The Doctor's Baby Dare

“Let me through,” he barked, and a group of startled staff instantly cleared the way. He never raised his voice to his team, or anyone for that matter, but this was bad.

“She’s not responding,” the resident said as Parker took over the heart compressions.

“Call her cardiologist,” he barked to no one in particular, knowing someone would do it.

He tried to find a pulse, and couldn’t. “Come on, little one. Fight for me.”

He continued the compressions to no avail.

Damn it, he had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. “Paddles,” he said, turning to his left where Clare always stood, surprised to find a different nurse there. He glanced around and found Clare standing way over by the door. Her face looked pale and her eyes wide, and for an instant he was sure she was about to either be sick or lose consciousness. Unfortunately he had a sick infant who took priority.

Even using the paddles it took almost thirty minutes to get Janey stable, and afterward everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief, including him. She was okay for now, but that had been a really close call. He turned to find Clare, who he had assumed wouldn’t leave Janey’s side for the reminder of her shift, but she was gone.

He texted her, checking the hallway as he waited for an answer, but after several minutes the message was still tagged as unread. Clare always read and answered her messages.

He frowned. Something was definitely up.

Assuming she’d gone back to the nurses’ station, he headed that way. “Have you seen Nurse Connelly?” he asked Rebecca, the nursing assistant sitting there.

“She walked by a second ago.” She looked up at him through a veil of what he was sure were fake lashes. “So, I was thinking we could get together again this weekend.”

Oh, no, that was not a good idea. He liked Rebecca, but she was a party girl and these days he could barely stay awake past eleven thirty. His father used to tell him, You’re only as old as you feel. After a night of partying with Rebecca and her friends, he felt about eighty. She was fun and sexy, but the inevitable hangover wasn’t worth it. He could no longer stay out till 3:00 a.m. then make it to work by seven and still function. He was pushing forty. His party days were over.

He checked his phone but still no text.

“Did you see where Nurse Connelly went?” he asked Rebecca, ignoring her suggestion completely, which she didn’t seem to like very much.

“Sorry, no,” she said tartly.

He doubted he would be getting any more help from her. Ironically, this very situation was probably why Clare didn’t date people from work. A lesson he clearly hadn’t learned yet.

So, where the hell had she disappeared to? Did she go back down to the cafeteria? Had she slipped past Rebecca and gone to the elevator? No, he thought with a shake of his head. Knowing Clare, she wouldn’t want anyone to see her lose her cool, so where would she go for guaranteed privacy? At the end of this hall there was a family waiting room—the last place she would go—and the door to the stairs...

Of course! That had to be it. He’d taken a breather or two in the stairwell himself. Or used it to sneak a kiss with a pretty young nurse. She had to be there.

He found Clare sitting on a step halfway between the fourth and fifth floor, arms roped around her legs, head on her knees so her face was hidden.

“Here to harass me in my moment of weakness?” she asked without looking up.

“How did you know it was me?”

“Because that’s the kind of day I’ve been having.” She lifted her head, sniffling and wiping tears from her cheeks with the heel of her palms.

Tears?

Clare was crying?

Just when he thought she couldn’t be more interesting, or perplexing, she threw him a curveball.

“And I know how your shoes sound,” she added. “From hearing you walk up and down the halls.”

He would be flattered that she paid attention, but she paid attention to everything on the ward.

“Are you all right?” He offered her one of the tissues he kept in his lab coat pocket. He dealt with parents of sick children on a daily basis. Tissues were a part of the uniform.

She took it and wiped her nose. “I’m okay. Just really embarrassed. I don’t know what happened in there.”

“You choked,” he said, knowing Clare would want an honest answer. “It happens to the best of us.”

She lifted her chin stubbornly. “Not to me it doesn’t.”

If she had been standing, and was a foot taller, he was sure she would be looking down her nose at him. “At the risk of sounding like a tool, all evidence is to the contrary, cupcake.”

