He knew how she must be feeling. If it was anything at all like the way he was feeling at the moment, it was borderline hysteria coupled with a megadose of surrealism. He’d been lucky. Jeremy, unlike other kids, had not suffered the early childhood ailments like ear infections or croup or whopping cough.
“The doctors say it’s his appendix.”
“But he’s only four,” Charlotte protested. “He’s just a baby.”
“I know,” David said. “I thought the same thing. But the doctor said it’s not uncommon.”
Just then Spring entered the waiting room. Although three other people were there now, waiting for word on their own loved ones, her gaze found his almost immediately.
David met her halfway. “Is there any news?”
“He’s heading up to recovery,” she said. “He’ll be out of it, groggy from the anesthesia, but he’s going to be fine, David. He’s going to be just fine.”
David swooped her up into his arms and twirled her around. He planted a kiss on her mouth. “Thank you. Thank you.”
Spring’s joy mirrored his own, and even as he set her on her feet, he led her toward Charlotte.
“Mom, this is one of Jeremy’s doctors. Dr. Spring Darling is the pediatrician I took him to.”
“Well,” Charlotte said with an assessing glance at Spring, “I can’t say I ever greeted your pediatrician like that.”
David gave her a blank look and then whipped his head around to Spring, his eyes widening as the realization of what he’d done sank in.
“I’m sorry,” he said, releasing her hand as if it were suddenly molten lava. “I got caught up in the moment.”
Spring sent a professional smile his way, as if all the parents of her patients kissed her like that. “No problem,” she said. She extended her hand to the older woman. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs.—”
“Camden,” Charlotte supplied, shaking the doctor’s hand. “Believe it or not, it’s the same as my son’s.”
Spring tucked her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. “In my line of work, I never assume anything.”
Charlotte’s shrewd gaze seemed to assess Spring, and David realized with a jolt that he needed to cut off her speculation before it went too far. Dr. Spring Darling had shown not a whit of interest in him. Her concern, and rightly so, had been solely on Jeremy.
“I suppose that’s right,” Charlotte said. “Thank you for the news about my grandson. Do you have children?”
“Uh, Mom, I’m sure Dr. Darling has some other rounds to make. Can we see him?”
“I’ll show you the way,” she said.
Jeremy lay in a hospital bed in the pediatric recovery ward, looking much smaller and younger than he already was.
Going to his son, David brushed the hair back from the boy’s forehead. “Hey there, champ. You came through. To God be the glory.”
Jeremy turned toward his father’s voice, but otherwise he didn’t stir.
“He’ll come around in about ten minutes,” Spring assured him.
And when he did, David knew his son would be delighted to see his pretty Dr. Spring waiting to greet him.
* * *
“May I talk with you a moment?” Charlotte Camden asked Spring.
If she was surprised by the request, Spring didn’t show it. “Of course,” she said, leading her to the waiting room down the hall. The two sat, Spring facing the older woman. David Camden had his mother’s eyes, and she could see some of his other features in her face.
“Thank you for caring for my son and grandson,” Charlotte said. “This is all my fault. I was supposed to be watching Jeremy. This never would have happened if I’d paid more attention.”
“Mrs. Camden, appendicitis isn’t anyone’s fault. It just happens,” Spring assured her just as she had David. “It could have happened anywhere at any time. There’s nothing you or Mr. Camden could have done.”
Charlotte didn’t look convinced. If anything, Spring thought, she looked more worried than she had just a few seconds ago.
“He’s under an incredible amount of stress,” Charlotte said as she fingered the edge of one dangling scarf. “I just wish I could do more for him.”
Since Spring didn’t know what the Camden situation was, she could only make the kinds of sounds that could be perceived as comforting.
With little else that she could tell the distressed grandmother, she made a suggestion that Charlotte get a cup of coffee or tea.
“Thank you, but no. I’ll wait here,” Charlotte said. “I’d like to see Jeremy again when I can. I should have been here. I was getting a massage while my grandson was in terrible pain.”
Spring knew nothing about this family, their situation or relationships, so she couldn’t offer the woman any assurances one way or the other. She was awfully curious.
But the nature of a hospital physician’s interaction with patients meant the back stories and the how it all worked out or even came to be were rarely, if ever, known after discharge. The same would be true of the Camdens once Jeremy was up and around and feeling better.
“Sure,” Spring said. “That won’t be a problem.”
A few minutes later, she saw Jeremy Camden and again wondered if there was another Mrs. Camden in his life.
* * *
Spring found she had not been able to stop thinking about the father and son duo, even after all the unexpected extra hours in the emergency department, getting home and going straight to bed.
Three mornings a week she worked out at F.I.T. gym with her sister. Today, though, she’d begged off after promising that she’d run five miles to make up for it. She’d had specific and necessary errands to run before going to the hospital. There had been a place at Commerce Plaza she needed to visit.
