This book is dedicated to all women with breast cancer

       whose past involvement in research and clinical trials

       has so improved our chances of survival today.

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      DR. EMILY MAINWARING had been awake all night, delivering twins. She was probably asleep and dreaming, but right in her waiting room was…

      Her ideal man!

      But… This was Bay Beach. She was in the middle of morning surgery, and staring was hardly professional. Instant marriage wasn’t on the cards either. So somehow she forced herself back to being a twenty-nine-year-old country doctor instead of a lovesick teenager staring at a total stranger.

      ‘Mrs Robin?’

      The elderly Mrs Robin rose with relief. She’d been waiting far too long. Every other patient looked at her with envy, and the stranger looked up as well.

      Whew! He was even more good-looking eye to eye, and when their gazes locked…

      For a moment, Em allowed herself to keep looking. Doctor assessing potential patient.

      Ha! There was nothing professional in the way she was looking at this man.

      For a start, he was large, in a strong-boned, muscular, six-feet-of-virile-male sort of way. Then he had the most gorgeous, burnt-red hair, crinkling into curls that were a bit unruly, and made you just want to run your fingers…

      ‘That’s enough of that! Concentrate on work!’ she told herself sharply. The last thing she needed this morning was distraction, and if a pair of twinkling green eyes had the capacity to knock her sideways then maybe she was even more tired than she’d thought.

      ‘I’m very sorry,’ she told the rest of the waiting room, the stranger included. ‘But I’ve had a couple of emergencies. I’m running almost an hour late. If anyone would like to sit on the beach and come back in a while…’

      It wasn’t likely. These people were farmers or fishermen, and a visit to the doctor was a social occasion. They’d sit placidly enough, outwardly reading magazines but in reality soaking up every piece of gossip they could get.

      Such as who the redhead was.

      And she might have known they’d find out.

      ‘He’s Anna Lunn’s big brother,’ Mrs Robin told her before she even started on her litany of ills. ‘He’s three years older than Anna, and his name’s Jonas. Ooh, isn’t he lovely? When he came in with Anna, I thought maybe she had a new fella, and that wouldn’t hurt at all since that no-good Kevin walked out. But if this can’t be her new man, then it’s good that she has a brother kind enough to bring her to the doctor’s, don’t you think?’

      Yes. It was. Anna Lunn was barely thirty, yet already weighed down with poverty and kids. But why…Em glanced down her list and saw the appointment, and she couldn’t suppress her misgivings.

      Anna had made a special appointment and she’d brought her brother along for support. Em just knew this wasn’t going to be a five-minute consultation for a pap smear.

      But there was little point in worrying about it now. With an inward sigh she mentally added another half-hour to her day and turned her attention to Mrs Robin’s blood pressure.

      Charlie Henderson collapsed before she’d finished. Booked in for his regular coronary check, the fisherman was so old that he looked shrivelled and preserved for ever. He’d tucked himself into a corner of the waiting room and had been contentedly observing the kids and chaos and general confusion. Now, just as Em started writing Mrs Robins’s prescription, his eyes rolled in his head, he crumpled and slid soundlessly onto the floor.

      ‘Em!’ Her receptionist was banging on Em’s door before he hit the carpet, and Em was by his side almost as fast.

      The old man was deathly white, cold and clammy. Em did a fast check of his airway and found no obstruction.

      And she found no pulse.

      ‘Get the crash cart,’ she snapped at Amy. She gave Charlie four deep breaths and ripped his shirt wide to bare his chest. There was no time for niceties here. and there was no time to move him. This looked like total cardiac arrest.

      And Amy wasn’t her usual receptionist. Lou was off sick. Amy was standing in and, at eighteen, she had no medical training at all.

      Em was on her own.

      She could only try, and she must try now. To attempt resuscitation with all these people watching was dreadful, but there was no time for anything else.

      ‘Could you clear the room?’ she demanded between breaths, not looking up from what she was doing, and not even hopeful that anybody would listen. She couldn’t care. She was breathing for her old friend, pumping down on his chest in an attempt at cardiopulmonary resuscitation