His Baby Bombshell

Naturally, he disagreed. He was simply working too hard and doing too much. As for the ER staff, the skills of the people being hired simply weren’t up to the hospital’s formerly high standards.

As for his relationship with Sabrina, he believed he’d taken the high moral ground by ending it when he had. Clay needed his attention and he didn’t feel it was fair to expect Sabrina to put her life on hold or be relegated to the fringes of whatever life he was free to give her. For all he knew, Clay would never leave his wheelchair and would require years of intensive therapy and personal attention from experts as well as his family.

Fortunately, his fears never panned out. While he was glad Clay’s health problems hadn’t turned into the worst-case scenario, as his doctors had warned, Adrian couldn’t undo the past. He simply had to console himself with the knowledge that he’d made the best decision based on the information he had at the time and live with the consequences.

For him, those consequences turned him from being ‘that nice Dr McReynolds’ to a physician who caught nurses drawing straws in the employee lounge to see who would work with him. Even Clay’s slow but steady recovery didn’t improved his mood. Only one thing would—apologizing to Sabrina—but pride wouldn’t allow him to take that step. What was done was done. End of story.

But it wasn’t the end because his boss intervened.

“We’ve cut you enough slack, Adrian,” Carter had told him bluntly on Friday afternoon. “I’ve talked to you about your attitude and you’ve attended several human resource seminars on interpersonal relationships, but nothing seems to be working. I don’t know why you can’t pull yourself together, but I’m giving you your last chance.”

“Which is?”

“Our sister hospital in Pinehaven needs a temporary ER physician and we’ve been asked to provide one. I’m sending you.”

“Pinehaven?” The name of the town caught him by surprise and Adrian shook his head. “I can’t go there.”

Carter crossed his arms. His jaw was squared as he narrowed his eyes to study him. “Why not?”

“Because…” He drew a bracing breath. “Because my ex-girlfriend works there. Our parting didn’t…go well.” What an understatement! He’d been rude and obnoxious to make his point and he wouldn’t be surprised if she threw a bedpan at him.

At first Carter didn’t reply. Then he straightened in his chair and fixed his gaze on Adrian’s. “Then this will be a good time for you to work out your differences, won’t it?”

He initially balked at the Pinehaven assignment, but then he realized it was exactly what he needed. First, he’d swallow his pride and apologize for his former rudeness and salvage enough of their relationship so they could work in the same facility without coming to blows. Maybe, if all went well and the fates were kind, they would at least become the friends they had once been instead of remaining the bitter enemies they were now.

Secondly, as soon as he saw proof that her life was every bit as wonderful as she deserved it to be, he could finally rest knowing that he’d made the right decision. His worries and wondering would be over and he could return to Mercy Memorial emotionally whole, no longer venting his frustration on the people around him.

So far, his plan was stuck at square one. For supposedly being his liaison, she avoided him as much as possible and when she couldn’t, she talked to him as eagerly as she’d participate in a rattlesnake round-up! As much as he hated having this bump on his head, his injury had paved the way for Sabrina to be his captive audience this evening. Courtesy of a talkative nurse, he’d learned Sabrina was scheduled to cover the ED this next month, which made negotiating a truce even more critical for both their sakes. Sabrina’s, because she hated being a subject on the hospital grapevine and his, because if he went back to Mercy Memorial in disgrace, he’d be hunting for a new job.

Impatient and bored, he glanced at the clock once again as he tossed the ice pack onto the bedside table. Just when he began to worry about her being delayed by something horrible like a car accident, she rushed in.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, hoisting his suitcase onto a chair. “The last few hours have been absolutely crazy.”

He eyed her carefully, relieved to see her. Her shoulderlength dark brown hair was tousled, as if someone had run his hands through those soft tresses and she hadn’t taken time to find a comb. She still wore the same yellow Bermuda shorts and polo shirt he’d seen earlier. And her face looked strained, as if she’d been running at full speed all day. Or, at least, since he’d seen her last.

For an instant, he felt guilty for asking her to fetch his personal things, but if he wanted to establish their personal ceasefire, he had to take advantage of whatever opportunities came his way.