Outraged, she opened her mouth, probably to say something mean, or respond to the cupcake remark, then something inside her seemed to give. Her face went slack and her body sort of sank in on itself. She dropped her head to her knees again, groaning, “You’re right.”

He was? She really must have been out of sorts because she never thought he was right about anything.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“You know those days when you feel like you could take on the world? When everything goes exactly the way you want it to?”

“Sure.”

She looked up at him with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. “This is not one of those days.”

He cringed. “That bad, huh?”

She dropped her head back down to her knees. “Choking on the job is just the icing on the cake.”

Clearly. “So you really never choked?”

She shook her head, making her messy bun flop from side to side, and said, “Not even in nursing school.”

He took a chance and sat down beside her. She didn’t snarl or hiss, or unsheathe her talons, so that was good. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Shoot me and put me out of my misery.”

“I think you’re being a little hard on yourself,” he told her. He had heard of surgeons who choked during surgery and never got their confidence back, but this was different. This wasn’t a matter of confidence, this was pure human emotion.

“What if it happens again, when she needs me?” Clare said, looking up at him. She had the prettiest eyes, and she smelled amazing. It would barely take anything to lean in and kiss her. Her lips looked plump and delicious. It might even be worth the concussion afterward, when Clare clocked him.

“If there hadn’t been fifteen other people in the room to compensate, if it had been just you and me, or even just you, I have no doubt that you would have performed admirably,” he said.

“It’s getting more difficult to be objective with her,” Clare said, looking genuinely distraught. “When they called the code I thought for sure that this was it, that this time she wouldn’t snap back. It made me sick inside, like she was my own flesh and blood.”

“Your compassion is what makes you such a good nurse.”

“Yeah, I’m awesome,” she said. “I was so limp with fear I barely made it out of the elevator. I was sweating and my heart was pounding and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and all the way down the hall it was like I was walking through quicksand.”

It sounded like a panic attack, but to suggest it would probably only make her feel worse. “These are special circumstances.”

“How do you figure?”

“Until they find Janey’s mother, or get her into foster care, you and I are the only ‘parents’ she has. She may be a ward of the state, but it’s up to us to see that she gets the best care. That’s a huge responsibility.”

“You’re right,” she said, sounding cautiously optimistic. “Maybe that’s why I have this deep need to protect her.”

“Right now, she needs protecting.”

She looked up at him and there were those lips again. Plump and juicy and pink. She had pale, flawless skin and the brightest, clearest green eyes that he had ever seen.

He would never forget the day he’d met her, when she’d walked into the staff meeting and the administrator had introduced them. He had been totally blown away. He’d probably held her hand a little too long when he shook it, and all through the meeting he hadn’t been able to stop staring at her. Which, in retrospect, might have seemed a little creepy. Maybe they’d just gotten off on the wrong foot.

“I’m not sure if I’ve ever said it, but you’re a really good doctor,” she said.

He wiggled his brows and said, “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“Now if we could just do something about your personality,” she grumbled with an exasperated shake of her head, but there was the hint of a smile, and a twinkle of something sly and impish in her eyes. She was teasing him.

“Admit it,” he said, teasing her right back. “I’m starting to grow on you.”

“I admit nothing,” she said, nose in the air, trying not to smile, but he could see that she was having as much fun as he was. “Though I will say that after this, it might be a little more difficult to dislike you.”

He grinned and wiggled his brows. “Then my evil plan is working.”

* * *

Clare laughed. She couldn’t help it. Because it was just so Parker. And boy did it irritate her that she knew him well enough to say that. Five minutes ago she’d felt lower than low; now he had her laughing. How did he do that?

Try as she might to push him away, he always pushed back a little harder. Was this campaign to keep him at arm’s length a futile waste of time? Was falling for him an inevitability?

She refused to believe that. She would just dig extra deep for the will to resist him.

No meant no, not maybe.

“You know that I don’t date people from work,” she said. “Especially doctors.”

He grinned. “Who said anything about dating?”

The way he was looking at her mouth... If only he knew how tempting that really was.

On second thought, it was probably good that he didn’t know. “I don’t sleep with people at work either,” she said.

