Second Chance With Her Island Doc

By saving his island...

...can this time be forever?

When Dr. Anna Raymond unexpectedly inherits a fortune, she’s forced to travel to a Mediterranean island and comes face-to-face with Leo Aretino, the doctor she’d once hoped to marry! On discovering Anna was related to Tovahna’s hated ruling family, Leo knew marrying her would be impossible. But now, as Anna uses her inheritance to revitalize the island, can she persuade Leo that they can finally have a future together?

MARION LENNOX has written over one hundred romance novels, and is published in over one hundred countries and thirty languages. Her international awards include the prestigious RITA® award (twice!) and the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award for ‘a body of work which makes us laugh and teaches us about love’. Marion adores her family, her kayak, her dog, and lying on the beach with a book someone else has written. Heaven!

Also by Marion Lennox

From Christmas to Forever?

Saving Maddie’s Baby

A Child to Open Their Hearts

Falling for Her Wounded Hero

Reunited with Her Surgeon Prince

The Billionaire’s Christmas Baby

Finding His Wife, Finding a Son

English Lord on Her Doorstep

The Baby They Longed For

Cinderella and the Billionaire

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Second Chance with Her Island Doc

Marion Lennox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09015-5

SECOND CHANCE WITH HER ISLAND DOC

© 2019 Marion Lennox

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

‘HEAD LACERATIONS ALWAYS look worse than they are. If you’ll help me to a washbasin I’ll stop wasting your time. I’m not dizzy any more. Really.’

The woman’s voice drifting from the treatment room was warm, husky and a little bit shaky. She was speaking the Tovahnan language, with an English accent overlaid.

Dr Leo Aretino knew this voice well. For the last few weeks he’d been expecting her arrival on the island, but hoping he could avoid her.

He hadn’t been expecting her here, in his territory.

The language she was speaking was Leo’s native tongue. The first time he’d heard her use it had been over ten years ago. She’d been standing over a microscope, trying to focus. The ’scope had been fiddly, but Anna had been patient. She’d started humming, and then softly singing to herself. In Tovahnan.

It was a tune his mother had taught him as a child.

Leo had doubted if anyone at their prestigious English medical school had even heard of his birthplace, the island of Tovahna, much less known how to speak its language. He’d cut across her song, incredulous. ‘Where did you learn that?’

‘From my mother,’ she’d said. She’d had the slide in focus at that point and had been looking intently at the nasty little pathogen the tutor wanted them to see.

‘Your mother’s Tovahnan?’

‘Yes, she is. Or she was. She left Tovahna before I was born.’ Anna had checked the slide again. ‘But it’s this little guy we’re interested in. You want to look?’

There was a queue. He needed to look at the bug.

His attention was solidly diverted.

Tovahna was a Mediterranean island, sparsely populated, fought over for centuries until its big neighbours had decided it wasn’t worth the bother. It was now mostly ignored by the outside world. Few foreigners made the effort to visit, much less learn the language. The women of Tovahna were generally olive skinned and dark haired. Anna had red hair and freckles. This didn’t make sense.

‘Your mother taught you Tovahnan songs?’

‘She taught me the language.’ She’d moved away from the microscope, allowing the student after Leo access. ‘I think she used it to assuage homesickness. But you’ve missed your turn,’ she’d told him, switching effortlessly into speaking Tovahnan. She’d smiled, a wide, happy smile that had made him feel even more astounded. ‘Don’t tell me you’re...’

‘Tovahnan.’ And suddenly he’d been close to tears.

Tovahna was tiny, impoverished, its assets gouged for generations by a single family dynasty. Most of its people were trapped in a ceaseless cycle of poverty, but Leo had been so smart at school that the community had rallied to send him to England.

‘Get yourself a medical degree and then come home and help us,’ they’d told him, and off he’d gone, aged all of fifteen.

At nineteen he’d been doing brilliantly. His English had been flawless. He’d fitted in with his fellow students. He’d even been enjoying himself, hardly homesick at all. So there’d been no reason why he should gaze at this redheaded, freckled, fellow student speaking his language and feel like...he’d wanted to take her into his arms.

Of course, he hadn’t. Not right then. It had been two whole days before he’d kissed her.

It wasn’t just that they’d shared a language. Anna had been special.

