Christmas Where She Belongs. Meredith Webber

      Praise for Meredith Webber:

      ‘Medical Romance™ favourite Meredith Webber

       has penned a spellbinding and moving tale set under the hot desert sun!’ —Cataromance on THE DESERT PRINCE’S CONVENIENT BRIDE

      ‘Medical Romance™ favourite Meredith Webber has

       written an outstanding romantic tale that I devoured in a single sitting—moving, engrossing, romantic and absolutely unputdownable! Ms Webber peppers her story with plenty of drama, emotion and passion, and she will keep her readers entranced until the final page.’ —Cataromance on A PREGNANT NURSE’S CHRISTMAS WISH

      ‘Meredith Webber does a beautiful job

       as she crafts one of the most unique romances I’ve read in a while. Reading a tale by Meredith Webber is always a pleasure and THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE is no exception!’ —Book Illuminations on THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE

       Somehow Clancy was in his arms, dirt and all, and as he held her body close to his the tension drained out of him, to be replaced by a gladness he had no idea how to explain.

      So he kissed her instead of trying for words—kissed her lips, her chin, her eyelids, showering kisses on her face, not daring to move lower because there was more heat in him than in the overly hot attic.

      And Clancy was kissing him back, her lips finding bits of his skin, pressing against it, murmuring all the time—wordless sounds that were music to his ears.

      His hands roamed across her back, feeling the flat planes of her shoulderblades, the fine, sharp bones of her spine, the padding on her backside that had teased him as he’d climbed the stairs.

      ‘We promised Helen,’ she finally reminded him, ‘and anyway, this is daft. We barely know each other.’

      He eased back so he could look into her face.

      ‘I know you, Willow Clancy. You’re as soft and sheltering as the tree whose name you bear, yet tenacious too, your roots deep in the earth, so you stay upright while floods rage around you. It isn’t time we need in order to know about each other—you know that as well as I do, because we knew each other when we met. As if fate had worked it out. Whether that’s a good thing is another matter altogether.’

       Dear Reader

      Christmas 2010 to January 2011 was a really tough time for many thousands of people in my home state of Queensland, Australia, as floods and a vicious cyclone devastated eighty percent of the state. Rebuilding property has taken a very long time, and rebuilding the people—especially families who lost loved ones—will take a lot longer.

      Having spent a lot of time in the areas devastated by these events, I wanted this book to be a tribute to the way people who have suffered such adversity and loss heave themselves up off the ground—or out of the mud, in this case—and get on with life. Christmas must have been especially hard for many of those people, but the human spirit prevails and celebrations continue.

      Mac and Clancy’s story is typical of how the spirit of Christmas can help with healing, and bring joy to people who are or have been suffering. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

      Best wishes

       Meredith

       About the Author

      MEREDITH WEBBER says of herself, ‘Once I read an article which suggested that Mills and Boon were looking for new Medical Romance™ authors. I had one of those “I can do that” moments, and gave it a try. What began as a challenge has become an obsession—though I do temper the “butt on seat” career of writing with dirty but healthy outdoor pursuits, fossicking through the Australian Outback in search of gold or opals. Having had some success in all of these endeavours, I now consider I’ve found the perfect lifestyle.’

       Recent titles by Meredith Webber:

      THE SHEIKH AND THE SURROGATE MUM

      NEW DOC IN TOWN

      ORPHAN UNDER THE CHRISTMAS TREE

      MELTING THE ARGENTINE DOCTOR’S HEART

      TAMING DR TEMPEST

      

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

      Christmas

       Where She Belongs

      Meredith Webber

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      CHAPTER ONE

      HE SHOULDN’T have brought the dog. This had occurred to him even before he’d approached the front entrance to the ultra-modern block of apartments on Brisbane’s South Bank complex. But young Gracie had needed to get to hospital, and the boy up the road who usually fed the dog when he, Mac, went away, was off on holidays with his family.

      In fact, just about the whole town was on holiday—down at the coast, splashing in the sea, trying to put the trauma of last year’s floods behind them as they celebrated the Christmas break with family and friends.

      So, he’d had to bring the dog, and it wasn’t actually deliberate that he was encouraging Mike to investigate an interesting new city smell just a couple of yards from the classy-looking entrance to the apartment block.

      A couple of yards from the camera he could see winking above the numbers and name plates on a panel beside the door!

      Deep breath, press the buzzer, you’re doing this for Hester. You loved Hester and deep down you love Mike, for all his lack of ability to learn even the most basic of dog commands.

      ‘Heel!’ he said hopefully to Mike, who’d wandered as far as his lead—well, bit of rope, really—would allow.

      Mike turned around and smiled goofily at him—smiling was the one thing the dog was good at and anyone who’d seen him smile had to admit it was a smile.

      Mac smiled back.

      Clancy jumped as the sound of the front-door buzzer blasted through the small apartment.

      Well, maybe not blasted, but she’d been sitting on a beanbag—in the beanbag—and gazing blankly at the ceiling, trying to decide if she was bored enough with the long summer break to go down and visit her mother.

      ‘Come for Christmas,’ her mother kept urging, but, much as Clancy loved her beautiful, warm, zany mother, and was fond of the group of friends who shared her mother’s life in the commune, memories of the nut loaf in the shape of a turkey that had been the centrepiece of last year’s Christmas dinner were still vivid in Clancy’s mind.

      That and the lantana flower wine.

      So she’d reached the ‘probably not’ stage, and was just considering starting on the ‘to do’ list she’d written at the beginning of the holidays when the noise of the buzzer startled her. It was enough of a shock that getting out of the beanbag became more of a battle than usual—it clutched at her so that tipping it to one side and crawling out became the only option.

      The buzzer sounded angry the second time, so she grabbed at the handset, dropped it, picked it up and finally peered at the picture on the small screen.

      There was a pirate on her doorstep.

      Or maybe he was a buccaneer—she had no idea what constituted the difference between the two. Tousled, over-long dark hair, a couple of days’ beard and dark, deep-set eyes glared into the camera. His lips