Cherished Beginnings

  Cherished Beginnings

  The Beach Bachelors Series

  Book Five

  by

  Pamela Browning

  Award-winning Author

  Published by ePublishing Works!

  www.epublishingworks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-61417-764-7

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  Please Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Copyright © 2015 by Pamela Browning. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  Cover and eBook design by eBook Prep www.ebookprep.com

  Dedication

  Dedicated to the memory of my parents

  Chapter 1

  Maura McNeill left her peeling old minivan in the parking lot of the small Quinby Hospital and hurried across the street, her borrowed mid-high heels embossing little half-circle marks in the oozing hot asphalt. She shook her auburn hair back from her face and hesitated for a moment in front of the red-brick office building to read the sign on the door.

  "Alexander Copeland, M.D., Obstetrics and Gynecology," she read under her breath. Well, she had found his office, all right. So far, her sense of navigation wasn't bad for a newcomer to the area. She was learning to get around this section of the South Carolina Lowcountry, and she could easily have lost her way in the confusing maze of country roads. The fact that she hadn't was proof of her settling in, a thought that pleased her. Whatever the problems and whatever the risks, Maura McNeill had made up her mind that she was in Shuffletown to stay.

  Maura elbowed the office door open with a determined push and murmured her name to the receptionist behind the desk before selecting a comfortable chair. She picked up a magazine and looked around with veiled curiosity at her companions in the waiting room.

  Half a dozen women in various stages of pregnancy awaited their turns with Dr. Copeland. Maura fit in so well in age and type that anyone would think she was one of those mothers-to-be. But she wasn't.

  It was blessedly cool in the doctor's waiting room, a welcome haven from the oppressive heat and humidity outside. Overhead, a ceiling fan circulated the air-conditioned air in breezy silence, its rhythm inducing a kind of drowsiness to the room's occupants. Except for the insistent ripple of music from the speaker mounted on the wall and an occasional swish of a magazine page, the room was quiet.

  Maura gazed with detached professional interest at the high rounded abdomen of the pretty, brunette, and hugely pregnant young matron who spread uncomfortably into all the corners of the chair across from her.

  She'd be eight months along, maybe eight and a half, Maura figured from the look of her. And she could have benefited from a good daily exercise program started earlier in her pregnancy.

  "This is my first," the woman volunteered with a shy but understanding smile, mistaking Maura's professional assessment for a more personal one. "How about you?" She looked pointedly and with interest at Maura's flat stomach.

  Maura's eyes flew involuntarily to her own left hand, automatically assuming that the woman thought she was married. A sudden stab of sadness knifed through her at the sight of the ringless finger. She still wasn't used to going without the slender band of white gold she'd worn for the past ten years.

  "I'm sorry," the brunette said quickly, noting Maura's hesitation and attributing it to Maura's apparently unwed state. "It's none of my business." Embarrassed, she lifted the magazine she had been reading and hid her flushed cheeks behind it.

  "No, it's all right," said Maura warmly, wanting to put the woman at ease. She wished she could tell her the whole story. Certainly no one had ever suspected her of being pregnant before. The idea made Maura's lips curve upward tentatively, trying the possibility on for size.

  "Maura McNeill," announced the office nurse from the door to the inner sanctum. Grateful for the interruption, Maura set aside the dog-eared copy of Mothers and Babies and followed the sweet-faced nurse down the smoothly carpeted hall.

  In a room no bigger than a minute, Maura suffered her finger to be pricked with a needle for the blood test. She had performed this test hundreds of times on other people, but she hated having it done to her. To distract herself, she looked around the room, pleased that everything looked clean and neat.

  After taking her blood pressure, the office nurse briskly ushered Maura into a paneled office and indicated a soft upholstered chair. "Dr. Copeland will be with you in a minute," she told Maura before turning on whisper-soft soles and closing the door gently behind her.

  Maura's curious eyes swept his office, searching for clues to the man's personality. "Alexander Copeland, where are you?" she murmured to herself. There were no pictures of wife and kids, no trophies or medals or ornaments that would divulge anything about him. Just a wall full of somber-looking framed diplomas that attested to the medical degrees of Alexander Copeland, M.D., and a glass-fronted bookcase lined with dreary medical texts.

  Dr. Copeland would be surprised, thought Maura, if he knew the real reason for her visit today. Maura had scheduled this appointment with Alexander Copeland, M.D. because he was the only obstetrician-gynecologist listed in the Shuffletown telephone directory. She required an obstetrician, all right, but not for any of the usual reasons.

  As a certified and licensed nurse-midwife new to the area, Maura needed Dr. Copeland professionally, not personally. She had struck upon the novel idea of letting him perform a physical examination on her before she asked him to become her supervising physician. She wanted to find out firsthand if this Dr. Copeland was the kind of caring and involved doctor she'd choose to provide emergency care for her patients once she set up her practice in midwifery.

