A Doctor's Watch

No doubt in another life he’d do whatever it took to make Mia a permanent fixture in his life and his bed.

Unfortunately, he was stuck in this life. And Mia Serrat was unreachable. Untouchable, at least by him.

She almost ran into him before she saw him in the doorway. They stood toe-to-toe, so close he could feel the heat rising from her skin. So close he could see the same heat in her eyes. Eyes that were locked on him.

“I want to believe you,” he finally said.

“Shh,” she said, and put a finger to his lips. “Don’t.”

Her finger was rose-petal soft on his mouth, and he wanted to pull it inside, devour it, taste it. Instead, he shifted just enough to brush the pad a little harder. A whisper of a kiss…

Dear Reader,

Writing a book is often a gradual process of building a world, characters and a plot one decision at a time, agonizing over each small choice for a period of days, weeks and months. Once in a while, though, an author is lucky enough to be struck by a novel idea fully formed. The characters, the plot, the twists, the conflict flood her mind in a single bombardment of images and voices. The author becomes merely a scribe, taking down what has been given to her. A Doctor’s Watch is one such story, and I’m very pleased to bring it to you with the help of Silhouette Romantic Suspense.

Mia Serrat is a strong woman, but she’s been through some really tough times. For the sake of her young son, she fought to regain her health after a debilitating bout with depression and she succeeded. Or so she thinks.

Dr. Ty Hanson is the one man who can help her convince everyone that she’s not crazy, but his own history and his feelings for Mia complicate his professional judgment.

I hope you enjoy their story.

Vickie Taylor

VICKIE TAYLOR

is the bestselling author of more than a dozen romantic-suspense and paranormal romance novels. She is a four-time finalist for a Romance Writers of America RITA® Award and is the winner of a Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence in mystery/suspense fiction. When not writing or reading, Vickie spends her time riding horses, training search-and-rescue dogs and volunteering for her local humane society. For up-to-date news and information, visit Vickie at www.VickieTaylor.com.

Many, many thanks to my editor, Ann Leslie Tuttle. You set me on this crazy road of publication, and you’ve stuck with me through the good times and the bad. Without you, this book and many others would never have seen the light of day.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 1

Five more good days. A quick tally of all the other groups of five ticks in her diary added up to three hundred and ten. Three hundred and ten good days. Days without shadows. Days without darkness lurking inside her.

Days without depression.

Mia Serrat smiled. Despite the stark white winter landscape outside her window, she felt as bright as the California sun she’d been imagining. As fresh as the sea air. Soon she would go home to California for real, away from the cold and snow of Massachusetts.

Now all she had to do was tell Nana.

A knot of apprehension coiled in her belly. She’d already waited too long to talk to her mother-in-law, but she wouldn’t wait any longer. Today was the day—as soon as she’d had her morning run.

Heading downstairs, she buoyed herself by humming a pop tune about soaking up the sun.

“You could take a day off, you know,” Nana called from the kitchen as Mia bounced into the foyer, reaching for her scarf from the coat tree by the door. “It’s freezing outside.”

Undaunted, Mia wrapped the scarf around her neck and grabbed her gloves. Not even Nana’s motherly nagging, or the difficult conversation ahead between them, could keep her from enjoying the start of a new day. Already her blood was flowing faster, her breath coming deeper in anticipation of her daily workout. “I dressed warmly.”

“It’s icy.”

“I’ll be careful.” She followed the scent of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls toward the kitchen, where she would undoubtedly find her eight-year-old son with a full stomach and an icing mustache. “Smells like you’re spoiling Todd again.”

“Won’t hurt the boy to be fussed over now and then.”

Mia gave Nana a hug in the kitchen doorway to let her know how much she appreciated everything the older woman did for them. “No, I suppose it won’t.”

She caught Todd’s eye over the rim of his milk glass. “Hey, tigerbear.”

He thunked down his glass and groaned. “Mo-om.”

