Bachelor Cure Read Online Free PDF

and difficult and he’d managed all of two hours’ sleep—but the thought of Tess searching by herself for what he feared she’d find was unbearable.
    â€˜I want to, Tess,’ he told her. ‘So let me.’
    He clicked his fingers. Strop heaved one end up after the other and lumbered to his side, and they left.
    Which was just as well. If he’d stayed in that room for one minute longer, with that look on her face—half scared, half forlorn and as courageous as hell—he would have gathered her in his arms and hugged her.
    And where was the professional detachment in that?
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    â€˜I should have refused his offer of help,’ Tess told Bill Fetson two minutes later. The hospital’s charge nurse had come to check on her and had found her pacing in front of the window. ‘Mike was up half the night with me and Doris, and didn’t he say he had a baby to deliver after he brought me in? What’s he doing, offering to spend hours tonight searching for someone he’s sure is dead?’
    â€˜He cares about your grandfather.’
    â€˜I guess…’
    Her voice sounded totally confused, Bill thought, as though there was something about Mike she didn’t understand in the least. Well, maybe that was understandable. Mike was a fabulous-looking doctor, with a smile that could turn any girl’s head, a dog that was just plain crazy and a presence that played havoc with Bill’s nursing staff.
    But this girl was different. Bill watched the emotion playing over her face and strange ideas started forming in the back of his mind. Well, well, well…
    â€˜Would you like a tour of the hospital?’ he asked mildly—innocently. He was busy, but something told him it might be important to get to know this girl…
    Tess showered and dressed, then explored the little hospital. It had fifteen beds, eight of them nursing beds and seven acute. It was a tiny bush nursing hospital, efficient, scrupulously clean and obviously beautifully run. It was almost new, and the man whointroduced himself as Charge Nurse showed Tess around with pleasure.
    â€˜It’s all thanks to Dr Mike,’ Bill Fetson said with obvious pride, as he showed Tess though a tiny operating theatre with facilities that her made blink. These facilities would be more in place in a big city teaching hospital. ‘Mike fought the politicians every legal way—and a few illegal too, I’ll bet—to get this place, and he practically bullied the community into fundraising. Now we have this hospital, though, well, there’s no way we’re losing it. The valley’s never had a medical service like this.’
    â€˜How long’s he been here?’ Tess asked.
    â€˜Three years, but in a sense he’s been here much longer. Mike’s a valley kid and he started fighting for this before he even finished his medical training.’
    â€˜And…’ There were so many things she didn’t understand here. ‘He’s always had Strop?’
    Bill grinned. ‘Strop was an accident. Mike drives an Aston Martin—the sleekest car in the valley. The salesman brought it up here for a test drive and drove it too fast, putting it through its paces. Strop was lumbering across a road on a blind bend and the salesman couldn’t stop. Mike felt dreadful, and then the woman who owned him said he was a stupid dog anyway and seeing Mike had hit him then Mike could put him down. As you know, the Aston Martin only has two seats. The salesman drove to the vet’s with Mike carrying Strop, and by the time they reached the vet’s there was no way he was being put down. So in one afternoon Mike got the sleekest car and the dopiest dog in Christendom.’
    â€˜You’re kidding.’
    â€˜No way. And, believe it or not, he is a great dog.’ Bill’s grin deepened. ‘The patients love him and all the valley knows now that if Mike pays a house call