The Surgeon's Baby Bombshell

by Deanne Anders

  “You were doing fine there for a while, Doc,” she said.

  “I’ve had a bad relationship. My marriage didn’t end well,” he said as he paced over the small entryway and then walked into the living room.

  He stopped in front of the shelf. She’d wanted to know what it was that had caused the man so much pain and now she did.

  “Is that your child?” she asked.

  Part of her wanted to be wrong, but the look he gave her when he turned told her she wasn’t.

  “Yes, my son,” he said.

  “What happened to him, Ian?” she asked.

  “SIDS,” he said. “He was only six months old when he died.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I’m sorry too. I wish things were different. That I could be different.”

  She wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to be different, that he could just be who he was and it would be enough, but she knew he’d never believe her. He had demons to fight and he clearly preferred to fight them on his own.

  “It’s been a long night. I think it would be best if you took me back to my car now,” she said as she headed for the door.

  She had her own wounds to heal tonight, and she didn’t want Ian to see that she was hurting too.

  * * *

  Ian walked back into the house after dropping Frannie off at the warehouse to get her car and immediately felt the gulf of loneliness that welcomed him. He’d felt alive tonight, while holding Frannie in his arms, and the loneliness had left him. But then reality had returned.

  He had known that making love with her would be a mistake, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. After avoiding women entirely for the last two and a half years, she had broken down every obstacle he’d had. Just thinking about holding her once more sent his blood racing, and that wasn’t good. He had to stay away from her before he hurt her.

  Hadn’t she seen how broken he was? How could she want someone who, after almost three years of mourning the loss of his family, couldn’t move on?

  There were still days when he could barely function, though those were getting fewer as the years passed. He’d managed to create a life for himself here. It might not be the life he had planned for himself, but it was stable and he was comfortable with it. He had a job he enjoyed, and a house with a one-eyed cat that didn’t mind if he was late getting home because of a case or an emergency at the hospital.

  For now, it was enough. Maybe someday he’d be ready to move on with his life, but right now it was all the existence he could ask for.

  And tomorrow he’d have to go to work and face whatever the fall-out was after his one night with Frannie, the resident shrink. After all the time he’d spent trying to keep his distance from her he’d ended up taking her to bed and then spilling his guts about his life.

  He climbed the stairs and picked up the cat on the way to his bedroom. He looked into the guest room, with its rumpled bedclothes, and as he went past he shut the door on the room.

  If only it was that easy to shut out his memories of Frannie.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FRANNIE SAT IN the doctors’ dictation room, reading the chart on a young near-drowning victim the new neurologist, Dr. Wilson, had asked her to look at.

  From what she had read, five-year-old Katie had been playing in a park during a family picnic when she’d fallen into a small pond where she had been feeding the ducks. Her parents had responded promptly, and although the child had been in respiratory distress when she had been brought into the ER by the paramedics she had quickly recovered.

  She had now been moved from the critical care unit to the pediatric floor and was recovering without any issues—except for the fact that she had lost some of her memories around the time of the drowning. The memory loss had Katie’s parents fearing that the child might have suffered some brain injury due to a lack of oxygen during the drowning.

  Frannie had now reviewed the doctor’s notes and the brain scans Dr. Wilson had ordered, which showed no evidence of any brain injury—something she knew would help to set the parents’ fears aside.

  Frannie stood to leave the room and she heard two voices in the hall.

  Dr. Wilson and Ian entered the room, deep in conversation. Trying not to disturb the two of them, she started out through the door toward Katie’s room. She wasn’t running, she told herself, she just didn’t want to be rude and interrupt them.

  But she knew better. She’d managed to avoid Ian for the last two days and had been hoping to make it three.

  What would she see if she looked into his eyes? Would it be pity? She didn’t want Ian Spencer feeling sorry for her. She was a big girl. They’d had sex. He apparently couldn’t or didn’t want to proceed with the relationship and she could deal with that. She would not let the man see that he had hurt her in any way.

  “Dr. Wentworth?” Dr. Wilson called behind her.

  Frannie made herself turn back toward the two men, and her eyes clashed with Ian’s before she turned to the other doctor.

  “It’s Frannie,” she said as she stuck out her hand in invitation.

  Dr. Wilson was a young neurologist who was building a name for himself in his new position at the hospital. She’d heard the man was easy to work with and had already contributed a lot to his department. It didn’t hurt that he had movie-star good looks, with his blond hair and his quick smile. And Chloe, one of the case managers who worked with both her and the new doctor, had said he was as nice as he was good-looking.

  The fact that he was easy to work with was good, as she knew they would be working closely together with some of his head trauma patients.

  “Please, call me Conner,” he said. “Have you seen Katie?”

  “I’m headed there now. Is there anything new I need to know?” she said.

  She felt Ian’s stare even before she turned toward him. He stood there with a look so intense that she wondered if he was trying to burrow a hole into her mind with some superpower she was unaware of.

