© 1998

Dear Reader,

Far north Queensland and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef combine to make one of the best, most romantic, most exotic and just plain fabulous holiday destinations in the world.

Just ask met My husband, my children and I love it. After every visit I return to my desk sandy, sunburned and gloriously happy I’m ready to write more romances, but there’s always a trace of “I wish I could have stayed longer.”

This year, as we were waiting in Cairns airport for our flight south and back to work, a honeymoon couple arrived on the inward flight. They were obviously very much in love, they were weighed down with beach gear-and he was just gorgeous! So all the way south I sat and scowled. What if I hijacked her honeymoon…

And the lovely thing about being a romance author is-that I just did! And I hope you enjoy it.

SAPPHIRE COVE, Australia, was definitely the loveliest place in the world for a honeymoon.

Pity about the bride.

Dr Ryan Henry eased his foot from the accelerator and gazed across the headland. What he saw was magic.

The sea below was the sapphire blue that gave the town its name. A yacht with white sail and crimson spinnaker stood out against the distant islands. The wind was warm and laced with salt and sunshine, and tropical growth surged between coconut palms all along the roadside.

Magic, indeed.

His mother hadn’t thought so.

‘Sapphire Cove is the end of the earth,’ Ryan’s mother had told him when she’d taken him to the States seventeen years ago. Ryan had been fifteen years old and his parents’ marriage had collapsed. ‘Don’t ever let your father talk you into coming back.’