The Doctor’s New Family

Doctor Spring Darling has everything she needs. A wonderful family and a busy job helping the children of Cedar Springs, North Carolina. She’s given up on adding love to that mix. Until the moment David Camden and his adorable son appear in her exam room. Spring assumes David is another down-on-his-luck single parent at the free clinic—but looks can be deceiving. Because David has a job—he’s the architect proposing a new development in the middle of Spring’s land! When the truth is revealed, can Spring find a way to keep both her home and the blessing of new love?

David Camden had played her for a fool.

“I have nothing to say to you,” she told him.

“Let me explain,” David said.

“Explain? You lied to me.”

“I did no such thing,” David said.

“First, you let me believe you were homeless and now—” she gestured toward his large portfolio “—you gave a lie of omission.”

“Did I?” he asked.

He’d arrived at the community care clinic with Jeremy in his arms. She’d just assumed…

Embarrassed, Spring glanced at the floor. “I’ve been…” she started, then looked up to meet his gaze. She’d made a major error in judgment, maybe in an attempt to quell the almost immediate attraction she’d had toward him. An attraction that was overwhelming.

“I made some assumptions,” she told him. “I’m sorry, David.”

He sighed, the anger seeming to drain from him.“I didn’t mean to lose my temper with you,” he said. He nodded toward the room they’d recently vacated. “I wasn’t prepared for that type of reception.”

“You should have. You’re here to steal my land.”

FELICIA MASON is a journalist who writes fiction in her free time. Her Love Inspired novel Gabriel’s Discovery was a finalist for the 2005 RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America. She has been a college professor, a Sunday school teacher and a member of several choirs. When she is not writing, she enjoys reading, traveling to new places, scrapbooking and quilting. She resides in Virginia.

The Single Dad Finds a Wife

Felicia Mason

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

—Romans 12:9

Love is patient, love is kind.

—1 Corinthians 13:4

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Denise P. Jeffries, RN,

for providing medical and clinical information for this novel. Any mistakes here are mine.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

The last thing on David Camden’s mind was romance. He had enough complications in his life already without adding the type that generally accompanied females, especially ones his best friend tried to set him up with.

More importantly, he had no babysitter. And he couldn’t very well show up at the biggest meeting of his career with a cranky four-year-old in tow.

He had been keeping tabs on the atmosphere in town and reading the articles about the opposition to his project. The online edition of the Cedar Springs Gazette carried full coverage, including a slew of testy letters to the editor questioning the need, efficacy and motivation for the project. It was frustrating to know he was walking into Cedar Springs, North Carolina, at a decided disadvantage—before he could even present his ideas for a new mixed-use development.

Historical societies and their hysterical members were the bane of his existence.

“Daddy, my stomach hurts.”

David looked up from the open laptop on the desk. Jeremy sat on the pullout sofa in the hotel room they were calling home for the next few days. He closed the email from his best friend; the missive spouted the attributes of someone named Susan that she wanted him to go on a blind date with. As if he had time to date. He was a single dad with a floundering business to run.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, rolling the desk chair over to the sofa. “What’s this about a tummy ache?”

David crouched before his son. He pressed his hand to the boy’s forehead and frowned.

Jeremy had a fever.

Guilt flashed through David. His son hadn’t been cranky because he was four. Jeremy had been irritable and out of sorts because he was sick.

David wiped a hand over his face and weighed his options. They were few. A sick kid and important business meetings coming up.

He sighed. It was moments like this that he really missed having the support of a wife.

He didn’t know any doctors here in Cedar Springs, let alone where he might find one at this time of the night. It was already after seven, probably closer to eight. He’d lost track of time with emails and reading the online newspaper.

So he did what anyone else in his situation might do: he called the front desk and asked for recommendations.

* * *

Dr. Spring Darling was looking forward to tonight. The Magnolia Supper Club’s dinner meetings were always a highlight after a busy workday. And following the stress of this week, she needed the therapy of a relaxing evening with good friends and stimulating conversation that had nothing to do with work. They’d probably review the latest data they’d each gleaned about the mayor’s proposed boondoggle—a condo development and shopping center—as if the city needed more of either.

She logged her notes from the last patient and was heading toward the volunteer lounge at the Common Ground Free Clinic and Health Center when a ruckus at the front receptionist’s desk caught her attention.

“I’m sorry, sir. We’re closed for the evening. The emergency room at Cedar Springs General can—”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “I...I can’t go to the hospital. I was told to come here. Please, is there a doctor who can see him?”

The clinic’s hours made no difference to Spring when a patient was in need. She quickly made her way back to the front, where Shelby Peters was trying to send a man on his way.

The man was holding a small boy in his arms and pleading with the free clinic’s by-the-book receptionist.

“What seems to be the problem?” Spring said, stepping forward.

The man’s gaze connected with hers, and Spring felt as if a bolt of lightning had hit her. She knew there were people who claimed to know on first sight that someone was The One. Spring had always been the practical Darling sister and didn’t believe in such nonsense. Getting to know someone over time, discovering mutual interests, shared values and overall compatibility—those were the qualities that mattered, the elements that determined if a relationship had a chance at being successful. But this was different, and her breath caught from just one look at the man.

The feminine side of her noted his dark eyes, sandy hair and the way he held the boy. She sensed in him a quiet compassion and strength, something that appealed to her on a visceral level. Spring wondered at her reaction to the man as she registered the flushed look of the boy’s face. Tamping down thoughts of relationships and the appeal of a dark-eyed stranger, the clinician in her was already running through the paces, assessing the child’s demeanor.

“Dr. Darling, you can’t keep doing this,” Shelby said. “The clinic is not a twenty-four-hour operation.”

“Maybe it should be,” Spring said. Then to the man holding the boy, she said, “I’m Dr. Darling. Follow me.”

“Exam room five is prepped,” Shelby said, resignation in her voice.

Spring led the way to the examination room. As they went down the hall, she asked, “What are his symptoms?”

“He was complaining about a stomachache earlier,” he said. He put his precious load on the white-paper-covered examination table in the room. “I thought it was too many jelly beans. We got them free at a shop downtown.”

Spring nodded. “Sweetings,” she said as she went to a small sink, washed her hands and then slipped on a pair of examination gloves. “They give kids free samples.”

“The lady must have felt sorry for him—or us,” the man told her. “She filled a big bag and gave them to Jeremy. I didn’t think he’d eaten that many.”

Spring checked the boy’s vitals.

“He has a temperature,” he continued. “I don’t have a thermometer, so I don’t know how high, but...”

“It’s a low-grade fever,” Spring confirmed a moment later. “You said his name is Jeremy?”

The man nodded, his gaze boring into Spring’s. She felt as if she’d been overcome with a fever herself. She found it disconcerting but, oddly, not unpleasant.

Shaking off the sensation, she told herself it was compassion, not attraction. The people who came to the Common Ground Free Clinic often had no other available recourse for health care. While her specialty was pediatrics, she, like all the other volunteer physicians, nurses and physician assistants, practiced general medicine here, doing what she could for the patients on-site and making referrals as warranted. Often the clinic picked up the tab for those specialty referrals.

The free clinic’s clients were typically the unemployed or underemployed, the working poor who had low-wage jobs with no or inadequate benefits. And then there were the homeless, an ever-growing population in the city of Cedar Springs.

She wondered which category the man and the boy fell into.

He’d said he couldn’t go to the hospital. And then there was the overly generous handout at the downtown bakery and sweetshop. Spring could make a fairly educated guess about their financial situation.

She sent the man a reassuring smile, then gave her full attention to her young patient. “Jeremy, sweetie, does it hurt anywhere?”

He let out a moan in response.

The man winced, a reaction that didn’t escape her. He hovered near the top of the table and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“My stomach hurts,” came a small voice.

“Well, I’m Dr. Spring, and I’m going to see about that, okay?”

Jeremy nodded.

She gave him a cursory exam, feeling along his abdomen and chest, watching his reaction as she pressed or prodded.

The boy moaned again.

“Is he going to be okay?” The father’s concern and fear compelled Spring to reassure him in some way, even though she knew she couldn’t give him the blanket promise she knew he wanted to hear.

“May I see you for a moment?” she asked him.

He glanced at his son and then nodded. “I’m going to be right over here, buddy. You hang in there—the doctor’s going to make it better.”

They took a few steps away, just far enough that the child couldn’t overhear.

