The Doctor's Lost-and-Found Heart

The Doctor's Lost-and-Found Heart
Dianne Drake

Under the Argentine stars… Dr Jack Kenner can’t refuse Amanda Robinson’s plea for help – even though it means returning to South America, where the ghosts of his past haunt him.Worse still, the tropical nights working with brave, fiery Amanda push Jack to his limits – for a man who has sworn never to risk his heart again, they offer the ultimate temptation…

Dear Reader

I’m so grateful to be bringing you another book for the fabulous Mills and Boon

Medical Romances

. I love writing these stories. More than that, I love hearing from readers who ask me when I’m going to write a book featuring the Philippines or India or Barbados. It’s humbling, knowing all the many places my books are being read.

THE DOCTOR’S LOST-AND-FOUND HEART takes us to Argentina, one of the most spectacular countries in the world. It also has the most amazingly friendly and resilient people, which is why I chose this setting for my story. It simply seemed like the place Jack and Amanda should be. Of course they’re both a little resistant to that. Resistant to each other as well. But Amanda is transformed from a very unanimated woman when she’s at home in Texas to someone who’s positively hot-blooded the instant she steps foot on Argentine soil. So what’s that about? You’ll have to read the book to see.

Then there’s Jack, a man from nowhere, going no place in particular. He wants to avoid Argentina at all costs, but when duty calls he will always put aside his personal needs and answer. In the case of Argentina, the cost of his call is the highest price he may ever have to pay.

THE DOCTOR’S LOST-AND-FOUND HEART follows Jack Kenner’s story—a story begun in NO. 1 DAD IN TEXAS, which preceded this book. And there’ll be another story to follow, also set in Argentina, featuring Amanda’s brother Ben.

In the meantime, I’m finally joining the social media revolution. So please follow and like me at www.Facebook.com (DianneDrakeAuthor), and jump over to see what I’m tweeting @DianneDrake. Feel free to stop by my website (www.DianneDrake.com) as well, and e-mail me with suggestions for another amazing country in which to set one of my stories. I’ve just about exhausted my travel supply, so now it’s time to start broadening my horizons.

As always, wishing you health and happiness.

DD

About the Author

Now that her children have left home, DIANNE DRAKE is finally finding the time to do some of the things she adores—gardening, cooking, reading, shopping for antiques. Her absolute passion in life, however, is adopting abandoned and abused animals. Right now Dianne and her husband Joel have a little menagerie of three dogs and two cats, but that’s always subject to change. A former symphony orchestra member, Dianne now attends the symphony as a spectator several times a month and, when time permits, takes in an occasional football, basketball or hockey game.

Recent titles by Dianne Drake:

NO. 1 DAD IN TEXAS

THE RUNAWAY NURSE

FIREFIGHTER WITH A FROZEN HEART

THE DOCTOR’S REASON TO STAY** (#ulink_acff53db-2e20-5263-8e50-ab7e53b1f950) FROM BROODING BOSS TO ADORING DAD THE BABY WHO STOLE THE DOCTOR’S HEART* (#ulink_acff53db-2e20-5263-8e50-ab7e53b1f950) CHRISTMAS MIRACLE: A FAMILY* (#ulink_88a664d0-cbbc-5b8a-a1f5-1d4b7027c2b9)

** (#ulink_88a664d0-cbbc-5b8a-a1f5-1d4b7027c2b9)New York Hospital Heartthrobs* (#ulink_acff53db-2e20-5263-8e50-ab7e53b1f950)Mountain Village Hospital

These books are also available in eBook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Doctor’s

Lost-and-Found

Heart

Dianne Drake

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To Doctor Nance, the ID specialist who saved my life.

You made the diagnosis when nobody else could find the ‘bug’.

Thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

WRAPPED around her pretty little finger. That was how he felt, traipsing around out here in God-forsaken nowhere, with nothing but a backpack full of testing supplies and a sneaking suspicion that there was going to be more to this mission than a couple of days. Way more than a couple of days …

Jack Kenner swatted a mosquito on his neck, flicked it away, then wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his hand. If he’d been smart about this, or had had time to plan, he’d have had his hair buzzed down to a bald cut, because collar-length wavy and summer jungle humidity weren’t a good mix. And it was damn humid out here. Unseasonably so for mid-December. He’d have also had time to order adequate testing supplies—he never liked to go unprepared. But when Amanda had called him, told him what was at risk, and that it was urgent … First plane out. What could he say? He was a sucker for a beautiful face and a worthy cause. She certainly had the beautiful face, and a bunch of sick kids was a worthy cause.

Thinking about her brought a smile to his face. Amanda Robinson. More than beautiful, actually. Stunning. Exquisite. Wild, black hair when it wasn’t all trussed up. Dark skin. Eyes the color of onyx. Exotic in every sense of the word. A real breathtaker who was totally unaware of the power she could hold over a man.

Outside a handful of professional encounters back in Texas, Jack hardly even knew the woman, yet here he was, somewhere in Argentina, because she’d asked. The hell of it was, he didn’t do that kind of looking anymore. Kept it strictly off his radar. Except when Amanda walked by him that first time his radar had blipped. For him, though, one or two blips and that was as far as it went. His life was screwed up in every way that counted and he wasn’t even sure he could define what a real life was anymore. So, why drag someone else into his confusion?

Easy answer. He didn’t. Not even casually. Anything other than a passing glance and a wishful sigh got complicated, so he kept it uncomplicated, simple as that. The fewer lives he screwed up, the better.

On the other hand, being here was bordering on complicated since this was everything he was trying to put behind him. Medicine, unidentified outbreaks, epidemics … he wanted all of it out of his life. Problem was, controlling hospital-acquired infections, now called HAIs, was a growing specialty and the bigger problem in that was he was pretty good at what he did. It was hard to walk away from it when you were in demand. Harder still when he actually let himself think about the lives depending on his discoveries. But walking was what he’d been trying to do for the past two years. Walking, but always getting pulled back in.

So now, this Hospital de Caridad he was trying to find … He was promising himself it would be the last one. The last of the line for him, come hell or high water. Amanda Robinson had worked miracles with his nephew and this was paying back a debt of gratitude. Meaning, he’d find the HAI infecting the hospital she owned with her brother, then finally be done with it. Done with everything, without a clue what came after that.

Another mosquito dive-bombed Jack’s ear, and he slapped at it, hitting it in midair. “You dirty little …”

“Dr. Jack Kenner?” a young voice piped up from the bushes just beyond the edge of the trail. “Are you Dr. Jack Kenner?”

“I’m Kenner,” he said, quite surprised by an obviously adolescent voice. “Who are you, and does anybody know you’re out here in the jungle alone?”

A scrawny scrap of a kid popped out of the bushes and walked right up to him. No shoes, no shirt, scraggly black hair, well-worn jeans, the biggest, widest smile Jack had ever seen on a face. “I’m Ezequiel,” he said, extending his small hand to Jack. “I speak good English and I know all the roads and paths to the hospital. That’s why they sent me to find you.”

“That would imply I’m lost,” Jack said, taking firm hold of Ezequiel’s hand, amazed and a little amused by the adult and purely unexpected gesture. “Which I’m not.”

Ezequiel’s grin didn’t fade in the face of Jack’s solid grip, or his denial. If anything, it widened. “Okay, then I’ll go back and tell them you’re on the wrong trail, but you’re not lost.” He pulled his hand back when Jack let go and crammed it into his pocket.

“How old are you, kid?”

“Twelve,” he said. Then quickly added, “Almost.”

Jack chuckled. Smart kid. Smart in his head, smart in the world. “And why do you speak English so well?”

“Missionaries used to teach me in school. I was the best student. Now the doctors and nurses teach me.”

“Not surprised you’re the best.” Jack pulled a stainless-steel bottle of water from his backpack and offered it first to Ezequiel, who refused. Then he twisted off the cap, took a swig, and replaced the cap. “So, if I were to admit that I might be lost, how far, would you say, I’m off the trail I need to be on?”

“Far off,” Ezequiel responded.

“If I’m that far off, how did you find me? Or even know where to look for me?”