Amy Andrews - The Single Dad's New Year Bride

THE SINGLE DAD’S NEW-YEAR BRIDE
Amy Andrews

CHAPTER ONE

HAILEY WINTERS had never felt so isolated in her life. Which was no mean feat considering that the ballroom held about four hundred people. Music from an eighties retro band blared out from the stage and party-goers danced amidst the strobe lighting while others milled around, conversing in small groups. Her table companion chatted away, unaware of her total distraction.

She sighed. She’d been keeping herself together so well these last few months. Moving on. But surrounded by couples while single on New Year’s Eve was not her idea of fun. Her sisters, Beth and Rilla, had insisted she attend the hospital ball, insisted it was time she got out, insisted she stopped telling them she was fine and demonstrate it. So she had agreed—reluctantly—because she wanted to prove to them she was fine and, of course, she’d also never been able to say no to them.

And they meant well, but she just wasn’t the party type. Any more. She watched Beth and her husband Gabe across the table. He was saying something to her, his mouth pressed against her ear, and her sister laughed, looking adoringly up at him. Gabe’s lips moved again and Beth opened her mouth, giving him, a faux scandalised look.

Oh, please, get a room!

She turned her attention to Rilla and Luca. Her Italian brother-in-law and her middle sister with matching olive complexions looked like two peas in a pod. She saw Rilla’s eyes widen as Luca’s hand suspiciously disappeared from view and Hailey rolled her eyes. Make it two rooms. If anything, newly reconciled and expecting their first baby, they were even more lovey-dovey than Beth and Gabe.

New Year’s Eve was for lovers and unfortunately she just didn’t fit the bill. Not that she wanted to. Not that she was looking. She’d moved on. And being alone for the rest of her life was infinitely more appealing than having her heart stomped all over again. Yet, still, she felt…restless tonight. Out of place.

Hailey realised Ronald Archer, an acquaintance of her father’s, had stopped droning on and was looking at her expectantly for a reply. She brought her wandering thoughts back into order and re-entered the conversation.

A minute later, still listening to Ronald, Hailey froze as something brushed against her stockinged leg beneath the table. She almost stopped breathing as the tiny interloper scratched its way up further under her floor-length ballgown.

Hailey shuddered. Please, don’t let it be a spider.

‘Excuse me for a moment,’ she said politely to Ronald, before scraping her chair back, knocking it to the floor and leaping away from the table. She stamped her feet on the floor like a horse, trying to shake the unfortunate creature loose.

Thankfully, with the Brisbane General’s annual New Year’s Eve Ball in full swing, there were few witnesses to her wild jig.

‘Goodness, dear, whatever is it?’ Hailey’s table partner enquired.

‘Something just crawled up my leg, Mr Archer,’ Hailey said, inspecting the floor for the insect that had dared defile her expensive French stockings. It was difficult to see anything in the muted lighting of the ballroom. ‘Some kind of bug or insect.’ She shuddered.

‘Or maybe something even more dangerous? Like a small child, perhaps?’

Hailey looked up from the floor as she heard her companion’s laughter. A boy sat on his haunches just under the table, his mouth and eyes wide open in his pale face, a small torch in one hand, a toy truck in the other. He was wearing a white shirt with a fat bow-tie and had remorse stamped on every adorable feature. He may as well have had the word ‘Guilty’ tattooed on his forehead.

‘Oh,’ Hailey said, the screaming bug-phobic girlie inside instantly retreating now the danger was apparently nonexistent. ‘Hello, there.’ She smiled.

The little boy smiled back at her and Hailey could almost hear his audible expiration as it slowly dawned on him from the grins on everyone’s faces that he wasn’t going to be in trouble. He opened his mouth to say something but didn’t get the chance.

‘Tom!’

Hailey saw uncertainty twist his small brow into a deep furrow as she turned to face the exasperated-looking man striding towards them. He was tall with hair so short he looked like he’d lost a battle with a lawnmower and after only two seconds’ perusal Hailey could see he filled a tuxedo better than any other man there.

Better than Gabe. Better than Luca. And her brother-in-laws were bona fide hotties.

Callum Craig took one look at the scene—an upturned chair, his son under a table, several adults looking down at him—and groaned inwardly. What had Tom been up to now? He’d only lost sight of him for a minute. How had he managed to create such havoc so quickly?

Hailey put her hand out to halt the man’s progress and took a step towards Tom, offering him her outstretched hand. ‘It’s fine,’ she assured him hastily, as the little fingers wormed into hers. Hailey’s heart lurched at the, oh, so familiar action and she gave an automatic reassuring squeeze as she tugged gently and pulled his little body in close to hers.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Callum apoligised, righting the chair and noting the woman’s protective stance. ‘I hope he wasn’t a nuisance.’

‘Not at all,’ Hailey dismissed quickly.

‘Damn fine eye if you ask me.’ Ronald Archer chuckled. ‘He picked the best set of legs at the table.’

Hailey blushed as Callum looked at his son askance. ‘Tom—what did you do?’

‘I was just playing with my truck under the table and her shoes were so sparkly and her legs so shiny I just had to make them a road.’

Tom flicked his torch on and shone it at Hailey’s shoes to demonstrate. The whole table, now caught up in the melodrama, looked down too. Hailey lifted the hem of her long gown, revealing diamanté-encrusted, strappy heels. They caught the light magnificently. The silver threads in her stockings also shimmered enticingly.

‘Aren’t they bootiful, Daddy?’

Hailey looked at the boy’s father, amused to know that this man could be put on the back foot by a little boy. She raised an eyebrow.

Callum saw the challenge in the woman’s gaze, saw the amusement sparkling there. He felt a nudge of awareness spike his bloodstream as the brief glimpse of the woman’s feet and ankles dared him to explore higher. He allowed himself a few lazy seconds to thoroughly discover the delights of her slinky red dress, the close-fitting bodice, the deep V of her cleavage.

The whole package from her toes to the dusting of freckles on her upturned nose seemed pretty good from where he was standing. Very, very delectable. ‘I agree, Tom,’ Callum said, holding the stranger’s gaze. ‘Superb.’

Hailey felt heat envelop her. She swallowed, her throat suddenly as dry as the Sahara. She felt…devoured. She blinked. And blinked again before sanity returned. For crying out loud. The man had a kid. And no doubt a wife.

‘’Perb,’ Tom repeated, smiling up at Hailey.

She tore her eyes away from the magnetism of the man’s heat-seeking gaze. ‘Thank you, young man,’ Hailey curtsied. ‘I got them from Paris.’

Tom’s eyes rounded again. ‘You know Paris Hilton?’

Hailey blinked as the little band of onlookers tittered. She caught Rilla’s wink as she turned to look up at Tom’s father, whose sinful-looking lips were pressed together hard trying to stay in a straight line. ‘Paris Hilton?’ She raised her eyebrows.

Callum shrugged. ‘He has an inquisitive nature. We watch the news together.’

‘Paris, France.’ Hailey turned back to face Tom. ‘I bought them in a gorgeous department store and they cost me a fortune.

‘Well, I like them. They’re ’perb.’

Hailey beamed at him, his words disarmingly innocent, obviously proud of himself to have remembered the new word. He reminded her of another little boy at another time and her smile slipped slightly.

Happy thoughts, Hails. Happy thoughts.

‘Nevertheless, Tom, people’s legs aren’t racetracks,’ Callum chided gently. ‘I’m sure you scared the lady half to death.’

Callum could see no harm had been done but even for a six-year-old, Tom was exceptionally impulsive. His illness and extended stay in hospital hadn’t done much for his social skills. ‘Apoligise to the lady…Er, I’m sorry…I don’t know your name.’

‘Hailey,’ she supplied. ‘Really, it isn’t necessary. I’m sure he’s just bored out of his brains.’ What was the man doing at a ball with a child anyway? Hadn’t he heard of babysitters? Where was his mother?

‘Tom,’ Callum prompted, ignoring Hailey’s protestations.

Hailey’s heart went out to Tom as she watched his little shoulders slump. He shuffled his feet, his eyes cast downwards, finding a spot on the carpet exceedingly fascinating as he flicked his torch on and off.

‘I’m sorry, Hailey. I only wanted to drive my truck on a glittery road.’

Hailey crouched down until she was at eye level with Tom. She placed a finger under his chin and gently raised his face. She wanted to haul him into her arms and hug him. She removed her hand and clamped her arms firmly by her side, giving him a big grin instead.

‘Hey, that’s OK. It’s the first time anyone’s wanted to race a car along my legs. I’ll cherish the memory for ever.’

Tom’s eyes grew wide again. ‘Really? For ever and ever and ever?’

She nodded her head solemnly. ‘To infinity and beyond.’

‘Wow.’ Tom exhaled. ‘Did you hear that, Dad?’

‘Come on, Tom.’ Callum squeezed his son’s shoulders. From this vantage point he could see right down into Hailey’s deep cleavage and he was acutely aware he hadn’t admired a woman’s décolletage for quite a few years. He was gawking like a horny teenager. ‘We have to keep mingling.’

Now was not the time to have his libido roar to life. They were in a new city, with a new job, a new house and a new school. And Tom had only finished his grueling treatments six months ago. There was much to occupy him. He really didn’t have time for sparkly shoes and racetrack legs.

Hailey looked up from her crouched position and caught the man’s steady stare. She felt the heat again and almost toppled backwards from the blast. Tom and his father departed and it took Hailey a moment to collect herself before she could stand. And even then her hands trembled and her insides felt decidedly unsettled.



Hailey escaped outside to the balcony ten minutes before the big countdown began. The very last thing she wanted was to be inside when the clock reached midnight. Beth would have Gabe, Rilla would have Luca and she…she would have eighty-not-out Ronald Archer.

So, she’d wait it out here and then say her goodbyes. Her sisters would protest but neither of them could say she hadn’t fulfilled her promise to attend. She knew they were only trying and that they’d been worried about her since her return from the UK. All her family had. But no amount of parties was ever going to erase what had happened. That took time and she was moving on. She was.

OK, maybe she hadn’t exactly made much of an effort to enjoy herself tonight as her sisters had hoped. Maybe she hadn’t met her perfect match, as they’d hoped. But she was there, wasn’t she? An image of Tom’s father flashed before her and she banished it. Damn the man! Her gaze had followed him around the room all night.

So, the man looked good in a tux. So, he’d looked at her like he’d wanted to eat her up. She wasn’t some innocent Cinderella, hanging around in her glass slippers, waiting for her prince to pull up on a white horse.

Been there, done that. Fairy-tale crushed into the dust.

Over it. So, over it.

Or at least she’d thought she was until that man and his son had barged into her glowingly successful recovery process.

