The M.D. Meets His Match

The M.D. Meets His Match
Marie Ferrarella

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE…ALASKA? One week back in her rustic hometown, and April Yearling remembered exactly why she'd fled to the lower forty-eight. The moment her ailing grandmother recovered, she planned to hightail it back to civilization–alone! Never mind that a certain sexy doctor had her yearning for everything she'd sworn she'd never need….Sought-after physician James Quintano hadn't come to the northern wilderness to put down roots, and he certainly wasn't here seeking female companionship. But what red-blooded man could resist the great outdoors, the promise of adventure–or an elusive, alluring hot-blooded beauty?

“What did you do that for?” April demanded.

The lady packed a hell of a punch, Jimmy thought. He couldn’t remember the last time a slight kiss had turned into a full three-course affair. He found himself fighting the urge to do it all over again. “Have you ever felt like you just had to find out something?”

April struggled for her deepest-sounding voice, afraid that anything less would crack. “I generally go to the encyclopedia.”

His grin was ever so slightly lopsided. He toyed with a strand of her hair.

“They don’t have anything like this in the encyclopedia.”

No doubt about it, she thought. Educators and scholars probably hadn’t come up with a word to fit what had just happened here….

The M.D. Meets His Match

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To Aileen and Adrian Galang,

Happy wedding!

Happy life!

Love,

The Third Photographer

MARIE FERRARELLA

earned a master’s degree in Shakespearean comedy and, perhaps as a result, her writing is distinguished by humor and natural dialogue. This RITA Award-winning author has one goal: to entertain, to make people laugh and feel good. She has written over 100 books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide and have been translated into Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Polish, Japanese and Korean.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

With a sigh, April Yearling moved the desk fan closer to her. It was stuffy in the archaic post office, but she couldn’t turn the fan on high because it would send the tonnage of envelopes, leaflets and whatnot around her flying off in an unauthorized, frantic dance.

One week back in Hades and she remembered why she’d left.

She mopped her damp forehead with the back of her wrist and instantly regretted it. The area hidden beneath the haphazardly wrapped bandage on her wrist stung, reminding her that there was a consequence for moving too fast, even in a place like Hades.

Biting her lower lip, April continued to sort the mail. She glanced at her watch, swearing that time was altered here in the backstretch of Alaska, moving at a snail’s pace that was completely unacceptable to normal human beings.

At least, it was unacceptable to her.

Gran had proudly pointed out that there were people who had moved here from the lower forty-nine. Why a place like Hades, numbering about five hundred on its town roster, would attract anyone to come and settle here was completely beyond April.

Glancing at the scribbled name, she tossed the envelope into its proper pigeonhole.

She moved the fan a tad closer and longed for air-conditioned rooms. It was unseasonably warm for the middle of spring. April couldn’t remember a spring ever being so hot and muggy. But this old building wasn’t wired for air-conditioning. She supposed she should be happy that it was even wired for electricity, otherwise she’d be relying on candles and the now dormant fireplace in the corner.

A fragment of a memory flashed through her mind. She and her brother and sister gathered around a fireplace, listening to the wind howl outside and the fire crackle as Gran read a ghost story. She remembered waiting to be frightened, but she never was.

Maybe that was her problem, April mused, flipping the last envelope into its cubbyhole. She was too fearless. Nothing frightened her. Except maybe the specter of falling in love.

Small chance of that ever happening, she told herself confidently. She was too smart.

Bending to retrieve more mail out of the sagging pouch Jeb Kellogg had just flown in and dropped off, April smiled. She was a city kid through and through. It had taken her exactly five minutes in Seattle, her first port of call after graduating high school, to discover that about herself, although she’d secretly thought it for years before her great escape.

There had been this exhilaration that had telegraphed itself through her the moment she’d stepped off the plane and looked around Seattle. She knew then that her soul belonged in a city—the bigger, the better.