“Do you forgive me?”

She didn’t. It was too soon for her to do that.

“I’m working on it,” she said, and he smiled. A gentle, apologetic smile that coaxed a reluctant answering smile from her.

A smile that slowly faded when his eyes continued to hold hers and she saw the guilt in them replaced by something altogether darker, hotter, more disturbing.

Get out of here, Maddie, she told herself as she felt her pulse kick up and every nerve ending she possessed spring into life. Get out of here, fast.

“I…I ought to get back to my work,” she said, trying to jerk her eyes away from his, only to find she couldn’t.

“Must you?” he said, and she swallowed, hard.

Oh, Lord, it would be so easy to like this man. Hell, she was halfway there already. But this time it wouldn’t just be her who would get hurt if it all went wrong.

Dear Reader,

I’ve always had a very personal interest in neonatal intensive-care units. My niece and nephew, who weighed just two pounds, seven ounces at birth, spent three months in one, and I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the highs and lows involved in the care and treatment of preemies. The medical staff I met in that NICU was incredible, and I knew I wanted to write a story about their work, but for a long time I struggled to find my hero—until my niece and nephew were squabbling like crazy one morning and suddenly the character of Gabriel Dalgleish popped into my head. What if this big-cheese consultant was terrific with babies, but completely hopeless with children who could talk? What if I gave my heroine, Maddie Bryce, two very opinionated children? And what if, instead of my hero instantly bonding with these children, as heroes so often do in the movies, Gabriel said all wrong things? I started to chuckle. I’m a cruel, cruel person, and it was then I knew I had a story. A story I wanted to share with you all, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Maggie Kingsley

The Good Father
Maggie Kingsley

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Pat, who has listened to my moans and groans over the past year without ever once telling me to shut up, and who has the most tolerant husband in the world in Peter

CONTENTS

Cover

Dear Reader

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

SOME days it just didn’t pay to get up, Maddie decided as she sat in the office of the neonatal intensive care unit of the Belfield Infirmary, feeling her confidence evaporate with every passing second. Some days it would have been better if she’d simply pulled the duvet back over her head and forgotten all about trying to get a job, and today was undoubtedly turning out to be one of those days.

‘It’ll be a breeze,’ her cousin Nell had said when she’d told her she’d got an interview. ‘A little typing, some filing, answering the phone… You can do that, Maddie, no sweat.’

Dr Washington didn’t seem to think so. In fact, judging by the way the specialist registrar’s frown had deepened as he’d read through her application form, she’d be better off just leaving now and putting them both out of their misery.

‘Miss Bryce,’ he said at last, putting down her application form and sitting back in his seat, his brown eyes puzzled. ‘Can I ask why you’ve applied for this job?’

Because Charlie and Susie like to eat. Because my cousin Nell thought the job would be perfect for me but now I think she needs her head examined.

‘Well, I’ve always enjoyed working with people,’ she said, all perkily upbeat and trying very hard to look as though a six-month contract to cover the maternity leave of the Belfield’s NICU secretary was the job she’d been secretly dreaming of since she’d been in kindergarten. ‘The position sounded interesting—challenging—and I have secretarial certificates—’

‘One in typing and one in computer studies, both gained at night school.’ Dr Washington nodded. ‘But, Miss Bryce, you’re also a fully qualified nursing sister. A sister who was the ward manager in charge of the nursing staff of the neonatal intensive care unit of the Hillhead General for four years. So why in the world is somebody with your qualifications and experience applying for a secretarial post?’

On days like this she asked herself the same question. On really bad days, when she was trying to work out how she was going to be able to afford new shoes for Susie and new trousers for Charlie, she found herself wondering if this was all there was, if this was how it was always going to be, but she also knew that she didn’t—and never would—regret her decision.

‘I gave up nursing because I have children to look after,’ she said. ‘The hours a nurse has to work—the constantly changing shifts—it’s not a viable option for me.’

‘We have crèche facilities at the Belfield Infirmary.’

‘Charlie is eight and Susie is fourteen. They’re much too old for a crèche.’

The specialist registrar glanced down at her application form, then up at her again. ‘Your daughter is fourteen? But…’ He coloured slightly. ‘It says here on your application form that you’re twenty-nine.’

‘The children aren’t mine. My sister…’ Maddie’s throat closed as it always did when she had to talk about Amy. ‘My sister and her husband John were killed in a car crash two years ago. John’s parents…’ We’d like to help, Maddie, we really would, but we’re much too old to look after children, and with Charlie the way he is…‘They couldn’t look after Charlie and Susie, and my parents are dead, so…’

‘I see,’ Dr Washington said gently. ‘It can’t have been easy for you—I’m sure it isn’t easy now—but I’m afraid my neonatologist, Mr Dalgleish, expects the very highest standards from his staff, and though you have secretarial qualifications you don’t actually have any experience, do you?’

‘I gained a highly commended in my computer studies, and a merit in my typing,’ she said, trying and failing to keep the desperation from her voice. ‘I’m a fast learner. I work well under pressure—’

‘Miss Bryce, I’m not disputing your enthusiasm or your willingness to work hard,’ the specialist registrar interrupted awkwardly. ‘In fact, I’m sure if Mr Dalgleish had been here to interview you and not been called away on an emergency he would have said the same, but we’ve had some very highly skilled and experienced secretaries applying for this post.’

She knew they had. She’d sat amongst them in the waiting room. Eight highly professional women all stylishly dressed in smart office suits while she, the last to be interviewed, had been all too horribly aware that she neither looked the part nor felt it.

‘Dr Washington—’

‘Mr Dalgleish will, of course, give your application his fullest consideration, and you should be notified in about a week if you’ve been successful.’

But don’t hold your breath.

The specialist registrar didn’t say the words—he didn’t need to. This was the third interview she’d been to in as many weeks and she couldn’t even get a job to cover somebody’s maternity leave. Well, there’d be other jobs, she told herself. Maybe they wouldn’t be as perfect as this one—close to home, and with her cousin Nell working as a sister in the neonatal intensive care unit it could almost have been like old times—but there’d be other jobs. There had to be. After not working for two years her savings were all but gone, and what little Amy had left her was almost gone now, too.

With an effort she pasted a smile to her lips. ‘Thank you for your time, Dr Washington. I appreciate it.’

‘It was my pleasure. I just wish—’ She didn’t find out what he wished because the door of the office suddenly opened and the specialist registrar got to his feet, an expression of clear relief on his face. ‘Mr Dalgleish. I was just talking about you.’

‘Saying something nice, I hope, Jonah,’ a deep male voice replied, and as Maddie turned in her seat to face the newcomer her first thought was, Nell, you lied.

‘He’s tall and dark,’ her cousin had said when she’d asked her what Gabriel Dalgleish was like. ‘Around thirty-six, I’d say, and quite good-looking in a chiselled, square-jawed sort of way. Not bad to work for. An OK sort of a neonatologist, really.’

Well, he was tall, Maddie conceded as the neonatologist walked towards her. Six feet two inches tall, she guessed, and broad-shouldered with it. He was also dark. Thick black hair, piercing grey eyes and, as Nell had said, quite good-looking. But an OK sort of neonatologist?

Nope. No way. Her cousin knew as well as she did that there were only two types of neonatologist. There were the neonatologists who supported their staff, worked with them, encouraged them, and then there were the others. The men—and it was nearly always men—who ran their departments as their own personal fiefdoms, men who radiated power and arrogance from the top of their immaculately groomed hair to the tips of their highly polished shoes. One glance at Gabriel Dalgleish was enough to tell her this man was Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun rolled into one.

Nell, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do.

‘Mr Dalgleish, this is Miss Bryce,’ Dr Washington declared. ‘She’s one of the applicants for our post of departmental secretary.’

‘Given the time of day, and the fact I was planning on interviewing the candidates myself, I’d gathered that much,’ Mr Dalgleish murmured dryly, failing entirely to say hello to Maddie, and she felt her hackles rise another notch. So the neonatologist used sarcasm as a weapon, did he? Well, she hadn’t liked it when she’d been a nurse and she didn’t like it now.

‘Goodbye, Dr Washington,’ she said, bestowing the warmest of smiles on him and giving Gabriel Dalgleish the coldest of cold shoulders. ‘It was very nice meeting you.’