As she walked into the hospital, she carried a two-foot-tall brown teddy bear sporting a natty red-and-white-polka-dot bow tie around his neck.
She wasn’t in the habit of buying gifts for her patients. Like many service professionals who worked with children, she kept a stock of small toys like yo-yos and coloring books with crayons to give to kids, but nothing like this plush bear that was built well and meant to last a lifetime.
Spring was so thankful that Jeremy had come through the surgery and recovery with flying colors. She knew that she was getting emotionally involved. But she couldn’t help it.
Jeremy Camden was now recuperating in a patient room in the pediatric wing of the hospital.
She tapped on the partially open door, heard “come in” and entered the little boy’s room.
“Dr. Spring!” the boy exclaimed when he saw her. He struggled to sit up, then let out an “Ow” and leaned back.
“Easy, Jeremy,” Charlotte Camden admonished her grandson while rising from the chair near the boy’s bed. “You’re supposed to be resting.”
Charlotte pushed the mechanism that raised the bed so Jeremy could sit up.
“Is that for me?” the boy asked, eyeing the teddy bear.
“It sure is,” Spring said. “But you have to do what Dr. Emmanuel and your grandmother say.”
“I am. Gonna have a sore,” he said, tugging at the small hospital gown so she could see as she approached.
“A scar, Jeremy,” his grandmother corrected.
Spring ruffled the boy’s hair and handed him the bear, which Jeremy immediately hugged.
“He’s almost as big as me!”
The delight on his face assured her that she’d done the right thing in buying and giving it to him. “He sure is,” Spring said.
“What do you say?” Charlotte prompted him.
With one small arm flung around the stuffed animal, Jeremy reached for Spring with the other. The hug came naturally to him. It was awkward with the bed rail, the IV and the bear, but
so worth it when he said in her ear, “Thank you—I love him.”
“How are you feeling?” she asked as she checked his readings on the monitors near the bed and on his chart. Everything looked good and so did he.
“I get to stay here in the hospital!”
Spring smiled.
“Only a child would see that as a good thing,” Charlotte said with a laugh.
Only a child who was never or rarely sick, Spring amended silently. Now came the recuperation period, and she knew from experience that if he was feeling better, he’d be itching to run around like a little boy with boundless energy.
“Because it was so late when David brought him in, the doctor said they’d like to keep Jeremy for a full day of observation.”
Spring wondered where David Camden was. The nurses said he hadn’t left his son’s side since he’d come out of surgery.
“You just missed David,” Charlotte said as if reading Spring’s mind. “I sent him to the hotel to get some proper rest. He has a business meeting later today and several tomorrow morning and needs to be ready for them. We’ll probably both end up staying the night.”
“Oh.” Spring was surprised at the deflated feeling that rushed through her, but she responded to the older woman. “Yes. That’s good.”
Then she questioned her own actions and second-guessed her motives. Had she brought Jeremy a gift simply to be able to see his father again?
No, she realized. When she saw the bear, her first thought had simply been the towheaded little boy who’d been in so much pain and had been such a trouper.
“Dr. E said I can go home after today and Grandma’s gonna stay at the hotel. Then we go home later,” Jeremy reported.
Spring was still confused about the whole business concerning the hotel versus the house, but she wasn’t about to question Mrs. Camden. She’d already gathered from what David had said and from the quality of Mrs. Camden’s clothing that they were not in the financial trouble she’d imagined.
“I checked with Jeremy’s pediatrician in Charlotte. He suggested a day of bed rest after he’s released rather than a road trip home.”
“And Charlotte is home?”
Charlotte Camden nodded and then smiled. “I was named for the city and for an aunt. I know it gets confusing sometimes. David’s company is based there. I’m the grandma in chief on the board of directors.”
David’s company.
The words should have been a comfort, should have taken away the uncertainty and assured her that he had spoken the truth. Instead they made Spring feel as if she were suddenly treading water near a rip current.
She had been attracted to him from the moment she’d set eyes on him. And Spring Darling had no room in her heart for attraction and what it tended to do to the emotions. She had been down that path before, and it led straight to disaster. No, she reasoned, being attracted to a person was merely a chemical response in the body, dopamine and testosterone responding to like receptors in the other person—something any first-year medical student knew. It didn’t have to mean anything else. But none of that reasoning explained the arc of fear that lanced through her now.
What if they began a relationship? And what if he lied to her the way Keith had? She had given her heart once before only to have it thoroughly and utterly trounced. Crushed by a man she’d trusted and thought she’d loved, a man she had been ready to marry.
That made her think of her sister’s upcoming engagement party, an event Spring knew she would have to attend no matter how much it hurt. She was truly happy for Summer and knew that in Cameron Jackson her sister had found a man of strong faith and character. Summer and Cameron weren’t responsible for the heartsick memories their happiness invoked in her.
“Dr. Darling, are you all right?”
Spring blinked. Mrs. Camden’s gentle hand rested on her arm as if holding her steady.
