About the Authors

ANNIE O’NEIL spent most of her childhood with her leg draped over the family rocking chair and a book in her hand. Novels, baking, and writing too much teenage angst poetry ate up most of her youth. Now Annie splits her time between corralling her husband into helping her with their cows, baking, reading, barrel racing (not really!) and spending some very happy hours at her computer, writing.

SUSAN CARLISLE’s love affair with books began in the sixth grade, when she made a bad grade in mathematics. Not allowed to watch TV until she’d brought the grade up, Susan filled her time with books. She turned her love of reading into a passion for writing, and now has over ten Medical Romances published through Mills & Boon. She writes about hot, sexy docs and the strong women who captivate them. Visit SusanCarlisle.com.

Also by Annie O’Neil

Tempted by Her Single Dad Boss

The Doctor’s Marriage for a Month

A Return, a Reunion, a Wedding

Making Christmas Special Again

Miracles in the Making collection

Risking Her Heart on the Single Dad

And look out for the next book

The Neonatal Doc’s Baby Surprise by Susan Carlisle

Available now

Also by Susan Carlisle

A Daddy Sent by Santa

Nurse to Forever Mum

The Sheikh Doc’s Marriage Bargain

Highland Doc’s Christmas Rescue

Firefighter’s Unexpected Fling

Miracles in the Making collection

Risking Her Heart on the Single Dad by Annie O’Neil

The Neonatal Doc’s Baby Surprise

Available now

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Risking Her Heart on the Single Dad & The Neonatal Doc’s Baby Surprise

Annie O’Neil

Susan Carlisle

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90238-4

RISKING HER HEART ON THE SINGLE DAD & THE NEONATAL DOC’S BABY SURPRISE

Risking Her Heart on the Single Dad © 2020 Annie O’Neil The Neonatal Doc’s Baby Surprise © 2020 Susan Carlisle

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 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.

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Risking Her Heart on the Single Dad

Back Cover Text

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Neonatal Doc’s Baby Surprise

Back Cover Text

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

About the Publisher

Risking Her Heart on the Single Dad

Annie O’Neil

Dare she dream of a family...

...with a heartbroken single dad?

Kirri West is dedicated to helping women who can’t have children. A heartache she lives with every day. But as she joins Ty Sawyer’s groundbreaking clinic, the gorgeous surgeon and his little girl become the kind of distraction she’s long avoided! While they could be a perfect family, Ty and Kirri would have to lay their hearts on the line first...

This book goes out to all those amazing doctors

who pour their hearts and souls into

making true medical miracles occur.

CHAPTER ONE

KIRRI LOOKED UP at the soaring skyscraper and beamed. Unbelievable. Her new workplace for the next six weeks was epically fabulous.

The Medical Innovations Center, from the outside at least, was everything she’d been hoping for. A towering testament to pioneering medicine. Maybe the doctors here would see what her brother couldn’t. Dreams could become reality if she worked hard enough.

So what if it was pouring down with rain and she looked like a drowned rat? She wasn’t here to look hot. She was here to set her brain alight. She was in Atlanta, Georgia, baby!

Ah...spring. Wet and warm. Such a contrast to back home in Sydney, where people were deciding whether or not to turn the central heating on. If everything went according to plan her research would blossom in tandem with the Georgia peaches.

Mmm... She inhaled a big lungful of Georgia air. Totally different from the salt-laced breezes back home. It was more...floral. Jasmine? Honeysuckle? Who knew? She had six weeks to find out. If she ever left the lab, that was. From the brainboxes alleged to be inside it, she was pretty sure she’d have to be dragged out when the research exchange was over.

She tipped her head back further, then opened her eyes wide against the rain. In this weather, and from this angle, it really did look as if her new office building’s rooftop was tickling the heavens. All glass and steel, the ultramodern building that housed the Piedmont Women and Baby Pavilion screamed trailblazing, forward-thinking, state-of-the-art medicine. It was her kind of place. The pinch herself variety.

Still a bit jet-lagged from the long-haul flight, and too excited to sleep, she’d come in early. Sunrise early. And perhaps three entire days early on top of that. She wasn’t technically meant to start until Monday—but who needed settling-in time when she was about to embark on a last-ditch attempt to prove to her brother she’d been right all along?

It would be hitting sunset o’clock back home, where her brother was no doubt pounding out furious email after furious email. Or silently fuming even as his genius continued to dazzle their illustrious patient list. So she hadn’t strictly cleared the trip with him. Or hung around to see what his reaction to her absence would be.

She’d covered all her bases. Put replacement neonatal surgeons in place—all of them desperate to work with Australia’s so-called Baby Whisperer. Being his kid sister was handy sometimes. But at other times—like most of the time—less so. Like right now, for instance.

If she’d thought her chances of getting him to change his mind about pulling the plug on her research had been slim a week ago they’d be non-existent now. Her lab—her broom closet, more like—would remain dark and untouched for the duration of her absence. The type of research she was doing was not the Harborside Fertility and Neonatal Center’s jam. But it should be, because bringing healthy babies into the world was.

She resisted the urge to check her phone, wrung out her hair and swept away another stream of raindrops to gaze at the place that had offered her and her research a lifeline.

She squinted against the increasingly heavy rain as a helicopter with a bright red cross on its underbelly swept in from the mid-level cloud-base and began to descend to the rooftop. Her heart began to pump with that telltale adrenaline that came with any medical emergency.

She’d never admit it to her brother, but the crystal-clear focus that came with performing life-or-death surgery was something she’d find hard to put to the side for the next six weeks. Surgery in the day, research at night. That was her life and she’d always liked it that way.

Right up until Lucius had pulled the plug on her DIY lab.

The invitation to come here and devote herself to research had been all the nudge she’d needed. A chance to make her dreams come true? Hell, yeah!

The helicopter disappeared out of sight as it settled on the roof. Her eyes dipped a smidge to the floor, to her temporary home away from home. Clever, she thought. Putting the Piedmont Women and Baby Pavilion on the top floor of the pre-eminent medical facility. Easy access to the roof and the clinic’s most critical patients. Everyone must have wanted that prime real estate.

Heart, lungs, ears, nose, throat... This building had specialists for everything and everyone. But not a single one of them apart from the Piedmont Women and Baby Pavilion offered fetal and neonatal surgery. Inside its doors she’d be able to tap the brains of some of the world’s leading neonatologists. And she couldn’t wait.

Her brother would have said that the rainy day was a sign of misery yet to come, but she knew better. Beyond the clouds the Georgia sky would be every bit as blue as Sydney’s, and when night fell there would be an entirely new set of stars overhead. Hopefully they were aligned in her favor.

Just as she was about to head into the main reception area a man raced past and bashed into her shoulder.

“Easy there, mate. You won’t miss the parade!”

She whirled to face him and in so doing lost her balance. The basher reached out to steady her, one hand holding her upright until he was sure she was all right, the other holding an umbrella aloft.

Oh, my.

He was rather good-looking. Especially if “rather” meant drop-dead gorgeous of the possibly Latin, possibly Clark Kent variety of gorgeous. This was sexy-nerdy on a whole new level.

“I do beg your pardon, ma’am. Are you all right?” Superman asked.

She mumbled something. She wasn’t sure what. His fault, really. For being so...mmm...

“Ma’am? Is everything okay?”

Kirri opened her mouth but nothing came out. Why couldn’t she talk? She was a thirty-seven-year-old highly qualified surgeon, for heaven’s sake. She had the power of speech.

She tried again.

Nope. Nothing.

If she hadn’t looked into his chocolatey brown eyes and gone all gooey inside she would have been completely capable of giving him a piece of her mind for not watching where he was going. It wasn’t as if the plaza in front of the medical center was teeming with people.

She would have done that. Told him off. She definitely would. But he was just her type.

Thinking the words gave her a proper slap back into reality. She didn’t have a type. Not now, anyway. And she was far too busy to date, but...

She would bet actual cold hard cash that Superman, here, had been one of the nerdy kids back in the day. The type who got perfect grades, never got in trouble, was rotten at sports and the opposite sex paid no attention to. A bit like her. The type of nerd who never got asked to dance. She would’ve danced with him. And gloried in his transformation as he became an adult.

Athletically built with neat ebony-black hair, a speckling of salt and pepper at the temples. Bone structure a model would die for, a cheeky little divot in the center of his chin and those eyes. Espresso-brown with hints of gold.

He’d lived. She could see that by the small fan of crinkles arrowing out from his eyes as he narrowed them. Either that or he was using his special X-ray vision to ensure she was all right. Or checking out her bra. Perriwinkle blue lace, if he was interested. Front clasp, if he needed more details.

He blinked. Something quite different from lust was illuminating those flecks of gold.

Recognition.

She didn’t know how, or why, but it was as if he saw straight through to her heart. If she’d had properly functioning ovaries they’d be working double-time about now.

And then, in another blink of an eye, he was a stranger again.

He gave a swift apologetic wave, pointed upwards, as if the gesture would explain why he was so distracted, then turned to go.

Fair enough, mate. We’ve all got things to do. But...nice to meet you.

As if he’d heard her he doubled back, handed her his huge golf umbrella and then, in one of those caramel-rich accents she’d only ever heard on television, said, “My heartfelt apologies. May I offer this as consolation for my rudeness?”

And then he disappeared into the building.

Mercy.

Half of her was tempted to race into the building and get trapped in the lift with him for the rest of the day. But the other half—the half she was far more comfortable with—wanted...no, needed to get up to her new lab and get to work. Twenty-four-seven if they’d let her.

She looked at the handle of the umbrella that he’d just been holding, then at the front doors of the building. Tempting. Definitely tempting...

Her phone buzzed in her leather backpack and against her better judgement she tugged it out and looked at the message.

Oh, crud-buckets.

Australia’s very own Baby Whisperer was giving her a right telling off, if the full caps message was any indication of its contents.

CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!

She typed her message back, like the kid sister she was, and then, reminding herself that she was a highly respected neonatal surgeon, deleted it and chose the far more mature option of ignoring it altogether.

She gave her shoulders a wriggle to shift some of her confidence from her heart through to her spine. Her father had always told her that aiming high wasn’t high enough. Well, if pushing the elevator button to get up to one of the world’s most prestigious research and treatment centers was anything to go by, she’d finally done it.

The Piedmont Women and Baby Pavilion was the pinnacle of neonatal care in the Northern Hemisphere. On a par with her own employer, Sydney’s Harborside Fertility and Neonatal Center.

The biggest difference was that her big brother wouldn’t be her boss here. Not for the next six weeks. Thanks to the mysteriously enigmatic Dr. Ty Sawyer.

Somehow this premier neonatal surgeon had heard about her research and through one of his colleagues had offered her a lifeline—a research exchange. She’d have six weeks at his clinic and one of his colleagues would have six weeks at theirs at some point a bit further down the road.

The offer had been like receiving a direct hit of oxygen. Forty-two days to launch herself at a lifetime of sibling rivalry and finally prove she’d been right all along. That or go home with her tail between her legs and never hear the end of it from Lucius.

No pressure, then.

At least Lucius was some fifteen thousand miles away. She knew her big brother meant well in steering her away from research and back to full-time surgical practice, but there was something deep within her that needed to be right. She could be a forerunner in neonatal intensive care. Artificial womb technology was the key. Even if it did sound like science fiction.

So! New country. New clinic. And a once-in-a-lifetime chance to prove to her brother that she wasn’t peddling false dreams.

She knew in her gut that she had the scientific clarity to give struggling mothers-to-be genuine hope that one day they could carry a baby to term. Hope and science could be bedfellows. Sometimes it just took a few thousand miles’ distance from the naysayers to prove it.