Heaven help him, but after regaining his wits and seeing the wariness in her eyes, as if she expected him to act as boorishly as he had before, he wanted to redeem himself.

“I wish I could say the same,” he remarked. “The only crazy thing I can claim is being stuck in this hospital bed for no good reason.”

“How’s the head?”

He didn’t want to discuss his aches and pains. “Getting better as we speak,” he prevaricated. “Did you have any trouble finding my stuff?”

“No, but I had a slight problem with your toothbrush and had to buy another. It’s the same brand as the one you had, just a different color.”

He raised an eyebrow, unable to imagine anyone having a problem with a toothbrush. It wasn’t a normally breakable item. “What happened?”

She avoided his gaze. “Long, boring story. Not worth mentioning.”

“Dropped it in the toilet bowl, then had second thoughts?”

“If I had, trust me when I say I wouldn’t have bothered to replace it,” she said tartly.

He grinned. Every now and then he caught a glimpse of her simmering temper, which meant she was probably keeping her full fury in check because of the bump she’d given him. There weren’t any thrills in kicking a man when he was already down, so he was more than content to play the injured soul until she’d vented a portion of her pent-up anger.

“So what happened?”

“What’s with the third degree?” she asked, clearly exasperated. “It wasn’t a priceless Ming vase, Adrian. It was a cheap toothbrush that you would have replaced in a few months anyway. You should be grateful I went out of my way to buy you a new one. I didn’t have to, you know.”

“I’m grateful. Really. It’s just that I never knew you to be accident-prone.”

Her face colored. “Yeah, well, life happens. Today just hasn’t been my day. In more ways than one,” she finished darkly.

He glanced around. “So where’s my food?”

“I didn’t order it in time to pick up before I came. They should deliver it before long.”

“Good. I’m starved.”

A baby giggled in the background, sounding as if it was right outside his room. “I didn’t realize you admitted babies to this wing,” he mentioned.

“Oh, we don’t,” she said lightly. “Peds is to the left of the elevators. You know how sound carries.”

The baby cackled again. “This place has terrible acoustics if people can hear the kids throughout the entire floor,” he said.

“He did seem close by,” she admitted. “One of the nurses is probably walking around, trying to entertain a fussy one.”

Her story didn’t quite ring true. A nurse might be strolling a colicky baby around the hallways, but she wouldn’t expose an already sick infant to the germs on an adult ward. She would have remained on the pediatrics wing. Neither did it explain Sabrina’s hurried glances toward the doorway, but at this moment, he had more important issues to tackle.

The infant’s laugh suddenly became more of a shrill, happy scream. Adrian winced as the pitch caused his head to throb. “If that child is fussy, I’d hate to hear him when he’s happy. In fact, he doesn’t sound like a sick kid at all. Do they allow visitors to bring babies on to the floor?”

“Sometimes. Under extenuating circumstances.” She rushed to close the door. “There. The noise shouldn’t bother you now.”

“I didn’t say it bothered me,” he protested.

“Whether it does or not, you need peace and quiet,” she insisted. “And you really need to reconsider your decision to work tomorrow.”

“I won’t.”

She muttered something about mule-headed doctors, then sighed. “I didn’t think you would, even though we both know it’s for your own good.”

“I’m fine now and I’ll be even better in the morning.” He changed the subject, tired of having his health the sole topic of conversation. “I hear you’re scheduled to work Emergency for the next month.”

“Unfortunately, I am.” She sounded resigned.

“Unfortunately?” He studied her closely. “Don’t you like covering that department or are you afraid to work with me?”

“Afraid?” She sputtered, and bristled like a porcupine, which suggested he’d nailed the reason for her concern accurately. “I may not want to work with you, but I’m not afraid to. I’m a good nurse. A careful, meticulous, nurse. Just ask anyone. If you’re not convinced, feel free to ask the director of nursing to reassign me while you’re here,” she finished caustically. “It wouldn’t be the first time you pushed me out of your life.”