‘Just a minute,’ Gabriel Dalgleish said sharply as she began to walk towards the office door. ‘Why haven’t you applied to my department for a job as a nurse?’

‘Why hasn’t anybody ever taught you some manners?’

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them and she saw a flash of anger appear on Gabriel Dalgleish’s dark face, but she didn’t care. She hadn’t got the job, was never going to see this man again, so she could say whatever she damn well liked.

For a second there was complete silence in the office, then to her surprise a faint wash of colour appeared on Gabriel Dalgleish’s cheeks.

‘I apologise if my question seemed…a little brusque,’ he said with difficulty, ‘but I would appreciate an answer.’

Dr Washington was glancing from her to his boss in open-mouthed fascination, and for a second Maddie hesitated, but she supposed the neonatologist had apologised so the least she could do was meet him halfway.

‘As I’ve already explained to Dr Washington,’ she said evenly, ‘I have two children to look after. And before you suggest a crèche,’ she added, ‘my children are too old for one and a childminder is out of the question.’

‘That’s your only reason?’

His grey eyes were fixed on her, searching, intent. What was he getting at—what was he trying to find out? She hadn’t the faintest idea and neither, it appeared, did Dr Washington.

‘Gabriel, I think Miss Bryce has already explained—’

‘Let her answer, Jonah.’

Part of her—a very large part—longed to tell him she wouldn’t have wanted to work as a nurse in his department even if he could have arranged for her to be paid double the national nursing wage with a free car thrown in for good measure, but she’d already been quite rude enough.

‘Yes, that’s the only reason,’ she said, and for a fleeting moment an odd look appeared in Gabriel Dalgleish’s grey eyes. A look that almost seemed like triumph. But before she could say anything he’d turned away and begun sifting through the application forms on his specialist registrar’s desk.

Was that all he wanted to say? It looked as though it was, but she glanced questioningly across at Dr Washington to discover he looked as bemused as she felt.

‘Is there anything else you’d like to ask Miss Bryce?’ he said uncertainly, and Gabriel Dalgleish didn’t even turn round.

‘No, but I’d like her to wait outside for a few minutes,’ he replied.

And would it be too much of an effort for you to tell me so yourself, you big jerk?

Of course it would. He was the head honcho, the top banana. He didn’t speak directly to minions—and why the hell should she wait outside? She hadn’t got the job, couldn’t understand now why he’d even asked her to come in for an interview when he must have seen from her application form that she was totally unsuitable—but if he wanted her to wait, she’d wait. It wasn’t as though she had anything else to do, and with a brief smile at Dr Washington, she headed for the waiting room.

‘That has to be a record even for you, Gabriel,’ Jonah observed as soon as the door of his office was safely closed. ‘Managing to be very rude to a complete stranger in the space of two minutes.’

‘I’d say Miss Bryce is no slouch herself in the rudeness stakes,’ the neonatologist said dryly, and Jonah grinned.

‘What happened with the emergency call in Maternity?’

‘The baby died.’

Gabriel’s closed face didn’t invite further questioning and Jonah knew better than to probe. Instead he picked up the scattered application forms on his desk and put them in his in-tray.

‘For the record,’ he observed, ‘the next time you find yourself suddenly unavailable to interview candidates I’d appreciate it if you could reschedule. Eight women, all bar one with identical qualifications and experience….’ He grimaced. ‘Nightmare. The only way I could narrow them down was by ruling out those who seemed a bit officious, those who had irritating laughs, those—’

‘Cut to the chase, Jonah. Who would you pick?’

‘Ruth Haddon. She didn’t laugh like a hyena, didn’t make me feel five years old, has sixteen years’ secretarial experience—’

‘I want Miss Bryce.’

The specialist registrar blinked. ‘You want…? Gabriel, she’s the least qualified of all the applicants, has absolutely no experience—’

‘And in four months Lynne Howard will be emigrating with her family to New Zealand and I’ll need a skilled NICU sister to replace her as ward manager. Madison Bryce is perfect.’

Jonah opened his mouth, closed it again, and when he finally spoke it was slowly and carefully.

‘Gabriel, I hate to break this to you but Miss Bryce didn’t apply for Lynne’s job, she applied for Fiona’s. She doesn’t want to be a nurse. She has kids—’

‘I don’t care if she has a zoo,’ the neonatologist interrupted. ‘The minute I saw her application form I was on the phone to the Hillhead General, and the references they gave her were quite outstanding.’

‘Gabriel, you’re not listening to me,’ Jonah protested. ‘Madison Bryce doesn’t want to return to nursing. Her kids—they’re not ordinary kids. They’re her niece and nephew and she’s looking after them because their parents died in a car crash two years ago.’

‘Kids are kids,’ Gabriel replied dismissively. ‘Once we get her into the department, let her see what she’s been missing, I guarantee she’ll jump at the chance of stepping into Lynne’s shoes after she’s gone to New Zealand.’

‘You honestly think a woman who refuses to have her children looked after by a childminder is suddenly going to change her mind simply because she’s worked here as a medical secretary?’ Jonah exclaimed, and Gabriel threw him a look of exasperation.

‘Of course she will. Nobody in their right mind would willingly throw their career down the toilet on the strength of some ridiculous antipathy towards childminders and it’s up to us to make her see she’s making a big mistake.’

Jonah stared at him silently for a second, then shook his head. ‘You don’t have children, do you, Gabriel?’

‘You know I don’t,’ the neonatologist retorted. ‘I’m not married, and neither are you, so what’s your point?’

‘No point. Just an observation.’

‘Then it’s a stupid one. Look, trust me on this one, Jonah,’ Gabriel continued as his specialist registrar opened his mouth to argue. ‘If we can keep Miss Bryce sweet for four months, we’ll have Lynne’s replacement in the bag.’

A small smile curved Jonah’s lips. ‘You’re going to keep the woman who told you that you had no manners sweet for four months? This I have to see.’

‘Jonah…’

‘OK—OK.’ The specialist registrar held up his hands in resignation. ‘You’re the boss and if you want Madison Bryce, then Madison Bryce it is. Reading between the lines, I’d say she needs the job.’

She also looks as though she needs one, Gabriel thought with a sudden and quite unexpected qualm. How old did her application form say she was? Twenty-nine. He would have said she was older. Of course, those dark shadows under her too-large brown eyes didn’t help. Neither did the extreme whiteness of her skin, which contrasted so sharply with the riot of short curly auburn hair which framed her cheeks and forehead, but she didn’t simply look older than her twenty-nine years, she also looked tired. Tired, and harassed, and stressed.

‘I just hope my replacement doesn’t expect a social life or too many hours’ sleep,’ Fiona had said at her leaving bash, ‘because she sure as shooting won’t get either in this department.’

But that was just Fiona’s pregnancy hormones talking, he told himself. All women became irrational and emotional when they were pregnant.

But what if it hadn’t been just her hormones talking? Fiona was a highly experienced medical secretary and if she’d found the workload tough, how much more difficult was it going to be for a woman with no experience, a woman who already looked exhausted and stressed?

‘Gabriel…?’

Jonah’s eyes were fixed on him curiously and Gabriel let out a huff of impatience. Hell’s bells, it wasn’t as though secretarial work was rocket science, and as for Madison Bryce looking stressed…he would have looked stressed, too, if he’d been throwing his career away on the strength of a quite irrational prejudice. Giving her the job would make her see that her future lay in nursing and, if it also solved the question of how he was going to replace Lynne Howard in four months, it wasn’t being selfish. It was a purely practical and sensible solution for everyone.

‘Let’s go and tell Miss Bryce the good news,’ he said.

‘You want me?’ Maddie said faintly, completely convinced she must have misheard. ‘You’re offering me the job?’

‘If you want it,’ Gabriel Dalgleish replied.

Did she? This morning she had. This morning she’d thought it the answer to her prayers but that had been before she’d met him. Two minutes in his company had been more than enough to tell her he was cold, arrogant and supercilious, and she’d spent too many years as a nurse working for obnoxious neonatologists to want to repeat the experience.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, Maddie. Nobody’s expecting you to bond with the guy. He’ll be your boss, you’ll be the NICU secretary, and even if he’s the boss from hell the contract will only last for six months and at the end of it you’ll not only have some money in the bank, you’ll also have something to put in those big blank spaces on application forms marked ‘Experience’.

