To Dr Cartwright, A Daughter

by Meredith Webber

  TO DR CARTWRIGHT, A DAUGHTER

  Meredith Webber

  A late announcement!

  Katy had been on the verge of becoming Jake Cartwright’s bride until his daredevil ways resulted in an accident that almost cost him his life. Without telling Katy how serious his condition was, he’d simply ended their engagement. That had hurt... especially as Katy discovered she was pregnant.

  Six years later her life revolves around her daughter, Julia, and they’re content. Until Dr Cartwright turns up with his legs fixed, his career back on track and a determination to Win back the bride he lost. Marriage is one thing, but will he want an instant family?

  CHAPTER ONE

  'Hi, gang! We're back!'

  Katy grinned as the children playing in the brightly decorated hospital crèche turned as one, then advanced on Julia with loud cries of greeting and delight. Her heart tripped a beat as she watched Julia's special friend seize her hand and hurry her towards the far corner of the room.

  'Come and see what I've made,' he urged, skipping in his haste to 'show' his friend the tower of blocks. 'Look!'

  He dragged at her arm until her fingers could touch the vinyl tiles. 'See, there's the floor, and here's my tower. It's a look-out for the castle I'm going to build—a castle for a fairy princess.'

  'I know he's an unlikely candidate for a prince,' Nan Chalmers, director of Lake Shore North's childcare service, remarked as she joined Katy in the front entrance to the room. 'But he knew Julia was due back today, and he's been working on her castle all week.'

  Katy looked at the little boy, already rumpled and grubby-looking, although she knew he'd have been shining clean when his father dropped him off earlier this morning. Peter Clarke was one of those children who threw themselves wholeheartedly into whatever they were doing, regardless of dirt, dire consequences, or damage to self and clothing.

  'He's been more than a prince to Julia,' Katy murmured, watching as the boy guided her daughter's fingers up the intricate tower of blocks. 'Peter's a natural leader, and when he accepted Julia without reservations, the other kids knew it was okay to be her friend.'

  She saw Nan nod, then shake her head.

  'It might have helped,' the director argued, explaining her contradictory reaction, 'but Julia's own nature would have won through even without Peter. I've rarely had to deal with so fearless a child, and other children admire that kind of spirit.'

  Katy felt the words tug at the strings which bound her to her child. A fearless sighted child would be bad enough, but for her visually impaired daughter to have inherited her father's reckless streak was something she was trying to ignore.

  'So, how was the holiday? You're very brown, and so relaxed you're almost shining. Or is the shine to do with something else? Has John popped the question?'

  Nan's words jolted Katy out of the past. It was a long time since she'd thought of Julia's father—since she'd allowed herself to think of him! Yet, she'd slipped back so far—and so quickly—it took her a moment to place John.

  'To answer the last question first, no, he hasn't—and even if he had, I'd have said no! I don't love him, Nan. I know he's kind, and good with Julia, and he'd probably make a perfect husband, but...'

  'No buzz, huh?' her friend asked, and Katy shook her head.

  Definitely no buzz—not that she was looking for the 'buzzing' kind of love.

  'We're too different,' she began, trying to explain the idea which had started to crystallise during the month at the beach. 'I mean, on holiday I'm the ultimate slob. I dig in the sand, swim, walk a bit, sleep in the afternoon and eat fish and chips rather than cook.'

  'Sounds perfect to me,' Nan sighed.

  Katy smiled at her.

  'That's why we're friends—both slothful! Anyway, John came up to visit a couple of times and I think he was shocked by such degenerate behaviour. He's more into elegant candle-lit suppers. He seemed to think one shouldn't lower one's standards just because one's at the beach. And the beach bothered him too—so much sand. We've parted, but quite amicably.'

  She sighed and shook her head with an undefined regret. He was such a good, steady, reliable man—why couldn't she love him?