She gave herself a mental shake and wandered over to the ornamental railing. A breeze was blowing and it ruffled her hair, lifting it off her shoulders. The moon was three-quarters full and an entrancing milky glow bathed the beautifully landscaped gardens below. She inhaled deeply, a waft of heavily scented camellias infusing her senses.

She was alone and it was relatively peaceful. The heavy curtains at the closed French doors managed to muffle the background bass still throbbing away inside. She could just make out the DJ whipping the party-goers into a precountdown frenzy as the hands of the clock inched closer to midnight.

The doors opened and she turned to see Tom, his trusty torch and truck still in hand.

‘Hailey!’

‘Hey, Tom,’ she said as the little boy wandered over. ‘Did you lose your father again?’

‘Nah, he’s coming too.’

Hailey helped him up onto the stone seat beside her. It was one of several placed periodically along the perimeter of the railing. Tom ran his truck back and forth along the rail, making engine noises.

The little boy looked even paler in the moonlight. Unnaturally pale. ‘Did you get the truck for Christmas?’ she asked.

Tom nodded.

‘It’s a beauty.’

Tom shrugged. ‘It’s OK.’

Hailey laughed. ‘Didn’t you want a truck?’

He shook his head. ‘I wanted a baby brother.’

‘Ah.’ Hailey smiled. ‘I see.’

‘Daddy said that Santa can’t give noonan beans as presents.’ Tom sighed. ‘He said we needed a mummy for that.’

Hailey bit her lip to stop laughing again. Tom was looking at her solemnly, obviously taking the subject very seriously indeed. So, there wasn’t a mother on the scene? ‘Right, yes, that’s true.’

‘Are you a mummy, Hailey?’

Hailey felt the laughter die in her throat. Nearly. Close. She’d been so close. She shook her head and forced a smile to her lips.



Callum escaped towards the balcony gratefully, pushing through the throngs that had gathered around the dance floor. It was only a few minutes until the clock clicked over into the new year and he didn’t want to spend it with a bunch of half-inebriated strangers, kissing each other. He wanted to spend it with Tom. There’d been a few times when he hadn’t been sure if his son would even make another year—the fact that he had was definitely worth celebrating.

He opened the French doors slightly and halted abruptly, his hand still on the handle. Tom was conversing with the woman from earlier. Hailey. Tom had taken a real liking to her. Her laughter floated towards him and he found his gaze drifting over her form. It had done that a little too much already tonight but the moonlight was silhouetting her figure so perfectly it was practically impossible not to do so.

She was short, barely taller than Tom perched on the chair next to her. Heavy ringlets escaped from a pile of hair arranged decoratively on the top of her head, brushing her bare shoulders and spilling down her back. Her red ballgown, cinched in at the waist, emphasised its narrowness and the sultry curve of her hips.

Callum felt a tug in his chest, seeing their heads close together, watching his son smile up at the mysterious Hailey. Tom had been through so much in his six years the fact that he could still smile was a miracle. He remembered her protective arm around Tom earlier and felt oddly unsettled.

He pushed the door fully open. ‘Here you are,’ he said, moving onto the balcony. ‘I’m sorry, I hope he’s not bothering you again.’ Callum drew level with Tom and put his arm around his son’s shoulders. It was his job to protect Tom. His job. He’d been doing it solo for six years.

Hailey smiled at Tom’s father, the moonlight complementing the planes and angles of his face. Hailey, well used to having to look up at people, found he redefined the phrase to crane one’s neck—she felt like a dwarf beside him. His mouth drew her gaze. It would have looked perfectly at home on a statue—the lips full and perfectly formed.

‘No, we were just discussing the pros and cons of little brothers. Weren’t we, Tom?’

Callum groaned and ruffled Tom’s hair. ‘Don’t encourage him, please.’

‘Hailey hasn’t got any brothers either, Daddy. But she’s got two sisters and a growed-up nephew called David and a baby niece called Birdie, and she’s gonna be an aunty again in the middle of the year.’

Callum found himself wondering why she didn’t have a couple of kids of her own. The image of her hand reaching for Tom’s revisited him. Surely a woman this gorgeous was well and truly spoken for? He noticed the absence of rings on her fingers. ‘Birdie?’

‘Bridie.’ Hailey corrected Tom’s error with a laugh.

‘Ah. Tom still had problems with his pronunciation.’

‘I noticed.’ Hailey smiled. ‘That’s what I like about him the best,’ she said, winking at Tom, and was rewarded with a giggle.

They were interrupted by the ballroom erupting into a raucous countdown. ‘Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight…’

‘Is it nearly midnight o’clock, Daddy?’ Tom asked.

Callum chuckled. ‘Nearly.’

‘Fifty-two, fifty-one, fifty…’

‘You’d better get back in there,’ Callum said, looking down into her face. The moonlight emphasised the cute spray of freckles across her nose, illuminating each and every one. ‘Your partner is probably looking for you.’

‘Oh, no.’ Hailey shook her head. ‘I’m here by myself.’ What the…? Why had she told him that?

‘Forty-two, forty-one, forty…’

Interesting. ‘Here, matey, I got you one of these,’ Callum said, handing a party blower to a suddenly excited Tom, who was hopping from one foot to the other as the crowd continued to count down. ‘When everyone shouts “Happy New Year”, we’ll blow them together, OK?’

‘But what about Hailey, Daddy? She needs one too.’

‘Oh, no.’ Hailey shook her head, realising belatedly they probably didn’t want an interloper. ‘It’s fine. I’ll leave you guys to bring in the new year with father-son whistleblowing.’

‘Thirty-seven, thirty-six, thirty-five…’

‘No. Don’t go, Hailey, wait. We have more at the table. I’ll get you one,’ Tom said, leaping down from the chair and racing back inside before Hailey could stop him.

She watched him go, the plea in his high boyish voice clawing at her gut and freezing the self-preservation streak that had urged her to leave. What was she doing? She wasn’t supposed to be getting involved like this any more—particularly with strangers.

Still, she didn’t want to go inside. She told herself it was because of all the midnight merriment that was about to erupt. It was easier than thinking it was about him. The man she was now alone with. The stranger with heat in his eyes.

‘Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…’

Hailey glanced at him. He was looking down at her, his grey-eyed gaze compelling. Somewhere inside her head she knew she should get the hell off this balcony and leave this man with his motherless little boy and their story well alone. She didn’t know what it was and she didn’t want to. But she found herself mesmerised by his eyes. She could hear the unsteadiness of her breath.

‘Ten, nine, eight…’

Her pulse pounded through her head. This was crazy, this unwanted, almost electric attraction. It couldn’t be happening. And yet it was. How could a complete stranger be so utterly fascinating?

‘Three, two, one. Happy New Year!’

The ballroom erupted on a surge of cheers, breaking their intense connection. Hailey dragged her eyes away; her gaze, coming to rest on the mass of noonan beans, as Tom would call them, visible through the French doors. There was much hugging and kissing as ‘Auld Lang Syne’ was played.

She envied them their carefree revelry. She felt like she’d aged a couple of decades this last eighteen months, her previous flibbertigibbet existence blown to the four winds. And now this. A totally unexpected reaction to a perfect stranger. Even now, desperately concentrating on the crowd through the doors, she could feel his scrutiny. The heat emanating from his tall, tuxedo’d frame.

Hailey slowly became aware of the intimacy of some of the clinches. The couple closest to them hadn’t come up for air since the countdown had hit zero and she looked away, embarrassed to be staring at their uninhibited display.

Callum coughed, also uncomfortable to be witnessing the couple’s unbridled passion. ‘Maybe they should get a room?’

Hailey looked up at him to agree and then wished she hadn’t. He truly took her breath away. She stared at him again, helpless not to.

Callum sucked in a breath. The moonlight bathed her face, danced in her hair, washed over her bare neck and shoulders, throwing her cleavage into shadow and making it infinitely more mysterious, infinitely more fascinating.

‘Happy New Year, Hailey.’ His voice was husky and he mentally cursed at how tremulous it sounded.

‘Happy New Year…’

She realised she didn’t know his name. She thought about asking him but his gaze was on her mouth and her brain seemed more interested in that. And, anyway, not knowing his name gave her a distance from him she desperately needed.

Callum stared at her lips, plump and moist in the moonlight. He couldn’t remember wanting to kiss anyone this badly in a very long time. He reached for her, placing his hand on her waist just where it flared into her hip and then leaned down, easing slowly towards her. Her eyelids had fluttered closed and he stopped just shy of her mouth as one lonely but very loud brain cell fought for control.

If he kissed her mouth, could he stop? It had been a long time and he already felt inexplicably, strangely drawn to this woman. He hadn’t come here looking for this. And he certainly didn’t need it. Tom was probably on his way back to them right now. He closed his eyes, changing direction subtly and dropped a soft kiss just beside her mouth.

It lingered. He didn’t mean it to but it did anyway, taking on a life of its own, ignoring all sense. He pulled away, dazed by how something so chaste could be having such an effect on his body.

Hailey raised her hand to the spot where his mouth had seared her skin. She blinked, staring up at him for a long moment. His lips looked like they’d been carved by Michelangelo. She looked away, her gaze falling on the young couple closest to the French doors, still attached at the lips.

Hailey dropped her hand, suddenly tantalised by the idea of a full-on kiss with Tom’s father. If a peck on the cheek could send her into such a spin, what havoc would the touch of his lips on hers create?

The doors were pushed open and Tom came bursting through them. ‘I found one!’

They both stared at Tom, who was waving a party blower in front of them. Neither of them said a thing for a few seconds. Callum recovered first, taking a step back, his hand falling away from her waist.

Callum held out his arms and Tom ran into them gleefully. He swung him up high in the air. ‘Happy New Year, Tommy.’

Tom giggled, hanging on tightly to his father’s neck. ‘Happy New Year, Daddy.’

Hailey laughed at them, an automatic reaction as her sluggish brain grappled with the surge of lust that had hijacked her body.

‘This is for you, Hailey,’ Tom said, handing her the whistle.

Hailey took it automatically. And joined in as Tom and his father blew their whistles at each other. Tom took great delight in hitting his father in the nose as the blower unravelled. Callum threw back his head and yelled, ‘Happy New Year’ at the moon, and Tom laughed, clinging to his father’s neck, blowing his whistle at the stars.

Their merriment brought Hailey slowly out of her daze and she finally got into the spirit of the occasion, giving in to her inner child and also yelling at the heavens. Her heart squeezed painfully as she watched father and son dancing around the balcony. They were obviously very close and she felt the dormant bruise deep inside ache as if someone had prodded it.

Callum pulled up beside her, giving her a wink because kissing her again was out of the question. ‘OK, Tom, time to go, it’s way past your bedtime.’

‘Oh, but, Dad, we’re having so much fun,’ Tom pleaded, blowing his whistle again for good measure.

