Hawaiian Sunset, Dream Proposal

Hawaiian Sunset, Dream Proposal
Joanna Neil

Enter into the world of high-flying Doctors as they navigate the pressures of modern medicine and find escape, passion, comfort and love – in each other’s arms!Finding the doctor’s happy-ever-after – in Hawaii!Dr Amber Shaw has packed her bags, put her broken heart behind her, and come to Hawaii to take care of a wealthy patient. Once there, she soon falls under the island’s tropical spell, but she is determined to resist her patient’s infuriating yet handsome nephew, Dr Ethan Brookes!Guarded Ethan has his own reasons for keeping his distance – reasons he finds hard to remember whenever he sees Amber’s warm smile. And, strolling with her hand in hand along a deserted moonlit beach, he knows this is the perfect moment to say those four little words: ‘Will you marry me?’

‘The romance of the island is finding its way into your heart. It happens to everyone after a while. It casts a spell on you, and you never want to leave.’

Ethan came to stand in front of her, laying a hand on the bole of the palm tree just above her head, and then he leaned towards her, dropping a kiss lightly on her mouth.

‘I hadn’t expected it to happen,’ he said softly, ‘but you’ve made a huge impact on my life. You caught me unawares, and now I can’t stop thinking about you—day or night.’

He made a half-smile, his gaze running over her. ‘Especially in the night.’

He kissed her again, teasing the softness of her lips with the brush of his mouth, enticing a flurry of expectation within her nervous system, stoking the flame that burned inside her.

When Joanna Neil discovered Mills & Boon®, her lifelong addiction to reading crystallised into an exciting new career writing Medical™ Romance. Her characters are probably the outcome of her varied lifestyle, which includes working as a clerk, typist, nurse and infant teacher. She enjoys dressmaking and cooking at her Leicestershire home. Her family includes a husband, son and daughter, an exuberant yellow Labrador and two slightly crazed cockatiels. She currently works with a team of tutors at her local education centre, to provide creative writing workshops for people interested in exploring their own writing ambitions.

Recent titles by the same author:

NEW SURGEON AT ASHVALE A&E

POSH DOC, SOCIETY WEDDING

HOT-SHOT DOC, CHRISTMAS BRIDE

THE REBEL AND THE BABY DOCTOR

Hawaiian Sunset, Dream Proposal

by

Joanna Neil

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

CHAPTER ONE

‘HE’S not doing very well at all, is he?’ The young woman’s voice was choked with emotion, and her eyes filled with tears as she looked at Amber. ‘Isn’t there something more that you can do for him? Nothing seems to be happening.’

Amber removed the printed trace from her patient’s heart monitor and taped the paper strip into his file. The readings were erratic, showing a dangerous, uncoordinated rhythm. ‘I know this must be a very difficult time for you,’ she said in a quiet voice, turning towards the girl, ‘but I want you to know that we’re doing everything we can for your father. I’ve given him an injection to take away the pain, and he’s receiving medication through a drip in his arm to try to prevent things from getting any worse.’ There was a defibrillator on standby in case his condition deteriorated, but she wasn’t going to point that out to her patient’s anxious daughter.

The girl pulled in a shaky breath. ‘He looks so dreadfully ill. I know he hasn’t been well these last few months, but this has come as such a shock. As soon as I saw him, I knew it was bad. His secretary called me at the university to say that he was unwell and that they’d called for an ambulance…I was in the middle of a lecture, and I rushed over there as quickly as I could.’

She gulped, sending a worried glance towards her father. ‘She said he had been in his office, trying to get through a backlog of work, when he suddenly felt nauseous and short of breath. At first he thought he was suffering from a bad attack of indigestion, but then things got worse and he felt this awful pain in his chest…a crushing, vice-like pain.’

She broke off and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. ‘By the time I arrived at the office, he had collapsed and the paramedics were there. It all seemed to have happened so quickly.’

‘The paramedics gave him emergency treatment before they brought him here,’ Amber told her. ‘They did everything that was possible to make sure he arrived here safely.’

Martyn Wyndham Brookes had been conscious when he’d arrived at A and E but, despite his pain and discomfort, his one thought had been for his daughter. ‘She’s very young,’ he had managed to say, ‘and she’s a long way from home…studying at university. She always wanted to come to London.’ His face had been haggard with pain, but his concern for his daughter had been obvious as he’d looked anxiously at Amber, and she had hurried to reassure him.

‘We’ll look after her, I promise,’ she’d told him gently. ‘I’ll have a nurse take care of her…but right now we need to concentrate on making you feel better.’ She had taken to him straight away…such a strong, warm-hearted man.

Now, after he had lapsed into a drowsy, semi-conscious state, she felt it was time to explain to his daughter what had happened. ‘I suspect he’s had a heart attack,’ she said, ‘and that there’s a blood clot blocking an artery somewhere and causing problems with his circulation.’

Tears trickled down Caitlin Wyndham Brookes’s cheeks. ‘That’s what the paramedic said…but that’s bad, isn’t it?’

‘It’s something we’re used to dealing with,’ Amber said. She studied the girl’s pale features. ‘Is there anyone we can call for you…someone who might come and be with you?’

Caitlin shook her head. ‘My mother died some years ago, and there’s no one over here…just my friends at university.’ She gazed at Amber in an agitated fashion. ‘Isn’t there something more you can do for him? What if you have to go off and deal with other patients? I know you have others to see, and it’s so busy here. There are so many patients being brought in…I want somebody to be with him all the time, someone in a senior position.’

