Harlequin Medical Romance September 2019, Box Set 2 of 2 by Sue MacKay

Author:Sue MacKay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2019-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

STANDING IN THE doorway of his hut, looking out, Arlo watched the rain for a few minutes. It wasn’t the rainy season yet, but it was getting close. Layla was asleep, but his memories and thoughts made him too restless to sleep. And the rain beating down so heavily on the roof, sounding like gunfire, didn’t help either.

There was too much of the past swirling around in his head. There were so many good things he’d overlooked or ignored. And now the heavy impact of having her here was something he’d never expected. She was igniting things in him that had died out all those years ago. Giving him hopes to latch onto again, even though he knew he shouldn’t. Layla had always made him happy. But he had to be cautious because this was only temporary, just like last time had been.

Without looking back at the curtain, or the now dim image on the other side, Arlo launched into the downpour and bounded across the road to the hospital so quickly it barely raised a blip in his consciousness. Why was he there? He wasn’t even sure about that. Probably to occupy space where Layla wasn’t distracting him. Where his whole life wasn’t distracting him. Where he wasn’t questioning his choices and promises.

“Promises,” he said aloud. The one he’d made to his mother to look after his dad after she was gone. The one he’d made his dad to take his mother’s place as a doctor after she was gone. The first hadn’t worked out since his dad had left shortly after the funeral. Which had left Arlo stuck here in a practice meant for two but now as the only doctor.

And in the early days, when he’d thought about going back to civilization, to Layla, something had always stopped him. A fever outbreak. A critically injured patient who would have died without his help. People who depended on him. People who trusted him to take care of them. That was a lot of responsibility to carry around.

But to toss it aside would be to walk away from someplace where he was needed. And maybe there was a little arrogance mixed in with that—the kind that told him he was the only one who could do this job. That was all about his need, though. The need to be needed. Layla had always wanted him, but she’d never needed him. And the distance between those was wider than the universe.

Still, in his more thoughtful moments, when ego wasn’t taking over, and the hurt of not being needed by the woman he’d needed went away, he simply saw the need of the village as the binding element. If he left, no one would come to replace him. Like no one had replaced Layla.

Arlo knew these were crazy, mixed-up emotions, but they were all he had. He’d offered Layla his world, she’d turned it down. In retrospect it had been selfish as he’d never stopped to realize how important her world was to her.

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