  Was he looking for some sign of weakness? Did the man expect that she would turn into a sniffling mess because he didn’t want to have a relationship with her? She straightened her back, widened her smile and ignored him.

  She’d hoped that after their night together she’d no longer respond to the man’s presence, no longer feel that disconcerting buzz when he was around, but with her dreams haunted by images of him holding her, kissing her and possessing her, her body could do nothing else but want him.

  Just sex, she’d told him. Yeah, right. Like Katrina was just a hurricane.

  “Not that I’m aware of. From a neurological standpoint I’m comfortable with her going home with her parents. Of course the final decision is going to be up to Pulmonary. She seems like a perfectly normal kid to me, but I thought it would be good for you to see her. I’ve read a lot about adverse experiences in childhood, and the trauma they can cause, and I thought perhaps you could give her parents some guidance. Children’s reactions to trauma can be very individualized.”

  Frannie had heard that the new neuro doc was raising young twins alone, after the death of his wife, so it wasn’t surprising that he had been researching the effect their mother’s death might have on them. It was nice to see that someone had an interest in her field of study.

  “I’ll be sure to talk to them. And I’ll make sure they get some of our educational pamphlets. They list a lot of resources and articles that are available online.”

  “Thanks,” Conner said. “I’d actually love some of those for myself.”

  “I’ll make sure to get you some. I appreciate your interest,” she said. “Not all my colleagues have been so open.”

  She gave a smile, making sure she included Ian, then headed down the hall as far away from him as she could go.

  * * *

  Ian watched as Frannie walked away from them,
his whole body vibrating with the need to follow her. Since the night she had been at his home his mind had been filled with thoughts of her. He walked into his kitchen and saw her sitting on his island. He reached down to pet Church and heard her laughter. He couldn’t even ride in his car without the sweet smell of her haunting him.

  He’d known the woman was going to be trouble from the first time he’d seen her. Of course then he’d been worried that those sharp eyes behind her glasses would see through the act that he kept up so that no one would see the failure of a father and a husband he had been, and wouldn’t see all the shortfalls his wife had been only too happy to point out in him during counseling.

  Now he knew those brown eyes of hers were even more dangerous. He’d seen them swimming with desire, felt her lips hot and moist from his kisses, and that vision of her was stirring up emotions he didn’t want to feel.

  Even now he had the totally crazy urge to put his fist into Conner’s face just for smiling at her. And all the while as he was fighting off emotions he had no business feeling, when he knew that the best thing for Frannie would be to find a nice guy like Conner.

  “I have to tell you that I’ve been very impressed with Frannie’s program,” Conner was saying. “The fact that your board sees a need to have a psychiatrist involved with medical patients is very forward-thinking. It was actually one of the reasons I picked this hospital. Her study of pediatric trauma patients and their progress over the next few years could establish this hospital as a benchmark in the field.”

  As the young doctor moved past him and picked up a chart Ian once more stared down the hall to where Frannie had disappeared. He tried to tell himself that he was bothered by the fact that he had not been notified that she was carrying on a study that included his patients, not that he was irritated because the newest doctor in the hospital knew more about her than he did.

  He had to admit grudgingly that in staying as far away as possible from the psychiatrist he had left himself out of the loop, but she had to know that if it was his department he should have been consulted over any study having to do with his patients.

  He started to go after her, to ask her about this study she was performing, but knew he couldn’t. He needed to stay as far away from her as possible—at least until this thing between them blew over. Maybe in a few weeks things would be back to normal... Though how that was possible now that she knew his secrets he didn’t know.

  From what he knew about the psychiatrist, at some point she was going to want to talk to him. It was built into her makeup to want to help others. And what if she could help him? What if there was a future out there for him that didn’t include all the guilt and pain he carried around with him?

  She already knew that he was struggling with his life. Maybe now that she knew what he lived with talking with her wouldn’t be so bad.

  * * *

  Frannie had always enjoyed working on art projects—especially those that had to do with Mardi Gras. But tonight she’d rather have been at the dentist’s office instead of working at the warehouse.

  She couldn’t help but be worried about having to talk to Ian. She’d seen him at the hospital while making her rounds, and had even managed to have a few words with him concerning Danny, who was scheduled to be discharged in a few days after a round of antibiotics had been completed.

  Ian had seemed happy with the boy’s progress, which had improved after Ashley had woken up and been taken off the ventilator. The young girl would need physical therapy for a while, but her prognosis was good. Danny had been allowed to go and see her, and it had been easy to see what a difference his visit with her had made, but Frannie could still see the guilt in the boy’s eyes when he talked about his girlfriend.

  She had talked to his parents about having him follow up with her in her outpatient clinic, and they had agreed that it would be good for him. While Ian hadn’t really commented on her plan for follow-up visits, he hadn’t made any noises to indicate that he disagreed with her therapy goals. Maybe they’d finally reached a place where they could work together professionally?