“I’m going to run a few tests,” Spring told him. “Just to be on the safe side. It could be a simple tummy ache, but I don’t want to rule out anything else unless I’m sure.”

“Do you know how much—” the man began.

Spring interrupted. “You don’t have to worry about the cost. Our focus here at Common Ground is wellness and health.”

“I can pay,” he said.

She touched his arm. “It’s all right. Really.”

A little moan from the examination table drew Spring’s attention back to her young patient.

“Everything will be fine,” she assured the boy’s father.

* * *

David didn’t know what was more distressing, Jeremy getting sick while they were out of town or this gorgeous doctor thinking he was some kind of deadbeat who couldn’t pay for his kid’s health-care needs.

And gorgeous she was. Her blond hair, like spun gold sprinkled with shards of sunlight and honey, was pulled up on the sides and clasped with a large barrette to keep it out of her face. She wore simple gold hoops in her ears. Khaki slacks and a crisp white shirt were visible under the unbuttoned white lab coat she had over her clothing.

But something about that name rang a bell with him. What had the receptionist said?

And then he remembered. Darling.

Someone named Darling was leading the opposition to his development project.

Great.

Just great, David thought. What else can go wrong?

“I think it’s a case of gastroenteritis,” the pretty doctor said.

David groaned. That sounded serious.

“That sounds...it sounds bad,” he said. “Are you sure? Is he going to be okay?”

Dr. Darling smiled and placed a reassuring hand on his arm. Again.

“It sounds much worse than it is,” she said. “Gastroenteritis is what most people call the stomach flu. Has he had any—”

“Daddy, I have to go to the bathroom.”

“—diarrhea or vomiting?” Spring said at the same time.

David’s eyes widened as he looked between the boy and the pretty doctor. She pointed toward the door.

“Second door on the right,” she told him.

David scooped up his son and dashed for the rest room.

Twenty minutes later and with his son’s diagnosis confirmed, David got instructions from the doctor on what needed to be done.

“He’ll need rest and plenty of fluids for the next few days,” Spring said. “It’s really easy for the little ones to get dehydrated with this sort of illness. He needs plenty of juice, tea or Gatorade. I’m going to give you a prescription. It’s an oral electrolyte replacement. Gatorade has some, but this will ensure that he gets all the fluids and minerals he needs. He may not want much to eat, but be sure you give this to him with food, even if it’s just a bit of banana or some peanut butter. The protein will do him good. But be sure he starts with soft foods.”

“Dr. Darling, I’m not sure—”

“It’s already taken care of, Mr.—I’m sorry. I didn’t get your name.”

“Camden,” he said. “David Camden.” Then, wondering, he added, “What’s already taken care of?”

“The prescription. All you have to do is take this to any pharmacy in town. Common Ground will see to the payment. You just need to make sure Jeremy takes all of the medication, even when he’s feeling better.”

Her cheery explanation grated on David. Here he was in Cedar Springs to help develop its economic vitality and all she could see was a loser who needed handouts. That Carolina Land Associates, and thus David Camden himself, was one contract away from just that stung his psyche like salt in an open wound.

For every degree of warmth in her voice, David’s dropped until ice chips formed on his words.

“I am not a charity case, Dr. Darling.”

Chapter Two

“I didn’t presume that you were, Mr. Camden,” she said.

If she was upset or insulted by his tone, it didn’t show.

David had to give her credit. She didn’t snap at him even though he probably deserved it. She spoke the words slowly and evenly. But he did notice an ever-so-slight tightening at the corner of her mouth. If he hadn’t been looking directly at said mouth, he would have missed it.

The irrational part of him felt inordinately pleased. He had managed to ruffle her too-cool feathers and the calm-seas demeanor she wore with the ease she wore that white lab coat with the Common Ground logo and her name—Dr. Darling—embroidered inside a blue oval.

The rational part of him wanted to tell her that he was worried about his kid. He was worried about his own mother, who was also Jeremy’s regular babysitter. The day he’d left for this business trip, she’d taken off for Greensboro, saying she needed to “get away for a few days.”

He was worried about his company and the employees who depended on him to secure the deal with the City of Cedar Springs. And, most of all, he was worried that he would fail every last one of them, including and most especially his son.

And to put a cherry on top of the mess of a melted sundae that was his life, it hadn’t escaped his notice that she had—again—cut him off and was in fact presuming he couldn’t afford to pay.

Was she trying to save him embarrassment?

If that were the case, she did so with a grace and style he could only admire, displaying empathy in a gentle and subtle manner. David had to admit that the line about the peanut butter and banana was smoothly delivered. There was no judgment, no condemnation in her voice, just a statement of fact. He supposed many of her patients here subsisted on peanut butter and bananas, two relatively inexpensive foods that were readily available and nutritious.

After another trip to the little boys’ room, Jeremy sat comfortably—at least for the time being—ensconced in a chair that looked like the command station of a galactic battleship or maybe the mission control room for NASA astronauts. He was fighting hard to stay awake to watch a Sesame Street video, but David knew sleep would win the skirmish with the four-year-old. On top of being ill, it was way past his usual bedtime.

“Clever way to get the kids comfortable while sick,” he said, nodding toward the room where the receptionist had directed him after he’d seen to Jeremy in the restroom.

The doctor smiled, and David knew she’d accepted the olive branch he’d extended by way of a compliment. And he liked the way that smile lit up her face.

“Decorating the children’s waiting rooms in themes they could relate to was actually a suggestion of one of our young patients,” she said, gesturing toward the all-boy space decorated in blues, blacks and silver. Her blue eyes sparkled, and she gave him a grin that transformed her face. “He didn’t care much for the very pink Barbie Dreamhouse that was in a corner and wanted to know why we liked girls more than boys.”

David smiled. “Out of the mouths of babes comes genius and inspiration?”

Spring nodded. “Something like that. Then, before you know it, backed by an anonymous gift to the clinic, there was funding to update and remodel not only two kids’ waiting-slash-recovery rooms, but also all of the common spaces here. Common Ground was very blessed by that donor.

“But back to Jeremy’s care and recovery,” she said.

And just that fast she morphed into the cool and efficient physician. David wondered if she had a husband and children who after clinic hours got to see the unmasked Dr. Darling. Her genuine smile seemed like good medicine to him.

“Here you go,” the receptionist said, bustling into the waiting room toting a small canvas bag. “How’s our patient?”

“Dozing at the moment,” Spring said, accepting the bag the woman handed her.

“Everything else is all ready,” the receptionist told the doctor. “You just swing by my desk when you’re all done. My name’s Shelby,” she added to David.

“Yes, I will. Thank you,” he mumbled. Then, eyeing the bag, which he noted also sported the oval Common Ground logo, he asked Spring, “What everything else?”

“Just the file. Jeremy’s charts. She’s gotten everything logged in to our medical and service records system. When you return, all you’ll need to do is check in. You’ll only need to fill out paperwork once. And that’s for any Common Ground ministry. The medical records are, of course, only accessible to staff here at the clinic.”

“What exactly is Common Ground?”

“A perfect segue,” she said, smiling as she reached into the tote bag the receptionist had handed off to her. She pulled out a brochure and offered it to him.

“This will tell you more about the ministries,” she said. “We’re a nonprofit partnership run by three churches here in Cedar Springs. In addition to joint community service programs, Common Ground operates a soup kitchen, homeless shelter, this medical clinic and a recreation program. Once you’re registered for one service, you’re registered for all. One-stop shopping makes it easier for everyone, clients and our volunteers.”

David glanced around the waiting room. “So, this is basically a free clinic?”

That telltale tightness appeared at her mouth again, probably prompted by the frustration he had been unable to shield from his voice. What he’d suspected was true. She thought he was a freeloader looking for a handout. He didn’t know why that irked him so much. It just did.

He also got the distinct impression she was going to say something, but then the moment passed and she gave him a hospitable smile—not one of the genuine ones she’d bestowed on Jeremy, but that I’m-being-polite-because-I’m-supposed-to smile that Southern girls seemed to perfect in kindergarten, if not as early as in the womb.

“There are sliding rates, Mr. Camden. Shelby will be able to answer any questions you may have, and if she can’t, our administrator is available from nine until noon on weekdays.”

Contrite now and attributing his earlier bad attitude to stress, David ran a hand through his hair.

She was just doing her job. He didn’t need to take his frustrations or his insecurities out on her.

