Hot-Shot Doc, Secret Dad (Cowboys, Doctors...Daddies)

by Lynne Marshall

  “Fair enough.” He sat straighter, reached for a pad of paper and a pen. “Then I need to do an extensive interview to gauge your medical experience, if you don’t mind.”

  Great, now they’d play twenty questions—medical tricks, and treatment of the day—and she’d better come through. At least her jitters had settled down, thinking about medicine. “Fire away, Dr. Montgomery.”

  Twenty minutes later, after the most thorough and difficult medical interview in her life, Julie realized her palms were clammy. What if, after all of this, she didn’t get the job? What would she do now that James was already enrolled at the military academy?

  “If I hire you, I won’t throw you in the fire. I promise to give you a couple of weeks’ orientation, where you can shadow me and my patients, and learn the system. Or as long as you need. I’m proud to say I’m the only doctor outside of Cheyenne that uses computerized charting. It takes a bit of getting used to, but in the long run—”

  “I’m familiar with that, depending on the system you’re using.” County Hospital had been late to implement the charting system, and the one they’d used had been clunky, but she’d figured it out well enough.

  “Great. So do you have any questions for me?”

  Are you married? Do you have children? “Is there a benefits package, and how soon will it kick in—that is, if you hire me.” How desperate could she sound?

  “As soon as the paperwork is processed, and you’ve completed your orientation, you’ll be covered.” Trevor pressed the intercom then pushed back from his desk.

  “Yes, Doctor?” Rita’s chirpy voice was loud and clear and maybe a little too fawning.

  “Could you bring in the new-employee paperwork?”

  Julie inhaled, realizing she’d held her breath since her last question. “I’ve got the job?”

  “It’s yours if you want it.” Trevor offered a far more genuine smile this time.

  “Thank you.” Now Julie smiled, too, anxiety streaming out of her body.

  Rita arrived with a packet of paperwork, and handed it to Julie, assessing her more closely as she did.

  “You probably want to have your lunch before your afternoon patients, maybe call your wife, so I can fill this out in the waiting room, if you’d prefer.”

  “No need. The clinic is closed on Tuesday afternoons. Otherwise, I’d introduce you to Charlotte, my nurse. I’ve got to finish up on Mr. Waverly’s chart anyway. Feel free to stay right there.” He went back to work but said as an aside, “Oh, and there isn’t a Mrs. Montgomery. Just my old man, and, to be honest, having dinner with him every night is enough.” He gave that charming smile over his laptop, slyly forgiving her for her none-too-subtle probing into his personal life. She pretended to be completely focused on the paperwork.

  Though he did seem easy and open about still being a bachelor. She wondered if it had to do with being stuck in this small town taking care of his father while his brother lived the good life traveling and keeping two homes.

  For the next several minutes, Julie filled in all the blanks about her personal information, but sneaked surreptitious glances at Trevor as she did. His mahogany-colored hair was still thick and wavy, covering the tips of his ears. After all this time, she remembered how she’d run her fingers through it the one night they’d been together, probably because she’d dreamed about touching that hair all that summer long. His square jaw was set while he typed away at his keyboard. He knit his brows and seemed very concerned about whatever it was he entered about poor Mr. Waverly’s condition.

  Once, he glanced up at the exact moment Julie did and their eyes met then skipped away from each other quicker than water on a hot griddle. Even so, the visual contact slid through her center, further jangling her nerves.

  The man deserved to know.

  But she needed the job. No way would she tell him! Not now anyway. Oh, man, why had she even considered coming home?

  Round and round her thoughts chased each other. She was at the end of her rope and James needed…well, a father.

  With her mouth dry and her hands clammier than ever, she finished her employment paperwork and handed the packet to Trevor. His lips torqued in a rigid manner as he took them, as if they were something sacred, then he used the intercom and asked Rita to process everything before she left for the day.