He started to shake his head, then stopped as his skull protested. “Ask to reassign you? Not a chance.”

“Oh, I get it. You’re just planning to question my nursing skills and nitpick everything I do to death so that I’ll ask for a transfer.”

“I won’t.”

She eyed him dubiously and he continued, “Working together will be good for us.”

Her jaw dropped. “You clearly need another CT scan. Your brain is obviously bruised.”

Adrian laughed at her response. “I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

The apparently happy baby now yelled its rage so loudly Adrian heard him through the closed door.

“I have to go,” she said instantly.

She couldn’t leave yet! He hated the idea of spending the rest of the evening with only the television, his thoughts, and the eager-beaver nurses for company. More importantly, they hadn’t had time to talk about his idea of starting over with a clean slate.

“What’s the rush?” he asked. “It’s still early. You can share my pizza.”

“It’s later than you think,” she mumbled before she lifted her chin in defiance, “and I’m not hungry. Besides, I have things to do and…and someone’s waiting for me.”

The news caught him by surprise, although it shouldn’t have. Bree, as he’d called her, always had a lot of girlfriends coming and going and he said so.

She bit her lip. “It’s not a friend. He’s my…guy.”

He’d been celibate since their break-up and the idea of Sabrina having a relationship burned like a hot poker in his gut. After giving her the freedom to date someone else, his response was completely illogical. “Someone special?”

“Someone I love very much.”

His spirits deflated like a punctured inner tube. It was depressing to think she’d moved on with her life so easily when he’d struggled. For now, he simply summoned a smile to hide his resentment and disappointment. “Be sure to introduce us.”

“Yeah. Probably. Some day. I have to go.”

“See you tomorrow.”

“Right. Tomorrow.”

Adrian watched her scurry from the room like a mouse escaping a cat before it could pounce. Sabrina had never been secretive before and if she’d been a typical woman scorned, she would have rubbed his face in the fact that she had a new man in her life. Yet she hadn’t. She hadn’t bragged or said anything about him—hadn’t even mentioned his name—which seemed odd. In his experience, the women he knew never stopped talking about their latest love interest, whereas Sabrina had practically run away before she could.

Now that he thought about it, shouldn’t she also have acted grateful toward him? After all, if they’d stayed together, she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet this new man of her dreams.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Whether she had a boyfriend or not, he’d come to Pinehaven to do his job and salvage his career. For the sake of everything he held dear—his profession and his family—he had to make his peace with Sabrina, then leave the past where it belonged.

You should have told him about Jeremy, Sabrina’s alter ego scolded in the dark of the night, long after she’d finally tucked her son into bed. You had the perfect opportunity.

No, I didn’t, she argued back. The perfect opportunity had been when she’d first learned she was pregnant, but at the time he’d still refused to talk to her.

In the days immediately after Clay’s accident, she’d done everything she could to help Adrian and his family during their crisis. She’d sat by Clay’s bedside so he wouldn’t be alone, even though he’d been too groggy from pain meds to know she was there. She’d fixed meals for Adrian because he’d focused completely upon Clay to the exclusion of everything else. She’d run errands and washed a few loads of Adrian’s laundry so he could spend more time with Clay. She’d understood his need as Clay’s elder brother and head of the McReynolds family to be at the hospital every chance he could.

She’d also tried to be the emotional rock they’d needed, encouraging them to think positive and not give up hope when the experts had admitted there was a chance that Clay might be a paraplegic.

Little did she know that this news became a turning point for her. Two days later, Adrian told her to stay away; he was ending their relationship because Clay required all his attention and energy. He didn’t have room in his life for her, he claimed.

She argued her case that she could help, that she knew and understood how Clay was his priority, but he remained adamant. She begged and pleaded and told him how much he meant to her, but none of her entreaties made an impression.

He refused to reconsider. It was for the best, he told her.

From then on he didn’t answer her phone calls, return her messages or speak to her in the hall. It was as if she had become a complete stranger.