“I’m sorry, Doctor. I...I’ve had a lot on me these last few months. Jeremy getting sick must have just capped it all. I hope you’ll forgive that evil twin who was impersonating me a few moments ago.”

She regarded him with what could best be described as wary interest, the kind reserved for the occasion when you run across an injured animal—one that might also have rabies. Then, like sunrise after a night of storms, she smiled and patted him on the arm. He liked when she touched him, even though the touches were nothing more than human kindness, the type that typically went along with what was referred to as a doctor’s bedside manner.

“I’m going to check on Jeremy one last time before you go.”

He watched her cross the room and then bend toward his son. The shopping bag, he noticed, she’d left on the floor at his feet. He also noticed that she hadn’t accepted—or outright rejected—his apology.

* * *

As Spring tended to Jeremy she thought about his father.

She wasn’t at all sure what to make of her reaction to the man. Not to mention the little sparring match they’d engaged in. She’d sensed hostility in him, quickly followed by what she could only describe as regret.

What was that all about?

With his sandy hair and those worried brown eyes, he was attractive enough—if you went for that type. The type who listened with his whole being, whose gaze seemed to search for hidden and deeper meanings with every glance.

And do you go for that type?

She ignored the taunt of the inner Spring.

“Are you my mom?”

The small voice floated up to her in an awe-filled whisper.

She smiled at the question from her small patient.

“No, Jeremy. I’m Dr. Spring. Do you remember me?”

The boy nodded.

“How’s that tummy feeling?”

He made a face. “Where’s my daddy?”

“He’s right—”

“Hey, buddy,” the man said, making Spring start. She hadn’t heard him approach. She edged out of the way to give him room, moving to the other side of the big chair. She watched as he ruffled the boy’s hair. “I’m right here, Jeremy.”

“I wanna go home, Daddy.”

He looked over to see what she had to say about that. “Is he all clear?”

Spring nodded.

“I wanna go to our real house,” Jeremy added. “Not the hotel.”

Spring bit her lip. Her heart ached for them. This father and son needed help, the kind that Common Ground offered, but the man bristled each time she tried to assure him that it wasn’t a handout but a help up that the ministry provided.

She had had the training offered to every volunteer and knew she couldn’t foist assistance on them. She was on the board of directors and had been one of the people who’d insisted that sensitivity training be a requirement of all Common Ground volunteers. People wanted and needed to maintain their dignity, especially when they found themselves in critical situations.

“You’ll be feeling like your normal self in a few days, Jeremy,” she told the boy. “Your father is going to give you some medicine to take. Will you promise me you’ll be a good trouper and take it?”

The boy nodded.

“Good,” she said, smiling at him. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pen and a small card. She scribbled something on the back and handed it to the boy. “If your tummy hurts again, have your dad call me at this number.” Spring patted Jeremy’s leg and then glanced up at his father. “Have a good evening, Mr. Camden.”

Spring left them then, but she overheard the child’s question. “Daddy, is she a spring angel?”

Her smile was wry as she made her way to the physicians’ office.

It took her just a few minutes to log her new patient notes, shed her lab coat, pack up her bag and grab her keys. Shelby would be ready to go, as well, as soon as Mr. Camden and his son checked out.

“There has to be some mistake,” she heard the man say a few minutes later as she reached the front reception area. “I must have left my wallet at the hotel. I do have insurance.”

She started to turn and go out the back way, but the boy, in his father’s arm and peering over his shoulder, had seen her.

“Dr. Spring.”

She waved at him. Uncertain about how Mr. Camden might take her overhearing his financial problems, Spring hastened toward the door.

“Mr. Camden, don’t worry about it. Really. We don’t need an insurance card or payment,” Shelby said. “All you have to do is take this to the pharmacy. They’ll fill it no questions asked. Here are the directions to an all-night drugstore.”

“But...”

Spring’s heart broke for them. She’d heard plenty of hard-luck stories in her time volunteering with Common Ground. She had also learned that she couldn’t make people’s problems disappear the way she could with an illness. A bandage, shot or lollipop could not and did not solve the troubles the clinic’s patients faced once they left Common Ground.

Not able to bear hearing any more, she hurried out the doors toward her car.

They obviously needed help, and she was glad she’d used the ploy of giving the Common Ground business card to the child. Handing it to a child patient eased any potential embarrassment of the parent while still getting the necessary contact information into the parent’s hands.

Because in addition to a toll-free after-hours clinic number, the contact numbers for both the soup kitchen and homeless shelter were on there. She hoped Mr. Camden wouldn’t be too proud to seek the assistance he obviously needed.

She sat in her car for a moment, tears inexplicably welling in her eyes.

She had been blessed with so much. And there were people like Mr. Camden and Jeremy who were just struggling to make it. The News & Observer, the daily newspaper out of Raleigh and Durham, was filled with stories about families who’d lost everything in the recession, who were victims of layoffs or downsizing. Of others forced into foreclosures or short sales on their homes. She wondered again what category the Camdens fell in, what had happened to them that put their stability in jeopardy.

I wanna go to our real house.

“Not a hotel,” Spring said, sadness seeping into her bones.

She started the car, a sensible and dependable late-model Volvo.

At least Jeremy had a hotel room to sleep in, she thought. That meant they weren’t living in a car like so many of the region’s homeless population were.

Suddenly not feeling much like an indulgent six-or seven-course gourmet dinner with her friends, Spring pressed a button on her dash panel and told the car phone system to “Call Cecelia.”

She’d cancel on the Magnolia Supper Club tonight and just go home. A bowl of soup, some tea and a good book would suit her just fine.

As she drove out of the parking lot, she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Mr. Camden emerge from the clinic holding Jeremy in one arm, the Common Ground Free Clinic tote in the other.

Seeing that made her feel a little better.

Shelby had somehow gotten him to take the bag of supplies, samples, coupons and information that every new client received.

The car’s remote phone system connected. “This is Cecelia Jeffries,” a husky voice said.

“Hey there, Cecelia. It’s Spring.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sakes,” her friend said. “You’re calling from that car phone again. I didn’t recognize the number and thought one of my students had somehow gotten my personal cell. What’s up, girl?”

Spring smiled, her friend’s voice lifting her spirits. “I’m going to have to cancel on the supper club tonight.”

“Cancel? It’s already canceled. Didn’t you get the messages?”

“Messages? No, I’ve been at the clinic. We had a late walk-in.”

“There was a break-in at the store. Gerald is falling apart.”

“Is he okay?” Spring asked, alarmed. Gerald Murphy did not do well with deviations from the norm. “I can head over there right now.” Spring turned toward Main Street instead of the street that would lead to her house across town.

“He’s fine,” Cecelia said. “You know how he is. Richard has been dealing with the police.”

Spring made the left onto Main Street and the downtown district where Step Back in Time Antiques was located.

“I see the police squad car in front of the store,” she reported.

“Come over when you leave there,” Cecelia said. “I’m making a quick chicken potpie, so at least you’ll have a hot meal since you probably just had a protein bar for lunch.”

Spring chuckled. “You know me too well.”

“Girl, forget saving calories. Life was meant to enjoy—and that means enjoying good food.”

“Everything in moderation,” Spring said.

Cecelia snorted at that.

After promising that she would stop by after checking on Gerald and Richard, Spring disconnected the call and pulled into a spot on the street behind the Cedar Springs Police Department cruiser.

As she got out of the car and headed toward the door of the shop, a train display in the window of Step Back in Time Antiques caught her eye. She wondered if Jeremy Camden liked trains. She realized that if Mr. Camden was living with his young son in one of the city’s low cost extended-stay hotels populated by some of the homeless, the last thing that would be on his mind would be splurging on an antique train set, no matter how fetching.

She couldn’t help the sadness she felt knowing that Jeremy wouldn’t—couldn’t—have something as simple as a train set.

Chapter Three

The only thing on David Camden’s mind was picking up that prescription, getting Jeremy settled in bed and then figuring out a way to show Dr. Spring Darling that he wasn’t the sort who took an unneeded handout. She had to have overheard that fiasco at the front desk.

After that, he would figure out how he was going to make the meetings in the morning with first the public safety officials and then the mayor and planning officials. That his priorities were turned topsy-turvy didn’t at all surprise him the way it should have. His son and securing the deal with the City of Cedar Springs should have been his only two concerns. Yet here he was disturbed and wondering about the impression he’d made on a woman he’d just met.

He’d seen her as a woman, someone he could be interested in and that hadn’t happened in a long time.

