A Miracle For The Baby Doctor. Meredith Webber

       CHAPTER ONE

      STEVE PARKED THE battered four-wheel drive in the short-stay area of the car park and hurried towards the arrivals hall.

      When he realised he hadn’t a clue what the woman he was to meet looked like, he hurried back to the car, tore the top off a carton and hurriedly scrawled ‘Dr Hawthorne’ on it.

      Okay, so the name on a card made him look like a limo driver, except that in flip-flops, shorts and a vivid print shirt he didn’t even come close to their tailored elegance.

      And the limo drivers, he noticed, now he was back in the crowd outside the customs area, were holding professionally printed signs.

      He should have done better. After all, this woman was doing him a huge favour, coming out here on a moment’s notice to cover for his usual embryologist.

      He could at least have worn a quieter shirt.

      It was the pelican’s fault!

      He’d been heading for the shower when two young boys had appeared with an injured pelican—hauling it behind them in a homemade go-cart. The bird had appeared to have an injured wing but its docility had made Steve suspect it had other injuries as well.

      He’d explained to the boys that they needed a vet, then realised they could hardly drag it all the way to the north of the island where the vet had his practice. Packing all three of them—and the cart—into his car and driving them out there had seemed the only solution, which had left him too late to shower and change.

      So now he was late, and probably smelling of fish.

      It couldn’t be helped. He was sure the woman would understand...

      Passengers began to emerge, and he studied each one. The holidaymakers were obvious, already in party mode, smiling and laughing as they came through the doors, looking around eagerly for their first glimpse of the tropical paradise. Returning locals he could also pick out quite easily. Men in business suits or harassed mothers herding troops of children.

      Then came a tall woman, light brown hair slicked back into some kind of neat arrangement at the back of her head, loose slacks and a blue shirt, a hard-case silver suitcase wheeling along behind her.

      Elegant. Sophisticated.

      Not Dr Hawthorne, he decided, as the embryologists he knew were more the absent-minded professor type, usually clad in distressed jeans and band name T-shirts beneath their lab coats.

      The elegant woman paused, scanning the names held up in the crowd, passed by his and started towards someone else.

      It was stupid to feel disappointed, there were plenty more passengers to come. Apart from which, she’d be a work colleague—work being the operative word.

      ‘Dr Ransome?’

      He turned, and there was the woman, strange green eyes studying him quite intensely.

      Green?

      He checked—maybe blue, not green, or blue-green, hard to tell.

      ‘You are Dr Ransome?’ she said with an edge of impatience. ‘Helen told me you would meet me.’

      ‘Sorry, yes,’ Steve said, and held out his hand, realising too late that it was still holding his makeshift sign.

      ‘Oops,’ he said, tucking the sign under his arm.

      He reached out to take the handle of her suitcase.

      ‘The car’s out this way,’ he said, heading for the door. ‘It was so good of you to come—so good of Andy to spare you. My usual embryologist had a skiing accident in New Zealand last month and is still in traction.’

      Was he talking too much?

      He usually did when he was rattled, and the cool, sophisticated woman walking beside him had rattled every bone in his body.

      But why, for heaven’s sake? It wasn’t that there weren’t—or hadn’t been—other such women in his life.

      He slid a sidelong glance towards her.

      Composed, that’s what she was, which put him at a disadvantage as, right now, he was...well, badly dressed and almost certainly in need of a shower. The boys had been trying to feed the bird small fish.

      ‘Sorry about the rough sign, not to mention the clothes. There was this pelican, you see...’

      She obviously didn’t see, probably wasn’t even listening.

      He changed tack.

      ‘Do you know Vanuatu? It’s a great place—not only the islands themselves but the people. Originally settled by the French, so many people still speak that language, although they speak English as well—tourism has made sure of that.’

      He reached the battered vehicle and immediately wished it was more impressive—a limo perhaps.

      Because she looked like a woman who’d drive in limos rather than battered four-wheel drives?

      But some demon of uncertainty had set up home in his mind, and he heard himself apologising.

      ‘Sorry it’s not a limo, but the budget is always tight and I’d rather spend money on the clinic.’

      ‘Sounds reasonable to me,’ she said coolly.

      He lifted the silver case into the rear, and came around to open the door for her, but she was already climbing in. Elegantly.

      He held the door while she settled herself, then held out his hand.

      ‘I’m sorry, I don’t even know what to call you. It’s been a strange morning.’

      She offered a cool smile but did take his hand in a firm clasp.

      ‘Francesca,’ she said. ‘But just call me Fran.’

      He forcibly withdrew his hand, which had wanted to linger in hers, and closed the door.

      But not before noticing that her hair was coming just slightly loose from its restraints, a golden-brown strand curling around to touch her chin.

      The sun would streak it paler still. And suddenly he pictured this woman on one of the island’s deserted beaches, a sarong wrapped around her bikini, sun streaks in the hair blowing back from her face as she walked beside him.

      His body stirred and he shook his head at the fantasy. For a start she was a colleague, and just looking at her he could see she was hardly the ‘strolling on the beach in a sarong’ type, not that that stopped the stirring.

      ‘Have you been to the islands before?’ he asked, as he settled behind the wheel, coaxed a muted grumble from the engine, and drove towards the exit gates.

      ‘No, although I know many Australians holiday here.’

      ‘I hope you’ll like it. The climate’s great, although it can get a trifle hot at times, and the people are wonderful.’

      She turned towards him, the blue-green eyes taking in his bright shirt and, no doubt, the stubble on his unshaven chin.

      The pelican again...

      ‘Did you holiday here? Is that why you’ve come back here to work?’

      He smiled, remembering his co-workers’ disbelief when he’d told them of his plans to start the clinic.

      ‘No, but we had a couple—Vanuatuans—who came to my clinic in Sydney. They were so desperate to have a child they had sold everything they had, including the fishing boat that was their livelihood, to fund their trip.’

      The words pierced the armour Fran had built around her heart and she felt again the pain of not conceiving. Of not having the child she’d so wanted.

      You’re