  'I think he realised it was wrong, too,' she admitted. 'I mean, we've been going around together for six months and haven't progressed past a goodnight kiss. He must have read something into that.'

  'I doubt it,' Nan said cryptically, her gaze scanning her friend from top to toe. 'You're looking far too gorgeous for any red-blooded man to resist. Your hair's bleached as light as Julia's and you both tan so well. I can understand Peter wanting her for his princess—'

  'And John wanting me for his?' Katy interrupted with a chortle of delighted mirth. 'Sorry, but I'm not cut out to run a castle! Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd better get to work—or the red-blooded male who's taken over the obstetrics department will be firing me on my first day back.'

  She whirled across to where Julia was playing, and knelt beside her to kiss her on the cheek.

  'See you this afternoon,' she said softly, and Julia's green eyes, so like her own, turned towards her voice. 'Be good, princess!' She touched Peter's reddening, cheek and hurried away.

  Nan had picked up a toddler and was talking to the child's mother. Katy recognised the woman as the parent of a long-term paediatric patient, and felt a thrill of pride that the crèche she'd fought so hard to establish was being used by both staff and visitors.

  'I'll see you later,' she called to Nan, slipping out through the childproof gate that guarded the front entrance.

  'I didn't tell you—' her friend called, but she couldn't wait to hear the rest of Nan's news. They could talk this afternoon.

  As she walked out of the crèche she paused, as she usually did, to marvel at the transformation the groundsmen had achieved in the last two years. Lake Shore North was a private hospital set in beautiful grounds on the northern end of the lake which gave the city its name.

  When the woman who had minded Julia while Katy worked had moved away Katy had begun her campaign for a hospital childcare service. Before tackling the authorities, she'd searched the building for a suitable space and finally found an old storeroom which had looked out over a patch of rough bitumen and three disused incinerators. It had been such an unlikely place to site a crèche her annexing of it had been unopposed.

  Now the bitumen had been replaced with grass, and wide sails provided shady areas where the children played. The largest of the incinerators had been cleaned out and converted into a playhouse and the others demolished, their bricks providing the material for the low, zig-zagging balance walls and a creeper-covered mini-maze.

  The thrill of pride remained with her as she entered a side entrance to the building. She hurried along the corridors towards the main foyer of the hospital, nodding greetings to people she knew by sight if not by name. Waiting for the lift to the fourth floor obstetrics wards, she chatted to a nurse who'd just begun her roster in the maternity section.

  'Are you enjoying it?' Katy asked, and the girl shrugged.

  'It's okay, but I've come from Paediatrics and Dr Gordon is such a sweetie. Copping a perfectionist like this boss straight after him is a bit of a shock. The problem is he simply oozes sex-appeal, so it's almost impossible to keep your mind on the job, then he fires a question at you and—'

  'Dan Petersen oozes sex-appeal?' Katy broke in. 'He's nice-looking enough, but sex-appeal? And as for upsetting staff, a more mild-mannered man I have yet to meet.'

  'But Dr Petersen didn't take over,' the nurse told her. 'He won some scholarship to study overseas for two months and this Dr Cartwright's filling in.'

  The lift arrived and the doors opened.

&nbs
p; 'Dr Cartwright?' Katy echoed, ignoring more twinges of memory as she tried to place the obstetrician the woman had mentioned.

  'At your service!' a deep voice said, and her head jerked upward, shocked into motion by cadences she would never forget. The aforementioned sex-appeal was flowing more freely than an ooze, and Katy could only stare at him, seeing again the slightly uneven balance of his face—craggy features put together in such a way it had a unique attraction—the breadth of his shoulders, the tilt of his head as if he was always listening to something others couldn't hear.

  'J-Jake?' she stammered, and watched the lift doors diminish her view of him, so she saw less and less— then finally nothing. She closed her eyes and found the image imprinted on her eyelids. Had he seemed surprised, or had his eyes been laughing at her shock?

  'Were you wanting to go up?'

