Heartbeat (Medical Romance) Read Online Free Page B

few dames who'd have dissolved into tears at coming up against the blunt-spoken Ross McDonnell.
    But it wasn’t a good start, that dramatic arrival at the Good Shepherd coupled with such an ultra-feminine appearance. She looked like the kinda chick guys'd make a fuss of and rush to protect.
    Small wonder Ross had serious doubts about letting Miss Westcott loose on a remote mission station with three virile white men for company. Matt was including himself, since Charming, his African girlfriend, had gone back to Moshi to complete the midwifery course at the general hospital. Charming's father was a lawyer; the lawyer didn't know about Matt. Charming was certain he'd blow his top if he discovered she was in love with a white man.
    Sure, Miss Redhead would find more comfort at one of the bigger outfits nearer the coast, but Matt reckoned the new nurse had plans of her own, and these included staying put. She surely would liven the place up!
    'C'mon and I'll show you where we all hang out.' Matt beat Jenni to the big case and made a face at its weight. If this shrimp could cart a load like this halfway across the world she'd got a navvy's muscles under those dungarees.
    If Ross is gonna push this chick around, contemplated Matt with a grin, then we're all in for a pretty interestin' time.
    'This way, ma'am.'
    Jenni gathered up the rest of her stuff, fully recovered now and ready for action. ‘I’ll show that bully I’m as strong as any other nurse. Two of them are nuns, aren’t they? Sisters from a nursing Order, Paul told us in his letters ...’
    * * *
    The Mbusa Wa Bwini Mission was Father Paul's 'baby'. Seven years ago, on his arrival as a missionary priest from England, he had been sent here by the diocese of Dar-es-Salaam, under instructions from the African bishop to set up a base in this remote area of bush.
    But he had kept regularly in touch with the folks back home in the UK, and especially the Westcott family in whose soot-stained Victorian vicarage he had once lodged. While under their roof he had become engaged to tall serene Helen, the eldest and most tranquil of the three Westcott girls. They planned to get married when Paul had a parish and a roof of his own to shelter his beautiful blonde fiancée.
    To be near Paul, Helen had left her London hospital and taken a staff nurse's post at one of the northern city's general hospitals: and there she had been swept off her sensible feet by a rakish surgeon heading the casualty team.
    Within the space of months Helen and Bram Markland were married. And Paul, reacting like the gentle saint he was, gave the two of them his blessing and not one word of reproach. Helen's teenage sisters, openly adoring their father's handsome Rugby Blue assistant priest, were shocked to the core. Each secretly vowed to grab Paul for herself when his time in Africa was up. But apart from occasional visits on leave, Paul seemed devoted to his new work, and his letters never mentioned the possibility of a permanent return to England.
    Hannah's stubborn heart had been captured by a doctor of her own, and in time the only sister whose heartbeat increased at the thought of Paul Hume was Jennifer ... capricious Jenni, artistic and creative like their mother whom she resembled physically. But in character Jenni was the cuckoo in the nest. Jenni the dreamer, Jenni the wilful one, the stormiest and most temperamental of the three sisters.
    Though Jenni had had more boyfriends than Hannah declared she’d had hot dinners, Jenni still hadn’t found a man to stir her heartbeat like the memory of Paul…
    * * *
    The Mbusa Wa Bwini was going from strength to strength.
    One of Paul's first actions had been to arrange for weekly visits by a travelling medical team. Young Africans were sent by the theological colleges to learn from the English priest how to run parishes of their own. Mission workers were based there and travelled daily into the bush.
    The compound was enlarged to make room next to the