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The Perfect Wife and Mother?
Caroline Anderson
A MATCH FOR THE SINGLE DADSince the tragic death of his beloved wife, Dr Ryan O’Connor hasn't considered another woman—until Ginny Jeffries arrives in his Emergency Department. After such heartache, Ginny believes that Ryan can’t offer anything more than a fling; yet against her better judgement she agrees to accept Ryan on his own terms. But being his lover means deepening ties with him and his two adorable children. It’s the family she so desperately wants, but will she lose everything if Ryan finds out her own heartbreaking secret—that she’s not so perfect after all…?THE AUDLEY—where love is the best medicine of all…
The Perfect Wife and Mother?
Caroline Anderson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#uacab28fe-aa5f-5ff6-9bb1-16dd901ea8e9)
Title Page (#u57d05f07-9563-55be-b905-0086f56d2d19)
Chapter One (#uba8e56a4-04fb-5960-af62-c1069aa384ba)
Chapter Two (#u6c100bdd-3a93-5cb4-92b3-e0b6ba08e113)
Chapter Three (#ue3214ac4-e7e5-534c-9c8c-69870f33c3d2)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_13dd873b-935b-50cf-8a59-f20da00bec46)
IT HAD been a good wedding.
Ryan was surprised. He’d been dreading it, in a way. Since Ann had died, weddings weren’t his favourite thing. He was OK till they got to the ‘till death do us part’ bit, then he was inclined to go to pieces inside.
Strangely, this time he hadn’t. Time healing and all that? Maybe. Maybe it was just because Jill and Zach so obviously belonged together. Maybe it was because this time the children had been with him and had been fidgety and he’d had to entertain them. Maybe it was all sorts of things that he couldn’t account for.
Whatever the reason, it had been a lovely wedding. He shrugged into his white coat, peered at his reflection in the little mirror behind the door and finger-combed his hair.
It was too short, really, but it had been so hot and he’d had it cut for the wedding. It sprang back now, tawny and rebellious—streaked paler by the sun—and he gave up. When it was longer he’d be able to make it co-operate. For now, it just stuck up with that wiry kink in it and that was the way it was. Still, it suited him in a way, made him look younger than his thirty-five years. He searched his face thoughtfully. Was he imagining it or were the lines of grief fading?
About time. It had been two years now, just over. Two long, lonely, heartbreaking years. The children had been more accepting of Ann’s death, but he’d challenged God at every turn. It hadn’t helped. He’d still woken up every morning alone.
Perhaps it was time to change that. A little light flirtation, perhaps? Maybe an affair? Nothing wild, just a discreet liaison with a woman who understood the rules.
A bit of ego-massage.
Yeah.
He grinned at himself—pleased with the idea—and his eyes sparkled back, green light dancing in their depths.
A woman. His gut tightened at the thought, and he chuckled softly. Would he even remember what to do?
Ginny found the accident and emergency department and looked around. Already, at eight-thirty in the morning, it was bustling with life.
Good. She couldn’t bear standing around all day with nothing to do. That was why she’d chosen A and E. Now to find her boss.
It wasn’t difficult. She sort of fell over him, really. One minute she was walking along the corridor minding her own business and wondering where she should go to find him, the next a door opened and a tall, fair-haired man walked smack into her path.
Literally.
His hands came up and grabbed her shoulders, her breasts bounced off his iron-hard chest, and sensation exploded inside her.
Heat—Lord, yes, such heat! Not body heat but power, coiled energy, sheer sex appeal. And strength, from the hands gripping her shoulders to steady her to the muscles of his chest bunching beneath her flattened palms. Gentleness, too, his hands relaxing instantly but staying there—cupping her shoulders with their long, blunt fingers.
Stunned, confused for a second, and yet unwillingly fascinated, Ginny stepped back and looked up—and found herself transfixed by the most astonishingly green eyes she had ever seen.
Funny, they hadn’t seemed so green at her interview. And now, she realised, they were more than green. They were interested.
‘Dr O’Connor?’ she murmured. ‘I’m Virginia Jeffries—your new SHO?’
Ryan felt as if he’d been hit over the head by a rock. One minute he was dreaming of a woman—any woman—to lighten his life, and the next minute—bang!—there was a woman in his arms.
And what a woman! Soft, cloud-grey eyes framed by long black lashes untainted by mascara, dark glossy hair swinging sleekly to her chin, a soft, full mouth curved in a smile of greeting—he might as well die now and go to heaven.