‘No “oh, buts”, Callum growled playfully. ‘I let you stay up to see in the new year because I promised…’He faltered as a memory of Tom last New Year’s Eve, desperately ill in hospital, sent an itch up his spine. He cleared his throat. ‘But now its bedtime for you. Say goodbye and thank you to Hailey for putting up with us.’

‘Thanks Hailey. It was so-o-o much fun.’

‘Yes, it was.’ Hailey laughed and held out her hand. ‘It was very nice meeting you.’

Tom shook it solemnly and Hailey smiled as he gave a very big yawn for a little boy. He snuggled his head into his father’s chest and Hailey found herself wishing she could too. ‘’Night, sleepyhead.’

‘Thanks,’ Callum said to Hailey in a low voice. ‘You were great with him.’

She shrugged casually as her pulse pounded through her head. ‘He’s a great kid.’

Callum looked down at his son’s head, covered in sandy hair. ‘Yes. He is.’ He smiled at her again, before turning away from temptation and taking his leave.

Hailey stared at the French doors for a long while after they’d gone feeling curiously deflated. She could still feel the imprint of his lips on her cheek, the pull of her attraction to him. She turned away, facing the view, forcing herself to forget him. Forget the kiss.

But she couldn’t deny how wonderful it felt as she stared blindly at the moon-kissed gardens below. Wonderful also to have a reprieve from the darker thoughts that had dogged her earlier. She’d tried really hard since her return not to indulge in self-pity. To be her usual, upbeat self. Her time on the balcony with Tom’s father had certainly wiped out all thoughts of anything else.

It was rather freeing and she began to believe that there was going to be a time when what had happened in London would be completely behind her.

Her hand gripped the railing hard. Bad idea, Hails. Very, very bad idea.

She would not try to erase the memory of one man and his son by replacing them with another.

No matter how well the man could kiss.

CHAPTER TWO
‘SO?’

‘So what?’ Hailey fobbed off her sister.

‘You disappeared out onto the balcony the other night. Did you find someone to bring in the new year with?’ Rilla repeated with an exaggerated slowness.

‘I’m really very busy, Ril,’ Hailey said, avoiding the question again. She indicated the pile of charts she was working on. ‘See these? See that sign?’ She pointed to the sign on the wall near the light switch, ‘It says Ward 2B. This is a hospital, remember.’

‘So you did meet someone.’ Rilla nodded sagely as she bit into her apple.

Hailey sighed in exasperation and threw down her pen. ‘Isn’t it busy down in Emergency? Don’t you have a bus crash or something to be getting back to?’

‘I’m on my break. Anyway, we’re in a lull. They know I’m up here, visiting you, if they need me.’

Hailey knew she wasn’t going to shake her sister. ‘You know, just because you and Luca finally got your act together, it doesn’t mean the rest of the world is looking for love.’

Rilla laughed. ‘Hah! I knew it! What’s his name?’

Hailey wished she could share that particular piece of information with her sister but she hadn’t found out her mystery kisser’s name. Deliberately. She sighed, knowing capitulation was easier than trying to wrestle the bone from her sister. ‘Tom’s father?’ she offered dubiously.

Rilla frowned. ‘Tom? The kid with the truck?’ She thought a bit more. ‘Ah,’ she said, realisation dawning, ‘the military-looking dude? Mr Tuxedo?’

Hailey smiled at Rilla’s nickname. Hadn’t she been enthralled by how well he wore a suit? She filled her sister in on her balcony tryst, heavy on the detail with Tom, more hazy about his father.

‘Oh, Hails. Do you think it’s wise to get involved with another motherless boy?’ Rilla asked gently.

Hailey hadn’t told them much about what had happened in London but Rilla had known, they’d all known, that the sudden death of her sister’s young charge had been a devastating blow. One thing was for sure, Hailey was certainly a very different person from the excitable young gadabout she’d been before her travels.

‘I’m not involved,’ Hailey denied hotly, despite three nights’ worth of steamy dreams over a very non-steamy kiss. ‘I’m never likely to come across them again. I don’t even know who he is, for crying out loud.’

‘Yes, but he was at the hospital ball so he must at least work here.’

Hailey shrugged. ‘If he does, he’s new. I’d never seen him before.’ Someone that good-looking would certainly have stood out or at least been worthy of comment on the hospital grapevine.

‘No, neither had I. Beth didn’t know him either. I’ll put some feelers out.’

Hailey rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t do it on my account.’ As her sister had so aptly pointed out, the very last thing she wanted in her life was another little boy. Or his father. ‘How’s the bump going?’ she asked Rilla, deftly changing the subject.

They chatted for another fifteen minutes. Hailey listened half-heartedly to Rilla’s baby prattle, her mind wandering again to Saturday night.

‘I’ll see you later. I’ll ring if I find out anything about Mr Tuxedo.’ Rilla winked as she departed.

‘Great,’ Hailey said brightly. Just what she needed, Rilla in matchmaker mode.

But her mind turned quickly to more pressing matters. This afternoon’s meet and greet with the new director of paediatric services at the Brisbane General was a pretty big deal. She steeled herself mentally. The last director had been in his sixties and around for ever, and a real honey to boot. It had been sad to see him go.

Getting used to someone new was always a little fraught. Drastic changes to set practices often caused consternation and Hailey knew she wasn’t the only member of staff who was nervous. She crossed her fingers that the transition wouldn’t be too bumpy.



Hailey answered the phone in the nurses’ station just before lunch. It was the lab with some renal function results and she dutifully wrote them down.

‘Excuse me.’

‘One moment,’ Hailey said, not bothering to look up from the piece of paper as she double-checked the numbers.

‘Thanks, George,’ she said, replacing the phone, then scribbled the patient details down. ‘Yes, sir, can I help you?’

Hailey looked up expectantly, her greeting dying on her lips. Tom’s father stood before her. He wore a pale lemon business shirt and a funky tie with polka-dot pigs emblazoned on it. He had a hospital ID with a smiley face sticker stuck over his face and a stethoscope slung around his neck.

‘Tom’s father,’ she said absently.

Callum would have laughed had he not also been a little stunned from this development. Hailey was a nurse? Who worked on the kids’ ward? Hailey, who had been on his mind a little too frequently the last few days. Hailey, who Tom had constantly chatted about—nothing but Hailey this and Hailey that since the ball.

She was in the standard uniform of plain navy pants and white shirt with the Brisbane General logo. Her hair was swept back into a no-nonsense ponytail complete with those familiar escaping tendrils brushing her neck.

‘Callum. Callum Craig,’ he supplied, holding out his hand, realising that he hadn’t introduced himself the other night.

She took his firm warm hand in a daze and was instantly transported back to the moment he’d kissed her, his lips burning a brand into her cheek, his hand on her hip. She searched through the fog of lust in her head—where had she heard that name before?

‘Is everything all right? Tom OK?’ She frowned. ‘Oh, God, he’s not sick is he?’

No. Not any more. ‘He’s fine. I’m just a little early for my appointment, I guess.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Hailey said, not seeing at all. ‘Were you here to see Yvonne?’ His name was familiar but her brain cells still weren’t working properly. Perhaps the NUM had mentioned his visit to her earlier?

‘Partly, yes. I came to meet everyone and have a poke around.’

Hailey felt her pulse pick up and start to thrum through the veins in her head. ‘Meet everyone?’ she practically squeaked, suddenly realising why his name was so familiar.

‘Yes. I’m the new director. Looks like we’re going to be working together.’

Hailey nodded dumbly. This was Dr Callum Craig? The stranger who had kissed her on a balcony on New Year’s Eve?

Oh, hell! So much for never seeing him again. The man was practically her boss!



Hailey spent the next two days avoiding him. When he was on the ward, she made herself scarce. The panroom, not a particularly fascinating place to be at the best of times, was her number-one choice for rooms in which to hide. It was certainly an inspired one. She’d never met a doctor yet who was comfortable around a bedpan. It was the one room they avoided like the plague.

She may not have known Callum Craig for very long but she’d known him long enough to know that she’d never had such an instantaneous reaction to a man. And there’d been plenty to make comparisons with. Her twenties had been strewn with brief, fun relationships. Light flirtations that hadn’t gone the distance. They’d burnt brightly with all the pop and sparkle of giddy newness but had fizzled out quickly. Rilla and Beth had teased her that she’d changed her boyfriends as frequently as her underwear.

But none of them had ever had such an impact on such a short acquaintance. Not even Paul. And they’d bored her so quickly too. They had been boys compared to Callum Craig. She doubted he had a boring bone in his body. In short, Callum Craig unsettled her. And that was to be avoided at all costs. She was moving on with her life—she didn’t need to complicate it by reaching for another attainable man.

A fleeting moonlight kiss at midnight from a stranger was one thing. She could hug it close, daydream about it and bring it out at night to relive over and over in her sleep. But when that man was a colleague? She had learnt the hard way not to mix work with her private life. What had happened in London had burnt her so badly she was sworn off men for life.

Particularly men with little boys.



Callum entered the ward on Thursday afternoon to attend his ward round. He spotted Hailey just as she was disappearing into the panroom. Again.

She was avoiding him.

OK, he got it. Her signals were coming across loud and clear. Back off. Not interested. Don’t even think about it.

She obviously regretted their midnight madness.

He wished the same could be said for him. It was, after all, the most sensible course of action. The very last thing he needed now was to develop a thing for a woman who wanted nothing to do with him.

His six years alone—coping with his wife’s death and a six-month-old baby and then struggling to raise Tom and get him through his illness, scared to death most of the time—seemed suddenly magnified. Maybe that was what happened? Maybe Hailey’s kiss had made him realise what a solitary life he led. Why else would his body be reacting so strongly to a woman who was so patently not interested?

Because he didn’t have the time or the wherewithal for any kind of a relationship. He’d spent the last six years protecting Tom, shielding him from the things life had thrown at him—the loss of his mother and a truly vile illness. He’d dropped the ball with Annie, he wouldn’t do the same with Tom.

But he didn’t have time for this hide-and-seek routine either. They were both adults and this state of affairs couldn’t continue. She couldn’t keep avoiding him for ever. They had to work together. They were two mature adults. Surely they could act that way?

He glanced at his watch. Five minutes before Yvonne was expecting him for rounds. He took a moment to collect his thoughts and pushed open the panroom door.

‘Afternoon, Hailey.’

Hailey started. She had her back to the door, checking the expiry dates on the various test sticks that were kept in the wall cupboard above the sink. Over the last few days she’d done a pretty decent inventory of the room’s contents. She turned around slowly, her heart rate tripping from a surge of adrenaline.

He looked divine. His stethoscope was slung casually around his neck and his shirt fitted his broad-shouldered frame to perfection. His tie today sported leaping leprechauns and his smile exuded charisma. She felt his pull despite the good three metres between them. ‘I think you took a wrong turn. Yvonne’s office is two doors down.’