“We definitely won’t be sleeping. And we won’t be doing it at work.” His grin was teasing, but there was a fire in his eyes, and it was one hell of a blaze. He was so damned sexy and he smelled so good. He’d missed a small strip of stubble on the underside of his chin. Any other man would look sloppy or unkempt. On Parker it looked sexy and charming. And she wanted to kiss him there. And pretty much anywhere else.

Okay, why was she saying no? He had a body to die for; he was beyond gorgeous. Not to mention nice, with a really good sense of humor, and she had the feeling that he would not disappoint in the bedroom. Maybe, if they could keep it a secret...

No, no, no!

What was wrong with her? She was a strong, independent woman. When she made up her mind about something, there was no changing it. So why this sudden ambivalence? What was it about being around this man that made her go all gooey?

The dynamics were fairly simple: rich doctor, bad.

Parker was watching her, looking amused. “Penny for your thoughts.”

Considering the semismug grin he wore, her inner struggle must have been pretty obvious.

Swell.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Since you seem to be having a rough time with this, I’m going to give you an easy out.”

Why would he do that?

Suspicious, she asked, “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. If you can honestly tell me that you aren’t attracted to me, and that you want me to leave you alone, I promise I’ll back off.”

Really? After all this time he would really just give up? “I’m not attracted to you,” she said.

His smile was smug. “That was great. Now tell it to me, cupcake, not your shoes.”

Darn, she was hoping he wouldn’t notice the lack of eye contact. The truth was, she was a terrible liar. As a child she could never get away with anything.

There was no avoiding it—she had to look at him, and the instant their eyes met, she was totally tongue-tied. He seemed to know every button to push and he pushed them liberally. But that was what womanizers did, right?

“You are evil,” she said.

“Nah, just irresistible.” He stood and held his hand out to give her a boost. “We’d better get back on the floor before someone misses us.”

Without thinking, she took his hand, realizing as he pulled her up how insanely stupid it had been. Though they bumped elbows and shoulders occasionally, other than a handshake when she met him, they had never deliberately touched each other. And while she didn’t actually see any sparks arcing between them as his hand wrapped around hers, boy did she feel them. And so did he.

“Interesting,” he said, with a slight arch of his brow. “Very interesting.”

That single word spoke volumes. But mostly it just told her that she was in big trouble.

Three

Her arms loaded with bags of donated clothes, Clare trudged through the brisk February wind to her car in the staff lot. It had gotten so cold the puddles of rain from earlier that day had turned to patches of ice. All she wanted now was to go home, take a long hot shower, crawl into bed and forget today ever happened. Although mostly she just wanted to forget the part with Parker.

Janey had begun to show very slight signs of improvement over the course of the day, but she was nowhere close to being out of the woods. Fragile as she was, her condition could turn on a dime. Until they could figure out what was wrong, they were treating the symptoms, not the cause.

Clare left the night staff very strict instructions to contact her if Janey went into distress again. She wasn’t obligated to come in on her off hours, but this wasn’t about obligation. And hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

Shivering, Clare popped the trunk, dropped the bags inside and then unlocked her car with the key fob and slid onto the icy-cold seat. Shivering, she stuck the key into the ignition and turned...

Nothing happened.

“Are you kidding me?” she grumbled.

She tried again, and again, but the engine was dead.

She got out, pulling her collar up to shield her face from the icy wind. She popped the hood and looked at the engine for anything obvious, like a loose battery wire. She’d watched her brothers work on cars her entire childhood and she had learned a thing or two. Her car was almost fifteen years old and malfunctioned from regular wear and tear. She had been planning to look for a new one next month when the weather was better, but it looked as if she might have to do it sooner.

With her aunt away for a week she really had no one to pick her up. She would just have to call a tow truck and wait around. Hopefully it wouldn’t take long.

She dialed the garage and was informed that they would be there ASAP. Which meant no more than an hour.

“I’m supposed to wait in the freezing cold for an hour?”

“Just leave your keys in the glove box.”