But that was past history, he told himself as he listened to her voice carrying from the next room. What was between them had been a long time ago. Right now he needed to focus on medical imperatives. A woman he’d met years before was being carried into his emergency room on a stretcher.

He was a doctor and he had to deal with whoever needed to be treated. He needed to haul himself together and go see what the problem was.

The medical problem.

* * *

Wow, her head hurt.

The thump against stone had been stupid and entirely predictable. When she’d insisted she wanted to see everything—she now owned a castle and who wouldn’t want to see it all?—her late cousin’s agent had given her a torch.

‘Watch your head,’ he’d told her as he’d led her deep into the depths of Tovahna Castle.

What she’d seen had been a maze of tunnels, some built almost a thousand years ago. Secret passages led in and out from the castle walls, to be used in times of siege. There were hidden living areas, ventilation shafts, storage spaces for weapons, for food and water, all dark and dusty and so fascinating it was no wonder she’d finally forgotten to watch her head.

The thump had been solid and the results immediate. The world had spun and then disappeared. She’d surfaced to find blood oozing down her forehead. Victoir, the agent, had been useless, torn between wanting to help and not wanting to get blood on his suit. Finally she’d ripped off her windcheater and applied pressure herself, then had him help her to the surface.

‘I don’t want paramedics coming down here,’ she’d told him. ‘This looks worse than it is. You’ll have a team of split heads instead of one.’

But emerging to daylight, Victoir’s authority reasserted itself. ‘I’ve called the ambulance,’ he told her. ‘I said those passages were dangerous. They need to be closed off, filled in, before someone’s killed. Kids get in and we can’t stop them. You’ve seen the parts that are crumbling. And now this...’

And then a rattletrap ambulance had come blaring down the cobblestoned street to the castle forecourt, and Anna had been bundled inside before she could object.

She could hardly blame them, she decided. She probably did look like something out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and, to be honest, she was still a bit woozy. So she’d lain back and let the paramedics put in a drip to compensate for blood loss. She’d felt every bumpy cobble as they’d made their way who knew where, until finally she’d been carried into what looked a plain, businesslike emergency entrance.

‘The doctor’s on his way,’ a middle-aged nurse told her. She didn’t attempt to remove the windcheater-pad Anna was still holding. ‘Don’t worry. Our Dr Leo’s on duty and he’s the best we have.’

And her bad day suddenly got worse.

Dr Leo. No! Please...

But then the door swung open and a guy in a white coat was beside her trolley. ‘Maria, what do we have here?’

And her worst fears were realised.

Leo Aretino. Her first love.

Her greatest love.

How could you be truly in love at nineteen? You couldn’t be, she’d decided. What they’d had had been a teenage fling.

He’d broken her heart, but teenagers’ hearts were made to be broken. She’d told herself that over and over in the years between then and now. She’d met other men. She’d even fancied herself in love with them, but the thought of Leo had always stayed with her. Tall, dark, intense, speaking the language of her mother, making her laugh, studying with her, making her body sing...

And then walking away...

She closed her eyes. Her head felt like it was about to explode and it wasn’t just the pain from the accident.

She’d guessed she might meet him when she came here, but to meet him now, like this...

‘It’s Anna Raymond.’ The nurse’s voice held suppressed excitement. ‘Anna Castlavara. Katrina’s daughter. Victoir was showing her the tunnels under the castle.’

‘Of course.’ Leo’s voice was smooth, unfussed, as if the name meant nothing to him. Had he known she’d be in the country? He must have, she thought. For Tovahna this must have been big news.

It had been big news to her. Her cousin’s death. An inheritance so huge she could hardly take it in.

Leo.

‘Anna and I have met before.’ Leo still sounded calm. Professional. Like she was one of the scores of patients he saw each day. She was a fellow student he’d had a casual fling with ten years ago. No more.

A fellow student who’d inherited most of his country?

‘Anna.’ His voice gentled and he spoke in English. ‘Are you with us?’

‘I’m with you.’ She couldn’t keep ten years of resentment from her voice. ‘Unfortunately.’

‘Can you open your eyes?’

‘I can but I don’t want to.’

‘Because the light hurts?’

‘Because I don’t want to see you.’

And the man had the temerity to chuckle.

‘Still the firebrand I remember, then, Anna? Okay, keep those eyes closed and I’ll check out the rest.’

His hand was on her wrist and the touch made her...what? She should want to pull away.