Callum’s smile widened. ‘Nope. This is the right door. I was after you.’

Her heart slammed in her chest. ‘Me?’ she practically squeaked.

‘You’ve been kind of hard to pin down these last few days.’

‘Ah, yes…’ she said nervously. She dragged in a ragged breath, feeling like all the oxygen was being sucked out of the room. ‘A nurse’s work is never done,’ she said lamely, shaking the bottle of urine sticks, which she hadn’t realised she was holding, in his general direction.

‘Are you in Yvonne’s bad books? Have you been banished to the panroom for the term of your natural life?’

‘Er…no,’ she said, her dazzled brain cells trying to keep track of the conversation.

‘Ah. So you’re just avoiding me?’

Bingo! Hailey stared at him for a moment before turning back to the cupboard, horrified at the rise of heat in her cheeks. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Her hand shook as she replaced the container.

Callum watched her as her fingers ran over the contents of the cupboard. ‘Hailey.’ Her fingers stilled but she didn’t answer him. ‘Hailey,’ he said again, moving closer.

Hailey turned around reluctantly and then immediately wished she hadn’t. He loomed in front of her and she was reminded of the ball all over again as she looked all the way up into his face. His very sexy face. If she’d thought his pull had been strong from across the room, it was nothing compared to his power close up.

‘God, you’re tiny,’ Callum said, distracted by their height disparity. Maybe it had been the moonlight but he didn’t remember her being so far down.

Hailey snorted. ‘No, I’m short. There’s a difference.’ She had lost weight over the last year, the effects of what had happened overseas shadowing all areas of her life. But Hailey doubted that her generous curves were under any real threat of fading away.

‘How tall are you?’

‘Five foot neat.’

No wonder he felt like he was towering over her. At four inches over six feet—he did! He kind of liked it, though. It made him want to tuck her under his wing. ‘Wow. That is short.’

Hailey’s breath caught at his light teasing tone and the smile that took his features from sexy to the next level. Whatever the hell that was. Sublime? ‘Don’t let it fool you. I came top in my self-defence class.’

Callum laughed. ‘Really?’

Hailey drew herself up as high as she could and jutted her chin out. ‘Really.’

Callum quashed his smile. ‘I’ll have to remember that.’

Hailey placed a hand on his chest and pushed him gently away until he was a full arm’s length from her. ‘Just you see that you do.’

Callum saw the look of steel harden her soft brown eyes. ‘Look, Hailey, I’m guessing the whole New Year’s Eve thing is kind of freaking you out. I’m sorry. I promise I don’t usually go around kissing women I don’t know.’ Hell, these days he just didn’t kiss women—period.

Sorry? He was sorry? For what? For freaking her out or kissing her in the first place? She shouldn’t feel miffed. But she did. ‘You’re apologising for kissing me?’ Good. That was good. Wasn’t it?

‘No. Absolutely not.’ The actual kiss may have been no more than a peck but the way it was still zinging through his body it may as well have been a full-on, open-mouthed smacker. Callum hadn’t felt such ardent desire since Annie. It felt good to have that rush again. That buzz in his blood. He certainly wasn’t going to apoligise for it. ‘I’d do it again. No hesitation.’

She swallowed. ‘Oh.’

Of course he hadn’t meant right now but her lips had parted on that last word and her face was turned up, her mouth looking very inviting indeed. What would it be like to indulge in more than a chaste, oh-so-close-to-her-mouth kiss?

He took a step back. They were in a panroom, for crying out loud! At work! He cleared his throat. ‘Anyway. My point is…’ he said, groping around his brain for the point he was trying to articulate. ‘The point is, it happened. I don’t think we need to let it affect our working together. Let’s just chalk it up to a bit of moonlight madness and get on with it. OK? I don’t want you ducking in and out of rooms, avoiding me, ad infinitum. It won’t happen again.’

‘You just said you’d do it again,’ she pointed out, her brain still stuck back at that part of the conversation.

‘I meant that night. I’d do it all over again the same way. I couldn’t think of a better ending to a New Year’s Eve ball than kissing a girl with sparkly legs.’

Hailey smiled despite her mind still being foggy with his nearness. ‘It can’t happen again,’ she said firmly.

Callum frowned. ‘You didn’t like it?’

‘No, I…’

He smiled. ‘Ah. You did like it?’

Hailey crossed her arms and gave him a hard glare. She barely knew him and yet already he could tie her in knots! ‘Don’t be putting words in my mouth, Dr Craig.’

‘Ooh.’ He laughed at her frown. ‘You liked it a lot.’

Hailey felt her temper rise as heat flared in her cheeks again. She daren’t admit just how much she had liked the brief touch of his mouth. ‘It was a peck on the cheek,’ she said disparagingly. ‘My brother-in-law could have given it to me.’

Callum raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that a challenge? Is that your way of asking for something…more?’

The remaining oxygen evaporated and her eyes were drawn inexplicably to his mouth. More? How could something so wrong seem so…tantalising? A couple of years ago she’d have leapt at him. That mouth would have been on hers in a flash. But she just wasn’t that girl any more.

‘You need to get this straight,’ she said, deliberately dragging her eyes away from his lips. ‘I’m not in the market for a…an affair, and even if I was, which I’m not,’ she emphasised again, ‘I don’t get involved with colleagues.’

Callum could see the determination in the jut of her chin and her steady brown gaze. He could also see something else. A quick flash of pain before she shuttered it. ‘Is that a standard policy for you or a once-bitten kind of thing?’

Hailey’s breath caught in her throat and her mind stuttered to a halt for a brief second. Had that been a wild guess or had she given something away? She forced herself to casually check her watch while she ordered her scattered thoughts. ‘Don’t you have rounds?’

Hmm. A chink. Hailey had definitely been burned. Big time if he wasn’t mistaken. Callum regarded her for a few seconds. Well so had he and he wasn’t keen to put himself in a position of vulnerability again either. He nodded. ‘So we’re OK now?’

Hailey nodded too. Anything to get him out of the room. It seemed to have shrunk considerably since he’d entered. ‘Of course.’

‘It’s behind us?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Forgotten?’

‘There was no kiss.’

Callum smiled. ‘Kiss? What kiss?’

Hailey smiled back at him. He touched his fingers to his forehead in a mock salute as he slowly backed out of the room. She sagged against the sink. If only it was as easy as that.



The phone was ringing when Hailey ventured out of the panroom a few minutes later. Callum’s team had gathered in the nurses’ station. They were ignoring the phone. Tina, the ward clerk, had left for the day.

Hailey looked at the medical officers. Callum, a registrar, two residents and two med students. ‘No, it’s OK,’ she said, half bemused, half annoyed. ‘I’ll get the phone.’ It never ceased to amaze her how immune to ringing medical staff were.

‘Hi, kids’ ward, Hailey speaking.’

‘Hi, Hailey.’

‘Yvonne?’ What was 2B’s NUM doing, ringing her? She should be here.

‘Can you do Callum’s round? I’m caught up in this funding meeting and I need to stay because they’re discussing our equipment allocation.’

Hailey sighed, resigned to her fate. She glanced at Callum and met his calm grey gaze. OK, she wasn’t going to avoid him any more but that didn’t mean she wanted to spend any extra time with him. ‘Sure,’ she said averting her gaze. ‘Is Dad there?’

‘He’s chairing it.’

Hailey’s father, John Winters, was the Brisbane General’s medical director. He spent his entire day in meetings such as these. ‘Blow him a kiss for me,’ she said, then hung up the phone.

‘Looks like you got me, folks,’ she said, addressing the entourage. She risked another glance at Callum. A small smile was playing on that very fascinating mouth. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’

2B was a twenty-bed ward. In an ideal world eight beds were allocated to surgical patients, eight to medical patients and four formed a high-dependency bay for those children that needed closer monitoring. Of course, the balance was often weighted more heavily one way or the other which caused all kinds of administration headaches.

But that was the nature of hospitals and as far as nursing their patients went, Hailey couldn’t give a fig about the medical/surgical mix—they were all sick kids.

She pushed the chart trolley from bed to bed as each patient and their progress was discussed. She hadn’t done a round with Callum before and was most impressed with his unique mix of professionalism, thoroughness and quirky bedside manner. He developed a quick rapport with the parents and wasn’t afraid to take the time with the kids to touch them and try and elicit a smile or two.

Hailey had been on too many ward rounds that were rushed and left the parents with more questions than answers. Callum didn’t operate that way. He seemed genuinely interested, concerned and willing to listen. He also engaged his entire team, med students included, teaching as he went, and it was obvious they liked and respected him.

He was careful to include her as well, seeking her opinion, consulting her about decisions, making it nigh on impossible not to interact with him. She’d hoped the round would be quick and painless but she’d been wrong. She was more aware of him than ever now she’d seen the professional side of him.

The truth was, even after thirty minutes, she had to grudgingly admit she admired the hell out of him. An irresistible mix when the kiss-that-never-happened still loomed large in her consciousness. Damn it all. This was a man she could like.

The surgical bays were full of the morning’s ENT list. Several tonsillectomies, some with adenoids as well and others with grommets. The surgeons would be in to see them later but Callum took the time to check all was well with them.

The medical bays sported a mix of conditions. From their frequent flyer, Lucy, with cystic fibrosis, to Troy, an eight-year-old cerebral palsy patient with pneumonia, and an adventurous three-year-old, Jake, who had petted a possum and ended up with a bitten arm for his trouble. The wound had developed cellulitis, necessitating intravenous antibiotics.

‘Hello, Jake,’ Callum greeted as they stopped at the three-year-old’s bedside. ‘I heard you wrestled a lion the other day.’

Jake giggled and looked at his mother, who smiled at Callum. ‘No, it was a crocodile, wasn’t it, Jakey?’

Jake giggled again.

‘Is it OK if I have a look at where this croc got you?’ Callum grinned.

Jake nodded shyly and held out his bandaged arm. The other arm was wrapped up too, to secure the IV. Hailey reached out to remove the dressing but Callum had already started unwinding it. She was so used to doing things like this for doctors that it was a nice change to come across one who could do his own dirty work.

‘Ah, now, see here,’ Callum said to his students as he revealed the wound. ‘This is a classic case of cellulitis. A central wound and a reddened area of skin surrounding it where the subcutaneous tissues have been inflamed. And see,’ Callum said, pointing to the perfectly formed outer edge of the angry-looking area, ‘the definite demarcation line where the inflammation halts.’

The students peered closer and nodded.

‘How big was that croc, Jake?’ Callum asked. ‘That’s an impressive wound.’

‘He was this big,’ Jake said, his eyes almost as wide as his outstretched arm span, getting into the swing of the game.