‘Yes, I want the job,’ she said quickly. ‘When do you want me to start?’

‘Next Monday.’

Monday? She’d have to ask the school whether it would be all right for Charlie and Susie to arrive there half an hour earlier every day, and she’d have to enroll them in some after-school activities because she wouldn’t finish work until five. Susie would sulk and Charlie…Unconsciously she shook her head. She’d figure out how she was going to deal with Charlie later.

‘Monday will be fine,’ she said.

‘Why don’t I take you along to the unit, show you around?’ Gabriel suggested, heading out of the waiting room and down the corridor towards the door marked NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT. ‘Not that there’s anything you won’t be familiar with. Though the Belfield Infirmary was built in Victorian times, we’ve managed to attract quite substantial funding over the past three years and can now offer three levels of care. Intensive Care for the most seriously ill babies, Special Care for those who need some tube-feeding, oxygen support or light therapy, and—’

‘Transitional Care to prepare the babies for going home,’ she finished for him, then bit her lip. ‘Sorry. Force of habit.’

‘Not a problem,’ the neonatologist murmured, shooting a glance at Jonah, which she didn’t understand. ‘In fact…’ He paused as his pager began to beep and, when he unhooked it from his belt, he let out a muttered oath. ‘Jonah, can you start the tour and I’ll catch up with you later?’

He was gone in an instant, and Jonah smiled ruefully at her. ‘It looks like you’re stuck with me again, Miss Bryce.’

‘I think I can stand that.’ She chuckled. ‘And, please, call me Maddie.’

‘Only if you call me Jonah. And, please, no jokes about whales, sinking ships or bringers of bad luck,’ he added. ‘Believe me, I’ve heard them all.’

‘You think a girl christened Madison is in any position to take cheap shots at your name?’ Maddie protested, and the specialist registrar laughed as he began tapping a series of numbers into the keypad on the neonatal unit door.

‘We change the security code once a month,’ he explained. ‘Fiona used to think up the combination based on birthdays and anniversaries so I guess it’s your job now. It’s a sad indictment of our society that we need a security system, but…’

What was even sadder—pathetic, really—was the overwhelming feeling of nostalgia she experienced when the door of the unit swung open. It had been two years since she’d worked in an NICU and yet it could have been yesterday. The smell of antiseptic, the overpowering heat because premature babies lost heat more quickly than full-term ones, even the cork board covered with baby photographs left by grateful parents—everything was so familiar.

‘Lynne, this is our new secretary, Maddie Bryce,’ Jonah declared, breaking into her reverie when a small, middle-aged nurse appeared. ‘Maddie, this is Lynne Howard, our ward manager, and the best nursing sister in the Belfield.’

‘Flattery will get you everywhere, Jonah.’ The sister laughed. ‘Good to have you on board, Maddie.’

‘Everything OK this afternoon?’ the specialist registrar asked.

‘Nice and quiet apart from Baby Ralston. We’ve just finished his obs and as Gabriel has ruled out the bradycardia being caused by a heart defect I’d say we’re looking at possible apnoea.’

‘I’ll set up a pneumogram and—’

‘You’d like a coffee.’

‘I’m getting predictable.’ Jonah sighed, and the sister grinned.

‘Nah, you’re just a caffeine addict. Maddie, would you like a coffee?’

‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

‘No trouble at all, and sorry about the medical jargon,’ Lynne continued as Jonah disappeared through the door marked SPECIAL CARE. ‘Bradycardia—’

‘Is an abnormal slowing of the heart rate, and apnoea is when a baby simply “forgets” to breathe. I used to be a nurse,’ Maddie added as the sister’s eyebrows rose. ‘An NICU sister to be exact, but I have children to look after, so…’

Lynne nodded sympathetically. ‘It’s the hours, isn’t it? Never knowing for certain what days you’ll be working—even what shifts. I’m actually leaving the unit myself soon,’ she continued, ushering Maddie through to her small office and switching on the kettle. ‘My husband has been offered a job in New Zealand so in four months time it’s goodbye Glasgow and hello to the land of the long white cloud.’

‘You must be really excited,’ Maddie observed, and the sister sighed as she spooned coffee into two mugs.

‘Part of me thinks, wow, what a great opportunity for my husband, our kids, but the other part…It’s going to be a real wrench leaving my friends, a job I love, but…’ She shrugged. ‘I guess family always comes first.’

Always, Maddie thought.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ Lynne continued, moving a pile of files from a chair so Maddie could sit down, ‘but I’m a nurse short this afternoon. Sister Sutherland had a family problem.’

Maddie’s cheeks reddened. ‘I’m afraid I’m the problem. Nell’s my cousin,’ she explained as Lynne stared at her, confused. ‘I needed somebody to look after the kids when they came home from school and Nell knew I couldn’t get a sitter…’

‘Then you’re the Maddie. The one Nell’s always talking about—Charlie and Susie’s aunt?’

Maddie nodded and to her surprise Lynne’s face lit up with delight.

‘Nell is going to be so pleased you got the job. She’s been stressing for days about you going for an interview, but she wouldn’t tell us where the interview was. Do you want to phone her—give her the good news? There’s a phone downstairs in the communal staff room that we can use for personal calls.’

‘Thanks, but I’d rather tell her when I get home.’ When I can also ask her what the hell she thought she was doing, telling me Gabriel Dalgleish was an OK sort of a neonatologist.

Which brought her to something she very much wanted to ask Lynne, but asking a ward manager whether her boss had been born a complete dickhead or whether he’d just worked hard to become one didn’t seem like a wise move.

‘How long has Mr Dalgleish been head of the department?’ she said instead, after Lynne had made the coffee.

‘Almost three years.’

‘He seems…‘Maddie paused to choose her words carefully. ‘Very focused.’

The sister stirred her coffee for a second. ‘His aim is to make our department not just the best in Glasgow, but the best in Scotland.’

‘Ambitious,’ Maddie observed, stirring her own coffee equally deliberately. ‘What’s he like as a surgeon?’

‘I’ve lost count of the number of preemies he’s pulled back from the brink when the rest of us had given up hope, and to watch him operate is an education.’

‘That good, huh?’

‘What Gabriel doesn’t know about preemies could be written on a postage stamp.’ Lynne put down her spoon and met Maddie’s gaze. ‘He is also, without exception, the biggest, coldest, out-and-out bastard it’s ever been my misfortune to work for.’

‘Thought so,’ Maddie said, and the ward manager chuckled.

‘He’s wonderful with the babies but when it comes to interacting with people…It’s like there’s something missing. He just can’t—or won’t—see that people have feelings, needs, even homes they might occasionally want to go to. And don’t ever disagree with him. If you do—’

‘I’m mincemeat?’

‘Got it in one.’

‘Sounds like I’m in for a fun six months,’ Maddie said ruefully, and Lynne grinned.

‘Welcome to Alcatraz.’

The unit felt like a prison, too, when Gabriel eventually joined them. One minute Jonah, Lynne and the neonatal nurses were laughing and joking, and the next…Iceberg time, and the ridiculous thing was that Maddie knew it didn’t have to be like that. A happy atmosphere didn’ t necessarily mean a slack ward, but convincing Gabriel Dalgleish of that? She’d have more success convincing Nell that she’d never be thin no matter how many crazy diets she tried.

A scowl creased Maddie’s forehead. Which reminded her. She had a bone to pick with her cousin. A big one.

‘Maddie, I knew you were looking for work, and if I’d told you he was the boss from hell you would never have applied for the job,’ Nell protested, gazing longingly at the contents of the cookie jar for a second before helping herself to an apple instead. ‘Some people like him.’

‘Name one.’

‘OK, all right, nobody likes him,’ her cousin admitted, then smiled as the kitchen door opened. ‘Hey, kids, your clever auntie’s got herself a job.’

‘Does that mean I can have the trainers I want—the ones with the light-up soles?’ Susie demanded, dropping her school-bag beside the freezer.

