The Surgeon's Doorstep Baby. Marion Lennox

      About the Author

      MARION LENNOX is a country girl, born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows just weren’t interested in her stories! Married to a ‘very special doctor’, Marion writes Medical Romances™, as well as Mills & Boon^® Romances. (She used a different name for each category for a while—if you’re looking for her Romances, search for author Trisha David as well.) She’s now had well over 90 romance novels accepted for publication.

      In her non-writing life Marion cares for kids, cats, dogs, chooks and goldfish. She travels, she fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost). Having spun in circles for the first part of her life, she’s now stepped back from her ‘other’ career, which was teaching statistics at her local university. Finally she’s reprioritised her life, figured out what’s important, and discovered the joys of deep baths, romance and chocolate. Preferably all at the same time!

      

       Recent titles by Marion Lennox:

SYDNEY HARBOUR HOSPITAL: LILY’S SCANDAL†

DYNAMITE DOC OR CHRISTMAS DAD?*

      THE DOCTOR AND THE RUNAWAY HEIRESS*

NIKKI AND THE LONE WOLF**

      MARDIE AND THE CITY SURGEON**

†Sydney Harbour Hospital

*Mills & Boon^® Medical™ Romance

**Mills & Boon^® Romance Banksia Bay miniseries

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

      The Surgeon’s

      Doorstep Baby

      Marion Lennox

      

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

       Dear Reader

      This year our family farm is to be leased out as my brother retires from farming. One of the next generation may well decide farming’s the life for them, but it needs to be a decision they make in the future, when the time’s right for them. Thus, for now, more than a hundred years of farming history is pausing.

      For me this is a sadness. Although I’ve long left behind the reality of twice-daily milking, our family farm has never lost its power, its warmth, its pull. Happily, though, I can still disappear into a farming community in my books.

      As you might have read in my introduction to MARDIE AND THE CITY SURGEON, recently the farm was flooded. At midnight a neighbour rang my brother to say the river had broken its banks, and a paddock full of calves was disappearing under water. My brother and sister-in-law thus spent the night in their kids’ ancient canoe, saving every one of their calves.

      The story was a fun one, with a happy ending, and the half-grown calves reacted like excited kids when they were finally rescued. The story made me smile—and, as always, it made me think, What if …? What if I threw my city surgeon hero into such a scene? What if my heroine had to depend on him? What if … what if I even threw a wounded baby into the mix?

      I love my writing, where reality and fantasy can mingle to become pure fun. As you read this, however, know that the calves are real, the happy ending is true and each rescued calf is now a safe and cared-for member of a magnificent herd. Our farm—our heritage—stays alive in the hearts of every one of our family members, and hopefully in the warmth and fun my writing enables me to share.

      Warm wishes from a bit of an emotional

       Marion

      Dedication:

      To Cobrico. To Mayfield. To my beloved family who form the bedrock of who I am.

      CHAPTER ONE

      As CHIEF orthopaedic surgeon for one of Sydney’s most prestigious teaching hospitals, Blake Samford was used to being woken in the middle of the night for emergencies.

      Right now, however, he was recuperating at his father’s farm, two hundred miles from Sydney.

      He wasn’t expecting an emergency.

      He wasn’t expecting a baby.

      Maggie Tilden loved lying in the dark, listening to rain on the corrugated-iron roof. She especially liked lying alone to listen.

      She had a whole king-sized bed to herself. Hers, all hers. She’d been renting this apartment—a section of the grandest homestead in Corella Valley—for six months now, and she was savouring every silent moment of it.

      Oh, she loved being free. She loved being here. The elements could throw what they liked at her; she was gloriously happy. She wriggled her toes luxuriously against her cotton sheets and thought, Bring it on, let it rain.

      She wasn’t even worried about the floods.

      This afternoon the bridge had been deemed unsafe. Debris from the flooded country to the north was being slammed against the ancient timbers, and the authorities were worried the whole thing would go. As of that afternoon, the bridge was roped off and the entire valley was isolated.

      Residents had been advised to evacuate and many had, but a lot of the old-time farmers wouldn’t move if you put a bulldozer under them. They’d seen floods before. They’d stocked up with provisions, they’d made sure their stock was on high ground and they were sitting it out.

      Maggie was doing the same.

      A clap of thunder split the night and Tip, the younger Border collie, whined and edged closer to the bed.

      ‘It’s okay, guys,’ she told them, as the ancient Blackie moved in for comfort as well. ‘We’re safe and dry, and we have a whole month’s supply of dog food. What else could we want?’

      And then she paused.

      Over the sound of the driving rain she could hear a car. Gunned, fast. Driving over the bridge?

      It must have gone right around the roadblock.

      Were they crazy? The volume of water powering down the valley was a risk all by itself. There were huge warning signs saying the bridge was unsafe.

      But the bridge was still intact, and the car made it without mishap. She heard the change in noise as it reached the bitumen on this side, and she relaxed, expecting the car’s noise to fade as it headed inland.

      But it didn’t. She heard it turn into her driveway—okay, not hers, but the driveway of the Corella View Homestead.

      If the car had come from this side of the river she’d be out of bed straight away, expecting drama. As district nurse, she was the only person with medical training on this side of the river—but the car had come from the other side, where there was a hospital and decent medical help.

      She’d also be worrying about her brother. Pete was in the middle of teenage rebellion, and