Expecting the Doctor's Baby Read online

  Her lips compressed for a moment before she asked, “Are you familiar with the hospital’s three-strikes policy?”

  “You mean the one where it’s three strikes and you’re out? As in don’t let the door hit you in the backside when you leave the building?”

  She nodded. “That would be the one, yes.”

  “I’m familiar with it.”

  “Are you aware that you’re halfway out that door and it’s just about to…” Her gaze lowered and if his back was turned, he knew what part of his anatomy she’d be looking at. Her cheeks flushed pink. “Hit you in the hiney.”

  The blush made his view even better. This was starting to be less a waste of time and more fun by the minute. “Why, Ms. Ryan—Sam—I’m shocked and appalled. Is hiney official consulting terminology?”

  “You’re the doctor, Doctor. Is it the anatomically correct term for ‘if you don’t start taking this seriously your ass is grass’?”

  He laughed. “Touché.”

  “The thing is you have two strikes. But you’re in a class by yourself because you have two strikes in two different categories—patient complaints and employee complaints.” She removed her glasses and met his gaze. “You already know that because your signature is on the paperwork, a clear indication that you’ve been apprised of the deep doo-doo you’re in.”

  “Tough talk, Sam.”

  She shrugged. “It seems the only way to get your attention.”

  “You’ve got it.” And how. She was beautiful and smart, a dynamite combination. “Now that you’ve got me what are you going to do with me?”

  “Save your job.”

  “As goals go, it’s a good one,” he agreed.

  “You remember me from the hospital,” she reminded him. “It was my job to observe you.”

  “I see.”

  “The little boy who almost drowned? I’d like to talk about how you handled his caregiver.”

  His hands, resting flat on his thighs, curled into fists. “You mean the teenager who was so high his kid brother nearly died?”

  “Unless you had results of a drug test, that was a guess on your part.”

  “Educated guess.” He’d seen more than his share in the E.R. And he’d found his own brother high so many times recognizing drugged-out was second nature to him.

  “Still, you didn’t know for sure.”

  Yeah, he did. But this wasn’t a hill he planned to die on. “What’s your point?”

  “The E.R. waiting room was full of people. Very public. Do you think that discussion would have been better conducted in private?”

  Was she kidding? He’d just put a tube down a two-year-old’s throat and hooked him up to a ventilator to breathe for him. Then he stood by while they checked electrical activity in his brain to see whether or not he’d be a vegetable for the rest of his life. In this case he wouldn’t be, no thanks to the brother. Did he think? Hell, no. He’d reacted.

  “I was updating the family on the patient’s condition.”

  Her right eyebrow rose. “Is it possible that you were venting frustration? Perhaps less diplomatic than you could have been? Might you have been better off waiting for the police? And the boy’s mother?”

  Again with the questions designed to make him see the light. She might catch on quick, but she was still new at the game. He’d been doing it a lot longer.

  “So, did you have a good time in the E.R.?” he asked.

  “I tried to stay out of the way,” she hedged. “I didn’t want to be noticeable.”

  “Then you failed miserably. You’re pretty hard to miss, Sam.”

  “You’re saying I didn’t blend?”

  “Not even a little. The nurses were talking.”

  “Really?”

  Her way of asking what they said. “On a scale of one to ten, they said you’re a fifteen.”

  Actually, that was his scale, his assessment. His secret.

  “Thank you.”

  He shrugged. “Just stating the obvious.”

  “No. You’re changing the subject.”

  “Trying.” He leaned back in his chair. “Nothing succeeds like the truth. And it worked for a minute there.”

  She referred to her notes. “Back on task—”

  “Speaking of that. What are you doing for dinner tonight?”

  When she met his gaze, her expression was wry. “I was planning to eat.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like company?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Very.” She shuffled the papers. “Now, as I was saying. After the trauma—”

  She was kind of a pit bull. A pretty one. He was telling the truth about that scale thing. But apparently she wasn’t going to let him distract her. “What about it?”

  “First it should be acknowledged that there was a positive outcome.”

  “Yeah. The kid’s alive, no thanks to his brother.” Every time he thought about what could have happened he wanted to put his fist through a wall. That kid was a baby and should never have had to go through something like that. No matter how young when it occurred, trauma changed a person. He should know. Trauma was his middle name, and not just because it was his job.

  “Life is about as positive as it gets,” he said.

  “And it’s thanks to you.”

  “And a lot of other people,” he said.

  “Absolutely. Thank you for bringing that up. Saving lives is a cooperative effort.”

  He’d given her the segue and she ran with it. Really smart girl. This was where she gave him the pitch for harmony equals effectiveness in a group situation. He had news for her.

  “Have you ever been in a life-and-death situation, Sam?”

  “Everyone struggles with issues—”

  “Don’t give me that touchy/feely crap. I’m talking about bleeding out, last breath, heart’s got one beat left kind of trauma. Have you ever seen that?”

  “No.” She shifted in her chair.

