by Tiana Cole
His Surprise Daughter
Published By Tiana Cole, 2017
©2017 Tiana Cole
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
Kindle Edition
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
The Doctor's Secret
Also from Tiana Cole:
About the Author
Chapter 1
The day had just gotten started and already Dr. Caine Faulkner felt exhausted. He’d spent the night at the hospital because one of his young patients had been having a hard time, and his parents weren’t exactly the doting and affectionate types. More like they resented him for interrupting their fun with his debilitating illness. Not that Caine would be considered doting or affectionate either, but the only thing he cared about was his patients. They were all that mattered anymore. His top priority in life.
He’d come to work in Alaska mostly to get away from his parents—Senator and Mrs. Faulkner—and their sphere of influence. In Florida, he would be expected to attend fundraising events, campaign on his father’s behalf and take “suitable” women along for the ride. Truthfully, if he lived anywhere in the lower forty-eight, he’d be expected to be there. But all the way in Alaska, he was…untouchable. There wasn’t much to do in Anchorage aside from a few bars and restaurants, concerts and local festivals, so it made focusing on work easy. And it gave him the time he needed to become the best doctor possible.
A quick change of shirts and a splash of cold water on his face and Caine was ready to start his day again. His first stop was to see his favorite patient, Jason Luditski. “Hey, man, what’s up?”
Jason’s little pale face lit up. “Hey, Doc Faulkner. I’m watching a movie Nurse Dottie found for me!”
The little boy had an autoimmune disease that he was not winning against but his attitude hadn’t changed at all. He was full of cheer and quick with a smile.
“Mrs. Doubtfire? I think that came out before I was born. How are you feeling?”
It was an effort just to shrug, but Jason did. “I’m tired and my cough is bad but I feel alright.”
His lungs weren’t doing well, and Caine knew he would need a transplant soon. “Okay, let’s get you a few breathing treatments and then I’ll put you on Shelly’s schedule for a walk in the atrium.”
Jason smiled as a bright red blush stole over his pale face. “Cool, thanks, Doc.”
“You’re welcome, kiddo. Take it easy, don’t laugh too hard, okay?”
Jason nodded and quickly turned back to the television before Caine even left to pick up his stethoscope and white coat. With slow, deliberate steps he left his office in the colorful pediatrics wing where the walls were painted with cartoon characters and superheroes before stopping at the nurse’s station. “What have you got for me, Dottie?” He gave her his best smile and waited for the answering chuckle.
She raised an ebony brow at him and patted the small afro style she favored. “More than you can handle, young buck.” Her saucy smile was his favorite thing first thing in the morning.
Caine laughed. Dottie was his favorite nurse and a merciless flirt, despite being nearly sixty years old and happily married. “Then I guess Clyde is a lucky man.”
“I don’t ever let him forget it, believe me.” She laughed and handed him a chart. “Seven-year-old brought in by her grandmother with a low-grade fever and edema in the lower extremities.”
Caine sighed. He’d chosen to become a pediatrician—against his parent’s wishes—because he loved children and thought working with them would make him happy. But seeing them hurt and in pain, suffering…well, it was really hard to stomach most days, and he did his best to cure what he could and ease what he could not. “Thanks, Dottie.”
“She’s a real cutie. Smart too. Don’t worry, Dr. F.” She always told him not to worry and he couldn’t figure out why. Did she sense how much he worried about his patients, or did he just seem like a worrier? Maybe it’s because you walk around like the walking dead, his inner voice chided sarcastically.
“I’ve got it, thanks.” Caine took a minute to review the chart and prepare himself. He pushed the door open and entered the exam room with a bright smile for the little girl. Children were easier than adults when it came to health matters because a smile and a light tone would ease the news, whereas adults freaked out over every little symptom. “Hi, Cassia, I’m Dr. Faulkner. I hear you haven’t been feeling well.”
A small round face with coffee and cream skin looked up at him with a forced smiled. “Hi, Dr. Faulkner, nice to meet you.” She held out her tiny hand and he had no choice but to take it with a small smile.
“You too, Cassia. So, tell me what’s wrong.” He looked between her and the older woman Dottie said was her grandmother.
“I woke up feeling hot and achy, and my feet are kinda big.” She was shy but surprisingly aware of her own body.
“Anything else?” Caine asked, because he learned very quickly there were always symptoms kids hid from their parents or caretakers. Usually the embarrassing ones.
Mossy green eyes shot a wary look up at her grandmother and then back to him. “I wet the bed two nights ago.” Her head dipped low and Caine felt his hackles rise. The grandmother seemed kind and gentle, but he hoped no one had hurt the little girl.
“That’s alright, Cassia, it happens to kids your age sometimes.”
She shook her head. Furiously. “You don’t get it, Dr. Faulkner, I don’t wet the bed. Ever.”
