Carrying the Single Dad's Baby Read online

  ‘I need you to be super-brave for me, Iain,’ she said. ‘Do you like chocolate?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘OK. I can fix what’s wrong, but it means I have to touch your poorly arm and it’ll hurt for about three seconds. After that, it’ll stop hurting,’ she said. ‘I made some really special chocolate brownies you might like, so you can have one afterwards. I just need you to be brave for three seconds, that’s all. Can you do that for me?’

  Iain sobbed, ‘I want my dad.’

  ‘And he’s running across the field towards you right now. He’ll be here really soon. But I really need to slip that bone back into place for you,’ she said. ‘Close your eyes and sing me a song, Iain.’

  ‘I don’t know any songs,’ he wailed, clearly too scared to be able to think.

  ‘I bet you know “The Wheels on the Bus”,’ she said. ‘I’ll help you sing it. And I want you to sing it really, really loudly. Can you do that?’

  He nodded, his face wet with tears.

  She started singing, and the little boy closed his eyes and began to sing along with her, very loudly and very out of tune. The perfect distraction, she hoped. One quick movement and she’d manipulated his arm to put the bone back into place.

  Iain was halfway through yelling when he clearly realised that his arm had stopped hurting.

  ‘Oh. It doesn’t hurt any more,’ he said. ‘You fixed me!’

  ‘I did,’ she said with a smile.

  * * *

  Daniel arrived just as Iain flung his arms around Beatrice and hugged her. ‘Thank you, Bee!’

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  ‘He fell over and dislocated his elbow. I’ve just manipulated it back, but we need to check his pulses and his range of movement.’ Just in case there was a problem and Iain needed an X-ray, Daniel knew.

  His own heart was racing madly with fear for his child, but she’d been calm and sorted out the problem without any fuss. He’d do the same. It was what he’d trained all these years for: to be calm when there was an accident or an emergency.

  ‘Iain, can you move your arms for me and copy what I do?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye, Dad.’

  He checked Iain’s pulses, which were fine, then talked Iain through a range of movements. The little boy copied every movement without flinching or stopping as if he was in pain. Everything seemed completely normal.

  ‘I hardly need to tell you what happens next,’ Beatrice said.

  ‘Pain relief if he needs it, put him in a sling for the rest of today to support his elbow, and if he stiffens up and doesn’t use his arm tomorrow take him in for an X-ray.’

  She spread her hands. ‘Textbook perfect, Dr Capaldi.’

  ‘Thank you for looking after him,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what I’m here for. That,’ she said, ‘and chocolate brownies. I haven’t forgotten what I promised you, Iain.’

  ‘My dad doesn’t like chocolate. We never have chocolate brownies,’ Iain said.

  ‘Then your dad can go and finish playing football while you sit and eat brownies with me,’ she said.

  ‘I...’ Daniel looked at her, wanting to be with his son but not wanting to let the rest of the team down, either.

  Beatrice shooed him back to the field. ‘He’ll be fine with me.’ And then she gave him the sassiest smile he’d ever seen, one that made him want to grab her and kiss her. Not good.

  ‘Trust me—I’m a doctor,’ she said.

  It was the cheesiest line in the book. But he’d seen her at work and he’d heard others praising her, saying that she always put the patient first. And Iain seemed to like her. He gave her a speaking look, but headed back to the field. He played for another ten minutes, and then to his relief he was substituted by one of the nurses.

  When he went back over to where the spectators were, Iain was chatting animatedly to Beatrice. And Beatrice had used the scarf from her hair to fashion into a sling.

  ‘Dad! You’re back!’

  ‘That’s my playing over for today,’ he said. ‘Thank you for looking after Iain. I’ll take over now.’

  ‘My pleasure. We’ve had a nice time, haven’t we, Iain?’ she asked.

  ‘She made me a special sling,’ Iain said. ‘Look.’

  ‘Very nice,’ Daniel said. ‘I’ll wash it when we get home and get it back to you on Monday at work. And now we must let Ms Lindford get on, Iain.’

