Medical Single Plus Bonus Novella / Doctor Daddy / Single Doctor, Single Dad!

by Jacqueline Diamond; Janice Lynn

  He’d barely clicked off when Zoey peeked into the kitchen, where he’d retreated to stay as far out of earshot as possible. “Who was that on the phone?”

  “Your Uncle Quent.”

  “Oh.” She seemed disappointed. “Is it time to go to the party?”

  “Almost.” Out the window, he caught sight of Jane. “Look who’s here.”

  As she came in, Luke drank in the sight of her. Had a future bride ever looked more radiant? It wasn’t just his imagination, either.

  It occurred to him that he was beaming right back. And that he’d probably continue to do so for the next, oh, fifty years.

  “I missed you!” Zoey cried by way of greeting. “Where’s Stopgap?”

  Jane chuckled. “He’s staying home today. You can play with him later.”

  “I’ve hardly seen you all week. Did you and Daddy fight?” Zoey demanded as Jane entered.

  “We’ve just been busy.” She and Luke moved toward each other. She cast him a questioning look, and he nodded. “But we have some very special news. We’re going to…” She waited for him to finish the sentence.

  “Get married,” Luke concluded for her.

  “I hope that’s okay,” Jane asked Zoey.

  “Yay!”

  “We’ll be moving into Jane’s house,” Luke added.

  His daughter gave an excited hop. “With Stopgap?”

  “You bet,” Jane said. “And would you mind if I asked you to be my flower girl?”

  “Oh, thank you! Yes, yes, please!” She raced into Jane’s arms, and they hugged until tears ran down their faces and Luke embraced them both.

  They dressed the baby, grabbed the champagne and walked to the Lorenzes’ house. Zoey trotted gleefully between her father and future stepmother.

  Puffy pink and blue bells festooned the front of Number 18. Neighbors spilled onto the porch and, when someone spotted them, cheers went up. Obviously, Brooke had spread the word.

  “It’s the happy couple!”

  “Congratulations!”

  “Can I take photographs at the wedding?” Carly called, and they nodded, laughing.

  Others swarmed around with warm wishes, including Bart. As the two men shook hands, Luke was glad they could stay on good terms.

  Tess, the attorney, offered to help with Tina’s adoption as her wedding present, while Cynthia Lieberman congratulated them, too. After the initial burst of greetings died down, Sherry took Jane and Luke aside.

  “Wendy Clark approached me about the Annie Raft Memorial Clinic,” she told them over a glass of champagne. “I’m going to talk to some of my old friends who’re darn good fund-raisers. We should adopt this as a project.”

  “That’s tremendous,” Luke said.

  “She told me about the MRI and the nanobots project, too,” Sherry enthused. “That could really save lives.”

  “What project?” Jane glanced between them. Maybe she should have asked more questions when he mentioned the MRI.

  Luke filled her in. “I discussed it with Wendy yesterday and she jumped right on it. Nothing’s certain yet, of course, but she’s very eager to have us participate.”

  Carly and Brittany intervened, urging them to admire the new Web pages. Since he’d already seen them, Luke stood back and let the others get a good view.

  The cheery hum of voices filled a house perfumed with chocolate and raspberry. In the living room, he spotted Zoey telling Suzy of her plans to be a flower girl. In a portable playpen, Tina chewed on her new bunny and leaned against Marlene.

  A sense of euphoria enveloped Luke, as if the champagne was a little stronger than usual. The feeling grew as he navigated through the crowd toward his wife-to-be.

  This, he realized, was what happiness felt like.

  Slipping his arm around Jane’s waist, he couldn’t believe that he’d been too obtuse to notice what was right under his nose. For a doctor, he’d come perilously close to missing the most important diagnosis of his life.

  Which was, of course, an incurable case of love.

  Single Doctor,

  Single Dad!

  JANICE LYNN

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Dr. Castillo?”

  Jennifer spun toward the masculine voice and almost swooned with the drama of a 19th century Southern belle. Moss green eyes fringed with inky black lashes stared from a sharply angled face. A black T-shirt stretched across broad shoulders. Dark jeans hung on lean hips. Surely she was hallucinating because hunks like him didn’t wander emergency department waiting rooms.