Cassia’s expression was so serious he felt for her. It was common for kids her age to miss the body’s queues to urination during sleep, but she seemed worried about it so he would take it seriously. “Okay, then let’s see what we can do to make you feel better.” He looked at her grandmother, a dark-skinned woman with high cheekbones and familiar brown eyes. “Are you authorized to approve tests and the like?”
She extended her arm with a smile. “I’m the grandmother, you can call me Brenda. No, I am not authorized, Dr. Faulkner, but her mother had a work emergency before Cassia woke up. If it’s anything serious, we can call my daughter.”
Caine frowned, thinking if Cassia were his child, he wouldn’t be anywhere but at her side. “Okay,” he answered, trying to keep judgment from his voice.
Brenda had seen it, though, and leaned in. “She would have been here but she had to deal with a ten-year-old who tried to kill himself, can you believe it?” She shook her head and dabbed a tear that rolled down her cheek. “We both thought it was a tummy bug or something, but if it’s more, she’ll be here.”
Hell. He could say nothing about that so he turned his gaze back to Cassia. “Let’s start with a few tests. Blood and urine should give us a lot of information. Let me get a nurse to get you started and then I’ll chat with Grandma, okay?”
Cassia tried for a smile but it was obvious she didn’t feel well. “Okay, Dr. Faulkner. Will I be okay? Mommy says I will because I haven’t achieved my goals yet.”
Caine thought that was nice. A parent who actually gave a damn about what their child wanted from this life. “Your mom sounds pretty great.”
“She is.” Cassia nodded and beamed a smile that tugged at the heart he thought long ago dead and buried. “She’s really pretty too. And a doctor, but a head doctor, not a body doctor like you.”
A matchmaking kid. He smiled. “Good to know,” he told her as Dottie walked in with a tray and a huge lollipop. “Tell me about these goals,” he asked while listening to her breathing and checked her vitals again.
“I change them a lot but Mommy says it’s okay to change your mind. I want to work on spaceships, like people work on cars but for spaceships. You know?”
Caine nodded and couldn’t hide the smile that came, unbidden. She was adorable, and she dreamed big. He respected that. Turning to Brenda, he asked, “Grandma, would you mind coming with me?”
Brenda nodded and stood, casting one last glance over her shoulder at Cassia, who was currently telling Dottie everything she knew about blood types. They walked quietly to his small office and took a seat. “What has you worried, doctor?”
Caine sighed. “Her symptoms sound like it could be kidney disease but it’s entire too early to start thinking about that.”
“But you are.”
He nodded. “The symptoms are hard to diagnose, but the bed wetting is a concern if it’s not something that happens regularly. Is it?”
Brenda shook her head. “No. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Cassia is very special. She’s only seven but she’s in the fourth grade because she’s so smart. I’m worried because she is, doctor.”
Caine understood that. He, too, had been a smarter than average child, but he didn’t have adults like Brenda who deferred to him when he would know best. Instead, his parents had done whatever the hell they wanted without regard to his feelings. “Don’t worry, Brenda, we’ll get Cassia taken care of.”
“I trust you, Dr. Faulkner.” With a small, grateful smile she stood and took his hand in hers for a brief moment before leaving him to his thoughts.
Caine sat back and let her words reverberate in his head. I trust you. It had been a long time since someone said those words to him in such a heartfelt way.
He hated it.
~
“What did the doctor say?” Zara Brown asked her mother the moment she walked inside the small three-bedroom house she shared with her daughter, Cassia. She’d hardly been able to focus on Teagan, the ten-year-old who’d attempted to end his young life, because she’d been so worried about her own kid, so she got the teen settled in a room and spent a few hours talking with him before she came straight home.
“He thinks she might have something wrong with her kidneys but didn’t want to worry until there was reason.” Her mother bit her lip, giving away just how worried she was by the doctor’s words.
Zara’s chest tightened. Kidney problems were serious, could even be life-threatening. “No,” she cried as her mind swirled with worst case scenarios. She wouldn’t let this happen, not to her daughter. It was bad enough she didn’t have a father, at least not one who cared enough to stick around, she wouldn’t also let her little girl die. She can’t be sick.
“Zara, relax, it’s probably nothing. I was just so nervous and I think he told me what he was thinking just to give me something. I don’t know, but he was nice with Cassia.” Brenda sighed wistfully and Zara knew her mother was matchmaking in her mind.
“Ma, focus. Why does he think something is wrong with her kidneys?”
Her mother sighed again and looked into identical brown eyes. “Cassia said she wet the bed a few days ago. She washed the sheets so you wouldn’t know.”
This time the tears did fall. Her little girl hadn’t wet the bed since she was three years old, and Zara often joked it was because she was just organized enough to schedule a midnight bathroom break. “She must’ve been scared to admit that. You didn’t let her on the computer unsupervised, did you?” Her little girl had a bad habit of spending hours researching her newest career choice—teacher, farmer, pop star, astronaut, ballerina just last week—and last week it was a doctor. Which she now realized meant Cassia had felt ill last week. “I need to see her, talk to her. Make sure she’s okay.”