  The little boy frowned. ‘But I like talking to Bee.’

  ‘She’s busy.’

  Out of Iain’s view, she shook her head.

  She wasn’t undermining him as a parent—he appreciated the fact she’d disagreed with him without actually saying so in front of his son—but the idea of spending time with her was dangerous. Right now Beatrice’s hair was loose, she was wearing denims cut off at the knee, a strappy top and canvas shoes; and she looked more approachable than she did at work in tailored trousers and a white coat. The way she looked right now, he could just imagine walking hand in hand with her in the sunshine and kissing her under a tree.

  He didn’t want to walk hand in hand with anyone in the sunshine or kiss them under a tree, and that included Beatrice Lindford, he told himself sharply.

  ‘Five more minutes, Dad?’ Iain pleaded. ‘Please.’

  Again, out of Iain’s view, she nodded.

  Iain’s brown eyes were huge and pleading. How could he resist? ‘All right. Five more minutes.’

  ‘Bee makes the best chocolate brownies in the world,’ Iain said. ‘Even you would like them, Dad.’

  ‘I made flapjacks as well.’ She gave him a cheeky grin. ‘And don’t tell me that you don’t like oats. You’re a Scot.’

  ‘Aye, he is.’ Iain was all puffed up with pride. ‘And so am I.’

  ‘Peas in a pod, you two.’

  But Daniel could see she was laughing with them, not at them.

  ‘Can I have some flapjacks, too, Bee?’ Iain asked.

  ‘That’s your dad’s call, not mine,’ she said, lifting her hands in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘Yes,’ Daniel said. ‘Though there’s a word missing, Iain Capaldi.’

  ‘Please,’ Iain said.

  Daniel ended up trying a flapjack himself, and it surprised him. ‘That’s actually better than my grandmother’s—and don’t you dare tell your great-gran I said that, Iain,’ he added swiftly.

  ‘My great-granny makes the best ice cream in the world,’ Iain said. ‘Do you like ice cream, Bee?’

  ‘I do,’ Beatrice said with a smile, completely charmed by the way he pronounced his Rs.

  ‘You should come to Glasgow and try my great-granny’s special ice cream. It’s fab.’

  ‘Maybe sometime,’ Beatrice said.

  Iain chattered away to her, and Daniel couldn’t help watching them. Iain was usually shy with strangers, so it was unusual for him to be so talkative. Maybe it was because Beatrice had reduced his dislocated elbow and stopped him being in such pain. Or maybe he was responding to her gentleness.

  Against his better judgement, he was starting to like Beatrice Lindford. Too much for his own peace of mind. She was the first woman since Jenny he’d even thought about holding hands with, let alone anything else. Which made her dangerous.

  Iain didn’t stop talking about her all the way home, either.

  ‘She looks like a princess,’ he said. ‘She’s got real golden hair.’

  Hair that Daniel couldn’t get out of his head, now he’d seen it loose.

  ‘And it’s long.’

  Yeah. Daniel had noticed.

  ‘Like the princess in the story Miss Shields told us in class. The one in the tower. Her hair was so long she could make it into a ladder. Ra...’ He paused, his forehead wrinkled in a frown as he tried to remember the princess’s name.

  ‘R
apunzel,’ Daniel supplied.

  ‘Aye. And she talks like the Queen, all posh.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I like her. Do you like her, Dad?’

  Awkward question. ‘I work with her,’ Daniel prevaricated.

  ‘She’s nice. Can she come for tea tonight?’

  ‘No, Iain. She’s busy.’

  But his son wasn’t to be put off. ‘Next week, then?’

  ‘She might be busy.’

  ‘Ask her,’ Iain said. ‘Go on, Dad. Ask her. Please.’

  ‘Do you want to go and get pizza?’ Daniel asked, hoping to distract his son with a treat.

  It worked. Until bedtime, when Iain started on about princesses again. ‘Do you think Bee’s married to a prince?’

  Daniel had no idea, but maybe if Iain thought Beatrice was married he’d drop the subject. ‘Probably.’