Deciding she was only setting herself up for more pain, she changed her schedule so their paths couldn’t accidentally cross, only visited Clay on a rare occasion when she knew Adrian wouldn’t be there, and erased Adrian’s number from her cellphone directory. Meanwhile, she prayed he’d come to his senses and kept her distance in every way possible.

Until the little test strip turned blue.

She waited outside the hospital after his shift had ended, hoping to catch him on his way to his car, but before she could rise off the park bench, a tall, beautiful redhead burst through the ER entrance doors and rushed after him. He turned, they talked, then he grabbed her close, swung her around with such exuberance that Sabrina could hear their laughter across the lawn.

His apparent no-time-for-romance philosophy only seemed to apply to her. Her spirits crushed, she slipped away before he could see her.

Pride stopped her from trying to contact him again. If he didn’t have time for her, he certainly wouldn’t have time for a baby. During her weak moments she debated about sending him a letter, but she was afraid his over-developed sense of family would force him to propose out of a misguided sense of obligation. She wasn’t about to marry a man under those circumstances. After her mother had died, her uncle and his wife had taken her in because they’d felt they had to, and she’d been reminded of their sacrifice too often. Asking her child to suffer through the same was out of the question.

Another possibility was that he’d offer financial support, but strings always came with money. She’d have to share her baby with him and she wasn’t inclined to do that either.

He’d wanted to go separate ways, so she’d honor his wish. Having made her decision, she planned her future to become a single mom.

She arranged for a transfer to another hospital in the same consortium in order to maintain as many employee benefits as possible, announced her departure, hid her condition, which wasn’t easy because she’d been so ill, then moved to Pinehaven to start over.

Now Adrian had arrived and no doubt would muck up her new life.

As she stared at the dark ceiling above her bed, she wished he’d never left Denver. The reasons for his arrival didn’t matter, but what concerned her now was how he’d respond when he learned about his son.

Although Sabrina didn’t expect Adrian to stay home the next day and give himself another twenty-four hours to recover, she hoped that good sense—or John Mosby—would rule the day. Unfortunately, Adrian reported for his shift bright and early at six a.m., looking quite strong for a man who’d spent the night in the hospital under observation.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as he caught her reviewing the contents and arrangement of the traumaroom cupboards.

“My shift starts at six, remember?”

“I know that,” she said stiffly, “but Dr Mosby couldn’t have discharged you already. He doesn’t make rounds this early.”

“John called after you left last night. He said, and I quote, ‘If you don’t have any problems, you can leave first thing in the morning’. So I did.”

“I doubt if he meant for you to check out before dawn.”

“As far as I’m concerned, five-thirty can be considered ‘first thing’. Just so you know, my vital signs passed muster all night, so after finding my way around the doctors’ lounge to shower and change clothes, here I am.”

And, indeed, here he was, wearing a long white lab coat over the pair of tan trousers and pale green dress shirt she’d delivered to him last evening. Surprisingly enough, he appeared well rested, which was hardly fair when he should have been the one to suffer a sleepless night instead of her.

He frowned as he studied her with similar intensity. “No offense, but you look more frayed around the edges than I do. A stiff wind would blow you away.”

To think she’d spent extra time this morning with her make-up to hide those dark circles under her eyes! She’d obviously wasted those minutes, along with her beauty products. As for the stiff wind, she’d lost all of her pregnancy weight and then some, because, for her, coping with a job and a newborn all by herself had been a terrific diet plan. Hating that he’d noticed, she changed the subject.

“I thought you’re supposed to attend orientation this morning,” Sabrina said, irritated because she had to share her first morning in the ED with him. As a floating nurse, it usually took her a day or two to fall back into the rhythm of her new assignment and she didn’t want Adrian finding fault before she’d re-established an efficient routine.

“I am, but the session doesn’t start until eight. I thought I’d orient to my own department before I learned about the rest of the hospital. So what’s up?” He glanced at the board where all the current patients were listed, along with their preliminary diagnoses.

“As you can see, we’re empty at the moment. This might be a good time for Hilary, our nursing supervisor, to give you the grand tour.”

He grinned. “I already asked. She sent me to you.”

“Oh, really?” Sabrina wasn’t convinced.