She took a step toward the entryway, doing her best to ignore the nerves as they kicked in. There was no time like the present—and the present was now.

“Everything okay, Dr. Sawyer?”

Ty glanced up from the running water at the scrub station and frowned. “Sure. Fine.”

He bit off the usual ending, Why do you ask?

Amanda, one of his top specialist delivery nurses, didn’t miss much, and today was no exception. He was still shaken. Even with a handful of minutes having passed between running into that extraordinary-looking woman outside the clinic and now.

Bright blue eyes that looked as though they were being backlit by Hollywood... Rich auburn rain-soaked hair reaching halfway down her back... Lips the color of a burnished rose... Hip leather jacket... A fluffy, tutu-like skirt in camouflage fabric... And, if he hadn’t been mistaken, because he’d been desperately trying to keep his eyes on...well, her eyes, a T-shirt with kangaroos dressed as cheerleaders on it.

The pompoms had been in an awkward position. Awkward for someone trying to maintain eye contact, anyway.

None of which was either here or there—because the one thing he’d definitively noticed was that he’d been attracted to her. And not just in an oh, she’s pretty sort of way. It had been the sort of attraction that had gripped his vitals and given them a proper shake. A meeting-a-soulmate sort of shake. In other words something he thought he’d never feel again. Not since...

Well, he hadn’t thought he’d ever experience that particular sensation again.

Despite his diligent scrubbing, and trying to assume what he hoped was his everyday demeanor, he could feel Amanda’s eyes staying on him for a moment longer. And then, when he didn’t respond, she went for a change of tack.

“Want me to run you through the details again?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Details. Surgery. Exactly what he needed to take his mind off those bright blue eyes that had synced with his as if meeting the gaze of a long-lost lover. Madness, considering he’d only had one lover, but...

He scrubbed the thought away. His wife had been his one and only true love. Whatever it was that had happened this morning was clearly a freak occurrence.

He glanced out at the empty OR. The critical care transport team would be rolling in with the patient any second now. He’d seen the helicopter coming in to land and was surprised they weren’t in the operating room already. Perhaps something had happened on the helicopter that demanded they take things slowly.

Though he’d virtually memorized all the details of the case Amanda ran him through it again.

Mary Lingford was an expectant mother. She lived just under a hundred miles outside of Atlanta, hence the helicopter ride in. With rush hour traffic starting as early as four a.m., they weren’t taking the risk of her being stuck in an ambulance. At forty-three years old she was a high-risk pregnancy. She was twenty-seven weeks pregnant with a baby boy. And the baby, her local hospital had discovered last night, during a routine scan, had a congenital heart defect.

Hypo-plastic left heart syndrome. The most common lethal condition in congenital heart disease. About one in five thousand babies had it. None survived without surgery.

There were still a good thirteen weeks of pregnancy remaining, so Mary’s baby needed to stay inside her. But that heart needed fixing. The Piedmont Women and Baby Pavilion was the best place for both of those requirements to be fulfilled.

Ty turned around so the scrub nurse could help him gown up. “Have they done any pre-anesthesia? I want to make sure they’ve steered clear of teratogenic drugs. Accidentally inducing labor at this point would be a nightmare.”

“I called in last night, and an hour ago before they prepared her for the flight. No pre-anesthesia. They’re leaving everything up to our team.”

Ty smiled. There was never an i left un-dotted or a t left uncrossed on Amanda’s watch. Extra-generous in this case, seeing as he’d scheduled the operation for early morning and she most likely would only be observing. She was a specialty delivery nurse. A skill they were hoping they wouldn’t need this morning. But it was protocol.

The safety of Ty’s patients was paramount. He went where most surgeons refused to go. Directly to the womb.

Amanda nodded toward the operating room, where their patient was being wheeled in. “Looks like they’re ready for you.”

Good. Ty needed to put his blinkers back on. The blinkers that had seen him through the last few years of his life. Through work and caring for his daughter and his extended family. Those were the three components of his life. None of which included having adrenaline spikes when he laid eyes on a complete stranger.

The telephone rang as he entered the OR. Amanda took the call.

“All right if Dr. West scrubs in?”

Ty looked up in surprise. “She’s here already?”

Amanda nodded. “Jet-lagged, apparently. Said she thought it would help her understand the clinic’s ethos if she scrubbed into a surgery and saw things from the ground up. Would you like an extra pair of hands?”

He nodded. “Why not?”

How interesting. He knew Dr. West was a surgeon, but from the sounds of her research papers he’d thought she’d be more lab rat. Someone whose world revolved around cell slides, microchips and Petri dishes. But it appeared he’d been wrong.

Good. He’d made a good call. A surgeon who wanted to hit the ground running? He liked her already.

Amanda wrapped up the phone call. After saying hello to his patient, and assuring her that she was in the safest of hands, Ty turned his attention to the anesthetist. Giving the patient the wrong type of drug could induce labor, thereby doubling the risk of administering anesthesia.

“Back home in Oz we try to go as minimal on the anesthesia as possible. Too risky for baby and mom.”

Everyone turned as a feminine Australian accent filled the operating theater.

Ty’s chest constricted as his eyes clashed with the familiar pair of bright blue eyes. Umbrella girl. Right there in the scrub room. Reminding him once again—or his body, at least—that he was still a red-blooded male.

Yessir.

Still vital and responsive, even after five years of certainty that his chances of connecting with a woman on that sort of level had died with his wife.

The woman tore her eyes from his, then gave the rest of the team in the operating theater a quick wave. “G’day, all. Sorry... I know I shouldn’t be sticking my nose in before I’ve been briefed properly, but I presume the goal here is to keep the baby precisely where it is?”

This was Dr. Kirrily West?

Ty couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t the woman he’d been expecting. Not that he’d seen a photo or anything, but...seriously? Umbrella woman? And what was she doing talking about anesthetic before the very stressed patient was even anesthetized?

He gave his patient’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and said in a low voice, “We’ve got a new surgeon scrubbing in but only as an observer. Nothing to worry about.”

Mary gave him a silent nod, concern evident in her crinkled brow.

Ty looked back to the scrub room, ready to give this new doctor a piece of his mind.

Kirrily West wasn’t wearing her chic biker chick ensemble anymore. She was in a pair of Piedmont scrubs, and making the standard-cut cotton top and trousers look far more interesting to take off than they should.

Why the hell hadn’t he looked at her photo before he’d okayed that plane ticket?

No need to be a surgeon to figure that one out. He was a busy man, and looks didn’t factor when he was considering groundbreaking researchers who might make an invaluable contribution to pre-term fetal welfare.

He caught himself staring instead of chiding as she swept her hair up in one hand, twisted it with the other, then bundled the auburn coil under a blue surgical cap. It was a simple gesture that made it far too easy to imagine many things he shouldn’t.

Silky hair... Soft bare skin... A whispered moan...

What an idiot. He should have done that video conference call with her rather than tasking his colleague Mark with the job.

So that what? He could have changed his mind? Decided that a woman with a heart-shaped face and brilliant sapphire eyes that made his heart do strange things wasn’t worth his time, despite her obvious genius and passion for neonatal surgical advances?

Science didn’t work like that.

He didn’t work like that.

Even so... The woman now twirling around for the scrub nurse to do up her surgical gown wasn’t at all who he’d been expecting. He’d presumed she’d be... Well, older for one thing. Her insight into fetal reconstructive surgery was on a par with much more senior surgeons. Her take on what might be achieved one day in the world of neonatal intensive care was potentially Nobel-prize-winning stuff. Literally life-changing for countless premature babies.

None of which explained why he’d expected an old, frumpy librarian type. Smart didn’t equal unattractive, but...

Oh, this was a disaster.

Kirrily West pressed her freshly gowned elbow to the intercom button again. “Any thoughts on the anesthetic front?”

“Dr. Sawyer?” whispered Mary, reaching for his hand. “Is what she’s saying true?”

Right. Though only a handful of seconds had passed, it was a handful too many. His operating theater. His operation. His method of treatment.

He looked at Kirrily West and said pointedly, “As our patient Mary, here, is awake right now, perhaps it would be best if we talk her through just how safe her child will be rather than focus on what hasn’t happened.”

He didn’t know how they did things Down Under, but they did things Southern-style here. It entailed TLC and a whole lot more professionalism and tact for starters.

He addressed his team—and, most importantly, the patient. “As ever, Mary, our number one priority is your baby’s safety. I’m not saying this is a routine surgery. It isn’t. It’s specialized. But this is the best place for you to have it and everything has been taken into account. Particularly the anesthetic.”

Mary’s brow was knitted with worry lines. “But what was that other doctor talking about? Will the anesthetic hurt my baby? I don’t want to do this if the surgery is going to induce labor!”

She tried to push herself up from the gurney.

Ty resisted shooting Kirrily West a look—an eyebrows raised look, straight up to his surgical cap, that would make it clear to her that this was exactly why precision verbal conduct was every bit as important as precision surgical conduct.

But actions spoke louder than words, so he gave Mary’s hand a reassuring squeeze and a pat. They both knew this was very likely her last chance of having a child, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to be the surgeon to let her down.

“Like I said, everything’s been taken into account and the protocol is as safe as these things can be. We’re going to administer tocolytics. They’re drugs designed especially to prevent premature labor. And I’ve just been told the emergency transport team administered an H-2 antagonist last night, which will also help.” He looked Kirrily West straight in the eye. “Thoughts, Doctor?”

CHAPTER TWO

KIRRI GULPED. THIS was exactly the sort of thing her brother would have ejected her from his operating theater for. Leaping before she looked.

She called it spontaneous innovation. He called it foolishness. Up until now she’d thought both of them were a little bit right.

How on earth had she not noticed that the patient was still awake?

Easy. She was running on adrenaline and showing off for the hot doctor. At least Dr. Ty Sawyer wasn’t there—the surgeon who ran the Piedmont Women and Baby Pavilion. That would have been unrecoverable.

Even so, she had to wonder if she could have made a worse first impression...

Probably not.

That’s what happened when she showed off like a teenaged girl, hoping her nerdiness would appeal to his nerdiness, and then maybe—if pigs began to fly—she and Captain Umbrella would live happily ever after...

Struth.

If she hadn’t been fully scrubbed up she would have thunked herself on the forehead.

Sheepishly she pushed the intercom again with her elbow. “Still all right if I join you?”

“Observation only,” came the crisp reply.

Fair enough.

She’d been too keen to please. Too eager to prove she was worth the investment. And she wasn’t just talking about the business class flight over. She was talking about being given access to one of the world’s premier research labs, an amazing park-side apartment in the center of Atlanta and six precious weeks away from her brother to give her project one final push before deciding whether or not to give up the ghost.

Fulfilling one dream to make up for the loss of another was the way she’d rolled for the past few years.

Her hands hovered above her flat belly, then dropped to her sides.

Right. Enough of all these feelings.

She dialed back her nerves and entered the operating room. Whoever this doctor was, he wasn’t impressed with her. And very likely he had the ear of Ty Sawyer, her benefactor. She had one shot to prove him wrong. Otherwise her packed bags would stay that way.

She stood to the side while Dr. Chocolate Eyes spoke with his patient for a while longer, assuring her that whilst nothing came with a one hundred percent guarantee he would do his best to offer her ninety-nine-point-nine percent. Next he spoke with the anesthetist, then the pair of them together. He was calm, encouraging, and a picture of capability. It took a lot to impress Kirri but she was impressed.

Soon enough he was ready to begin.

Hypo-plastic left heart syndrome was a critical congenital heart defect, and performing the surgery to the letter was the only option. If he didn’t fix it now, once the baby was born the left side of his heart would be unable to pump essential oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body.

