Praise for Becky Wicks
“A fast paced, beautifully set and heart warming medical romance set in the stunning Galapagos Islands. Interwoven with a conservation theme which is clearly a passion of the author.”
—Harlequin Junkie on The Vet’s Escape to Paradise
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
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EXCERPT FROM SECRETLY DATING THE BABY DOC BY JC HARROWAY
CHAPTER ONE
HOLDING UP A HAND, Dr Ana Mendez waved at the post boy, smiling at his pink feathered headdress as he zoomed past her windows on his bicycle.
‘I guess everyone’s getting in the spirit already,’ she said to her vase of fresh marigolds. It was early now, and relatively peaceful on the streets, but in just a few hours her city would be pumping with a thousand kinds of music, dancing groups and musicians in every side street. The crowds would be shuffling in colourful costumes through the blocks and barrios, and her ears would be assaulted from all angles as every speaker tried its best to compete with the rest. The first day of Carnival was always fun in Buenos Aires—unless you worked in A&E, she thought to herself. The staff at the hospital were always run off their feet at this time of year. Luckily this clinic wasn’t opening till Monday, so she had the perfect excuse to hide away from the mayhem.
Ah, this clinic—her new clinic! Steering her wheelchair expertly to the desk, breathing in the smell of the fresh paint, Ana glanced at the plaque on the wall above her MD certificate. Her lips twitched with a proud smile at the sight of her name glistening in silver: Dr Ana Mendez. She had her own practice...finally!
She and her small but excited team had decided to get the madness of Carnival over with first, but every day had dawned with a new set of tasks to complete in the run up to opening. She’d been coming here every day with new additions in preparation, or to assist the workmen with new equipment, new lighting or new posters. Any excuse would do, because this was all so exciting. So...not what people had expected someone like her to go and do.
Turning her chair back towards her consulting room, she noted how at home the snake plant she’d brought in today looked already. ‘Very nice, mijo, I think this place is ideal for you,’ she said to it. Its sword-like leaves with bold stripy patterns suited the corner of her desk, she decided, and, best of all, it could survive with little help—just like her.
After years of working her way up and around hospitals all over Argentina, she had finally taken over the barrio’s clinic round the corner from the home she’d grown up in, and moved into her new wheelchair-adapted apartment too. Dr Azaban, the old GP, had hung up her coat and retired just a few months ago. The call had come in while Ana was on a break from a shift at the Medical Medicina Privada in Bariloche, where she’d been for the best part of five years.
‘The time is now, Ana,’ she’d said, in the phone call that would change the direction of her life. ‘Are you ready to come home and take over?’
It had taken a while, a lot of prep, a lot of money and a lot of documentation but she’d sailed through it all with one goal on the horizon—a home from home, a place to call hers and a new, refreshed clinic for the community to call theirs. She’d always said, when she came home, it would be for something worthwhile. Dr Azaban was an old family friend who’d been preparing Ana for this since she’d completed her studies. Not that it wasn’t going to take a while to readjust—she was still bumping into people she’d forgotten to tell she was even back in Recoleta!
Ana adjusted a bright-red truck on the colourful mat in the children’s section of the waiting room, then sat up straighter a soft blue teddy bear on his tiny stool. It had been decided years ago, and even laid out on her vision board, that her clinic would possess none of the drabness she’d encountered in other GP practices over the years. The process of getting well began in the mind, in cheery surroundings with positive vibes, she reminded herself, plucking a colourful marigold from another vase on the magazine stand and placing it behind her ear.
This was something she’d taken on board as a child, when the kind staff at the children’s ward at Hospital General de Buenos Aires had sat her down and explained how she would likely never walk again. At just six years old, she’d lain there after the car accident, wondering how on earth she’d get by without the use of her legs. She’d been too young to fathom how hard it would be, not just on her going forward but also on her parents, Juan and Martina. She’d been too young to understand anything then, except the kindness and good intentions of the people around her and the way the bright colours had made her feel.
In those dark times she’d grown to find a sense of hope in the cheery flowers and toys, the pretty fabrics of the blankets and the reassuring faces on the posters on the walls. Everything ever since had been about colour, she thought now, catching a glimpse of herself in the window. She didn’t need Carnival as an excuse to dress up as though she’d wheeled her chair through a rainbow and come out draped in it on the other side. Her bright-yellow polka-dot headscarf held back her long mass of raven black curls and matched her shoes. She always matched her headscarves to her shoes wherever possible.
A banging on the door made her start. ‘We’re not open yet!’ she called. But the banging continued, this time louder. What the...?
Ana sped for the door, only to find a white-haired man doubled over on the pavement, clutching his chest. ‘Mr Acosta!’ she cried, recognising in shock the seventy-something man from the shop over the road.
‘I think I’m having a heart attack, Ana,’ he managed, his face creased in pain. No soon had she flung open the doors than he was lurching forward, practically landing on her lap in the wheelchair.
‘Come in, we’ll get you help!’ Her words were reassuring, even as she swiftly lowered her chair as far down as it would go. Bundling him inside across the threshold onto the cool floor, she loosened his collar with one hand and called for an ambulance with the other, praying the streets weren’t yet too packed with Carnival revellers for it to reach them. Pressing an ear to his chest, the rhythm of his heart was evident, which would buy some time, but she carefully tilted back his head on the tiles, keeping his airways clear. ‘You’re going to be OK, Mr Acosta.’
Thankfully, the sound of a siren in the distance soon gave her comfort, and within minutes she was watching two men leap expertly from the vehicle outside, Ambu bags bouncing on their hips. Then she realised who was wearing the first paramedic’s uniform.
Oh, my God.
