The Single Dad's New-Year Bride

‘I’ll see you later. I’ll ring if I find out anything about Mr Tuxedo.’ Rilla winked as she departed.

‘Great,’ Hailey said brightly. Just what she needed, Rilla in matchmaker mode.

But her mind turned quickly to more pressing matters. This afternoon’s meet and greet with the new director of paediatric services at the Brisbane General was a pretty big deal. She steeled herself mentally. The last director had been in his sixties and around for ever, and a real honey to boot. It had been sad to see him go.

Getting used to someone new was always a little fraught. Drastic changes to set practices often caused consternation and Hailey knew she wasn’t the only member of staff who was nervous. She crossed her fingers that the transition wouldn’t be too bumpy.

Hailey answered the phone in the nurses’ station just before lunch. It was the lab with some renal function results and she dutifully wrote them down.

‘Excuse me.’

‘One moment,’ Hailey said, not bothering to look up from the piece of paper as she double-checked the numbers.

‘Thanks, George,’ she said, replacing the phone, then scribbled the patient details down. ‘Yes, sir, can I help you?’

Hailey looked up expectantly, her greeting dying on her lips. Tom’s father stood before her. He wore a pale lemon business shirt and a funky tie with polka-dot pigs emblazoned on it. He had a hospital ID with a smiley face sticker stuck over his face and a stethoscope slung around his neck.

‘Tom’s father,’ she said absently.

Callum would have laughed had he not also been a little stunned from this development. Hailey was a nurse? Who worked on the kids’ ward? Hailey, who had been on his mind a little too frequently the last few days. Hailey, who Tom had constantly chatted about—nothing but Hailey this and Hailey that since the ball.

She was in the standard uniform of plain navy pants and white shirt with the Brisbane General logo. Her hair was swept back into a no-nonsense ponytail complete with those familiar escaping tendrils brushing her neck.

‘Callum. Callum Craig,’ he supplied, holding out his hand, realising that he hadn’t introduced himself the other night.

She took his firm warm hand in a daze and was instantly transported back to the moment he’d kissed her, his lips burning a brand into her cheek, his hand on her hip. She searched through the fog of lust in her head—where had she heard that name before?

‘Is everything all right? Tom OK?’ She frowned. ‘Oh, God, he’s not sick is he?’

No. Not any more. ‘He’s fine. I’m just a little early for my appointment, I guess.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Hailey said, not seeing at all. ‘Were you here to see Yvonne?’ His name was familiar but her brain cells still weren’t working properly. Perhaps the NUM had mentioned his visit to her earlier?

‘Partly, yes. I came to meet everyone and have a poke around.’

Hailey felt her pulse pick up and start to thrum through the veins in her head. ‘Meet everyone?’ she practically squeaked, suddenly realising why his name was so familiar.

‘Yes. I’m the new director. Looks like we’re going to be working together.’

Hailey nodded dumbly. This was Dr Callum Craig? The stranger who had kissed her on a balcony on New Year’s Eve?

Oh, hell! So much for never seeing him again. The man was practically her boss!

Hailey spent the next two days avoiding him. When he was on the ward, she made herself scarce. The panroom, not a particularly fascinating place to be at the best of times, was her number-one choice for rooms in which to hide. It was certainly an inspired one. She’d never met a doctor yet who was comfortable around a bedpan. It was the one room they avoided like the plague.

She may not have known Callum Craig for very long but she’d known him long enough to know that she’d never had such an instantaneous reaction to a man. And there’d been plenty to make comparisons with. Her twenties had been strewn with brief, fun relationships. Light flirtations that hadn’t gone the distance. They’d burnt brightly with all the pop and sparkle of giddy newness but had fizzled out quickly. Rilla and Beth had teased her that she’d changed her boyfriends as frequently as her underwear.

