The Stranger's Secret. Maggie Kingsley

      

      “Is there anyone I can call to come over and stay with you?”

      “I don’t need anybody. I’ll be all right.”

      “You won’t—and I don’t just mean simply tonight. Jess, you’re going to be in plaster for a minimum of eight weeks. You might just be able to do your surgeries, but how are you going to do any home visits or night calls when you can’t drive?”

      “It’s not your problem,” she pointed out.

      “Of course it’s my problem,” he shot back. “There’s only one thing I can do. I’ll have to stay.”

      “Stay?” she echoed faintly.

      “And not just for tonight,” he fumed. “I’m going to have to stay with you until you get a replacement.”

      Dear Reader,

      I moved to the far north of Scotland ten years ago and have never regretted it. It’s beautiful, remote—some people would say it’s lonely—but I’ve never found it so. It occurred to me recently that almost all of the “incomers” I’ve met since moving here have been running away from something. An unhappy marriage, a job they disliked, a situation they could no longer face.

      It was this thought that inspired me to create the island of Greensay, and the mysterious Ezra Dunbar. He’s a man with a past, who seems to have no future until he meets the local family physician, Jess Arden, and then…

      Well, I just hope you enjoy discovering how Ezra finds his future as much as I enjoyed writing about it!

      Maggie

      The Stranger’s Secret

      Maggie Kingsley

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

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      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Dear Reader

       Title Page

       CHAPTER ONE

       CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       EPILOGUE

       Copyright

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘ARE you all right?’

      The driver of the dark blue Mercedes wasn’t simply a maniac, Jess decided, opening her eyes slowly, only to close them again when a searing pain shot down her leg. He was a gold-plated, top-of-the-class idiot as well. How on earth could she possibly be ‘all right’ after he’d just driven at breakneck speed round the corner of the single-track road straight into her car?

      ‘I really don’t think you should try to move,’ the deep male voice continued with concern when she eased herself gingerly back from her steering-wheel. ‘You might be injured.’

      ‘Of course I’m injured,’ she muttered through clenched teeth. ‘My right leg’s fractured.’

      ‘It may simply be jarred—’

      ‘I’m a doctor and, believe me, it’s fractured.’ And if I’m not very careful I’m going to burst into tears, Jess realised with dismay when a cool, firm hand suddenly enveloped hers.

      She didn’t need this. She really, really didn’t need this. Five minutes ago she’d been congratulating herself on having got through all her afternoon home visits early. Had even thought she might actually have time to attack her mounting paperwork before the start of her evening surgery, and now…

      ‘Are you in pain anywhere else?’ the male voice said quickly as a sob came from her. ‘Your chest, neck—’

      ‘Look, do you suppose you could stop playing doctor for a moment and concentrate on getting me out of here?’ she asked as the fingers which had been taking her pulse moved to her throat.

      ‘Wouldn’t it be more sensible if I called for an ambulance?’

      Good grief, the idiot was using the tone she always adopted when she was dealing with a difficult child. If she’d been fit enough she’d have hit him.

      ‘There isn’t any ambulance,’ she said tightly. ‘At least not today. It’s down in the garage, having an overhaul.’

      ‘Then another doctor—’

      ‘There isn’t another doctor on Greensay, only me.’

      ‘I still don’t think—’

      ‘No, you obviously don’t, do you?’ she retorted, fighting back her tears. ‘Because if you had thought you wouldn’t have been driving like a maniac, and if you hadn’t been driving like a maniac I wouldn’t—’

      ‘Be in this mess?’ he finished for her awkwardly. ‘Look, I’m really sorry. I needed a few things from the shops—’

      ‘And you thought they might disappear unless you drove at eighty miles an hour?’

      A low, husky chuckle was his only reply, and she turned towards the sound and tried to focus.