The Police Doctor's Secret

The Police Doctor's Secret
Marion Lennox

Dr. Alistair Benn needs help a light plane has crashed near isolated Dolphin Cove. There's a dead pilot, missing passengers and a mystery he can't solve.But when Alistair asks for help, he's sent forensic pathologist Dr. Sarah Rose. Alistair once loved Sarah, but she was engaged to his twin brother when tragedy struck and Alistair has always held Sarah responsible. He's never forgiven her…or forgotten her.Now as they race to save lives, they must also confront the past, their own feelings, and the secrets Sarah has kept for so long….

Sarah. Her name was a prayer. A joyous refrain. A desperate, aching need

What was happening? How had this started?

But he knew how it had started. It had started six long years ago when he’d first fallen in love.

In love.

The words slammed into some dark recess of his brain, registered, shocked.

She was his twin’s fiancée. She was Grant’s love. She had nothing to do with him. She was a part of him that had died along with Grant. A searing pain that could never go away. An impossibility.

And she felt it. He could sense the moment when she tensed and moved back, just a fraction, so she cold see his face. Her eyes resting on his were huge in the shadowed light cast by the table lamp. She looked ethereal.

She’d destroyed Grant, he thought desperately. She could well destroy him.

Dear Reader,

The Australian northern coastline is wild and fraught with danger. No one goes there unless they have good reason—or unless they’re desperate!

Last year I went on a crocodile spotting expedition at night along one of our northern rivers. I watched the yellow eyes of a crocodile watching me. (Romance writer makes tasty snack?) I gazed out at the dense mangrove swamps (romance writer sinks, never to be seen again?) and thought of all the desperate people who’d tried to make this place home.

Off I went again. Instead of obliging the crocodile, I retreated to my nice safe office and started The Police Doctor’s Secret.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did dreaming it up.

Marion Lennox

The Police Doctor’s Secret

Marion Lennox

CONTENTS

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 ONE

FORENSIC pathologists weren’t supposed to be cute.

Nor were they supposed to be Sarah.

Dr Alistair Benn stared at the crimson and white vision bouncing across the tarmac towards him and felt like leaving town. Now.

Leaving. Ha! As Dolphin Cove’s only doctor, Alistair was responsible for the health of the entire community. As well as that, there were the unknown passengers of a light plane found crashed just south of town. People were missing, and the signs were that they were badly hurt. To leave was impossible.

But Sarah…

Sarah was here?

He’d requested extra police, trackers and medical back-up. Real help. It hadn’t been forthcoming. There’d be someone sent from the aviation authority to check the crash site, he’d been told, but a request for additional assistance had been refused. The authorities had decided there was no evidence to justify sending such expensive help.

The decision had left him angry. He couldn’t understand why the pilot had died. He was sure the blood in the cargo area wasn’t the pilot’s. He’d asked again, with more force.

And they’d sent Sarah.

‘Hi.’ She was beaming, as if she was really pleased to see him. That concept was crazy—but she was certainly beaming. She smiled brightly at him, and then she smiled at the pilot of the plane that had brought her here. She smiled her gorgeous wide smile at the luggage carrier and he smiled right back.

She beamed at everyone and they were all totally trans-fixed.

Well, why wouldn’t they be? She was just the same as she always had been. Sarah. Five feet two in her stockinged feet and petite in every aspect.

Sarah’s diminutive appearance had never stopped her making an impact. Her auburn hair floated around her shoulders in a riot of curls. Her perpetually twinkling green eyes were huge. Her rosebud mouth complemented a cute snub nose with just the perfect amount of freckles. She wore—she’d always worn—short, short skirts and shiny, frivolous shoes. Gorgeous shoes. The spotted and high-heeled footwear she wore now was bright crimson to match her neat little business suit.

She might be wearing a business suit but she didn’t look corporate. Not in the least. She looked…

She looked like Sarah.

Alistair felt his gut clench in disbelief. And something else. Something he didn’t want to examine.

‘Aren’t you going to say hi?’ She was grasping his hand as if nothing lay between them. No history at all. Her smile said that maybe they were even old friends. His fingers automatically curved around her small soft hand and then, catching his breath in incredulity that this could possibly be happening, he released her and took an instinctive step back.

‘What do you think you’re doing here?’ As a greeting it needed some finesse, he conceded, but if he was poleaxed he might as well sound poleaxed.