The team laughed. Hailey was still smiling when Callum rewound the bandage. Their gazes met and Callum winked at her. Her smile slipped. The memory of how he had done exactly that on the balcony taunted her and the strange fluttery sensation it had caused in the pit of her stomach returned.

‘He’s going to need longer on the antibiotics,’ Callum said, addressing Jake’s mother. ‘We’ll review the wound every day but I wouldn’t count on being out of here for at least two more days.’

The team waited for Callum to wash his hands and then moved on to the four-bedded high-dependency bay, directly opposite the nurses’ station, which currently housed only three patients.

There was twelve-month-old Henry, an ex-prem baby with a trachy tube for his floppy airway. His mother usually managed him at home but Henry had developed a respiratory infection and had become quite sick very rapidly, ending up in ICU for a week. He was on the mend now and was due for discharge some time in the next few days.

In the next bed Tristan, a very healthy-looking four-year-old was sitting up, watching television with his father. He was being monitored after ingestion of four of his grandmother’s blood-pressure tablets. He was in hospital as a precaution only and, barring any unexpected adverse reaction, would be discharged tomorrow.

Tahlia, a very cute newborn diabetic, was kicking up a ruckus. She’d also been a transfer from ICU. She would be with them for some time while her parents learned how to manage the condition.

‘Can you hold her while I go and get her bottle?’ Rosemary, the junior nurse who’d been allocated the bay for the shift, asked Hailey.

Hailey nodded and took the swaddled infant. Tahlia, well used to being picked up after her four weeks in hospital, settled instantly. Hailey held her while the round continued.

‘You’re a natural,’ Callum murmured as he brushed past her to wash his hands.

Hailey looked down into Tahlia’s blue gaze and realised she’d been subconsciously swaying. Well, yes, she was a paeds nurse after all. And prior to that she’d been a midwife. So, yes, she was good with kids.

But she wasn’t the same nurse who had gone away to London. What had happened there had taught her to keep her emotional distance. Made her wary of getting too involved with her patients. Once she may have been a natural. Now she was just doing her job.

Rosemary came back and Hailey handed Tahlia over gratefully. The round ended and Hailey scurried away to let the other nurses know the relevant changes pertaining to their patients and then sat to document the decisions from the round in each patient’s chart.

She was aware of Callum as his team lingered in the nurses’ station. His voice was totally distracting, deep and well modulated—very easy on the ear. His laugh practically shimmied along her nerves, shattering her concentration.

They eventually took their leave. Callum said goodbye and she returned it, not looking up from the chart, feigning complete absorption in her task. But her hand shook betrayingly and she let out a breath as Callum, his voice and his laugh finally left the ward.



An hour later, Hailey was counting down the minutes to the end of her shift—ten, to be exact—and the start of her days off. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Callum’s comments and she was looking forward to having a few days’ respite from his presence.

She was checking all her patient’s fluid charts when Joyce, the ward cleaner, approached. Joyce had been cleaning 2B’s floors and keeping everything spick and span for over two decades. Hailey had no doubt that at any given time she could eat off the floors safe in the knowledge that no bacteria would dare challenge the cleaner’s authority. Joyce was almost part of the furniture around the ward and was regarded as one of the team.

There was an old adage in nursing. Patients told doctors a little, nurses a lot and the cleaning staff everything. And a good nurse knew it. Joyce was her first port of call when one of the parents was reticent with information.

‘There’s an alarm going off next door.’ Joyce jabbed her thumb towards the high-dependency bay. ‘There’s no one in there.’

An urgent beeping from a saturation monitor worked its way into her consciousness. She realised then that it had been going off for a while. Hailey frowned. There was no one there? She’d subconsciously blocked the noise out, knowing it was Rosemary’s bay and the other nurse was supposed to be there.

The alarm persisted and Hailey thanked Joyce, making her way next door. She didn’t hurry, knowing that it would probably be just a dislodged probe. The bay was empty of any parents and also empty of Rosemary, as Joyce had indicated. She wasn’t supposed to leave the high-dependency bay without getting someone to take her place. The alarm was coming from Henry’s bed and Hailey strolled over, still unconcerned.

But when she got there, it was immediately obvious the alarm was for real. The sats monitor was recording Henry’s oxygen saturations as seventy per cent and one look at Henry confirmed the dire figure. He was flailing his arms around, gasping for air, like a fish out of water, his lips and peripheries tinged with blue, sweat beading his forehead.

‘Oh, no,’ Hailey muttered. Was Henry’s trachy blocked or had he just worked himself into a state, exacerbating his malacia? She hit the emergency call button on the wall near the end of the cot with one hand as she manoeuvred the cot side down with the other.

Callum, who had returned to the ward to fill out the paperwork for a pending admission, was at the nurses’ station when the distinctive tone of the emergency call went off. He looked at the nurse call board that displayed all the bed numbers and quickly located the source of the emergency.

He strode into the high-dependency bay to find a very worried Hailey frantically suctioning Henry’s trachy. One look at the little boy’s panic-filled gaze and cyanosed lips was enough to confirm the urgency of the situation.

‘What happened?’ he demanded, yanking the resus bag off the wall and twisting on the oxygen meter it was connected to, satisfied to hear the hiss of gas inflating the bag.

‘Not sure. I think he must have plugged his trachy,’ Hailey said, withdrawing the suction catheter from the artificial airway. ‘It’s no use. I can’t pass it. It must be completely blocked.’

Callum nodded, trusting her assessment. ‘We’re going to have to replace it.’

The alarm continued to trill in the background, the tone getting lower as Henry’s saturations continued to plummet further. Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight. The little boy’s colour was getting worse the more oxygen deprived he became.

Hailey glanced at Callum, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. A red flush was creeping up her neck. She hesitated a split second before she nodded.

‘What’s the matter?’ Yvonne demanded as two other nurses, including a very pale-looking Rosemary, joined them.

‘Get the resus trolley,’ Hailey ordered, her gaze not leaving her patient as she fumbled with the emergency box of supplies kept on Henry’s bedside cabinet.

‘I’ll dilate the stoma,’ Callum said as he snipped the tapes that secured the useless trachy in place. ‘You place the airway.’

Hailey nodded as she handed him the trachy dilators. The noise of the alarm and the controlled panic that surrounded her as Yvonne barked orders and nurses performed their much practised roles faded as adrenaline honed her instincts. She was aware only of Callum and Henry as they worked in tandem to secure the little boy a patent airway.

Callum whipped out the old trachy and inserted the dilators into the hole in Henry’s neck. Hailey, her fingers trembling, ripped open the packaging of a new trachy and deftly inserted the sturdy, plastic airway into the tract. She held it in place for Callum as he attached the resus bag and gently puffed some breaths into Henry’s lungs.

The little boy pinked up almost immediately, the tone on the sats monitor getting higher and higher as his oxygen saturations climbed rapidly back into the nineties. Henry started to cry as panic was replaced with relief. The whole episode had obviously terrified him.

‘Crisis averted,’ Callum said, letting out a pent-up breath.

Hailey nodded. It had seemed like an hour, though, in reality, only two minutes had passed since Joyce had alerted her to the emergency. But their job wasn’t over yet and she wasn’t going to break out the champagne until it was. ‘Let’s secure it,’ she said.

Despite not being able to make any noise due to the position of the trachy, Henry was still bawling, great silent sobs, taking full advantage of being able to fill his lungs with air.

‘It’s OK, baby,’ Hailey murmured as she tied the trachy tapes, anchoring them around the back of his neck. It was a finicky job at the best of times, made that much more difficult by an aggrieved Henry and her badly trembling fingers.

Henry’s crying was exacerbated by frequent coughing bouts and by the time the tapes were tied and Hailey had suctioned him, the little boy was in a state. Hailey didn’t give it a second thought. She scooped the little boy up into her arms and hugged him tightly to her.

‘Shh, baby, shh,’ she crooned, rocking him, her own heart rate galloping as she allowed herself to think about the potential consequences had she not responded to Joyce’s comment.

Callum put a hand on her shoulder and one on Henry’s back, rubbing it gently, also murmuring soothing words to the fractious child. Hailey didn’t object, too pleased to have had Callum with her during the incident to reject his company now.

She could hear Yvonne talking to Rosemary about the importance of vigilance somewhere behind her. Henry was settling and she pressed her forehead against his, shutting her eyes.

‘You OK?’

Hailey looked up into Callum’s concerned grey gaze. She gave a half laugh, half sigh. ‘I am now.’

Callum smiled. He was seeing a different side to Hailey. She was holding Henry tightly reminding him of a mother lion with one of her cubs. Like the way she’d drawn Tom close the other night. He’d been right earlier—she was a natural. She’d known instinctively that Henry had needed comfort. Just as she had known how to talk to Tom the other night. Not like a bratty, unwelcome kid, but like an equal.

‘Thank you. You were great.’

‘Really?’ She grimaced. ‘I felt all fingers and thumbs.’

He nodded, still stroking Henry’s back. ‘You were very cool under pressure.’

She did laugh this time. ‘Didn’t feel very cool inside.’

He shrugged. ‘That’s only normal. We wouldn’t be human if something like this didn’t freak us out a little.’

Hailey rubbed her cheek against Henry’s head as he snuggled into her neck. ‘You, too?’

‘Just because I wear a white coat, it doesn’t mean that an emergency situation won’t send my blood pressure up.’

Hailey nodded. She’d dealt with quite a few emergency situations over the course of her nursing career but they still managed to turn her into jelly on the inside. It was nice to hear an experienced paediatrician admitting to similar feelings.

‘He’s asleep.’

Hailey looked down into Henry’s sweet, sleeping face. ‘I’m sure he’s utterly exhausted, poor darling.’ She laid him gently back in his cot.

Callum watched as she covered him with a colourful bunny rug and lingered, caressing his cheek. She obviously cared about her young charges. She would make a great mother. The kind of mother Tom had been nagging him about to give him that baby brother.

‘I’d better get back to my paperwork,’ he said, dragging his thoughts away from the realm of fantasy.

Hailey watched him go, her hand still on the sleeping bundle in the cot. Working side by side with Callum to bring Henry back from the brink had been real nail-biting stuff but she couldn’t deny how alive it had made her feel or how long it had been since she’d felt this invigorated.

It would be wrong to read too much into it.

CHAPTER THREE
THE buzz that had infused Hailey immediately after the emergency with Henry dissipated quickly and she left the hospital feeling edgy. Coming down from an adrenaline rush always left her with a jittery, strung-out feeling. The best antidote for that? Shopping.

She drove to her apartment and had a quick shower, pleased to be rid of her uniform. She’d always worn it with pride but some days it was too much a reminder of work and her hand trembled slightly as she remembered the events of the day. She wished she could be sure it was the effects of the adrenaline but she suspected Callum’s touch, as she had held Henry, was also having an impact.