“Oh, sorry. I mean Sir Samuel Todd Serrat.” He was so sensitive to anything remotely childish these days. Including pet names.

“Todd would do.”

“Gotcha.”

His face brightened as he nodded toward the platter in the center of the table. “I saved ya the last roll.”

“Thanks, but I’ll catch a yogurt after my run.”

“Yogurt? Bleck!” He grabbed the lone sticky bun and grinned.

She ruffled his hair. “I’m getting in shape. It’s called exercise. You should try it sometime instead of sitting in front of your computer all the time playing video games.”

The cinnamon roll puffed out his cheeks like a chipmunk’s when he smiled. “I get plenty of exercise. Just this morning I fought off a squad of Ninja hit men, slayed two dragons and saved the world from an alien invasion.”

Even Nana laughed at that.

“Have you decided what you want for Christmas, mighty warrior?” Mia asked, and then held up her hand. “Besides computer games?”

“Christmas?” Nana asked, winking as her gaze swiveled from Mia to Todd. “Is it that time of year already?”

But Todd wasn’t biting on her feigned indifference to childhood’s mega holiday of holidays. Still, his bright eyes darkened.

“You don’t gotta get me nothing.”

“Of course we do.” Mia’s heart fluttered around in her chest like a tiny trapped bird. “It’s Christmas!”

“Christmas is for kids.” His shoulders stiffened.

“I hate to break it to you, but eight years old still qualifies as a kid in my book.”

“I said I don’t want nothing, all right.” Todd dropped the cinnamon roll on his plate, scraped his chair back and made a grab for his books as he stood.

Her hands balled on her hips. Todd had always loved Christmas. “No, it is not all right.” She scooted in front of him before he could make a break for the back door.

Lowering her arms, she took a deep breath and waited. After several long seconds, Todd slowly raised his head and looked up at her through the sheaf of dusty-blond lashes he’d inherited from his daddy.

Suddenly, Mia could have sworn she was looking into the eyes of an eighty-year-old man in her son’s body. His sad gaze wrapped around her heart and squeezed.

She’d done this. She’d put the darkness in her child’s eyes. She knew the exact day, the exact time she’d done it.

The week before Christmas two years ago, when she’d tried to kill herself.

Mia swallowed the lump in her throat. She’d put the darkness in Todd, the fear, and she would take it away, she vowed. No matter how many years, how many Christmases it took.

“You don’t gotta get me nothing,” he mumbled. “Don’t worry about it. Christmas is dumb anyway.”

Straightening up, she took a deep breath and smiled brightly on the outside even as she died a little more inside at his words.

Don’t worry about it.

It pained her, knowing her family still thought her so fragile.

“Try to think of a present that involves something we could do together, okay?” she said. “Like jigsaw puzzles or something.” Something that would reassure him that she wasn’t going anywhere. She forced a placid smile to her face. “And you’d better come up with something soon, or you might just get socks and underwear.”

Todd’s frail shoulders relaxed a bit. “Eww…”

Mia kissed his wrinkled nose, then pulled his coat off the hook by the back door and held it out to him. “You’d better get going. The bus will be here any minute. Be good today.”

With the heavy sigh of a child faced with seven hours of sitting still and keeping quiet—and a mother he didn’t quite trust to be here when he got home—Todd pulled on his coat.

Nana tucked his scarf in around his neck and smooched him and threw an air kiss as he tromped out the door. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.” He waved without looking back.

Inside, apprehension flipped Mia’s stomach. The house was quiet. She’d barely navigated her way through one difficult conversation, and now she was more determined than ever to have another one, this time with Nana. It was time to tell Nana she was leaving, the sooner the better. If nothing else, Todd’s reaction to Christmas had reinforced how badly she needed some time alone with her son. Time to rebuild his trust in her.

First, she needed tea. She heated water in the microwave, then dunked a bag of her favorite green tea in the mug while Nana busied herself with the dishes in the sink.