Maddie did some quick mental calculation. ‘Yes, you can have the trainers. Cheese quiche and salad in half an hour, so you’ve time to start your homework.’

‘Homework’s boring,’ Susie muttered, but she picked up her schoolbag and trailed back out of the kitchen instead of arguing, which had to be a first.

‘How was school, Charlie?’ Maddie asked.

‘OK.’

He stood beside the kitchen table, a solemn undersized little boy with large blue eyes and pale blond hair, and she knew his day had been anything but OK, but there was no point in pushing him for information.

‘You’ve got a job,’ he said, scuffing his foot across the vinyl floor.

‘Nothing is going to change, Charlie,’ she said gently. ‘You’ll just have to go into school a little earlier, and stay on for the after-school activities until I get home from work. Apart from that, you’re not even going to know I’ve got a job.’

‘I liked knowing you were here during the day,’ he muttered, and Maddie’s heart clenched. Lord, but there were times when he looked so much like Amy it hurt.

‘Charlie—’

‘I have homework to do.’

He’d gone before she could stop him and she let out an uneven breath. At least he’d talked about her job. OK, so he was obviously unhappy about it, but at least he’d talked. There’d been times during the past two years when he hadn’t said anything for days. Awful days, heart-breaking days.

‘He’ll be OK, Maddie.’

Nell’s eyes were on her and she managed a watery smile. ‘I guess so, but will I?’

‘Surrounded by all those gorgeous, available doctors at the Belfield?’ Her cousin grinned. ‘Course you will.’

Maddie shook her head as she slipped the cheese quiche into the oven. ‘If they’re gorgeous, they’re not going to be interested in me.’

‘Will you stop putting yourself down like that?’ Nell said angrily. ‘You have lovely eyes—stunning hair—’

‘And I’m off men for the duration,’ Maddie interrupted, knowing that the words and you’re beautiful weren’t coming because she wasn’t.

‘Maddie, just because Andrew was a dipwad does not mean you should give up on the entire male population,’ Nell declared, throwing her apple core into the bin. ‘There’s loads of nice guys at the Belfield. There’s Gideon Caldwell in Obs and Gynae—except he and Annie are very happily married—but there’s David Hart in Infertility…’ Nell frowned. Actually, he’s happily married, too.’

‘Nell—’

‘Lawrence Summers in Men’s Surgical is single, but he’s so vain he’d eat himself if he was chocolate. Jonah is single—What?’ Nell protested as Maddie started to laugh. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘Gideon, Gabriel, David and Jonah. It sounds like some sort of Old Testament convention.’

‘You didn’t make any jokes about Jonah’s name, did you?’ Nell said quickly. ‘Everyone does, and it’s so unfair when he’s such a nice guy. OK, so maybe he hasn’t got that wow factor, but—’

‘Does Brian know you’re checking out other men’s wow factor?’ Maddie laughed, only to see her cousin’s face set. ‘Joke, Nell, joke. Though I still think Brian needs his head examined for letting you stay in Glasgow while he waltzes off to the US for a year, engagement ring on your finger or no engagement ring.’

‘Brian wanted to get some experience of working as an anaesthetist in another country before we got married.’

And it didn’t occur to him that the two of you might go there together?

‘Nell—’

‘Anyway, we’re not talking about me,’ Nell continued firmly, ‘we’re talking about you.’

‘I’ve given up dating. I’m going to buy a cat or a dog. It’s safer.’

‘Maddie—’

‘Are you staying for dinner?’

‘I’d love to, but I promised Lynne I’d do the night shift in exchange for having this afternoon off.’ Her cousin walked towards the kitchen door, then stopped. ‘Gabriel Dalgleish is single.’

Maddie dropped the spoon she was holding. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘Sixty per cent of all relationships start with couples meeting at work, and you’re going to be in an office just two doors down from him. It’s perfect, Maddie.’

‘It’s insane,’ Maddie protested, bending down to retrieve the spoon. ‘Even if I was looking for somebody—and I’m not—the man’s an overbearing, arrogant jerk.’

‘I bet you could loosen him up.’

‘By doing what—putting whoopee cushions on his seat, exploding pens on his desk?’ Maddie shook her head. ‘Nell, get a grip.’

‘I’m not asking you to marry the guy—’

‘I’d have you certified if you did.’

‘But you’re good with people,’ Nell continued, ‘and if you could loosen him up, make him more approachable, you’d earn the undying gratitude of everyone at the Belfield.’

‘I’m sure that would look really good on my tombstone. Can’t I just buy him a hamster—bring out his caring side that way?’

‘Maddie, you’re not taking this seriously,’ Nell protested, and Maddie laughed.

‘Of course I’m not. Nell, you’re my cousin, and I love you dearly, but do you honestly think Gabriel Dalgleish would be any better for me than Andrew was?’

Nell appeared to give the idea some thought, then her eyes twinkled. ‘Well, he’s a lot taller. OK, OK, it’s a dumb idea,’ she continued as Maddie waved her spoon threateningly at her, ‘but I worry about you. You’re only twenty-nine and you’re letting your whole life slip by.’

‘Nell, I am fine.’

And she was fine, Maddie thought after her cousin had left. OK, so maybe sometimes she was lonely, and sometimes it would have been nice to have somebody to cuddle, but Gabriel Dalgleish…

She let out a snort of laughter. Just being civil to him for the next six months was going to be tough enough, but to go out with him, to become involved with him? She’d rather sign herself up for root-canal treatment.

CHAPTER TWO

GABRIEL gathered up the files on his desk, then sat back in his seat, his eyes red-rimmed with fatigue. ‘I think that pretty well brings you up to date on everything that happened in the unit last night, Jonah, apart from the fact that while Baby Ralston seems to be finally remembering to breathe on his own, we’ll still keep him on medication for another forty-eight hours.’

‘Do you reckon that kid’s parents are ever going to give him a first name?’ Jonah said as he made a note on his clipboard.

‘Yesterday they were considering Simon or Thomas. The day before it was Quentin or Robert. Looks like they’re working their way through the alphabet.’ Gabriel reached for his mug of coffee. ‘Oh, and Tom Brooke from Obs and Gynae is coming down to the unit later.’

‘The Scott baby?’

Gabriel nodded. ‘It’s a tricky situation because Mrs Scott isn’t technically a Belfield obs and gynae patient after the argument she had with them last year, but I told Tom he could come.’

‘I still don’t know why Mrs Scott behaved as she did,’ Jonah observed. ‘Tom wasn’t being unreasonable. He just wanted her to wait a year to see if the cornual anastomosis he’d performed to unblock her Fallopian tube was a success, and he said if she wasn’t pregnant by the end of a year, he would start her on IVF treatment.’

‘Her argument was that, at thirty-six, her time was running out.’

‘But a successful cornual anastomosis gives a woman a sixty per cent chance of conceiving naturally,’ Jonah protested. ‘Whereas the success rate for IVF is only around thirty to thirty-five per cent, not to mention being one of the most emotionally fraught treatments a woman can undergo.’

‘I know that, you know that, both Obs and Gynae and the infertility department tried to tell Mrs Scott that, but she wouldn’t listen,’ Gabriel said, rubbing his eyes wearily. ‘The person I blame is the head of the private infertility clinic she went to. He not only completely ignored her past medical history—but to implant four eggs into her when any reputable infertility expert knows you shouldn’t implant more than three…’

‘With the result that three of her babies were born stillborn last night, and the surviving baby weighs just 720 grams.’ Jonah sighed. ‘Not good.’

‘No,’ Gabriel murmured, and it wasn’t. Although advances in modern technology meant that many babies now survived who would previously have died, there was a limit to how small the baby could be, and at 720 grams little Diana Scott was very small. Perhaps too small.

He finished his coffee in one gulp but, as he reached for the cafetière on his desk to pour himself another, Jonah gazed at him severely.

‘That’ll be your third in forty-five minutes.’

‘Not that you’re counting.’

‘I’m counting,’ Jonah said. ‘Gabriel, you don’t need more caffeine. You need sleep. You’ve been at the hospital for the past seventy-two hours and nothing’s going to happen here that I can’t cope with.’