  ‘Then why didn’t the prince come to play football today?’

  Daniel loved his son dearly, but the constant questions could be exhausting. ‘Maybe he can’t play football.’

  ‘Oh.’ Iain paused. ‘If she’s a princess, do you think she knows the Queen?’

  ‘I don’t know, Iain.’

  ‘Mum likes Prince Harry.’

  Daniel tamped down his irritation. ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you think Bee knows Prince Harry?’

  ‘I think,’ Daniel said gently, ‘it’s time for one more story and then sleep.’

  He just hoped his son wouldn’t say anything about Beatrice next weekend, when Iain was due to stay with his mother. The last thing he wanted was Jenny quizzing him about whether he was dating again. He knew she still felt guilty about what had happened between them, and that if he started seeing someone it would make her feel better, but he really didn’t want to date anyone. He wanted to concentrate on bringing Iain up and being the best dad he could be.

  On Sunday, Iain seemed to have forgotten about his new friend. But then on Monday Daniel picked up his son from nursery, and Iain handed him a picture: a drawing of a woman with long golden hair and a crown, a man playing football and a small boy with red lines coming out of his elbow.

  ‘It’s Bee making me better on Saturday,’ he announced, although Daniel had already worked that out for himself. ‘I drawed it for her. Can you give it to her tomorrow?’

  ‘All right.’

  Iain beamed. ‘I know she’ll like it.’

  ‘I’m sure she will.’ If she didn’t, he’d fib and tell Iain that she loved it. No way was he going to let his little boy be disappointed.

  * * *

  Beatrice was in the staff kitchen when he walked in, the next day. ‘Are you busy at lunchtime?’ he asked.

  She looked surprised, then answered carefully. ‘It depends what it’s like in Resus.’

  ‘OK. If you’re not busy, I need to talk to you—and lunch is on me.’

  She shook her head. ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘I want to say thank you for rescuing Iain on Saturday. His arm’s fine, by the way.’

  ‘Good, but really there’s no need to buy me lunch. I just did what anyone else would’ve done because I was the nearest one to him when it happened. Though thank you for the offer.’

  ‘Can I just talk to you, then?’ He really didn’t want to give her the picture in front of everyone.

  She nodded. ‘We’ll go halves on lunch.’

  ‘Good.’

  Daniel switched into work mode, and managed to concentrate on his patients for the morning: two fractures, a badly sprained ankle and an elderly woman who’d had a TIA and whom he admitted for further testing. He had no idea how busy Resus had been, but at lunchtime Beatrice appeared. ‘Are you OK to go, or do you need a bit of time to finish writing up notes?’

  ‘I’m OK to go,’ he said.

  He waited until they were sitting in the canteen before handing her the envelope.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked.

  ‘Iain asked me to give you this,’ he said.

  She opened the envelope, looked at the picture and smiled. Her blue eyes were full of warmth when she looked at him. ‘That’s lovely—me, him and you at the team football day on Saturday, I’m guessing?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Tell him thank you, I love it, and I’m going to put it on my fridge, right next to the picture Persephone drew me of her horse at the weekend.’

  ‘Persephone?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘My niece.’

  He blinked. ‘So your family goes in for unusual names.’

  She nodded. ‘My generation’s all from Shakespeare—Orlando’s the oldest, then Lysander, then me.’ She spread her hands. ‘It could’ve been worse. My mother could’ve called me Desdemona or Goneril. And, actually, Beatrice is Shakespeare’s best female character, so I’m quite happy to be named after her.’

  Her accent alone marked her out as posh. The names of her brothers and her niece marked her out as seriously posh. And had she just said that her niece had a horse? Posh and rich, then.

  Then he realised what he’d said. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude about your name. We just have...simpler names in my family.’

  ‘Then you’d approve of Sandy’s choices—George and Henry.’

  ‘Sandy?’

  ‘Lysander.’ She smiled. ‘Mummy’s the only one who’s allowed to call him that. Anyone else gets his evil glare and never dares do it again.’

  ‘So Persephone is your oldest brother’s daughter, then?’

