Sail Away: A Classic Romance - Book 5 by Barbara Bretton

Author:Barbara Bretton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Spirit Press

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The woman's eyes were anxious and bright with tears. "How is he?"

"It was touch and go, but I think he'll make it."

"Will there be any side-effects?"

"Some slight swelling, but nothing serious. Compresses should do the trick."

The elderly woman's smile was a sight to behold as she clasped Cameron to her pouter-pigeon bosoms. "You know how dear Jo-Jo is to me, doctor. Words seem insufficient to express my thanks."

He kissed her cheek and extricated himself from her Chanel No. 5 embrace. "You'll have Jo-Jo with you quite a few more years, Mrs. Burton."

"When can he come home, doctor?"

"How does tomorrow morning sound?"

"I shall be here when your doors open!"

He walked Mrs. Burton out to the front door then locked it behind her and closed the blinds. How little it took in the scheme of things to make a person happy. He found a way to keep an old woman and her ancient terrier together a bit longer. It wasn't front-page material but it probably did more for Mrs. Burton's health and well-being than the latest wonder drug.

And it did a hell of a lot more for him than all the fancy parties and seminars he'd hosted back in the old days when he served as the glamour boy darling of the New York Animal Hospital in Manhattan, catering to the pampered pets of the equally pampered carriage trade.

He'd arrived in New York fresh from veterinary school, filled with lofty ideas about the relationship between man and beast, and how noble it was to care for the lowest of God's creatures.

Before he knew what hit him, he found himself guesting on all the talk shows, lending his name to a book for Doubleday, putting together a video on pet care ("Smile, Cameron darling, smile!") and, not incidentally, falling in love with media-savvy socialite Hayley Carter Caldwell. He led a charmed life and had no reason to believe things would change until, three weeks after his thirtieth birthday when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's and he stopped being a golden boy and started being a man.

A man who was sick. A man who was scared. A man who had needed a hand to hold in the darkest hours of the night when he wanted to give up the ghost and end the pain.

There was nothing like a bout with cancer to show you who your true friends were -- and Cameron discovered, in record time, that the word cancer was the most powerful four-letter word of them all. Friends fell away from him like autumn leaves from a windblown oak tree. He grew skinny and bald and short-tempered; the reporters and photographers and society groupies looked for greener pastures.

And he found that it didn't matter. He discovered he was stronger than he'd imagined, more self-sufficient, more determined -- and if that determination sometimes looked like selfishness, so be it. He walked through the fire for two long years and came out the other side.

Alone.

He quit the New York Animal Hospital, sold his co-op on Central Park West, and juggled his priorities.

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