Had she really been so lovely at her interview? He didn’t remember. How strange that he could have been unaware of her as a woman. Impossible. Lord, he must have been unconscious at the time!
He remembered himself and let her go, stepping back out of harm’s way and sucking in his first breath for almost half a minute. ‘Um—hi, there,’ he managed inanely, and could have kicked himself. Damn, had it really been so long since he’d chatted up a woman that he couldn’t remember how to talk to one?
Yes—but more to the point she was a junior colleague, and he would do well to remember that. No cosying up to this one, no matter how good she might feel squashed up against his chest.
His body was busy disagreeing. He buttoned his coat to allow it a little privacy until he had time to argue about it. Meanwhile he had work to do and an impression to create—if he could just unscramble his tonsils and get the words out!
‘Ah—call me Ryan, please? And can I call you Virginia?’ Wow, what a smile! He could feel his socks beginning to smoulder.
‘Do—or Ginny. Whichever.’
He nodded. He had to. His brain had disconnected from his tongue and gone walkabout. He cleared his throat. ‘Ah—right, well, if you’ll come with me we’ll see what we can do. You’ll need a coat—’
‘I got one at Reception.’
‘—and a stethoscope?’
‘Here.’
She waggled it at him and he nodded. Lord, her grin was delicious. ‘Fine,’ he croaked. ‘Right. Let’s go and find some patients.’
He was lovely. Dreadfully uncomfortable, fascinated by her, embarrassed by his reaction—what a sweetheart! And she had to admit to a certain fascination herself. What healthy woman wouldn’t? He wasn’t conventionally handsome, but his craggy good looks and wonderful green eyes had a definite masculine appeal.
And that voice—soft, deep, a little gruff, with a slow drawl that put his origins from across the pond—Canada, perhaps? His speech was quite precise—or would have been if he’d been able to get his tongue off the roof of his mouth! Poor man. Hormones could be quite ruthless.
She didn’t remember his voice from the interview. Perhaps he hadn’t said a great deal. She seemed to remember that it had been Jack Lawrence who had done most of the talking. She was sure she would have remembered if Ryan had said much, with that smoky, gravelly voice just made for loving—
A shiver ran down her spine and she sighed. It was a shame he was a colleague. She didn’t like muddying the waters with personal matters.
Still, for him perhaps she could make an exception…?
She followed his broad, straight back down the corridor and round into the hub of the treatment area. There were trolleys with patients on, cubicles with people sitting and lying in varying states of undress and distress, and nurses bustling busily from one to the other, quietly efficient.
And once there, of course, they were instantly in demand. A nurse showed her the staffroom where she could stow her bag, and she slipped on her coat, hung her stethoscope round her neck and went back out into the fray.
‘Here.’ Ryan handed her a badge that said, Dr VIRGINIA JEFFRIES—SHO, and she pinned it to her lapel, grinned at him and looked around.
‘Where do we start?’
‘Over here,’ he said. He sounded better now, more in command of himself, his words precise and yet spoken with that lovely soft transatlantic drawl that made her skin shiver.
He picked up a file from a stack on a table. ‘I think for the morning you’d better stick close to me and see how things work,’ he said, and then turned away—but not before she saw recognition of the double meaning of his words strike home.
She nearly chuckled. The skin on the back of his neck warmed to a delicate shade of brick, and her grin wouldn’t be suppressed. If she’d got much closer to him she would have known exactly how things worked, she thought mischievously. She schooled her face into a businesslike mask and kept her chuckle private.
There would be plenty of time for jokes once she knew him better!
The morning removed the urge to laugh. Instead, she wanted to scream with frustration because, despite the early bustle the work died to a trickle and she was forced to stand around like a fourth-year student and watch the maestro at work.
It would have been a good idea if she’d been able to concentrate on taking in all the technical detail, like where the X-ray request forms were kept and who did the strapping on the sprains and which nurse did the casts and where the vomit bowls were in an emergency!
Instead, she watched his hands, long and strong, the fingers careful but thorough as he explored injuries. She studied his bent head, the hair short-cropped and springy—the ends tipped blond by the sun.
And she listened to his voice, and the warm, melodious flow of it lulled her into a sensuous daze.
But still she did no work, put her hands on no one, wasted a morning.
Ginny didn’t like wasting time—even time spent admiring Ryan O’Connor. She was glad, then, when things started to hot up a little and she actually got to examine a cut for fragments of glass and, wonder of wonders, examine, diagnose and admit an elderly lady with a Colles’ fracture of her wrist.
