Dr. Dad To The Rescue. Jodi O'Donnell
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his face was impassive no more. Forbidding was more like it. “Sam doesn’t need any more ideas on magic tricks. If you really must continue on that bent, you might encourage him to try some sleight of hand, like making a quarter disappear, which would not only mobilize his arm but keep him occupied with less-dangerous activities.”
Imperceptibly, Sam drew his shoulders up.
That did it, Edie decided. She’d hoped to avoid a confrontation, but it seemed inevitable.
“Would you excuse me for a moment?” she said.
She left the room and returned a minute later with the perky young woman who was her aide.
“Colleen here is going to put some moist heat on your arm to help loosen it up, okay, Sam?”
She turned to Colleen. “Nothing too intense. Sam’s real good about letting you know what he can stand.”
“Got it,” Colleen said.
Edie smiled politely at Holden, but her words brooked no dissent. “If you’ll come with me, Dr. McKee, I need to consult with you a moment.”
He raised one dark eyebrow. “I welcome the opportunity.”
Oh, yeah, she was in for a fight.
Edie gave Sam a wink of reassurance. “You’ll be fine, champ, I promise.”
He nodded bravely. “Okay, Ee-dee.”
She couldn’t prevent herself from delivering a parting touch in the form of smoothing down that spiky hair. “You know, I kind of like the special way you say my name,” she teased.
Her heart melted at the yearning that sprang to his eyes as a result of her gesture, even as he shied away from it.
“I-I never knew anybody with initials for a name,” he said hesitantly. “What’s ED. short for, anyway?”
The question, so out of the blue, brought her up short.
“But it’s not...that,” she stammered, wondering why she felt as if she was equivocating. “It’s Edie. I don’t think it’s short for anything. My mother told me the name came to her in a dream when she was pregnant.”
For some reason, she found her gaze locking with Holden’s. He was impassive no more-instead she glimpsed a naked yearning in his eyes that was startling. It brought to mind how he’d stared at her before, right after she’d come into the room and found him looking almost...lost. And how it seemed he looked to her to bring him back home.
Edie was held spellbound by the searching in those intense gray-green eyes. They delved miles deeper than Sam’s ever could—almost intimately. Like a man would gaze at...at a lover.
She realized only now how she’d avoided that look before, much in the same way his little boy had recoiled from her and the potential for pain she represented.
With some desperation, Edie pushed such thoughts from her mind so that she might concentrate on helping the one who needed her most at the moment.
But she was not quite so confident as she’d been a minute ago of who that person was as she left the room, Holden McKee only a step behind her.
Chapter Two
Holden followed Edie down the hall, where she indicated he should precede her into an unoccupied treatment room. She closed the door after them, startling him when she whirled to face him. Gone was the gentle, compassionate angel of mercy, surrounded by her halo of red-gold hair, who had so recently ministered to his son.
In her place was a fierce, passionate champion outfitted in an armor of copper. Her brown eyes snapped, the color in her cheeks rose. She was magnificent to behold.
A surge of some force passed over Holden, through him, paralyzing him like an electrical shock. What was it about this woman that resounded in him so profoundly? Like that ripple in time he’d felt before, which he’d begun to believe had been a result of the stress he was under.
Yet it had happened again in the treatment room with Sam—that little misunderstanding about her name. That time, though, she’d experienced a jolt, too, which he’d seen disorient her.
It wasn’t just him—or was it? He had been under a lot of stress—the job, the move, this new crisis with Sam. The changes and events of the past year were simply catching up with him. That had to be it.
He could not succumb to the confusion.
“Let’s get a few things straight right now, Dr. McKee,” Edie began, starting right in on him, just as he knew she would. Well, he had a few things to say to her, too. “You’ve brought Sam to me for physical therapy. I am assuming this is because your ability to provide such treatment is outside your expertise. Am I wrong?”
“No, but—”
“Then why won’t you let me do my job!” she demanded.
He crossed his arms, determined to remain calm and keep from taking her attack personally, even though she was stepping way out of line. Even though something told him he wasn’t the only one taking things personally right now. “Precisely how have I prevented you, Ms. Turner?”
She stared at him with patent disbelief. “Are you serious? What do you call the lectures on this bone being connected to that bone so that I feel like I’m in Anatomy 101 again? But you know what? I can handle that. I’ve dealt with worse attacks on my competence by doctors. What’s really damaging to any progress I might be making is your indirect criticism of just about anything Sam says or does!”
Holden was surprised into protesting, “Now, that is not true.”
“Dr. McKee. please!” Clearly frustrated with him, she paced to the other side of the room, where she pivoted and slapped her palms down on top of the waist-high table. “He needs to tell me himself where it hurts and how it feels and what he’s comfortable doing. You are not inside his body with him! Only Sam knows what he can tolerate. You should know that as a physician!”
“First of all, Ms. Turner, I did take your hints—as a physician—and kept my mouth shut while you worked at building a rapport with your patient so you could evaluate him,” Holden said evenly, crossing to the table and planting his knuckles on it to face her squarely. “But I was forced to speak out at that last bit of yours, when you practically drew him a diagram of how to break his neck!”
“I was trying to let him know he hadn’t done anything but be a typical little kid!” She leveled an accusing glare at him. “And don’t tell me you’re not angry with Sam for that.”
Despite his resolution, Holden felt his control slip. “I am not angry! Why would I be when he’s done nothing wrong?”
“Hasn’t he? Launching himself down a staircase headfirst?”
Holden’s chin snapped back. Though the accident had happened over a month ago, the mere thought of that day had the power to propel him into a snare of self-blame he’d scarcely become untangled from.
Blast Edie Turner for making him go there!
“This sort of psychoanalyzing hardly falls within your function as Sam’s therapist,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I think it does! Sam’s emotional state affects how well I can do my job, which is helping him to recover from his injury.”
“Which I have my doubts of your being competent to do.” Holden leaned forward on his fists. “I can have you taken off this case, and don’t think I won’t do it.”
Now it was her turn to be taken aback. “You wouldn’t be so rash at your son’s expense.”
“Would it be rash? I’m not convinced.”
Edie blinked, her mouth working with frustration. But she rallied. “Certainly, you must do what you feel is best, Doctor. Which doesn’t change the fact that