His Secret Love-Child

His Secret Love-Child
Marion Lennox

Two people have entered Cal Jamieson's life - his long-lost lover and his unknown son!Cal Jamieson never gets involved. That is why he's a surgeon in isolated Crocodile Creek, and why he never wants a family - and why Gina Lopez had to leave him. Then Gina returns, with the son he didn't know he had. She's only come to tell Cal he is a father, but she is forced to stay when an abandoned baby needs all her medical skills.Can Cal face up to fatherhood? Can he risk losing Gina again? And can he persuade her to stay - this time for good?

CROCODILE CREEK: 24-HOUR RESCUE

A cutting-edge medical center.

Fully equipped for saving lives and loves!

Crocodile Creek’s state-of-the-art medical center and rescue response unit is home to a team of expertly trained medical professionals. These dedicated men and women face the challenges of life, love and medicine every day!

An abandoned baby!

The tension is mounting as a newborn baby is found in the Outback while a young girl fights for her life.

Two feuding families!

A long-held rivalry is threatening the well-being of the community. Only hospital head Charles Wetherby holds the key to this bitter battle.

A race to save lives!

Crocodile Creek’s highly skilled medical rescue team must compete with the fierce heat of the Australian Outback and the scorching power of their own emotions.

His Secret Love-Child is the first of four continuing stories from Marion Lennox, Alison Roberts, Lilian Darcy and Meredith Webber.

Join them at Crocodile Creek in Harlequin

Medical Romance

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Dear Reader,

As many of you know, I’m from Australia, home of Truly Scary Wildlife. I write fiction, but sometimes real life is scarier.

Some months ago, an extended family camped by one of our northern rivers. During the night a crocodile entered one of the family tents and grabbed a young father. Crocs don’t mess around. Once a croc has you, there’s little you can do to fight back. When the croc started dragging the young man toward the river, he knew what his fate would be, but as he was dragged away he screamed to his wife to save the baby.

But the croc reckoned without Grandma. Grandma woke, assumed the croc had the baby, and promptly jumped on its head. Despite being savagely bitten, despite her arm being broken, she stayed where she was until someone found a gun.

Everyone lived to tell the tale.

This wonderful true story led to four of us Down Under authors thinking what a fantastic setting the harsh north of Australia would be for a story—or a bunch of stories. We thought about the men and women of the Outback Medivac services and what drama they see every day of their working lives. The idea of CROCODILE CREEK: 24-HOUR RESCUE was born.

So, what better way to start a series than with an abandoned baby and a house full of medical rescue personnel, young doctors from around the world finding excitement and passion—oh, and crocodiles?

I’ve loved writing my CROCODILE CREEK story. I hope you love reading it, and you follow us as we take you to our exciting fact-meets-fiction world.

Marion Lennox

His Secret Love-Child

Marion Lennox

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

THIS old house had seen it all.

He should find somewhere else to live, Cal decided as he sat on the back veranda and gazed out over the moonlit sea. Living in a house filled with young doctors from every corner of the world could sometimes be a riot, but sometimes it was just plain scary.

Like now. Kirsty-the-Intern and Simon-the-Cardiologist had disappeared into the sunset, protesting personal concerns so serious they needed to break their contracts. They’d left a house agog with gossip, two bereft lovers and a hospital that was desperately understaffed.

Crocodile Creek, Remote Rescue Base, for all of far north Queensland, was notoriously short of doctors at the best of times. Two doctors were away on leave, a third had somersaulted his bike last week and was still in traction, and a fourth—unbelievably—had chickenpox. The two doctors who’d left so hastily hadn’t considered that when they’d started their hot little…personal concern.

Dammit, Cal thought. Damn them. Now there was a bereft and confused Emily, and Mike, whose pride at least would be dented. Both were wonderful medics and fine friends. In such a confined household even Cal would be called on for comfort, and if there was one thing Dr Callum Jamieson disliked above all else, it was getting involved. All Cal wanted from life was to practise his medicine and commune with his beer.

And not think about Gina.

So why was he thinking of Gina now? It had been five years since he’d seen her. She should be forgotten.

She wasn’t.

It was just this emotional stuff that was making him maudlin, he thought savagely. The old bush-nursing hospital that now served as Crocodile Creek’s doctors’ residence seemed to be a constant scene for some sort of emotional drama—and dramas made him think of Gina.

Gina walking away and not looking back.

He had to stop thinking of her! Gina had been his one dumb foray into emotional attachment and he was well out of it.