  The door opened so suddenly that it startled her. "Ms. McNeill?"

  She looked up and up until her brown eyes ran across a strong chin punctuated by a deep cleft, and up some more to eyes of indeterminate color but fringed by the darkest, curliest lashes she'd ever seen on a man or a woman. His hair shaded from sable brown to black and waved crisply over his forehead, undaunted by the high humidity characteristic of the Lowcountry.

  Dr. Copeland shook Maura's hand briskly before walking around his desk and sitting down. Why, he's younger than I expected, she thought in surprise, realizing for the first time that she'd been expecting a grandfather type. He was in his mid-to-late thirties, she'd guess. His attitude was entirely professional, and his eyes were kind. It was, she began to realize with dismay, her reaction to him that was the problem.

  Alexander Copeland was, to put it bluntly, the most magnificent-looking man Maura had ever seen in all her twenty-eight years. The white coat he wore over his shirt and tie did absolutely nothing to moderate the effect of a marvelous broad-shouldered, lean-muscled physique. She swallowed, wondering how just l
ooking at this man could bring on an attack of giddiness. Her stomach seemed to have migrated to her throat, which as a nurse-midwife she realized was a medical impossibility.

  His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. "So you're here today for a physical exam," he said encouragingly. These mundane words were doubtless the tried-and-true phrase he used with all new patients. She wondered if he was used to having a physical effect on his patients, or if he even knew he did.

  "Yes," she said as coolly as she could, forgetting that her original purpose for this visit transcended a mere physical exam. Now she was feeling more physical by the minute.

  "Anything special you want us to check?"

  She must have answered his question, although she had no earthly idea what she'd said, because he stood up and told her, "My nurse will show you to my examining room, and I'll be with you in a minute." He was still thoroughly professional and entirely circumspect.

  Now, Maura, she told herself sternly, you're a medical professional. There's no reason for this man to create such havoc in you. Furthermore, you have no right to be thinking of shoulders in terms of broad or lips in terms of sensual.

  While Maura was thus dismissing the words "broad shoulders" and "sensual lips" from her mental space, the nurse appeared and conducted Maura into another small room, where she instructed, "Take off all your clothes and wrap that sheet around you," before disappearing again.

  Maura did as she was told, shivering into a mass of goose bumps in the blast from the air-conditioning vent. She wound herself in the sheet, slipped her shoes back on and then nervously slipped them off again, tiptoeing barefoot to the examining table. There was a stool there, and she stepped on it to boost herself onto the table.

  She sat quietly for a moment before catching a glimpse of her distorted image in the shiny rectangular surface of the stainless-steel paper towel holder over the sink. Her abundant auburn hair faded to an unattractive shade of orange under the fluorescent ceiling light, and her tawny complexion seemed pasty and washed out. Clutching the sheet to her chest for warmth, knees pressed tightly together, she lay back on the hard, paper-covered table and waited, conscious as never before of her own skin and how much of it wasn't covered by the skimpy sheet.

  And here it came again, the stealthily encroaching memory of the way Dr. Copeland had looked as he sat across the desk from her. A bronzed face, which according to the laws of probability meant he spent a good deal of time outdoors, and smooth dark eyebrows that looked as though they could quirk upward with humor. She had noted an awkwardness about his nose that she hadn't quite absorbed. His nose was straight, but there was something odd about it, too. A slight lump about halfway down the length of his nose, that was it! That one minor flaw kept him from being too perfectly formed, which was probably a good thing. There was certainly nothing wrong with the rest of him.

  The minutes ticked by as she lay there, feeling increasingly defenseless in her nakedness. Her hipbones thrust rounded points upward beneath the sheet, which barely covered the curve of her thighs. Nervously she twitched the sheet downward, exposing the side of one shapely breast. She readjusted the fabric and forced herself to fold her hands modestly over her midriff.

  Strange, but she'd never thought of herself as having a body before. Well, a body, yes, for eating and sleeping. But she had learned to dismiss physical discomforts as unimportant, and lying on this table, she felt distinctly uncomfortable.

  She tried counting the holes in the acoustical ceiling but soon lost count. She didn't want to think about Dr. Copeland, but what else was there to think about? At least she could make an effort not to review his physical attributes.

  She wondered about his position regarding midwifery. A long rivalry existed between the obstetrical and midwifery professions, each distrusting the other. Dr. Copeland was young enough to be open-minded, perhaps, but he was bound to be influenced by his traditional medical training. And then, without interrupting her flow of thought, she found herself thinking about the deep resonant timbre of his voice. It was low and melodious, the kind of voice you could listen to until you fell asleep beneath the caress of it.

  The nurse came in. "Everything all right?" she asked brightly.

  "Fine," Maura said to the ceiling, wondering if this could be counted as a lie. The nurse arranged assorted instruments on a tray and slipped out again, humming as she went.