Damn the man. Things were finally getting back on track in her life. She didn’t need to derail her progress like this. She threw on some clothes, picked up her bag and strode out of her apartment, determined not to think about work or Henry’s blue lips and panicked face or Callum Craig.

The noise of the crowds and the hustle and bustle were instantly distracting. The announcements over the PA and the piped music gave her something else to think about. The concentration required to calculate discounts and specials and colour co-ordinate with her existing wardrobe was wonderfully absorbing. OK, her local shopping mall was hardly Oxford Street but it was good therapy nevertheless.

Yes, there were probably healthier ways of dealing with work stress. Fitness freaks probably would have jogged it out of their system. Or gone to the gym. Or to their favourite health-food bar and overdosed on carrot juice and wheatgrass smoothies.

Or some may even have rung a close work colleague or their best friend and debriefed. Gone out for a drink. Shot the breeze. Sought some female comfort. But Hailey had felt too disconnected from her friends since her return from overseas to have even considered that option.

Still, shopping was better than some pursuits. A nurse she’d befriended in London used to go out to a nightclub and pick up a man after a particularly harrowing shift. She’d maintained that there was nothing like sex to make you forget. And perhaps she’d been right. But Hailey was hard pressed at the moment not to think of sex and Callum Craig together so that definitely hadn’t been an option.

Hailey’s mobile rang while she was in a fitting room. It was Rilla.

‘Hello?’ she murmured in a low voice, not wanting every other customer in the change rooms to be privy to her conversation.

‘Hailey? Is that you?’

‘Yes,’ she murmured again.

‘Why are you whispering? I can barely hear you.’

‘I’m not whispering!’ she muttered crankily. ‘I’m kind of occupied right now. What do you want?’

‘Beth and I are coming over. We’ll be there about seven. Don’t cook—we’ll bring food.’

‘Rilla.’ Hailey shook her head. Her sisters must have heard about Henry. One disadvantage to having your entire family working in the same medical facility. ‘There’s no need.’

‘Yes. There is. See you later.’

Hailey stared at the dead phone. She looked at her watch. Five-thirty! An hour and a half, and the apartment was a mess. She wriggled out of the jeans she was trying on and dressed quickly.

Peak-hour traffic was the pits and she tapped impatiently on the steering-wheel as her time narrowed further. She screeched into her parking space with less than thirty minutes to spare. She loaded herself up with her parcels, shunning the often slow lifts and thinking of how great seven flights of stairs would be for her butt and calves. If they didn’t kill her first.

She took them steadily, pleased to realise her afternoon of shopping and the mad dash home had left her no time to think about the way her shift had ended. Or Callum Craig either, for that matter. Not his quiet confidence in the face of a crisis or his hand on her shoulder, asking her if she was OK.

Although his wicked wink during the ward round did rear its head at her as she dashed up the last ten steps, her thighs screaming in protest. Her foot faltered briefly as she thought about his panroom visit. In that split second, distracted by the memory, she misjudged the tread and stumbled, pitching forward, her ankle twisting as she landed unceremoniously in a crumpled heap, her parcels covering her, half spilling their contents over the hallway.

Hailey cried out as a stabbing pain tore through her ankle and she shut her eyes against the quick sting of tears that filled her vision.

‘Are you all right?’

She kept her eyes shut, ignoring the concerned male voice as the pain gripped relentlessly. She nodded, holding her breath, biting her lip against the very unladylike oath on the tip of her tongue. Did she look all right sprawled on the floor like this?

‘Will she be OK, Daddy?’

Hailey’s eyes shot open, the pain temporarily overridden. It couldn’t be. Tom stared down at her. She blinked. Callum was kneeling on the floor beside her, his worried face peering down into hers. Suddenly, despite the pain slowly releasing her from its grip, things just got a whole lot worse.

‘What are you doing here?’ It slipped out before she could stop it but honestly! Was he stalking her?

Callum frowned. ‘Hailey?’

‘Hailey!’ Tom grinned, waving at her frantically.

Tom’s waggling fingers were nauseating from that angle so she moved gingerly, rising up onto her elbows, wincing as pain clawed at her ankle again.

‘Don’t move,’ Callum ordered, placing a stilling hand on her shoulder. ‘You may have injured your neck.’

‘I did not injure my neck,’ she grouched. Just my pride. ‘I hurt my ankle, that’s all.’

Tom knelt beside her too, mimicking his father. She noted his torch firmly ensconced under his arm. He placed a hand on her arm. ‘My daddy’s a doctor,’ he said solemnly. ‘Better do as he says.’

She looked at Callum, who was having trouble suppressing a smile. ‘Over my dead body,’ she muttered under her breath, levering herself into a sitting position. She reached for the closest article of clothing that lay strewn on the carpet and plucked it up, shoving it back in a bag.

‘Here, let me help you,’ Callum said, also reaching for the spilled contents. His hand fell on a black lace bra and knicker set. The fabric felt cool beneath his touch and he couldn’t help but wonder how it would look adorning her as he passed it to her.

Hailey met his gaze and saw the flare of heat in his eyes. She snatched it from him, annoyed at the tremor of lust that coursed through her body just like the night on the balcony. ‘I can manage, thank you,’ she said primly.

She gathered the stuff quickly, very aware of Callum and Tom watching her. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’ She repeated her unanswered question from earlier as she shoved the last garment back into its bag.

‘I live here,’ Callum stated. ‘Three doors down.’

Hailey looked at him sharply. He lived here? Was there some conspiracy out there that she didn’t know about? ‘I’ve never seen you here before.’ Not that she was that up to date on the comings and goings in the complex. Shift work made it difficult to keep tabs on anything. ‘When did you move in?’

‘Two weeks ago.’

Two weeks? They’d been here for a fortnight? She searched back in her mind. She’d been on a run of nights then.

‘What are you doing here? Are you visiting someone?’

Callum’s question cut into her thoughts. ‘I live here, too,’ she said miserably. She pointed to her door three down in the opposite direction.

Callum looked at the door, the full implications dawning. ‘So we’re neighbours?’

‘It would appear so,’ Hailey admitted, her heart beating a little too fast at the thought.

‘Oh, goody, Daddy. Hooray! Hailey is our neighbour!’

Tom jumped up and down excitedly while Callum tried not to think about black lace underwear. She looked sexy enough in her strappy, clingy sundress. The last thing he wanted was temptation living down the corridor.

They looked at each other for a few moments, both unhappy about the unexpected development. Hailey broke eye contact first.

‘Anyway, sorry to have intruded on your day. I’ll be going now.’ She grabbed the railing and hoisted herself into a standing position, gritting her teeth at the jab of pain.

‘Whoa,’ Callum chided as Hailey swayed and he placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. ‘Careful. Let me help you.’

‘I’m fine,’ she said, ignoring the proffered arm and gingerly putting her sore foot to the floor. It was probably only ten metres to her door but it suddenly seemed ten kilometres as her ankle protested the movement.

Callum rolled his eyes at the obvious wince on Hailey’s face. ‘Lean on me,’ he ordered, putting an arm around her waist.

‘I’m fine,’ she reiterated, even though she knew it was going to take some time to cover the distance.

‘Or I could pick you up,’ Callum said, exasperated. ‘Your choice.’

‘You’d better be prepared to get your fingers broken if you do,’ she threatened, looking all the way up into his face.

‘Taught you that in your self-defence class too, huh?’

She nodded. ‘That, and how to break planks with my bare hands.’

Callum threw back his head and laughed. ‘I’ll bear that in mind. Come on, just lean on me. Think of it as neighbourly.’

Except it didn’t feel neighbourly as she acquiesced. She was excruciatingly aware of the rub of his hip against her side, the brush of his arm around her waist. It even managed to obliterate the slow, steady throb in her ankle.

Tom followed them, laden with the shopping bags, and Hailey’s handbag. He fished through it for Hailey’s keys and passed them to his father. Within a minute Hailey was ensconced on her lounge.

‘Thank you,’ she said, looking up at Callum. From her reclining position he looked even further up. He was wearing his work clothes but his tie had been removed and his top buttons undone and his sleeves rolled up to his elbow. He looked relaxed and utterly at home in her unit.

Leave now.

‘Have you got a first-aid kit? I’ll strap it. And put ice on it. That should reduce the swelling. What about painkillers? I have some at my place if you haven’t got anything.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Hailey dismissed, smiling at Tom as he shone his torch on the inflammation around her ankle. It didn’t look too awful and the pain had settled to a dull throb. It didn’t look like a bad sprain.

Leave now.

But Callum was already poking around in her kitchen, opening her freezer, helping himself to its contents.

‘Here, we’ll use this,’ Callum said, brandishing a bag of frozen veg. ‘Tom, can you grab those cushions off the other lounges?’ he asked as he knelt down and moulded the freezing cold bag to the contours of her ankle.

Hailey opened her mouth to protest but his fingers felt gentle against her throbbing joint and she knew it needed ice. She winced as the cold enveloped her inflamed joint. Tom helped Callum lift her foot and settle it on top of a pile of cushions.

‘R.I.C.E.,’ Callum said, satisfied. ‘Rest, ice, compression and elevation. I’ll leave that on for about ten minutes and then strap it for you. Do you have some paracetamol?’

He was looking at her and his hand was on her shin, shooting heat right up to her thigh. In her mind’s eye she could see him running it up higher, under the hem of her dress. Higher.

Leave now.

‘That’s really not necessary,’ she said. ‘You’ve done more than enough and—’

‘Hailey!’ Callum interrupted. What was it with women these days? Why didn’t they want a man to take care of them? Annie had been like that. ‘I’m a doctor. I’m not leaving here until your ankle’s strapped and I’ve got you something to dull the pain. It’s the least I can do. So just tell me where the damn painkillers are.’

Hailey blinked at Callum’s exasperated tone. She looked at Tom. Tom looked at Hailey. ‘Bathroom cupboard,’ she sighed.

‘Boy,’ Tom said in awe. ‘You made my daddy really cranky.’

‘Doesn’t he get cranky usually?’

Tom thought about it. ‘Only with Grandma sometimes.’

‘Oh?’

‘She doesn’t think I should do stuff like climb trees.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Hailey said, not really seeing at all.

Callum strode back into the lounge room, a glass of water and a packet of pills in his hand. ‘Take these.’

His voice brooked no argument and Hailey swallowed two, knowing that the less it hurt, the more she’d be able to gently exercise it, the quicker it would recover.

‘Bandage?’ he asked.

Hailey didn’t bother with protesting. The sooner he did what he felt was his professional duty, the sooner he could leave. ‘First-aid box under the sink.’

She returned her gaze to Tom, who gave her a grin. ‘You like television?’ she asked. ‘I have cable.’

