A Wife for the Baby Doctor

Thank goodness they would only be interacting in a professional capacity over the next few months. With his mother finally taking the long-delayed trip to meet her new Kasarian relatives, he wouldn’t be forced to hide his feelings in a social or family context.

CHAPTER THREE

DANI watched Josh bend over the delicate little wrist, one lean-fingered hand positioning it just right while the other directed the fine surgical steel of the needle into the threadlike vein at the first attempt.

‘I’m sorry, sweetheart,’ he murmured when his little patient wailed fitfully. ‘I didn’t mean to make you cry.’

Dani couldn’t help the warm feeling that spread inside her chest because she knew that he meant it. He really didn’t like making his little charges cry, even when the things he was doing to them were for their benefit.

‘At least she can cry now,’ she pointed out. ‘When she had that tube down her throat she couldn’t even let you know she wanted to complain that you were making a pincushion of her.’

‘It’s a strange sort of progress when you track it by the baby’s ability to cry,’ he said darkly, but she could tell from the golden gleam in his eyes that he was happy with little Leonie’s latest milestone.

Happy enough to accept an invitation to go for a drink this evening? she wondered, but didn’t fancy her chances. She’d actually thought that working with him might go some way towards helping him to see that she was a grown woman…an attractive adult who was ready, willing and able to have a relationship with him. As if that was going to happen when he spent most of the time at the other end of the department, or at least the other side of whatever room she happened to be working in.

Well, as long as he wasn’t staying out of her way because she wasn’t good enough to be on his team… No. If that were the case, he certainly wouldn’t be taking himself off to the other end of the unit. He would be finding the fastest way to shift her into another specialty altogether. So, it must just be that she’d seriously calculated wrongly if she’d thought he was going to change his mind about her, and the important thing to do now was damage limitation. She was going to have to find some way of sitting him down to talk, and then she was going to have to find the right words to let him know that all she wanted from him was to pass on his medical expertise…

Ha! And what a lie that would be. For the last nine years every man she’d met had been measured against Josh and been found wanting, so it was highly unlikely that making a decision to become…what?…friendly colleagues would work?

It would only work if he could somehow metamorphose into someone who didn’t set her pulse racing with nothing more than the sound of his voice.

‘But I have to work with him for the next six months, so I’ve got to get it under control,’ she muttered through gritted teeth, even as her hackles rose at the sight of Josh smiling at one of the nurses. And that was just plain stupid. She had no right to feel jealous when it was nothing more than one of the hundreds of smiles he showered around in the course of a day…wasn’t it?

Of course it was. And to prove that it didn’t mean a thing to her, she was finally going to speak to the man and get their new relationship on an even footing, once and for all.

‘Josh…ah, Mr Weatherby…’ she corrected herself as she approached the two of them, wishing that her own legs were as long as the leggy beauty who was laughing prettily at something Josh had said. ‘Excuse me, but would it be possible to have a word with you?’ she asked, feeling almost like a child speaking to two grown-ups as they towered over her. It was bad enough that the top of her head barely reached Josh’s heart, but to have the other woman looking down her nose at her as well.…

‘Thanks for this, Gillian.’ He held up some sort of binder. ‘I’ll let you have it back as soon as I can.’

‘Let me know when you’re bringing it over and I’ll cook you a meal…it’s the least I can do to show you how grateful I am,’ the stunning redhead purred before she undulated her way out of the unit on legs that seemed to reach all the way up to her armpits.

‘You wanted to speak to me?’ Josh said, and she couldn’t help noticing that the easy smile that had hinted at the dimples he’d always despised as a teenager had completely disappeared now that he was talking to her.

Dani glanced around and cringed at the number of members of staff within earshot of the two of them. This was hardly the venue she’d hoped for when she’d decided this conversation was necessary, but as the likelihood of Josh agreeing to meet her for a drink at the end of the shift was slim to non-existent, it would have to do.

She drew in a bracing snatch of air and began in a rush. ‘I wanted to apologise. I realise it was completely unprofessional but I can’t absolutely guarantee that it won’t happen again because even though they warned us right through our training that we shouldn’t get too emotionally involved with our patients, I just couldn’t help it… He was such a tiny little thing and his parents were just so…’

Josh held both hands up, palms towards her, and shook his head.

