Cherished Beginnings

Cherished Beginnings

The Beach Bachelors Series

Book Five

by

Pamela Browning

Award-winning Author

Published by
ePublishing Works!

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ISBN: 978-1-61417-764-7

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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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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 looking 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.