Carrying The Single Dad's Baby. Kate Hardy
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CHAPTER ONE
EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT.
The letters stood out, white on a blue background. Just the same as they had in the last hospital where Beatrice had worked.
Except at Muswell Hill Memorial Hospital she would be getting a fresh start. This was a new place, where nobody knew about her past, so nobody could pity her. Not for her divorce, not for the baby, not for the way her life had totally imploded four years ago.
They’d all see her for who she was now. Beatrice Lindford, the new emergency consultant. Beatrice who was cool, calm and perfectly controlled. Who led her team from the front. And who’d baked brownies the night before to say hello to her new department.
She took a deep breath, pushed open the swing doors with her free hand, and walked into the reception area.
Michael Harcourt, the head of the department, was waiting for her.
‘Beatrice, lovely that you made it. Come and meet the team.’ He looked quizzically at her. ‘What’s in the boxes?’
‘Home-made brownies. Just my way of saying hello to everyone.’
‘You didn’t have to bring anything,’ he said with a smile, ‘but they’ll go down very well in the staff kitchen. Now, let me find someone to show you round... Ah, Josh.’ He called over one of the younger doctors. ‘Josh, I think you’re rostered in Resus with Beatrice, our new consultant, this morning. I’d like you to show her round before it all gets hectic.’
Was it her imagination, or was Josh looking at her slightly oddly?
‘Beatrice, this is Josh, one of our juniors. He’s a good lad, but don’t ever let him drive you anywhere—unless you don’t mind risking ending up with a tension pneumothorax, eh, Josh?’ Chuckling, Michael walked away.
Josh groaned. ‘Please don’t take too much notice of what the boss just said. My pneumothorax was months ago, and it was only because I wasn’t used to go-karting on ice and I took the corner too fast.’
‘Go-karting on ice?’ Beatrice raised an eyebrow. That sounded like the definition of insanity, to her.
‘Sam—he’s one of the registrars and you’ll meet him shortly—thought it would be a good team-building exercise,’ Josh explained. ‘And it was. It was great fun. Except I, um, crashed. And nobody’s ever going to let me forget it. Ever.’ He groaned again. ‘Even in the Christmas secret Santa last year, I got a modified model motorcycle.’
She smiled. ‘Oh, dear. So Sam’s a bit of a daredevil?’
Josh smiled back. ‘He used to be. He’s changed a bit, now he’s a dad.’
Babies.
Of course people in the department would have babies and small children. The same as they would anywhere she worked.
She wasn’t going to let it throw her. This was about her job, not her personal life.
‘Can we start with the staff kitchen so I can drop these off?’ She indicated the plastic boxes she was carrying.
‘Sure.’ He looked interested. ‘What’s in them?’
‘Brownies.’ The recipe they used at Beresford Castle that had actually got a write-up in one of the Sunday supplements, and made all the tourists come back for more. ‘I hope I made enough for everyone working in the department today.’
‘You made them yourself?’
‘Last night.’ With a bit of help from her niece and nephews.
‘That’s a lot of work. And it’s really nice of you.’
‘Just my way of saying hello to my new team,’ she said with a smile. ‘And I was planning on buying everyone a drink tonight after my shift, if you can maybe recommend somewhere. I’ve only just moved here, so I don’t really know the area yet.’
‘The Red Lion, just round the corner, is fairly popular,’ he said.
‘The Red Lion it is, then,’ she said.
Once they’d dropped the boxes of brownies in the staff kitchen, with a note she’d written earlier propped against them inviting the team to help themselves, Josh showed her round the department and introduced her to the team.
Everyone seemed friendly enough, but when a doctor strode out of cubicles, clearly ready to see his next patient, Josh suddenly looked awkward. ‘Um, and this is Daniel Capaldi, one of the registrars. Daniel, this is Beatrice Lindford, our new...’ His voice trailed off.
Why was Josh suddenly acting like a cat on a hot tin roof? Beatrice wondered. What was it about Daniel Capaldi that had made the junior doctor so nervous?
Quite apart from the fact that Daniel looked as if he could’ve graced the pages of a high-end glossy fashion magazine; she didn’t think she’d ever met anyone so good-looking in her entire life. He was tall enough for her to have to look up to him, with dark hair brushed back from his forehead—the type of hair that would curl when it was wet—dark eyes, the longest eyelashes she’d ever seen on a man, and a mouth with an incredibly sensual curve.
He was breathtakingly beautiful.
Maybe he was the type who knew just how good-looking he was, and was used to women falling at his feet. Well, she didn’t care what her colleagues looked like. She just wanted them to be good at their jobs, communicate properly and work with her as a team to give their patients the best care possible. She wasn’t interested in anything else. Not any more.
‘Beatrice Lindford, the newest member of the team,’ she said coolly, and held out her hand to shake his.
What she hadn’t expected was the tingle all the way down her spine when Daniel took her hand and shook it firmly. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d reacted so strongly to anyone.
Not good.
Really not good.
Because she didn’t want to get involved with anyone. Ever again.
* * *
Beatrice Lindford. The new consultant. The one who’d just been appointed to the job everyone had thought had Daniel’s name on it. A job that part of Daniel had wanted; but part of him hadn’t, because he knew he couldn’t give the department what it needed from him in that role at the same time as being a good single parent to Iain.
If things had been different with Jenny, he wouldn’t have hesitated to apply for the job.
But it was pointless dwelling on might-have-beens. The situation was as it was. Jenny was remarried now—to someone else. He had custody of Iain. And his son would always, always come first.
Beatrice wasn’t what Daniel had expected. She was tall, maybe four inches shorter than his own six foot two. Almost white-blonde hair that she wore tied back with a scarf at the nape of her neck. The bluest eyes he’d ever seen—the colour of the sky on a late summer evening. And an incredibly posh accent, which made her his polar opposite: clearly she came from a privileged background, whereas Daniel was the son of a teenage mum who’d been brought up mainly by his grandparents until his mother was able to cope with being a parent. They were worlds apart.
But the bit that really threw him was when he shook her hand. That handshake was meant to be businesslike, maybe even slightly on the cool side. Instead, it felt as if every single nerve ending in his body had just woken up. He’d never been so physically aware of anyone before.
Absolutely not.
Even if Beatrice Lindford was single, and even if she was interested in him, he wasn’t in the market for a relationship. Iain was his world, and that was the way it was going to stay.
And he wanted a bit of distance between himself and Beatrice until he could