‘Dani, breathe,’ he said, and her heart lifted when she heard the hint of humour in his tone. ‘Come into my office, because I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.’

He led the way, his long-legged stride forcing her to trot to keep up as he detoured through his secretary’s cramped space rather than accessing the room from the door in the corridor.

‘Drat! I’d forgotten that Caitlin wouldn’t be here,’ he muttered as he dropped the glossy folder he was carrying on her desk and reached for a block of bright yellow sticky notes. For a moment there was silence while she watched his familiar slashing handwriting filling the available space, then he peeled the note off the block and stuck it on the folder. ‘Drugs reps,’ he growled in the same tone of voice he would use to speak about an outbreak of MRSA, and scowled darkly before leading the way into his own room. ‘It doesn’t matter how many times they’re told to make an appointment, they still try to waylay me to persuade me that their latest wonder drug will solve all my problems.’

‘Perhaps it will,’ she suggested sweetly in a replay of several such conversations over the years, then had to fight the urge to grin when he turned the scowl on her.

‘It might,’ he admitted, ‘but I’m not willing to let my fragile patients be used as guinea pigs in an unproven drugs trial just because they send a scantily clad female to offer me an all-expenses-paid holiday.’

‘Very high-minded of you,’ she agreed, and saw those golden eyes narrow ominously in her direction.

‘Wretched girl!’ he complained as he dropped wearily into the chair he’d occupied when he’d broken the bad news to Max’s parents, and waved her to take one, too. ‘You always did know how to wind me up. So, tell me what all that was out in the corridor just now.’

‘You mean, when Miss Scanty-pants was trying to climb all over you?’ she asked with an attempt at innocence, enjoying the rare episode of light-hearted teasing between them too much to want to spoil it, even to get the necessary apology off her chest.

He scowled at her but didn’t comment, opting instead to wait for her to come to the point.

‘I just wanted to apologise,’ she said simply. ‘I realise it wasn’t very professional for me to be standing around in a corridor, dripping, and I promise that it won’t happen—’

‘I would be most concerned if it didn’t happen again,’ he interrupted sharply. ‘If you aren’t the type of person who can empathise with what these families are going through, then you’re not the right person to be working in my unit.’

‘But…’ she tried to interrupt, confused by his apparent about-face.

‘That doesn’t mean to say that you should allow your emotions to get in the way of doing your job,’ he continued, totally ignoring her attempt at interruption, ‘and doing it to the very best of your ability. But shedding tears is almost an occupational hazard when you’re working here.’

Now she really was confused.

‘Well, if you see crying as par for the course, why did you snap at me earlier if it wasn’t for crying after baby Max died?’

He sighed heavily and ran his fingers distractedly through his hair, disturbing the professional-looking neatness and revealing the fact that it was definitely more than a week beyond its usual neatly barbered length. Any longer and it would start looking like a lion’s mane with those natural pale streaks in the dark blond thickness of it.

‘I’m sorry about that, but…’ He paused and shook his head, a frown of concern etched on his forehead. ‘If I snapped at you it’s because I’m not certain whether this is the right specialty for you. You’re so soft-hearted that you’ll probably end up breaking your heart over every one of the patients and—’

‘And you’re so hard-bitten that you don’t? Ha!’ she challenged with a disbelieving laugh. ‘Josh, I’ve known you too long to believe that eye-wash. Don’t forget, I saw you every spring when you tried to rescue the baby birds that fell out of their nests, and when you saw that cat hit by the car that day when you came to meet me from school. I walked all the way to the vet’s with you when you carried it there to see if they could fix its leg.’ Apparently, the poor creature had been so badly injured that there had been nothing the vet could do but put it out of its misery, but she could still remember the expression on Josh’s face and had known that he’d taken the animal’s death as a personal failure.

‘That was a long time ago,’ he said dismissively, but she couldn’t help seeing the hint of colour that washed up over his lean cheeks.