“Focus, Camden,” he coached himself.

He had work to do and none of it involved a tall blue-eyed blonde.

David forced his attention to his current dilemma.

He couldn’t take Jeremy with him to the meetings, and he couldn’t afford to blow this deal. The opportunity for his company, Carolina Land Associates, was too great, and, in a way, Jeremy’s future depended on his sealing the contract.

He also wondered if Dr. Spring Darling was the Darling he’d read about in the online edition of the Cedar Springs Gazette—the Darling so vocally opposed to and leading the effort to squelch the very notion of development in the city. But before he could investigate any of that, he needed to make sure Jeremy was all right. A glance over his shoulder and to the backseat of the sport utility vehicle confirmed that his little slugger was still knocked out.

He’d fallen asleep almost as soon as David got him buckled into the child safety seat.

After a quick dash into his hotel room to retrieve the wallet he’d left on the dresser next to the television’s remote control, he got a quart of orange juice and the medicine. David insisted on paying cash for the prescription—despite the pharmacist’s assurance that it was free. The last thing he wanted to do was take away a resource from someone who actually needed it.

He roused Jeremy long enough to get him undressed, to the bathroom and back into the big bed. When they’d first checked in, the boy had loved the idea that he would get to sleep in a big bed like Daddy’s. Jeremy had jumped on both double beds and giggled as he hopped from one to the other. But David knew he’d soon want to climb back into his own bed at home, the one decked out like a Formula One race car.

David stared down at his sleeping son as a concept that would enhance his presentation to city officials began unfolding in his mind.

Jeremy’s bedroom furniture and the children’s waiting room at the clinic had given him an idea. He picked up his sketchbook and settled on the sofa to make a few preliminary sketches. Liking where it was going, David fired up his computer and worked on a design for a green space that would meld nicely with a concept he had for a play on the old-style garden apartments that were popular in the 1970s and 1980s. He wrote nouveau retro in the margin on the sketchpad page, then created a computer file with the same name as the design ideas tumbled over each other.

Buzzing disturbed his train of thought.

David looked around, trying to determine the source of the noise. The television was on mute; a guy surrounded by fruits and vegetables and a perky blonde assistant hawked what, had the sound been up, he would have heard was the best juicer ever created on planet Earth.

Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz.

The radio on the nightstand between the beds glowed 11:20 p.m. He’d been working for a couple of hours and hadn’t realized it.

Bzzz.

No sound came from the radio.

Jeremy had flung the light blanket off and was turned practically upside down on his bed, the sheets in a twist.

Then it dawned on him. The phone. He’d had it on vibrate and it was...where? He cast his gaze around the hotel room, wondering how he could lose something in a space the size of a studio apartment. Then he remembered. The counter in the bathroom. He’d put the phone down when they’d come in and gone straight to the toilet.

He padded his way over and decided to take the call there so Jeremy wouldn’t be disturbed. He grabbed the phone before it fell to the floor after buzzing its way to the edge of the sink counter.

“Camden here.”

“That’s no way to answer the telephone. I’ve told you that at least a hundred times, dear.”

David breathed a sigh that was both relief and exasperation. Charlotte Camden, his missing-in-action mother, had decided to check in. He’d left a couple of messages for her earlier in the day and hadn’t heard a peep from her.

“Mom, where are you?”

“I’m at Becky’s. She sends her love.”

David rolled his eyes. The only thing his aunt Becky would send would be an order form for cookies or magazines or overpriced gift wraps and bows from one of the thousand civic group fund-raisers she always seemed to be in charge of. There were only so many peanuts and church cookbooks and happy cat calendars that a person could buy or tolerate.

“We had a lovely girls’ day out,” his mother said. “We went to a new spa here in Greensboro and had facials, and then we ate lunch at a cute little bistro...”

David leaned against the sink, rubbed his temple and sighed.

Here he was thinking she was having some sort of existential or menopausal crisis, and instead she was just hanging out with her sister.

“...and he asked me out to dinner. Imagine that!”

His eyes popped open, and he stood up. “What was that, Mom? Who? Dinner?”

A schoolgirl-sounding trill came through the mobile phone.

“He’s in charge of the school district’s transportation department. We’re going to dinner and a movie. Isn’t that nice?”

David shuddered and tried not to sigh again.

The thought of his mother dating gave him the heebie-jeebies. He knew it was unreasonable to expect that she would be alone the rest of her life. Charlotte Camden was not yet sixty years old and had already been a widow for almost a decade.

She didn’t know that David thoroughly vetted the gentlemen friends she expressed interest in. And he’d confronted more than one who was after something other than the companionship of a lady of a certain age.

He knew he was overprotective when it came to his mother. Charlotte wasn’t what might be called rich, but a trust left for her by his father in addition to a hefty insurance settlement after he’d died ensured that she would have no financial worries, and enough wealth to attract the sort looking for a gravy train.

“Yeah, lovely,” he said of her dinner-date news.

What sounded like a moan from the other room drew his attention. He pulled the bathroom door open a bit and listened.

“Daddy.”

“I’m right here, buddy,” he said, making his way to the beds.

“Is that Jeremy?” Charlotte asked. “What in the world is he doing up at this hour? David, you spoil him.”

“He’s sick, Mom. Can you hold on for a sec?”

He put the phone on his bed and sat on Jeremy’s.

The boy crawled into his lap and moaned. His forehead was burning up.

David’s heart started racing.

“Oh, boy.”

“David! David!” The tinny voice floated from the phone.

He leaned over and snatched it up, cradling the phone in the crook of his neck. “Mom, I’ve got to go. I need to find a doctor.”

“Find a doctor? What do you mean find a doctor? Call Dr. Johnson.”

“Dr. Johnson is in Charlotte, mom. We’re in Cedar Springs.”

David eased Jeremy from his lap and back onto the bed, then dashed to the bathroom for a cool washcloth. He returned just a moment later with both the washcloth to press to his son’s head and a glass of water.

“Cedar Springs? What in the...? Oh no! Oh, David, I’m so sorry. Was that this week? I thought you were going there next week.”

Retching sounds were coming from Jeremy.

“Mom, I need to go.”

He disengaged the phone and dashed for the wastebasket near the desk. He got back to Jeremy a second too late.

The boy started to cry. David didn’t know if the tears were because his stomach hurt or because he’d just soiled his favorite Winnie the Pooh pajamas.

“It’s gonna be okay, buddy.”

David prayed that it would be as he comforted his son.

It was eleven thirty at night. He had two options. He could call 9-1-1 or he could call the doctor from the clinic. She’d written a number on the back of the business card she’d given Jeremy.

He put the wastebasket on the floor at the edge of the bed and cradled his son in one arm. With the other, he dug into his pocket and pulled out Dr. Spring Darling’s business card.

* * *

Spring had just closed the book she’d been reading, turned off the bedside lamp, fluffed her pillows and settled in bed when her mobile phone chirped.

“Gerald, I am not giving you a prescription for Valium,” she muttered as she rolled over and reached for the telephone on the bedside table.

The burglars at Step Back in Time Antiques weren’t after whatever they could grab. They’d come with a shopping list. Small but extremely valuable pieces were the only things missing from the antiques shop. If it hadn’t been for a broken vase that Richard’s wife had come across, they may not have even discovered the break-in for a day or two. She’d gotten the story from Gerald, the high-strung co-owner of the shop, while Richard, the more level-headed business partner, talked to police, then called their insurance company.

After checking on her friends, she’d driven to Cecelia’s, where she’d stayed entirely too long for someone who had early morning rounds at the hospital. Gerald had already phoned twice asking for something to calm his nerves.

She didn’t even glance at the caller ID on the phone. “Gerald, for the last time, I am not giving you a script for Valium. Drink some chamomile tea and go to bed.”

“Uh, hello?”

Spring sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

That rich baritone was definitely not Gerald Murphy on the line. It sounded like the man with the little boy who’d been at the clinic—the man she’d spent too much time talking about with Cecelia, the man whose voice did unreasonable things to her.

She turned on the light, then put on her professional voice. “I’m so sorry,” she told her caller. “I thought it was a friend. This is Dr. Darling. To whom am I speaking?”

“I’m sorry for calling so late, doctor. It’s David. David Camden. I brought my son in to see you earlier this evening.”

Spring ran a hand through hair that tumbled in her face. She opened the bedside table drawer and pulled out a hair tie to tame it.

