The Taurus Scorpio Connection

By Janet Lane Walters

Her mother was a hired nanny and her father the Mellwood Bank. This is the way Taurus Laurel Richmond describes her family. After burning out as a nurse with an international health agency, she returns to Eastlake, the one place where she felt connected. She studied nursing here and made a number of friends. Her one problem is her wealth. Soon she will receive a fortune. But money hasn’t given her the things she wants, a home, a family and love. Since a chance visit after summer camp with a friend made there, her idea of a man to love has been Alex Carter.

Alex Carter is a Scorpio, a single dad with a five year old son. He’s a general practitioner at Eastlake Community Hospital. While attracted to Laurel, he has one problem. His ex and now dead wife had a lot of money and little sense. Drugs and her fast friends were her life. She abandoned their son who cried for hours until his father returned. Alex has no love for women with money. Attraction or not he refuses to admit he’s falling for Laurel.

With the help of Alex’s son, Laurel sets out to prove to Alex she’s in town for the long haul and she will make the perfect wife and mother.

Review:
Janet Lane Walters has written a charming tale.
As a child, Laurel Richmond was trapped in a car with her dead parents for hours. After losing them, Laurel's next of kin was a bank. Laurel hides her immense wealth, traveling internationally as a nurse, helping the sick. She decides to settle in Eastlake, a small community.

She once summered with her friend Megan, developing a huge crush on Megan's brother, Alex, who is now a divorced doctor raising his young son Johnny. Alex is leary of wealth because his rich ex-wife had no time for him or Johnny, but Johnny takes to Laurel right away.

The glimpses of a family life that Laurel experiences with Johnny and Alex leave her longing for her dreams to become reality. Can she get Alex to realize that money may bring power, but love offers peace?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BWL Publishing Inc.
• Release date: Apr 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9780228602477

Janet Lane Walters

Janet Lane Walters has been writing and published since the days of the typewriter. She has 30 plus novels and seven novellas plus four non-fiction books published. Janet lives in the scenic Hudson River valley with her husband, a psychiatrist who has no desire to cure her obsession with writing.She is the mother of four and the grandmother of five with two children expected to arrive soon from China. Janet writes in a number of genres - Romance from sweet to sensual and from contemporary to fantasy and paranormal. She has published cozy mysteries and medical suspense. She also has a number of YA fantasies published.

Book preview

The Taurus Scorpio Connection

Opposites In Love Book 2

By Janet Lane-Walters

Ditigal ISBN’s

EPUB 9781771456814

Kindle 9781771454254

WEB PDF 9781771456821

Print ISBN: 9781771456838

Copyright 2Ed. 2018 Janet Lane Walters

Cover Art Michelle Lee

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Dedication

To my family who puts up with my scribbling and to the few of them who read my books.

Chapter 1

The ceiling fan stirred the hot, humid air. Alien aromas of sweat, perfume and spices assaulted her. Laurel Richmond leaned against the examining table and wiped her forehead with a cotton bandanna. A babble of voices floated through the partially open door of the triage room. She looked for Chandra and remembered the tiny Indian nurse had left for the day.

Laurel’s eyes blurred. A sneeze exploded. Her throat ached and a dull pain settled above her eyes. She looked down at her wrinkled khaki slacks, glad she wasn’t wearing white the way she would have at a hospital in the States.

The chatter from the waiting room became the voices of Babel, dislocating her in time and space. For an instant she wondered where she lived this week and what year headed the calendar. A dozen scenes from as many countries flashed in her thoughts. For the past four years she’d worked for International Health Rescue Mission as part of a team following disasters and dispensing medical care and training native health workers.

She opened her eyes. The moment of disorientation vanished. India. The team had settled in the costal plains where a cyclone had ripped through villages and towns leaving death and disease behind. She gripped the edge of the examining table and willed herself not to collapse.

After pulling her spinning emotions under control, she walked to the door of the triage room and motioned to the next group of patients. A dark-skinned woman with pleading brown eyes spoke in a high-pitched voice, joining syllables with staccato beats. Three wide-eyed children clung to her sari. As if offering a gift the woman held out a baby. Laurel took the child.

The infant’s swollen belly and thin limbs spoke of malnutrition. Fevered flesh burned Laurel’s hands. The weak mewling cries brought tears to her eyes. She bathed the baby in tepid water and then plunged a needle into the thin muscles of his buttocks. Her hands shook as she handed the mother a bottle of sugar water and several of diluted formula. Next, Laurel examined the little girls.

The sing-song spate of chatter stopped. Laurel looked around. Neil Bourne stood in the doorway. Though the day had almost ended, his khakis looked neat. His dark hair, lightly sprinkled with gray, coupled with the lines of experience in the corners of his eyes, revealed the ten years’ difference in their ages.

He smiled. In the past, his smiles had brought comfort and allowed her to speak of her dreams like a child talking to a trusted uncle. Today, his smile made her edgy.

Dear girl, it’s nearly eight. Time to close shop for the day. You work too hard and too long.

No more than you. She studied his face. Something in his expression told her he had news. Was the team moving to the scene of some new disaster? She wanted to protest another dislocation.

Let me help you finish.

Unwilling to let her tiredness show, she nodded, stepped to the door and gestured to the next patient.

For an hour, she and Neil assessed the rest of the patients in the waiting room. When the last patient had been seen, she closed the door and slumped on a chair.

Time to leave.

Neil’s deep voice lured her to her feet. She washed her hands and splashed water on her face. As they crossed the road to the house where members of the team lived, only his hand at her elbow kept her from staggering.

Dinner? he asked.

Let me change.

He shook his head. If I let you go, you’ll collapse on the bed and miss another meal.

She followed him into the house. It’s too hot.

It’s a far cry from London in May, he said. Here, there’s the hot wet season and the hot dry season.

