In His Protective Custody. Marie Ferrarella

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      “You,” he said in surprise when he looked at her.

      “Me,” she confirmed. At least her breath was returning, she thought. Thank God for the small stuff. “Officer Calloway, I’d recognize that scowl anywhere,” she added, infusing a deliberate note of cheerfulness into her voice. And then she looked at the wound. “Let me guess. Someone decided that they weren’t thrilled with your attitude?”

      Alyx pulled on her umpteenth pair of rubber gloves, gingerly removed the hastily applied blood-soaked towel and then swiftly examined the wound. “Looks like you’re carrying around a little bit of metal. The good news is, it looks like we can get it out without messing up an O.R.”

      He didn’t want to waste any more time than he absolutely had to. He wanted to get back to the job. Five minutes ago. Nodding at his arm, he said, “Do your worst.”

      She had a feeling that he only respected confidence. So she displayed it. “Have no fear, Officer. Even my ‘worst’ is damn good.”

      Dear Reader,

      I ran out of sisters to use in the last book dealing with the Pulaski girls. But there was this craving to revisit them and their parents that I eventually found impossible to ignore. By now, even if you are a part-time reader of my work, you must know that I have this problem letting go. The families I create become part of me and I love to revisit and watch as more layers are added.

      So, here we are, becoming acquainted with the family of Josef Pulaski’s late younger brother, his wife and their four daughters. Did I mention they’re also doctors? First up is Aleksandra, who tries to come to the aid of an abused wife and winds up finding the man of her dreams instead.

      I hope you like this newest chapter of The Doctors Pulaski saga. As ever, I thank you for reading my books and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

      Love,

      Marie Ferrarella

      In His Protective Custody

      Marie Ferrarella

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MARIE FERRARELLA

      This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA^® Award-winning author has written two hundred books for Silhouette and Harlequin Books, some under the name of Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website at www.marieferrarella.com.

      To Nik, whom I loved and was proud of

       from the first moment I laid eyes on him

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 1

      Despite graduating from medical school in the top five percent of her class, which required endless hours of studying and hands-on experience, Dr. Aleksandra Pulaski didn’t think that the human body could sink to this level of exhaustion and still function.

      Yet hers had and it still worked.

      In her mind, her consciousness amounted to a modern-day miracle of minor proportions. Now, finally at the end of her endless day, she managed to put one foot in front of the other and drag herself from the underground parking structure to the elevator of the building she’d just moved into this month. The trip from the elevator to the front door of her apartment seemed twice as long as it should have been. Almost at journey’s end—every foot counted—she managed to get her key into the lock and get inside the incredibly spacious three-bedroom apartment without collapsing.

      That was when the last of her energy evaporated. Even the fumes on which she’d been running were gone. Just like that, her knees gave out.

      Fortunately, she was passing the sofa in the living room when they buckled. Angling, she landed on top of a cushion, utterly unable to move.

      She took it as an omen. Mama was very big on omens and, although normally she’d pretended it was all just old-country nonsense whenever her mother, Paulina Pulaski, brought up the subject, a very tiny part of her was her mother’s daughter and believed in omens.

      Right now, she would have believed in the existence of unicorns and pixies if it meant that she could just lie here for a few moments. Just long enough to gather her strength for the long trek from the living room to the second bedroom. That was the one she had claimed as her own once she stopped protesting that she couldn’t accept such a generous offer. The people making the offer were her cousins. They were the ones who actually lived here.

      Or had lived here before all five had gotten married. The protest was composed of one part honor and two parts guilt, both sections fueled by the fact that no one would allow her to pay even a small portion of the lease on this perfectly located fifth-floor apartment.

      Her cousins, doctors all, had said that she was doing them a favor, watching over the apartment when they weren’t around. Her fortuitous arrival in New York City had been the deciding factor that had them all agreeing to continue the lease on the apartment. At least, they would have somewhere to crash when they found themselves too tired to make the drive home to Queens or to the Island.

      Alyx quickly discovered that they, Sasha, Natalya, Kady, Tania and Marja, were all one nicer than the other. They divided the cost of the lease among themselves, leaving her to reap the benefits of their generosity. All they required was that she live in the apartment and occasionally dust if she had the time.

      She wished she and her three sisters had gotten to know her cousins better, like when they were all growing up. They would have, she was fairly confident, if Papa had lived.

      But after that awful day when Papa was taken from them, Mama had pretended that Uncle Josef and his family didn’t exist. She absolutely refused to allow any one of them to even get in contact with this branch of the family—the only family they had outside of one another and their aunt Zofia. Mama had never explained why, but Alyx was certain that it had to do with Papa’s death. Mama had changed abruptly right after Papa had died in that freak accident. Someone—the police had never been able to find out who—had accidentally pushed Papa, a transit cop, onto the tracks as he waited for the train.

      Horrified and heartbroken, Mama held everyone, including the City of New York and Uncle Josef who had initially sponsored Papa’s passage to America, accountable for his death. Five days after the funeral, Mama had uprooted all of them and moved to Chicago, where her sister, Aunt Zofia, lived.

      She’d said it was because she needed help in raising four girls without a husband to support her. It had been an excuse to turn her back on her husband’s family. Her decision was final, and for close to twenty years, she refused to discuss it or even have that side of the family’s names mentioned. In return, her mother devoted herself to the four of them. When Aunt Zofia passed away from leukemia, she left her money to the four of them and Mama.

      That was when she discovered that her secretive aunt held the title of a popular patent that had yielded a fortune, all of which was banked. Subsequently, a substantial amount of money, even in these dire times, was