Taking A Chance On The Single Dad

Dare she risk her heart with him—

All over again?

ER doc Brenna Williamson was heartbroken when her fiancé, paramedic Hunter Ford, left her behind to support his demanding parents. Now adrenaline junkie Brenna chases thrills but keeps her heart safe! Until Hunter, now a single dad, walks back into her life... Working together once again sets her pulse racing. There’s still chemistry between them, but dare she hope that this time he’ll stay—forever?

SUE MACKAY lives with her husband in New Zealand’s beautiful Marlborough Sounds, with the water on her doorstep and the birds and the trees at her back door. It’s the perfect setting to indulge her passions of entertaining friends by cooking them sumptuous meals, drinking fabulous wine, going for hill walks or kayaking around the bay—and, of course, writing stories.

Also by Sue MacKay

The Army Doc’s Baby Bombshell

Resisting Her Army Doc Rival

Pregnant with the Boss’s Baby

Falling for Her Fake Fiancé

Her New Year Baby Surprise

Baby Miracle in the ER

Surprise Twins for the Surgeon

ER Doc’s Forever Gift

The Italian Surgeon’s Secret Baby

Redeeming Her Brooding Surgeon

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Taking a Chance on the Single Dad

Sue MacKay

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09016-2

TAKING A CHANCE ON THE SINGLE DAD

© 2019 Sue MacKay

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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This one’s for Lynne Mark.

Thank you for your wonderful support of my stories.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

Extract

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

LEADEN SILENCE CRACKLED down the line, turning the armchair Brenna had inherited from her grandmother from snug and comfortable to something resembling a hard plinth beneath the suddenly tense muscles of her bottom.

‘Hunter? I said I’m missing you.’

‘Missing you too, Bren.’

The tension didn’t back off. It ramped up. That was not the voice her fiancé used with her. At least that was what he would be if they actually openly acknowledged they were getting married next summer, and if they finally got around to choosing a ring to validate their enduring love for each other.

But Hunter seemed to have a lot on his mind at the moment that had nothing to do with them.

‘Tell me what’s happening in Kamloops. How’re your parents?’ she asked.

Again, that awkward silence. They didn’t do silences—usually had too much to say to each other.

‘Hunter? You’re scaring me.’

‘Hold on, will you?’

In the background she heard a door open, then shut, followed by footsteps on a wooden floor. Was he on the deck? Winter in the Okanagan wasn’t even close to tropical. What he had to tell her must be something he didn’t want his family to overhear.

Was his father in a worse state than his mother had indicated yesterday? All he’d said was that she had been in hysterics when she’d rung, saying the family orchard was in crisis and he had to get over there urgently for his father’s sake. He’d left Vancouver within three hours, an overnight bag and his laptop over his shoulder, despair in his eyes and a one-way air ticket in his hand. He hadn’t driven as snow had been forecast near the Rockies.

‘Bren, I was going to ring you later tonight. Everything’s in turmoil here.’ The harshness of his voice frightened her.

What was going on?

Talk to me.

But if she demanded information from him, he’d shut down. Shut down? It seemed he was already under lock and key. She looked around the familiar, cosy sitting room of the house she’d grown up in, her gaze not alighting on any one object for more than a few seconds, her heart pounding faster by the minute.

Finally she had to say something or go spare. ‘Do you want me to come across for the weekend?’

‘Bren, I don’t know where to start. Dad’s—’

She heard him swallow, and a gnawing feeling there was bad to come began deep in her stomach.

‘The business is on the verge of bankruptcy. I don’t know if it can be saved. The insurance company’s fighting paying out for the flood damage done last year. The same thing’s happening with many of the orchards in this area. I haven’t gone into the paperwork yet, but people are muttering about the company that owns the power station being at fault.’

‘Can’t the insurance company pay out and then go to the power provider for the money?’ Of course she knew that wasn’t how these things worked, but anything to delay whatever was about to slam-dunk her.

‘Insurance companies are not charities. If there’s an out they’re going to take it, and to hell with what Dad’s been paying them over the years.’

The bitterness in Hunter’s voice shocked her. But he was loyal to his parents so their troubles would be his, regardless of his own aspirations. Just like her and her family, especially her dad. She’d always been encouraged to follow her dreams.