“Where would you like me, Doctor...?”

Kirri scanned the small group. There were three women and three men there. All gowned up. Only one with eyes that made her heart skip a beat. She looked away from him and chose a chap with more gray hair than the others. Could he be Dr. Sawyer?

A nurse nodded at a spot directly across from Dr. Chocolate Eyes. “Dr. Sawyer likes his spare pair of hands here.”

Wait. What? Dr. Chocolate Eyes was Dr. Sawyer?

Oh, this was bad. The turn-around-and-jump-right-back-on-the-plane sort of bad. Why weren’t there any pictures of him on the website? Normally this type of surgeons—the so-good-they-were-famous type—had pictures of themselves all over their websites, their literature. How had she managed to pick a camera-shy guy?

She checked herself. A woman who jumped on a plane and went to the other side of the world at the first whiff of a chance to prove her brother wrong should probably research things a bit more thoroughly.

Not that she would’ve refused the trip even if she’d seen his photo. Plenty of too-good-to-be-true men walked through the doors of their clinic back in Oz. Usually with a gorgeous wife on his arm, seeking the opinion of the Baby Whisperer to get the beloved child she’d put on hold after opting to have her career instead.

Lucky them. Able to put it on hold rather than spend their entire life knowing it would never be an option.

Kirri squished the thoughts away. Worrying about who her brother could and couldn’t wave his magic fertility wand over wasn’t her remit today. Making a fresh start was.

So... Dr. Chocolate Eyes was her new boss.

Okay. Fine. Just because he made her tummy do all sorts of curious things that other deeply scrumptious men didn’t, did not mean she couldn’t get a grip and focus.

So she took in a deep breath, calmed herself, and watched as the magic of surgery began.

A few hours later she exhaled.

Watching Ty Sawyer at work was breathtaking. It was like having a special glimpse of one of the world’s best artists at work. Skill and finesse all wrapped into one incredibly talented package. No wonder people flocked to his clinic.

With little more than a microscopic glance in her direction, he’d left with his patient and gone to the recovery room. Now he’d returned, wearing a pair of fresh scrubs. Dark green. A nice contrast against his skin. He definitely looked as if he had a splash of Latin in him. It would explain the shiny black hair and thick dark lashes...

Barely meeting her eyes, he gestured that she should follow him.

Okay. She guessed they weren’t going to go through the ritual. How do you do? Nice to meet you. Sorry about earlier.

Well, he had given her an umbrella. Maybe if she gave it back the gesture would melt the frosty atmosphere keeping him two briskly timed paces ahead of her as they virtually race-walked down the corridor to a stairwell.

“How’re mum and baby?” she asked his back, then jogged a bit to catch up with him.

“Not too different from when you saw them last. As you saw, the surgery went well. The prognosis looks good. Her son will no doubt have more surgeries ahead of him when he’s older...but it’s a life saved for now.”

She let the words slide into place with the weight they deserved. Easy enough, considering everything he’d said had slipped down her spine like warm, buttery caramel. How was it that the Georgian accent wasn’t the world’s favorite? She was its newest number one fan. So long as it came out of a certain someone’s mouth.

A rather nice mouth, now that she could see it properly because he wasn’t wearing his surgical mask. It was full for a man’s mouth. Sensual, even. And tipped into a demi-frown that she could just imagine parting with her tongue—

Er...no, she couldn’t! She could imagine no such thing.

She forced her mind back to more neutral territory as they zipped down the stairwell and opened a door to another corridor. This floor was quieter than the surgical floor above, which had what she liked to think of as the quiet hum of healing. This floor was obviously for the researchers.

Her heart-rate accelerated as she jogged yet again to catch up with Ty Sawyer and an idea struck. “You wouldn’t happen to have the fetal echocardiogram, would you? The one they made the diagnosis from?”

He slowed his pace enough so that Kirri didn’t have to jog. “It’s on the system. Any reason why?”

She shrugged. “I geek out on that kind of stuff.”

She threw him a goofy look, then tossed caution to the wind. She’d already made a complete idiot out of herself in front of him, and would very likely be packed off back to Oz by the end of the day, so why not go the whole hog?

“I kind of have a collection.”

“Of echocardiograms?”

“Yeah.” She risked a bit of a brag. “The earliest HLHS I diagnosed was fifteen weeks.”

He gave a low whistle. “Early.”

She grinned. Couldn’t help it. She was the first to do it as far as she knew. Before that it had been sixteen weeks.

“I know. I think I was lucky. That or I have bionic ears. Anyway, I’ve got prenatal ultrasounds for pretty much every day of gestation and for all sorts of conditions. I thought it’d be interesting to have a look. Or rather a listen.”

“Fine. But first...”

Oh, here it comes. The ticking-off she deserved for stuffing her bloody foot in it back in surgery.

Ty stopped in front of a door, crossed his arms and went epically frowny. “In future, if you scrub in again—and that’s conditional—it’s important for you to recognize hierarchy. And that begins with me.”

Kirri barely contained an eye-roll. Typical male surgeon. Showing the little girl how things were done in the big boys’ world. Yeah, she’d messed up—but she did have a few strings to her own bow in the surgical department. Thank goodness she was going to be a lab rat for this six-week stretch. Hot or not, she couldn’t deal with being patronized in surgery.

“Right!” Ty clapped his hands, as if relieved the telling off was over, and gave her a quick once-over. The type a general might give a soldier before allowing him out onto the battlefield. “Allow me to show you our lab, Dr. West.”

“Crikey. Dr. West’s too formal for me!” Kirri laughed, but knew there was a bit of an edge to her narrowed eyes.

Ty had known in an instant he hadn’t needed to tell Kirrily West off. Something about the way her eyes had blazed when he’d made his ridiculous “hierarchy” speech told him she was the sort who’d be beating herself up about it for ages without him fanning the flames.

“Call me Kirri,” she said pointedly. “Not as awful as Kirrily. I’ve always thought it sounds a bit like a rash, doesn’t it?”

Hardly. More like the trill of a songbird, Ty thought, wishing like hell he hadn’t gone all speechy. It wasn’t his style. Nothing he was doing around this woman was his style.

“Right!” He clapped his hands again. Too loudly. “Let’s get you to work.”

Ty mentally kicked himself as he led her into the lab. Maybe he was the one who could do with keeping his mouth shut.

Watching Kirri introduce herself to the team in the research lab was like watching a peach tree break through the floor and blossom right in front of his eyes. Life where he hadn’t imagined it possible.

Not that Ty’s team weren’t amazing. They were. Their hard graft and scientific know-how were at the heart of many a so-called “medical miracle”. They were just...well, quiet.

“G’day.”

She held out her hand and beamed at one of the lab-coat-wearing researchers. Malachy. The older gent was unbelievably intelligent and incredibly shy.

She pumped his hand up and down. “Nice to meet you. I’m Kirri. It’s short for Kirrily, but Kirrily sounds a bit girly, doesn’t it?” She skimmed her hands along her scrubs, as if she were a tomboy rather than a stand-in for a nineteen-fifties pin-up. “Not exactly girly material, am I?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She just laughed and moved on to the next person as Malachy nodded and gave a dazed smile, clearly as awestruck as Jose before him, who’d reacted in pretty much the same way. Open-jawed. A bit overwhelmed. Not at all under the impression she was a tomboy. Nathan was busily cleaning his specs. Fogged up, most likely.

All sorts of uninvited feelings were careening round Ty’s chest as Kirri worked her way round the room, her blue eyes occasionally flicking back, a bit nervously, to meet his. Admiration. Excitement. Disappointment. That last one was just for him, though.

He didn’t like it that the one person in the room she was nervous of was him. Sure, she’d made a bit of a hash of things back in the OR, but it wasn’t anything that he hadn’t been able to fix. There’d been no need for him to go all icy and withdrawn. It definitely wasn’t in his nature to be so cool, and he already knew he’d be getting an earful from the surgical nurses about not making her feel more welcome.

Apart from when she was around him, she didn’t seem to have a shy bone in her body. She asked people who they were, what projects they were working on, begged permission to read all their papers so that she could be on the same page as everyone else.

If hurricanes were something you could wish for, and came in the form of a beautiful woman who could work a room like a successful ice salesman in Alaska, this was Hurricane Kirrily in action.

Little wonder he’d felt blindsided when she’d swept into his OR with all that vitality. She’d reminded him of how he’d once been. Bursting with enthusiasm. Keen to make not only a good impression but the best impression. Feeling the sting when he was put in his place.

She’d come here seeking what he had wanted when he and his co-founder had set up the Piedmont Women and Baby Pavilion: a place where imagining the impossible was encouraged.

He stuffed his hand through his short hair and gave the nape of his neck a rough scrub. He’d been wrong to be so curt. To tamp her very clear passion for medicine. It was either envy or attraction that had made him behave like an ass. Or both. Not an easy pill to swallow when there were six more weeks of it to come.

Ty glanced down the corridor toward the stairwell. He had a full roster of patients today, and as everyone was used to him sticking his nose to the grindstone and then haring off late afternoon to meet up with his number one girl, today would be no different.

Except it already was.

He’d handed his umbrella to a complete stranger because he’d felt something he thought he’d never feel again. Connection. There’d been something in Kirri’s eyes that had touched him. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but whatever it was it had felt like hope.

He looked out the window, beyond the leafy presence of Piedmont Park, and pictured his little girl swinging from the climbing frame or whooshing down the slide in her school playground. Tallulah. His six-year-old. Fearless, a powerhouse. She had a nickname, too. Lulu. Not that having nicknames meant anything. It was hardly a sign.

“You’ll know, sweetheart. It may take a while, but you’ll know. And for heaven’s sake do something about it when lightning strikes. Our sort of magic rarely comes along twice.”

His wife’s words hit him straight in the solar plexus. It was the first time in years he’d remembered her saying them at all. He’d played them over and over when she’d first passed away—mostly because the idea that he’d find someone else to love the way he’d loved her had seemed impossible—but, as time had gone on he’d come to believe that she’d been wrong.

He wouldn’t find love again. Not like that.

Gemma had been the love of his life. Cancer had taken her just short of five years ago, and the only love he experienced now was the fierce, protective love between a father and a daughter. And the love of his family, of course.

His four sisters and his parents had all but moved in with him after Gemma had died. Gradually they’d left him and Lulu to it, but they were still in and out of each other’s homes so often they might as well all live together.

Loving them was enough. More than enough. Had been for the past five years, anyway. He wasn’t experiencing a hurricane. Or a sea-change. Just a spring shower with an unexpected twist. Handing a rain-drenched woman an umbrella was hardly the beginning of a journey down the aisle.

“What do you think, Dr. Sawyer?”

Ty looked back into the room and realized half of the researchers in the lab—and, more to the point, Kirri—were staring at him.

“I beg your pardon. What was the question?”

Kirri gave an embarrassed laugh. “See? Didn’t I tell you I keep putting my foot in it with the poor man! And now here’s me throwing a spotlight on it.” She turned to him and explained. “I was telling everyone that I looked like a drowned rat when I met you and you were a real-life Prince Charming.”

She bit down on her lip. Hard. As if she hadn’t meant to describe the scenario in quite that way.

When he didn’t say anything she pressed on. “C’mon. Help me out, here. I’m really digging a hole for myself. You know...?” she prompted gently, a hint of warmth pinking up her cheeks. “With the umbrella? It was the icing on the cake.”

“What cake?” Now he was properly confused.

“Getting the offer to join your brain trust for the next six weeks!” She said it as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

Again he said nothing.

