Teresa Southwick - Expecting The Doctor's Baby

Mitch’s slow, sexy grin was a wicked challenge.

Sam shook her head. “That was twice as good with none of the calories.”

“Good answer.” He wrapped an afghan around her naked shoulders and looked down at her, all satisfied male. “Next time I’ll make sure there’s a bed.”

She blinked up at him. “Next time?”

“I’m a confident guy.”

“There can’t be a next time.” The problem with losing control and rational thought was that when both returned, everything came back into focus in a rush. Sam couldn’t regret what they’d done, but…

Why did there always have to be a but?

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Dear Reader,

Have you ever heard this expression—if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got? It came to my attention in the ongoing struggle to maintain my weight and resonated with me, because at just under five feet tall, every pound is lurking, ready to attach to my thighs. But not doing what I’d always done meant my favorite chips, cookies and candy would be rare treats and not staples of my daily diet. Unfortunately, the expression “old habits die hard” is also true. Change is never easy. And the hero of Expecting the Doctor’s Baby finds this especially true.

Dr. Mitch Tenney is a gifted emergency room doctor who cares too much. He has zero tolerance for waste and doesn’t hesitate to call ’em like he sees ’em, be it about a patient or hospital employee on his trauma team. Because making nice is not his specialty, a management counseling company is hired to train him in conflict resolution techniques and save his job. Mitch agrees under protest until he meets sweet, sassy Samantha Ryan and wants her as his relationship coach—among other things.

Mitch Tenney and Sam Ryan were fun characters and getting them to talk to each other was never difficult. They remind me of a lyric from the song “Beauty and the Beast”—barely even friends, then somebody bends unexpectedly. That’s what change for the better is all about. I hope you enjoy reading their story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

All the best,

Teresa Southwick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

lives with her husband in Las Vegas, the city that reinvents itself every day. An avid fan of romance novels, she is delighted to be living out her dream of writing for Silhouette Books.

I’d like to thank Marty Morrow and my husband, Tom, both dedicated health-care professionals who save lives every day. Your help on this project was invaluable.

Thanks, guys.

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

He was getting ready to face death.

Samantha Ryan watched Dr. Mitch Tenney’s expression change from bored and barely tolerant to fiercely intense when the call came in: drowning victim. ETA, five minutes.

He snapped out orders to the nurses behind the desk. “Page everyone. Get the trauma team down here. Paramedics are rolling with a kid. Pulled out of a pool. Not breathing. They’ve got an airway but couldn’t get an IV. That means we need a cut-down tray. Get the crash cart and intubation tray—everything open and ready to go. I want respiratory and a ventilator. And the lab. We’ll need blood gases stat.” Intensity simmered in his dark blue eyes as he leveled a glare at everyone within glaring distance. “Move, people. This kid is two years old.”

Sam felt her heart catch, followed by an adrenaline spike as he moved in her direction. She wanted to jump into action and do something even though she had no useful medical skills whatsoever. Besides, he hadn’t been talking to her. She was there to observe him. Her job was to shadow him and take notes.

The E.R. manager had been notified that someone from Marshall Management Consultants would be there, and she had a temporary badge that kept her from being thrown out by security. But Dr. Tenney hadn’t acknowledged her until now when he brushed past and ordered her to get the hell out of his way. She felt less useful than the fern at the nurses’ station and just about as noticeable. But everyone noticed the dynamic doctor. Partly because of his looks.

The man could get work as a model or movie star if he walked away from medicine. Unlikely, since by all accounts he was brilliant—followed closely by the adjectives abrasive, condescending and belligerent. There were more, but those were the top vote-getters that were fit to print. He’d ticked off one too many people and his job here at Mercy Medical Center was in jeopardy. Her consulting company had been hired to salvage it with an attitude intervention ordered by his medical group and hospital administration.

Then the double doors whooshed open. Sam pressed her back into the wall, making herself as small as possible to keep out of the way as paramedics wheeled in a gurney and updated the E.R. staff. They rattled off numbers and words that didn’t mean anything to her. The child was secured to a back board and a paramedic beside him was intermittently squeezing a bag. Sam had seen enough E.R. episodes to know that was to help him breathe. Mostly all she could see was matted brown hair that framed an impossibly small, frighteningly pale face. Then the glass doors closed off the trauma room and the child was surrounded by the platoon of professionals, led by Dr. Tenney, in the battle for his life.

Everyone was in blue scrubs and she had no idea who was who except Mitch. She couldn’t hear anything, but it was like E. F. Hutton on crack. When he talked, they didn’t just listen, someone jumped into action.

Sam wasn’t sure how much time passed before he came out. And with staff still surrounding him, she couldn’t see the boy.

Mitch walked up to the desk. “Is the family here yet, Rhonda?”

The buxom, blond E.R. nurse/manager looked up. “Mom’s on the way, stuck in traffic on the Fifteen coming across the Strip. The teenage brother’s here. He was babysitting.”

Mitch’s already grim expression tightened more as he nodded. “Okay.”

Sam followed him through the double doors that separated the E.R. waiting area from trauma rooms. The brother wasn’t hard to identify. He was the one in wet jeans and a white T-shirt with elbows braced on his knees and head bowed. He had a light blanket draped around his hunched shoulders. When she saw the doctor, the teenage girl beside him put her hand on his arm and he looked up.

He stood when Mitch stopped in front of him, feet set wide. There was another battle looming. Sam didn’t want to see it, but she had no choice. Part of the reason she was here was to see how the doctor handled confrontation, then her boss could work out strategies to help him change the offending behavior. She moved off to the side where she could observe without being intrusive.