It’s not like home either. Where was home? A chill made her tremble. Her vision blurred and she sank on a dining room chair. Flies droned. The ceiling fan stirred the air.

A servant entered and bowed. Soon dishes of curried chicken, rice, vegetables and fruit arrived along with a pot of steaming tea. The mingled aromas made her swallow. Nausea threatened.

She poured a cup of tea. What I would give for a glass of ice.

You’re a barbarian. He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. "Homesick?

She shook her head. Just weary and tired of living as a gypsy. Nannies. City apartments. Country homes. Boarding schools. Summer camps. Though she’d never known another way of life she yearned for being settled.

In two weeks we’re for London and a week there while we re-equip. He squeezed her fingers. You feel warm.

The heat. I wonder if I’ll ever feel cool again. She sipped the tea and toyed with the food on her plate.

Neil ate as if his next meal would arrive at some unspecified future time. He finished and walked around the table. Let’s take tomorrow as an escape day.

Can we? As his fingers lightly stroked the tight muscles of her shoulders and strayed to brush her neck, she tensed. The patients.

Will be here long after we’re gone. His fingers caressed her throat. I know a place in the mountains with a pool fed by streams and breezes sweetened by the scent of flowers. I’d like to take you there.

That’s not a day’s outing.

I know but it would be a splendid place for a honeymoon. His stroking fingers stilled. Marry me.

Shock waves rode her nerves. What could she say that wouldn’t hurt him? From deep inside came the knowledge she no longer wanted this roving life and that was all Neil could offer. She wanted the home she’d never known and for him to remain a friend, a mentor, not a lover and keeper of her heart.

He pulled her to her feet and turned her to face him. We’re a smashing team. His deep voice spun a web of enticement. Consider the miracles we’ve performed and how many more are possible if we marry. His mouth covered hers.

He’s not the one. The inner warning stiffened her body and aborted her response to his kiss. I can’t.

She couldn’t decipher the look in his pale blue eyes. She wanted to explain but any words she said would keep the situation rolling like a mudslide down a canyon wall. Months ago she’d told him about the secret love she’d held in her heart. He had dismissed the memories as a fantasy. For a short time she had believed him but she knew he was wrong.

I’m sorry.

He cupped her chin. You’re alone. So am I. The world is filled with people crying for what we can give them.

The look in his eyes belonged to a zealot. She would never come first with him. The sick would always claim his energy. I…

His fingers brushed her lips. Don’t answer in haste. Think of how much you can give to so many in the future. Then give me an answer.

She backed away. Beneath the panic that gathered in her thoughts she wondered why he had waited until tonight to ask her to marry him. Had her birthday yesterday and her mention of the money that would be hers next year play a part? Why hadn’t he asked her last year, last month, or sometime during the two years she’d been part of his team. Never once in that time had she sensed his caring went beyond friendship.

She walked to the bedroom she shared with another nurse. Without undressing she lay on the hard mattress and fell instantly into sleep.

* * *

The long night of tossing and turning, of sleep interrupted by strange and frightening dreams ended at dawn. She sat on the edge of the bed. Her head and throat ached. She turned to her roommate. Tell Neil…I can’t…I have to… She lay back and closed her eyes.

As soon as the house emptied, she showered, packed and wrote a note to Neil declining his proposal. She hitched a ride to Calcutta with the man who brought supplies to the clinic. Though she knew running away was wrong, she couldn’t think of any other action to keep Neil from stirring her guilt over her leaving IHRM. At the airport she booked the first flight heading west.

The first leg took her from Calcutta to Athens to Rome. By the time she boarded the plane for London, her memories of the airports had blurred. Aspirin washed down with tea or coffee kept her body bathed with perspiration. In Athens she’d begun to sniffle. A cough had developed in Rome. By the time she reached London and the flat she had rented four years before, she wanted to sleep for a week. Five minutes after entering the bedroom, she collapsed.

Sixteen sleep-drugged hours later she showered to wash away the stench of travel and fever. Her decision had been made. Tired of constant relocation and living out of a duffel bag, she yearned for a place where she could build a stable life.

A frantic day of packing began. The dolls she’d collected, her clothes, two boxes of books. She stopped long enough to have dinner with her landlady at the pub down the street. After leaving shipping instructions, she wrote a check to cover the rent for the remainder of the lease. Then she booked a flight to the States and called Megan Carter.

* * *

The next morning she headed to the offices of IHRM. Within thirty seconds of her arrival she had typed a letter of resignation and carried it to the Director’s office.

The gray-haired woman looked up. Laurel, you’re not due for a week.

A bout of coughing left Laurel weak. Resigning. A family emergency.

You sound beastly. Let me ring a doctor. The director reached for the phone.

Can’t take the time. Have a flight. Have to go home.

The woman shook her head. You’re ill. How can you handle an emergency when you’re the one who needs care?

I’ll see a doctor as soon as I reach home.

The director walked to the door with Laurel. I’ll hold your resignation. When the emergency ends, come back.

I can’t. In the distance a clock chimed twelve times and brought a fear she wouldn’t reach Heathrow in time for the flight. She hoisted the duffel and waved down a taxi. They arrived at the airport with time to spare. She collapsed in her seat in first class. As the plane rose from the end of the runway, she fell into a fevered dream that scrambled her thoughts.

* * *

They annoying ring of the phone interrupted a strange yet beautiful dream. Alex Carter groped for his cell and mumbled a greeting. Hearing his sister’s voice instead of the husky voice of the answering service confused him. She spewed a stream of words with the force of a flash flood. Megan, slow down. Do you know what time it is?

"Six a.m. and I have to go work and Laurel arrives this morning and I was supposed to meet her but I have to work and can’t go so do me a favor and go to the airport and be there by ten when