She didn’t do that either.

He didn’t touch the pad on her head. He was doing an overall assessment, she thought, checking the IV line, blood pressure, the paramedic notes. Taking in the whole picture.

He was a fine doctor. She remembered that comment at their graduation ceremony. Leo hadn’t been there. As soon as his last exam was behind him he’d left to do a fast track course in surgery before heading home. To Tovahna. But at the graduation his name had been read out with pride by the head of the medical faculty. ‘Dr Leo Aretino has topped almost every class during his time here and he intends returning to serve his country. He’s a doctor we can be proud of, now and into the future.’

So she was in good hands. Leo’s hands.

She hurt.

‘Is it just your head?’ The laughter was gone now—he was all doctor—and that gentle voice she remembered so well was almost enough to bring tears to her eyes. ‘Anna, have you hurt anything else?’

‘Just m-my head,’ she managed, and was ashamed it came out as a stammered whisper.

‘Do you remember what happened?’

‘There was a cavern with ancient pottery urns. I bent to see and then stood up.’ She managed to dredge up a bit of indignation but it was directed at herself. ‘Victoir said it was dangerous and I didn’t listen.’

‘The notes said you lost consciousness.’

‘Victoir said I was out of it for a few seconds, but all I can remember is bang and then feeling dizzy.’

Leo would be thinking of internal bleeding, she thought. Did they have the facilities to treat that here?

She’d read about Tovahna over the years—of course she had.

Still almost a feudal economy, with one family controlling much of the wealth. Most of the population pay rent to the Castlavaran family, and little is put back into infrastructure. Schools, hospitals, public services are minimal, to say the least.

Tourist sites reported on the medical facilities, too.

Travellers are advised to carry extra health insurance to cover transport to a neighbouring country. Medical services are basic. Complex medical situations often mean either evacuation or a less than satisfactory outcome.

A less than satisfactory outcome. Death?

‘If I did lose consciousness it was only for seconds,’ she said, more surely now. Wanting to reassure herself as well as him. ‘You know split heads bleed enough to make people think you’re at death’s door.’

‘Blood running down faces does seem to frighten onlookers,’ he agreed, and she heard the hint of humour return. It was the laughter she’d fallen for. Oh, Leo... ‘We’ll take X-rays to be sure, though.’

‘You have facilities?’

‘Amazingly, we have.’ The laughter was still there, but underneath...the trace of bitterness she’d heard only once but would remember for ever. Old accusations flooded back. ‘Your family has sucked our country dry...’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...’

‘Let’s take a look,’ he said, gentle again, and he moved the padded windcheater aside.

The paramedics had moved it to do a fast check but they’d replaced it and bound it fast, thinking it was best not to disturb things until they had a doctor’s back-up. Now the bleeding had stopped, and it had become sticky. She felt the windcheater tug on the dried blood in her hair.

She had no choice. Finally she opened her eyes.

Leo was right there, leaning over her. His face was maybe two hand widths from hers. This was a Leo who was older, his face creased a little, with age, with weather, his eyes seemingly deeper set.

But he was the same Leo. Those gorgeous brown eyes. The deep black, crinkly hair, a bit unkempt. The laughter lines. His mouth...

It was as if he was about to kiss...

Um...not. He was looking at her head, not into her eyes.

Oh, but those eyes...

She needed to get over herself.

She’d never intended seeing him. Once she’d got over the shock of her inheritance, her intention had been to come here fast, put the organisation of the estate firmly back into the hands of her cousin’s agent and then retreat. She knew the country was impoverished and she had no intention of making it more so. Her uncle and then her cousin had squirrelled away rents and profits. She needed to figure a way to channel them into charities, and then go home.

Home was in England, where she worked as a family doctor in a village a couple of hours south of London. The community was lovely and she loved her job. She had two beloved springer spaniels, dopy but fun. She’d recently broken up with a rather nice lawyer but they were still friends. She had lots of friends. Life was good.

This inheritance had been like a bombshell. Now, looking up into Leo’s face, it seemed even more so.

For the reason things had never progressed with her ‘rather nice lawyer’ was right here. After all this time, to have this memory messing with her life...

This memory? Leo.

But Leo wasn’t looking at her. His fingers—oh, she remembered those fingers—were carefully untangling the matted hair so he could see what he was dealing with.

