by Annie O'Neil
All the single mom wants for Christmas...
London ER doctor Matthew Chase is shocked that his new role has become a job share with Dr. Amanda Wakehurst—the last woman he expected to see again.
Matthew is also unaware he’s the father of her little boy, until Tristan is critically injured. Yet Matthew is there to support Amanda in her hour of need, and he proves how much he wants to be Tristan’s dad. Dare she hope he still wants her, too? Being together as a family this Christmas would be her ultimate gift...
“He’s not the ‘patient.’” Amanda couldn’t hold back any longer. “He’s your son.”
His son?
Everything in Matthew stilled. The symphony that was the usual soundtrack to the ER turned into a dull buzzing in his ears. Strangely...he could hear his own heartbeat, the rapid cadence overriding any ability to make sense of what he’d just heard. Beneath his fingertips he could feel the soft silk of the young boy’s straw-colored hair. A darker shade of Amanda’s more honeyed blond.
Matthew’s eyes were glued to Amanda’s, willing them to tell a different story, but she returned his gaze with the solid strength of an Amazon princess. Fierce and proud. There wasn’t an ounce of apology for having had their son. There was pride.
A thousand questions clamored for supremacy but the ability to comprehend the news demanded only one. A repeat. As if hearing it again would make it real instead of this halfway house between reality and...was it a nightmare or a dream come true?
“What did you say?”
Dear Reader,
There isn’t a pixel of Christmas magic I don’t fall for. I love it all. The lights, the crisp air (if you’re in the northern hemisphere), the anticipation, the giddy pleasure of buying gifts. The only thing that’s better? Falling in love at Christmas.
I loved writing about Amanda and Matthew (who I’d wanted to be a Matt, but he kept coming out as a Matthew, so who was I to argue?). Amanda, who is so fiery and determined to put things right despite her wild-child past, and Matthew, whose heart is enormous but he’s the last one to realize it.
Thank goodness they had the extra pixie dust of mince pies, gingerbread and tinsel to help remind them that love is the magic ingredient to seeing what really matters in life. The people in our lives.
Happy reading, everyone. And make sure you get in touch if you have any questions. You can reach me on Twitter, @annieoneilbooks, or on Facebook—same thing, Annie O’Neil Books.
All the best!
xo Annie O’
HER KNIGHT UNDER THE MISTLETOE
Annie O’Neil
Books by Annie O’Neil
Harlequin Medical Romance
Italian Royals
Tempted by the Bridesmaid
Claiming His Pregnant Princess
Paddington Children’s Hospital
Healing the Sheikh’s Heart
Hot Latin Docs
Santiago’s Convenient Fiancée
Christmas Eve Magic
The Nightshift Before Christmas
The Monticello Baby Miracles
One Night, Twin Consequences
One Night...with Her Boss
London’s Most Eligible Doctor
Her Hot Highland Doc
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Praise for Annie O’Neil
“This is a beautifully written story that will pull you in from page one and keep you up late, turning the pages.”
—Goodreads on Doctor...to Duchess?
Annie O’Neil won the 2016 RoNA Rose Award for her book Doctor...to Duchess?
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EXCERPT FROM THE NURSE'S SPECIAL DELIVERY BY LOUISA GEORGE
CHAPTER ONE
MATTHEW KNEW HE was making a poor job of hiding his frustration. Maybe he should have succumbed to the frivolities of the season and worn one of those ridiculous holiday jumpers to counterbalance his grim expression and biting tone.
When no answer to his earlier question was forthcoming he repeated, “You said the job was mine.”
From the look on Dr. Menzies’s face he might as well have said Santa wasn’t real.
Ho-ho-ho. Merry Un-Christmas.
His mentor shifted uncomfortably in his chair, ultimately breaking eye contact to throw a look over Matthew’s shoulder toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The usual buzz and whirr of the inner city A&E unit was still humming along, as if the rug hadn’t just been yanked out from under his feet. Both his and Dr. Menzies’s feet, from the looks of things. The hospital’s Director of Medicine and Surgery seemed to be taking as little pleasure in the change of events as he was. Or perhaps Dr. Menzies was monitoring the progress of the Christmas decorations going up to mark the advent of the holiday season.
Tinsel, wreaths, super-sized glittering baubles and a surplus of mistletoe... The hospital’s volunteer “Yule Squad” was in turbo drive. Perhaps their powers extended to the weather. The day was cold enough for snow. But the only cloud in the sky had followed Matthew indoors and was hanging directly over his head.
Matthew remained motionless. One of his trademarks when his stress levels hit the roof. It was the only way to ensure that whoever was on the receiving end of his million-miles-away stare was none the wiser.
“As you know, Dr. Chase, these things are often more...” Dr. Menzies searched for the right word “...fluid than initially presented.”
“Fluid.”
