Dating The Millionaire Doctor

wanted. She had heaps of insurance money.

She could have a baby.

She was having a baby.

Like Micki.

Her sister’s face was suddenly before her, laughing, joyful. ‘Tori, feel. He’s kicking. My baby’s kicking.’

Her hand went to her tummy and pressed. My baby.

And with the thought came a surge of joy so great it threatened to make her head explode.

‘We’re having a baby,’ she told the dogs, trying the words out to see how they sounded.

After so much destruction… Life.

She was carrying Jake’s baby.

‘I’m going to have to tell him,’ she told the dogs.

To not tell him was unthinkable.

Would he be angry? She deserved his anger. She’d promised him she was safe.

‘It’s early days, though.’ She was talking out loud, thinking out loud. ‘Something could happen.’

No. Both hands were on her tummy now, as if somehow she could protect it.

Nothing would happen to this baby.

‘So tell him,’ she whispered. ‘Phone him tonight.’

She couldn’t. She wasn’t brave enough. He’d think she’d lied to him. He’d think…

‘I have to explain,’ she whispered, and then the phone rang.

‘Doc Nicholls? We heard you were at a bit of a loose end. How do you feel about a flying trip to the States?’

CHAPTER NINE

THE last case had been complex and he’d welcomed it. Finally, here was medicine that held his full attention.

Jeff Holden was someone he’d worked with before. Jeff had needed surgery as a child and had recurring adhesions. Jake had recognised him as he’d come in.

Jeff had been allocated to one of his more junior anaesthetists, but almost to his surprise he’d found himself changing the list. Taking time to talk to him before he put him under.

‘Do you watch baseball?’

‘No.’

‘Do you watch football, then?’ he’d asked.

To his surprise Jeff did, and so did the nurse assisting, and instead of a tense few moments before theatre there’d been a heated discussion about Jeff’s team-and while he worked he figured he ought to learn more about a sport he only took a fleeting interest in.

Now the operation was over-successfully, he thought, though with adhesions you could never be sure-and he thought maybe he could hang around until Jeff was properly awake. This surgeon was known as being curt. Jake had watched the operation. He knew the outcome and maybe he could answer questions.

Thanks to Tori he was changing, he decided, as he reversed the anaesthetic and headed out into the recovery area. And as if the thought had conjured her…Tori was there.

For a moment he thought he was dreaming. He wasn’t. She was in full surgical garb-she must, to be allowed into this area. She had green gown, green cap, green bootees.

Green eyes.

Tori.

She was chatting to a patient at the end of the recovery queue-a woman wide-awake and ready for an orderly to take her back to the ward.

Both of them were smiling.

She looked up and saw him and she stopped smiling. She said something to the woman in the bed, and she turned to face him.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I believe you owe me three and a half minutes, Dr. Hunter. I’m here to collect.’

Shock held him immobile for all of three seconds. Now, though… He was across the room before he knew it, and he meant to take her hands, or he thought he meant to take her hands, but instead she was folded against him in a hold that felt good, felt right, felt wonderful. Her surgical cap was under his chin. He wanted to feel her curls, but they were in a hospital ward and she was gowned, almost a professional, and it seemed every one of his colleagues had suddenly found an excuse to be here.

How long had she been here? Had his colleagues known? Why hadn’t someone told him?

‘She wouldn’t let us.’ Brad, the oldest of the orderlies, answered his question before he asked. ‘She came to reception a couple of hours ago looking for you. Marie gowned her and brought her in here.’

‘I was just as happy in the waiting room,’ Tori said, tugging away so she was at arm’s length, and grinning happily up at him with that smile that had knocked him sideways a month ago and was still knocking him sideways now. ‘But Marie asked me where I was from and we got talking and next thing I was in here. It’s been lovely, watching everyone wake up, procedure over.’

‘She’s been talking to the Holloways,’ Brad said, his gaze on Tori openly speculative. ‘She’s calmed them right down.’

The Holloways?

Jodi Holloway was seventeen with a diagnosis of kidney cancer. The parents had been close to hysterics since the diagnosis, but the surgery, performed by Central’s most skilled urologist, had gone well.

‘You know our Jim,’ Brad said ruefully, still seeming to sense what he was thinking. ‘If the great man says one more word than he must, it’ll kill him. He told the Holloways there’d been a complete excision and the recurrence rate was on the outer edge of the normal curve, and then he went off to find his dinner. Only of course we had Jodie looking like death after anaesthesia and Mr. Holloway staring after Jim like he’d never heard a word and Mrs Holloway threatening to have hysterics. And here’s your Tori, moving in like she’s our own personal counsellor only better, saying, No, it’s fantastic news, and drawing them a normal curve and explaining probability and saying, Wow, if Jodi’s outside normal limits for recurrence, then there’s only this tiny chance it’ll come back, it’s the best news. And by the time Jodie woke up she had both parents smiling. So if you don’t keep her we will,’ Brad said, grinning, and Jake realised everyone was grinning-practically the whole ward.

What was she doing here?

‘Two and a half minutes now,’ she said softly, for only them to hear. ‘We need to talk.’

‘I’m almost finished.’

‘So you should be,’ Brad said darkly. ‘You started at six this morning and it’s almost midnight. Take him home,’ he told Tori. ‘And he’s not supposed to be on call tomorrow so you can keep him ’ til Monday.’

‘I won’t keep him,’ Tori said, sounding suddenly strained. ‘I have a hotel,’ she said to Jake. ‘I don’t want to intrude.’

‘You’re not intruding,’ Jake said, feeling more and more as though his world had just lit up again. He didn’t know why she was here but he was pleased to see her on all sorts of levels. ‘Give me a minute to finish up here and we’ll go find somewhere to eat.’

‘At this hour?’ she said doubtfully. ‘Will anywhere be open?’

‘Hey, this isn’t Combadeen,’ he said, grinning. ‘I don’t know why you’ve come, but welcome to Manhattan.’

She felt as if she was here under false pretences. He was acting as though he was really pleased to see her. She should just blurt it out now, she thought, but she had to wait until he’d spoken to the family of the guy he’d just been working on, and he’d checked his patient was fully awake and could take in what he was saying. So she watched and waited, calm on the outside. She was anything but calm on the inside.

But finally he was finished. He filled in his paperwork, they both got rid of their gowns and, at last, he was ushering her out through the hospital entrance.

He’d taken her arm as if he was genuinely pleased to see her-as though she was a favourite friend dropping in