  “Want to start tomorrow?” he asked, without looking at one iota of Julie’s personal information, while handing everything over to Rita—who must have been standing right outside in order to get there so fast.

  “The sooner the better,” Julie said, relieved she’d have a new job before her final paycheck from her prior job was due.

  He smiled tensely, and once Rita had left with the paperwork, Trevor shot Julie an anxious glance. Was he changing his mind? He followed Rita to the door, closing it behind her, further raising Julie’s curiosity. What did he have up his sleeve?

  “Listen,” he said, stretching his lower lip and biting on it, as if the words were stuck just behind his teeth. Instead of walking back around his desk, he sat next to her. She’d been right about his wearing boots—black gator belly–patterned boots, to be exact. She stared at them rather than look at Trevor. “I’d like to ask you to forgive me.”

  What? She was unable to hide her reaction; her chin pulled in, brows shot up and she was quite sure her eyes bugged out—at least that was how it felt. She had a dreaded hunch about what he referred to, and for the record he did look contrite, yet she still couldn’t quite make her brain believe it. “Seriously?” Did she say that out loud?

  He made the wise decision of not attempting to touch her or even get too close. Though he leaned in and sincerity flowed from his gaze. “Completely. I messed up that night. There was nothing honorable about what I did. I took advantage of—”

  “Wait a second, I may have been tipsy—well, we both were—but I still knew what I was doing. I had a choice in the matter. Made a bad one, but nevertheless.”

  Now he was the one studying his boots. “That’s not the way it should be, the first time, you know?” He looked back up and nailed her. “A lady deserves some romance and wooing that first time. And I never even had the decency to apologize.”

  Oh, my gosh, he was going all chivalrous on her. Too late, buddy. She’d waited and waited for his call, which had never come. He’d had his chance to be honorable, but had never bothered. Even so, she decided to take the practical route.

  “Now that I’m thirty-one, I can say with certainty that life isn’t always the way it should be. That’s just how it is sometimes.” Without thinking, she reached for his forearm and squeezed. “We were both slightly inebriated, as I recall, and I’ll let you in on a little secret—I went to that party hoping to see you. I couldn’t believe it when you were interested in me, too. So—”

  How naive could she have been? Any male would be interested in a willing woman at that age. Yeah, she’d learned that lesson the hard way.

  “That still doesn’t make it right,” he said. “It’s not like losing your virginity can happen more than once.”

  True, but how often did a girl get bells and whistles and romance with her first time? At least that had seemed to be the consensus among her friends back then, and, crazy as it sounded, it had helped ease her broken heart.

  “It’s weighed on my mind and I just wanted to set things straight since you’re going to be working for me.” He glanced down at her hand, still grasping his forearm, and her ringless finger. “I messed up that night, didn’t have a clue you weren’t like the girls at college. I took advantage of you, plain and simple. Please forgive me.”

  The remorseful expression, coupled with those dark, pleading eyes, painted a gentlemanly and heartfelt apology. It warmed Julie’s cynical heart by a few degrees, and brought out the forgiver in her. She let up on the tight clutch on his arm.

  Truth was she’d packed away that chapter of her life years ago. What were the odds of getting knocked up your first time? Lucky her, right
? Once the thrill of being with the guy of her dreams had worn off, he’d never called again, and the couple of missed periods had finally clicked in—better late than never, right? Julie had forgotten about that party and Trevor, who had already been long gone—she didn’t forget about him that quickly—and she’d faced the tough reality that she’d soon be a single mother at the ripe old age of eighteen.

  But today was about a job, not about losing her virginity and getting pregnant. “Apology accepted.”

  To be honest, many things weighed on her mind, too, about that night and the aftermath.

  She’d already been enrolled at the University of Denver, and had settled into her dorm, gone through orientation, started her classes. After a couple of months and her normally irregular periods had just upped and quit, she hadn’t been able to deny her suspicions any longer and had taken a home test. Even though they’d used a condom, she’d gotten pregnant.