Statement, not a question. How could the A&E job he’d been promised suddenly not be his?
“We know you have been incredibly generous—”
Matthew cut him off with a growl and a hand-swipe. He hadn’t donated money for the new wing to buy himself the position.
“I’ve earned this job. The Support our Soldiers unit has nothing to do with me.”
“On the contrary, Matthew, it has everything to do with you. You founded the ruddy charity. Think of the lives that have already been saved by your clinic in Sussex. And if you don’t mind me saying—”
“I do.” Matthew stopped him.
He knew the statistics better than anyone. Veteran suicide had outstripped soldiers dying in combat years ago. Over in the US more than a dozen soldiers were taking their lives a day. A day! He wasn’t about to let the UK match those statistics. Not on his watch.
He knew the toll one of those deaths had taken on a person firsthand.
“With respect, Donald, it doesn’t matter how many times the board ask me to run the unit. I am not your guy. I’m better out there.” He pointed to the A&E and hoped his solid stance would draw a line under the issue.
The anonymity of the A&E was what he was after. Proximity to the SoS unit was merely...useful
.
His eye snagged on a couple of orderlies wrestling with a Christmas tree, attempting to set it up haphazardly in a corner of the waiting room. He scowled. Christmas seemed to come round sooner and sooner each year. Bah, humbug, to it. And to the carolers who were virtually blocking the entrance. And to New Year’s as well, while he was at it.
Every day was the beginning of a new year. Just not one highlighted up on the calendar with pictures of adorable rabbits or firemen.
“Dr. Chase, I think there were concerns regarding—”
“Don’t you dare tell me this has anything to do with—” Matthew cut in, then stopped himself.
He couldn’t go there. Not yet anyway. Maybe never. But at this time of year, with all of the Christmas lights, the opulently decorated trees and hordes of shoppers wrestling their gifts home everywhere he walked, it was hard not to have his nuclear family spring to mind.
Nuclear explosion, more like. Implosion? Whatever...
Either way, what was left of his family had fallen apart years ago, and a stack of plum puddings that reached to the moon and back wouldn’t come close to bringing them back together.
As hard as it was, Matthew uncurled his hands from the fists they were forming. Frustration—not fury—had balled them into tight knots of steel and sinew. Okay, flesh and bone—but right now the walls around him were officially being warned. One of them would be getting a new hole if the hospital board didn’t change their minds.
Dr. Menzies waved away his interruption. “There were concerns regarding your history of signing up for repeat tours...”
“What about it? I was doing my duty.”
Avoiding his life, more like.
“Matthew, I know if you say you’re going to do a job, you’ll do it. I have absolute confidence in your ability. But—”
“But what? I’m used to working with mortars pounding around my medical tent. You think I can’t handle an A&E in the center of London?”
Dr. Menzies gave his chin a scrub. “It’s actually nothing to do with that. It’s more a question of...commitment. Whether you’ll want to go and work for SoS—”
“I already told you. I am one hundred percent behind the soldiers’ PTSD unit. I just don’t want to work there. It’s not my forté. Trauma is.”
Physical trauma he could deal with. Emotional...? Not so much. Besides, who would want a daily reminder of the brother he hadn’t saved? The brother he had sworn to look after.
“Dr. Chase, you know I’ll fight your corner until my knuckles bleed, but in this case they’re bleeding and the decision has been made. The board has been clear. A monthlong job share with the other top applicant is the working plan at this point. A decision will be made as to who gets the post in the New Year. It’s nothing to do with your ability. Just the usual politics.”
“Politics.”
The word hung between them like a noose.
Unbelievable. He’d put in the hours, the graft, the blood and the sweat. Maybe not the tears, but if he was going to come back to London for good this job and this hospital were the only reasons why.
Again his gaze drifted to the busy A&E. His pulse elevated just looking at the packed waiting room. He’d far rather be out there doing a fourteen-hour shift than standing in here talking about a job share.
Maybe “they” had a point. The management post he was trying to snag involved a lot of paperwork. And even more politics.
Something in him softened. This couldn’t be easy for Dr. Menzies. He narrowed his gaze, acutely aware that his mentor had aged considerably since they’d last worked together some ten years ago. Right before his first deployment.
Matthew looked him in the eye. “Since when are we back to Dr. Chase?”
The question had the desired effect. The tension in the room went down a few notches and the atmosphere became not exactly friendly, but closer to how they’d been way back in the good ol’ days at the teaching hospital. When learning had been learning, work had been work, and when your boss offered you a job you got it. Not had it swung in front of you like a carrot, only to have it given to another rabbit.
“So...is this how I should look forward to things working here at Bankside? Fluidly?”
To his credit, Dr. Menzies chuckled. The man had been more of a mentor to Matthew than his father ever had. A sting of remorse shot through him. Not that he could blame his father. Grief did strange things to a person. Especially when your one living son had done the single solitary thing he’d begged him never to do. Joined the military.