Brenda grabbed her wrist and pulled her down beside her on the oversize navy sofa, wrapping her daughter in her arms. “She’s asleep right now. I think she’s scared. Come on in the kitchen while I make her something good.”
Zara smiled. Her mother thought there was no problem that couldn’t be fixed with food. When it came to her granddaughter, she was absolutely right. “I think she will like that very much.” Cassia changed her favorite food just as often as she changed her career aspirations. “Shepherd’s pie?”
“Yep. Lord knows where she got that from, but it’s no different than my Sunday roast.” She hummed as she pulled ingredients from the fridge and lit fires in a well-rehearsed dance she’d done thousands of times over the years.
“We went to an English pub once for dinner and she loved it, so I guess you can blame me. Just be happy it wasn’t fish and chips.” Cassia ate up facts the way she did her morning oatmeal—voraciously—and she wanted to try everything.
“That was better than her eggroll phase. Those buggers are time consuming.” Brenda laughed and that sound took Zara back to her childhood when she would sit, just as she did now, at the counter and watch her mom chop onions and bell peppers and garlic. The staple of any good sauce.
She joined in her mother’s laughter. “Let’s hope she never gets a bug to eat sushi. What can I do?”
“Nothing at all. Just sit there and tell me how that boy’s doing.”
Zara shrugged as her answer because she couldn’t really talk about it and she didn’t want to think about it either. “He’s a work in progress.”
“Mommy?”
She turned and smiled down at Cassia. “How are you feeling, honey?”
She shrugged and lifted her arms in the air to be picked up. “I feel okay, still warm and kind of tired.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you today.”
“It’s alright. Is that kid okay?” Cassia was a very caring child. She didn’t have problems with social interactions like some kids with high IQs.
“He will be. And so will you since Grandma is making your favorite dinner.”
“We have to go back to the doctor at the end of the week, Mom. Will you be there?”
“I will.” If something was wrong with her child, she would be there every step of the way. It was her job to do whatever it took to keep her baby safe.
“Grandma, can I smash the potatoes?” Cassia crawled to a stool of her own and flashed those big green eyes and adorable dimples and Brenda caved.
“Of course you can, baby. Come on up here.”
Zara watched two different generations of Brown women lovingly preparing food for the family. She wished, more than anything, that she’d been able to give Cassia the kind of childhood she’d had, with two loving and caring parents. But the rich boy she’d given her heart to hadn’t been real. He’d been a façade of the man of her dreams, and he fooled her.
Fool me once.
Chapter 2
“Great news, Caine. The senator has spoken with Dr. Carlisle and he’s willing to take you in for the Rochester Fellowship; you can start right away.”
Caine sighed because this was the second call he’d received this year and it was always the same. His mother always referred to his father by his job title rather than his familial one, and she hadn’t
quite grasped that Alaska was now home. “The Rochester Fellowship is for neurosurgery, not pediatrics.”
“Exactly,” she said victoriously, like she was doing him some huge favor. “It’s time for you to leave that dreadful Alaska and come back home, resume your role in this family, Caine.”
Rolling his eyes, Caine looked at the phone. “Not interested, Mother.” He’d done everything his parents wanted him to do, nearly always without questioning it. He hadn’t for most of his life, but then he found and lost the love of his life in one brief winter, and he’d caved under their constant pressure. He finished pre-med at Yale—like his parents wanted—instead of the MBA he’d wanted for himself. He had disappeared from the party scene and finished his degree with honors and continued his Pleasing the Parents Tour by attending medical school at Johns Hopkins. He finally drew the line and chose his specialty, pediatrics. Not neurosurgery. His parents hated it and that made Caine love it all the more.
“Of course you are. This is a very prestigious fellowship, it could put you on the map as the neurosurgeon the rich, famous and powerful.” She tutted as though his opinion was meaningless, because to her it was. “I told him you’d be here in two weeks.”
He sighed. “Then I’ll be forced to tell him you were mistaken, Mother. We’ve talked about this. You don’t get to make these decisions for me. Not anymore.”
“I only want what’s best for you,” she pouted, but even that came out as imperious.
“Trust that I know what’s best for me.” He had no desire to join the family shipping business or the political dynasty his father seemed determined to build. He’d gone from state senator to the U.S. Senate and he was determined that Caine would follow in his footsteps. “I need to go, Mother. Love you.” He hung up before she did that awkward fish thing when she had no idea how to respond.
Caine rubbed his temples, willing away the headache that always hovered just below the surface whenever he spoke to his mother. He didn’t have time for this, he needed oxygen and food. With a long day ahead of him, following several very long days, Caine desperately needed something more than cafeteria food. He’d been stuck in the hospital for the past forty-eight hours and he needed a break.