‘This was some thump,’ he told her. ‘You’ll need stitches and a thorough check. Sorry, Anna, but we need to shave some of your hair.’

‘Nothing a scarf won’t hide,’ she said, trying for lightness. ‘It was my own fault.’

‘But you were down in the underground labyrinth.’

‘Just checking.’

‘Checking your inheritance.’

‘That’s right.’ How hard was that to say lightly?

‘I’m sorry about your cousin.’

‘Really?’ She was trying not to wince at the feel of his fingers. Not from pain, though. He was being gentle.

He always had been gentle.

‘Yanni’s death was unexpected,’ he told her, still carefully probing. ‘Although with the lifestyle he led...’

‘Eating and hoarding money,’ she said. ‘I’ve been told. My mother said his father—Mum’s brother—was the same.’

‘And he died of a heart attack as well,’ Leo said. ‘Twenty years apart, both their deaths almost instant. Your cousin was only thirty-eight, but with the lifestyle he led and his family history... There was nothing we could do.’

‘Hey, I’m not blaming you.’ She sighed. Her head really did hurt. ‘Leo, could you find someone else to stitch my head? To be honest, having you treating me is making me feel a whole lot worse. You don’t like anything about me and my family, right?’

‘I treated your cousin,’ he said, without answering her question. ‘Or I tried to. He refused to listen to concerns about cholesterol or weight. But I did my best. I’ll do my best with you.’

‘You can’t imagine how grateful that makes me feel,’ she muttered. ‘Is there no one else?’

‘Not right now. Our only other doctor is in the midst of a birth.’

‘You only have two doctors?’

‘This island’s small.’

‘I’ve read about it. Twenty thousand people. Two doctors?’

‘You tell me how to get the money to train them and I’ll do something about it. We have a couple of islanders we’ve trained as nurse-practitioners. They’re good, but for a head wound you need either Carla or me.’

She’d known the island was impoverished. Two doctors, though, for such a population... Now, though, wasn’t the time for thinking about it. ‘I’ll wait for Carla,’ she said, and she knew she sounded belligerent but she couldn’t help it. This man had hurt her in the past and hurt her badly. She didn’t want him anywhere near her.

‘I doubt if you can wait that long.’ He stood back a little, studying her. Like an interesting bug? Like he didn’t even know her. ‘So what were you doing climbing under the castle without a hard hat?’

‘A hard hat...’ she said cautiously, and thought about it. Or tried to think about it. The knock had made her feel ill, and Leo’s presence was now removing almost all the rest of her ability to think logically. ‘Maybe that would have been sensible,’ she conceded at last. ‘It wasn’t offered as an option, though, and I really wanted to see.’

‘So Victoir took you underground?’

‘He was my cousin’s agent. He knows the place.’

‘He also knows the rule about hard hats. He didn’t warn you?’

‘Of course he did. He said it’s dangerous. He said the entire underground needs to be closed off, and I guess now I agree. My inheritance states that capital must be used to improve or maintain the castle itself. That’s pretty limiting. Victoir’s idea is that I close off the underground area and divide the castle into apartments. He says with the view over the sea they’ll command exorbitant rent and provide an economic boost for the whole island.’

‘I imagine they will,’ Leo said dryly. ‘And an economic boost for Victoir as well. So he told you that going underground was dangerous.’

‘I told you.’ She sighed. ‘Leo, can we just get on with this? Fix my head, charge me what you like and let me go.’

‘You know I won’t keep you longer than I must,’ he said, formally now. ‘But losing consciousness... You know as well as I do that overnight obs are essential. Like it or not, you’re stuck here for the night.’

He turned back to the nurse, switching back into Tovahnan. ‘Maria, let’s get this X-rayed before we do a proper clean-up,’ he told her. ‘Can you take her through? I’ll get some pain relief in first, though.’ He turned back to Anna. ‘Pain... One to ten?’

She thought about it and decided to be honest. Her head was thumping.

‘Maybe...six?’

‘Ouch,’ he said, sympathetically. ‘You do need that X-ray. But a nice shot of something first. Any allergies?’

‘None.’ What he said made sense. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and was annoyed at how feeble she sounded.

And astonishingly he touched her hand, lightly. It was the kind of touch he might give any patient he wanted to reassure. It was entirely professional, so why it seemed to burn...