  “Then don’t tell me that ‘please and thank you’ get the job done. It’s messy in the trenches. You study, go through the training until gut instinct takes over and reaction is automatic. After that you keep your head up and focus. Sometimes even all of that’s not enough.”

  She swallowed. “You cheat death.”

  “Every damn day. Every chance I get.” He couldn’t believe she got it.

  “But you’re here to talk about what happens when the trauma’s over,” she reminded him.

  “You wait for the next one. You hold your breath for the next person who comes in because of something stupid. The car accident involving multiple vehicles because someone was text messaging. Or changing the radio. Spilled hot coffee—” He stopped, clenching his jaw. “Then the shift is over.”

  “I can see there’s a lot of room for discussion. But speaking of over…” She looked at her watch. “Time’s up, doctor—Mitch.”

  “It flies when you’re having fun.”

  And he had. Mostly. Which was the surprise of the century. In his experience good surprises were few and far between. “So when can we do this again?”

  “Stop at the front desk on your way out to make an appointment. Darlyn should be back in the office in a day or so. You can schedule your next meeting with her.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  She leaned forward and folded her hands on her desk. “You don’t have a choice, Mitch. It’s either executive coaching or administrative leave followed by door hitting hiney.”

  “So there is a choice.”

  “Have it your way.”

  “I usually do,” he said.

  She looked at him and her eyes widened as if she was on his wavelength. “In the unlikely event you’re implying what I think you are, I need to make my position clear. Now that we’ve talked one on one, I’m absolutely certain that we wouldn’t be a good professional fit.”

  He stood and rested a hip on the desk
, satisfaction settling in when she leaned backward in the chair. It was a subtle movement, but definitely away from him without actually running for the hills.

  “I couldn’t disagree more, Sam. It’s my professional opinion as a doctor, but more importantly as a man, that you and I would be an exceptionally good fit. I think I should have some say in who my coach is.”

  “That decision has already been made.”

  “Not by me.” He had a pretty good idea what she saw in his face and didn’t care. “You’re the one I want.”

  Chapter Two

  “What did you do wrong, Samantha?”

  Sam fidgeted from one spiked heel to the other as she stood in front of her father’s desk. She’d been summoned to his office at Mercy Medical Center to defend herself. It didn’t matter that she was a grown woman, she felt like that motherless six-year-old again.

  “I promise you I did nothing to undermine the relationship, Dad.”

  Unless she’d violated some unwritten Arnold Ryan moral code because she wasn’t woman enough to make her fiancé want her more than that woman she’d caught him boinking. Unlike Mitch Tenney, who had said out loud and with great determination and conviction that he did want her.

  The memory sent a shiver of lust skidding through her, which was worse than stupid because he’d meant he wanted her to be his relationship coach. And he only said that because he thought she was an inexperienced pushover who would give him credit for the time without making him do any of the work. Because he was too close to the mark for comfort, she’d stubborned up and refused his request. He hadn’t been a happy client when he’d left her office yesterday.

  Her father cleared his throat. Loudly. “Samantha? Are you paying attention to me?”

  Sam started. “Of course, Dad.”

  Arnold Ryan was the hospital’s administrator and chief executive officer. In his late fifties, he was still strikingly handsome, tall and fit, with ice-blue eyes and silver-streaked black hair. The man who’d run out on her mother before Sam was old enough to remember had never been more than a sperm donor. The one sitting behind his desk in the office where he managed the largest hospital corporation in Las Vegas was the only father she’d ever known. She was still trying her best to make him proud of her. That’s why she’d come running on her lunch hour.

  “I had to find out from Jax that the two of you are no longer engaged to be married. And haven’t been for several weeks.”

  Subtext: once again she’d messed up. It was too much to hope she could avoid this scene. How to put a positive spin on procrastinating. “You’re involved with union negotiations, Dad, and I didn’t want to distract you. I was waiting for the right time.”

  “When a decision is bad, there is no right time. He’s an up-and-comer in the hospital corporation. You could do worse. What is the problem, Samantha? Why did you break off the engagement?”

  How did she phrase this to avoid telling him that Jax Warner, the man her father had enthusiastically endorsed, was not the man of her dreams? “It was a mutual, amicable decision,” she said.

  “That tells me absolutely nothing.” Her father rested his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers as he nailed her with a look.

  She plucked nonexistent lint from her navy blue skirt, then tugged the hem of the matching jacket to smooth the line. Since he’d handpicked the man, there was no way she’d tell him the whole truth. Somehow he would twist it around and make it her fault.

  What she needed was a distraction, something positive to take his mind off the broken engagement. “I can tell you that my company snagged the hospital’s employee counseling contract.”

  He glanced up and irony mixed with disdain in his expression. “I had nothing to do with that decision.”

  “Of course not,” she protested. “That’s not what I was implying. The triumph is all the sweeter because Marshall Management Consultants obtained it entirely on merit.”

  “I was against designating any funds for something so frivolous, but the director of human resources felt it was important to salvage employees in a personnel-scarce market.”