  “Yes?” Phew, does one have hot f lushes during hallucinations? Because she was. Right down to her fingertips, burning to touch the forearms sprinkled with wiry hair. She fanned her face.

  “I’m Dr. Garrett Wright,” he eyed her curiously, as if he thought she might be on the verge of syncope. Like any mirage worth his salt, he’d catch her if she fainted. “I’ve been with your mother.”

  Dr. Wright? Jennifer blinked. This was her mother’s primary care doctor? No wonder she no longer balked at routine health care. No doubt women of all ages lined up at this man’s door. Jennifer could think of a few personal ailments that would benefit from his attention.

  “She said you’d taken temporary leave from your Madison practice prior to her hip replacement,” Dr. Delicious continued, oblivious to her uncharacteristic drool-fest. What was wrong with her? She never reacted this way. Never.

  Jennifer nodded, mutely. Her tongue refused to cooperate.

  Probably because the traitorous appendage wanted to lick him all over.

  Which shocked her. She wasn’t the kind of woman given to such intense, immediate fantasies. Ever.

  “You were right to insist she be transferred from the rehab center. She has a deep vein thrombus.”

  The news snapped Jennifer out of her hormone induced haze. Her mother had a blood clot.

  Trying to sound professional and not like the worried little girl she suddenly felt, she gulped and said, “Are her lungs clear?”

  Shortness of breath had been why Jennifer insisted on the emergency room visit. Only then had her mother admitted to leg pain.

  Dr. Wright raked long fingers through thick black hair. “Unfortunately, no.”

  Panic gripped Jennifer’s chest, shortening her own breath. “No?”

  Please, God. She couldn’t lose her mother.

  “She has a pulmonary embolism.”

  A blood clot had traveled to her mother’s lungs and cut off blood f low to a pulmonary artery.

  Weak-kneed at the seriousness of her mother’s condition, Jennifer sank onto a waiting room sofa.

  “She was given routine preventative anti-coagulation therapy after her surgery.” He sat down next to her. “She formed a clot anyway.”

  Jennifer knew what happened when a patient threw a clot. But this was her mother! Logic played no role in her emotions, her thoughts.

  “Tell me everything.” Closing her eyes, she crossed her arms over her stomach, rocked forward. “Please.”

  “Her x-ray showed normal,” he explained, “but with her hip replacement three days ago, I had a D-dimer drawn and proceeded with a CT angiogram that revealed the embolism.”

  Jennifer’s blood drained, leaving her body cold, numb, as if her own arteries were blocked.

  Hadn’t she known? Wasn’t that why she’d insisted her mother be taken to the hospital?

  “Ninety-five percent of people who are alive at time of diagnosis recover.”

  She blinked back the moisture blurring her vision. Ninety-five percent. Good odds. Unless you were speaking about your mother. Then only a hundred percent was acceptable.

  “I gave her a low molecular weight heparin to keep the clot from enlarging.” He took her hand and gave a gentle squeeze in what was probably supposed to be comfort, but instead sky-rocketed her pulse.

  Startled by the gesture and the f lutter low in her belly, Jennifer’s gaze shot to him. Too many wild emotions stampeded her troubled soul. Her moth
er. Thoughts of Carrie. Her suddenly revived hormones after years of nothing. “Any sign of respiratory failure?”

  “Not at the moment, but given her risk factors that’s a concern. With oxygen, her O2 sats are holding at around ninety percent.” His finger stroked over hers. “She’s having tachycardia.”

  Did he have any idea his touch was increasing Jennifer’s heart rate too?

  Numbly, Jennifer nodded. A blood clot to the lungs. He was right. Her mother was past the worst. Everything would be okay.

  Everything had to be okay.

  Tears prickled her eyes. “May I see her?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Garrett stared at the gorgeous brunette sitting on the waiting room sofa. Dr. Jennifer Castillo’s shapely legs, outlined beneath figure-hugging black pants, had caught his attention the moment he stepped out of the emergency room.