Grumbling to herself, she hung up. Now she would have to call a cab to get home. But she would do it inside the hospital where it was warm.

She put her keys in the glove box and shut the door.

She was getting ready to close the hood when she heard a vehicle pull up behind her car. She knew before she even heard him call out to her who it was. Because that was the kind of day she was having.

“Looks like you could use some help, angel face.”

There he was, in his sporty import, grinning at her. She wanted to be exasperated but she couldn’t work up the will.

“Car’s dead. I called for a tow.”

“Need a lift?”

It sure beat waiting for a cab, though she knew she was asking for trouble. But she was exhausted and frustrated and she just wanted to get home. “If it’s no trouble.”

Oh, that smile. “Hop in.”

“Can I put something in your trunk?”

“Is it a dead body?”

She opened her trunk. “Well, not the whole thing.”

He grinned and popped his trunk. “In that case, absolutely.”

She tossed the bags inside, closed the trunk and climbed in the passenger’s side. The interior was soft black leather and her seat was toasty warm.

She took off her gloves and held her hands in front of the heat vent.

“Where to?”

She told him her address, and how to get there, but as he pulled out of the lot he went in the opposite direction. “Hey, genius, my house is the other way.”

“I know. But dinner is this way.”

She blinked. “Who said anything about dinner?”

“I just did. If I don’t eat something soon I’ll go into hypoglycemic shock.”

“You really think I’m going to fall for that?”

His grin said that she didn’t have a whole lot of choice.

Damn it. She should have known better than to get in his car. But she was too exhausted to argue. She let her head fall back against the seat rest.

“You can’t tell me that you’re not hungry. I know for a fact that you didn’t get to eat your lunch.”

Of course she was hungry. She was starving, but he was the last person she wanted to be seen with in a social setting. The way gossip traveled in the town of Royal, people would have them engaged by the end of the week.

“No offense, but I really prefer that we not be seen together outside of work.”

“So, not only do you not date coworkers, but you don’t dine with them either? Is that why you always eat lunch alone?”

“That’s not why I eat alone, and no, I have nothing against dining with coworkers. It’s just something I don’t do often.”

“So then having a meal with me shouldn’t be a big deal, right?”

She was pretty sure he already knew the answer to that question. And as he pulled into the parking lot of the Royal Diner, the number one worst place to go when trying to avoid the prying eyes of the town gossips, she found herself wishing that she’d called a cab instead.

“I can’t risk someone seeing us and getting the wrong idea.”

“We’re just two colleagues sharing a meal while you wait for a tow. Not to mention that I’d like to talk about Janey. Bounce a few ideas off of you. Think of it as an offsite work meeting.”

Well, if it was a work meeting...

“Just this one time,” she said. “And I mean that.”

He grinned, shut the engine off and said, “Let’s go.”

Since he was the type of guy who would insist on opening a car door for a woman, she hopped out before he could get the chance. And when he reached past her to open the diner door, she grabbed it first. She didn’t want anyone getting even the slightest impression that this was a date.

The hostess showed them to a booth near the back. It was after eight so most of the dinner rush had already cleared out. Which could only be a good thing. “What would you two like to drink?”

“Decaf coffee,” Clare said.

“Make that two,” Parker told her.

“Enjoy your meal,” the hostess said, laying their menus on the table.

As they sat down Parker said, “See, it’s not so bad. There’s hardly anyone here.”

He was right. The subfreezing temperatures must have kept people inside tonight. But it would take only one nosy person to see them together and draw the wrong conclusion.

Their waitress, Emily, was someone Clare knew well. She often brought her autistic daughter to the free clinic on the weekends when Clare was volunteering, and her husband worked at the auto-repair shop. She set their coffees down and Clare didn’t miss the curious look as she said, “Hey, Clare, Dr. Reese. Looks cold out there.”

“So cold Clare’s car wouldn’t start,” Parker told her.

“Are you still driving that old thing?” Emily asked her.

“I know I need to get a new one,” she said, warming her hands with her coffee cup. “I just haven’t had time.”

