The Doctor's Perfect Match. Arlene James

      

      A Time to Heal

      Everyone in Buffalo Creek, Texas, knows that Dr. Brooks Leland doesn’t date. After his harrowing loss, the widower focuses all his time on helping the sick. But when a mysterious newcomer with a heartbreaking secret becomes his patient, Brooks is drawn to Eva Russell. Suddenly, the blonde spitfire he can’t bear to fall for is working in his medical practice, living at Chatam House and challenging everything he knows about love. Now even the town’s triplet matchmakers have hope that these two battered hearts are on the way to healing.

      “You’d do that for me?” Eva asked incredulously.

      She stared at him and continued, “You’d ask family friends to take me in?”

      Brooks nodded. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve asked the Chatam sisters to take in a pa––er, person.”

      “No? What other patients have you asked these sisters to take in?” she asked, grinning at him.

      Brooks looked her straight in the eye. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

      Eva grinned and swayed toward him, her long pale hair glimmering. He had to admit that he’d never seen a more exotic, graceful, breathtaking sight. He hoped that she would refuse so he could wash his hands of her.

      She did not.

      “Okay. I guess I can stand a little antebellum mansion. Just until I can figure out what to do next.”

      He gulped, disappointed and strangely pleased. “Let’s go then.” He walked her to the car, without releasing her arm, and handed her down into it.

      He was bringing his best friend’s aunties another foundling, and he hoped that she wasn’t going to break all their hearts.

      ARLENE JAMES has been publishing steadily for nearly four decades and is a charter member of RWA. She is married to an acclaimed artist, and together they have traveled extensively. After growing up in Oklahoma, Arlene lived thirty-four years in Texas and now abides in beautiful northwest Arkansas, near two of the world’s three loveliest, smartest, most talented granddaughters. She is heavily involved in her family, church and community.

      The Doctor’s

      Perfect Match

       Arlene James

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction,

      faithful in prayer.

      —Romans 12:12

      For Erica,

      who has made my son so very happy

      and his mom forever grateful.

      Contents

       Cover

       Back Cover Text

       Introduction

       About the Author

       Title Page

       Bible Verse

       Dedication

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

       Chapter Fifteen

       Dear Reader

       Extract

       Copyright

       Chapter One

      Even in Buffalo Creek, Texas, with the bright sunshine streaming down and the utter absence of wind, January meant chill temperatures. Still, the willowy blonde had found a unique way to gather a crowd for her sales demonstration. Beneath the awning that she’d erected beside her minivan, she chattered and joked, flipping her long, straight butter-yellow hair, winking her big catlike eyes at her laughing onlookers, the colorful scarves draped about her person waving languidly. All the while she worked, she pressed bits of string and wood, gravel and broken glass into a damp clay disk, which she would presumably then bake in a small microwave oven at her elbow.

      As tired as he was, Dr. Brooks Leland would have liked to have paused and joined in the fun, but he’d promised his best friend, Morgan, that he wouldn’t be late to dinner. For once. Besides, since the untimely death of his pretty blonde wife, he avoided women—especially blondes—like the plague. Oh, he would do it again, go through all the pain and the grief, just for those two short years with Brigitte. He would not, however, risk that kind of loss for anyone else, let alone stand in the cold just to watch a lovely woman try to sell unusual objects of art created on the spot.

      Hurrying past the crowd, he crossed the parking lot to the entrance of the grocery store. Once inside, he picked up the multigrain bread requested by his hostess and, on impulse, grabbed a bouquet of flowers.

      He’d given up trying to make his old buddy jealous. Not that he’d ever had any real interest in Lyla Simone anyway, but it had taken a mighty shove to make the confirmed bachelor professor tumble into love with his comely graduate student, and Brooks had been only too glad to deliver the blow. Once he’d fallen, Morgan Chatam had fallen hard. He was not a man to give