“I called the property management company,” Mia said. “The one who’s been looking after the house in Malibu.” She tried for calm, confident strength in her voice, but couldn’t help but notice the little squeak at the end of the sentence. “She said they could have the utilities turned on and everything cleaned and opened up right after the first of the year.”

Nana’s shoulders stiffened. Dishes clattered. “So soon?”

“School starts on the fifth of January.”

Nana turned, the dishcloth twisted in her hands. “Put him in a new class in the middle of the year? Is that wise after all he’s been through?”

Another pang of guilt stabbed through her.

“I talked to the counselor at the elementary. She said it’s actually easier for kids to transition during the school year. They have a chance to make new friends right away instead of sitting home alone during the summer, waiting for a new term.”

Nana leaned heavily on the counter behind her. “Are you sure you’re ready? What if you…?”

Mia pulled her shoulders back. Now was not the time to question herself. “You know you can come visit us anytime, Nana.”

“It just wouldn’t be the same as having you here, under my roof.” Her eyes brimmed. “And besides, I have Citria and Karl here.”

Mia hated making Nana choose between her grandson and her daughter and brother. Nana’s roots were here. Still…

“You’d love California. It’s warm and sunny all the time. Your arthritis—”

“I couldn’t. I—I’ve lived all my life in Eternal.”

“Then we’ll come visit you, in the summer when Todd is out of school.”

Nana turned back to the sink and attacked the dishes with a vengeance that might leave the household short a few china plates if she didn’t ease up. “You don’t have to decide today. We’ve still got three weeks before Christmas.”

Mia’s heart hurt, but she lifted her chin. “Yes, we’ve got time.” Time, she hoped, for Nana to accept the inevitable, and for Mia to accept that she had no choice but to break her mother-in-law’s heart.

She needed to take her life back—for all their sakes. She’d worked hard to get healthy again. She needed her independence.

“I thought you were going for a run,” Nana said, her jaw stiff. “You’re all dressed for it.”

Understanding Nana’s veiled request for some time alone, Mia downed the last of her tea and stood. At the back door, she doubled over to stretch her calves, then lifted each foot behind her in turn and pulled, loosening her hamstrings. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

Before she could leave, Nana snugged up the crimson scarf around Mia’s neck, tucking the ends beneath her collar just as she had for Todd. The wool would be scratchy, Mia thought, especially when she started to sweat, but she accepted the coddling without comment. Nana was just looking out for her. Lord knew there’d been a time when she’d needed it.

She set off across the yard, toward the bike trail to Shilling’s Bluff, at an easy pace, giving her muscles time to warm. Her thoughts drifted at random. Running put her in an almost meditative state, and soon she found herself pondering Todd’s Christmas gift again.

She had a feeling he wanted something special, but hadn’t worked up the gumption to tell her yet. She would have to talk to Nana later and see if she knew what it was. Otherwise, she might make a critical holiday faux pas, and she so wanted Todd to be happy this year. He deserved it.

Heart pumping harder now, she turned off the bike path onto the hiking trail up the bluff. Her breath clouded in front of her face. The snow was deeper here. It drifted in piles against rocks and clung to the boughs of the evergreens crowded on the side of the trail opposite the cliff.

As she climbed higher, the town emerged in the valley below, white tufts of snow scalloping the eaves of the buildings along Main Street and dusting the sidewalks.

Todd said that after a snowfall, Eternal looked like the village in one of those snow globes kids played with, just waiting to be shaken. On mornings like this, she agreed with him.

He was such a smart kid, and thoughtful, too. She wished his father could have seen how he’d grown up. He would be so proud.

Mia’s ankle turned on the steep slope. She slipped and stumbled, but caught her balance before losing her footing altogether. Her heart stuttered as she tried to recapture her rhythm. Her arms swung jerkily and her feet landed unevenly.

It annoyed her that a simple stray thought of her husband, Todd’s father, Sam Serrat, was enough to make the dark cloud that was never far behind her seem to loom directly overhead. She quickened her pace to escape it.