“Now, Matthew, let’s not get carried away, shall we?”
“Why not?” He leaned against the doorframe of his mentor’s office, having never bothered sitting down. “Yesterday I was under the impression I’d be taking over the A&E unit in a few days’ time and today it’s a job share. I don’t know if I need my ears cleaned, but let’s see if I can remember correctly.” He tapped his chin in a faux display of trying to remember the moment. “Matthew,” he mimicked, expertly but not unkindly, “having you as Director of A&E would be like—”
“Butter on bread,” Dr. Menzies finished for him with a shake of the head. “Look. I’m sorry, Matthew, but this one is out of my hands. You know I’d have you running the A&E this very second if I could, but...” He hesitated and looked away as he spoke on. “If we’re going to carry this simile on further let’s just say the candidate they have in mind would be the...er...marmalade.”
“The marmalade? I’m the butter and this other mysterious candidate is the bloody marmalade?”
Matthew squared up to his boss—grateful there was a desk between them. Never in his life would he dream of laying a finger on him—or anyone, for that matter—but this was news. He wasn’t here to quibble over butter vs. tangy toast toppings.
He might as well have stayed in Iraq if he’d wanted things to be straightforward. Wake up. Survive. Sleep. Repeat.
He’d come back to London to work. Help patients. Make sure the SoS wing opened. Maybe process a few of his own demons while he was at it. But mostly to work. When he worked there wasn’t a thought in his head other than doing the best he could for the patient he was with.
Dr. Menzies rose from his chair and walked round and perched on the edge of his desk. “I know this isn’t what you wanted. What either of us wanted,” he hastily corrected himself, “but this other candidate has got a helluva lot of experience.”
“I have a helluva lot of experience.”
He silently ticked off the countless years of medical school, the military training, working in combat conditions. Turning his father’s plastics factory into an award-winning center for prosthetics. Getting a knighthood for turning the bulk of the profits into a charity for soldiers trying to reintegrate themselves into society. What more did the world expect him to give before he’d proved himself?
“Who is he?”
“Actually...Matthew...he’s a she.”
* * *
“Job share?” Amanda’s cheeks, pink from the icy walk to the hospital, turned hot and her eyes widened as the A&E department’s PA raised her hands in a don’t-shoot-the-messenger gesture.
“From the look on your face, I am guessing our beloved Dr. Menzies didn’t make that clear? Hot tea? It’s freezing out there. Or gingerbread?”
She pushed a plate of decorated ginger biscuits—stars, bells, Santas and something she couldn’t identify—across her desk and rolled her eyes.
“My mum’s on a mission this year to be the Christmas biscuit champion of her WI group. The weird one is a submarine. My dad.” She offered as a means of explanation.
Amanda accepted a star-shaped biscuit with a smile, her eyes flicking to the PA’s nameplate: Deena Stokes. She looked no-nonsense enough, even with her nails decorated like Christmas tree baubles. She also looked as if this wasn’t the fir
st time she had delivered unwelcome news to someone who should already have been in the loop.
Her dry tone intimated a certain world-weariness with her boss and his lack of communication, but her body language spoke volumes, too. She was the gatekeeper to the director’s domain—and right now the drawbridge wasn’t anywhere near close to landing on the other side of the moat. So it was suck it up and take a biscuit or...
“Your mum’s in with a good shot if these are anything to go by.”
Amanda lifted the half-eaten cookie as evidence, though with her nerves jangling round her like elves on hyperdrive even the finest pastries in the universe would taste like cardboard.
She looked toward the closed office door and tilted her head back to Deena. “I’ve not met with him yet. I’ve only had meetings with the board.”
Amanda shook her head in disbelief and finished her biscuit. You had to laugh, didn’t you? Just when she’d thought she’d had all her ducks lined up in a row...
“I’d been under the impression this meeting was just a formality. That the job was already mine.”
Deena quirked an inquisitive eyebrow.
Humph! Looked as if someone knew better than to assume anything.
Rookie error. Amanda silently chastised herself for going soft in her time off from “the big leagues.” If you could call raising a child and taking every locum shift in every inner city A&E on offer time off.
She shrugged away the thought. She had her Auntie Flo. And an entire floor of Flo’s big old tumbledown four-story house right in the center of one of London’s smartest neighborhoods. It might look like the hands of time had not moved since the first Wakehurst had set the grandfather clock up in the central entryway back in 1749, and it still lacked central heating, but it was more than most single mothers had. A lot more.
She parted her lips, about to ask how deep a salary cut she’d be taking, then thought better of it. The job was round the corner from her house, in a department that brought her to life in a way no other area of medicine did. And right before Christmas beggars couldn’t really be choosers. Just thinking of putting herself up for more overnight locum shifts made her tired.