrus and musk.

‘So—how are you?’ he asked, his voice still soft, and even though she knew it was silly, that it didn’t matter how nice he was to her, her heart opened up to his gentle enquiry.

‘Oh—you know.’

His smile was wry. ‘No, I don’t, or I wouldn’t be asking. How’s general practice working out?’

She tried to inject some enthusiasm into her voice. ‘It’s fine. Great. I was on call last night and I had a surgery this morning, so I’m a bit tired today, but it’s OK. I’m really getting into it.’

‘Pity.’

She tipped her head and looked up at him curiously. ‘Why?’

‘My registrar’s leaving—decided for some reason to throw away a promising career in favour of maternity. I don’t suppose I can tempt you back to A and E?’

Oh, she was tempted. So tempted. To work alongside him again—well, opposite him, to be exact, their heads and hands synchronised, fighting together to save a patient against all odds, their eyes meeting from time to time, his crinkling with that gorgeous, knee-melting smile—but there were too many reasons why not, and one of them was insurmountable, at least for now if not for ever.

She shook her head regretfully and tried to smile. ‘Sorry, Ben. Anyway, I still get to do emergency medicine, and we’ve got a really busy minor injuries unit.’

‘What, sprains and jellyfish stings with the odd heart attack thrown in for good measure?’ he teased. ‘That isn’t emergency medicine, Lucy.’

‘We do more than that, and it’s enough drama for me,’ she said, ignoring the little bit of her that was yelling liar! at the top of its voice. ‘And anyway, we’ve been thinking about expanding. We’re already too busy in our minor injuries unit, so why not expand and make it a state-of-the-art MIU? Still walking wounded, but a bit more sophisticated than what we’ve got. Maybe have a dedicated space for one of the community physios instead of her just sharing the nurses’ room, and ideally get our own X-ray—I don’t know. And while we’re at it, expand our minor surgery. We’ll have to talk to the trust—see if we can convince them it’s a good idea. We could take some of the heat off St Piran, especially in the summer with all the tourists.’

She was babbling, trying to ignore the bit of her that was screaming Yes, take me back! but he was listening as if she wasn’t talking utter rubbish, and he nodded slowly.

‘Sounds as if you’ve given it a lot of thought, and it certainly makes sense. Our A and E’s running flat out, and if you’ve got good minor surgical facilities as well, that’s all to the good. You’d need that for all the stitching of wounds in the MIU, and you could maybe take on some more complex minor surgery. I’m sure they do loads of things in the day surgery unit that don’t really need a GA. If the simpler things could be done out in the community under local anaesthetic, it would shorten the waiting list, but the X-ray idea’s brilliant. People often sit for hours just to be told they’ve got a sprain. If you could filter some of those out, maybe put casts on undisplaced fractures or reduce the odd dislocation, it could really take the heat off us. I like it. I like it a lot. I’m all for people being seen quicker and closer to home, and I’d be happy to help in any way I could.’