Janice Macdonald - The Doctor Delivers

Catherine Prentice looked him straight in the eye. “Don’t worry, it’s not for me. It’s for the hospital. We need you to be on the show Professional Match. All you have to do is answer a few questions and get in a plug for Western Memorial.”

“No, thanks.” Martin rose and walked round the desk, signaling—he hoped—that the matter was closed. “I don't watch TV. I'm really busy and—”

“And?”

“And to be honest…” He hesitated, then decided to let her have it. “I think this sort of thing…this puffery…is ridiculous. Empty-minded drivel. It has no place in medicine.”

“Other than that, though,” she said with a straight face, “you kind of like it?”

Martin resisted the urge to soften what he'd said with a joke or a crack; even to his own ears he'd sounded self-righteous. But he had more important concerns. “I don't have time for this.”

She turned to leave, then took a step back into the office. “Since you don't watch TV, you probably read a lot. I was just thinking there’s a character in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol you’d probably recognize.” A tight little smile, a flutter of her fingers and she was gone.

Dear Reader,

Martin and Catherine and the other characters in this book have been a part of my life for so long, it's incredibly exciting to have the opportunity to introduce them to a wider audience.

If all fiction is a little bit autobiographical, it's certainly true in this case. Although I've lived in California for many years, I'm originally from Great Britain and, like Martin, have never quite got used to eighty-degree weather at Christmas—or fake frost on the windows. I also share some common bonds with Catherine, including the struggle to raise two children as a single parent. For many years I worked in the public relations department of a large medical center, and more recently have written extensively about neonatal intensive care units for a number of publications, including the Los Angeles Times.

The specialized world of the NICU and the dedication of those who work in it never fails to impress me. But while modern medicine is responsible for breathtaking advances, it can also raise difficult and complex questions for which there are no easy answers. This was the inspiration for my story. I hope you enjoy it.

Janice Macdonald

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my Mum,

who is nothing at all like Catherine’s mom and who never stopped telling me she believed in me. And to Joe, who had to endure me talking about Martin in my sleep.

Thanks for all your support.

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

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

PHONE CRADLED between her head and shoulder, Catherine Prentice padded around the kitchen in a ratty yellow robe and thick woolen socks listening to her mother ramble on about colon irrigation. Her mother, who had never met a disease she couldn’t make her own, or self-medicate with the latest wonder cure.

Through the window, Catherine could see out into the small backyard. The grass needed cutting and Santa Ana winds had tossed purple bougainvillea blossoms over the rippling turquoise waters of the swimming pool, a picturesque effect marred by the floating aluminum chair and a double page of the Los Angeles Times sports section.

She dumped oatmeal into the saucepan for the children’s breakfast. On the phone, her mother moved on to St. John’s Wort and how it had really helped the woman downstairs and maybe she’d try it herself if Wal-Mart had it on sale. Sounds from the living room suggested that her ten-year-old son and his six-year-old sister were engaged in mortal combat. Catherine yelled for a cease-fire. Who ordered this day? Make it go away. I had something different in mind. Something wild and exotic. The yellow, happy face clock on the kitchen wall told her it wasn’t even seven. She had an insane urge to go back to bed and stick her head under the blankets. She was trying to imagine actually doing this when, in a blur of sound and movement, the children burst into the kitchen.

“Listen, Mom…” Catherine cut short her mother’s description of the heartburn that had plagued her since the previous evening’s spaghetti dinner, promised to call later and hung up the phone. “Okay, you guys.” She regarded her children. “What’s going on?”

“Make Julie quit sticking her feet in my face, Mom.” Peter, small for ten, his face dominated by large glasses, glared at his sister whose halo of blond curls and wide blue eyes gave her a deceptively angelic look. Peter’s breathing had an asthmatic rattle and his chest heaved slightly with each intake. “She knows it makes me mad and she keeps doing it.”

“I’m not sticking my feet in his face.” Julie kicked her pajama-clad leg high and stuck a small pink foot in Peter’s face. “I’m airing them out.”

“You need to, they stink,” Peter said.

“They do not.” Julie stuck out her tongue. “Yours stink. Yours stink worse than anything else in the world. They stink like two hundred million skunks.”

“Peter, you need to use your inhaler. And then go pick up your homework from the bedroom floor. Julie—” Catherine pointed the wooden spoon she’d been using to stir the oatmeal “—you go get dressed before breakfast. Go on. Move it, I have to be at work early today.”

On the stove, she caught the oatmeal just as it was about to erupt over the edge of the pan. She turned down the burner, then reached into the cabinet for brown sugar. Absently, she watched it dissolve into the oatmeal, her thoughts already on the day ahead. In her office at Western Memorial, where she worked in the public relations department, there were news releases waiting to be proofed, a half-finished newsletter article and a reminder that she still needed to track down the elusive Dr. Connaughton.

She’d promised the producer of Professional Match that Connaughton would be happy to appear on tomorrow’s show, but Connaughton hadn’t answered any of her pages and when she’d gone up to the NICU to track him down, he’d been with a patient’s family.

“Mommy.” Julie tugged at the belt of her robe. “I have to tell you something. Peter keeps calling me a geek.”

“Ignore him, sweetie. Please go get dressed, okay?” Maybe she’d goofed by promising Connaughton’s participation. The show was fluff, a sort of career-oriented version of Love Connection, but her friend Darcy watched it every week and, according to marketing, it had exactly the demographics Western was targeting. Personnel had given her the names of three unmarried physicians. Two of them, thrilled to be chosen, had already taped segments. Now she had to find Connaughton.

The phone rang again. “Mom, I said I’d call you. I’m trying to get the kids off to school…what? Mom, listen to me, okay? Unless you have a prostate you didn’t tell me about, Saw Palmetto isn’t going to help you. I’ve got to go, okay? I’ll call you tonight to see how you’re feeling. Yeah, I love you, too. Bye.” God. She rubbed at the knot of tension that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in the back of her neck. “Okay, kidaroonies,” she called. “Who’s ready for yummy oatmeal?”

“I’m not hungry,” Peter said.