“Do you know what you’d like to order or would you need a minute to look at the menu?”

“I know what I want,” Parker said, eyes on Clare. From his mischievous grin, Clare knew he wasn’t talking about the food.

“Caesar salad with the dressing on the side,” she told Emily.

“Would you like chicken on that?”

Would she ever, but she was only five pounds away from her high school weight and she wanted to hit that number by swimsuit season. “No chicken.”

“My usual,” Parker told Emily.

“One Caesar, one bacon cheeseburger and fries, comin’ right up.”

When she was gone Parker said, “She knows what car you drive?”

“Everyone around here knows what everyone drives.”

His brows knit together. “That’s weird.”

Not for Royal it wasn’t. “You’ve never lived in a small town, have you?”

“Nope. I’ve always lived in the city, but I like the slower pace. Though it has taken some getting used to.”

“You must eat here often if you have a usual,” Clare said.

“Several times a week at least, and sometimes I come in for breakfast.”

“You eat a burger and fries several times a week?”

“I’m a carnivore. I eat meat.”

“There’s this thing called vegetables...”

He shrugged, sipping his coffee. “Sometimes I order a side salad.”

He was a doctor, for God’s sake. He should have known better. “What do you have the other four days?”

“That depends on who I’m with,” he said, and his cheeky smile said that once again they were no longer talking about food. But she’d sort of walked into that one, hadn’t she?

Why did he have to be so damned adorable, with his stubbled chin and dark, rumpled hair? The soft waves begged to be combed back by her willing fingers and his hazel eyes smoldered, though they looked more whiskey-colored in this light. He’d loosened his lopsided tie and opened the top button on his dress shirt...

“Have you lived in Royal your whole life?” he asked her.

Jarred by the sudden change of subject, she realized she was staring at his chest and lifted her gaze to his handsome face instead. Which was just as bad, if not worse. Sometimes when she was sitting at the nurses’ station and he was nearby she would watch him in her peripheral vision. He had such a nice face to look at.

“I moved here to live with my aunt about a year after nursing school,” she told him.

“Where are you from originally?”

“My parents own a horse farm about an hour from here. Five of my siblings work there.”

He blinked. “Five? How many siblings do you have?”

“Seven. All older. Three boys, four girls.”

“Wow.” He shook his head in disbelief. “That’s a lot of kids.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Catholic?”

“No, just very traditional. My mom has six siblings and my dad has four. They both grew up on farms.”

“What about your siblings. Do they have kids?”

“As of last month I have twenty-two nieces and nephews, and two great-nieces on the way.”

“Wow. That is a big family. And you’re the baby?”

There was nothing more annoying than being referred to as the baby by her family. It was their way of pushing her down and keeping her in her place. But when Parker said it, with that teasing smile, it wasn’t demeaning at all.

“I’m the youngest, yes.”

“Were you spoiled?”

As if. “My parents were pretty burned out by the time I came along. As long as I did my chores and kept my grades up they pretty much left me alone. I would rather be invisible than get sucked into all the family drama.”

“I used to wish that I had a big family.”

“Do you have siblings?” she asked him.

“Only child.”

“I had a friend in school who was an only child and I was always so envious.”

Emily returned to the table with their food and Clare’s stomach howled. Though getting a salad had been the responsible thing to do, Parker’s juicy burger and greasy fries beckoned her.

“Well, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” he said, popping a fry in his mouth, and when he offered her one, she couldn’t resist. Her mouth watered as the greasy, salty goodness sent her taste buds into overload.

She looked at her plate, then his, and thought, Man, I should have ordered a burger.

“Growing up I always wanted siblings,” Parker said, pushing his plate toward her, gesturing to her to take more.

“I had to share a room with three of my sisters. I had no privacy whatsoever.” There hadn’t even been anyone who’d keep things in confidence. If one sibling knew, they all knew. Because of that it had always been difficult for her to trust people to keep her secrets. Her aunt was the only person in her life she could be totally honest with.