Tom nodded enthusiastically and she got him to pass her the remote control and she surfed until she found a suitable kids’ show.

Callum returned and knelt by her foot again. He lifted the frozen veg away and inspected the swelling. ‘It doesn’t look too serious,’ he mused, prodding gently, and proceeded to wrap it firmly.

The feel of her cool skin beneath his fingers was stupidly sensual. He blinked. ‘Nice place you have here.’ Not that he’d noticed a damn thing about it as having her body pressed against his on the way in had totally removed all his cognitive powers.

‘Er, yes,’ she said, gathering her wits. The light slide of his fingers as he wound the bandage around her ankle feathered her skin with goose-bumps. ‘It’s Rilla’s. My sister. She bought it after her separation from Luca but now they’re back together again and I needed to be on my own and Beth, my other sister, suggested I rent it so it worked out quite well really.’

Callum’s fingers stilled. She’d needed to be on her own? Intriguing. He’d known something wasn’t right with her.

‘There’s a great view of the river and it’s so close to everything.’

Of course, he would know that, given that he lived here as well. Shut up, damn it! She was babbling. But, honestly, how could something as asexual as applying a bandage to a disgustingly puffy ankle be so erotic?

Callum nodded absently, searching for a topic that would distract him from the insane urge to bend his head to her injury and a drop a kiss against it. He’d been a dad for too long. Hell, he’d been single too long.

‘I’m glad I got a chance to see you again today, actually. I wanted to check if you were OK this afternoon but you’d already left.’

The touch of his hand was terribly distracting and she frowned at him, trying to make sense of what he’d said. ‘OK?’

‘The thing with Henry…’ he prompted.

‘Hmm? Oh, right. Sure, sure.’ She nodded her head for proper emphasis and pointed to the discarded shopping bags. ‘Retail therapy. Works every time. You?’ she asked.

He lifted his gaze to her face and shrugged. ‘Tom is a pretty good antidote to most things.’

Tom chose that moment to giggle at something funny on television and they both glanced at him and smiled. ‘Yeah, I bet he is,’ she said softly.

Callum heard the wistful note in her voice and glanced back at her sharply. Her voice was pregnant with longing yet her eyes seemed muddied with confusion. ‘Family’s good for that,’ he murmured gently.

Hailey flicked her gaze back to Callum, aware again of his hand on her leg. This had to stop. ‘Speaking of which, my sisters have obviously heard about our 2B emergency and are going to be here in about…’ she checked her watch ‘…ten minutes to coddle me for the night.’

‘That’s nice of them,’ Callum murmured.

Hailey nodded. Yes, it was. But she’d been coddled to death when she’d first arrived back from the UK and she was over it a little. It’s why she’d struck out on her own. To show them she was fine. ‘This place is a mess, though,’ she groaned, looking around quickly and shifting her leg to get up.

Callum kept his hand firmly on her shin. He gave her apartment a quick visual once-over. It wasn’t too bad. ‘Looks OK to me.’

‘The kitchen has two days’ worth of dirty dishes piled on the sink and I haven’t vacuumed in for ever,’ she protested.

‘Would your sisters care about that?’

‘Well, no. But it is Rilla’s place and she’s a bit of a neat freak, and I’d hate her to think I wasn’t looking after it.’

Callum shook his head. He remembered the complete and utter wasteland he’d lived in for those first six months after Annie had died when he’d barely been able to put one foot in front of the other and had been desperately tired from a baby who had just never seemed to sleep. He was relatively immune to mess.

‘Well, I don’t think either of them would want you hobbling around on a freshly sprained ankle, making the place pretty for them.’ The doorbell rang and he saw Hailey start. ‘And it appears they’re early. Too late now.’

‘Great,’ Hailey grumbled, moving to push herself up again.

Callum restrained her gently, his hand pushing firmly against her leg. He stood. ‘I’ll get the door.’

Hailey opened her mouth to protest. Her sisters would get totally the wrong idea. But Callum was almost at the door so she shut her eyes and wished herself anywhere but there.

Callum opened the door to two women and a baby. The shorter one, who looked quite similar to Hailey, was laden with three mouth-wateringly aromatic pizza boxes. ‘Hi,’ he said to their startled faces.

‘Er, hi.’ Rilla frowned, looking around the man in her sister’s doorway trying to locate Hailey. Her gaze came back to rest on the stranger. She clicked her fingers. ‘Tuxedo man.’

It was Callum’s turn to frown. ‘Callum,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Callum Craig.’

‘You’re Callum Craig?’ Rilla asked, shaking the proffered hand.

Beth turned to her sister for clarification. ‘The one who helped her today? The paediatrician?’

Rilla nodded. ‘Apparently.’

They turned to look at him and he felt like he was a specimen placed under a microscope. He shook the other sister’s hand, mindful not to wake the sleeping baby as they introduced themselves. ‘Hailey had a little accident on the stairs. I was just getting her settled.’

Rilla and Beth didn’t wait for him to step aside, brushing past him in a hurry at his news.

‘Hailey!’ Beth called.

‘It’s OK,’ Hailey said from the lounge, having been privy to the excruciatingly embarrassing doorway introductions. ‘I’m fine. It’s just a mild sprain.’

There was much bluster and fussing for five minutes as Callum and Hailey filled them in on what had happened. Bridie woke up with all the noise and Beth sat on the lounge opposite her sister to feed the baby. Tom was utterly fascinated and sat next to Beth with rapt attention, gently stroking Bridie’s forehead as she nursed.

‘Anyway, we should be going,’ Callum said when he could get a word in edgeways. ‘Come on, Tom.’

‘Oh, no, Daddy, please, not yet,’ he begged.

Beth smiled at the earnest expression on Tom’s face. ‘Stay,’ she urged. ‘Let us feed you. It’s the least we can do for the assistance you rendered our sister. We have plenty. We always buy more—Hailey’s favourite food is cold pizza,’ she teased.

‘It is not,’ Hailey protested, blushing. Although it was up there.

‘Please, Daddy.’

Callum could feel himself weakening. It had been a long time since he’d been enveloped in such family hospitality. And he still found it hard to say no to Tom. He glanced at Hailey.

Hailey wanted Beth to take back the invitation. She didn’t want to dine with him. She didn’t want him to be privy to the intimacy of her family. She wanted him to leave. But her sisters were right. He had been terrifically helpful and it seemed churlish to kick him out when they had enough food to feed an army. ‘Join us,’ she said, forcing a welcoming smile to her lips. ‘Please.’

Callum fought temptation for a few seconds and then succumbed. ‘Sure. Thanks. Tom loves pizza too.’

Tom cheered and startled Bridie, who protested the loss of her food supply before she found the nipple again.

‘How can I help?’ Callum asked Rilla.

‘You can grab some plates,’ she replied.

Hailey watched in dismay as Callum and Rilla disappeared into the kitchen, the feeling that things were spinning out of her control taking a firm hold. ‘So, Callum, you do house calls?’ she heard Rilla ask, and she groaned out loud.



Hailey didn’t taste a single morsel of the delicious gourmet pizza that was served. The conversation eddied and flowed around her and she felt as if she was in the middle of a whirlpool, sucked along, buffeted by the ripples everyone else was making with no control over their direction.

She nodded in the right places, murmured words that seemed to be required of her but inside her head her brain was spinning, sloshing from one side to the other, always a few seconds behind. She felt a slight headache take up residence and she massaged her forehead to relieve the building pressure.

‘Are you OK?’ Callum murmured, noticing the movement.

Hailey started a little at his deep voice so close to her ear and wished again that he’d decided to sit on the other side of the lounge. With her taking up one sofa and Rilla and Beth taking up the other, Callum had opted for the floor. He was currently propped up against the arm of her chair, his long legs stretched out in front, crossed at the ankles.

‘I’m fine,’ she dismissed quickly.

Callum didn’t think she looked fine at all but took that as his cue to rejoin the conversation. He glanced over at Tom, lying in front of the television, and then returned his attention to the women. It was fascinating stuff, trying to work out the dynamics of Hailey’s family. The sisters’ interactions were interesting, their verbal and non-verbal communication telling of a very close relationship.

Beth and Rilla teased Hailey mercilessly. They joked about her shopping addiction, her fondness for eighties disco music, her party-girl existence and her string of short-lived boyfriends. Hailey seemed distracted, responding automatically, but neither sister seemed to notice, the routine obviously familiar to them all.

Callum was surprised. The fun-loving Hailey that Beth and Rilla obviously knew and loved was not the Hailey he had seen. He remembered the New Year’s Eve party. She’d been serious—solemn even. And she’d most certainly been alone. The picture her sisters painted just didn’t fit in with the first impressions he had already formed.

What had happened to her?

His musings were interrupted by a cry of distress from Tom. He looked up to find his son wild-eyed in front of him, tears trekking down his cheeks.

‘My orchie, Daddy. I’ve lost orchie.’

Callum felt his gut clench at the distress in his son’s voice. He pulled him down onto his lap and cuddled him close. ‘It’s OK, Tommy, it was just here—it can’t be too far away.’

Hailey saw the look in Tom’s eyes and was surprised to see something akin to panic. She’d wondered about the connection to the rather austere object. Was it some kind of comfort toy? Like a favourite teddy or a soft blanket? She glanced at Rilla and Beth, who looked equally bewildered.

She’d been aware of a hard object pressing into her good foot for a while and suddenly it clicked as to what it was. Tom’s torch. He must have dropped it there when he’d been shining it on her injury earlier.

She bent at the waist to retrieve it. ‘Ahh! Look what I’ve found!’ Hailey exclaimed.

‘Orchie! Orchie!’ Tom beamed, grabbing it from Hailey and hugging it close.

‘Tom,’ Callum chided gently. ‘It’s not polite to snatch. Say thank you to Hailey.’

‘Oh, thank you, Hailey. Thank you!’ Tom said, and flung his arms around her neck.

The torch was squashed into her chest and Hailey wondered if there would be a bruise there in the morning, but Tom’s high little voice, full of gratitude, overrode any discomfort. His little skinny arms trembled as they clung to her and Hailey held him tight.

‘OK, Tom.’ Callum laughed, pulling him off Hailey’s neck. ‘You’ve got orchie, now go back and watch the telly.’

Tom nodded and skipped away happily. No one would have ever guessed that a minute ago he’d looked on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

‘I’m sorry,’ Callum apologised to Hailey. ‘He’s very attached to it.’

Hailey rubbed absently at the spot just below her shoulder where the imprint of the torch was still making itself felt. ‘Like a security blanket?’ she murmured.

Callum nodded. He looked up, seeing the curious looks over Tom’s attachment to something as non-cuddly as a torch. He glanced over at his son again to check that he was too absorbed in the show to be listening.