‘Even so—’

‘Damn it, Gabriel, I’m your specialist registrar, not some first-year medical student you can’t trust!’ Jonah snapped, and a half smile curved the neonatologist’s lips.

‘I agree, but you’re also not my mother, nor do I ever envisage choosing curtains with you, so quit with the advice.’

‘Gabriel—’

‘OK, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll go home after lunch.’

‘But—’

‘The first twenty-four hours are always the most critical for a preemie, and Diana’s a full sixteen weeks premature.’ Gabriel raked his fingers through his hair, making it look even more dishevelled than it already was. ‘I have to be here.’

Jonah let out a huff of exasperation. ‘Gabriel, you don’t have to prove anything to anyone any more. Three years ago this department was underachieving big time but you’ve pulled it round, and not just pulled it round but made it the best in the city. You’ve succeeded.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘There’s no ‘perhaps’ about it,’ the specialist registrar exclaimed. ‘Hell’s bells, you were even right about Maddie Bryce. I know she’s only been with us a week but she’s efficient, on the ball—’

‘When Tom arrives, I think I’ll ask her to go along with him to the unit,’ Gabriel said over him, and Jonah groaned.

‘Don’t you ever think about anything except work?’

A small smile curved the neonatologist’s lips. ‘Nope.’

‘Then you should—especially in Maddie’s case,’ Jonah observed. ‘All these errands you keep sending her on to the unit. She’s not stupid, Gabriel, and if she finds out you’re trying to manipulate her…’

I’m dog meat, Gabriel thought, remembering the anger he’d seen in her large brown eyes when she’d told him he had no manners.

‘I think I know how to handle Miss Bryce,’ he said, and Jonah grinned.

‘So how come you’re still calling her “Miss Bryce” when the rest of us are calling her Maddie? You always used to call Fiona by her first name.’

He had, but then, Fiona had been plump and jolly and non-threatening.

Not that Madison Bryce was threatening. She just made it abundantly clear that she didn’t like him. Well, he could live with that. He’d always thought personal popularity a highly over-rated commodity and, though he might occasionally have liked to have seen her dark brown eyes smile up at him the way they smiled at everybody else, he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it if they never did.

‘I like her,’ Jonah continued. ‘She’s good company, easy to talk to—’

‘So when’s the wedding?’ Gabriel interrupted with an edge to his voice. An edge that was all the more ridiculous because he wasn’t interested in Madison Bryce, not in a personal way.

‘I’m only saying she’s nice,’ Jonah protested. ‘She has lovely hair, too.’

Beautiful hair, Gabriel thought. Hair that gleamed like fire when the late May sunshine streamed through her office window. The kind of hair which just cried out for a man to touch it, to see if it was as soft and as springy as it looked, but to be able to touch a woman’s hair without having your teeth knocked down your throat you had to get to know her, and after Evelyn he’d decided to take a break from dating. A very long break.

‘Maddie isn’t going to change her mind about returning to nursing, you know,’ Jonah continued, clearly misinterpreting his frown. ‘I’ve been speaking to her about her niece and nephew and it’s obvious she adores them.’

‘She can adore them as much as she wants and still be an NICU nurse,’ Gabriel declared irritably, and she could.

Good grief, it had been proven over and over again that children who were looked after by childminders performed just as well academically as children who were looked after by their mothers. He had himself. He’d hardly seen his mother when he’d been young and it hadn’t done him any harm.

‘Gabriel—’

‘Any problems with the staff this morning?’

‘The man with the one-track mind.’ Jonah sighed, and Gabriel leant further back in his seat with a half-smile.

‘Perhaps, but you still haven’t answered my question.’

Jonah busied himself with his clipboard. ‘Everything’s fine. There was one very minor tiny incident, but I sorted it out.’

‘What very minor tiny incident?’ Gabriel said, his smile disappearing.

‘It was no big deal, Gabriel,’ Jonah said awkwardly. ‘Student Nurse Barnes wasn’t aware of the rule, and the soft toy was only in the incubator for a couple of minutes—’

Gabriel sat up so fast his feet hit the floor with a crash. ‘What soft toy—which incubator?’ he demanded, and with a sigh of resignation Jonah told him.

‘Only a complete and utter idiot would have allowed a parent to put an unwrapped soft toy into an incubator with a preemie but then, complete and utter idiot just about sums you up, doesn’t it, Nurse Barnes.’

Oh, nice one, Gabriel, Maddie thought, pausing in the middle of her work to listen to the sound of his footsteps growing fainter in the corridor outside, followed by the slamming of a door, which probably meant Nurse Barnes had disappeared into one of the toilets to have a good cry. I bet that really makes Naomi think she made the right career choice.

She glanced at her watch. Twelve o’clock. He was late this morning. Normally he’d managed to tear somebody apart by midmorning. He must be slipping.

‘Maddie, have you managed to print out those case notes for me yet?’ Jonah asked, hurrying into her office, looking harassed and anxious. ‘The ones I forgot had to be up to date by today?’

‘Just finished.’ She smiled, clicking the ‘Save’ button on her computer and slipping some paper into the printer. ‘I’ve even made duplicates for you, and filed the originals.’

‘Maddie, you’re a lifesaver.’

‘And Gabriel Dalgleish is an arrogant, overbearing sadist.’

Jonah sighed. ‘You heard what he said to Nurse Barnes.’

‘Jonah, the people out in the street probably heard what he said to Naomi Barnes!’ she exclaimed. ‘OK, so she should have known that all soft toys need to be wrapped in plastic before they’re put into an incubator to guard against possible infection, but she’s a student nurse, only in the unit to observe, and yelling at her—destroying all her self-confidence—isn’t the best way to give her information.’

‘He’s had a bad morning—’

‘I don’t care if he’s had a lifetime of major catastrophes,’ she interrupted. ‘Nothing gives him the right to talk to people the way he does.’

A tide of uncomfortable colour crept across the specialist registrar’s cheeks. ‘I know he can sometimes be a little rough—’

‘A little?’

‘But Gabriel and I have known one another since med school and he sets himself—and others—very high standards. There’s no room for failure in his life. His background…let’s just say his family has a lot to answer for, but he truly doesn’t mean to be cruel. He just speaks before he thinks.’

‘Oh, yeah, and I expect Captain Bligh’s men were always saying, “Well, old William might be a tad over-enthusiastic with the cat o’ nine tails but deep down he’s all heart.”’

Jonah shook his head and laughed. ‘At least he’s never ripped into you, has he?’

It was true, he hadn’t, Maddie realised with a frown as the specialist registrar sped away. Not even on her first morning when she’d screwed up the office database by hitting ‘Escape’ on the computer instead of ‘Enter’. He’d simply smiled tightly and said it could have happened to anyone. It was weird. It was more than weird. It was unnerving.

‘Miss Bryce?’

Talk of the devil.

‘Yes, Mr Dalgleish?’ she said, quickly closing down Jonah’s file before she could do something stupid, like deleting it.

‘I’d like you to meet Dr Annie Caldwell from Obs and Gynae,’ he replied, ushering forward the young woman who was standing behind him. ‘Annie, this is Madison Bryce, our new departmental secretary.’

‘Madison,’ Annie Caldwell repeated. ‘That’s a most unusual first name.’

‘I’m afraid my parents had a very quirky sense of humour,’ Maddie said ruefully. ‘They named me after the hotel I was conceived in. I suppose it could have been worse. I could have been conceived in the Pig and Whistle or the Dirty Duck.’

Annie Caldwell laughed, but not a glimmer of a smile appeared in Gabriel’s grey eyes, and Maddie wondered if he ever laughed. Probably not. He probably considered laughter a waste of time and energy.

‘My friends and family call me Maddie,’ she continued.

‘It suits you,’ Annie said. ‘Don’t you think it suits her, Gabriel?’

Gabriel didn’t look as though he cared one way or the other and it was on the tip of Maddie’s tongue to say he didn’t look like a Gabriel—a Lucifer, perhaps, but not a Gabriel. But she didn’t.

‘Would you like a cup of coffee, Dr Caldwell?’ she said instead.

‘I’d love one, and please call me Annie. Whenever anybody says “Dr Caldwell”, I always think my husband has arrived and caught me doing something I shouldn’t.’