Putting the phone on speaker, she gathered up her hair and tugged it into a ponytail. “Is Jeremy all right?” she asked him.

“No.”

She heard the panic in the man’s voice and was up and headed to her closet for clothes to wear to either the clinic or the hospital.

“What are his symptoms?” she asked as she grabbed a pair of jeans and a white button-down shirt.

“He’s burning up and throwing up. Hold on, please.”

She stared at the phone for a moment. When she heard retching, her mind started running through what besides stomach flu might be wrong with the cute little boy. Spring pulled on the jeans and slipped into a pair of loafers.

“Dr. Darling? I’m back. He says his stomach hurts a lot. I didn’t know who else to call.”

“Where are you?”

When he told her, she was a bit surprised to hear that someone with financial troubles was living in that rather expensive hotel. There were several more economical options around town. But she said nothing about that. It wasn’t her business. A sick child was her concern.

“I want you to take Jeremy to the hospital. To Cedar Springs General Hospital. I’ll meet you there. Do you have something to write with? I can give you directions from where you are. It will take you less than ten minutes to get there.”

She gave David the directions, shrugged on and buttoned her shirt and was about to grab her keys when she paused at the mirror. She made a quick detour to her large bathroom and applied a touch of powder and a bit of blush to her cheeks. She picked up a tube of lipstick, then frowned and put it back on the tray that held her makeup.

“It’s a medical emergency, not a date,” she said.

With her keys in hand, she grabbed her phone, the wallet clutch that held the essentials and the lanyard with her hospital IDs.

Outside, as she made her way to the garage, she noticed the lights were still on at her mother’s house. Spring’s home was actually a separate wing of her mother’s large estate. They shared the four-car garage on the property. Lovie Darling was a consummate entertainer, and the two cars in the drive, vehicles Spring didn’t recognize, were proof of that.

In her Volvo car, Spring placed her hands on the steering wheel, closed her eyes and prayed for Jeremy Camden and his father.

Then she headed to the hospital. She hated that it was under these circumstances, but she found herself pleased at the prospect of seeing David Camden again.

Hot on the heels of that came the realization that her thoughts were inappropriate on so many levels. Chief among them was that there was most likely a Mrs. Camden who loved him and that precious little boy. But the doctor’s suddenly sweaty hands and that little flutter in her gut gave evidence to another diagnosis—one of a far more personal nature.

For the first time in a long, long time, Spring found herself intrigued by a man, curious about his impression of her...and she fervently hoped there was no Mrs. Camden.

Chapter Four

Spring headed straight to the emergency department at Cedar Springs General Hospital. As one of the staff physicians at the medical center, she had a designated parking space and was able to bypass the entry used by other hospital employees.

On weekends, the emergency department—typically called an emergency room by the public, as if there was just one room to it—bustled with acute trauma cases, mostly of the do-it-yourself-home-improvement variety like broken arms and legs or fractures. Then there were the asthma attacks and bee stings, as well as the usual mix of possible heart attacks, allergic reactions to everything from peanuts to shellfish and the occasional car crash victim. Severe trauma patients who needed advanced care were airlifted to Durham, where specialists at Duke University’s emergency trauma hospital and facilities could handle burns, gunshot victims and the like. Thankfully, those cases were rare at Cedar Springs General.

Spring looked around but didn’t see either David or Jeremy Camden in the emergency department’s waiting room. This evening there was just a handful of people in the waiting area. Three people huddled together with a man who kept saying, “I’m not gonna let them touch me. I’m not gonna let them touch me.” And an elderly woman in a light blue pantsuit sat erect in one of the chairs facing the receptionist’s desk. The woman clutched her purse as if someone might try to snatch it from her grip.

The televisions were on; one wall-mounted plasma set displayed a cable news channel, while its twin depicted a late-night talk show host yukking it up with a celebrity guest.

“Hi, Dr. Darling,” a man said from behind her. “What are you doing here this time of night?”

Spring turned to see Joseph Bradshaw, one of the physician assistants. Dressed in green scrubs, the uniform of most of the emergency department staff, he held a chart and was making his way toward one of the bays.

“Hi, Joseph. I got a call from the father of a patient. Acute abdominal pain that’s gotten worse. They’re supposed to meet me here.”

“It’s been pretty quiet tonight,” Joseph said. “I haven’t seen—”

Just then the automatic doors whooshed open and David Camden rushed in, almost running, with his son in his arms. The panic in his eyes and his bearing arrested Spring. He spotted her almost immediately.

“Dr. Darling!”

“Joseph, I’m going to need a bed.”

“On it, Doc,” he said, heading toward the emergency bays.

“He woke up doubled over,” David said, approaching Spring. “And he threw up again.”

“All right,” Spring said as several emergency department aides rushed to take the boy.

“Daddy, my stomach hurts a lot,” Jeremy said. Adding emphasis to just how much, the boy moaned and burrowed in closer to David’s chest, instinctively seeking the protection of his father rather than the strangers with outstretched hands.

The sound tore at Spring. Little Jeremy’s moan was one of the most pitiful sounds she had heard in a long, long time.

“Dr. Spring is right here,” David told his son.

The boy lifted his head a bit. “Pretty Spring?”

“Yeah, buddy. It’s Dr. Spring.”

Despite the strain she saw evident in the worry lines at his mouth and brow, Spring heard a note of amusement in David’s voice as he answered Jeremy. She’d been called many things in her thirty-five years, but this cute little boy calling her pretty just tugged at her heart.

It was clear Jeremy had more than just a bad case of stomach flu or too many jelly beans. Her mind raced with possibilities, none of them good.

“Noooo!” Jeremy cried out when David tried to place him on the gurney manned by two orderlies.

“It’s okay, buddy,” David assured his son, who resisted lying down. “I’m right here.”

“Want Dr. Spring.”

“I’m here, too, Jeremy,” Spring said with a nod toward one of the orderlies. “If you’ll lay back, we’re going to take you into a room where I can see what’s making your tummy hurt. Okay?”

The little boy nodded and did as she requested, but tears streaked down his face and he sought his father.

Spring glanced up at David.

“Can I come back?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

* * *

Helpless and anxious, David watched as emergency room attendants wheeled his son into a room cordoned off with curtains and hooked him up to machines.

David was terrified, so he could only imagine how Jeremy must feel. He reached deep for the anchor that would stabilize him. He needed to be strong for his son, not show the panic that raced through him. His heart beat so fast that he feared he might end up on a gurney next to Jeremy.

A moment later, he was politely asked by one of the attendants to step back.

“I can’t leave my son.”

A soft hand on his arm drew his attention. Spring was there.

“David, you don’t have to. They just need some room to work.”

He glanced around and saw a nurse or a doctor wheeling some sort of machine. He quickly moved to a spot she indicated, where he could stand and hold Jeremy’s hand and not interfere with the tests they needed to run.

“Lord, you took her. Please don’t take him, too,” he whispered in an anguished plea. “He’s all I have.”

* * *

As she’d expected, the diagnosis wasn’t good. Fortunately, it was something that was fairly routine for the hospital. Spring consulted with the emergency department’s attending pediatrician while David Camden remained in the emergency room bay with Jeremy.

“We have done an ultrasound and a CT scan,” Timothy Paquette, the department’s pediatrician, told Spring.

Worried, Spring bit her lip. “I sent him home thinking it was just gastroenteritis.”

“I would have done the same thing,” Dr. Paquette said. “I took a look at the lab you did at the clinic. With his other symptoms, it made sense.”

Spring nodded, but his words didn’t make her feel any better. She just wanted to take Jeremy in her arms and hug all the hurt away.

“You want to talk to his father, or should I?” Paquette said. “Dr. Emmanuel should be here in about five minutes. The OR is ready just as soon as he gets here and the father gives the okay.”

“I’ll tell him,” she said, knowing from experience the reaction he would have.

David jumped up from his chair when Spring entered the waiting room. Telling him his son was so sick wasn’t going to be pleasant; this part of the job never was.

“Mr. Camden—”

“Call me David,” he said, grabbing her hand. “Is Jeremy all right?”

He was clutching her hand so tightly that Spring winced.

He immediately dropped it. “I’m sorry. I’m just worried about Jeremy.”

Spring resisted the urge to massage her throbbing hand. “He has appendicitis,” she said. “Dr. Adam Emmanuel is ready to operate once we get your approval.”

“Operate? His appendix? But he’s just four,” David said.