  He’d always been a legs man.

  Not that he should be noticing. Not when his patient had a clot. Not even if said patient had talked up her daughter, declaring her available and only slightly used.

  Slightly used: Jennifer’s mother’s description of a messy divorce that left her daughter devoted only to her patients and numb to the opposite sex.

  Had Bridget talked him up to her daughter? Had she described him as available and actively seeking?

  Actively seeking: His description of his desperate search for a mother for his four-year-old twin sons.

  An embittered, career-minded divorcee wasn’t what he’d had in mind. But damn if his libido recognized that.

  Without letting go of Jennifer’s hand, Garrett glanced at his watch.

  “She should be in her room by now,” he said, trying to keep his brain on the real issues rather than on his unexpected reaction to the curvy brunette.

  “Thanks. Will the orthopedic surgeon be notified?” Jennifer’s soft, vulnerable smile sucked him further under her spell, making him feel more a man than he’d felt in eons.

  “He has been, but I’ll handle her hospital stay.”

  She took in his pedestrian clothes, shock registering in her soulful brown eyes. “You’re on duty?”

  “No,” he said, grinning. “I was checking on a patient when your mother arrived. Since I was here, I examined her.” Garrett stood and pulled Jennifer to her feet. “Come on. I’ll take you to her.”

  Reluctantly, he let go of Jennifer’s hand, but he doubted the fire scorching him from the contact of their skin would burn out any time soon.

  Think of the boys, he reminded himself. A woman who is as dedicated to her career as you are is not someone you need to get involved with. The boys need a mother. Someone like Emma had been.

  Not another parent who knew how to deal with sick patients better than two little boys.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The following morning Jennifer reminded herself she was there in the capacity of a patient’s daughter. She sat on her hands to keep from assisting to change her mother’s surgical dressing.

  As if sensing her need, Dr. Wright glanced up. His green eyes sparkled with an understanding only another provider could have. “Want to help?”

  “Can I?” She’d felt helpless through much of her mother’s care. Doing nothing was driving her mad—as witnessed by her reaction to Garrett.

  “Sure.” His gaze lowered to her mouth and darkened prior to returning to her mother. He cleared his throat. “Her surgical site is healing well with no infection.”

  Fighting the urge to say his name, to have his mesmerizing eyes skim over her again, Jennifer examined the excision site on her mother’s hip. Staples held the puckered skin together in a neat line.

  Lifting her gaze to Garrett’s, she swallowed a surprised whimper. That wasn’t professional admiration ref lected in his eyes. Desire burned there.

  Desire she felt just as strongly.

  Which was all wrong. No way should her libido be so cruel as to rear its ugly head in Huntsville. Just being in her hometown, near to so many bad memories, should render her immune to anything other than sorrow.

  “Physical therapy will be by later. Keeping her mobile is important.”

  “I agree.” Was she agreeing with his treatment plan for her mother or the temptation dancing in his eyes?

  “I am awake, you know,” Bridget reminded them from the head of the bed. “You two don’t have to talk about me as if I’m not here.”

  “Did you hear something?” Garrett asked, winking conspiratorially.

  Jennifer shook her head. “Not a thing.”

  After a lingering look that held a world of sin, he broke eye contact and applied a fresh bandage to her mother’s wound.

  Bridget sighed. “Dr. Wright, can you talk to her about being nicer? Perhaps you could write a prescription or something? One that says she has to move back to Huntsville?”

  Jennifer inwardly groaned. From the moment she’d moved, her mother complained Jennifer didn’t visit enough. Did her mother realize every time she stepped foot in Huntsville she was confronted with a past she just wanted to forget?

  No, she didn’t want to forget her sweet baby girl.

  But she’d had to move on. She couldn’t do that in Huntsville. Which made her attraction to Garrett all the more confusing. Why now? Why in Huntsville?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Yesterday I had to listen to her fuss until I got up and used that darned walker.” Bridget paused for breath, readjusting her oxygen tubing. “Now I’m back in the hospital.”