  Julie had called her mother. The woman who’d had big plans for her education. Julie had been the model student her entire life—actually had had no choice, with her mother being a grade-school teacher and her father the principal of Cattleman Bluff High School.

  Her mother’s voice had dropped at the truth. She’d flipped out, told Julie to have an abortion, so focused on her future, forgetting about Julie’s feelings and thoughts on the matter. “Your life will be over because of that baby.” She’d spit out the word baby, making Julie wonder if she’d ruined her own mother’s life.

  “They’ll think you’re only after their money, those Montgomerys,” her father had said spitefully when he’d gotten on the phone. “They’ll publically humiliate you, and us.”

  She’d shamed her parents and that had seemed to be all that mattered. Amazingly, with them, she and her baby had been left out of the mix.

  Logically, because she’d been trained to think that way, Julie had transferred those implanted thoughts and doubts onto Trevor, the guy just beginning med school. With every ounce of guilt she’d felt heaped on her by her parents—as Julie’s mother had gotten her father involved in the call, with both pressuring her into ending the pregnancy—Julie had bundled up her feelings and kept her mouth shut.

  Trevor hadn’t ever called her again. He hadn’t given a damn about her. It had hurt like hell and she’d been alone in a new city, with no friends and parents telling her to get rid of it. As if a baby could be called an “it”.

  Hurt, anger and a large dose of immaturity had rounded out her decision. The good part was, against her parents’ advice, she’d kept her baby.

  The tricky part was, she’d chosen never to tell Trevor about her being pregnant because she hadn’t wanted to be told to give up her baby by anyone else. She wouldn’t have regardless, no matter how much her parents had pressured her. But they’d gotten through to her on the rest—she hadn’t wanted to interfere with Trevor’s dream of becoming a doctor by telling him he was going to be a daddy. He’d already proved he didn’t care about her, hadn’t once tried to get in touch with her since they’d been together that night. She’d feared he’d deny he’d been with her, put all the blame on her, as her parents had. It would have ruined her one perfect night with the guy she’d dreamed about all summer.

  Julie glanced at the man sitting next to her, smiling benevolently, and tried her best not to betray her thoughts.

  Would he have accused her of only being after his family’s money, as her father had suggested? Being so young, she’d believed her parent’s predictions. And she’d been hurt, so hurt when she’d been forced to realize she didn’t mean anything to Trevor.

  She’d been too young, immature, emotionally wounded and way too mixed up to work out all the particulars. How could she be expected to act rationally? But she’d stubbornly chosen to keep Trevor in the dark. She’d show him. At least that was how it had started out. Then the reality of being a single mom and supporting herself had kicked in, and she’d been bound and determined to prove her parents wrong. She could do it all. She would do it all. Trevor had practically been forgotten by then. Now all these years later, she’d have to face her decision and somehow justify it.

  Here she was accepting an apology from a man who’d taken her virginity but didn’t have any idea he was a father. That huge, and quite possibly unforgivable, reality twisted and tied into a knot the entire size of her stomach, making it hard to breathe.

  “So you have my word that I’ll only behave respectfully and professionally toward you from here on out.” Could the guy sound any stiffer? Could she feel any worse?

  Remember to breathe. “I appreciate that.” She figured she’d better ensure one thing before moving forward with what she suddenly needed—had no choice, in her mind—to do. “And I definitely have the job, right? And not just because of that?”

  He gave a relieved smile. “I expect you to be here at eight tomorrow morning. Our first patient is scheduled for eight-thirty.”

  She nodded, the rapid beating of her heart pounding up her neck and into her ears. She couldn’t keep the lie going, not if she’d have to face this man every day at work. It would eat away at her conscience. Might even interfere with her job performance. She couldn’t allow that to happen. For a millisecond she wished she’d never come back home, but James needed a chance at a better life. And she was hell-bent on giving it to him.

  When she realized she’d been staring at her folded hands far too long, her gaze flitted upward to find Trevor’s perplexed expression. Oh, yeah, he was onto the fact something else was brewing.