“Appendicitis is not uncommon in children,” Spring said. “Toddlers, even infants, can develop it. But it’s harder to diagnose in the younger ones.”

David Camden looked genuinely distressed. “Are you sure?”

Spring didn’t know if his question was a result of her earlier misdiagnosis or the first and typical question from a worried parent of a sick child. Either way his question reminded Spring about their precarious financial situation. This was one of those situations where the generous donations to the Common Ground ministries paid off. The surgery Jeremy needed would not bankrupt his father or leave him with the choice between paying medical bills or paying to keep a roof over their heads, even if said roof was that of a hotel.

She nodded in answer to his question. “This is something that can’t be ignored,” she told him. “And it can’t wait. If his infected appendix isn’t removed, it could burst or leak, and that would lead to peritonitis, which can be fatal, particularly in children.”

She didn’t want to scare him, but he needed to know all the facts to make an informed decision regarding his son’s health.

David swallowed. His gaze connected with hers. She’d seen it before, the parents of her young patients looking in her eyes and trying to determine if she was leading them in the right direction.

“I...” David swallowed again, then took a deep breath and ran his hand over his face. “He’s never been sick. Nothing like this. I just... Is he going to die?”

Spring’s heart ached. She wanted to close her eyes and cry out at the arbitrariness of illness. But she maintained eye contact with him. “We need to get that appendix out as soon as possible.”

“Was it something I did? The jelly beans?”

She placed her arm on his. “Mr. Camden...David, it’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. There is no way to prevent appendicitis. It happens or it doesn’t. All we can do is deal with it when it does occur. And Jeremy is in good hands. Dr. Emmanuel is board certified and our top pediatric surgeon.”

He nodded.

“I know he’s in good hands,” David said. He looked away for a moment, as if embarrassed again, then met her gaze. Spring was sure he was going to ask how much the operation would cost.

“Dr. Darling, I don’t know you, and I don’t know if you’re a woman of faith. But I need to pray right now. Will you join me?”

The question was not at all what she’d expected. But without a moment’s hesitation, Spring nodded. That this man who had so much on him would ask a virtual stranger to pray with him said a lot about his character.

She bowed her head and a moment later felt his hand connect with hers. It was warm and strong and felt like an anchor in a storm. Given that he was the one in need, Spring could only marvel. When he began praying, she felt her own resolve grow stronger.

* * *

The surgery would last the better part of an hour. Parents, even the parent of a four-year-old, weren’t allowed in the operating room. So rather than watch him pace the waiting room for an hour, Spring suggested they go to the hospital’s cafeteria for a coffee.

Although open in the middle of the night with reduced kitchen staff, the cafeteria remained essentially empty with few people filling the gray-and-black aluminum chairs. Spring led the way across the room.

“Pardon the retro penitentiary waiting room look,” she told David. “This part of the hospital, while open to the public, is used primarily by staff, so it’s last on the renovation list. Patient rooms and family waiting rooms were the hospital administration’s first priority.”

Spring got a couple of coffees, and they settled at a table near the windows overlooking a courtyard in shadow.

“When the weather is nice,” she said, “people like to go outside to eat or take a coffee break. The fresh air itself is medicinal, especially when you’ve been cooped up inside for hours.”

She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to help it. She was at a loss as to why she was so nervous. Over the course of her eight years at Cedar Springs General, she’d had hundreds of conversations with the parents of her patients, many of them in this very cafeteria. There was no reason for her heart to have such an erratic rhythm or for her hands to feel so clammy.

It was as if she were suddenly displaying symptoms of hypoglycemia or an anxiety attack. Since she was prone to neither, she had a pretty good idea of the cause of the rapid-onset malady.

“Mr. Camden—”

“David,” he said.

Her mouth edged up in a slight smile, and she nodded. “David, Jeremy is in excellent hands with Dr. Emmanuel. He’s one of the best in the region, and Jeremy’s a trouper.”

She watched as he looked about the room at the empty tables. Across the cafeteria, a maintenance worker had parts of an ice machine’s compressor on the floor and a couple of nurses were chatting as they sipped from tall tumblers.

“I guess I’ve been rather preoccupied lately.” He stirred his coffee although he’d added neither cream nor sugar to it.

Spring wanted to, but she didn’t ask the obvious question: preoccupied doing what? Whatever he wanted to tell her would come out in his own way.

“Jeremy has rarely been sick,” he said. “He had a bit of colic when he was much younger, and he’s had a couple of colds, but never anything that required being in the hospital, let alone an operation of any kind. I’ve been blessed that he’s had good health.”

When his gaze again connected with hers, Spring saw the beginning of panic in his eyes.

She reached out a hand and placed it on his arm in a gesture of comfort.

“I’m a grown man,” he said, “and I’ve never had an operation. Not even my tonsils out. He has to be terrified. I should be—”

“You can’t be in the operating room,” she reminded him. “The procedure will take about an hour and a half. Dr. Emmanuel has barely gotten started. We’ll be there in recovery when Jeremy wakes up. He needs you to be strong and focused. He’s going to be sore for a while afterward.”

David nodded. Then he wrapped his hands around the mug and contemplated the brown liquid in it. “I know.” He exhaled as if releasing all the tension that had built up inside him. “I know,” he said again.

Spring sipped at her coffee, letting the silence act as a balm to his tattered emotions.

“There’s something you need to know,” he said. “About me. Us, I mean. I’m not homeless. We’re not homeless,” he clarified.

“You don’t have to—”

“Yes,” he interrupted. “I do. I know you heard what happened at the clinic—about my insurance card. But I really did leave my wallet in the hotel room. I’m here in Cedar Springs for...for some business meetings. My sitter, who is my mother, is out of town. She had the dates of this trip mixed up. That’s why Jeremy is with me. I don’t normally have a four-year-old when I go on business trips.”

“What type of business are you in?”

A buzzing sounded before he could answer her.

“Excuse me,” Spring said, lifting a phone from her pocket. “I need to take this.”

He nodded, and she answered. “This is Dr. Darling.”

She listened for a moment, her eyes going wide. “Oh my. Okay, I’ll be right up.”

“What is it?” David asked. “Is Jeremy all right?”

She nodded to David and motioned for him to get up.

“Excellent,” she told her caller. “I’ll be there shortly.”

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “There’s been an accident and they need another set of hands in the ER. I can show you the waiting room. It’s quite comfortable.”

* * *

While Jeremy was in surgery and Dr. Darling doctored or did whatever she did, David had plenty of time to pace and pray, stress and worry. The time seemed to pass with the pace of a glacier. Every time he glanced at his watch or the clock on the wall, barely five minutes had ticked by. He eventually sat down and closed his eyes, leaning his head back as he contemplated first the ceiling and then the wall.

“David, I am so sorry!”

His eyes popped open, and he blinked, not at all sure he was seeing her.

Charlotte Camden rushed into the waiting room in a flurry of silk and chiffon, her signature scarves trailing behind her in a flutter of femininity.

He rose as she approached. And a moment later, David found himself enveloped in the scent of Shalimar, the perfume she’d worn with a light touch his entire life. As a young child, he’d known that scent meant comfort and love. It was forever connected with his senses as maternal love, the way a mother should smell.

For just a moment, David was transported to the time when he was nine and his cocker spaniel, Chuckle Boy, had been hit by a car. He’d been inconsolable. The dog had been his best friend since Chuckle Boy was a puppy. His mother wrapped her arms around him, murmuring words of comfort, words meant to make him feel better. But there was nothing that could console him, not when he had to say goodbye to the dog that had meant the world to him.

Now he wondered if his son had any similar sensory triggers. Would Jeremy grow up never knowing a mother’s embrace? Would he end up dreading the scent of a hospital?

He’d just met her this evening, but David knew he was quickly coming to crave the scent of Spring Darling. It wasn’t so much a perfume, more her essence.

David held on to his mother, drawing from her what strength he could. But he was no longer a little boy. His mother couldn’t kiss the boo-boos and make them better. He was a grown man with a little boy of his own. And even though his gut was tied in knots worrying about Jeremy, David knew everything possible was being done to get his son well and whole again.

Drawing his mother’s hand into his, he led her to one of the sofas.

“It’s okay, Mom.”

“It’s not okay,” Charlotte moaned. “I’m mortified. I left Becky’s right after we got off the phone and drove straight to the hotel. The front desk clerk told me you’d rushed Jeremy to the hospital. I was frantic with worry. I can’t believe I let you down like this. And my baby! How is my baby?” Her voice rose along with her panic.