  Garrett ran his hands over Jennifer’s mother’s leg, checking pulses and the level of edema.

  “Maybe if you’d gotten up more frequently you wouldn’t have the clot,” she wryly informed her mother, trying to clear images of Garrett’s hands caressing her legs, stroking his fingers over her calves, up her thighs, higher. It had been so long since she’d been touched, since she’d wanted to be touched.

  “I swear you and that physical therapist were trying to kill me.” Bridget crossed her arms, a stubborn look on her face. “About did.”

  Garrett finished his exam. “Following hip surgery, you need to walk as much as possible as soon as possible.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Bridget harrumphed. “You aren’t the one they cut.”

  “True,” he agreed, his gaze locked with Jennifer’s.

  Her breath caught at the silent message. He was attracted to her.

  “But I agree with Jennifer. You need to ambulate every chance you have someone to assist you.”

  Sweat coated Jennifer’s skin. Just hearing her name roll off his tongue should not send her into hot f lushes or inner thigh meltdowns. Nonetheless, her core temperature could thaw the polar ice caps.

  “I should have known you doctors would stick together.” Although her tone sounded disapproving, Bridget’s eyes held a gleam that made Jennifer nervous. Or, more likely, Garrett was the one who made her nervous.

  “I have your best interest at heart,” Jennifer reminded her, stepping back from the hospital bed. Perhaps a little distance between her and the yummy doctor would restore internal circuits and cut down on global warming. Surely this crazy roller coaster of emotions was a result of worry over her mother and being in Huntsville?

  “Uh-huh. That’s why you moved to the other side of the state,” her mother accused.

  “I offered to move you with me.” She’d had to get away, bury herself in work. She couldn’t have survived otherwise.

  “Where do you practice?” Garret asked.

  “Madison, near Gulf Shores. I visited the beach one summer—” the summer before her father had died, why did those she loved always die? “—and wanted to go back. After my divorce, I did. Permanently.”

  “My only family, and she moves.” Bridget drew in a pitiful breath.

  Jennifer sent an apologetic look to Garrett and changed the subject. “How were her labs?”

  “I’m still here, you know,” Bridget reminded.

  “We know,” Jennifer and Garrett answered simultaneously
.

  Their eyes met. Sparks f lew.

  Being attracted to her mother’s doctor was a complication Jennifer didn’t need.

  Being attracted to a Huntsville man, who was so fine his middle name must be Heartbreak, was a complication she didn’t need.

  But she was.

  She hadn’t wanted a man’s touch since before Carrie’s death. Hadn’t even realized she’d shut that part of her mind and body down.

  With her mother seriously ill and while staying in a town that held only pain, now was not the time to remember she was a woman beneath the lab coat and stethoscope she hid behind.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Garrett held the hospital room door, allowing Jennifer to leave the room before him. Would she slap him if he pulled her into a supply closet and kissed her until they were both breathless?

  She wasn’t right for him. But there was something vulnerable in her expression, something that appealed in a way he couldn’t resist.

  “Have dinner with me,” he said the moment her mother’s room door closed. He hadn’t known he was going to ask, but couldn’t take the words back, couldn’t even draw in his next breath as he waited for her answer.

  Never had he felt such a consuming desire.

  Surprise and something more, fear perhaps, shone in her big, brown eyes. She hesitated, then nodded. “I’d like that.”

  He’d like to find the supply closet.

  “Should I pick you up here?” An image of picking her up, literally, f lashed through his mind.

  More hesitation lit her face. She shook her head.

  “Under the circumstance it would be better if you pick me up at my mother’s.” She prattled off an address.

  “What circumstances?”

  “You’re my mother’s doctor. I’m leaving as soon as she’s recovered. She’d view our going to dinner as complicated.”

  Those circumstances.

  Asking Jennifer to dinner was a lot more complicated than his being her mother’s doctor. There was also the fact that he needed a mother for his boys and she was the least likely candidate for the role. Her mother had talked about Jennifer’s long work hours—that she worked seven days a week, weeks on end. He’d been surprised to hear Bridget’s daughter had taken off the next month. Surprised as hell.