  She spotted Ian working with the krewe as she walked in, and went straight to where the team was helping to build a supporting deck, where the staff on the float would stand around a miniature version of the hospital building. They had to get over the awkwardness of working with each other. They weren’t the first adults to have had sex and then discovered that that was all there was between the two of them.

  Without saying a word she took her place beside Ian, handing him tools as he needed them.

  “I feel like an OR nurse,” she said to him as she handed him the drill he’d asked for.

  “I think renovations are a lot like surgery. You open a wall. Fix a support. Then close it back up.”

  “Is that why you decided to renovate your home yourself?” she asked.

  They were having a normal conversation together. It felt a little forced, but at least they were trying.

  “I guess. I’ve always liked to work with my hands. My dad had a workshop where he let me build things. I liked working with the tools—especially the woodworking ones. It was great to take a piece of old used wood and turn it into something new.”

  “So, should I be calling out the name of the tool as I hand it to you and slapping it into your hand?”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said. “Besides, with your aversion to blood I don’t think you’d make it as an OR nurse.”

  His eyes sparkled and his lips quirked. He had no right being so cute. She felt a tingle in her chest that spread down to her belly. The same tingle she had felt when she’d looked into his eyes right before he had kissed her that night in his house. All she could think about was that night, and that body-warming tingle he had started in her until she had been on fire for him.

  “I guess this will be the closest I get, so I might as well enjoy it,” she said.

  She stopped and stared at him. Had she really just said that out loud?

  “I think that would be for the best, don’t you?” he said. “We can’t have you passing out in the OR with the first cut of my scalpel.”

  “You’re probably right,” she said. Then thanked the Lord the man hadn’t read her mind.

  “You never did tell me why you have such a problem with blood. Have you always been that way?” he said.

  She thought about blowing him off. Just giving him the standard comment that she didn’t know why she had a reaction to the sight of blood. But couldn’t. He’d shared so much of himself with her, and maybe it would be good for him to know that he wasn’t the only one who had been hurt.

  It wasn’t something that she had really talked about with anyone. She was sure there had been a lot of gossip surrounding her mother’s death, but she had been too young to know what had been going around. She was sure her father would have done his best to keep things as quiet as possible, and now, with it being over twenty years since her mother’s death, the staff had changed several times and there probably weren’t a lot who remembered it.

  She looked around the warehouse, seeing all the bright colors of the various float mascots that had been used over the years, and then looked off to the side, where five other floats that belonged to other groups in the Hestia krewe were all in different stages.

  Ian had stopped working and leaned back on his heels as he listened to her. They’d been assigned one side of the float’s base to build and, working together, had finished their side before those who were working on the other.

  “Maybe we could talk about it later somewhere else?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said.

  A break was called and they all climbed down and walked over to enjoy the pizza Mrs. Guidry had ordered for them.

  Frannie watched as Ian looked back at the frame they were building and smiled. He might have been mad about being forced by Dr. Guidry to h
elp with the hospital float, but she knew he was enjoying it. She’d also noticed him talking more with the other volunteers.

  She had seen before that he had always been a bit closed off from the staff, and had never been a real part of the group on the pediatric floor that was so quick to celebrate birthdays, engagements and anything else that was an excuse for a party. Now she could overhear him talking to one employee’s husband, who was a residential contractor, about some of the work he was doing on his house. Dr. Guidry had come in at some point while they were working, and now he’d joined Ian and the group that had formed around him.

  As they got ready to get back to work Mrs. Guidry approached her, and Dr. Guidry and Ian joined her.

  “How about the two of you start putting the carpeting down?” Mrs. Guidry asked, then handed Frannie a large stapler. “If you could grab one of the rolls of the green fake grass and carry it up there, Ian, Frannie should be able to work the stapler to attach it.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, ma’am, once the base is built and the side walls are up, what’s next?” Ian asked.

  “We should be ready for the fun part next week,” Mrs. Guidry said. “We’re going to use blocks of foam to build the replica of the hospital, but for the outside of the float we’ll stay old-school and use chicken wire to build all the villains on the front. The real fun will begin when we add the papier-mâché and the paint.”

  Frannie followed Ian and walked over to the drawings with Dr. Guidry as his wife pointed out the different processes and what the float would look like when it was finished.

  “I’m so glad to see you taking such an interest, Ian,” Dr. Guidry said.

  “He really should come to the ball, Richard,” Mrs. Guidry said. “And you too, Frannie. When’s the last time you made it to a Mardi Gras ball?”

  “I’m not sure—probably high school,” she said.

  Mardi Gras had always been in the middle of the semester in college, and she had been too far away to come home for just the weekend. She’d only come home for major holidays, so that her father wouldn’t be alone, but he’d always been so busy that she didn’t think he would have noticed even if she’d missed those.