He knew how she must be feeling. If it was anything at all like the way he was feeling at the moment, it was borderline hysteria coupled with a megadose of surrealism. He’d been lucky. Jeremy, unlike other kids, had not suffered the early childhood ailments like ear infections or croup or whopping cough.

“The doctors say it’s his appendix.”

“But he’s only four,” Charlotte protested. “He’s just a baby.”

“I know,” David said. “I thought the same thing. But the doctor said it’s not uncommon.”

Just then Spring entered the waiting room. Although three other people were there now, waiting for word on their own loved ones, her gaze found his almost immediately.

David met her halfway. “Is there any news?”

“He’s heading up to recovery,” she said. “He’ll be out of it, groggy from the anesthesia, but he’s going to be fine, David. He’s going to be just fine.”

David swooped her up into his arms and twirled her around. He planted a kiss on her mouth. “Thank you. Thank you.”

Spring’s joy mirrored his own, and even as he set her on her feet, he led her toward Charlotte.

“Mom, this is one of Jeremy’s doctors. Dr. Spring Darling is the pediatrician I took him to.”

“Well,” Charlotte said with an assessing glance at Spring, “I can’t say I ever greeted your pediatrician like that.”

David gave her a blank look and then whipped his head around to Spring, his eyes widening as the realization of what he’d done sank in.

“I’m sorry,” he said, releasing her hand as if it were suddenly molten lava. “I got caught up in the moment.”

Spring sent a professional smile his way, as if all the parents of her patients kissed her like that. “No problem,” she said. She extended her hand to the older woman. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs.—”

“Camden,” Charlotte supplied, shaking the doctor’s hand. “Believe it or not, it’s the same as my son’s.”

Spring tucked her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. “In my line of work, I never assume anything.”

Charlotte’s shrewd gaze seemed to assess Spring, and David realized with a jolt that he needed to cut off her speculation before it went too far. Dr. Spring Darling had shown not a whit of interest in him. Her concern, and rightly so, had been solely on Jeremy.

“I suppose that’s right,” Charlotte said. “Thank you for the news about my grandson. Do you have children?”

“Uh, Mom, I’m sure Dr. Darling has some other rounds to make. Can we see him?”

“I’ll show you the way,” she said.

Jeremy lay in a hospital bed in the pediatric recovery ward, looking much smaller and younger than he already was.

Going to his son, David brushed the hair back from the boy’s forehead. “Hey there, champ. You came through. To God be the glory.”

Jeremy turned toward his father’s voice, but otherwise he didn’t stir.

“He’ll come around in about ten minutes,” Spring assured him.

And when he did, David knew his son would be delighted to see his pretty Dr. Spring waiting to greet him.

* * *

“May I talk with you a moment?” Charlotte Camden asked Spring.

If she was surprised by the request, Spring didn’t show it. “Of course,” she said, leading her to the waiting room down the hall. The two sat, Spring facing the older woman. David Camden had his mother’s eyes, and she could see some of his other features in her face.

“Thank you for caring for my son and grandson,” Charlotte said. “This is all my fault. I was supposed to be watching Jeremy. This never would have happened if I’d paid more attention.”

“Mrs. Camden, appendicitis isn’t anyone’s fault. It just happens,” Spring assured her just as she had David. “It could have happened anywhere at any time. There’s nothing you or Mr. Camden could have done.”

Charlotte didn’t look convinced. If anything, Spring thought, she looked more worried than she had just a few seconds ago.

“He’s under an incredible amount of stress,” Charlotte said as she fingered the edge of one dangling scarf. “I just wish I could do more for him.”

Since Spring didn’t know what the Camden situation was, she could only make the kinds of sounds that could be perceived as comforting.

With little else that she could tell the distressed grandmother, she made a suggestion that Charlotte get a cup of coffee or tea.

“Thank you, but no. I’ll wait here,” Charlotte said. “I’d like to see Jeremy again when I can. I should have been here. I was getting a massage while my grandson was in terrible pain.”

Spring knew nothing about this family, their situation or relationships, so she couldn’t offer the woman any assurances one way or the other. She was awfully curious.

But the nature of a hospital physician’s interaction with patients meant the back stories and the how it all worked out or even came to be were rarely, if ever, known after discharge. The same would be true of the Camdens once Jeremy was up and around and feeling better.

“Sure,” Spring said. “That won’t be a problem.”

A few minutes later, she saw Jeremy Camden and again wondered if there was another Mrs. Camden in his life.

* * *

Spring found she had not been able to stop thinking about the father and son duo, even after all the unexpected extra hours in the emergency department, getting home and going straight to bed.

Three mornings a week she worked out at F.I.T. gym with her sister. Today, though, she’d begged off after promising that she’d run five miles to make up for it. She’d had specific and necessary errands to run before going to the hospital. There had been a place at Commerce Plaza she needed to visit.

As she walked into the hospital, she carried a two-foot-tall brown teddy bear sporting a natty red-and-white-polka-dot bow tie around his neck.

She wasn’t in the habit of buying gifts for her patients. Like many service professionals who worked with children, she kept a stock of small toys like yo-yos and coloring books with crayons to give to kids, but nothing like this plush bear that was built well and meant to last a lifetime.

Spring was so thankful that Jeremy had come through the surgery and recovery with flying colors. She knew that she was getting emotionally involved. But she couldn’t help it.

Jeremy Camden was now recuperating in a patient room in the pediatric wing of the hospital.

She tapped on the partially open door, heard “come in” and entered the little boy’s room.

“Dr. Spring!” the boy exclaimed when he saw her. He struggled to sit up, then let out an “Ow” and leaned back.

“Easy, Jeremy,” Charlotte Camden admonished her grandson while rising from the chair near the boy’s bed. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

Charlotte pushed the mechanism that raised the bed so Jeremy could sit up.

“Is that for me?” the boy asked, eyeing the teddy bear.

“It sure is,” Spring said. “But you have to do what Dr. Emmanuel and your grandmother say.”

“I am. Gonna have a sore,” he said, tugging at the small hospital gown so she could see as she approached.

“A scar, Jeremy,” his grandmother corrected.

Spring ruffled the boy’s hair and handed him the bear, which Jeremy immediately hugged.

“He’s almost as big as me!”

The delight on his face assured her that she’d done the right thing in buying and giving it to him. “He sure is,” Spring said.

“What do you say?” Charlotte prompted him.

With one small arm flung around the stuffed animal, Jeremy reached for Spring with the other. The hug came naturally to him. It was awkward with the bed rail, the IV and the bear, but so worth it when he said in her ear, “Thank you—I love him.”

“How are you feeling?” she asked as she checked his readings on the monitors near the bed and on his chart. Everything looked good and so did he.

“I get to stay here in the hospital!”

Spring smiled.

“Only a child would see that as a good thing,” Charlotte said with a laugh.

Only a child who was never or rarely sick, Spring amended silently. Now came the recuperation period, and she knew from experience that if he was feeling better, he’d be itching to run around like a little boy with boundless energy.

“Because it was so late when David brought him in, the doctor said they’d like to keep Jeremy for a full day of observation.”

Spring wondered where David Camden was. The nurses said he hadn’t left his son’s side since he’d come out of surgery.

“You just missed David,” Charlotte said as if reading Spring’s mind. “I sent him to the hotel to get some proper rest. He has a business meeting later today and several tomorrow morning and needs to be ready for them. We’ll probably both end up staying the night.”

“Oh.” Spring was surprised at the deflated feeling that rushed through her, but she responded to the older woman. “Yes. That’s good.”

Then she questioned her own actions and second-guessed her motives. Had she brought Jeremy a gift simply to be able to see his father again?

No, she realized. When she saw the bear, her first thought had simply been the towheaded little boy who’d been in so much pain and had been such a trouper.

“Dr. E said I can go home after today and Grandma’s gonna stay at the hotel. Then we go home later,” Jeremy reported.

Spring was still confused about the whole business concerning the hotel versus the house, but she wasn’t about to question Mrs. Camden. She’d already gathered from what David had said and from the quality of Mrs. Camden’s clothing that they were not in the financial trouble she’d imagined.

“I checked with Jeremy’s pediatrician in Charlotte. He suggested a day of bed rest after he’s released rather than a road trip home.”

“And Charlotte is home?”

Charlotte Camden nodded and then smiled. “I was named for the city and for an aunt. I know it gets confusing sometimes. David’s company is based there. I’m the grandma in chief on the board of directors.”