  She owed him the truth. Hadn’t he just taken a huge risk, bringing up their past, setting the record straight that he’d regretted their one time together?

  Didn’t he deserve to know there were consequences? How on earth would he react?

  Her pulse switched to a fluttery rhythm, vibrating all over her chest. This was the moment of truth, and she couldn’t let it pass.

  “Trevor. Uh, about that night.” She looked straight ahead, unable to engage his eyes for now. Could he sense the dread in her voice?

  James is the most wonderful gift in your life. There’s no room for shame over your son. Just tell him already!

  “I mentioned I have a son, James. He’s twelve. Twelve years, nine months, to be exact.” Would he do the math instantaneously? She twisted an imaginary ring on her left hand, knowing she had to look Trevor in the eyes when she told him. Dreading it.

  With every last nerve she could gather, she forced her gaze to his, praying he’d understand and not accuse her of lying. If he did, she’d have to quit the job before she ever started. “Well, since we’re laying everything out on the table today, I want you to know that…” She had to swallow first, because her throat seemed to have closed down.

  His stare drilled into hers and her chest felt as if it would implode. She took a sip of air and just blurted it out.

  “You’re the father.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  TREVOR’S BREATH WHOOSHED out of him as if he’d just been kicked in the solar plexus. Well, metaphorically, hadn’t he been? Julie Sterling—a one-night stand from the last night of a particularly great summer vacation—had just gifted him with the news. He was a father of a twelve-year-old boy and had never known it.

  “What are you telling me?” He blinked, fighting off disbelief and a surge of anger.

  Julie sat there, chin high, staring at him, looking far too young to be thirty-one.

  In fact, right now she looked more like that pretty little gal with the wild curly brown hair and huge hazel eyes he’d played fast and reckless with that one night, all those years ago. She still had freckles across the bridge of her nose, and the thickest eyelashes he’d ever seen, and two minutes ago he’d been thinking how great it might be to get to know her again, how beautiful she’d become, how she still set off a reaction he’d forgotten about these past few years. Then she’d lowered the boom and hit him with the craziest news of his life. He had a son?

  “I’m telling you the t
ruth. I owe it to you,” she said. “I got pregnant that night.”

  He needed to stand. Needed to inhale. Needed to pound his fist into the wall. Was she a whack job, setting him up? His legs seemed undependable at the moment, so he leaned against his desk and dug his hands into his jeans pockets, because he didn’t know what else to do with them. He finally remembered to close his mouth. “You’re sure that I’m the one who got you pregnant?”

  Yeah, he was being ridiculously slow on the uptake, on purpose, and maybe a little insulting, too, might even qualify as a jerk, but he’d proved that long ago when he’d never called her after they’d been together. He needed time to process this flabbergasting and life-altering information.

  He was a father? What if he didn’t want to be? Damn it, why hadn’t she given him a choice in the matter?

  She nodded, unwavering in her speculative stare, her hands knotted in her lap. “As you mentioned earlier, I was a virgin. I didn’t run off and start sleeping around after that either. The OB doc tracked the pregnancy to nearly that exact day.”

  Trevor’s hand flew to the top of his head, needing to check for a nonexistent cowboy hat. All these years he’d been a father? “Look, I’m sorry for how that may have come off. I’m just really thrown right now.” Getting kicked off a bucking bull couldn’t have felt worse.

  “Understandably.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She slowly shook her head. “I didn’t want to ruin your first year in med school. Didn’t want you to feel obligated to me.” She glanced at the floor. “Didn’t want you to tell me to—”

  “Look, I honestly don’t know what I would have done then. It would’ve been nice to have some say in the matter, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have told you to get rid of it. Er…him.” He grimaced. “James, is it?” His head spun with the knowledge of his son. A kid he’d never had an ounce of input in walked the earth not knowing he had a father. Did James know that he was his father?