  “It’s a good decision, Dad. We can help—”

  “Oh?” One jet-black eyebrow rose as a sardonic expression suffused his face. “Face it, Samantha. You couldn’t save your engagement. It’s time you got a real job.” He pointed at her. “Or, better yet, do a better job. Be a relationship coach. Apologize for whatever you did to Jax. I’m certain he’ll forgive you and the wedding will be back on.”

  Shoots and scores, Sam thought. Sometimes she forgot that lectures were best endured silently. Any attempt at conversation simply tacked on an opportunity for him to make her feel more inadequate. Thirty minutes later, after her father reminded her again of the time he would pick her up for the hospital’s fund-raiser on Saturday at Caesar’s Palace, she left the office.

  “There should be an expectation of fidelity in an engagement,” she muttered, marching down the hall in a haze of anger. “What am I, thirteen? He should not quit his day job to be a matchmaker. Dr. Phil couldn’t salvage that jerk—”

  “Sam—”

  Some part of her brain registered the familiar, deep voice, but a larger part was still focused on her hostility. “How is this my fault? What is this? The Middle Ages—”

  “Hey, Sunshine. Who rained on your parade?”

  She stopped and turned. Mitch Tenney stood just behind her in the hall, leaning a shoulder against the wall, arms folded over an impressively broad chest. Stubble darkened his jaw in the sexiest possible way and the spark of humor in his eyes enhanced the effect. Not to mention that he certainly knew how to fill out a pair of blue scrubs. How could that be? They were shapeless cotton with a drawstring in the pants—glorified pajamas—but he made them look good. The sight of Mercy Medical’s resident troublemaker sent a jolt through her like she’d never felt from Jax the jerk.

  “Mitch. What are you doing here?”

  “I work here.”

  She smacked her forehead. “Right. The pajamas were a clue.”

  “Pajamas?” One corner of his mouth curved up.

  “I meant scrubs.” If only the earth would open and swallow her whole.

  “What’s your excuse?” he asked. “For being here, I mean.”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Okay. But a word to the wise. If you’re not careful, trash-talking in the hall will get you sent to the principal’s office for detention.”

  If he was one of the bad boys she’d get to hang out with it would be worth the risk. As opposed to the unacceptable risk of counseling him. Her reaction just now was proof that her female instincts were firing on all cylinders. She was far too attracted, which cancelled out her objectivity, making it impossible for her to work with him.

  “Thanks for the advice. See you around.” She started to walk away.

  “Wait.”

  She sighed and turned back. “What?”

  “Have lunch with me.” He cocked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m on my way to the doctors’ dining room.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Have you already eaten?”

  She’d eaten crow in her father’s office, but that’s not what he meant. “I’ll grab a bite on the way back to the office.”

  “I’m buying,” he offered.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but doctors don’t pay. Hence the name, doctors’ dining room. Free food is a perk. I don’t belong.”

  She settled the strap of her purse more securely on her shoulder, wincing at how pathetic that sounded. But he knew nothing about her and had no reason to paint her words with the pity brush.

  “I can get you in. If you’re with me no one will question you.” He angled his head in that direction. “The food is pretty good.”

  “It doesn’t feel right—” For so many reasons, not the least of which was professional.

  “Haven’t you ever wanted to throw caution to the wind and break the rules
?”

  Not until now, she thought. “It never works for a girl like me. We always get caught.”

  “Live dangerously.”

  Just standing here this close to him felt dangerous. Sam didn’t want to think about the fallout of sharing a meal with him. “Mitch, I really don’t think I should—”

  He held up his hand. “Before you finish that statement, you should know that I don’t take no for an answer.”

  Was he talking about lunch? Or her refusal to be his counselor? Because if that was what he meant, he was doomed to disappointment.

  “Sometimes we don’t have a choice,” she said.

  “Maybe. But now isn’t one of those times. Have lunch with me, Sam.” He grinned, then took her arm and guided her down the hall. “Another happy by-product of being with me is that no one can accuse you of talking to yourself.”

  He really didn’t take no for an answer, she thought, letting him lead her into the dining room. The smell of food assaulted her and made her stomach growl. She’d entered the inner sanctum.

  “So this is where they feed the medical gods,” she said.

  “Pretty impressive, huh?”

  She looked around at groupings of tables covered with white cloths, matching napkins and tweed chairs scattered throughout the room. There was a steam table for hot food and a cold one filled with greens, fruits and creamy-based salads. Waiters in white jackets delivered drinks to several people, then cleared used plates.

  Sam glanced up at him. “I’ve been to the cafeteria and we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore.”

  “Stick with me, Sunshine. I’ll take you to all the good places.”

  Following Mitch’s example she picked up a tray, plate and utensils then chose small portions of seafood, salad, fruit and a sugar cookie for dessert. On second thought, she picked up another one because she needed the comfort food after seeing her father. The room was still nearly empty but Mitch headed for a quiet spot in the far corner and she followed him.

  After settling, the waiter walked over and took their drink orders—coffee for him, iced tea for her. When the liquids were delivered, they ate in silence for a few moments. Because of a deeply ingrained personal aversion to long silences, Sam felt the need to fill this one.