Where The Heart Is

Where The Heart Is
Kate Hardy

Home…The stunning glacial peaks of Patagonia seem the perfect place for Dr. Rowena Thompson to heal her fragile emotions. When she meets consultant Luke MacKenzie she learns that hers isn't the only heart in need of help.Is where the heart is…Their journey is full of saving lives and challenging emotions, and through it they find a love that neither has experienced before – a love that is tested when Rowena faces a life-changing diagnosis that is familiar to them both. Only if they confront their fears can they face anything, anywhere, as long as they are together.

“Rowena. You feel it, too, don’t you?”

Oh, yes. She felt it. A weird kind of humming in the air between them. When he’d touched her just now she’d felt as if her body were supercharged. “I don’t do this sort of thing.”

“Neither do I.” His voice was wry. “But something about you makes me want to.”

Just as well she was sitting down, because her knees had just turned back to jelly. “I…” Her mouth was too dry to force the words out.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. But I’d really like someone to hold my hand right now.”

She reached out and curled her fingers around his hand, keeping the pressure light.

He responded by curling his own fingers around hers.

And everything else vanished. There was just the two of them at the edge of the lake, under the stars.

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The emotion is deep

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Dear Reader (#ulink_2204830d-39d2-53db-87e1-0412f052683a),

This is probably the most emotional book I’ve ever written—and probably also the most personal.

It started when my friend Phil did a fund-raising trek through Chile. When I saw her photos, I thought it would be a fabulous setting for a book. I knew I’d need some incredible emotion to balance the incredible setting, and that meant dealing with an issue I’ve found very hard to face for the last eighteen years. My mother died from breast cancer the Christmas six weeks before my twenty-first birthday, and I still miss her terribly. Luckily, being a writer, I’m able to express my feelings in fiction. So this book is a tribute to my mother.

Rowena has a tough time growing up, loses the nearest she’s ever had to a parent, falls in love and then has a health scare that could break the hero’s heart as well as hers. But Rowena is a fighter. Together, she and Luke face the worst, and…Without giving too much away, I think you’ll like the ending. I really believe that after deep heartache you can journey on to find happiness—I have. I have the most wonderful husband in the world, my beloved daughter was actually due on my mother’s birthday (which I don’t believe is a coincidence) and I have a gorgeous son. I can’t ask for more. And I know that my hero and heroine will be as lucky as I am, in the end.

With love,

Kate Hardy

Where the Heart Is

Kate Hardy

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

In loving memory of my mother,

Sandra Christine Shirley Sewell, 1945–1986.

So special. So deeply missed.

CONTENTS

Cover (#uaacf9981-cfe6-5730-b2a2-33f9bf14912d)

Dear Reader (#ulink_7e7ab966-3049-5fa5-bfa0-4d032d3bbd55)

Title Page (#u7f2028f9-077d-5831-8090-9dd2eabf87c9)

Dedication (#u8138bc49-c402-514f-ac4f-9ab742b0a617)

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

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#u2486aaf3-2402-5eb3-94ed-b3a8b83c2339)