“Right! My chatterbox tendencies clearly need to be curbed.” She gave her hands a swift rub. “What do you say someone shows me some desk space so I can find some room for my womb?”

Ty took that as his cue to leave.

Kirri blinked at the empty spot that had been filled by Ty.

Um... Okay...

“Does he always do that?”

“What’s that, honey?” asked Gloria, a wonderfully warm African American woman with a slow drawl.

“Disappear.”

She had been hoping to apologize for being such a nincompoop in surgery before he left. And for the Prince Charming comment. At this rate she’d have a rather long list.

Gloria batted her hand at the empty doorframe. “Oh, don’t you worry about him, honey. He’s delighted to have you here—he’s just shy.”

“That’s one way to put it,” said one of the men in a white lab coat. Malachy, was it?

“He’s not shy—he was just distracted.”

Yet another piped up. “He probably got a page. The OR is booked all day today.”

Then the conversation took off in all sorts of directions until the entire population of the lab—about eight of them—were staring at the empty doorway in consternated silence. A silence only Gloria seemed brave enough to break.

“Mind you... I’ve never seen him like that.”

“Like what?” Kirri was enjoying this more than she should. But getting the low-down on her new boss was a whole jar full of awesome sauce from where she was standing.

“Tongue-tied,” said Malachy.

Gloria nodded in agreement.

“He isn’t exactly a Chatty Kathy at the best of times,” piped up another woman, Leigh, as she wheeled her chair over to a row of test tubes. “But it’s true. He’s normally not so...mute.” She shrugged, then tipped her head to a microscope. “Maybe he’s got a lot on his mind. It’s been a busy week. And next week’s even crazier, if what Stella was saying is anything to go by.”

“Who’s Stella?” Kirri asked.

“Surgical nurse,” they all answered.

“She was probably in there with you today,” one of them tacked on.

Kirri was about to quiz them about the surgeries Ty would be doing when Gloria patted the desk.

“Why don’t you put your bag down here and we can take you on a proper tour of the lab. We’re all real excited to hear more about your research. And, of course, show you our baby.”

Kirri grinned. “You mean the 3D printer?”

Gloria’s smile shot from ear to ear. “We didn’t think you’d flown round the world just to look into some Petri dish.”

Kirri felt an instant camaraderie with the group. Petri dishes had their place in the world of research...but 3D printers? They offered a gateway into modern medicine few things could.

She unshouldered her backpack, looked round the room and grinned. “I can’t believe I’m actually here.”

“Dr. Sawyer is a champion of innovative medicine,” said Nathan. “So, like you said, he’s a real knight in shining armor. For this kind of stuff anyway.”

He abruptly turned to his lab table and started scribbling down some notes.

Gloria shook her head and laughed. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to us all soon enough. C’mon, honey. Why don’t we go and get you a cup of coffee or tea or something? And then you can tell me all about this baby grow bag of yours.”

Kirri threw back her head and laughed. “That’s a brilliant way to describe it. Much better than womb on a chip.”

They walked and talked their way out of the lab to a small kitchen area, where some coffee was just being brewed.

“And this has nothing to do with artificial womb technology?” Gloria asked.

“No,” Kirri said solidly. “I’m sure you know as well as I do that elements of AWT are mired in all sorts of ethical and moral dilemmas that’ll take years, probably decades, to resolve. That’s why sticking with the purely biochemical elements of helping premature babies survive seems to be the fastest route to making an impact.”

Gloria gave her a sidelong look. “But you’re not expecting any sort of major breakthrough over the next few weeks, are you, sugar?”

“Oh, no!” Kirri lied. “I’m just here to spread my wings.”

And totally to have a breakthrough.

It was the only way she could garner some attention for her own rather primitive research lab and get some funding back in Oz.

“Good call,” Gloria said, pulling mugs down from the cupboard and pouring them both a cup of steaming coffee. “Dr. Sawyer is real supportive of that sort of approach. His specialty is, of course, surgery. But he’s a firm believer in investing in innovation.”

“Any particular reason why?”

Gloria looked at her as if she was crazy. “He’s Dr. Cutting Edge! He got that way by going out on his own. Taking huge risks not many doctors would take. He wants to help folk who can see a reality that other people can’t. There’s a line a mile long to work in this lab. You’re a lucky woman being eagle-eyed by Ty.”

Interesting... So Ty was a surgical maverick? Having watched him today, it was clear he was highly trained in classical surgical styles. So much so it made her itch to learn from him. See the fetal surgical world through his eyes.

Gloria handed her a mug. “So. Give me the elevator pitch for this grow bag of yours.”

“Well, first of all, I’m stealing that description.” Kirri grinned. “Let’s see... If it was a longish elevator ride, I suppose it’d go something like this: imagine a 3D printed womblike environment, hosted by a microfluidic cell culture chip that would ultimately serve as a replacement for an incubator.”

“Good...” Gloria nodded. “And how would you explain that to the layman?”

Kirri took a sip of hot coffee, thought for a moment, then said, “The baby grow bag will revolutionize survival rates in premature births and help expectant mothers’ health.”

Gloria gave her a satisfied nod. “I look forward to being a part of that.” She lifted her coffee mug to Kirri’s and toasted her. “Welcome aboard, Kirri. May your research be fruitful. And don’t you pay no mind to Dr. Sawyer. His head is always off and away somewhere. Unless he’s in surgery, of course. And then he’s your man.”

She gave Kirri a little wink, then set off back down the corridor as if she knew a secret she wasn’t yet ready to tell.

Her man.

The phrase knocked around her chest along with a strangely weighted sense of longing.

She’d had a man about six years ago. One she’d thought she’d spend the rest of her life with...right up until he’d dropped her like a hot potato.

He’d wanted children. She’d waited too long to tell him she would never be able to give him children of his own. When she finally had it had been as if he’d flicked a switch on his heart and turned glacially cold.

For the first and last time in her life she’d lowered herself to begging. Said she’d do anything to keep the relationship going. Adopt. Foster. IVF or a surrogate. But he’d lashed out and told her she’d never be fit to be a parent. Not with her compulsive need to be on a professional par with her brother.

He’d said it as if wanting to be the best was a bad thing! As if being on a par with Lucius was an impossible dream. It had been a cruel comment he had known would speak to the little girl in her who knew she’d never please her father.

She took a sip of scalding coffee and let the sensation burn away the all too familiar waves of emptiness as she headed back to the lab.

No point in worrying about it now. Her role in life was to help other women who could have babies. Women who could lead the life she’d always imagined having herself. And the only way she was going to do that and survive was by being at the top of her game.

CHAPTER THREE

THREE DAYS LATER and Kirri was finally opening her eyes at the right time in the morning. The scent of brewing coffee might have had something to do with that.

Coffee makers with a timer. Who knew?

Apart from utterly humiliating herself in front of Ty on day one, she was absolutely loving it here. There was a freedom in not being Lucius West’s kid sister that felt positively liberating. Everywhere she went, she was just a girl in the crowd. A chick in a lab coat. No one to prove anything to—except for one deeply gorgeous, dark-eyed doctor.

She had a lot to prove to Dr. Ty Sawyer. The man had invested quite a chunk of money in her. In her brain, anyway. Not that he’d exactly been hovering over her in the lab, or anything. She’d barely seen him since Prince Charming-gate. Then again, it had been the weekend. Some people actually had lives.

Some people had someone to go home to.

She shook the thought away and re-centered herself. She wasn’t here to flirt. She was here to work.

Speaking of which... She glanced at the bedside clock. Time to get up and get on the road.

She rolled up and out of bed. The beautiful condo the clinic had provided her with was an amazing place to call home for the next few weeks. All glass and steel—a bit like the Medical Innovations Center—the corner apartment offered stunning views of central Atlanta and beyond.

If they wanted the place to act as an advertisement for the sprawling southern city it was working. Beautiful sunrises and sunsets... The lush surroundings of Piedmont Park in the heart of Atlanta...

Not that she’d seen much of the city center yet. She’d spent the weekend making good on her promise to read up on all the lab’s projects. It was going to be a fascinating place to work. They were exploring every area of fetal development and beyond, and didn’t seem shy of confronting wide-ranging and complicated issues like neonatal abstinence syndrome, fathers’ stress in NICUs, oxygen physiology and just about everything else under the rainbow so long as it offered preterm neonates a better chance of survival.

She took a slug of hot coffee, stared out the window toward the clinic and gave a wistful sigh.

No doubt about it. She’d been hit by the “new crush” bucket. Ty Sawyer had certainly made an impact. Literally and figuratively.

What an absolute dill she’d been.

Room for my womb?

What had she been thinking?

Very little, obviously.

Weekend aside, she’d barely seen him since he’d fled the research lab.

Her more practical side told her it was time to shake off that particularly large chip on her shoulder. So what if he hadn’t sat down with her to go through her research? It had been three measly days. Not checking up on her showed faith. Belief that she could get on with it on her own. Pragmatism.

Or abject horror that he’d hired her in the first place.

Even so... If the roles had been reversed she was pretty sure she would’ve invited him to a barbie, or on a guided tour of Sydney’s finest offerings, or at the very least offered him a quick glass of beautiful Aussie wine to break the ice.

Maybe he doesn’t want to break the ice. Did you think of that, Kirri?

The scenes of their brief encounters replayed on a loop.

There’d been a flash of something when their eyes had first met. Connection. A crackle of response when their fingers had brushed as he’d handed her the umbrella. The flare of it had blazed again when she’d seen him from the scrub room. Lightning bugs had danced round her belly and she was sure she’d sensed the same in him. But she’d thought the same of her ex. Thought the connection she’d felt zinging between them had meant they could weather any storm.

She put down the coffee and took a slug of ice-cold smoothie.

Delusion juice.

Her brother called it that when she’d appear, bleary-eyed, after another long night in the lab, wielding a green smoothie to be chased up by a double hit of espresso.

“Hitting the delusion juice early, are we?”

Lucius had had a point. He’d had lots of points, actually. Despite the turn of phrase, she’d always known he wasn’t being snarky. He wanted her to focus on the job that she had. The one she was paid to do. Neonatal surgery. And she did focus on it. When she was doing it. The rest of the time it was all about holing up in the lab she’d crafted out of one of the old store cupboards, trying to tag team all the huge research centers that were also trying to create baby grow bags.

Or, in her brother’s words, letting her life pass her by.

Up until the moment she’d boarded the plane to Atlanta her day-to-day existence had pretty much been comprised of surgery to keep her brother happy, research to keep herself happy, and sleep because... Well, that part was obvious.

Eating had happened. The odd night out with colleagues had happened. Dates rarely happened. Which was another problem. Because she didn’t just want a child of her own. She wanted the whole nine yards. The doting husband. The cute little house. Nothing fancy. Just room for a barbecue and maybe an apple tree with a bench seat swing. A treehouse for the kids...

She conked her head on the breakfast bar and groaned. Her brother was right. She was on a full dose of delusion juice and showing few signs of recovery.

Creating a properly functioning artificial womb wasn’t just a pipe dream. It was a constant reminder of the one thing she didn’t have. A womb of her own.

She could joke, and wear tough-girl clothes, and maybe sometimes have one too many tequila shots, but the facts remained the same. Mother Nature had skipped over her when she was doling out baby-making equipment and it scraped her heart raw.

Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome was a rare condition. She’d been born with ovaries, eggs and female hormones, but no womb. No ability to get pregnant. And there was nothing she could do about it. She’d never have a child of her own. There were, of course, womb transplants now, at a handful of hospitals around the world, but at thirty-seven years old, and chronically single, she didn’t see the point.

