Dr. Daddy

Zoey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “The man is never polite, cool or distant to me, although as much distance as possible would be welcome. He has a more heated personality than anyone I’ve ever met. And as for polite... Hey, wait a minute,” she added when she reconsidered her friend’s statement. “Are you trying to imply that it’s my fault I’m at the top of his hit list?”

Olivia shrugged, obviously thinking hard before voicing her reply. “Not so much your fault,” she said slowly. “But I think his bad moods might just possibly be a direct result of your presence.”

Now Zoey was really confused. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that some personalities don’t jibe with others, you know?”

Sylvie nodded her understanding. “I know what you mean. That’s exactly how Chase and I were for a while. We had almost nothing in common—except for Gennie, of course—and there were times when he just absolutely drove me nuts. But,” she added with a serene smile, “we worked through all that. Now everything’s peaches.”

“Well, things will never be peaches in my life as long as I have to deal with Dr. Jonas Tate,” Zoey said decisively. “There’s just something about that man....”

“Don’t sweat it,” Sylvie told her. “Listen, I’m going to give you the sagest, most profound bit of bartender advice in my ample arsenal, advice that has never failed me or any of my customers before.”

Zoey didn’t try to hide her skepticism, but asked anyway, “And what’s that?”

“Just go with the flow, Zoey.”

Zoey glanced from Sylvie to Olivia and back again. “Go with the flow,” she repeated blandly, enunciating each word clearly lest she had misunderstood one of them.

Sylvie nodded. “You’d be amazed at how many of us inadvertently create our own problems by battling against the very things we should be accepting. Look at Livy and me and the problems we had with Daniel and Chase. She and I are two prime examples.” She looked down at the baby dropping off to sleep in her carrier and smiled. “Just relax and let nature take its course, Zoey. You and Dr. Fate will work things out.”

“Dr. Tate,” Zoey corrected her friend again. Sylvie waved her hand negligently and bent to kiss her daughter’s forehead. “Tate, fate,” she said quietly. “Whatever.”

One

Jonas Tate was not having a good day, and it was all Juliana’s fault. She was the most demanding, petulant female he had ever had the misfortune to know, an absolute monster hiding behind big blue eyes, soft blond hair and delicate, cupid’s bow lips. As she did virtually every night since she’d invaded his home two months ago, she had woken him in the middle of the night, insisting that he see to her needs—and by God, Juliana’s needs could exhaust an army of men—and hadn’t allowed him to go back to sleep after he’d satisfied her. Once awake and sated, she had ordered him to further entertain her, commanding stories and music and clever conversation.

She was that most deadly kind of female, he thought, charming and surprisingly alluring one minute, needful and completely dependent the next. There was no doubt in his mind that she would be the death of some unfortunate man someday.

All that, and she was barely three months old.

Jonas pulled open the top right-hand drawer of his desk, pushed aside a sheaf of papers, a banded bundle of pencils and a wayward pacifier until he located a bottle of extrastrength pain reliever. He tossed back three of the capsules without water, grimacing when one got stuck halfway down his throat. When he went to the water cooler in the corner of his office, he caught a quick glimpse of himself in the mirror hanging near it and wished he hadn’t.

He looked like hell. His dark curls were ragged looking and badly in need of a cut for which he had absolutely no time to spare. He’d also had no time to spare for a shave that morning, and his three-o’clock shadow—normally heavy on the best days—shaded the lower half of his face like a Mack truck. What had once been faint purple crescents beneath his eyes due to a little overwork were fast becoming indelible black smudges due to an almost total lack of sleep. He looked not like a man who oversaw a hospital wing, but a man who was confined to one—whichever one it was that housed the psychiatric ward.

A quick rap at his office door caused him to turn around abruptly, icy water sloshing over the side of the cup and onto the sleeve of his white dress shirt. His reaction to the cold liquid was to jump, an action that spilled even more water onto the front of his shirt.

“Come in!” he shouted out angrily, holding the wet fabric away from his skin.

The door opened slowly, barely enough for one of the new interns to stick her head inside. “Uh, Dr. Tate?” she asked.

“Yes?” He couldn’t remember the young woman’s name, but he didn’t really care. From what little he’d observed of her, she wasn’t long for the program, anyway.

“They, uh, they need you in the maternity ward, sir.”

“Why?”

“I, uh, I don’t know. They just asked me to bring you.”

“Is it an emergency?”