Depression couldn’t be outrun, she knew, no matter how long or how hard she tried. But she could stay one step ahead of it. As long as the darkness was behind her, and not inside, she would be okay.

Three hundred and ten days, she reminded herself. She’d worked hard to get her life back, and she’d succeeded. She wouldn’t lose herself again. She wouldn’t lose Todd.

Cautiously, she let herself think about her husband again. The way his sandy hair fell over his eyes when he laughed. The sense of humor and compassion he’d passed to his son, even though he was gone before Todd ever really knew him. The way he made love to her so slowly, so gently, she thought it might last forever.

Only, nothing lasted forever. She’d learned that the hard way.

Tears filled her eyes, but they didn’t spill over. Time diminished the pain his memory caused. Each day she hurt a little less when she thought of Sam.

Todd was what kept her going now. He was the reason she’d worked so hard these last two years to take her life back from depression.

Muscles quivering with exertion, she plunged up the last few feet to the top of the bluff and stood with her hands on her hips, blowing hard. Forty feet below her, a winding road cut through the granite rise that made Shillings Bluff. Right on time, the yellow school bus lumbered around the turn.

Mia started jogging again, slowly, letting the bus catch her. She sped up as it pulled even, feigned a hard run as it overtook her.

Todd sat in the backseat, as he always did, face plastered against the rear window as he watched her. He waved and encouraged her on. She ran faster, pretending to race the bus, pretending to go all out. It was their game. Their ritual.

With Todd bouncing in his seat, she lowered her head. Kicked harder. Stole a glance at her son, and his sweet face took her breath away as the bus pulled ahead and around a bend. She—

Something solid—a hand—thunked between Mia’s shoulder blades. She tried to turn to see who had hit her from behind, but the blow had thrown her off balance. Her sneaker skidded on a patch of ice. Her other toe caught on a rock. She flailed.

Mia tried to throw herself back onto the path. Away from the granite slope. She failed. She fell.

And she screamed, but no one heard. Or if they did, they didn’t care.

Chapter 2

Crap, crap, crap.

Ty Hansen cursed all the way to his car, but the sound was lost in the swoosh of the north wind that sailed right through his leather bomber jacket and chilled him to the bone. Snow-laden clouds hung low overhead, ready to dump their payload. Already the first tiny flakes stung his face like icy needles. He shoved his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders against the miserable weather.

Talk about tap dancing in minefields.

Why the hell did he have to be the one to draw the Kaiser’s niece as a patient?

“The Kaiser,” as Karl Serrat was called by the staff when he was out of hearing range, oversaw all the residents in the psychiatric specialty program at the Massachusetts Hospital of Mental Health. They all considered him a taskmaster, but he seemed to ride Ty particularly hard. He also held Ty’s entire future—his completion of the residency program required before taking the exams from the American Board of Medical Specialties to become a licensed psychiatrist—in his twisted grasp.

The man was just looking for an excuse to kick him out. Karl Serrat had been on Ty’s back since their first meeting.

With the snow, the drive to Eternal took an hour and a half. Stomping his boots and shrugging out of his jacket at the ER nurses’ station, he asked the large-boned African-American woman behind the desk for the psych consult file and plowed down the hallway, reading the patient history as he walked.

He tapped twice with his knuckle on the door to evaluation room 5, counted to three to give her a few seconds to pull herself together, then took a deep breath and poked his head in. “Ms. Serrat, may I come in?”

The hell with Karl Serrat. He had a job to do and it didn’t matter if the woman waiting for him was Serrat’s niece or Mona Lisa. She was a patient, and he would do his best by her, consequences be damned.

Fixing that thought firmly in his mind, he pasted on a smile and said “Hi, I’m Dr.—”

The woman who turned to look at him from her place by the window nearly made him forget his own name. It wasn’t her beauty so much that stymied him, though she had that, as her intensity.

She stood as far away from the door as she could get. If she hadn’t been holding a disposable cup, he was sure her arms would have been folded tightly over her chest, fingers fisted. Her tousled mahogany hair was thrown back over her shoulders and her full mouth pursed slightly. Her eyes, as lush, green and mysterious as a tropical rain forest, glinted with tightly controlled anger.