  She nodded. ‘We call her Seffy, for short. And her older brother is Odysseus.’

  ‘Odysseus.’ Who wouldn’t have lasted three seconds in the playground at Daniel’s school. Why on earth would you call a child Odysseus?

  As if the question was written all over his face, Beatrice explained, ‘Orlando studied classics. So did his wife. They wanted to use names from Greek mythology for their children—and their dogs.’ She grinned. ‘They have a black Lab called Cerberus—although he only has one head, he barks enough for three and it drives Mummy crackers.’

  She called her mother ‘Mummy’? Posher still. Beatrice Lindford was way, way out of his league.

  Not that he was thinking of asking her out.

  The attraction he felt towards her needed to be stifled. The sooner, the better.

  She looked at the drawing again. ‘Why am I wearing a crown?’

  ‘Iain says you talk like the Queen and you’ve got hair like a princess, so he’s decided you must be a princess and therefore you also know the Queen and Prince Harry.’

  She laughed. ‘That’s cute.’

  ‘I tried to tell him you’re not a princess.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because... Well...’

  ‘Because I have a posh accent and most of my family have unusual names? That’s a bit of a sweeping generalisation. It’d be like me saying you’re from Glasgow so everything you eat must be fried.’

  ‘True, and I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  * * *

  Beatrice definitely wasn’t going to tell Daniel that she had grown up in a castle. Or that actually her father was a viscount, making her family minor royalty. He didn’t need to know any of that. All he needed to know about her was that she was a doctor, and she was good at her job.

  ‘Apology accepted. And I love Iain’s drawing.’ She smiled at him. ‘He’s a nice boy.’

  ‘And he hasn’t stopped talking about you, or asking when you can come to tea. I’ve told him you’re busy and you’re probably married to a prince.’ Daniel rolled his eyes. ‘That’s what started all the Prince Harry stuff. His mum likes Prince Harry.’

  So Daniel had clearly split up from his partner rather than being a widower. It was unusual for a dad to have custody of the child, but asking him about the situation felt like
prying. ‘Prince Harry is gorgeous,’ she said. ‘Your wife has good—’ She stopped dead. Uh-oh. Good taste. That was tantamount to saying that she fancied Daniel.

  Which she didn’t.

  Well, a little bit.

  Well, quite a lot.

  But things were complicated. She had the job he claimed he hadn’t applied for but which everyone thought had had his name on it. He had a son who was clearly the focus of his life, and dating would be tricky for him. Plus she didn’t want to tell him about her past and see the pity in his face.

  Better to keep this professional.

  ‘Good taste in princes,’ she finished.

  ‘I’ll tell her that. Because Iain’s going to tell her all about you when he sees her this weekend.’ He sighed. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much a four-year-old boy can talk.’

  Or girl. She thought of Taylor and her heart squeezed. Would her little girl have been a chatterbox?

  Not here. Not now.

  ‘Oh, I would. George could talk the hind leg off a donkey. He’s four,’ she said. A month younger than Taylor would’ve been. And how hard it had been to walk into her sister-in-law’s hospital room and hold that baby in her arms for the first time. She’d had to force herself to smile and hold back the tears. ‘George is the youngest of my nephews, and his big thing is dinosaurs. You wouldn’t believe how many complicated names he can pronounce. Give him a bucket of wooden bricks and he’ll build you a stegosaurus in two minutes flat.’

  ‘Iain loves dinosaurs, too. And rockets. My mum painted a mural in his bedroom of dinosaurs in a rocket heading for the moon, and he loves it.’

  ‘I bet.’ She glanced at her watch, knowing that she was being a coward and cutting this short. But she couldn’t afford to get emotionally involved with Daniel Capaldi and his son. ‘Better get back to the ward. Please thank Iain for his drawing. It’s lovely.’

  ‘I will.’ He looked relieved, as if she’d let him off the hook.

  So did that mean he felt this ridiculous attraction, too?

  Well, even if he did, they weren’t going to act on it. They were going to be professional. Keep things strictly business between them. And that was that.