  The doors had opened again and he was still there, his face set in a politely enquiring mask. She saw the speculative looks on the faces of staff she knew and spotted the new nurse hovering by his side.

  She wasn't trying to get too far away from the sex-appeal, Katy thought bitchily as she stepped into the metal cube.

  She had intended finding a corner as far away from Jake Cartwright as the crush of people would allow, but he moved in such a way that the only available space was between him and the nurse.

  She wondered if fate might intervene and render her invisible, but fate seemed to be busy elsewhere so she squeezed into the space and breathed in the fresh sharp minty smell of him, a combination of aftershave and toothpaste. She tried to tell herself a lot of people smelled that way.

  The lift stopped on 'One' and she was pressed against him as people squeezed their way out and more entered. She could feel the hardness of bone beneath fine wool and muscle and her blood grew hot with embarrassment.

  'It's obviously an all-stations,' he said cheerfully, as they were thrust together again on the second floor.

  'Change of shifts,' she muttered, battling to overcome the dizzy feeling of faintness swooping through her chest and weakening the bones in her legs. It was more than six years since they'd last met and her body was reacting as if it had been six minutes. Her mind, which should have been producing the neat dismissive speeches she'd practised over those intervening years—practised in the dreams where one day they met again—was paralysed into inactivity.

  When the doors opened on 'Four' she practically ran out into the foyer, but, as he followed, she realised there was nowhere to hide. If the nurse was correct, Jake was the new director of obstetrics at Lake Shore North—or the new temporary director.

  Which made him her boss!

  To make matters worse, as administrative assistant to the director, her desk was in his office—they would be shut away together for at least some part of every day.

  She couldn't work with him! Every nerve in her body was screaming its own warning. Could she request a transfer to another department? Immediately?

  Would someone swap with her?

  She felt his hand close around her arm and turned reluctantly. He would still be in the hospital, she realised, wherever she was working—walking the same corridors, breathing the same air. She gazed at him in despair, noticing the way his hair was touched with grey above one temple—where a scar threaded its way across his skin. The fear she'd felt for him when he'd lain in the hospital, so still for someone who'd always been so active, returned to paralyse her lungs momentarily.

  'So we meet again, Katy?' His voice curled around her name in such a familiar way she shivered at the ghosts of yesterday.

  'So it seems!'

  She blurted out the words, even more unsettled by the all-encompassing scrutiny he was conducting, in full view of the staff passing through the lobby. His eyes, every bit as blue and beautiful as she remembered, took in the sun-streaked hair framing her face, the lemon blouse and vivid yellow skirt she'd chosen because the day was so bright and sunny. His gaze raked her bare tanned legs and lingered on the pale pink-painted toenails peeping out of her raffia sandals, then returned to linger on her face.

  'And very nice it is to see you,' he said at last.

  'I've got to go to work,' she snapped. 'I can't stand here all day, playing out some grand reunion scene with you.'

  'Ah, but you're looking far too lovely to be working—like a sunshiny, toasty-tanned, pink-tipped, yellow daffodil.'

  'Still honey-tongued, Jake?' she countered, refusing to be beguiled by his words. 'Well, perhaps you can find someone who'd appreciate your flowery compliments. As I said, I've work to do.'

  She turned away from him, heading for her office, then her steps faltered—it was their office, not just hers!

  It gave him time to catch up with her. To touch her so they paused again.

  'Imagine my surprise when they told me my assistant would be one Katherine Anne Turner!' he said, and a tiny flicker of apprehension cut through her confusion. The words rang true—but not entirely. There was something else there, something she couldn't quite fathom.

  'You were going to be a nurse, not an office girl,' he added, rubbing at his forehead as if to massage his memory. Recognising his uncertainty in the unconscious movement, she wondered if he was as thrown by this unexpected encounter as she was.

  But he'd been at Lake Shore North a week. He knew she worked here and would have been expecting her back from her holiday today.

