Teresa Southwick - Paging Dr. Daddy

“Okay, Janie, I’m going to start. Are you ready to hold still again?”

“You don’t need a nurse?” Courtney asked.

He shook his head. “I’m used to working alone, and they’re busy.”

“Is it okay if I shut my eyes?” Janie said.

“If you want.”

Courtney wished she could shut her eyes too, but from where she was sitting in the chair, she couldn’t really see much anyway. Just the slow, methodical way his elegant hands moved. The suture material was so fine it was barely visible and he held it with forceps. Between the pain medication she’d received and being physically drained from what she’d been through, Janie actually drifted off while David worked.

He might not be much like his father, but he was really good with her daughter. It seemed natural, something she wouldn’t have expected. “Where did you learn to get along with kids?”

His gaze met hers briefly. “I was one once.”

So was she. About a million years ago. On second thought, she didn’t actually remember being a kid. It seemed as if she’d always been the grown-up, handling one crisis after another when her father was too drunk even to take care of himself.

But if David had taken a course in med school on how to charm children, apparently he’d aced it. The man was putting sutures in Janie’s chin and she trusted him enough to fall asleep. The ability to do that didn’t mesh with what little Courtney knew about him.

“But you’re not a kid now,” she said. That was the understatement of the century. He was a man who sprinkled sex appeal like fairy dust wherever he went, if tabloid stories linking him to models and actresses were anything to go by. “And you didn’t talk down to her.”

“Kids know when you do that. They don’t like it.”

She actually laughed. “That’s true.”

Who’d have thought anyone could make her laugh under the circumstances? Maybe he was magic. That thought made her uneasy and when she was uneasy it was time to fall back on defenses.

“So why did you agree to look at Janie?” she asked.

He glanced at her. “Because my sister called.”

“But you’re not helping your sister. Janie and I are total strangers to you.” And from what she gathered, his family wasn’t too much more to him. Yet he was here because Ella called. By any definition that was a nice thing. Men who did nice things usually wanted something and she wasn’t comfortable with that kind of balance sheet.

“Let’s just say this is the least I can do for the widow and daughter of a war hero,” he said.

Courtney cringed at his words. It was what everyone thought, and it couldn’t be further from the truth. The anger welled up and after a day like today she didn’t have the emotional reserves to bite her tongue.

“Joining the army wasn’t about truth, justice and the American way for Joe. My husband was a lot of things, but noble wasn’t one of them.”

David’s hands stopped moving and he looked at her. “He gave his life for his country. That seems pretty noble to me.”

It would have been if his reasons for joining the military hadn’t been about getting away from his wife and baby girl. He’d gone because he wanted liberty, but not for his country. For himself. He wanted freedom from domestic restraints so he could play around with women, any woman who wasn’t his wife.

As quickly as the rage reared up, it let her down. She was so tired. Tired of being angry about something she couldn’t change. Mostly she was just tired. And sore. It felt as if every muscle ached and her body was the percussion section in a marching band. Her head throbbed, then her wrist pounded. And that was her only excuse for revealing relationship failures to the doctor who’d been nice enough to help Janie.

She met his questioning gaze and sighed. “Is it too late to take that back?”

“Pretty much,” he confirmed.

She sighed. “Ordinarily I’m not prone to sharing personal information. Especially with someone I don’t know. Someone who went out of his way to do a nice thing. I can only plead probable brain damage after hitting my head. How about we pretend I didn’t say anything?”

“Okay.”

That was too easy. Or maybe not. He probably didn’t want to hear her tragic story any more than she wanted to tell it. When his good deed was done, he’d be out of here. And it couldn’t be too soon for her. The man did things to her. He’d surprised her when he was so good with Janie. It surprised her when he’d picked up the slack in the support department when she was feeling about as strong as a fettuccine noodle. She didn’t like surprises.

They were never good.

David rolled his disposable gloves off and dropped them on the tray beside him, then studied his work. He’d made the sutures as tiny as humanly possible and knew that the stubborn little chin would heal nicely. When he noted Courtney’s pale face he figured it best not to make her study the finished product.

But he couldn’t resist saying, “Not bad.”

“Humble, aren’t you?” Edgy sarcasm laced the words, but he had a feeling that spirit was the only reason she was still on her feet.

He decided to help her out. “Haven’t you heard? Arrogance is a prerequisite for doctors.”

“I’ve heard that. But I haven’t seen it up close and personal until now.”

He vaguely remembered Ella saying Courtney was a hospital employee, but a bad connection while he was in the airport had prevented him hearing in what capacity. Because of that call, he was here instead of on a plane to L.A.

When he looked at Courtney’s mouth, his wish that he were on a plane to anywhere took hold. Her lips took up forty-five percent of her face—a slight exaggeration, but if she didn’t have the sexiest mouth he’d ever seen, he’d turn in his forceps and start making house calls.

“You do work here at the hospital,” he clarified.

“I manage the gift shop.”

“So you don’t work directly with doctors?”

“No.”

She met his gaze and didn’t look away, but he’d swear her self-respect took a hit. Something in her eyes dimmed, some inner spark that was struggling to burst into flame all but sputtered and went out. He wasn’t sure what he’d said, but he wanted to fix it, even though he’d tried fixing things for a woman once and it hadn’t gone well.

“You’re lucky you don’t work with doctors,” he said. “There’s a whole needing-to-be-right, needing-to-be-worshipped thing that can get pretty annoying.”

“With so many doctors in your family, that must be an interesting dynamic.”

It probably would be if he’d spent any significant time with them. But he hadn’t. Not since his father had told him he couldn’t stand the sight of him. David had lashed out, defended actions that really had no defense. But he’d been in love and the woman who’d captured his heart had stolen his soul. It wasn’t long before he found out she’d been using his feelings for her to make him a puppet who jumped when she yanked his strings.

He’d lost the person he cared about most because of her and no matter what he did, there didn’t seem to be any way to fill up the void.

His thoughts hadn’t taken this pathetic a turn for a long time and when he looked at Courtney’s full lips, it occurred to him that the sooner he got out of Walnut River the better.

And he would. But right now Janie needed a sterile dressing on her chin. He could have called a nurse to do it, but after the arrogance discussion, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to do it himself. Which wasn’t a problem. He’d had a lot of practice on his overseas trips. Arrogance had no place in a Nicaraguan jungle or an African desert.

After cutting several strips of paper tape, he unwrapped a nonstick pad and secured it to the little girl’s determined chin. It crossed his mind that she’d inherited that from her mother, along with her dimples. At some point he was going to have to break the news to Courtney that her daughter wouldn’t ever again have a matched set. So far that detail hadn’t come up, most likely because she’d been more worried about the big picture. And for now that was more important.