The young woman narrowed her eyes as she considered the question. “I don’t think so. They probably would have told me if it was, don’t you think?”

“One would think so, yes.”

“Or else they would have paged you. I guess.”

Jonas studied the woman for a long time before he spoke further. When he did, it was brief and to the point. “What’s your name?” he asked the intern.

“Mills, sir. Uh, Dr. Claudia Mills.”

“Mills,” he repeated, making no effort to hide the displeasure and exasperation he felt. “Dr. Mills,” he corrected himself, placing a sarcastic emphasis on her title. “How long have you been with us here at Seton General?”

“About two weeks, sir.”

“Two weeks. I see. And in that very brief amount of time, you’ve already managed to forget the most basic principles of your medical education, is that right?”

Her eyes widened in surprise before she dipped her head to avoid meeting his gaze. “No, sir, I—”

Jonas strode forcefully to the door and jerked it open, out of the intern’s grasp, causing her to stumble forward past him. He turned again before he left and addressed her one final time. “The next time someone asks you to do something, Dr. Mills, do try to get the particulars before you go trundling off on your merry way, won’t you?

“And one more thing,” he added when he saw tears forming in her eyes. “If you expect to last in this profession, you’d better develop a thick skin. I won’t be the last doctor to take you to task for stupid mistakes. Just watch that you make as few of them as possible. Someone might wind up hurt. Or dead. And then where will you be, hmm?”

As the door closed behind him he thought he heard the young woman sniffling, and he frowned. Interns, he thought with a cynical shake of his head. These days none of them seemed to have the backbone for the job.

He was still angry, and his head was still pounding, when he arrived in the maternity ward, finding the unit surprisingly quiet so close to a change of shifts. Only one nurse commanded the main station, and she was bent over a clipboard, making what appeared to be standard notations on a patient’s chart.

“What is it?” he asked when he approached her.

“Oh, yes, Dr. Tate,” she said, standing. “Dr. Forrest wanted to see you in LDR room C.”

Jonas was puzzled. “Did she say why?”

The nurse shook her head and shrugged. “Nope. Sorry. Just that I should send you in as soon as you arrive.”

He rubbed vigorously at his forehead, trying to will the throbbing between his temples to go away, since the pain relievers were doing no good whatever. He was still cradling his forehead in his palm when he pushed open the door to LDR room C, so he didn’t realize it was packed full of people until they all shouted out, “Surprise!”

Immediately, Jonas looked up to find himself surrounded by doctors, nurses, interns, orderlies and other representatives of every unit housed in the east wing. Intermingled between them were several dozen colorful balloons—some of which, he noted, were actually inflated surgical gloves with smiley faces drawn on them in Magic Marker—and a huge sheet cake ablaze with candles and billowing smoke.

“You didn’t think you could hide the big four-oh from us, did you, Jonas?” Lily Forrest, the head of neonatal intensive care asked him.

Lily and her husband, Mike, had been the first friends Jonas had made after his arrival in New Jersey. Actually, he realized reluctantly, they were the only friends he’d made since moving. Then again, he thought, he was a man who liked to keep to himself. At least, he had been, before the social worker holding Juliana had arrived at his front door. On top of every other lousy thing that had happened since New Year’s Day, Jonas was turning forty. He had no idea how Lily had discovered that today was his birthday. And he’d certainly told no one how old he was going to be. Hell, he didn’t even like to think about that himself.

But now, as he stared out at the eager, smiling faces surrounding him, and the cake with enough candles burning atop it to make it appear comical, he felt a genuine smile start to curl itself onto his lips. Until his gaze traveled over the crowd and settled on one woman in particular.

A redheaded nurse stood alone in the corner. Her long, straight ponytail, crisp, blue surgical scrubs and the stethoscope dangling around her neck made her appear a vision of efficiency and calm. Jonas couldn’t deny that Zoey Holland was the epitome of efficiency. However, he also knew she was anything but calm. Her ramrod-straight posture, and the perfectly manicured, red fingernails digging into the arms she had crossed over her chest gave her away. That and the scowl she always seemed to reserve for him alone.

Jonas knew Zoey hated him. And, he conceded reluctantly, maybe she had a right. He hadn’t been the easiest man to get along with lately. And, dammit, for some reason, she really rubbed him the wrong way. He couldn’t put his finger on why, exactly, but the two of them had been butting heads almost since day one.