Kate Hardy - Carrying The Single Dad's Baby

Daniel loved his son dearly, but the constant questions could be exhausting. ‘Maybe he can’t play football.’

‘Oh.’ Iain paused. ‘If she’s a princess, do you think she knows the Queen?’

‘I don’t know, Iain.’

‘Mum likes Prince Harry.’

Daniel tamped down his irritation. ‘I know.’

‘Do you think Bee knows Prince Harry?’

‘I think,’ Daniel said gently, ‘it’s time for one more story and then sleep.’

He just hoped his son wouldn’t say anything about Beatrice next weekend, when Iain was due to stay with his mother. The last thing he wanted was Jenny quizzing him about whether he was dating again. He knew she still felt guilty about what had happened between them, and that if he started seeing someone it would make her feel better, but he really didn’t want to date anyone. He wanted to concentrate on bringing Iain up and being the best dad he could be.

On Sunday, Iain seemed to have forgotten about his new friend. But then on Monday Daniel picked up his son from nursery, and Iain handed him a picture: a drawing of a woman with long golden hair and a crown, a man playing football and a small boy with red lines coming out of his elbow.

‘It’s Bee making me better on Saturday,’ he announced, although Daniel had already worked that out for himself. ‘I drawed it for her. Can you give it to her tomorrow?’

‘All right.’

Iain beamed. ‘I know she’ll like it.’

‘I’m sure she will.’ If she didn’t, he’d fib and tell Iain that she loved it. No way was he going to let his little boy be disappointed.

* * *

Beatrice was in the staff kitchen when he walked in, the next day. ‘Are you busy at lunchtime?’ he asked.

She looked surprised, then answered carefully. ‘It depends what it’s like in Resus.’

‘OK. If you’re not busy, I need to talk to you—and lunch is on me.’

She shook her head. ‘There’s no need.’

‘I want to say thank you for rescuing Iain on Saturday. His arm’s fine, by the way.’

‘Good, but really there’s no need to buy me lunch. I just did what anyone else would’ve done because I was the nearest one to him when it happened. Though thank you for the offer.’

‘Can I just talk to you, then?’ He really didn’t want to give her the picture in front of everyone.

She nodded. ‘We’ll go halves on lunch.’

‘Good.’

Daniel switched into work mode, and managed to concentrate on his patients for the morning: two fractures, a badly sprained ankle and an elderly woman who’d had a TIA and whom he admitted for further testing. He had no idea how busy Resus had been, but at lunchtime Beatrice appeared. ‘Are you OK to go, or do you need a bit of time to finish writing up notes?’

‘I’m OK to go,’ he said.

He waited until they were sitting in the canteen before handing her the envelope.

‘What’s this?’ she asked.

‘Iain asked me to give you this,’ he said.

She opened the envelope, looked at the picture and smiled. Her blue eyes were full of warmth when she looked at him. ‘That’s lovely—me, him and you at the team football day on Saturday, I’m guessing?’

He nodded.

‘Tell him thank you, I love it, and I’m going to put it on my fridge, right next to the picture Persephone drew me of her horse at the weekend.’

‘Persephone?’ Daniel asked.

‘My niece.’

He blinked. ‘So your family goes in for unusual names.’

She nodded. ‘My generation’s all from Shakespeare—Orlando’s the oldest, then Lysander, then me.’ She spread her hands. ‘It could’ve been worse. My mother could’ve called me Desdemona or Goneril. And, actually, Beatrice is Shakespeare’s best female character, so I’m quite happy to be named after her.’

Her accent alone marked her out as posh. The names of her brothers and her niece marked her out as seriously posh. And had she just said that her niece had a horse? Posh and rich, then.

Then he realised what he’d said. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude about your name. We just have...simpler names in my family.’

‘Then you’d approve of Sandy’s choices—George and Henry.’

‘Sandy?’

‘Lysander.’ She smiled. ‘Mummy’s the only one who’s allowed to call him that. Anyone else gets his evil glare and never dares do it again.’

‘So Persephone is your oldest brother’s daughter, then?’

She nodded. ‘We call her Seffy, for short. And her older brother is Odysseus.’

‘Odysseus.’ Who wouldn’t have lasted three seconds in the playground at Daniel’s school. Why on earth would you call a child Odysseus?

As if the question was written all over his face, Beatrice explained, ‘Orlando studied classics. So did his wife. They wanted to use names from Greek mythology for their children—and their dogs.’ She grinned. ‘They have a black Lab called Cerberus—although he only has one head, he barks enough for three and it drives Mummy crackers.’

She called her mother ‘Mummy’? Posher still. Beatrice Lindford was way, way out of his league.

Not that he was thinking of asking her out.

The attraction he felt towards her needed to be stifled. The sooner, the better.

She looked at the drawing again. ‘Why am I wearing a crown?’

‘Iain says you talk like the Queen and you’ve got hair like a princess, so he’s decided you must be a princess and therefore you also know the Queen and Prince Harry.’

She laughed. ‘That’s cute.’

‘I tried to tell him you’re not a princess.’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Are you sure? Because... Well...’

‘Because I have a posh accent and most of my family have unusual names? That’s a bit of a sweeping generalisation. It’d be like me saying you’re from Glasgow so everything you eat must be fried.’

‘True, and I didn’t mean to be rude.’

* * *

Beatrice definitely wasn’t going to tell Daniel that she had grown up in a castle. Or that actually her father was a viscount, making her family minor royalty. He didn’t need to know any of that. All he needed to know about her was that she was a doctor, and she was good at her job.

‘Apology accepted. And I love Iain’s drawing.’ She smiled at him. ‘He’s a nice boy.’

‘And he hasn’t stopped talking about you, or asking when you can come to tea. I’ve told him you’re busy and you’re probably married to a prince.’ Daniel rolled his eyes. ‘That’s what started all the Prince Harry stuff. His mum likes Prince Harry.’

So Daniel had clearly split up from his partner rather than being a widower. It was unusual for a dad to have custody of the child, but asking him about the situation felt like prying. ‘Prince Harry is gorgeous,’ she said. ‘Your wife has good—’ She stopped dead. Uh-oh. Good taste. That was tantamount to saying that she fancied Daniel.

Which she didn’t.

Well, a little bit.

Well, quite a lot.

But things were complicated. She had the job he claimed he hadn’t applied for but which everyone thought had had his name on it. He had a son who was clearly the focus of his life, and dating would be tricky for him. Plus she didn’t want to tell him about her past and see the pity in his face.

Better to keep this professional.

‘Good taste in princes,’ she finished.

‘I’ll tell her that. Because Iain’s going to tell her all about you when he sees her this weekend.’ He sighed. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much a four-year-old boy can talk.’

Or girl. She thought of Taylor and her heart squeezed. Would her little girl have been a chatterbox?

Not here. Not now.

‘Oh, I would. George could talk the hind leg off a donkey. He’s four,’ she said. A month younger than Taylor would’ve been. And how hard it had been to walk into her sister-in-law’s hospital room and hold that baby in her arms for the first time. She’d had to force herself to smile and hold back the tears. ‘George is the youngest of my nephews, and his big thing is dinosaurs. You wouldn’t believe how many complicated names he can pronounce. Give him a bucket of wooden bricks and he’ll build you a stegosaurus in two minutes flat.’