The flow of words stopped suddenly, as though she was taking stock of what she had said. ‘It’s not that I’m doubting your ability,’ Caitlin tried to explain, ‘but he’s just lying there, looking so frail…It isn’t like him at all…he’s always been so tough, so busy, on the move all the time.’ Distress caused her voice to waver, and Amber hurried to soothe her once more.

‘We’ll know much more about what’s happened to him when we’ve done all the necessary tests. It will take a little while for all the results to come back, though. In the meantime, we’re taking good care of him. He’s receiving oxygen through a face-mask, and his condition is being observed the whole time with the aid of the heart monitor and various other machines. If I’m called away to attend to another patient, I’ll still know what’s going on, because the nurses will alert me to any change as soon as it happens.’

She frowned as she ran the stethoscope over her patient’s chest. Initially, his heart rate had been alarmingly fast, while his pulse had been barely discernible, but now the heart rhythm was becoming chaotic and everything about the man told her that he was gravely ill.

‘Unfortunately, we don’t have any records for him, over here in the U.K.,’ Amber said, turning to look at the girl once more. Caitlin Wyndham Brookes was twenty or so years old, a slender young woman with black hair expertly cut into a smooth, jaw-length bob. Her eyes were grey, sombre at the moment, much like an overcast, rain-drenched sky. ‘You mentioned that he lives overseas for most of the year,’ Amber added. ‘Do you know who looks after his medical care back home?’

‘He has his own doctor in Oahu…in Hawaii.’ Caitlin glanced at Amber. ‘I suppose I could try to get in touch with my step-cousin over there. He’ll be very concerned about my father—they’re so much like father and son. My father took Ethan under his wing after his parents died, and there’s a real bond between them.’

She hesitated for a moment, thinking things through. ‘Ethan would probably be able to have a word with the doctor back home, if that would help, and I know he’ll want to be kept informed about what’s happening over here.’

Amber nodded. ‘That would be great. As he’s so far away, it might be quicker and easier if he could fax the information we need, or perhaps send the bare essentials by e-mail. If you were to go and have a word with our nurse, I’m sure she could help sort things out.’

Sarah, the nurse on duty, was happy to oblige, and Amber sent her a grateful glance as she led the young woman away. Sarah gave her a discreet smile in return, her fair hair making a silky swathe across her shoulders as she nodded with gentle perception. ‘I’ll take a few details and see if we can find out any more information.’

She could see that Amber had enough on her hands, dealing with a difficult situation that could take a turn for the worse at any moment. Much as she wanted to help in any way she could, Amber was finding it distracting, trying to keep the young woman calm throughout everything.

Amber turned her attention back to her patient. Martyn Wyndham Brookes was in his mid-fifties, a tall, personable man, she guessed from talking to the paramedics, with black hair streaked with threads of silver. She gathered that he was a wealthy man, a man of some standing in the international business community. According to the paramedics who had brought him into hospital, his U.K. office was situated in Docklands, occupying a prestigious block that overlooked the grand vista of the river Thames.

It seemed, though, that illness was no respecter of wealth or position. Martyn’s condition had gone downhill rapidly, and Amber knew that it was going to take all her skill to help him to recover. His features were ashen, his skin had taken on a clammy appearance, and he was no longer attempting to talk.

‘How’s it going?’

She glanced up to see that James, her boyfriend, a senior house officer like herself, had come to join her. She looked at him with affection, feeling as though a faint glow of sunshine had come into her life. ‘Things could be better,’ she said in a low tone. ‘It’s always good to see you, though. How are things with you?’

He shrugged, draping an arm around her shoulders, so that she immediately felt warm and cherished. ‘Soso. It’s been pretty stressful around here, lately, with one thing and another. We’re still waiting on the results of job applications, aren’t we, and our contracts here come to an end within a couple of weeks? Have you heard anything yet?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing, so far, though I haven’t had time to check my hospital mail box yet today. We’ve been so rushed in here.’

He gave a brief, half-hearted smile. ‘I expect you’ll come through it all right. You’re very good at everything you do. Look at the way you sailed through your exams. No one is going to turn you down. You applied for a topnotch job in emergency medicine and you’re bound to get it.’ Even as he was singing her praises, there was a flat note in James’s voice that made Amber glance up at him, a frown indenting her brow.

He let his arm fall to his side, leaving her feeling suddenly bereft. Something was clearly wrong with him, but she had no idea what it might be. James had not been his usual self for some weeks now. At first she had thought it was the pressure of exams weighing him down, along with the aftermath of results, but now she was beginning to wonder if it was something more than that.

‘I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as it seems. I’m waiting to hear the news just the same as everyone else. From what I’ve heard, it’s all down to the computer system matching up job applications with employers. There were some terrible glitches, apparently.’ She frowned. ‘It’s all a bit worrying, isn’t it? Sarah said that there have been quite a few mix-ups, and a lot of people have missed out on getting any kind of job. Some junior doctors have been talking about leaving medicine altogether.’ She shook her head in sad reflection, causing her burnished chestnut curls to quiver in response. ‘It’s such a waste, after all those years of training.’

She looked back at her patient. He seemed to be oblivious to everything that was going on around him, but perhaps that was just as well, given how desperately ill he was.

‘I doubt you’ll have any problems,’ James said. ‘All the senior staff speak very highly of you, and you could pretty much do anything you want. I guess it puts me in the shade.’ His mouth made a rueful shape, and Amber sent him another quick look, wondering what had got into him to make him appear so downbeat.