She was just about to lance an infected abscess on a young woman’s finger when the sister popped her head round the cubicle curtain and told her that there were two coming in on a blue light, and could she stand by in Resus with Ryan as Jack Lawrence, the other consultant, was busy with a cardiac arrest and couldn’t be spared, and Patrick Haddon, the SR, was similarly occupied with a child with severe bums?
‘I think they’re critical,’ she told Ginny. ‘Ryan’s on the phone to the paramedic in the ambulance, giving him instructions about one of them—could you come and talk to the other one?’
There was hardly time, though, because no sooner had she excused herself from the patient she was treating than they heard the sound of sirens entering the hospital grounds.
All hell broke loose then. The doors were held open, the trolleys brought in at a run and Ryan was working on the first casualty before they entered the resuscitation room. Ginny just had time to register masses of frothy blood around the girl’s face before her own patient was there under her nose.
The second trolley was pulled up parallel with the first, and the paramedic gave her a quick breakdown of the findings.
‘Motorbike accident,’ he said unnecessarily, as the lad was still wearing his leathers although his helmet had been removed. ‘Unconscious at the scene, hasn’t regained consciousness. Left leg is splinted—it’s very deformed in the lower third of the femur, but it looks like a closed fracture. Don’t know about spinal injuries but it’s possible. We put a backboard on to make sure, but we couldn’t leave the helmet on because we needed to get an airway in.’
She nodded. ‘OK. Thank you.’
While he was talking she checked the patient’s airway and ensured that it was working, and then frowned. His breathing was laboured and she was concerned about his chest.
‘Can we get these clothes off him, please?’
‘Put him on a sliding plate trolley first so we can X-ray him in situ,’ Ryan said from across the room.
So they shifted him with extreme care to support his head and neck in a neutral position, and then the splint was taken off his leg and his clothes were cut away to reveal his injuries.
‘If he lives he’ll complain like mad about this,’ the nurse working alongside Ginny said with a grin as she sliced up the side of the expensive leather gear the man was wearing.
‘Let’s just hope he lives to complain,’ Ginny muttered under her breath, and then ran her eyes over each part of him as it was revealed.
As the paramedic had said, his femur was distorted just above the knee and his right wrist looked very strange, but it was his chest that Ginny was concerned about. The left side was not inflating properly and when she pressed down gently she could feel the crepitations of the bone-ends scraping together.
‘Lower ribs have gone on the left—I think he’s got a punctured lung,’ she told Ryan.
‘Watch him for shock—the spleen might have gone too,’ Ryan mumbled, and then swore as his patient began to shudder and convulse. ‘Damn—I need to get this airway sorted,’ he growled.
Ginny tuned him out and concentrated on her patient. His pupils were equal and reactive to light, which she was grateful for, but he didn’t respond at all to voice and only slightly to pain.
She recorded the information on a neurological observation chart because of the suspected head injury, but she was more concerned for the moment with the immediate problem of his chest and abdomen.
She put in two chest drains—one for air and one for blood—using local anaesthetic in case he could feel it but not react, and asked the nurse for a report on his status as she watched the steady ooze of blood from the lower chest drain. She was glad she’d done it before. Now was not the time to learn!
‘Pulse one-twenty, thready, blood pressure seventy over thirty and falling.’
‘Damn. Let’s get some IV lines in and fill him up a bit. Is the X-ray coming?’
The door opened then and the radiographer came in. They worked round her, Ginny refusing to step back and continuing to put in the IV line into his left arm while the pictures were taken.
‘You shouldn’t do that—you’re a young woman,’ the radiographer scolded gently.
‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine,’ Ginny said shortly, withdrawing some of the precious blood for cross matching. ‘Can we have the chest results quickly, please?’
‘Sure.’
They were left in peace then, squeezing the plasma expander in fairly rapidly to bulk up his blood volume while they waited for cross-matching. His blood pressure picked up a little, and they inserted another line into his damaged right arm.
‘I don’t want to use his legs because of the femur injury and possible internals,’ she said to Ryan, ‘and the neck I want to avoid until we’re sure he hasn’t got a head injury, so is it OK to use this broken arm?’
‘You’ve got no choice,’ he told her absently. ‘That’s more like it. OK, aspirate, please; get the blood out of her trachea. Can you cope, Virginia?’
