The Holiday Triplets Read Online Free PDF Page B

to call out. What would she say, anyway? Next time I see you, I’ll bring poison darts.
    How strange it felt, walking home in the middle of the day when she ought to be at the hospital. She’d scarcely taken a day off since entering medical school. Even in the summers, she’d worked hard to pay the tuition. Putting two kids through medical school had been expensive for her parents, who’d spent most of their careers doing low-paid work among the poor.
    Sam had vowed to continue their tradition, and hadn’t entirely written off the idea of someday joining their clinic. But with student loans to pay, she’d had to accept a mainstream medical position and consign charity work to her free hours. Although she’d recently paid off the last of the loans, she still needed to build up at least a modest savings account.
    There was, fortunately, an inheritance from her grandparents that she’d invested and saved as an emergency fund. Her parents had refused to let her touch it when she was younger, saying she should only draw on it if she absolutely had to.
    She’d always figured the fund was there for the children she planned to have one day. If there’d been any reasonable chance that fertility treatments would work without destroying her health, she’d have spent the money without question now.
    It might enable her to adopt. The prospect of a long search and the complex procedures involved seemed over-whelming in her present state of mind, but at least, when she was ready, she had the money set aside.
    Silently, she thanked her grandparents. And missed them.
    Rounding a corner, Sam had to make way for two women chatting as they pushed strollers side by side along the sidewalk. Their babies, one in a darling miniature ski jacket and the other merry in a green-and-red plaid coat, leaned eagerly forward as if trying to embrace the world.
    Feeling a sudden ache, Sam averted her gaze, only to find herself peering through a house window at a Christmas tree surrounded by gaily wrapped toys. Everywhere she looked, there seemed to be children and families.
    A lump rose in her throat. She’d always assumed she would eventually have those things, too. And maybe she could, but not the way she’d expected.
    To focus on her loss felt selfish in view of the clinic’s crisis and her own fundamental good health. Be grateful you aren’t facing death.
    The problem was, now she had to face life.
    Â 
    O N F RIDAY AFTERNOON , M ARK SAT in front of his computer, fingering the mouse as he sifted through applications for the position of fertility center director. Medical Center Management had asked him to narrow the field to three top candidates. Not an easy task. Among several dozen applicants, at least six offered excellent credentials. Not brilliant, perhaps, but close.
    Leaning back, he tented his fingers and glanced through the window toward the harbor. Somehow the water managed to sparkle even in the weak winter sunlight.
    Was it really only two days since he’d sat on the beach with Samantha? Felt like aeons.
    Flexing his hands, he wondered at this nagging concern and the sense that he ought to do something for her. Yesterday, he’d sought a moment to talk to Sam after a staff meeting, but she’d hurried off to admit a patient. He wasn’t sure what he’d have said, anyway. He had no magic wand to rescue the counseling clinic nor, despite all his training, could he remedy her medical condition.
    Their kiss hadn’t softened her attitude toward him. Still the same cautious distance. The same awareness that they stood, irrevocably, on opposite sides of a battlefield.
    It had affected him , though. He missed her. Those sparks, that sudden burst of passion—his body heated at the memory.
    You must have a death wish, Rayburn.
    Mark returned his attention to the résumé on the screen. How ironic that all these fertility experts had no cure for early menopause,