Besides, the break-up with her ex had been so scarring she’d unwittingly begun to fulfill his prophesy. He was right. Her work life had rendered her completely unfit to be a mother.

The only counterbalance was knowing she was trying to help women who weren’t in her rather fetching knee-high boots. Women who could get pregnant but struggled to carry the pregnancy to term. Hence the need for a baby grow bag, to nurture extremely preterm fetuses.

If she could develop it, it would be the most advanced neonatal incubator in the world. Not to mention that it would take fetal survival to the next level. There were other advantages too. Surgery, for example. Much easier on mother and child because they wouldn’t be compromising the mother’s life. And, of course, access would be much easier.

But, as with so many of these things, there was a complicated web of medical ethics to navigate and research was still—ha!—at the incubating phase. She’d be old and gray and maybe dead before it ever actually happened, so perhaps her brother was right. It was time to give up the delusion juice and start hitting the truth serum. She was a gifted surgeon, and if she really wanted to help she should give more of that gift on a daily basis rather than devoting herself to a pipe dream.

As if her brother had been reading her mind, her phone buzzed with a video call from him. It had been five days since she’d left. Maybe this time he was checking to make sure she was alive rather than detailing the terms of her contract in full capital letters. A contract she was very much breaking by being here in Atlanta.

But dreams were worth breaking a few rules for, right? So she pressed “accept”, put on her cheekiest smile and grinned at her brother.

“Hey, Luci!” She always called him Luci when she wanted to make him grumpy.

“Hey, yourself, Maple Top.”

Hmm... He was using the term of endearment he’d coined years back, because Kirrily meant leaf. He only ever did it very occasionally. He must want something. She braced herself for a speech.

“How’s it going up there?”

Unusual... Chit-chat before laying into her. It was a tactic he’d never used before.

She played along. “Good. The facilities are amazing. Dr. Sawyer’s got quite the set-up.” She launched into a vivid description of the modern lab, the access she had to all the Piedmont research and how exciting it all was.

“More exciting than down here?”

Was that...? Wait a minute. Was her brother missing her?

“No, not at all...” she floundered. Because it was—a little bit. “It’s just different. New. Nice to get a fresh perspective on things.”

She could almost see the words arrowing straight to Sydney and crashing against her brother’s solid stance. He still thought that the only thing she’d gain from coming to Atlanta were some frequent flyer miles.

“Right, well...” He scrubbed his hand through his hair and shook his head. “Thanks for sorting out the roster. See you in a few weeks.”

Suddenly she missed her brother like she’d miss a limb. Sure, he was a pain, and they never had deep and heavies or hugged out their differences, but even if he wasn’t a cuddly-bear-style big brother he always had her back. This call was proof that, no matter how cross he was with her, he still did.

“Thanks for ringing. I’ll be sure and keep you up to date with everything here.” Kirri swallowed back the sharp sting of tears, trying to keep her smile bright. He was a good man, her brother. She really needed to push herself hard at the clinic. Prove to him that what she’d done had been worth the risk.

“You take good care, then.” He hung up the phone.

Kirri stared at her handset in disbelief. It was possibly one of the longest personal conversations they’d ever had. Usually just about everything they talked about at length involved the clinic.

Before she had a chance to think about it too much, her phone rang again. Kirri didn’t even bother looking at the number and answered playfully, “Well, hello again, stranger.”

“Kirri?”

Kirri’s cheeks flushed hot pink. What was Ty Sawyer doing on the end of her phone?

“Dr. Sawyer! Apologies. I was just speaking with my brother. Sorry. What can I do you for? For you?”

Stop! Talking!

Ty, unsurprisingly, sounded confused. “We’re a surgeon down today. Childcare issues. I was wondering if you might be up for a day in the OR rather than in the research lab?”

Was this an olive branch? Or desperation? Didn’t matter. She was going to pounce on the invitation like a hungry cat.

“Absolutely. What sort of surgeries are on the roster?”

He rattled off a few in-utero procedures she’d done before. Nothing wild, but operating on a baby still inside its mother always made life interesting.

“Are you sure you’re up for it?” Ty asked.

Hmm... Make microscopic advances in her research or spend all day making magical medicine with Dr. Chocolate Eyes?

“Of course. Definitely. Can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”

Especially if it got her in Ty’s good books again. Even his normal books would be good. Whatever those were.

Ty Sawyer was still very much an enigma to her. And he might stay that way if she didn’t start behaving like someone who didn’t go all fluttery and googly-eyed whenever she was in his presence.

“Any particular time?”

“Whenever you can get here.”

“Consider it done.”

Kirri flew in and out of the shower, tugged on a lime-green A-line skirt and a T-shirt bedecked with a unicorn jumping over a rainbow and was out the door in a matter of minutes.

Once scrubbed up and in a surgical gown, she felt more grounded. The OR was her “can-do” zone. A place where she felt comfortable. Confident.

But hitting the right note was critical. A day showing the team what she was really made of would set her up perfectly for the next six weeks of research. And perhaps the next six weeks of Ty Sawyer.

Ty had to admit it. He was impressed. Three surgeries down and Kirri seemed indefatigable. She was a precision surgeon. Gifted, even. She approached repairing the most delicate components of a tiny infant’s body as naturally as she might approach breathing. She was also excellent with anxious parents. Both the mothers who had to go into surgery and the parents who had to watch their infant children being wheeled down the hall on a gurney. He found those moments tough. Especially as a father himself.

Amanda had been right to push him into asking her to join them in the OR today. Just as well, considering he hadn’t exactly given Kirri a warm welcome. Before he’d met her, he’d planned on inviting the visiting doctor to dinner with his family over the weekend. Taking her and Lulu on a cycle tour of the sprawling Piedmont Park. Pointing out the best places for that essential morning cup of coffee.

In short, he’d planned on pushing himself out of his normal mode—recluse—in an effort to get to know the woman behind one of the most exciting medical innovations he’d seen.

And then he’d met her.

The lack of a specialized surgeon this morning had backed him into a corner. Get over himself or cancel the surgeries. He hated leaving patients hanging, so he’d relented and called Kirri, convinced she’d barely make it through one surgery, let alone three. But working with her was like working with an extra set of his own hands. Pure synchronicity.

They often had visiting specialists, and there was always some new little technique to pick up, or a different instrument to try. Sure, surgery was meant to be textbook—but someone had to write those textbooks and Kirri was definitely in that league. Beyond it really. She was the definition of “in a league of her own”.

“So who’s next?”

Kirri pushed through the OR doors with a fresh surgical gown billowing behind her, looking like a pop star about to dazzle thousands of fans. She was doing that, all right. Even if those fans were an OR full of nurses, anesthetists and surgical students. And, Ty had to admit, one single dad who had been figuring out the best way to tactically avoid her for the next six weeks.

Ty ran her through the case. A six-month-old little girl, Meredith, who had gastro-esophageal reflux. The poor little thing wasn’t getting all her nutrients and, more importantly, was in danger of breathing food or drink into her windpipe, which would irritate her lungs or cause infections.

They’d be performing a fundoplication. If things went as smoothly as they had in previous surgeries, the non-invasive procedure should have the little one right as rain in a matter of weeks.

It had been Amanda’s idea to call Kirri when Ty’s senior partner Mark Latham had called in, unable to come to work. His wife was out on the West Coast, doing some corporate lawyer thing, and one of his little girls was sick. When Amanda had suggested they call Kirri, rather than reschedule all the patients, Ty had balked.

Amanda had pressed. Said it was in the interest of their patients. They all knew that was the easiest way to get him to agree to anything.

It turned out Ty had had absolutely nothing to worry about. Kirri was every bit as knowledgeable, patient, willing to learn and talented at teaching her own deft surgical techniques as her reputation had suggested. She was so relaxed as she conducted the extremely delicate neonatal surgeries that she was even able to chit-chat.

She’d already won over the surgical nurses with her compliments about the facilities, their work ethic, their exactingness and, of course, their scrubs. They had fun scrubs here at the Piedmont Women and Baby Pavilion. Every color of the rainbow and each splashy print singular to the state of Georgia.

“And what do the green scrubs represent? That’s the anterior retraction of the left lateral segment of the liver set. Could I get a Babcock clamp, please?” Kirri held out her hand for the device.

The nurse who handed it to her—Stella—answered for the team. “Oh, those are for the state amphibian.”

Kirri’s eyes flicked up to meet Ty’s, and he saw a twinkle of amusement evident, even through her surgical glasses.

“The state amphibian?” she said dryly.

“The green tree frog,” Stella explained, without a drop of humor. She took more pride in her home state than most. There wasn’t a ball game with the letter G involved that she wasn’t cheering for.

“Love it.”

Kirri prepared the second incision. A three-millimeter cut that would disappear just a few weeks after surgery, if all went well.

“So, what are the other state emblems?” Quick eye-flick to Ty. “Suction, please. I’m just about to prepare the second five-millimeter port.”

She did it swiftly and efficiently as Stella rattled through Georgia’s other state emblems.

“The state bird is the Brown Thrasher. The fish is the Southern Appalachian Brook Trout.” She listed a few more. The fruit—peach, obviously—the state flower, the state gem, the state insect... “And our state crop is the peanut, of course.”

Kirri laughed. “The peanut?”

“Oh, yes,” Stella assured her. “There’s even a state monument. Isn’t there, Dr. Sawyer?”

Ty threw Stella a look that he hoped communicated the following: Would you please stop trying to draw me into this conversation? I know what you’re doing.

The nurses—Stella in particular—were on a mission to set him up with near enough every single female who walked through the clinic’s doors. All those over twenty-five years old, anyway. Had been for the past year. It was as if they’d all decided that four years was long enough to mourn his wife’s passing and it was time for him to pull up his socks and get on with the business of loving again.

As if it were that easy.

“Peanuts...” Kirri gave a happy little sigh. “I’ve definitely been through my fair share of those. Right, then! Here’s the five-millimeter trocar—done. Are you ready to put in the neonatal gastroscope, Doctor?”

Ty nodded, his eyes once again connecting with Kirri’s. There was something joyfully infectious about her energy. It was like that yellow brick road to Oz. Alluring, but frightening as well. The great unknown. Loving the same woman from the age of sixteen made the idea of falling for someone new little less than terrifying.

He had his routine. No need to veer from it now, when Hurricane Kirri was going to be back off to Australia in a handful of weeks.

“The next thing you’ll be telling me is that there’s a state-sanctioned barbecue,” Kirri said, and laughed as she lowered her surgical goggles into place.

Everyone gasped. “But there is!”

Conversation erupted around the pair of them—Ty and Kirri—about whether dry rub was better or sauced barbecue. Beef or pork. And, of course, the more complicated question of what side orders to choose. Colorful language burst into play when someone said they were considering going vegetarian and were looking for the perfect way to grill an eggplant.

Kirri merrily worked away through the lively debate, with Ty serving as her second set of eyes and hands. And then someone mentioned Chuck’s Charcoal Heaven.

Uh-oh. Ty knew where this was heading. He didn’t hire the smartest nurses in the country for nothing, but sometimes... Sometimes they got the better of him.

“You go there every Tuesday, don’t you, Dr. Sawyer? To Chuck’s?”

Ty barely held back his Oh, no, you don’t. Stella could sound as innocent as a child when she wanted to. Like a child asking if they were possibly maybe going to be passing an ice cream store when she knew damn straight that they were.

“They have some lovely barbecue at Chuck’s,” Stella pressed, clearly intent on making good her self-proclaimed role as his personal cupid. A role he truly wished she would relinquish. If he wanted to go on a date, he’d go on a date.

The unspoken lie gave him a sharp twist of discomfort.