  They were blocking the corridor while her mind tried to assimilate too much information at once and her body struggled to understand she didn't want it reacting to Jake as it had in the past.

  He was waiting for an answer. What had he asked her?

  'Going to be a nurse?' he prompted helpfully, and she guessed he was concealing his amusement behind his bland facade.

  'I was going to be a lot of things. Including, at one stage—if I remember rightly—your wife.'

  She hadn't known how bitter she still felt until she heard the cutting edge on the words.

  'But that's all in the past!' she added, and shrugged as if to show how unimportant it was.

  'Of course,' he said quietly, but his hand dropped from her arm in an involuntary flinch and he turned too quickly to walk away.

  With a lurch of pain, she saw a slight unevenness in his stride and wondered how a man who'd taken his physical perfection for granted handled even so mild a disability.

  She followed him reluctantly.

  Impossible to think they could work together!

  She stopped again, knowing her shocked brain couldn't cope with physical and mental processes at the same time—and right now she needed to think more than she needed to walk.

  It's only for two months, she reminded herself. That's eight weeks of five days. That's forty days. Wasn't forty days a Biblical measure of time—something about forty days in the wilderness?

  The wilderness would be okay—it was the company she couldn't handle!

  A muffled giggle hovered on her lips. She must be hysterical!

  It's not a joke, she told herself severely, but the still unsteady beating of her heart reminded her she had to get through this next encounter whatever way she could—and if joking was the best way, she would use it. Perhaps that was the answer—perhaps if she could keep it light—act unconcerned?

  She hesitated outside Ward 'B', considering a quick visit to the nurses' station to say hello to all the staff. But that would only delay the inevitable, and probably make her next meeting with Jake even more difficult. She thought about resigning, but knew she wouldn't. Julia was settled at the crèche and making friends who would go on with her to the primary school just up the road.

  Julia! Her fingers pressed against her lips to stop the name coming out as a despairing cry. Until that moment she hadn't considered her daughter in this strange equation of past and present. But Julia was definitely part of it—the factor 'X', the unknown quantity!

  And she'd better stay that way, Katy vowed, closing out the panic which hammered in her head.

&n
bsp; Thinking of Julia both sobered and strengthened her. She straightened her shoulders, drew herself up to her full five foot seven, and headed down the passage, telling herself she could handle this—just as she'd handled all the other challenges life had thrown her way.

  But how she'd handle it she wasn't certain...

  As she pushed open the door to their joint office, she saw he was bent over a filing cabinet in one corner of the room. For a tall man, a fraction over six feet, his movements had a particular grace, so he didn't look awkward or ungainly hunched above the drawer.

  'Ah,' he murmured, straightening up and glancing at his watch.

  'Don't pull that trick on me, Jake Cartwright!' she snapped, forgetting she'd been going to keep it light. 'This hospital owes me more time off in lieu of overtime than it could ever repay. In fact, if I had any brains I'd take the lot—beginning right now!'

  'Running away, Katy?'

  The challenge was so softly spoken she barely heard it, but it did serve to stiffen her resolve and helped her cross the distance between the door and her desk—a track that took her dangerously close to Jake.

  'You've moved the desks!' The words were startled out of her, and she frowned as she considered his rearrangement of what she thought of as 'her' office.

  The previous director had disliked uneven light, so he had placed his desk in the far corner of the large room. He'd sat facing the door and had grouped the four comfortable visitors' chairs in a horseshoe in front of the desk. Katy had angled her desk on the far side of the room, so she could see the door but also see out of the window and feed her soul with the beauty of the lake in all its moods.

  'Why should you be the only one with a view?' he responded easily. 'I think this way will work well.'

  Jake had grouped the comfortable chairs around a small coffee table, so visitors could discuss things without the barrier of a wide desk between him and them, then he'd set his desk at an angle to hers. They'd be working an arm's length from each other!

  She considered the extra leave she was due—more seriously this time.