© 2006

Dear Reader,

I love setting my books in the farming community where I was raised, but sometimes I worry I’m in a rut. So this time I decided to write outside the square.

The Surgeon’s Family Miracle was, therefore, supposed to be a dramatic romance set against the exotic loveliness of a Pacific island, with nary a cow in sight. And so it is-for half the book. But halfway through I got homesick, so doctors Ben and Lily ended up-you guessed it-flying back to Ben’s farm in Australia to conclude their very satisfactory romance. In the long run, they do end up on their gorgeous Pacific island, but their farming community comes with them.

I have a fabulous time writing books of the heart, and I’m also delighted (and relieved) that you seem to love my country settings.

My family rolls its eyes when I tell them farming’s romantic-but romance is where you find it. No?

Just look under the next cow pat.

Happy reading.

Marion

LILY stared at the thin blue line in consternation. Her plane ticket was right beside her on the bed. In three hours she’d be flying back to Kapua, her Pacific island home, and from now on she and Ben would be nothing but friends.

She was pregnant.

She gazed at herself in the mirror, horror building. They’d been so careful for the past four years, but last week she’d had a tummy bug, and this week, knowing she might never see him again… Well, the only sure contraceptive was abstinence and how could she bear to be apart if this final week was all she had?

She was having Ben’s baby.

She needed to tell him.

The thought made her blench. He’d hate it. She knew how much he’d hate it. Ben who held himself aloof, who backed away at the first sign of need-how could he be a father? Maybe the biggest reason he’d let himself be drawn into their relationship had been that at the end of four years he’d known she had to go home.