“You’ll know when you’re ready, darlin’...”

He tipped his head toward Kirri and said. “Perhaps we should give Dr. West a bit more quiet space to conduct her surgery? I doubt the finer points of dry rub or sauce are of interest to her right now.”

“Oh, no. Don’t stop. It helps me relax.”

One glance and it was easy to see she was smiling. Ty knew quite a few surgeons who liked music while they operated. He was a fan of country, himself, but it had been his wife’s favorite as well, so for the past five years he’d operated in silence. Detailing Georgia’s finest delights as if the entire surgical team were moonlighting for the tourist board was a new one for him.

Curiosity got the better of him. He had to ask. “Talking about barbecued meat relaxes you?”

“Not necessarily that topic, per se, but...” Her eyes flicked up to meet his. “This is going to sound ridiculous, but I like the sound of your voice. Your accent maybe. It’s comforting.”

Her gaze lingered on his eyes for a moment, then went straight back to the surgical screen as if she’d told him she preferred a harmonic scalpel over conventional knot-tying for the finer points of surgery.

Was it time? Time to let go of that protective shield of hurt and loss he’d wrapped himself in when Gemma died?

He heard himself ask, “Do you like barbecue?”

Nice work, Romeo.

Stella threw him an encouraging glance and tacked on a go ahead nod. Get on with it, her eyes were saying. We’ve got your back.

“I love it—but you’ve got some tough competition.”

“Where?” Stella gasped. “You better not say Texas.”

“I think you’ll find barbies are a national pastime in Australia,” Kirri replied.

“You should take her to Chuck’s, Dr. S,” Stella said, oh, so casually, her eyes fastidiously glued on the screen, where Kirri was delicately wrapping the upper part of the baby’s stomach around the base of her esophagus.

Oh, boy. And here it was. The awkward moment when he did or didn’t ask Kirri out.

There’d be hell to pay in the debrief room if he didn’t. And a strange new set of emotions to resist if he did.

He liked her. And not just professionally. But he had a little girl to think about. One who’d been asking about other little girls’ mommies and what he thought it might be like having a mommy of her own.

He looked across at Kirri. Those blue eyes of hers met his as if she sensed he was trying to work out whether or not she was worthy of barbecue.

It was a much bigger choice than she’d ever know. Brave some barbecue or stay mired in a routine he knew needed changing one day. But...was this the day? Was this the woman he would change it for?

Kirri knew a plea for help when she saw one. Ty needed rescuing. She could see it in his eyes. Those shiny, espresso-rich eyes of his were virtually pleading with her to help him. The poor man was clearly being pushed into a set-up. It had happened to her enough times to know one when she saw one.

No matter how scrumptious she thought he was, first and foremost he was her lifeline to those all-important medical breakthroughs she needed to make. And as such she needed to tilt her lance. Or whatever it was knightesses in shining armor did when they were trying to do good. Turn and run away?

She cleared her throat pointedly. “Don’t you worry about me. I can look after myself.” She expertly tied off the final internal stitch. “All done. You can remove the camera now, Doctor.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Finished?”

She tipped her head toward the screen, where one freshly sutured esophageal passage was on view. “Finished.”

“That was fast.” Ty began slowly to extract the camera as another member of the surgical team moved into Kirri’s place to close up the small incisions.

“It was done to the letter,” she said.

“I didn’t say otherwise. I was merely commenting on how expedient you are.”

“But not at the expense of the patient’s welfare.”

Ty’s eyes hit hers with a flash of light. “I would expect nothing less. Not in my OR, anyway.”

Kirri chewed her lip. It was the only way to bite back the snarky comment she would happily have flung at her brother if he’d said that.

Why are your hackles up? Because he doesn’t want to date you? You don’t want to date him. Or do you? Do you? OMG you do.

Quit having a conversation with yourself and let the man run his OR the way he wants. Get out of your surgical scrubs, get into the lab, make a medical breakthrough then go home and get on with things.

“Would you like to join me for some barbecue tonight?”

Kirri’s eyes snapped back to his.

Say something, idiot!

“Um...”

Nice one.

“It’s very casual. Beyond informal, in fact. And it wouldn’t be just the two of us.”

Everything that had been tingling around her nervous system dulled.

Ah. Of course he had a girlfriend. Maybe a wife? She hadn’t seen a ring on his finger. Then again...he was a surgeon. Most of the male surgeons she knew didn’t bother with rings, what with all the scrubbing up.

“My daughter and I go every Tuesday,” Ty said into the yawning silence that was now consuming the operating room.

“Oh!” Kirri flinched at the high pitch of her voice, then managed to squeak, “You have a daughter?”

The knife plunged into her heart.

He had a daughter.

Ty Sawyer knew the precious love between parent and child that she would never know.

She knew it shouldn’t hurt. Not anymore. It was as if the pain was built in now. A low-grade ache, reminding her of the relationship she’d lost because of a glitch in her genetics.

“Tallulah.”

There was no missing the love in Ty’s voice.

“Atlanta’s biggest devotee to barbecue.”

Ty stepped back from the operating table as the rest of the team silently moved in. Their attention was on the patient, obviously—but it was patently obvious that their ears were glued to the interchange between Ty and Kirri. So much so it felt as if they were bearing witness to a miracle. And it wasn’t the miracle of modern-day medicine.

“If you’re happy to leave from here, I tend to go straight from work. Six o’clock suit?”

She glanced up at the clock. It was almost three. Enough time to develop a case of the sniffles?

“Perfect.”

It wasn’t. She didn’t want to go out with Ty and his daughter. She was always super-awkward with kids, too bright. She always ended up feeling like a freakish maiden auntie—which she’d also never be because her brother looked about as ready to have babies as her body was. Not at all. Which was weird, considering he adored them, but whatever...

Without so much as a tip about what one wore for “casual barbecue” Ty left the room.

Well, she thought as the rest of the surgical team threw each other a combination of winks and wide-eyed glances, like it or not—it looks like I have a date.

Ty tried to focus on the images on his computer screen and couldn’t.

After the unbelievably awkward end-of-surgery “Would you like to join me for some barbecue?” incident, Kirri had fled to the research lab and Ty had holed up in his office with imaginary paperwork. Imaginary because he was finding it difficult to focus.

What on earth had he been thinking? Inviting her to eat barbecue with Lulu? A little girl who might easily think he was bringing along a candidate for stepmother. She’d never outright asked him if she’d ever have a new mommy, but he wasn’t blind to the way she looked at the mothers at school events. Little girls were built of hopes and dreams. Hopes and dreams he hadn’t let himself consider, let alone actualize.

He gave his scalp a short sharp scrub, willing some common sense to fall in. Maybe he could tech talk with her all night. That would put Lulu off the scent of what his body was telling him. He was attracted to Kirri. An attraction that was more than skin-deep.

A couple of hours later—strangely close to six o’clock—Stella tapped on his office door.

“Why, Dr. Sawyer, as I live and breathe. I couldn’t find you anywhere. I thought you might’ve pulled a sickie.”

He gave her a wry smile. She knew him well. He far preferred practicing medicine to sitting in his office doing paperwork. It was definitely the last place on anyone’s list to look for him. Even so—a sickie?

“You know as well as I do that my mother would consider that awfully bad manners. I suppose your mama would too, Stella.”

“That she would.” Stella leant against the doorframe and smiled. She clearly wasn’t through with him yet. “Well, aren’t you just full of surprises? Asking our good Dr. West out to join you tonight.”

Ty laughed and threw a sideways get you look at his cheekiest employee. Not only did she merrily cross the employee-friend line every chance she got, she was also a damn fine pediatric nurse. Being ribbed every now and again was worth each precious minute she treated his high-needs pediatric patients.

The way he saw it, for every life saved they put a bit more light back in the world. Light he needed as much as the next person. Because the day his wife had died near enough all the light had gone with her. And without his little girl... Well, that wasn’t a world worth thinking about.

Stella smiled at him, fluffed her afro, then relaxed into an attitude he knew all too well: An I told you I was right all along face, quickly followed by a gloating smile.

He tapped his pen on his desk. “Isn’t it funny how you just happened to mention barbecue and my nights out? All on a Tuesday, no less.”

“Oh, it wasn’t me who brought up barbecue. It was Kirri.”

“Oh.” He gave the back of his neck a rub. Had it been? “That’s strange.”

“Very,” said Stella, a contented smile playing on her lips as she handed him a form to sign. “Some might take it as a sign.”

Yeah, right. He handed the paper back and she gave him a new one. She had a stack of them and was taking her time.

“I just helped put two and two together, is all.”

“If that’s what you want to call it, Stella.”

“It is.” She smiled and made another exchange of papers. “What’re you going to wear?”

He looked down at his cotton plaid shirt and khakis. “Dad gear”, as his sisters relentlessly mocked. He bought it all online. Easier than actually going shopping.

“Been a while since you dusted off your glad rags, isn’t it?”

“For barbecue?” He huffed out a laugh. “I’ll wear what I’m wearing, Stella. No need to go black tie.”

“Suit yourself.”

Stella started humming. This was one of her favorite pastimes. Putting a mirror up to Ty’s non-existent social life. She was always “casually” pointing out some lovely single woman she happened to know who was joining a group for tailgating at a ball game, or picnicking in the park—doing anything apart from work, to be honest. She said she wasn’t pushing—just putting the invitation out there in case something better didn’t come along.

Something better always did. Being with his daughter. She trumped everything. Especially his non-existent dating life.

Stella gave him a once-over and started clicking her tongue.

“What? I don’t look that bad, do I?” He looked down at his clothes. Plain old khakis and a dull-colored dad shirt that probably could’ve done with a run-in with the iron.

Oh, Lord. He cared.

“Oh, wipe that look off your face, Ty. You look fine. I’m just surprised it took you this long to show Kirri some proper hospitality. What with you being a proper Southern gent, and all.”

Stella’s smile was pure innocence, but he knew what she was saying. You were being rude because you find her pretty.

“I was planning on doing it. I just thought if I was going to show her Atlanta properly she might like something a bit more...” He sought the right word. Was there a word?

“Fancy? Classy?” Stella filled in, then instantly dismissed them. “No, sir. Kirri strikes me as a woman who’d be happy wherever, whenever. You just put Lulu in charge, pop a bib on her and have at it. She’ll love it. She’ll love you.”

Oh, God. He hoped not.

He glanced across at his computer’s screensaver. It was a photo of him pushing Lulu on a baby swing. She was young. Six months old. Laughing and smiling...at her mother.

It was the last time Gemma had felt well enough to join them at the playground.

He swallowed down the bile. Cancer was so cruel. So was widowhood. Five years and counting and he simply hadn’t found the knack for it. Didn’t know if he ever would. His daughter’s sheer joy in life demanded that he live in the present, but there was a huge part of his heart still lodged on that awful day in the oncologist’s office.

“Stage Four cervical cancer. Fairly advanced. It’s up to you, of course, but we would advise delaying treatment until the baby is delivered, if you’d like to carry the pregnancy to term. But bear in mind doing so could affect your chances of survival.”

They’d only just found out she was pregnant. Gemma had never had a chance of long-term survival. She’d chosen their daughter’s life over her own.

She’d pushed through her pregnancy, and then nearly one more year—but that had been sheer force of will and probably a bit of blind luck. She’d wanted to see her baby and she had done so.

Saying goodbye after she’d fought so hard to bring life into the world—the life they’d created—had been the most painful thing Ty had ever experienced. He wasn’t even sure he’d finished saying goodbye, if he were being truly honest. It seemed too final.

