Carrying The Single Dad's Baby. Kate Hardy
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tried to tell him you’re not a princess.’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Are you sure? Because... Well...’
‘Because I have a posh accent and most of my family have unusual names? That’s a bit of a sweeping generalisation. It’d be like me saying you’re from Glasgow so everything you eat must be fried.’
‘True, and I didn’t mean to be rude.’
* * *
Beatrice definitely wasn’t going to tell Daniel that she had grown up in a castle. Or that actually her father was a viscount, making her family minor royalty. He didn’t need to know any of that. All he needed to know about her was that she was a doctor, and she was good at her job.
‘Apology accepted. And I love Iain’s drawing.’ She smiled at him. ‘He’s a nice boy.’
‘And he hasn’t stopped talking about you, or asking when you can come to tea. I’ve told him you’re busy and you’re probably married to a prince.’ Daniel rolled his eyes. ‘That’s what started all the Prince Harry stuff. His mum likes Prince Harry.’
So Daniel had clearly split up from his partner rather than being a widower. It was unusual for a dad to have custody of the child, but asking him about the situation felt like prying. ‘Prince Harry is gorgeous,’ she said. ‘Your wife has good—’ She stopped dead. Uh-oh. Good taste. That was tantamount to saying that she fancied Daniel.
Which she didn’t.
Well, a little bit.
Well, quite a lot.
But things were complicated. She had the job he claimed he hadn’t applied for but which everyone thought had had his name on it. He had a son who was clearly the focus of his life, and dating would be tricky for him. Plus she didn’t want to tell him about her past and see the pity in his face.
Better to keep this professional.
‘Good taste in princes,’ she finished.
‘I’ll tell her that. Because Iain’s going to tell her all about you when he sees her this weekend.’ He sighed. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much a four-year-old boy can talk.’
Or girl. She thought of Taylor and her heart squeezed. Would her little girl have been a chatterbox?
Not here. Not now.
‘Oh, I would. George could talk the hind leg off a donkey. He’s four,’ she said. A month younger than Taylor would’ve been. And how hard it had been to walk into her sister-in-law’s hospital room and hold that baby in her arms for the first time. She’d had to force herself to smile and hold back the tears. ‘George is the youngest of my nephews, and his big thing is dinosaurs. You wouldn’t believe how many complicated names he can pronounce. Give him a bucket of wooden bricks and he’ll build you a stegosaurus in two minutes flat.’
‘Iain loves dinosaurs, too. And rockets. My mum painted a mural in his bedroom of dinosaurs in a rocket heading for the moon, and he loves it.’
‘I bet.’ She glanced at her watch, knowing that she was being a coward and cutting this short. But she couldn’t afford to get emotionally involved with Daniel Capaldi and his son. ‘Better get back to the ward. Please thank Iain for his drawing. It’s lovely.’
‘I will.’ He looked relieved, as if she’d let him off the hook.
So did that mean he felt this ridiculous attraction, too?
Well, even if he did, they weren’t going to act on it. They were going to be professional. Keep things strictly business between them. And that was that.
OVER THE NEXT couple of days, Daniel’s determination to keep things strictly professional was sorely tested, particularly when he and Beatrice were rostered on together in Resus.
Their first patient of the day was Maureen Bishop, an elderly woman who’d slipped and fallen backwards off the patio, and was badly injured, enough for the air ambulance to bring her in.
‘Thankfully her neighbour had arranged to pop round for a cup of tea, couldn’t get an answer and went round the back of the house and found her,’ the paramedic from the air ambulance explained. ‘She was unconscious, so the neighbour called the ambulance—who called us to bring her in. She’s come round now, but she’s got a nasty gash in the back of her head from falling against a pot, plus fractured ribs, and we’re a bit worried she might have a crack in her skull or a bleed in her brain.’
‘Have you given her any pain relief?’ Beatrice asked.
The paramedic nodded and gave her full details. ‘We’ve put her on a spinal board with a neck brace.’
‘Great. Has anyone managed to get in touch with her family?’
‘Yes. Her daughter’s on the way in.’
‘That’s good.’ She went over to the trolley with Daniel. ‘Hello, Mrs Bishop, I’m Beatrice and this is Daniel,’ she said. ‘We’re looking after you today. May we call you Maureen?’
‘Yes, love,’ Maureen said.
‘Can you remember what happened?’
The elderly woman grimaced. ‘I slipped and fell.’
‘Can you remember blacking out, or do you have any idea how long you were unconscious?’ Beatrice asked.
‘No,’ Maureen whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’
Beatrice squeezed her hand. ‘No need to apologise. You’ve had a nasty fall. I’m going to send you for a scan because we need to check out that bump to your head, and also for X-rays so we can have a better look at your ribs, because we think you might have broken a few. Your daughter’s on her way.’
‘I didn’t want to worry her. I told them not to call her at work,’ Maureen said.
‘If you were my mum,’ Beatrice said gently, ‘then I’d want to know you’d been taken to hospital. I’d be more upset if they didn’t call me. And I’m betting it’s just the same for your daughter.’
The CT scan showed a bleed to the brain; by the time Beatrice had liaised with the neurology team and persuaded them to admit Maureen, her daughter Jennifer had arrived.
‘What happened?’ Jennifer asked.
‘Your mum slipped off the patio and banged her head against a pot. We know she was unconscious for a while, but not for how long. Fortunately her neighbour found her and called the ambulance,’ Daniel explained.
‘We sent your mum for a scan and X-rays,’ Beatrice said. ‘I’m pleased to say there’s no evidence of any bones broken in her neck, so we can take the spinal collar off now, but she has fractured a couple of ribs, and when she hit her head it caused a bleed in her brain. She seems fine at the moment, but a bleed is a bit like a stroke in that sometimes it takes a few days for us to see what’s happened. We’re going to admit her to the neurology ward, so she’s going to be monitored for the next day or so.’
‘But she’s going to be all right? She’s not going to die?’
‘She’s holding her own at the moment,’ Beatrice said, taking Jennifer’s hand and squeezing it, ‘but we want to keep an eye on her in case that bang on the head causes a problem. She’ll be in good hands and we can treat her straight away if anything happens.’ She smiled at Jennifer. ‘Your mum was a bit worried about the paramedics calling you at work.’
‘I got someone to cover my class,’ Jennifer said. ‘I’d be more upset if they hadn’t called me.’
‘That’s exactly what I told