“Max!” Dermott gasped, running through the door.
He stopped short of the bed, breathless, his face drained of all color. “I heard from downstairs.”
“And we’re just fine,” Jenna said. She was still rocking back and forth with Max in her arms, stroking his hair, holding onto him as tightly as he held her. He had quieted down, and seemed content to stay right where he was now. She was content to have him there, too. “He had a bad dream, but it’s over now, and he’s doing better—aren’t you, Max?”
Max nodded, but didn’t look up at his dad. His head was still tucked into Jenna’s chest, and Jenna held him protectively, the way a mother would. To anyone looking on who didn’t know Jenna might have been his mother, the way she comforted him. Dermott saw that. Saw that she had become a fierce protector of Max.
Now that her children have left home, Dianne Drake is finally finding the time to do some of the things she adores—gardening, cooking, reading, shopping for antiques. Her absolute passion in life, however, is adopting abandoned and abused animals. Right now Dianne and her husband Joel have a little menagerie of three dogs and two cats, but that’s always subject to change. A former symphony orchestra member, Dianne now attends the symphony as a spectator several times a month and, when time permits, takes in an occasional football, basketball or hockey game.
Recent titles by the same author:
DR VELASCOS’ UNEXPECTED BABY
THE WIFE HE’S BEEN WAITING FOR A BOSS BEYOND COMPARE ITALIAN DOCTOR, FULL-TIME FATHER
FOUND: A MOTHER FOR HIS SON
BY DIANNE DRAKE
CHAPTER ONE
“DERMOTT?” Jenna Lawson stopped half way into the elevator, blinked twice, then smiled. “Dermott Callahan? Is that really you?” Wow, he looked good. Better than she remembered, except he’d aged a little. Of course, it had been, what? Six years, or maybe closer to seven? Well, time had been kind to him. Very kind, except he had a distant look in his eyes, one that didn’t fit the Dermott Callahan she remembered, and for a moment Jenna actually wondered if this was a case of mistaken identity. The Dermott she used to know couldn’t have possibly looked as serious as this Dermott did.
But this Dermott spoke, and the voice was still the same. Deep, smooth, so sexy it was lethal. Yes, this was definitely Dermott. “Jenna. I’d heard you worked here. Wasn’t sure that was still the case. But it’s so nice bumping into you this way.”
He gave her a long, intense stare, causing a tingle to work its way up her spine. Or maybe it was the memory of former tingles and that brief time when they’d been together. Nice time. Good memories.
By now the elevator was sounding a shrill warning to get out of the door, or else, so Jenna stepped inside and let it bang shut behind her. Except for one little old lady who kept her eyes glued to the punch buttons for each floor, she and Dermott were the only ones in the elevator, and yet he made no move to…to what? Hug her? Shake her hand? Be a little bit friendly? What was the proper protocol for two former lovers to meet again after so many years? “Technically, that is no longer the case. As of about ten minutes ago I’m a free woman, professionally speaking.” As well as personally, but that was a long-standing, well thought-out condition.
Dermott arched his eyebrows, indicating mild interest, yet he didn’t ask the obvious question most people would have, given what she’d just blurted out, and the silence between them in the elevator was almost deafening, it was so pervasive, as they moved slowly downward, from floor to floor. Even the old lady sharing the ride with them looked over to see if either one of them would take up the conversation.
“I was fired,” Jenna finally supplied when he didn’t ask, more to hear a human voice in what had turned into something akin to a vacuum. “Or, actually, prompted to find another position. That’s what you get for…” No, she wasn’t going to just blurt out that she’d talked her way out of her job. What was the point? It wasn’t the first time, and probably wouldn’t be the last.
“For what?” the old lady snapped. “For heaven’s sake, don’t leave us hanging this way. Tell us what happened.”
Dermott arched his eyebrows again, and this time Jenna noticed a little sparkle under them. It was brief, but it had been there—the Dermott she used to know. The spark she’d loved. Although once, it had been permanent, not fleeting, like she’d just seen. So what was that about?
“For challenging the boss one too many times. She overworked the nursing staff, required that we work too many hours to make up for nursing shortages, which put patient care in jeopardy. I suggested she put her nursing uniform back on and come help us out on the floor and, well…” She shrugged.
Dermott finally cracked a smile. “You always did have a tendency to challenge authority.”
“Only when it needs to be challenged. Today, that’s what it needed.”
“Good for you!” the old woman exclaimed. “You won’t get anywhere in this world if you don’t stand up for what you want.”
Wise words, and so true. Jenna mulled them over as the woman marched her way out the door. “My supervisor wouldn’t budge,” Jenna said after the door shut. “And I was getting worried about medical mistakes. But nobody would listen to reason.”
“As I recall, you have an unusual way of making your point heard,” Dermott said.
“OK, so I tacked a nurse’s uniform to her office door in case she’d forgotten what one looked like, and pinned a note on it inviting her to try it on for old times’ sake.”
“Now, that sounds just like you. Sassy!” Dermott laughed. “It’s good to see you, Jenna. Good to know that your passion for your job is still just as…explosive.”
Jenna laughed. “And you’re just as blunt as you always were. So, are you still local? You haven’t left Alberta to seek your fame and fortune somewhere else, have you?”
“Canadian through and through. Right now I’m in a little town north of Edmonton. No fame, definitely no fortune there, but it suits me.”
“And you’re married now, I heard?” It had happened quickly, if the rumors were correct. Four months after she’d ended their relationship, he’d gone off and gotten himself married.
There was a fraction of a pause before Dermott replied, “No. Not anymore.”
Well, this was definitely awkward, Jenna decided as the elevator car came to a stop on the first floor and the doors opened. Positively a topic to avoid, if the scowl on his face had anything to do with the situation. Which, she believed, it must have. “But you’re still practicing family medicine?” This seemed almost as awkward between them as it had been that day when they’d let their affair get out of hand and ended up in the unlocked supply closet. Dermott had been at the end of his residency, she’d been a fairly new nurse, and they’d had a few wonderful, intense weeks together that had scared her because with Dermott she’d lost reason and sense and all the cautions she counted on. That day in the supply closet, when the nursing supervisor had walked in and caught them, had proved it. No, they hadn’t been fully engaged in the act, not even to the point of ripping off clothes. But it would have happened. Caution thrown to the wind ended it for them because what they’d had together back then had been so…out of control.
If there was something she never allowed for herself, it was any part of her personal life being out of control. What she’d done that day had scared her in ways she hadn’t yet gotten over. Certainly hadn’t ever repeated. One of the many foibles