He knew some people plastered their homes and workplaces with photos of their deceased spouse. Talked about them all the time. Laughed when they recounted stories of the “good old days”. He wasn’t up to it. There were pictures in his daughter’s room, of course, but none in his. Or elsewhere. Hanging up Gemma’s photo would feel like turning her into a shrine.

He knew she wasn’t coming back, but he still hadn’t figured out the best way to own his deep-seeded love for her and still get on with life. So, while he pushed everything else in his life forward, his personal life circled endlessly in the same listless holding pattern.

“Are you going to take her to the bowling alley as well?” Stella handed him another paper to sign.

“If she’s up for it. As you well know, Lulu and I will be going regardless.”

His Tuesday nights with Lulu were sacred. Well. Not that sacred. They often had people join them for the triumvirate of barbecue, biscuits and bowling. Family. Aunts, uncles—any number of the fleets of cousins that kept her from feeling like the only child she was. Plenty of folk from the office had come along one time or another too. Never once, though, had he brought a date.

She’s isn’t a date. She’s a colleague.

He thought of the way his body reacted when he was around Kirri. Like one magnet to another.

Stella fanned herself with the rest of the papers and gave him an approving nod.

“What? Why are you looking at me that way?” he asked.

“I’m just proud of you, is all.”

“Proud? For what?”

“Putting yourself out there.”

He snorted. “I’m taking an employee for some barbecue and biscuits.” He gave her back the signed papers. “And that’s happening mostly because you backed me into a corner.”

Stella shook her head, perched herself on the edge of his desk and leant in. “Uh-uh. I didn’t back you nowhere. You wanted this.”

“You’ll know...”

Stella wasn’t done yet. “Now, Ty, forgive me for butting in where I know you don’t want people sticking their noses—but somebody’s got to do it and I’ve given myself the job. I know your heart was broke real bad all those years ago...”

His jaw tightened. Yes, it had been. Smashed into a million tiny pieces, if anyone wanted to know.

Stella put her hand on her heart. “I didn’t know your wife as well as you did, obviously, but I knew her well enough to assure you that the one thing your Gemma would’ve hated would be to see you alone for the rest of your life.”

She tutted at him before he could interrupt.

“You are always encouraging people to change. Take risks. Push harder. Dig deeper. Travel...try something new! The only person I don’t see doing that in his own life is you.”

She held up a hand.

“I’m not talking about work. We all know you’re light years ahead of everyone else on that front. I’m talking about here.” She tapped her heart. “I know you’ve got your daughter, and your family are amazing, but I’ve seen the way you look at her. At Kirri.”

She stood up and put her hands out in a Stop, I’m not done yet position.

“She’s here for six weeks. Have a trial run. That’s all I’m saying. No one’s asking you to fall in love or elope to the Caribbean, or anything. We just want you to have some fun.”

Fun?

Wait a minute...

“We?”

Stella nodded. “All of us. We love you, whether you like it or not, and just like your family we want to see you happy. If a fling with a sexy brainiac from Down Under brings some light back into those eyes of yours I say go for it.”

She left before he could say anything.

She needn’t have bothered. He was completely and utterly dumbstruck. Have an affair? Just because? Merely thinking about holding another woman in his arms felt like betraying his wife’s memory.

That familiar resolve set in. Nope. Wasn’t going to happen. They’d have their barbecue, maybe bowl a few pins and that would be that. In fact he’d do better than that. He’d call in reinforcements. No way was this going to be a date, let alone the start of an affair.

From tomorrow morning it would be work only. End of story.

CHAPTER FOUR

KIRRI FELT LIKE she was being frog-marched to her date. Ty was barreling along with that same crisp take-no-prisoners walk he’d used on their first day after she’d gaffed in the OR. She’d thought today’s series of successful surgeries had put them in better stead, but apparently not. It appeared all this so-called Southern hospitality didn’t extend as far as the parking lot.

“This is us.”

Ty pointed at a comfortable-looking SUV in a rather daring shade of orange. Definitely not the color she would have picked for him.

He caught her funny look and explained. “My daughter picked the color. She said it reminded her of Pippi Longstocking’s hair.” He gave a what can you do? shrug.

It was a micro insight into a man who clearly liked to keep his private life just that. Private.

His eyes lingered for a moment on the car, as if he were seeing it anew, and the hint of a smile appeared. Against her better judgement, a little part of her melted. But she had a very strict rule: Do not find adorable things fathers say about their daughters adorable.

The idea of falling in love with a single dad—if he even was single—was... Oof! It would be inserting herself into a permanent reminder that she would never be enough. Then add on the fact she’d never live up to the ex—because no matter how awful she’d been, she’d produced a child. And, as her own ex’s extremely quick marriage to a woman she would never have imagined him marrying, and subsequent rapid-fire arrival of three children proved, love was conditional.

So, no, thank you very much Mr. Hot-Maybe-Single-Maybe-Divorced-Dad. You carry on being all cantankerous and edgy. Suits me to a T.

They climbed into the car. Ty maneuvered it out of the parking spot, out of the subterranean carpark and out into the golden early-evening sun.

Her eyes drifted toward his hands on the steering wheel. Still no ring. No divot, even. So definitely not married. Dating or divorced it was, then!

Ty pulled the car onto the freeway with a comment about Chuck’s Charcoal Heaven being twenty-odd minutes down the road before clicking on the radio. Excellent. Small talk was out. Less chance of her putting her foot in it.

It was a kids’ channel. There was a song on about a penguin going for a swim with a dolphin. She couldn’t help it. She cackled.

Ty shot her a look. Either he hadn’t been listening or this was his playlist.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend. Is this one of your favorites?”

He frowned at the radio, then that soft smile hit again. “My daughter’s.”

Kirri laughed, then spoke without thinking. “Your daughter seems to wield a lot of power in your household. What else is she in charge of?”

Ty’s grip on the wheel had tightened along with his jaw.

The look she received this time was barbed. It delivered a message she knew all too well. The back off, you’re not her parent look.

She’d clearly overstepped. A blunt reminder of why she avoided lusting after men who had children.

Frustratingly, she felt the sting of tears tease at the back of her throat. Nothing like being put in her place by a kid she’d never met.

The over-familiar lash of self-flagellation whipped into play. Why had she made that stupid comment? It wasn’t Ty’s fault she couldn’t have children. Parents were meant to be protective. It wasn’t her place to comment on how he and his child did things. Not her place at all.

She forced herself into a more useful line of thinking. She should be asking all the usual questions. What’s her name? How old is she? Is her mom meeting us there or are you single and free for a bit of a snog later?

She axed that last one with a bit of a smirk, but felt her heart sink all the same. Not only did she struggle speaking to parents about their offspring, she really struggled making chit-chat with their children. Babies were cool. Before two they couldn’t really talk. And over eighteen they were much more difficult to imagine giving birth to. Everything in between: #itscomplicated.

Ty moved his hand to the radio to change the channel, then obviously had a change of heart and switched it off entirely.

After a moment’s exceedingly awkward silence he gave her a quick glance. “Apologies. I barely notice the music. I tend to let Lulu pick the things she cares about, and I pick the things I care about, and as such my life doesn’t often look the way it should for a thirty-nine-year-old man.”

She snorted. “There’s a look that goes with being thirty-nine? I wish someone had told me that earlier. I’ve only got two years to figure out what it is!”

His lips twitched into a smile. “Perhaps not, but I suspect it wouldn’t involve ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ on a loop. Or bright orange cars.”

“Oh, I don’t know...” Kirri felt herself warming to the subject. “I’m sure the powers that be would happily make an entire line of orange vehicles because of the fleets of children who adore Pippi Longstocking. As a sort of redhead, you can count me amongst the converted.”

She was a Pippi aficionado, so could happily discuss her for hours should the need arise.

“Noted,” said Ty, and nodded, that smile of his still playing on his lips.

Mercy, he was sexy when he wasn’t frowning, and even then...

“You’ll have to forgive me, Kirri. I shouldn’t have been short with you. It’s not the way I normally treat new colleagues when I take them out for barbecue.”

She gasped in fake horror. “You take all the new kids in town out for barbecue? And here I was thinking I was special.”

His eyes flicked to hers, the gold glints flaring as they connected, then he turned back to the road. Uh-oh. She’d possibly gone a bit OTT on the buddy-buddy thing.

He finally spoke. “Only the extra-talented ones who get caught in the rain.”

A warm swirl of relief and something else a whole lot saucier twirled through her. He thought she was talented. She knew she was talented, but to hear it from Ty felt special. He didn’t strike her as a doling out compliments kind of guy. She gave a silent cheer whilst trying her very best to keep her grin contained.

“Why don’t you pick a channel?” Ty turned the radio on again.

“You go ahead. Your car. Your tunes.”

“No, honestly...”

Ty’s voice was laced with that dry humor she was beginning to get used to.

“If Stella hasn’t told you already, she will no doubt volunteer the information that I have a tendency to get stuck in my ways.”

He gave his jaw a scrub, as if considering whether or not to plump for a bit of spontaneity. He gave a solid nod. Decided.

“Why don’t you liven things up? Pick something you’d listen to in your car.”

Now she felt stupid. If he had a girlfriend surely she wouldn’t choose kids’ radio? Not if she wanted to get a ring on her finger, she wouldn’t. But if she was sure of anything about Ty it was that if you wanted him you got a package deal. Any man who bought a bright orange car and listened to penguin songs was a devoted daddy.

She thought of the possibly imaginary girlfriend doing Lulu’s hair. Helping her into her jim-jams at night. Reading her a chapter or two of Pippi before turning out the light with a kiss and a murmured, “Sweet dreams.” Then she forced herself to stop.

Could loving someone else’s child feel the same as loving one of her own?

She looked at Ty’s striking profile. He was all strong-jawed, five o’clock shadowed and cheekbone-tastic. His hair was too short to give her the completely insane excuse to brush some of it away from his eyes, but it was tempting.

Who was she kidding? Everything about Ty Sawyer was tempting. She was already wondering about loving a child she’d never met, for heaven’s sake!

She turned to look out the window and fuzzed her lips. Falling for him was utterly ridiculous. A pipe dream. Up until now her love life had pretty much consisted of just that. Pipe dreams and delusion juice.

Love had been conditional in her family. Entirely merit-based. Behave impeccably. Be the captain of the team. Be the best in your class. It was all she knew. Work and work and prove her worth and still the cuddles from her mother were nothing to look forward to. They were of the weird patting variety that made her feel as if her mother was only doing it because she’d read about it in a manual. And hugs from her father...? Non-existent.

“Go on. Pick a channel, Kirri.”

Kirri snapped out of her fug and scanned along the digital options until she landed on a pop music channel.

Ty arched an eyebrow but kept his eyes on the road. “Is this what you listen to back home?”

“It’s my guilty pleasure.” She sang a few bars, did a couple of silly hand-moves, then sat back in the seat and hummed along until the song ended and another began.

Once again silence fell between them, but this time it felt more...alive. Electric, even. The kind of electricity that hummed between two people who were attracted to each other. A turbo-charged frustration.

Half of her wanted to scream, Pull over now, jump him and make crazy spontaneous love. The other half wanted to shout at him for being so damn quiet.

Shouldn’t he be giving her helpful cues about working at Piedmont? Or, more pressingly, about his daughter? Little pointers about what she was like. Things she liked to talk about. Favorite unicorn. Stuffed toy. Whether or not he was single and why he wasn’t spelling out what the arrangements were with his daughter’s mom. That sort of thing.

But, no. Just the odd glance that sent her belly into lava lamp mode.

After a few more songs he put on the indicator and left the freeway. “We’re just a couple of minutes away now.”

“How is your daughter getting there?”