‘I guess I’m aware of that. I was hoping for more, that’s all.’ A fairer outcome for Hunter’s family and a happy improvement in the way he was talking right now wouldn’t go amiss.

‘There’s a lot to do here.’

Here it comes. Brenna waited, tensing as though Hunter had a gun aimed directly at her chest. More specifically, her heart.

‘Dad’s worried he’s failed again. It’s like he doesn’t know what to focus on to get things sorted.’

Brenna swallowed hard. There was more to this—but what? ‘Darling, I’m so sorry. What can I do? For you?’

The sound of a long indrawn breath had her fingers gripping the phone, her thighs tight.

She hurried to add, ‘I’ll come at the end of my shift tomorrow night to be with you. I’ll pack more of your clothes too. Let me know what else you need. I can fill the car till there’s no room left but for me. Fingers crossed the storm will have passed through by then.’

‘No, Brenna. You can’t come. There’s nothing you can do here.’

‘I can support you—be with you. I love you. You know that.’

‘Yes, I do.’

Was that resentment in his quietly spoken words?

‘Hunter?’ Now her toes were tucking under and her knees were pushing together. There was ice in the air, yet the heat pump was blasting out a toasty twenty-two degrees.

He was dragging in a lungful of air. Then, ‘The only thing I want you to do for me is pack up all my gear and send it across. I am not returning to Vancouver.’

‘But what about your job? Your study?’ Me? ‘Vancouver’s your happy place. You’ve said so a hundred times. We’re a couple—we stick together through everything. I’ll do whatever it takes to help you through this.’

‘I have to move back to the orchard. It’s the only chance there is to make the place viable again. Mum and Dad need my support to get through this.’

Did he mutter again?

‘It’s not the first time I’ve had to step up for them.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s how our family works. Ever since that quad-bike accident they’ve made me think I owe them for the trouble it caused and that I can never repay them, but I keep trying.’

Hunter had just stolen any words she might have been about to utter. Their relationship wasn’t being taken into consideration. Not at all.

‘Hunter, we’re a couple—for better and for worse,’ she gasped through frozen lips.

It was happening again. Someone else she loved was deserting her.

‘Would you pack up and move out here to join me?’ he whispered.

Anger flared. How dared he ask her that? ‘You know I would—after I’ve finished my exams and when my dad’s...’

The thumping in her chest slowed, creating a pain under her ribs and a knot in her belly. Dad. Her mainstay as she’d grown up trying to understand how her mother could leave and never contact her again. Not once.

‘Oh.’

‘Exactly. We’ve both got too many commitments. I don’t want you putting aside your medical degree for me either. You’re an amazing doctor, Bren, and you have to finish what you’ve started.’

Did he have to be so nice when he was breaking her heart?

‘As for leaving your father now that he’s been diagnosed with dementia—that’s not happening. Not on my account. Nor can I see you doing it. Not easily, any rate.’

He had her there. Damn him. Tears spilled down her cheeks and she ignored them. Her dad needed her, along with her stepmum and half-sisters. She couldn’t walk away from being there for them through this black time. All the love he’d spoiled her with since her mother had run away had got her through the bad times; she intended doing the same for him.

But she loved Hunter. He was her mainstay. They were supposed to be getting married when she qualified. Hunter loved her. He’d said so often. Yes, he did love her. There’d never been anything false about his declarations. They could make this work. They had to.

‘Brenna, there’s no easy way to say this so I’ll be blunt. We are finished. We have to be. We can’t hang in limbo for the next however many years, until my family is back on track or things have changed for you. I am truly sorry, but there is no alternative.’

When Hunter called her Brenna there was no arguing with him. She’d tried and failed too often to risk it now. Though what more did she have to lose? Seemed she’d just lost the love of her life.

There was nothing else essential other than breathing. Dragging in air to make sure her lungs were still working, she closed her eyes and strove for something to make this all go away.

Not happening.

She could go crazy: cry and yell, plead and beg. Or she could dig deep for dignity, and not make Hunter glad he’d called it quits.

‘Bad timing, huh?’ she sniffed.

* * *

‘The absolute worst, sweetheart.’