“Yes, really. If you like, you can confirm it with her. She’s in her office, mumbling about the schedule and sounding quite ferocious about staff hours and budget cuts.”

“What about Dr Beth?”

“She’s breakfasting in the cafeteria, or so I’ve been told.”

In the time it took Sabrina to talk her way out of this little task or find someone else for the dubious honor, she could be finished, so she gritted her teeth and vowed to give him the fastest orientation in the ED’s history.

“As you can see, this is the trauma room, complete with everything you could possibly need.” Her gaze landed on the crash cart within easy reach.

“Our second trauma room is next door.” She led him into the corridor. “And it can accommodate three patients, too. We also have six cubicles for walk-in patients and two that are set up for pediatrics.

“We have electronic record keeping, so all your reports can be found by accessing the hospital information system. I’m sure someone from IT will assign your password and explain how to navigate the software.”

By the time she’d answered his questions, referred those she couldn’t to Hilary and showed him around the entire department, it was time for his orientation session.

As soon as the double doors closed behind him, Sabrina sank bonelessly into a chair behind the nurses’ station and rubbed the tense muscles in her neck. She’d known that working with Adrian underfoot would be tough, but these past two hours had been more difficult than she’d imagined. Not because he’d been rude or sullen or looked through her as if she didn’t exist, but because he’d done the complete opposite! She didn’t want him to be congenial, polite, or study her thoughtfully from under his incredibly long eyelashes.

She grabbed the receiver out of its cradle and prepared to dial her director of nursing when she suddenly hesitated. Asking for a transfer was like admitting to fear, and she wasn’t afraid. She was anxious, wary, and cautious, perhaps, but she had faith in her abilities even though she had to work with a man who upset her composure just by standing in the same room. She would simply grit her teeth and suffer his presence for the next 3 weeks. After all, it wasn’t for ever.

“You chose a good day to start in the ED,” Hilary remarked as Sabrina joined her at the nurses’ station.

Sabrina glanced at her supervisor, grateful that the woman was a congenial sort whose interest in her patients and staff was sincere. “How so?”

“It’s a slow morning, our new defibrillator is on its way down from our bio-med department, and we have a new, handsome doctor in our midst.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” Immediately, Sabrina felt Hilary’s gaze rest upon her.

“You don’t think the new guy is handsome?”

“Beauty, or handsomeness, is only skin deep,” Sabrina returned.

Hilary chuckled. “You’re too young to be so cynical, girl.”

Sabrina grinned. “I am, aren’t I?” Then, because she didn’t want to discuss Adrian McReynolds, she asked, “Is there anything new I should know about?”

“Nothing I can think of at the moment, but feel free to read through our department manual.”

“I will,” Sabrina told her. She would do whatever was in her power so Adrian wouldn’t find fault with her performance.

As it usually happened, their slow morning turned into a busy day and Sabrina could only spare those manuals a longing glance. A patient with a kidney stone was followed by a man who needed stitches after trying to sharpen his lawnmower blade by himself. After that came a chest-pain case, a teenager with strep throat, and an elderly man who’d fallen out of his bed at the nursing home and broken his hip.

Just as Sabrina was about to slip into the lounge and eat her late lunch, or early dinner, depending on how one described a mid-afternoon meal, a well-dressed woman in her sixties rushed through the emergency room doors, dragging two young children with her.

“Please, you have to help us,” the woman begged as soon as she saw Sabrina.

Sabrina pushed aside her plans to put up her feet and enjoy her carton of yogurt. “What’s wrong?”

“These two grandsons of mine…” the woman shook the arms of the two boys who stared at their surroundings with wide eyes “…got into my purse and ate my digoxin pills.”

Sabrina immediately ushered them toward the pediatric trauma room, then flagged down the passing ward clerk. “Send Dr Beth, stat,” she murmured before following them into the room where she hoisted each of the boys, approximately three and four years old, onto a bed. “How many did they swallow?”

“I just came from the pharmacy to refill my monthly prescription. There are only five left. Between the two of them, twenty-five are missing.”