The Australian's Desire: Their Lost-and-Found Family / Long-Lost Son: Brand-New Family / A Proposal Worth Waiting For

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Their Lost-and-Found Family (#u5d3ab2fa-7ef3-529f-8814-a89a7f7ea446)

MARION LENNOX is a country girl, born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows just weren’t interested in her stories! “Married to a very special doctor”, Marion wrote for Mills & Boon under a different name for a while—if you’re looking for her past romances, search for author Trisha David as well. She’s now had well over ninety novels accepted for publication.

In her non-writing life Marion cares for kids, dogs, cats, chickens and goldfish. She travels, she fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost!). Having spun in circles for the first part of her life, she’s now stepped back from her “other” career, which was teaching statistics at her local university. Finally she’s reprioritised her life, figured out what’s important and discovered the joys of deep baths, romance and chocolate. Preferably all at the same time.

PROLOGUE (#u5d3ab2fa-7ef3-529f-8814-a89a7f7ea446)

THE bus trip took a day—thirteen hours with occasional stops for refuelling. All that time Max sat in the far corner of the bus’s rear seat, trying to make himself invisible. He stroked Scruffy—Scruffy should be in the cargo hold but the driver had relented—and sang a tiny song into the dog’s lopsided ears.

‘We’re going to Georgie. We’re going to Georgie.’

There was another kid on the bus, younger than Max’s seven years. He didn’t seem to speak, not to the lady he was with or to anyone else. Every now and then, as if drawn, the kid would slip away from the lady and come up to Max’s hidey-hole to share in the Scruffy stroking.

‘What’s your name?’ Max asked once, but the kid didn’t answer. No matter. It was enough that he was cuddling Scruffy.

Was the kid going to Crocodile Creek, too? Maybe he and the lady he was with knew Georgie. The lady seemed nice, Max decided. She’d bought Max a sandwich and a drink at the last stop, and an extra sandwich and water for Scruffy. Dad hadn’t left him with any money for food. The more Max thought about it, the more he thought he’d been lucky Dad had paid his bus fare.

Maybe he’d had to. Dad was on the run and if Max had been left alone on the streets of Mt Isa, Georgie might have got on her Harley and come and murdered Dad. Georgie’s anger was great. She’d never yelled at him, but she’d yelled at Dad. Dad had punched her once and Georgie had punched him right back.

He was going to Georgie.

How much longer?

‘Soon we’ll be there,’ he told Scruffy and the silent kid. ‘Soon we’ll be with Georgie and she’ll punch anyone who’s mean to us. If Dad comes and gets us, she’ll punch him again.’

But she’d never been able to stop Dad taking him away every time he’d wanted to.

‘Dad won’t want me any more,’ he told his disreputable little dog and his silent friend. ‘We’ll be safe. Georgie can be our mum.’

The little dog nuzzled into Max’s windcheater, infinitely comforting.

‘Yeah, Georgie can be your mum, too,’ he whispered to the little dog. ‘There’ll be you and me, and Georgie can be Mum to both of us. She’s waiting.’

CHAPTER ONE (#u5d3ab2fa-7ef3-529f-8814-a89a7f7ea446)

‘GINA, you can have Alistair Carmichael or you can have me. But not both.’

Gina chuckled.

‘I mean it.’

‘No, you don’t.’ Dr Georgie Turner’s reputation was that of drama queen—wild girl of Crocodile Creek Hospital. Georgie’s favourite party gear consisted of close-fitting leather pants, which showed every curve of her neat, trim body, and low-cut tops displaying an excellent cleavage. Her cropped curls were jet black and shining, and her lips were always glossed dramatic crimson. Her beloved Harley Davidson for normal travel and an off-road bike for the rough stuff completed the picture.

Georgie. Ready for anything.

Georgiana Turner, obstetrician extraordinaire.

Georgie was Gina’s best friend. Gina loved her to bits. Underneath that admittedly really brash exterior Georgie had a heart as soft as putty.