But none of them had ever had such an impact on such a short acquaintance. Not even Paul. And they’d bored her so quickly too. They had been boys compared to Callum Craig. She doubted he had a boring bone in his body. In short, Callum Craig unsettled her. And that was to be avoided at all costs. She was moving on with her life—she didn’t need to complicate it by reaching for another attainable man.

A fleeting moonlight kiss at midnight from a stranger was one thing. She could hug it close, daydream about it and bring it out at night to relive over and over in her sleep. But when that man was a colleague? She had learnt the hard way not to mix work with her private life. What had happened in London had burnt her so badly she was sworn off men for life.

Particularly men with little boys.

Callum entered the ward on Thursday afternoon to attend his ward round. He spotted Hailey just as she was disappearing into the panroom. Again.

She was avoiding him.

OK, he got it. Her signals were coming across loud and clear. Back off. Not interested. Don’t even think about it.

She obviously regretted their midnight madness.

He wished the same could be said for him. It was, after all, the most sensible course of action. The very last thing he needed now was to develop a thing for a woman who wanted nothing to do with him.

His six years alone—coping with his wife’s death and a six-month-old baby and then struggling to raise Tom and get him through his illness, scared to death most of the time—seemed suddenly magnified. Maybe that was what happened? Maybe Hailey’s kiss had made him realise what a solitary life he led. Why else would his body be reacting so strongly to a woman who was so patently not interested?

Because he didn’t have the time or the wherewithal for any kind of a relationship. He’d spent the last six years protecting Tom, shielding him from the things life had thrown at him—the loss of his mother and a truly vile illness. He’d dropped the ball with Annie, he wouldn’t do the same with Tom.

But he didn’t have time for this hide-and-seek routine either. They were both adults and this state of affairs couldn’t continue. She couldn’t keep avoiding him for ever. They had to work together. They were two mature adults. Surely they could act that way?

He glanced at his watch. Five minutes before Yvonne was expecting him for rounds. He took a moment to collect his thoughts and pushed open the panroom door.

‘Afternoon, Hailey.’

Hailey started. She had her back to the door, checking the expiry dates on the various test sticks that were kept in the wall cupboard above the sink. Over the last few days she’d done a pretty decent inventory of the room’s contents. She turned around slowly, her heart rate tripping from a surge of adrenaline.

He looked divine. His stethoscope was slung casually around his neck and his shirt fitted his broad-shouldered frame to perfection. His tie today sported leaping leprechauns and his smile exuded charisma. She felt his pull despite the good three metres between them. ‘I think you took a wrong turn. Yvonne’s office is two doors down.’

Callum’s smile widened. ‘Nope. This is the right door. I was after you.’

Her heart slammed in her chest. ‘Me?’ she practically squeaked.

‘You’ve been kind of hard to pin down these last few days.’

‘Ah, yes…’ she said nervously. She dragged in a ragged breath, feeling like all the oxygen was being sucked out of the room. ‘A nurse’s work is never done,’ she said lamely, shaking the bottle of urine sticks, which she hadn’t realised she was holding, in his general direction.

‘Are you in Yvonne’s bad books? Have you been banished to the panroom for the term of your natural life?’

‘Er…no,’ she said, her dazzled brain cells trying to keep track of the conversation.

‘Ah. So you’re just avoiding me?’

Bingo! Hailey stared at him for a moment before turning back to the cupboard, horrified at the rise of heat in her cheeks. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Her hand shook as she replaced the container.

Callum watched her as her fingers ran over the contents of the cupboard. ‘Hailey.’ Her fingers stilled but she didn’t answer him. ‘Hailey,’ he said again, moving closer.

Hailey turned around reluctantly and then immediately wished she hadn’t. He loomed in front of her and she was reminded of the ball all over again as she looked all the way up into his face. His very sexy face. If she’d thought his pull had been strong from across the room, it was nothing compared to his power close up.

‘God, you’re tiny,’ Callum said, distracted by their height disparity. Maybe it had been the moonlight but he didn’t remember her being so far down.