Congratulations Meredith Appleyard
on the release of
The Doctor Calling.

There’s a giveaway too!

GIVEAWAY NOW ENDED

A signed paperback copy of The Doctor Calling
(Giveaway open until midnight AEST Saturday 5 March 2016. Giveaway open to Australian postal addressees only.)

What Laura was about to do wasn’t easy. To become embroiled in a family’s grief, their anger, their secrets, wasn’t safe, or clever.

Rebuilding her life again after unexpected tragedy, GP Laura O’Connor flees Adelaide, and her medical career, for a quiet life in rural Potters Junction. She’s looking to escape her own family dramas. The last thing she expects is to become caught up in another’s.

Jake Finlay is a man with a troubled past and a passion for risk-taking. After years away from his small home town, he’s hell-bent on keeping his distance. But his father is dying and this could be the last chance they have to make amends.

As Laura and Jake come together over the care for the frail man, they experience an irresistible attraction. Will facing death help them both to grab hold of life? And might love be just what the doctor ordered?

Excerpt from The Doctor Calling by Meredith Appleyard

Chapter One

The blind went up with a snap. Laura peered through the blurry glass into the narrow strip of blue sky between the verandah and the tangled native hibiscus. The morning was clear. No excuse to go back to bed and renege on the day’s exercise. Ten minutes later she was dressed and stretched, and letting herself quietly through the galvanised-iron gate that connected her yard with her neighbour’s.

As usual the sleek black-and-tan dog was straining on his chain, tail wagging. Freed at last, he danced around her like she was a maypole and then took off down the gravel driveway to wait by the rusty front gate. Together they stepped out onto the deserted street. Wheelie bins were lined up alongside the kerb, beads of dew sparkling on their lids. In the distance she heard the discordant morning song of the galahs, the rumble of the garbage truck and the grumble of a road train on the highway.

Laura walked towards the end of the street, gradually increasing her speed until she was jogging past the aging fibro houses and the occasional stone cottage so much like her own. The spring air was sweet and damp, the gardens ranged from manicured lawns and precision-pruned roses, to unkempt messes of weeds and straggly geranium bushes. The houses petered out and, just past the Potters Junction area school, the bitumen ended and gave way to gravel. Here, paddocks dotted with low scrub and saltbush stretched to the horizon, fading into the bruised shadows of the Flinders Ranges. Laura settled into the six-kilometre run and let her mind wander, the kelpie loping alongside her.

Usually the running helped ground her, helped her start the day on a positive note. She found the vast emptiness, the silence and the stillness, soothing to her soul. The vibration of each footfall reassured her, the rhythmic slap of her thick braid against her back comforted her. She smiled, reflecting on that first morning a couple of months back when she’d barely made it past the school before her lungs had felt about to burst. Every breath had burned like fire, and her legs had been jelly. She had come a long way from the physical and emotional wreck she’d been then. There was a way to go yet, but the worst was behind her.

After about fifteen minutes Laura reached up to adjust the sweatband. The dog, tongue lolling, didn’t miss a beat. He knew better than to show more than a passing interest in the few sheep grazing amongst the saltbush. Within her sights, Laura made out the clump of scrubby vegetation that bordered a tight bend in the road. The outside sweep of the bend dropped away into a rocky ditch. Her halfway mark, three kilometres from home, where she turned to retrace her steps back along the gravel track.

‘Come on boy,’ she challenged, increasing her speed as they neared the bend. She fumbled in her pocket for her phone, nodded with satisfaction at the time. Feeling alive and glad that she was, she focused on the beat of her feet hitting the ground, the morning air, fresh and cool against her skin.

And then with a shriek she was lunging for the verge, sliding feet-first down the embankment and screaming for the dog as a massive black motorbike thundered past in a spray of dust and gravel.

The dust settled with the silence. Shaken, Laura clambered to her feet, testing each limb. A breeze fizzed across her skin. She shivered, brushed at the dirt and scrambled back up onto the road, calling for the dog. He’d vanished. She limped along the middle of the road, spitting out grit and trying to keep the rising panic from her voice as she called for the dog.

Her head jerked around when she heard a low growl. The motorbike had done a U-turn and was moving slowly back towards her. The bike was almost alongside her when something burst from the saltbush, a glistening streak in motion. With a startled yelp, Laura jumped back as a rabbit, ears flat, followed closely by the dog, raced past her.

‘You come here, Skip,’ she cried, but the dog was sliding under a fence on his belly and into a paddock, the gap widening between him and his prey.

The rider pulled onto the verge and stopped. Angry colour surged into Laura’s cheeks. She spun around to glare at him, frustrated when she couldn’t penetrate the visor of the tinted full-face helmet. He was covered from neck to toe in black leather riding gear.

‘Have you got a death wish or something?’ She gave a sweep of her arm in the direction the dog had taken. ‘You could have killed us, as well as yourself! This early there are roos along here, emus, stray stock – humans and dogs, even.’

She planted her hands on her hips, waiting while he kicked down the side stand, swung a leg over the bike. Finger by finger he worked off his leather gloves and dropped them onto the petrol tank, and then eased off the helmet, resting it on the seat. He raked tanned fingers through straight, black hair matted to his forehead. At least a day’s worth of stubble shadowed his jaw. His eyes were red-rimmed and road-weary.

‘Are you hurt?’ he said, his voice as gravelly as the road.

The Doctor Calling is available in eBook and paperback from all good retailers.
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Giveaway!

GIVEAWAY NOW ENDED

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(Giveaway open until midnight AEST Saturday 5 March 2016. Giveaway open to Australian postal addressees only.)

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