Obviously she’d figured out he wasn’t here to give a second opinion on her bumps and bruises. Yet, instead of pouting about a psychological evaluation, or retreating inside herself, there was a challenge in her eyes.

The woman wasn’t just all good looks. She had moxie.

“Dr.—?” she asked, hooking one eyebrow.

“Hansen. Ms. uh—” He cleared his throat. “Serrat.”

She studied him critically. “My uncle sent you, I assume.”

“Uh, yeah.” Brilliant. Very eloquent.

Sighing in resignation, she hopped up on the edge of the examination table. “Well, let’s get this over with. I have a son to get home to.” Her feet dangled off the floor, exposing the delicate bare ankles at the ends of two very long legs.

“Sure. Uh, yeah.”

Heaven help him.

Mia had prepared herself to do battle with some pasty-skinned, condescending head-shrinker who had his name sewn over the breast pocket of his lab coat and who spoke through his nasal passages. She was ready, or she thought she was.

Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined they’d send someone like young Dr. Handsome, here, to check up on her. One look at him, and her game plan fell apart with an audible crash.

He was tall and tanned and lean, but with enough bulk under his blue denim button-down dress shirt to hint at a fit body. His hair was conservatively cut, but just enough overdue for a trim that the light brown ends curled over his collar. A few flakes of snow still clung in the cowlick over his left temple.

The cold had left ruddy spots on his cheeks, and the beginnings of a slight shadow darkened his jaw, but not grimly. The stubble, combined with brilliant hazel eyes, a lazy smile that only reached one side of his mouth and the battered leather jacket slung over his shoulder gave him a slightly harried, sleepy, sexy look.

She wasn’t ready for him at all.

She wondered if he knew exactly how disarming that lopsided grin of his could be. She wondered whether it was genuine or part of his psychotherapy-babble bag of tricks.

“Ms. Serrat?” He lifted his eyebrows in question.

Polite, too, still waiting for her to invite him in. Not a common trait in doctors, in her experience.

Despite his charm and his manners, she jutted her chin when she nodded, reminding herself he was the man standing between her and Todd. She needed to get home to her son, preferably before school let out for the day. She didn’t want him to know anything about this little incident.

He shouldered his way through the door and eased across the room, stopping about three feet away and extending his hand. Tricky, he was. Making her go to him. A subtle but effective shifting of power in the room.

On another day, she would have refused to play his mind games. But today, she decided an antisocial display would not further her cause.

Hopping off the exam table and stepping forward, she accepted his hand. His knuckles were scraped and swollen as though he’d been in a fight, she noticed. Young Dr. Handsome was one surprise after another.

Before she thought better of herself, she swept her thumb over the abrasions. “Rough day at the office, Doc?”

He looked puzzled for a second, then glanced down and extricated his hand from hers. “Just a little difference of opinion.”

It was her turn to look puzzled, but she didn’t ask for an explanation, nor did he offer one. It was best they get down to business, anyway.

“I’m sorry you had to wait so long,” he said, throwing his jacket across the foot of the bed. “I’d have been here an hour ago, but the weather’s taking a turn for the worse and the roads are getting nasty.”

An hour. What was one hour? she wondered.

An eternity to an eight-year-old boy. A boy waiting for his mother.

“Why don’t we get this over with so you can get back on the road to wherever home is, then?”

“Sounds like a plan.” He rubbed his hands together to warm them, looking her up and down.

Her spine tingled as if he’d run his fingers up her back. The look hadn’t been sexual at all—it was definitely a doctor’s appraising gaze.

Still, she had felt it.

As if he’d felt it, too, he took a step back.

Even fully clothed and with four feet of distance between them, she felt naked. Bare to the soul. Unable to resist any longer, she set her tea down and crossed her arms over the buttercup-yellow flannel pajama top Nana had brought for her.