Bride at Bay Hospital. Meredith Webber

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      “I used to daydream about this,” she said. “Sitting in the car beside you—the wind blowing through my hair.”

      He turned toward her and smiled. “Well, you were the only girl I ever imagined beside me in the red convertible, although I did wonder if the color would clash with your hair.”

      “Is that why you bought a blue car?” Meg teased, feeling more at ease with Sam since his surprise return.

      “Maybe it was,” he told her, but he wasn’t smiling now. He was looking at the road ahead and frowning slightly. He couldn’t possibly have bought a blue car because it would go better with the hair of someone he hadn’t seen for thirteen years, Sam told himself. No, not even subconsciously.

      But the thought had rattled him—the way everything about Meg was rattling him.

      Dear Reader,

      I live in Queensland, which is the northeast corner of Australia. From my home on the Gold Coast in the far south, there are a series of long sand islands off the coast. Over millions of years they have built up, so some have sand dunes as mountains and all of them have patches of thick rainforest, as well as coastal vegetation. All but one are accessible only by boat or barge, but all are popular with locals and tourists. I’ve been visiting these islands all my life and enjoying their beauty and peaceful tranquility, so I suppose it was inevitable that one of them would find its way into a book one day.

      Another Australian custom when I was growing up, was that of the “holiday house.” Although often the house was only a large tent, every Christmas, during the six weeks of summer holidays, Aussies head en masse for the beach, usually going to the same place each time. The result is kids that grow up with friends they hang around with for six weeks every summer, and often don’t see for the rest of the year. But the friendships, which are formed as the kids surf alongside each other, or fish from dinghies hired with pooled pocket money, or walk the coastal tracks and explore the rock pools, are special friendships that bypass the restraints of distance and last forever.

      This is how Meg and Sam met. Drawn together by the bond of being only children, they became “holiday” friends—and “holiday” friends are special, because you can share the secrets of your heart with them, knowing you won’t be seeing them as often as you see your regular friends. “Holiday” friends share some of your happiest memories.

      In this story, these friends grew into teenagers and fell in love….

      Meredith Webber

      Bride at Bay Hospital

      Meredith Webber

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

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      CONTENTS

       CHAPTER ONE

       CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      MEG heard the voice as she grabbed an armful of clothes from the built-in wardrobe in the main bedroom.

      Her bedroom!

      Or it had been until today.

      Or officially yesterday.

      ‘Vacant possession!’ The voice was deep, and powerful enough to carry right through the old wooden house without being raised to shouting level. ‘I stipulated vacant possession.’

      Whoever was on the receiving end of the cold statement must have had a quieter voice, for Meg heard nothing of the explanation. But by then she was scurrying through the kitchen, intending to slip out the back way, down the steps and across to the cottage next door without being seen.

      ‘He’d have had his bloody vacant possession if it weren’t for the flu,’ she muttered to herself, as exhaustion from an extra night shift weakened her bones and sapped her confidence so self-pity lurked perilously close.

      She didn’t do self-pity!

      ‘Not that he’s arrived with a furniture van all ready to move in,’ she told her cat, who’d come out of the cottage to see if any of the clothes were trailing a belt or ribbon that would make a good plaything.

      Meg dumped her load on her bed and crossed to the window in time to see the realtor’s car drive off.

      Great! She could nick back over and get the rest of her stuff. One drawer full of undies—that was it!

      She’d give him vacant possession!

      But as she walked through the kitchen a sense of loss overwhelmed her, and she faltered as she remembered the happy times she’d had in the old house. Up until now, she’d only considered the financial aspect of moving—her father had let her have the house at a nominal rent because he’d understood her dream.

      But now…

      No, she wouldn’t think about her father—or about the dream.

      The dream her mother said was foolish…

      Anger swamped her maudlin mood. Anger at her mother for deciding to sell their old holiday house—anger at the stranger who had bought her memories. Muttering dire threats she would never carry out, she stomped back into the bedroom.

      The stranger, tall and dark, face shadowed by the window behind him, was twirling one of her G-strings round his fingers so the little red hearts on it made a circle of red against the white—red, white, red, white.

      ‘Put that down!’ She gave equal emphasis to each word, her own red anger, barely controlled, whirling in her head.

      ‘Megan?’

      The stranger looked from