Linda Turner - Mission - M.d.

“I’m Turk Garrison. I’m new in town and looking for someone to show me around. Wanna volunteer? I promise I don’t bite, scratch or drool in public. So whaddya say? Are you game?”

Unable to take her eyes off his engaging smile, Rachel tried hard not to be charmed. She wanted to say yes so badly she could taste it. Instead she said, “No.”

If he hadn’t been so damn sure of himself—not to mention boyishly attractive—she might have said yes. But a woman only had to glance over at him to know that he was trouble any way you looked at it.

“Hey,” Turk said, grinning, “that’s okay. I’m a patient man. And it’s not like I don’t know where to find you.

“After all…you’re right next door.”

Dear Reader,

People always ask me where I get my stories, and my answer is always the same: They float around in the air. People tell me that I hear or see something that triggers an idea, and suddenly, the story is there. This particular book was told to me by different people at different times. Years ago, I heard about a woman who wasn’t looking for love, just a doctor to father her baby. She really did go to a bar near the medical center and had a one-night stand with a doctor. When she got pregnant and had the baby, she never told the father of her child.

That woman, whose name I never knew, became my heroine, Rachel Martin. The rest of her story is based on another true story. Somewhere in south Texas, there is a woman who married a man who had a vasectomy without telling her. She, too, desperately wanted a baby and didn’t know for years that that was never going to happen.

I wanted more for Rachel Martin. Determined to get the baby she wanted at all cost, she thought she had everything worked out. Then Fate moved in next door. Don’t you just love that?

Enjoy!

Linda Turner

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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began reading romances in high school and began writing them one night when she had nothing else to read. She’s been writing ever since. Single and living in Texas, she travels every chance she gets, scouting locales for her books.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

The phone rang promptly at eight o’clock, just as Rachel Martin had expected. Grinning, she snatched it up without bothering to check the caller ID. “Hi, Lily. You’re right on time as usual.”

“Hi, Rachel.”

Surprised, she almost dropped the phone. “Natalie? Is that you? I was expecting Lily.”

“I’m here,” Lily said with a chuckle.

“Me, too,” Abby chimed in cheerfully. “We wanted to surprise you with a conference call.”

“Well, you certainly did that,” she retorted, smiling. “What’s going on? I know a conspiracy when I smell one. What’s up?”

“I want you to be in my wedding,” Natalie said.

“Me, too.”

“Ditto.”

Stunned, Rachel felt as if the three of them had just reached through the phone and knocked her off her feet. “All three of you are getting married?”

Lily laughed at her shocked gasp. “It’s crazy, isn’t it? I didn’t think I’d ever be happy again, and then almost overnight, everything changed.”

“I took one look into Logan’s eyes and it was all over,” Abby added. “Of course, I didn’t tell him that. I didn’t even tell myself.”

“But then you realize that even though you’re scared of making another mistake, you don’t even want to think about living without him,” Natalie said huskily. “I think Max was just as stunned as I was when he asked me to marry him.”

“But you didn’t give him a chance to take it back, did you?” Lily teased. “I didn’t with Tony, either.”

“So will you do it?” Abby asked Rachel. “Will you be in our weddings? We need you. This all started last summer. Remember? When we all sat around at our class reunion, talking about how miserable we were?”

“So we changed our lives and found the happiness we’d always been looking for,” Lily said. “You have to be a part of our weddings, Rachel. We all encouraged one another that day. The four of us have to stick together.”

“But nothing’s changed in my life,” she replied. “I still want a baby. Just a baby. No husband. No one to lie to me and pretend he wants the same thing I do.”

“Not everyone is like Jason,” Abby pointed out quietly. “There are good, honest men out there. I know. We know. We all found one.”

“They’re out there,” Lily told her. “You just have to give yourself a chance to meet one.”

“No,” she said flatly. “I can’t. I’ll never trust a man again.”

“Oh, sweetie, don’t say that!”

“It’s the truth,” she retorted. “You know how much I wanted a baby. I spent years trying to get pregnant. And all the time, Jason knew it was never going to happen. Do you have any idea how devastated I was when I found out he’d had a vasectomy before we got married? I cried in his arms every time I had a period! How could I have been such a fool?”

“Don’t you dare beat yourself up for what that man did,” Natalie said. “He was the fool, Rachel. Not you.”

“That’s right,” Abby said, “You’ll make a wonderful mother. Go have a baby if you want one. You don’t need a man for that—just his sperm.”

“Go to a sperm bank in Austin,” Lily suggested. “You can pick out the height, coloring and intelligence of your baby’s father and never have to even meet him. Of course, you won’t get any financial support and you’ll have to go through the pregnancy alone, but we’ll be there for you. And you make good money with the bakery, don’t you? You can do this, Rachel.”

“At least you won’t have to worry about someone you want no part of having an influence on your child,” Natalie said. “If you’re sure you just want a baby and no father to go with it, then a sperm bank would be the way to go.”

They weren’t saying anything she hadn’t thought of herself, but something squeezed her heart at the idea of lying on an examining table and being impregnated so impersonally. “I don’t know if I could do that,” she admitted honestly. “It just sounds so…”

“Clinical?” Lily supplied for her. “You’re right. It does. But if you don’t want a man…”

“Just because I can’t trust a man enough to have one in my life doesn’t mean I can’t get pregnant by one…then walk away.”

Silence fell like a stone. “I’ve surprised you,” she said quietly.

“Could you do that?” Natalie asked, curious. “Could you meet a man, have sex with him and get pregnant, then just walk away?”

For the last few months, Rachel had asked herself that same question more times than she could count. And the answer was always the same. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I guess we’ll find out.”