Maddie laughed, but not so much as a muscle moved on Gabriel’s dark, lean face. Oh, for crying out loud. Maybe she ought to buy those whoopee cushions or, better yet, one of those telescopes which left you with a big black ring around your eye when you looked through it. It would give his staff a laugh if nothing else.

‘I don’t want to hurry you, Annie,’ Gabriel said, ‘but I really think we should go to the unit now and have coffee later. Tom will be anxious for an update on Diana’s condition, especially as he couldn’t come down here himself as he’d planned.’

Annie nodded. She also didn’t look as though a visit to the unit was high on her list of ‘must do’ activities and Maddie wondered if the young doctor didn’t like neonatal units. A lot of medics didn’t. They found the smallness of the babies, their all-too-obvious vulnerability, difficult to cope with. But before she could say anything Gabriel had begun steering Annie towards the door, only to pause as though something had just occurred to him.

‘Miss Bryce, Lynne was asking for the blood-test results for the Thompson twins, so why don’t you come along to the unit with us and give them to her?’

Because I’ll bet my first pay cheque Lynne won’t want them, Maddie thought angrily. Lynne never wanted anything he kept sending her along to the unit with, so why the hell did he keep on doing it?

Well, this would be the fastest visit to the unit she’d ever made, she decided as she grabbed the blood-test results from her out-tray and followed Annie and Gabriel with ill-concealed bad grace. A brief hello to Lynne and she’d sneak away and get on with the work she was supposed to be employed to do.

‘Gabriel told me you used to be a ward manager in the NICU of the Hillhead General,’ Annie observed, as Gabriel keyed the security code into the pad on the neonatal door, ‘but you gave up nursing because you had to look after your niece and nephew.’

‘Wanted to,’ Maddie replied. ‘Not had to.’

‘Ah.’ Annie smiled. ‘Big difference.’

An ill-disguised snort from Gabriel showed what he thought of that opinion, and Maddie waited for him to voice what he was thinking, but he didn’t.

‘We think Diana may have PDA—patent ductus arteriosus,’ he said instead, ushering them both into the unit and down the narrow corridor towards the intensive care ward before Maddie could escape into Lynne’s office, as she’d planned. ‘The ductus arteriosus is a blood vessel which allows blood to bypass a baby’s lungs while it’s in the womb. Normally it closes just before birth, but in some premature babies it can remain open, flooding the vessels in the lungs and causing respiratory problems.’

‘Is it curable?’ Annie asked, and Gabriel nodded.

‘We’ll perform an ultrasound scan to confirm she does have PDA, then we’ll try medication to close it. If that doesn’t work we’ll operate.’

‘Operate?’ Annie repeated, when they drew level with Diana’s incubator and she stared down at the little girl. ‘But she’s so tiny, Gabriel. That little hat she’s wearing—it would barely cover a tennis ball. How can you operate on someone so tiny?’

‘Smaller babies than this have survived major surgery,’ he replied, pulling on a pair of surgical gloves and reaching into the incubator to ease Diana further up the heat-retaining cover she was lying on. ‘Our current record for survival is a baby who weighed only 560 grams.’

‘But look at her—all those tubes and wires,’Annie said, distress plain in her voice. ‘She’s even got a catheter in her little umbilical stump, and a pulse oximeter taped to her foot. She’s so small, Gabriel, and to inflict all of this on her…’

‘Annie, I wouldn’t do it if it hurt her,’ Gabriel said and, as he gently stroked the little girl’s cheek, Maddie felt her throat tighten.

He cared. He really cared about this baby. One look at the expression in his eyes as he gazed down at Diana Scott was enough to tell her he would have crawled over broken glass if he thought it would help her. How could he feel and show such compassion towards this tiny scrap of humanity and yet be so appallingly insensitive to adults? It didn’t make sense. He didn’t make sense.

‘Sorry to interrupt, Mr Dalgleish,’ Nell said as she appeared at their side, ‘but the radiology technician is here to take X-rays of Bobbie Duncan, and you said you wanted a word with him.’

He nodded. ‘Sorry about this, Annie, but—’

‘It’s OK—I know how it is,’ she replied, but when he’d gone she let out a shuddering sigh. ‘I don’t know how anybody can work here. I know you do wonderful work—tremendous work—but…’

Annie’s face was white and strained and instinctively Maddie moved closer to her. She’d been right about the young doctor. She didn’t like neonatal units, and she didn’t like them big time.

‘Babies are a lot tougher than they look, Annie,’ she said softly. ‘I know it can be upsetting to see them surrounded by a mass of tubes and wires but they don’t stay like that. Once we’ve discovered what’s wrong with them we can treat them and they start to put on weight, to develop, and when their parents eventually take them home…When that happens, then working in an NICU is the most wonderful job in the world.’

‘But not all babies go home, do they? Some die.’

‘Yes, some die,’ Maddie admitted, ‘but every year our techniques are improving, our medical equipment is improving, and more and more babies are surviving.’

Gently, tentatively, Annie put her hand against the side of Diana’s incubator. ‘But very premature babies—babies of only three or four months gestation—they can’t ever survive, can they?’

Maddie shook her head. A foetus of that age doesn’t have sufficient heart and lung development. Maybe some time in the future—when science is more advanced than it is now—somebody will be able to invent an incubator that can exactly replicate a woman’s womb, but until then…’

‘Those babies always die.’

There was pain and heartache in Annie’s voice. A pain that Maddie sensed was due to something more than a simple dislike of neonatal units, but before she could say anything the young doctor had stepped swiftly back from the incubator.

‘I have to go. My department must be wondering where I am, and you must be on your lunch hour.’

She was, but Maddie didn’t care.

‘Are you all right?’ she said, and Annie nodded.

‘Of course I am, so if you’ll excuse me…’

She strode out of the ward, leaving Maddie gazing after her. She could see Nell mouthing, What’s wrong? behind Gabriel’s back, but she shook her head. She didn’t know what was wrong, but something most certainly was.

‘If you’re off to lunch,’ Lynne said as she passed her, ‘the special in the canteen today is lasagne.’

Lasagne sounded good. Getting out of the unit before Gabriel dreamt up yet another errand to send her on sounded even better, and quickly she gave Lynne the Thompson twins’ blood results and slipped away.

The canteen was crowded and noisy and exactly what she needed. So, too, was the lasagne, and she was just wondering how the cook could make such excellent pasta and yet such very lousy coffee when suddenly a grey-haired woman wearing a migraine-inducing sweater sat down at her table, and smiled at her with absolutely no sincerity at all.

‘You’re Madison Bryce, NICU’s new secretary, aren’t you?’ she said, her eyes fixed on her speculatively. ‘I’m Doris Turner, Obs and Gynae’s secretary, although of course I always consider myself to be primarily Mr Caldwell’s personal secretary.’

Maddie wondered if Annie’s husband felt similarly blessed, but she knew it was important to make friends—or to be at the very least on speaking terms—with the staff at the hospital, so she managed a smile.

‘Mr Caldwell’s a lovely man—a really lovely man,’ Doris continued. ‘He was a widower for five years before he met Dr Hart, as she was then. Annie’s a nice girl but…’ Doris lowered her voice. ‘She has a child by another man, you know. A little boy.’

‘Mrs Turner, I really don’t think you should be telling—’

‘Poor Mr Caldwell,’ Doris sighed, as though Maddie hadn’t spoken. ‘As if the tragedy of his first wife’s death with ovarian cancer wasn’t bad enough, he and Dr Hart were only married for four months when she had a miscarriage. Of course, I did think at the time that she shouldn’t have carried on working while she was pregnant, and I know Mr Caldwell felt the same, but Dr Hart knew better, and now—almost a year on—she still hasn’t managed to conceive again.’

So that was why Annie had become so upset in the neonatal unit. It must have brought it all back to her, the baby she had lost, the baby who could never have survived at such an early gestation. Tom Brooke should never have sent her down to the unit but, then, men never did think.

‘I understand Mr Dalgleish is a terrible tartar to work for,’ Doris continued.

‘He certainly likes his department to be run efficiently,’ Maddie said noncommittally, ‘but, then, most neonatologists do.’