The endearment curdled Hunter’s stomach. Brenna was the love of his life, the sunshine and the warmth, the reason he worked so hard to put aside money, so he’d be able to buy a home for her—for them—in the near future.

You don’t have a future with Bren any more.

The urge to hurl the phone across the yard had his arm lifting. He needed to hear it smash into a thousand pieces just as his heart was doing. But he held on so tight his fingernails were digging deep into his palms, the harsh edge of the instrument pressing into his ear.

It was the most awful timing possible to have this happen to his parents, to Brenna, to him. Bren didn’t know about his father’s mental instability in times of crisis. Neither did she know how controlling and selfish his parents had been with him as he’d been growing up, and that that had been his reason for moving to Vancouver. He’d thought he’d escaped, that they’d finally accepted he had his own life to live. He’d been wrong, had been drawn in once more to straighten out their messed-up lives regardless of his aspirations.

It was an insurmountable problem he couldn’t find a way around. He’d never forgive himself if he remained in Vancouver and his father carried out his threat to take his own life. And Brenna could not leave her father when he had dementia. Even with her stepmum and sisters there supporting him, Brenna was so close to her father she wouldn’t dream of moving away. Neither could he ask her to put her medical degree on hold with less than a year to go. He’d never forgive himself when she came to resent him for requesting that. It was bad enough his own paramedic training was going on the back burner.

‘Hunter? Stay in touch. Please.’

That would hurt worse than anything. To see Bren, talk to her, and not be able to share the future they’d started planning together would be hell on wheels. ‘No. I can’t do that. It has to be a clean break. Over and done as of now. So sorry, Bren, I really am.’

Do it. Now. Before you lose the courage.

‘Goodbye.’ His finger stabbed the off button, remained stuck to it, as though preventing him ever hearing from Bren again.

No woman had made him so happy and carefree and yet so determined to succeed. No woman, no person, had believed in him as much as Bren had. Her only expectations had been that he be himself, believe in himself and follow his own dreams—something his parents had never allowed.

He loved her beyond all reason, and yet he’d just put her aside for his family’s problems. Old habits did not disappear in a cloud of happiness after all. If only he could be that man Bren believed in. If only he could make his parents understand he’d been trying to help the day when he’d overheard his father bemoaning how he couldn’t shift the cattle himself because of his headaches.

Hunter had taken the quad bike out to round up the cattle and shift them to a field on the side of the hill. It had gone well until a bull had charged the bike. Only eleven, he hadn’t been able to control the heavy machine and it had rolled, leaving him with a smashed leg and angry parents who’d said he’d made things worse for them by not being available to help around the orchard while his bones healed. From then on, they’d continued to make him pay for his misdemeanour with more and more demands.

None of this made tonight’s decision about his relationship with Brenna easy. This time his father had threatened to swallow a bottle of paracetamol, and as he’d done it once before they couldn’t take any chances. Not that he was telling Bren about his father’s mental state. She might start watching him to see if he was unstable too. Not that she’d be seeing him again. He had to remain strong about that. He loved Bren with every fibre of his body.

His only hope was that by doing the right thing for his parents it would keep him focused in the months ahead when the going got tough. Because it was going to. Not a doubt in the universe. His own plans and needs and love would be shelved. Didn’t mean he had the right to ask Brenna to put hers alongside his.

The phone lit up. Bren’s number came up on the screen. Then the ringing began. He pressed Off. She tried again. And again.

Then Hunter did hurl the phone with all the frustrated strength he had. It soared over the back yard, across the fence to land with a splash in the trough.

‘Goodbye, Bren. Love you.’

The back of his hand slashed at his face as he hunched over, letting the rain soak his clothes, chill his skin further. Not caring what happened to him. But he had to. He was needed here. There was no choice.

CHAPTER ONE

Six years later...

HUNTER FORD LEANED his shoulder against the doorframe and watched his son’s tiny chest lift and fall under the light bedcover as he slept, and sighed with relief. ‘You’re happier already, aren’t you, my boy?’ he whispered through a thick throat.

Dylan’s grandparents had already started grooming him to be compliant by having him running around after them for the hell of it—something he hadn’t been able to prevent on the days he worked and Dylan didn’t have preschool.

‘You could learn something from him,’ Jess murmured beside him. ‘Stop worrying so much.’