‘To know you is to love you,’ Gina said simply. ‘I love you. All your patients love you. Let Alistair know you and he’ll love you, too.’

‘Right. Like he got to know me last time. He’ll use the occasion to lecture me on morals while you guys are signing the register.’ Georgie took a deep breath and glowered for added emphasis. ‘No. There are some things up with which I will not put.’

Gina sighed. She and Georgie were doctors at Crocodile Creek, base for Air Sea Rescue and the Flying Doctor for most of far north Queensland. Gina was engaged to Cal, another Croc Creek doctor. Six months ago Alistair, Gina’s only cousin, had flown in from America to see what sort of set-up his baby cousin was getting herself into.

Unfortunately his visit had coincided with a ghastly patch in Georgie’s life. Georgie’s stepfather had just dragged her small half-brother away to join him in the seedy life Georgie knew he led. Max was seven years old. Their mother had disappeared into the limbo of drug addiction soon after giving birth to him and Georgie had become Max’s surrogate mum. She loved him so fiercely it was as if he was hers.

But he wasn’t hers. Half-sisters had fewer rights than fathers, no matter how creepy Georgie’s stepfather was. She’d had to let him go.

So Georgie had waved Max off, and then she’d gone to Gina’s engagement party. She had been off duty. She’d been trying desperately not to cry. She’d hit the bar, and then Alistair-Stuffed-Shirt Carmichael had asked her to dance.

Which had been … unfortunate.

Alistair had a great body. He was big and warm and strong, and she’d had too much to drink, too fast. She’d seen him earlier in the day and had thought—vaguely—that he was gorgeous. Now, at the party, battered with shock and grief, she’d let her hormones hold sway. She’d let him hold her as she’d needed to be held. She’d flirted unashamedly, and then …

He’d half carried her from the hall and they’d both known what his intentions had been. She hadn’t cared. Why the hell should she care when her life was going down the drain?

Only Gina had intercepted them at the door. ‘Georgie,’ she’d said in that soft voice, the one that said she cared, and suddenly Georgie had pushed away from Alistair, then sat down on the hall steps and sobbed her heart out, while the rest of Crocodile Creek had streamed in and out around her.

‘What the hell …?’ Alistair had demanded.

And Georgie had looked up at him and said, through tears, ‘I’m sorry, mate. It’s not that I don’t fancy you. I’m just drunk.’

He’d turned, just like that. From the big, gentle man he’d seemed to the prissy, disapproving toad he really was.

‘This is your best friend, Gina?’ He’d said it incredulously.

‘Yes. She’s just—’

‘I’ve just had too much to drink,’ Georgie had said, cutting across his question and glaring daggers at Gina, sending visual refusal for Gina to tell him more. ‘Gina’s right. I gotta go to bed.’

‘I’ll take you,’ Gina had said.

‘But it’s your engagement party,’ Alistair had objected, staring at Georgie as if she’d been some sort of pond scum.

‘That’s OK,’ Gina had said. ‘I’ll come back soon, but I’m taking my friend home first.’

‘You don’t need to take me. I have wheels. Hey, you want a ride on my bike?’ Georgie had asked, veering off on a tangent and motioning to her beloved Harley parked nearby.

‘I think we might leave your bike where it is, don’t you?’ Gina had said, and had smiled and tugged the decidedly wobbly Georgie to her feet. ‘I know you take risks on that thing but we don’t want to push it.’

So that had been Georgie’s introduction to Alistair. The next day Gina had taken him for a tour of the hospital and he’d been flabbergasted to find Georgie was an obstetrician.

‘She’s a really good one,’ Georgie had heard Gina tell Alistair as they’d disappeared from sight. They’d thought she’d left the ward but she’d forgotten something and returned just in time to hear them talk about her. ‘We’re lucky to have her.’

‘I know you’re desperate for doctors,’ Alistair had said. ‘But I sure as hell wouldn’t let her within a mile of any patient of mine.’