‘I’ve heard it’s a lot worse than that,’ Doris said. ‘I’ve heard he rules his department with a rod of iron. Do this, do that, jump when he says jump.’

‘Then you heard wrong,’ Maddie snapped. ‘He’s a very well-liked head of department.’

Doris gazed at her incredulously and Maddie couldn’t blame her. Nobody in NICU liked Gabriel, so why in the world was she lying about him? She scarcely knew the man, and what she knew she didn’t like, but all her instincts told her Doris Turner was trouble. The woman clearly fed on gossip, both from getting it and from passing it on, and she had no intention of providing her with any juicy titbits.

She glanced down at her watch and started with fake amazement. ‘Good heavens, is that the time? I really must be getting back to the department—’

‘We secretaries all have an hour for lunch,’ Doris interrupted. ‘In fact, I was wondering if you’d like to come along to my office. I could make you a proper cup of coffee instead of the disgusting dishwater they serve here, and we could talk more privately.’

‘That’s most kind of you, but—’

‘I think it’s important that we secretaries stick together, don’t you?’

Maddie stared into Doris’s speculative little eyes and knew that the last person in the Belfield she wanted to stick to was Doris. Desperately she looked round the canteen for an escape route, and suddenly saw one. It wasn’t an escape route she would normally have chosen but desperate situations called for desperate measures.

‘I’m so sorry, but I have to go.’

‘Go?’ Doris repeated. ‘But—’

‘My boss seems to want a word with me,’ Maddie said, getting to her feet, ‘so if you’ll excuse me…’

‘But—’

She could still hear Doris protesting as she darted across the canteen to where Gabriel was sitting, but she didn’t care. Escaping from her was all that mattered and if she was jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire she’d worry about that later.

‘Mr Dalgleish, do you mind if I join you?’ she said breathlessly when she reached his table.

He looked startled, and she wasn’t surprised. She would have been startled, too, if a panic-stricken woman had suddenly appeared without warning at her side.

‘Of course I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Talk to me,’ she said, sitting down quickly. ‘It doesn’t matter what you say just so long as you look as though whatever you’re saying, and whatever I’m saying, is of earth-shattering importance.’

He gazed at her blankly for a second, then glanced across the canteen, and to her surprise a muscle quivered slightly in his cheek.

‘Ah. The dreaded Doris.’

Maddie nodded with relief. ‘So, if you could just talk to me, and try to look intent on what I’m saying, she won’t try to join us.’

‘Look intent?’

Good grief, did she need to spell it out for him?

‘Just stare at me, OK?’ she said. ‘Just talk to me and stare at me as though I’m giving you the code numbers for a secret Swiss safety-deposit box.’

The muscle in his cheek quivered even more. ‘A secret Swiss safety-deposit box. OK, I think I can do that.’ He moved his empty lunch plate to one side, put his elbow on the table and leant his chin in his hand. ‘How’s this?’ he murmured, staring so deeply into her eyes that she gulped.

Boy, but when he faked intent he really went for it. In fact, in this light, he looked a little like Susie’s latest pin-up. Except, of course, that the actor in question had brown hair and green eyes, and a sort of come-hither twinkle in his eyes, whereas Gabriel Dalgleish had black hair and grey eyes which didn’t twinkle at all, but…

‘I thought this was supposed to be a two-sided conversation,’ he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, and she blinked.

‘Sorry?’

‘I’m doing my best here in the intent and talking stakes, and you’re sitting there looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car. If you want to convince Doris that our conversation is really important and necessary, you’re going to have to look considerably more animated.’

‘Oh. Right. Animated.’ She flushed slightly. ‘Um…’ Pull yourself together, woman. ‘I’m sorry, but what were you talking about?’

He rolled his eyes heavenwards. ‘You wouldn’t make a very good undercover agent.’

‘I’ve never needed to,’ she replied, stung. ‘But Doris—’

‘KGB-trained.’ He nodded as she tried to smother a laugh and failed. ‘Leastways, that’s what most of us reckon.’

He had a sense of humour. Now, that was a surprise. It was also disconcerting, it was…

Sexy?

No, of course it wasn’t sexy. Gabriel Dalgleish was not sexy. Just because he was actually smiling at her, an oddly crooked and strangely appealing smile, and he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves to reveal a pair of muscular arms covered with a light down of dark hair, it didn’t mean he was sexy. He was stiff and starchy and probably performed sex exactly as he did everything else. Coolly, efficiently, mechanically, and yet…

‘You can relax now,’ he said. ‘Doris has just left. Not that you’ll be able to avoid her permanently, but at least you’ve postponed the evil hour today.’

‘Oh. Right. Thank you.’ She got to her feet awkwardly. ‘I’ll leave you in peace now.’

‘No, stay. Talk to me.’

Talk to him? What did you talk to your boss about? The latest patient admissions, the crisis in the health service?

‘I—’

‘Annie was right—your name does suit you.’

‘You mean, I’m a sandwich short of a picnic,’ she said ruefully. ‘I know I must seem like that to you, running away from Doris, but—’

‘Not a sandwich short of a picnic, more…madcap.’

‘That’s an improvement?’ she protested, and he laughed.

He actually laughed, and then she noticed something else. He looked exhausted. Sitting so close to him like this she could see that his eyes were bloodshot with fatigue, there was a very definite trace of five o’clock shadow on his jaw, and his normally immaculate black hair was rumpled and untidy.

How many hours had he worked this week? According to his roster he was supposed to work a ten-hour day but Nell had been complaining only yesterday that he was hounding the night shift.

‘You work too hard,’ she said.

‘Jonah keeps telling me that.’

‘Jonah’s right.’

‘Jonah worries too much,’ he said dismissively.

What else had Jonah said? ‘There’s no room for failure in his life.’

Surely Gabriel wasn’t insecure enough to think his whole department would collapse unless he was there? No, of course, he wasn’t. He just arrogantly believed nobody could do the job as well as he could, and yet…

‘Let’s just say his family has a lot to answer for,’ Jonah had said.

Had something happened to Gabriel in his youth, something that had scarred him, making him the man he was today? It would certainly explain a lot, and perhaps she should be feeling sorry for him rather than always angry with him. Perhaps she should…

This is how you became involved with Andrew, her mind warned. First you felt sorry for him, then you made all kinds of allowances for him, and it was only after a lot of pain and heartache that you discovered there was nothing about Andrew to feel sorry for. He was just a rat fink.

‘Can I ask you something, Mr Dalgleish?’ she said as he reached for the carafe of water on the table next to them. ‘It’s nothing earth-shattering,’ she added, seeing his hand hesitate and his eyes grow wary. ‘It’s just…Call it curiosity—call it downright nosiness—but what makes you happy?’

‘I think you calling me Gabriel might be a start,’ he observed, and to her annoyance she felt her cheeks redden.

What the heck was she blushing for? He was simply asking her to call him by his first name, as any boss might do.

‘OK, I’ll call you Gabriel if you’ll call me Maddie,’ she said. ‘And you haven’t answered my question.’

‘What makes me happy?’ He thought for a moment, then smiled. ‘Seeing a tiny preemie pull through against all the odds and eventually go home with his or her parents.’

‘I can understand that.’ She nodded. ‘What else?’

‘The neonatal unit,’ he said, his eyes no longer wary but enthusiastic. ‘When I was first appointed the staff weren’t motivated, the equipment was ancient, and we were constantly having to transfer babies down south because there was no way we could treat them properly. Now we can keep them here, give them the best care available.’

‘I can see how that would give you a sense of personal achievement,’ she said slowly, ‘but when I asked what made you happy I meant—well, I mean on a more personal level.’

‘But that is a personal level,’ he protested. ‘There’s nothing more important to me than my work.’

‘And a cow is a ruminating quadruped,’ she murmured, and he gazed at her blankly.

‘A cow is a what?’

‘It’s a quotation from Hard Times by Charles Dickens. A little boy who has been brought up never to think of fun or fantasy is asked to describe a cow and he says, “A cow is a ruminating quadruped.”’

He frowned. ‘And your point is?’

‘That just as cows are more than simply creatures with four legs who eat grass, life should be more than just work. It should be fun and laughter and dreams and…’ She shook her head as he gazed at her, clearly bemused. ‘You’re right. There is no point, and I must go. My lunch hour is over and I have a stack of work to do.’