She forced a smile and nodded. “I’m fine. Really,” she added as if to assure herself rather than the other woman.
“For a second there you looked in pain.”
“My thoughts just drifted for a moment.”
Straight down a rabbit hole, she thought. Spring wasn’t given to flights of fancy or romantic notions. She was the straight-arrow Darling sister, the one totally focused on career and community. So she didn’t know where the scenario of a relationship had sprung from.
David Camden was the parent of a patient...and he’d planted a kiss on her that she still remembered, felt and wished to experience again.
“Dr. Spring?”
Her focus shifted again to her young patient.
“Yes?”
“What should I name my bear?”
Spring cocked her head a bit, considering the little boy and the bear almost as big as he was. “Well,” she said. “He’s wearing a bow tie. So how about Beau? B-E-A-U,” she added for his benefit.
Jeremy’s face lit up. “Okay. I like that. Hi, Beau,” he said, giving the bear a kiss. He then hugged it to him and closed his eyes. A moment later, he was sound asleep.
Charlotte smiled down at her grandson. “He and his father are the joys of my life,” she said.
“You’re blessed to have both of them,” Spring said, realizing that she truly meant the words. They were not merely the sort of pleasant platitude or banal cliché offered when two strangers conversed or when a doctor was trying to be pleasant with a patient’s family.
Knowing it wasn’t protocol, but unable to stop herself, Spring bent and placed a kiss on Jeremy’s head, then said goodbye to Charlotte.
With Jeremy on her mind and a quiet prayer of thanksgiving on her heart, she slipped from his hospital room, turned right and collided with David Camden.
Chapter Five
“I’m sorry,” Spring said as her sparkling blue eyes widened and a blush crept up her cheeks.
“My fault,” David said at the same time.
He had been thinking about Dr. Spring Darling only to have the pretty physician walk straight into his arms. He steadied her, then let go quickly even though he wanted to breathe in the scent of her hair and hold her for just a moment. Since neither was appropriate, he held up a now partially crumpled piece of paper.
“I was headed to the hotel when I glanced at this and realized I needed some clarification from the nurses.”
“Let me see,” Spring offered. “I may be able to help.”
Although they were no longer in physical contact, neither of them moved from the spot where they’d collided.
Her eyes, he decided, were the blue of a cloudless summer day, and her lashes were full and long.
“Your eyelashes are beautiful.”
As soon as the inane words left his mouth, David felt as if he were fifteen and trying to ask Cindy Rae, his longtime secret crush, if he could walk her home from vacation Bible school. What type of lame guy complimented a woman on her eyelashes?
But instead of the “Well, bless your naive little heart for even thinking you had a shot with me” look that Cindy Rae had given him all those years ago, Spring Darling actually smiled. He watched as her eyes lit up with genuine humor and not the amused pity of a pageant princess in the making. The smile that now curved Spring’s mouth was the very one that he’d dreamed about while dozing on the chair in Jeremy’s room.
“I’m the envy of my younger sisters, who spend hundreds of dollars every year on eyelash plumpers, lash curlers and every new mascara that hits the market.”
“Brains and beauty,” he said almost to himself. “Now there’s a lethal combination.”
“I’m as tame as they come,” she said. “Would you like me to take a look at the instructions?”
After taking half a step back from her to clear his head, as well as put some physical distance between them, David smoothed the pa
per on his pants leg before handing it to her.
“Dr. Emmanuel is going to release him tomorrow,” he told her. “I asked for instructions early so I could get anything he might need and have it ready.”
“Jeremy’s just fallen asleep,” Spring said. “We can talk in the atrium. It’s right down the hall.”
He glanced at Jeremy’s closed hospital door. Even though he’d left barely half an hour ago, he couldn’t resist checking to make sure he was resting comfortably. “I’ll just take a quick look.”
Spring nodded, and he thought she might be used to anxious parents who wanted to assure themselves that their little ones fared well. “I’ll wait here.”
Charlotte glanced up from the newspaper she was reading in the very chair where David had spent the night. She smiled and lifted a finger to her mouth. “Shh.”
He nodded.
Jeremy was indeed sleeping, looking as he always did. Were it not for the hospital bed, the monitors and a huge teddy bear that he was clutching, his son would have looked as if he were at home in his own bed. The life-size bear sported a polka-dot bow tie and was just the sort of toy David would have gotten for him had his mind been on anything but the surgery his little boy had undergone.
“That was a good idea,” he told his mom with a nod toward Jeremy’s new companion. “Thank you.”
Charlotte shook her head. “Not from me. It’s from Dr. Darling.”
David’s brow lifted in surprise. “Really?”
She nodded, then whispered, “He named it Beau for the bow tie.”
David didn’t know what to make of this news, but he was grateful to see Jeremy looking so peaceful following the trauma of the previous night. After coming out of recovery and waking, he’d been fretful and the night had been long. The nurses told him that it was normal for children to be anxious in the unfamiliar surroundings.
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