What in the world was happening to him? Gideon wondered
Just four weeks ago his life had been ordered, settled. He’d had his work, his career, and that was all he’d wanted, and then a golden-haired girl with large blue eyes had cannoned into him on the hospital staircase, torn his character to shreds, and nothing had been the same.
Because you’re falling in love with her, a little voice whispered at the back of his mind. He crushed the voice down quickly. It wasn’t true—couldn’t be true. He liked his life the way it was. No emotional entanglements, no potential for heartache, and yet…
She was blowing on Jamie’s chips to cool them, and all he could think was how wonderful it would be to turn her head, to capture those lips with his own and taste them.
Sex, he told himself firmly. These thoughts—these feelings—they don’t mean anything except that your hormones have kicked into life.
But it wasn’t just sex, he realized with dismay when Annie laughed at something Jamie had said, then turned to share the joke. Yes, he wanted to hold her, to touch her, but he also knew that he never wanted to let her go.
I’ve been thinking of writing a book set in Obstetrics and Gynecology for quite a while, but it wasn’t until I’d created the Belfield Infirmary that it all fell into place. The character of Annie came first. I wanted her to be a single mom with a four-year-old son who returns to work not just because she loves being a doctor but because she needs to support herself. She’d be strong, independent and not looking for love, but often it’s when we’re not looking for love that we’re most likely to find it. What kind of man could get through Annie’s defenses, make her realize that she could trust again, love again? He was going to have to be somebody pretty special.
I think Annie found him.
And if you enjoy this story, look out for the second in the series—The Surgeon’s Marriage.
Regards,
Maggie Kingsley
Doctor and Son
Maggie Kingsley
CONTENTS
ANNIE was going to be late. Very late.
‘Take the lift to the fifth floor,’ the porter had said. ‘Turn right when you get out, then left, then right again, and Obs and Gynae is through the double doors at the end of the corridor.’
It had sounded so easy—so simple—and it probably would have been if the Belfield Infirmary’s ancient elevator buttons had been working properly, and if what they’d proclaimed to be the fifth floor hadn’t, in fact, turned out to be the third.
I am not going to cry, Annie told herself as she hurried down yet another of the Belfield’s rambling Victorian corridors in a desperate search for the stairs. Grown-up women of twenty-eight didn’t cry. Jamie hadn’t cried this morning when she’d left him at the day-care centre, and he was only four.
‘You will remember to come back for me, Mummy?’ was all he’d said, his blue eyes huge in his little face, his small nose reddened by the cold January wind. ‘You won’t forget?’
And she’d been the one who’d got all choked up, and now she was on the verge of tears all over again because she was late. Late for the first job she’d had since Jamie was born, and if she messed it up she was never going to get another one.
‘It’s full time, you know, Dr Hart,’ the head of administration at the Belfield Infirmary had said, gazing at her uncertainly. ‘And your shifts won’t always be eight until four. There may be some night work, some afternoon shifts…Look, I guess what I’m trying to say is, you have a young child. Are you sure you’re up to it?’
And Annie had said of course she was up to it—had even gone out and bought two of the most modern medical manuals to make doubly sure she was up to it—and now everything had gone wrong, and she hadn’t even started.
‘Whoa, there, where’s the fire?’ a deep male voice protested as she raced out of the door marked STAIRS and cannoned straight into him.
‘I’m sorry—so sorry,’ she gasped, temporarily winded. ‘But I should have been in Obstetrics and Gynaecology ten minutes ago, and—’
‘Hey, calm down,’ the man interrupted, amusement plain in his voice. ‘So you’re late. It’s hardly a hanging offence, is it?’
Which was all very well for him to say, she decided, prising her nose out of his rough tweed jacket and looking up. Nothing and no one would ever frighten this man. He was big—seriously big. OK, so at five feet six she wasn’t exactly a giant herself, but this man had to be six feet five at least.
‘Please—you’ll have to excuse me,’ she exclaimed, trying to sidestep him without success, ‘but it’s my first day on the ward, and I’m supposed to report to a Dr Dunwoody—’
‘You work in Obs and Gynae?’ he interrupted, his forehead pleating into a sudden frown.
‘As from today I do.’ She nodded. ‘I’m the department’s new junior doctor.’
‘Oh, I see.’ His frown cleared. ‘Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about Woody. She might seem a bit brusque on the surface, but underneath she’s a real pussy cat.’
Yeah, right, Annie thought with a sinking heart. In her experience people described as pussy cats invariably turned out to be tigers, and people with nicknames always did. The last specialist registrar she’d worked under had been a classic. Jet-black hair pulled back into a tight bun and a tongue which could blister paint. And Dr Dunwoody sounded exactly the same. Wonderful.