The Single Dad Finds a Wife. Felicia Mason

David had said and from the quality of Mrs. Camden’s clothing that they were not in the financial trouble she’d imagined.

      “I checked with Jeremy’s pediatrician in Charlotte. He suggested a day of bed rest after he’s released rather than a road trip home.”

      “And Charlotte is home?”

      Charlotte Camden nodded and then smiled. “I was named for the city and for an aunt. I know it gets confusing sometimes. David’s company is based there. I’m the grandma in chief on the board of directors.”

       David’s company.

      The words should have been a comfort, should have taken away the uncertainty and assured her that he had spoken the truth. Instead they made Spring feel as if she were suddenly treading water near a rip current.

      She had been attracted to him from the moment she’d set eyes on him. And Spring Darling had no room in her heart for attraction and what it tended to do to the emotions. She had been down that path before, and it led straight to disaster. No, she reasoned, being attracted to a person was merely a chemical response in the body, dopamine and testosterone responding to like receptors in the other person—something any first-year medical student knew. It didn’t have to mean anything else. But none of that reasoning explained the arc of fear that lanced through her now.

      What if they began a relationship? And what if he lied to her the way Keith had? She had given her heart once before only to have it thoroughly and utterly trounced. Crushed by a man she’d trusted and thought she’d loved, a man she had been ready to marry.

      That made her think of her sister’s upcoming engagement party, an event Spring knew she would have to attend no matter how much it hurt. She was truly happy for Summer and knew that in Cameron Jackson her sister had found a man of strong faith and character. Summer and Cameron weren’t responsible for the heartsick memories their happiness invoked in her.

      “Dr. Darling, are you all right?”

      Spring blinked. Mrs. Camden’s gentle hand rested on her arm as if holding her steady.

      She forced a smile and nodded. “I’m fine. Really,” she added as if to assure herself rather than the other woman.

      “For a second there you looked in pain.”

      “My thoughts just drifted for a moment.”

      Straight down a rabbit hole, she thought. Spring wasn’t given to flights of fancy or romantic notions. She was the straight-arrow Darling sister, the one totally focused on career and community. So she didn’t know where the scenario of a relationship had sprung from.

      David Camden was the parent of a patient...and he’d planted a kiss on her that she still remembered, felt and wished to experience again.

      “Dr. Spring?”

      Her focus shifted again to her young patient.

      “Yes?”

      “What should I name my bear?”

      Spring cocked her head a bit, considering the little boy and the bear almost as big as he was. “Well,” she said. “He’s wearing a bow tie. So how about Beau? B-E-A-U,” she added for his benefit.

      Jeremy’s face lit up. “Okay. I like that. Hi, Beau,” he said, giving the bear a kiss. He then hugged it to him and closed his eyes. A moment later, he was sound asleep.

      Charlotte smiled down at her grandson. “He and his father are the joys of my life,” she said.

      “You’re blessed to have both of them,” Spring said, realizing that she truly meant the words. They were not merely the sort of pleasant platitude or banal cliché offered when two strangers conversed or when a doctor was trying to be pleasant with a patient’s family.

      Knowing it wasn’t protocol, but unable to stop herself, Spring bent and placed a kiss on Jeremy’s head, then said goodbye to Charlotte.

      With Jeremy on her mind and a quiet prayer of thanksgiving on her heart, she slipped from his hospital room, turned right and collided with David Camden.