‘You haven’t met Brenna.’

‘Surely she’s not going to kick your butt—verbally or physically?’ Dave’s wife never felt the need to hold back.

‘I’d handle that.’ Might even welcome it. But getting the cold shoulder from Bren would punch him hard. Neither did he relish the idea of being treated like a special friend who needed taking in hand to learn the ropes at the helicopter rescue base. Brenna Williamson. He knew nothing about what she’d been doing since that heartbreaking phone call. Had deliberately shut down on anyone telling him about her. He’d had to or go insane with grief.

Jess swiped his arm. ‘It’s been a long time. You’ve moved on, so will she have. Anyway, you can cope with anything. Look at Dylan. After everything he’s been through, he’s happy because of you.’

Hunter’s gaze was still fixed on that small body in the large bed, despite the picture of Bren in the forefront of his brain. ‘He trusts me to get it right for him.’

‘Get it right for yourself and the rest will follow.’

‘Is that your way of saying that if I’m happy Dylan will be happy?’ That was Jess all over. But, then, she was a psychologist.

‘At last something’s got into that dense brain matter. Now get a move on. You’re due at the base in twenty-five minutes, and even at five-thirty in the morning traffic around Kitsilano is more than what you’re used to.’

‘On my way.’ So much for having breakfast before he hit the road. He’d spent ten minutes watching and absorbing the sight of his son sleeping; Dylan was his world, and one of the reasons he’d returned to the city where he’d been happiest. The first time he’d moved here had been within weeks of leaving high school; his best friend, Dave, right beside him. They were going to conquer the world and put Kamloops into the only-for-visiting-the-olds file.

He’d truly believed he’d escaped his parents. More fool him. His dreams had begun falling into place, then his father had had yet another mental breakdown and he’d been expected to pick up the pieces. Now here he was back again, the dreams altered but still there. Everything he did, worked for, would be about Dylan, not his parents, other than to make sure they were safe and comfortable. His son was not growing up under the weight of his parents’ selfishness.

At last he’d learned to stop feeling guilty every time his father got ill. It wasn’t his fault, and he shouldn’t be expected to give up his life to fix their problems when they weren’t prepared to try and sort things out themselves.

Oh, just call Hunter, get him to do it.

Hunter swallowed hard. Coming here had been the right thing to do. For his boy, and for him. Time to start over with a clean slate. There’d be memories of Bren around every corner, which he’d have to ignore once he got today done and dusted. He was under no illusion. Seeing her for the first time would be difficult. Yet it had to be done, then he’d get on with settling into Vancouver, the place where he’d been so very happy so long ago.

Not that he was the young guy any more who laughed at everything, thought the world owed him, and believed there might be a chance that if he worked hard enough, he might achieve the life he wanted. No, but something from that time lingered and had drawn him back, away from Kamloops and the darkness and frustration that lurked around every corner.

Straightening up, he took one last look at his boy and strode away, his eyes moist. At the front door he paused, said, without looking back, ‘Jess? Go easy on him if he gets upset today, will you?’ It wasn’t Jess who needed reminding Dylan stressed at new settings with new people. It was him who needed reassuring that everyone had Dylan’s back while he went to work. Deep down he understood Dave and his family were there for his son. It was just that he needed reassurance that he had done the right thing, coming to Vancouver.

‘Get out of here, will you? I’m going back to bed to snuggle up to my man for half an hour. When you get out of my hair.’

Hunter was pushed out the door, and the lock clicked behind him.

‘I’m going, all right?’ Not that Jess would hear, but habit had him getting the last word in. Zipping his puffer jacket up to his chin, Hunter slid behind the wheel of his four-wheel drive and backed down the drive.

‘Here I go.’ He headed to SW Marine Drive, trying to ignore the confusion in his head, and failing. Shortly he was going to see Brenna, hear her voice, her laugh, and he had no idea how he’d react. He wanted to be cool, calm and friendly. That’s how he should be after all this time. Once they hadn’t been able to get enough of each other, had believed the future was theirs for the taking. Hunter shook his head abruptly in an attempt to banish those memories, which were probably rose-tinted anyway. He was meant to be looking forward, to settling down in a city he loved, to a life he chose and not one dictated by guilt and strained loyalties.