David’s company.

The words should have been a comfort, should have taken away the uncertainty and assured her that he had spoken the truth. Instead they made Spring feel as if she were suddenly treading water near a rip current.

She had been attracted to him from the moment she’d set eyes on him. And Spring Darling had no room in her heart for attraction and what it tended to do to the emotions. She had been down that path before, and it led straight to disaster. No, she reasoned, being attracted to a person was merely a chemical response in the body, dopamine and testosterone responding to like receptors in the other person—something any first-year medical student knew. It didn’t have to mean anything else. But none of that reasoning explained the arc of fear that lanced through her now.

What if they began a relationship? And what if he lied to her the way Keith had? She had given her heart once before only to have it thoroughly and utterly trounced. Crushed by a man she’d trusted and thought she’d loved, a man she had been ready to marry.

That made her think of her sister’s upcoming engagement party, an event Spring knew she would have to attend no matter how much it hurt. She was truly happy for Summer and knew that in Cameron Jackson her sister had found a man of strong faith and character. Summer and Cameron weren’t responsible for the heartsick memories their happiness invoked in her.

“Dr. Darling, are you all right?”

Spring blinked. Mrs. Camden’s gentle hand rested on her arm as if holding her steady.

She forced a smile and nodded. “I’m fine. Really,” she added as if to assure herself rather than the other woman.

“For a second there you looked in pain.”

“My thoughts just drifted for a moment.”

Straight down a rabbit hole, she thought. Spring wasn’t given to flights of fancy or romantic notions. She was the straight-arrow Darling sister, the one totally focused on career and community. So she didn’t know where the scenario of a relationship had sprung from.

David Camden was the parent of a patient...and he’d planted a kiss on her that she still remembered, felt and wished to experience again.

“Dr. Spring?”

Her focus shifted again to her young patient.

“Yes?”

“What should I name my bear?”

Spring cocked her head a bit, considering the little boy and the bear almost as big as he was. “Well,” she said. “He’s wearing a bow tie. So how about Beau? B-E-A-U,” she added for his benefit.

Jeremy’s face lit up. “Okay. I like that. Hi, Beau,” he said, giving the bear a kiss. He then hugged it to him and closed his eyes. A moment later, he was sound asleep.

Charlotte smiled down at her grandson. “He and his father are the joys of my life,” she said.

“You’re blessed to have both of them,” Spring said, realizing that she truly meant the words. They were not merely the sort of pleasant platitude or banal cliché offered when two strangers conversed or when a doctor was trying to be pleasant with a patient’s family.

Knowing it wasn’t protocol, but unable to stop herself, Spring bent and placed a kiss on Jeremy’s head, then said goodbye to Charlotte.

With Jeremy on her mind and a quiet prayer of thanksgiving on her heart, she slipped from his hospital room, turned right and collided with David Camden.

Chapter Five

“I’m sorry,” Spring said as her sparkling blue eyes widened and a blush crept up her cheeks.

“My fault,” David said at the same time.

He had been thinking about Dr. Spring Darling only to have the pretty physician walk straight into his arms. He steadied her, then let go quickly even though he wanted to breathe in the scent of her hair and hold her for just a moment. Since neither was appropriate, he held up a now partially crumpled piece of paper.

“I was headed to the hotel when I glanced at this and realized I needed some clarification from the nurses.”

“Let me see,” Spring offered. “I may be able to help.”

Although they were no longer in physical contact, neither of them moved from the spot where they’d collided.

Her eyes, he decided, were the blue of a cloudless summer day, and her lashes were full and long.

“Your eyelashes are beautiful.”

As soon as the inane words left his mouth, David felt as if he were fifteen and trying to ask Cindy Rae, his longtime secret crush, if he could walk her home from vacation Bible school. What type of lame guy complimented a woman on her eyelashes?

But instead of the “Well, bless your naive little heart for even thinking you had a shot with me” look that Cindy Rae had given him all those years ago, Spring Darling actually smiled. He watched as her eyes lit up with genuine humor and not the amused pity of a pageant princess in the making. The smile that now curved Spring’s mouth was the very one that he’d dreamed about while dozing on the chair in Jeremy’s room.

“I’m the envy of my younger sisters, who spend hundreds of dollars every year on eyelash plumpers, lash curlers and every new mascara that hits the market.”

“Brains and beauty,” he said almost to himself. “Now there’s a lethal combination.”

“I’m as tame as they come,” she said. “Would you like me to take a look at the instructions?”

After taking half a step back from her to clear his head, as well as put some physical distance between them, David smoothed the paper on his pants leg before handing it to her.

“Dr. Emmanuel is going to release him tomorrow,” he told her. “I asked for instructions early so I could get anything he might need and have it ready.”

“Jeremy’s just fallen asleep,” Spring said. “We can talk in the atrium. It’s right down the hall.”

He glanced at Jeremy’s closed hospital door. Even though he’d left barely half an hour ago, he couldn’t resist checking to make sure he was resting comfortably. “I’ll just take a quick look.”

Spring nodded, and he thought she might be used to anxious parents who wanted to assure themselves that their little ones fared well. “I’ll wait here.”

Charlotte glanced up from the newspaper she was reading in the very chair where David had spent the night. She smiled and lifted a finger to her mouth. “Shh.”

He nodded.

Jeremy was indeed sleeping, looking as he always did. Were it not for the hospital bed, the monitors and a huge teddy bear that he was clutching, his son would have looked as if he were at home in his own bed. The life-size bear sported a polka-dot bow tie and was just the sort of toy David would have gotten for him had his mind been on anything but the surgery his little boy had undergone.

“That was a good idea,” he told his mom with a nod toward Jeremy’s new companion. “Thank you.”

Charlotte shook her head. “Not from me. It’s from Dr. Darling.”

David’s brow lifted in surprise. “Really?”

She nodded, then whispered, “He named it Beau for the bow tie.”

David didn’t know what to make of this news, but he was grateful to see Jeremy looking so peaceful following the trauma of the previous night. After coming out of recovery and waking, he’d been fretful and the night had been long. The nurses told him that it was normal for children to be anxious in the unfamiliar surroundings.

“I’m going to talk to the doctor,” he said, still keeping his voice low so Jeremy wouldn’t be disturbed.

“All right, dear,” his mother said. “I’ll be right here.”

David leaned over the bed rail and kissed the top of his son’s head. Then, after sending a smile his mother’s way, he returned to the hall, missing Charlotte’s speculative glance at him.

Spring Darling was still there, not that he’d expected her to disappear. Her head was lowered in the position that he’d starting calling “Americans and their best friends” as she tapped on her phone. She must have sensed him standing there because she looked up. And when she smiled, David’s breath caught.

Her beauty was refined and classic, putting him in mind of pearls and calla lilies, rather than, say, daisies and bare feet, though no flowers or jewelry save a watch and small gold posts adorned her. No gold band was on her left hand, and he had the impression she would be the type of woman who would display her union with that symbol. He realized that he was interested in getting to know her...and that interest had nothing at all to do with the fact that she’d come to his son’s aid last night even though the clinic was officially closed.

“We can talk in the atrium,” she said again.

With that comment, David realized that Dr. Spring Darling was a pediatrician and her business was medicine. She was just doing her job, seeing to patients and ready to answer any questions parents had about care.

Then what was the teddy bear all about, he wondered to himself.

* * *

Spring wasn’t quite sure how it happened. One minute they were headed to the atrium, and the next she was suggesting the patio terrace of a coffeehouse near the hospital instead. She told herself that the atrium was crowded with patients and their families getting a bit of morning sun, but knew that wasn’t the full reason behind her decision.

Like a moth to a flame, something about David Camden called to her, beckoned her. And instead of activating the emotional shields she erected whenever a man got too close or seemed interested in her, she opened herself to the possibilities. If she wasn’t mistaken, she’d seen a spark in his eyes that mirrored her own when it came to him.

It was an intriguing and unique situation for her. And she was a grown woman. As her youngest sister, Autumn, would say, “Life’s too short to miss the game. Play ball!”

So she and David Camden settled on the patio terrace of the coffee shop that was a gravel pathway away from Cedar Springs General Hospital. The spot, frequented by hospital staff and employees from the nearby medical office complex, buzzed with the midmorning chatter of people taking quick breaks or grabbing an early lunch before dashing back to cubicles, labs and patients.

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