“Oh, my sisters are bringing her. Or my parents. I can’t remember. One of them.”

Kirri gave a double-take. “You invited your family?”

Hilarious. She’d heard of inviting wingmen along, or at least arranging to get a tactically timed phone call ten minutes in, or in her case faking a page—but inviting his whole family along? That was a new one on her. Then again, perhaps it was genius. Adult buffers right there on site if she went all mealy-mouthed on herself and couldn’t talk.

“My parents and my two older sisters will be there. The two younger ones are busy.”

“One boy growing up with four sisters? It’s a wonder your car isn’t pink.”

He shot her a glance. “Don’t you dare say something like that in front of them.”

She gave him a try me face.

“Honestly. There is nothing they will not try once a seed is planted. You’ll see.”

A few minutes later she did.

Ty’s family were absolutely wonderful. His parents and his older sisters were indeed there. No girlfriend, fiancée or “family friend”. And then there was Lulu. Six years old, the spit of her father and absolutely charming. Lulu Sawyer was officially the first child between two and eighteen to bust Kirri’s I-can’t-talk-to-you record.

She had a thousand questions about Australia and then some.

“And it’s like summer at Christmas?”

“It isn’t just like summer—it is summer!”

“So...” Her little button nose crinkled adorably. “What do you eat after you open your presents?”

Her family weren’t much for celebrations, so they usually went to a restaurant—“to give your mother a day off in the kitchen.” Her father was simply made of largesse.

She squelched the truth and told Lulu about what other, normal people did. “We have exactly what you have. Turkey and all the trimmings. Others have barbecue. Seafood, usually.”

“It sounds amazing. Papa, do you think we should go one day?” Lulu beamed up at him and batted her lashes.

Ah. Now she knew why their car was orange.

Ty gave a vague nod, then suddenly became intent on plucking everyone a napkin out of the silver holder.

Half an hour later Kirri was seeing sides of Ty she wouldn’t have believed existed. One of America’s most innovative surgeons by day, adoring father and much loved son by night. She felt like she was in a sitcom. The really good kind that you wished would never ever end.

The Sawyers were the type of bonkers family she had always dreamed about being a part of. Everyone talked over each other, laughed with each other and very clearly loved one another, despite their different personalities.

Ty was dipping in and out of his role as the strong, silent type, as well as laughing and joking along with his family. But whenever his gaze crept her way it was with all-penetrating looks she was finding harder and harder to read.

She would have thought the sparky hits of connection they’d experienced in the car would disappear once Ty’s family absorbed them into the huge booth at Chuck’s, but no. They just got sparkier.

“Pass the butter, please.”

Zing!

“Would you mind handing the hot sauce over?”

Fizz.

Frisson-laced reminders of that very first time they’d literally crossed paths. Fireworks went off each time their eyes met. Scary, exciting and utterly captivating. He didn’t even have to look at her for her tummy to go all flip-floppy with pleasure.

She glanced over and caught Lulu beaming up at him. She bumped the tip of her index finger against his nose in a gesture that clearly meant I love you, Papa.

And from the soft smile he unleashed when he tousled her dark hair and gave her a little half-squeeze Kirri instinctively knew it was his way of saying I love you, too, Lulu. With all my heart.

It was the type of bond nothing and no one could ever break. It was the type of love she ached for.

Kirri looked away and focused on Ty’s parents—Marina and Henry. They were having a spirited conversation about a local baseball team. In their early seventies, she couldn’t imagine a more charming couple. Gracious, fun-loving and completely relaxed. They were, in short, the complete opposite of her own parents.

Before she could stop herself she blurted, “Thank you so much for including me on your night out. This is my first proper Southern meal since I’ve arrived.”

Ty’s mother’s hands flew to her chest as she gasped. “Well, that’s just terrible. Henry? Did you hear that? This poor girl’s been here all weekend and not had a proper meal.” She clucked and wagged her finger at her son. “Ty, you shoulda told us you had a special guest. We would’ve made a proper fuss over her.”

“She’s not spe—”

Kirri bit back a pained grin as Ty all but stuffed his actual foot into his mouth.

“Ty!” His mother swatted at him. “Manners!”

His sisters tsked and his father threw him a questioning look.

They all knew where that sentence had been going.

She’s not special.

It was a sentiment that shot her straight back to the way her father had made her feel as he’d goaded Lucius on to higher and higher academic success. Sidelined. Unworthy. Hungry for approval she knew she’d never get. Little wonder, considering her father was straight out of the nineteen-fifties Distant Father Handbook. Sexist, not entirely politically correct, and utterly driven to make her brother a “proper man” by tearing him down bit by bit and then sitting back to watch as Lucius gathered the pieces and tried to put himself together again.

“And here’s the first of it, Dr. Sawyer.”

A server appeared, a big smile on his face, his arms weighted with two platters laden with unctuous looking ribs.

Saved by the barbecue!

The Sawyer family applauded their approval as the server slipped an enormous slab of ribs on the table. Everyone except for Ty. He was still beating himself up about that stupid comment.

She’s not special.

Of course Kirri was special. Talented, inquisitive, fun-loving and utterly beautiful, to name just a few reasons.

Special enough to take a risk with his heart?

He grabbed a rib and let the flavor explosion drown out that particular line of thinking. He was happy as he was. Forward-thinking, groundbreaking surgeon at work—steady, reliable, chino-wearing dad the rest of the time. It was Stella’s fault for planting that ridiculous seed about having an affair. He checked that thought, too. It wasn’t Stella’s fault. It was his for giving it air.

“Sure that’s enough for you, honey? You’re our guest and we want to make sure you feel real special.”

Ty’s sister Patsy sent him a pointed look as she reached for one of the ribs herself. She was the eldest of his two older sisters, both as warm and welcoming as the next. He’d stupidly been hoping they would do what they normally did whenever they met a single woman—talk about all of the men they could set her up with. But, no. They just kept talking about how fabulous Ty was when he wasn’t sticking his foot in it. As if they were in some sort of conspiracy with Stella.

Did everyone want him to start dating? Or did everyone want him to date Kirri?

“This is amazing,” Kirri said, a bit of sauce trickling down her wrist. “I don’t know if I’ll ever have enough.”

At just that moment she stuck out her tongue to lick the sauce off. Her eyes met Ty’s and the statement took on a whole new meaning. Hope, fear, wonder and a thousand more emotions were reflected back at him. What shone through most brightly was that neither of them was on familiar territory and that both of them were feeling the same thing: curiosity...

An energy charge shot straight down to his bootstraps. Stella was right. His sisters were right. It was time to take a risk, because for the first time since Gemma had died the person was right.

Kirri was completely different from Gemma, but he didn’t need to see a grief counsellor to know that searching for the same type of woman to replace his dearly departed wife would only end in tears. How could a man replace his childhood sweetheart? He couldn’t. But perhaps he could find it in his heart to love someone completely new. Someone like Kirri.

For the next six weeks, anyway.

Kirri blinked and all the questions in those blue eyes of hers were replaced with a light, bright smile.

Perhaps a fun fling was exactly what the doctor ordered. What was the worst that could happen? She’d say no, they’d get on with their jobs and then she’d go back to Australia? Fine. Then he could slip back into the status quo and go on for another five years without anyone pushing him to leave his comfort zone.

Mind you, if his sisters didn’t stop discussing what a heathen he was, the possibility of an actual date might not be an option. He looked across as Kirri’s grin widened and his sisters batted comments back and forth.

“Who raised you? A wolf?”

“Don’t insult Mama. It’s Ty who’s the heathen.”

“Kirri is a treasure. He’s been downright rude, not introducing her to us till now.”

“I bet it wasn’t even his idea. Was Stella the one who knocked some sense into you?”

“I’ll bet it was Winny and Reba.”

He knew protesting would only add fuel to the fire. Growing up with four sisters had taught him as much.

Kirri was openly laughing now. “Winny and Reba? Who are they?” She took another piece of corn on the cob from the diminishing pile.

“They’re Ty’s younger sisters,” Ty’s father explained for him, seeing as his mouth was full of food. “They’re at the local park, watching a couple of our grandkids’ baseball games along with their own children. How about you and your family? Is it as big and boisterous as ours?”

Shards of something Ty couldn’t put his finger on lanced through Kirri’s eyes.

“Nope! It’s just me and my brother. We’re so busy with work I imagine we’d be pretty terrible at the whole traditional family thing.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Henry said. “One glimpse into the eyes of your own child and it’s instant love. That kind of love runs deep.”

“I’m sure it must.”

Kirri flashed another one of those quick smiles of hers that didn’t quite light up her eyes, then began to rearrange the food on her plate, nodding and listening politely as his father went on to detail all the aunts and uncles who were also involved in the children’s lives. And cousins. There were scores of them.

For heaven’s sake... Why were they unfurling the family tree? It was obvious the woman didn’t have a big family like theirs. And the more his parents went on about it, the more Ty felt as if they were rubbing salt into a raw wound.

Before he had a chance to cut in, his sister Tammy asked, “Is the family you do have as nuts as ours?”

“We definitely don’t have traditions like this,” Kirri said, her voice a bit too bright, her smile slightly frozen. She gave her head a little shake, then swiftly changed the subject. “Did you not have a baseball game today, Lulu?”

His daughter shook her head and beamed up at Ty. “No, ma’am. I never let anything get in the way of barbecue and bowling night.”

Ty smiled and gave her a squeeze. He dreaded the day that would change. But, as he’d seen with his older sisters’ children, change was inevitable. His little firecracker would discover sport, drama club or—God forbid—boys. There would come a day when she went off to college. Led a life of her own. Then he really would be on his own.

“The barbecue is definitely worth leaving the office for,” Kirri said, clearly more at ease now they were off the topic of happy families. “But I’ve never been bowling, so be gentle on me.”

His mother jumped in. “Well, thank goodness my boy’s finally learnt some manners and got you out of that stuffy condo of yours.”

Ty shot Kirri a quick apologetic grimace. She gave him a soft smile in return. And if ever there was a way of saying you’re forgiven that smile was it. Pure gold dust.

His mother was on a roll. “If we’d known you were here over the weekend we would’ve had you over for roast chicken or pie. Fattened you up.” She gave Kirri a quick once-over and clicked her tongue. “Don’t they feed you right over there in Australia? So willowy!” She said it with a splash of good-humored envy rather than as a chastisement.

Kirri laughed. “They do,” she said, then admitted, “But this is probably the first full meal I’ve had in months.” She held up her hands before everyone could pile in and chastise her. “Back home I work late most nights, so it means I’m not that great a cook.”

“What about your mama? Didn’t she teach you the basics?”

Kirri’s eyes flicked to Ty’s. Before her smile and laughter took over he saw what no one else did. His suspicions were right. She hadn’t had a happy childhood. And, no. No one had taught her the basics.

“I get by. Nothing a frozen burrito and a microwave can’t fix.”

“Oh, well, that won’t do.” Marina Sawyer fixed her steely dark eyes on Ty. “Son? You’re to bring this young woman over next time you release her from that clinic of yours and we will have a cooking lesson. Several, if there’s time. One every weekend.”

She wasn’t giving Ty a choice. He shook his head and grinned. If Kirri didn’t watch herself his parents would be signing adoption papers by the time her tenure was over. Which wouldn’t exactly jive with the whole why not have a fling with her? idea—but he was still on the fence about that one, so...

“Very well, then,” Marina said decisively. “I recommend we start with peach pie this Saturday. That way we can have it Sunday after church, when Kirri joins us for family lunch.”

Ty didn’t bother to protest. Not so much because there wasn’t any point but because he loved seeing the spark of joy light up in Kirri’s eyes.

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