He nodded, but when she reached the canteen door she stopped and gazed back at him. He was still sitting at his table, and the frown on his forehead had deepened. He was a strange man, such a strange man. All arrogance and efficiency on the surface, and yet underneath…

A small chuckle broke from her. Unless she could go back in time and come back as a preemie, she was never going to find out what he was like underneath.

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU said he was the boss from hell,’ Nell protested as she sat in Maddie’s office, balancing a cup of coffee in one hand and a crispbread in the other. ‘You said he was arrogant, and overbearing, and—’

‘I’m not saying he isn’t,’ Maddie replied. ‘All I’m saying is maybe there’s a reason for him being the way he is. Maybe something happened in his past—’

‘Oh, God, this is going to be Andrew all over again, isn’ t it?’ Nell groaned. ‘Where’s your biscuit tin?’

‘It’s on the shelf behind you, but—’

‘Maddie, if you’re planning on getting involved with a man like Gabriel Dalgleish, I need carbs for my lunch, not crisp-bread.’

‘I am not planning on getting involved with Gabriel,’ Maddie said in exasperation as her cousin lifted the biscuit tin down from the shelf. ‘I’m only curious as to why he behaves the way he does, what might have made him the way he is.’

‘Sheer bloody-minded cussedness?’

‘Nell—’

‘Maddie, you have a genius for picking the wrong men. Look at Andrew,’ Nell continued as Maddie tried to interrupt. ‘You fell for him hook, line and sinker, propped him up, massaged his ego, and then, when you needed his support after Amy and John died, the jerk took off, saying he couldn’t cope with looking after somebody else’s kids.’

‘Andrew was different,’ Maddie said, feeling her cheeks turning pink. ‘I thought I was in love with him. I’m not in love with Gabriel Dalgleish.’

‘You thought you were in love with Colin, too,’ her cousin pointed out. ‘Colin of the tweed jackets who was all intense and scholarly and kept saying brains were more important than beauty—’

‘Nell, I was eighteen, a student nurse—’

‘Until he went off on that archaeological dig and came back married to a pneumatic bimbo with the brain size of a pea.’

‘OK, OK, you’ve made your point,’ Maddie said with a shaky laugh. ‘I have lousy taste in men, but Gabriel—’

‘This is all my fault, isn’t it?’ Nell said. ‘I asked you to loosen him up, to make him more human, but, Maddie, I didn’t mean you to do this, to get hurt again.’

‘Nell, I’m not going to get hurt because nothing is going to happen between Gabriel and me,’ Maddie said with exasperation. ‘We’re chalk and cheese, oil and water, chocolate cookies and the Atkins diet.’

‘You’re sure?’ Nell said uncertainly, and Maddie laughed.

‘Nell, we’d kill each other within a week.’

They would, too, Maddie thought, when her cousin had gone. She and Gabriel had nothing in common. OK, so people were always saying that opposites attract, but she wasn’t even attracted to him.

You thought he was sexy yesterday in the canteen.

Yes, but that had just been a momentary aberration, and she would never be foolish enough to act on it.

You did with Colin and Andrew, her mind whispered. It was Colin’s green eyes and air of complete helplessness that first attracted you to him, and with Andrew you took one look at his thick blond hair and his apparent total inability to deal with everyday life and you were sunk.

Maddie sighed as she opened the database on her computer. Even she could see there was a pattern here. Maybe she belonged to a group of women who had been invisibly marked with the word ‘Sucker’. Maybe women like her would be better off actively seeking out the biggest bastard they could find rather than deluding themselves into believing that the next man they met would be a prince. At least then the heartbreak wouldn’t come as any surprise.

‘Problem?’

She looked up quickly to see Gabriel standing in her office doorway, and felt her cheeks darken.

‘Nothing you can help me with,’ she said brightly, and he came forward a step.

‘You may not believe it, but I’m actually quite a good listener.’

He was right: she didn’t believe it. If she’d been a preemie with bronchopulmonary dysplasia and he could have put his stethoscope on her chest and listened to her breathing, she would have believed it, but listening to a fully grown twenty-nine-year-old adult? Nope, not a chance.

‘If you’re looking for the graph sheets on the incidence of jaundice in babies of twenty-eight to thirty-two weeks gestation, I’ll have them ready in about an hour,’ she said.

‘Actually, I’m here because the new girl on the switchboard transferred a call meant for you through to me by mistake. There’s a mechanic from McAllen’s garage down in Reception waiting to collect your car, but you haven’t left your keys.’

‘Oh, damn.’ She half rose to her feet. ‘I’ll take them down now.’

‘If you give them to me, I’ll get one of the porters to take them down for you.’ He glanced at her overflowing in-tray. ‘It looks as though you’ve got more than enough on your plate at the moment to have time to ferry car keys about.’

And whose fault is that? she thought as she delved into her handbag and began hunting for her keys. If he would only stop sending her off on pointless errands she might actually be able to get on top of her work instead of constantly feeling as though she was running very fast simply to stand still.

‘You know, I read in an article somewhere that the contents of a woman’s handbag reveal her true personality,’ Gabriel observed, as she gave up on the delving and emptied the entire contents of her handbag onto her desk with a muttered oath of exasperation.

‘Sounds like an article written by somebody with too much time on their hands,’ she said. ‘Oh, damn it, where are they?’

‘Why in the world do you keep a screwdriver in your handbag?’ he asked in fascination. ‘I can understand the make-up, the spare tights, the hairbrush and the diary, but a screwdriver…’

‘At last!’ she exclaimed as her car keys surfaced. ‘In case I need to unscrew something, of course.’

‘To unscrew something,’ he repeated, taking the keys she was holding out to him. ‘Now, why didn’t I think of that?’

He was laughing at her, she could hear it in his voice, and it was amazing how very different he looked when he laughed. Maybe it was because the laughter eradicated the arrogance which all too often marred his face. Maybe it had something to do with his oddly crooked smile, which made him seem strangely vulnerable, but whatever it was she couldn’t deny that when he laughed he definitely looked younger, more human and decidedly—in fact, quite disturbingly—attractive.

Red alert, Maddie, red alert. You’ve started to feel sorry for him and you’re finding him attractive. All you need is to start propping him up and you’re in big trouble.

Swiftly she gathered up the contents of her handbag and stuffed them back in. ‘I really must get back to work. As you said, I have masses to do. There’s the graph sheets you need, and I have letters to do, forms to fill in…’

She was babbling, she knew she was, and with an irritated shake of her head she started inputting data, but when she risked a quick glance up he was still there.

‘What’s wrong with your car?’ he said.

‘There’s an odd clinking sound coming from one of the back wheels.’

‘Sounds like it could be a wheel bearing or a brake pad needing to be replaced.’

She didn’t care what it sounded like, she just wished he’d go away. The longer he stood there the more she was noticing things about him—silly things, stupid things—like his hair wasn’t actually completely black but had little threads of silver in it. Like his eyes were such a very dark grey they looked almost like granite, and like the fact—the very big fact—that he looked tired again, and she could feel an overwhelming urge to say, ‘Come on, put your feet up, I’ll make you a cup of coffee’.

Ignore him, she told herself. Ignore him and he’ll go away.

‘Incidence of jaundice in premature babies of twenty-eight to thirty-two weeks gestation,’ she read, staring fixedly at her computer screen until her eyes watered. ‘Worldwide studies suggest a marked increase in the number of male children who are…’

Faintly she heard a door shut and looked up. He’d gone. Finally he’d gone, but that didn’t mean the danger was over. From now on she was going to have to avoid looking at Gabriel’s hair, or his crooked smile. She’d vowed when Andrew had left never to get involved with anyone again, and she’d meant it. This weekend she was going to buy a dog. No, not a dog. It was cruel to have a dog and then be at work all day. She’d buy a hamster. She could relate to a hamster. They spent all their days running round in circles, too.

‘Oh, Maddie, thank goodness you’re here!’ Lynne exclaimed, putting her head round her door, looking red-cheeked and flustered, and Maddie smiled.

‘Where else would I be?’

‘Well, Gabriel always seems to be sending you off places.’

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