  Maura closed her eyes, but she couldn't keep Dr. Copeland's face out of her thoughts. It kept invading her consciousness, spreading itself across the inside of her eyelids like some wonderful new kind of wraparound visual effect. The vision transmuted itself into something closely approximating reality, a daydream and a half.

  Soon, she thought dreamily, floating along with it, he would be standing above her, lifting aside the soft fabric of the sheet, his smooth fingers conducting their examination in a totally impersonal way. Her shoulders tensed forward protectively when she imagined his eyes sweeping her body. To her amazement and utter chagrin, her nipples stiffened beneath the sheet at the very thought of his strong hands, alien and so male, touching her skin.

  Aghast at this unexpected and purely physical response, she sat up abruptly and slid off the table, tearing the paper beneath her in her haste. She had been taught to dismiss physical discomforts—and physical pleasures as well. But now it seemed that banishing either was impossible.

  All at once, irrationally and with a touch of sheer panic, she knew beyond a doubt that she couldn't do it. She couldn't allow Alexander Copeland to see her body awakening to his touch. She wasn't ready to be touched by a very virile and desirable man. Maybe she never would be.

  Swiftly, reacting solely from her own blind instinct, she tossed aside the sheet and pulled on her plain white cotton underwear, then the bright print blouse borrowed from Kathleen, then her own ordinary cotton skirt. She didn't want to take the time to put on panty hose, so she stuffed them in her handbag, not caring in the least whether they snagged or not.

  Maura careered out of the examining room, almost knocking the sweet-faced nurse down in her hurry.

  "I just remembered another appointment!" she blurted at the nurse, to the other's utter amazement. And this, Maura knew, was definitely a lie.

  And then she rushed through the waiting room, the startled faces of the pregnant patients all a blur, and out into the dank, oppressive humidity of early afternoon.

  Maura's heart pounded as she fled across the street to the hospital parking lot and climbed into the decrepit old minivan that had carried her in temperamental fits and starts all the way across the continent. She couldn't help feeling that with her uncharacteristically crazy flight out of Dr. Copeland's office, she had blown her only chance to get a physician to supervise her practice in midwifery.

  Oh, what was wrong with her? She'd thought she was adjusting to her new life and that everything was coasting along beautifully until she'd been confronted with Dr. Alexander Copeland. All he'd done was speak a few ultra ordinary sentences to her, nothing even slightly suggestive. And she'd reacted like a frightened adolescent, not a grown woman—and a woman who was a registered nurse, at that. She rested her elbows on the sticky steering wheel and pressed her fingers to her temples, digging the heels of her hands into her eye sockets as though to rub out Dr. Copeland's handsome lingering image.

  Well, she couldn't work with Alexander Copeland on a personal basis. That was perfectly clear. Her sexuality, she thought with a stab of despair, was as yet too new and untried to be subjected to such a man.

  It was several minutes before she composed herself enough to fit the key into the ignition and start the motor. Much as she needed a physician to supervise her practice and to provide dependable medical backup, she'd have to find somebody else who felt safe, even if it meant going all the way to Charleston.

  Driving distractedly along the Shuffletown highway, she wondered how she'd ever be able to face Alexander Copeland again. Her inappropriate response to him forced her to see that she was g
oing to have to relate to men in a new way in this, her new life, just as Kathleen had all too often cautioned her.

  At the moment Maura was feeling her sister's advice very strongly. She missed her comfortable old identity like a newly amputated limb. She was like the amputees she'd seen in the wards during her nurse's training: An important part of her had been cut off, and she could still feel the phantom ache of it at times.

  When she first noticed the smell of burnt rubber, she was about a mile from the turnoff for the Teoway Island bridge. She sniffed the air, hoping that the acrid odor wasn't coming from her minivan. Then a dashboard light flashed on, and she pulled over to the side of the highway in alarm.

  Maura was standing forlornly on the deserted road worrying about the wildly smoking engine and wishing she knew something about automobile mechanics when a small brown girl leaped out of the shrubbery. "Mama's going to have a baby!" blurted the child.

  And then the girl started babbling, making very little sense at all to Maura. She was clearly in a panic, looking for someone, anyone to help.

  Maura put her arm around the child's shoulders and knelt down beside her so that she would be at the child's eye level. Her gentle touch seemed to have a calming effect. "Slow down," she said quietly and with an encouraging smile. "I can't understand what you're saying."

  The chocolate-brown eyes blinked and a tear rolled down one plump cheek. The girl was still rattled, but no longer incoherent. "Please," implored the child, tugging frantically at Maura's hand. "Come quick. My mama's having a baby."

  And so without stopping to ask any more questions, trying her best to cope with the world and whatever it demanded of her, Maura grabbed her midwife's bag off the cot in the back of the minivan and followed the child down the rutted dirt path at a run. On this one occasion, it seemed, her unreliable old vehicle had broken down in just the right place at the right time to do somebody some good.

  But then, she thought grimly, it was the only bright spot in a day when everything seemed to be going awry.