‘Tom was diagnosed with ALL two years ago. He had a lot of complications and spent quite a bit of time in hospital. At night, on the ward, it was dark and he’d wake up really frightened. One of the nurses suggested I buy him a torch, give him back some control. I’m afraid they still can’t be parted.’

Hailey felt as if the walls were closing in. Acute lymphocytic leukaemia? She heard the gasps and the sympathetic murmurs from her sisters but was too frozen to respond. Tom was sick?

‘Is his treatment complete?’ Rilla asked.

‘Six months now,’ Callum confirmed. He didn’t say what the three nurses would have already known. Tom needed five years in remission to be given the all-clear. He could relapse at any moment.

Hailey stared at him unblinkingly. Tom was sick? It felt like déjà vu. She remembered Eric. How his meningitis had developed out of the blue and he’d been dead within two days. How the love she’d once felt for Paul, Eric’s father, had been mangled by the vortex of grief, guilt and blame.

Hailey vaguely heard Callum mentioning his wife’s battle with cancer but was still too stunned over the information on Tom to really compute this latest tidbit. Callum had certainly been through a harrowing six years. If it had been anything like this last year for her, she was amazed he was still standing.

Oh, dear God. She was doing it again. Becoming attracted to a man with a sick child. A sick, motherless child. Becoming? Who was she kidding? There was no becoming about it. She was. She’d arrived. She was attracted to him. But this was worse than with Paul. Much worse. She’d known Callum for a week and she could barely think about anything else.

For heaven’s sake, he’d sat beside her all evening and she couldn’t recall a thing anyone had said. This was no friendship evolving into something else, no slow burn, as it had been with Paul. This was a raging bush fire set to explode out of control. Last time had crushed her and already she knew this wasn’t in the same league. She couldn’t survive another doomed attraction.

‘Isn’t that right, Hailey?’

‘Wh-what?’ Hailey spun around, Beth’s voice intruding into her seething thoughts.

‘I was saying how you saw Remi Duconte speak in London about the advances in leukaemia treatments.’

‘Er…yes.’ Hailey nodded, trying to think of a single thing the world’s foremost expert in childhood cancer had had to say.

Callum glanced at Hailey. She seemed nervous suddenly. Out of it. Her replies were automatic, like those of a robot. Had the news of Tom’s illness thrown her that badly?

‘He’s in Brisbane soon, isn’t he? Dad’s chairing his lecture,’ Beth added, oblivious to the conflict raging inside her younger sister.

‘Tomorrow night.’ Hailey nodded absently.

‘I assume you’re going?’ Beth asked Callum.

Callum shook his head. ‘I’m registered to attend but Tom’s grandparents, who normally look after him, have tickets to Les Misérables tomorrow night. I’ll catch him next time.’

‘Oh, but you simply must go!’ Beth urged. ‘Aside from your work, you have such a personal stake in it.’

‘Yes. I will be disappointed to miss out. He rarely lectures these days. But as I haven’t been in Brisbane very long I don’t have alternative child-care arrangements yet. I’m afraid the timing’s all wrong.’

‘Nonsense,’ Beth dismissed. ‘You know us, don’t you?’

Callum laughed. ‘Oh, no, really, it’s OK. I couldn’t impose.’

‘Hailey can do it,’ Rilla piped up, ignoring Hailey’s knitted brows. ‘She’s just down the hall. She won’t mind. She loves kids. Don’t you, Hails?’

Callum looked at Hailey. He didn’t profess to be an expert on women’s moods—and he’d been married for five years—but Hailey looked as if she minded. A lot. She was frowning her disapproval at her sister.

Callum didn’t want to rock the family boat and certainly not with Hailey who he felt on rocky ground with anyway. ‘No. It’s fine, really.’

‘Hailey?’ Rilla prompted. ‘It would be such a shame for Callum to miss it, don’t you think?’

Hailey looked at her sister. Just what was Rilla playing at? Wasn’t she the one who had warned her against getting involved with another motherless little boy?

But Rilla was right. Seeing Remi Duconte was not an event to be missed and Callum had been as solid as a rock during the emergency today and had then gone on to scrape her up off the floor, help her into her apartment and administer first aid. She sighed. ‘Will half six be OK?’

Callum shook his head again. ‘No. I couldn’t impose.’

‘Look, I’m offering,’ she said testily. ‘This really is one lecture you don’t want to miss. Unless you’re worried Tom would fret?’ Hailey frowned. ‘I suppose we’ve only just met.’

‘Oh, no. Since his protracted stint in hospital, Tom isn’t particularly bothered about new faces. And he seems to have taken a real shine to you. Besides, you found orchie and let him have two servings of ice cream. You’d better watch out, he’ll be moving in next.’

Hailey forced a smile to her lips as her sisters laughed at Callum’s joke. ‘Excellent. That’s settled, then,’ she murmured.

Except it wasn’t, of course. Was she insane? Things were about as unsettled as the ocean in the middle of a tropical cyclone.

CHAPTER FOUR
HAILEY’S fingers were shaking as she limped to Callum’s door and pushed the doorbell promptly at six-thirty the next evening, mentally cursing Rilla. Apparently her middle sister had changed her mind about Hailey’s involvement with another man and child. ‘Maybe he’s just what you need,’ Rilla had said last night after Callum had left.

She gave herself a shake. It’s just two hours. That’s all. One hundred and twenty minutes. You can do this.

The door flung open and Tom stood there in his pyjamas, his damp hair plastered to his forehead, trusty torch in hand.

‘Hailey!’ Tom threw his six-year-old body at her, hugging her around the waist, crushing his torch against her hip bone.

‘Tom,’ she said, looking down at his sandy-blond head, wincing at the bite of the hard plastic.

His little arms felt good around her waist and though they were skinny his grip was strong. Despite his pallor, Tom seemed so vital. Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest at the thought of him ill and frightened, clutching his torch late at night on some big scary oncology ward.

Callum had said Tom had spent a lot of time in hospital so it sounded as if he’d had a stormy course during his treatments. Had he been plagued with debilitating nausea? Or fallen prey to any of the side effects of chemotherapy? Had he lost his hair?

She ruffled his damp locks. Damn it. She didn’t want to know any of this. She wasn’t supposed to be getting involved any more.

‘OK, Tom.’ Callum laughed, amused at his son’s delight. ‘You were supposed to be cleaning your teeth.’

Hailey looked up to find him lounging against a nearby doorframe. The man was looking good enough to eat. He was wearing jeans and an untucked short-sleeved shirt with stripes. His arms looked bulky and very, very touchable. His very short hair emphasised the chiselled planes of his face. She could smell soap and aftershave.

His feet were bare, adding to his casual appeal. Damn it! How could feet be so alluring, for crying out loud? He blasted her with a slow, sexy smile and she almost turned and ran. In fact, had her ankle been up to it, she might have seriously considered it.

She swallowed. ‘Hi.’

Callum inclined his head. She looked tense, hanging onto the doorknob like it was a lifeline. She was wearing a floral skirt that flared around her knees and a navy T-shirt that clung to the generous swell of her breasts. He felt a pull in his groin at her fresh-faced, damp-haired appeal and a punch to his gut at the way Tom clung to her like he’d known her all his life. ‘Hi.’

They stared at each other for a few moments. ‘Teeth,’ Callum ordered Tom breaking eye contact with Hailey.

Tom skipped away and they watched him until he disappeared from sight. Callum returned his attention to Hailey. She gave him a tight smile.

‘How’s your ankle?’ he asked politely.

‘It’s much better, thank you. The swelling’s gone down considerably and I can put most of my weight on it,’ she replied just as politely.

Callum almost laughed. Their stilted conversation would have done two strangers proud. Except they weren’t. Yesterday they’d saved a life and a few days before that he had kissed her. ‘You know, I can cancel going to this thing.’

‘No.’ Hailey shook her head automatically. ‘It’s fine.’

Callum sighed. ‘It’s patently obvious you don’t want to be here, Hailey.’

‘No, really, I…’ What? I what? I’m looking forward to it? I want nothing more than to babysit your not-out-of-the-woods-yet adorable six-year-old?

‘Hailey, I’m hardly likely to leave my son with a woman who looks like she’d rather have a hole drilled in her head.’

She felt a shaft of guilt lance her chest. She closed her eyes briefly and shut the door. ‘I’m sorry. Go. Really. I’m not…I mean…’ Hailey looked at him looking at her expectantly. Waiting for her to say something that would make her behaviour less odd. Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of a damn thing. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

Callum put his hands on his hips. ‘Try me.’

‘Tooth’s done, Daddy.’

Tom’s chirpy interruption was just what Hailey needed to pull herself together. She’d almost said something really stupid. Like, I feel insanely attracted to you and I’m petrified.

Callum shut his eyes briefly, inwardly cursing Tom’s bad timing. He crouched down. ‘Open up,’ he said.

Tom opened his mouth and Callum inspected his son’s job. ‘Looks good, Tommy.’ He pulled him close for a hug and inhaled the sweet smell of bubblebath and baby powder. His heart ached in his chest as Tom wrapped his arms around his neck and held on tight.

They were a team. He and Tom. They’d been alone for most of Tom’s young life and been through some very tough times. Tom desperately wanted a mother—and a baby brother—but Callum just wasn’t in the market for a relationship, no matter how much Hailey had revived his libido.

Losing Annie had been hard and he didn’t want to set himself up for any more heartache. He certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall for someone who had ‘Keep out’ written all over her. He didn’t need someone in his life who had even more baggage than him.

‘C’mon, Hailey.’ Tom squirmed out of his father’s embrace and took his reluctant babysitter’s hand. ‘Do you like reading? Can you read to me?’

Hailey’s gaze locked with Callum’s for a brief moment before she dragged it away. ‘I like reading best of all.’ Hailey pulled her own book out of her bag and waggled it, grinning down at Tom.

‘I like it the mostest too,’ Tom agreed, tugging on Hailey’s hand, dragging her hobbling form into the lounge.

Callum left them to it, gathering his stuff, slipping on some shoes. He wandered into the kitchen and placed Tom’s plate and cutlery into the dishwasher. Tom’s laughter drifted in to him and he lounged in the archway between the two rooms for a few minutes.

Although they had their backs to him, he could easily see them snuggled in a single armchair, Tom firmly ensconced on Hailey’s lap, their heads close together. They were reading Tom’s favourite book about animal mothers. Hailey laughed at something Tom said and Tom pointed at a picture.

She was a natural with him. So why hadn’t she been comfortable with the idea of babysitting him? Why the reticence when she’d first arrived? Was it Tom or was it to do with him? With them. With the insane attraction that was between them?

‘How come you’re not a mummy, Hailey? Beth has Birdie and Rilla’s going to be a mummy soon.’

Callum closed his eyes. Six-year-olds weren’t exactly known for their tact. He opened his mouth to tell Tom to mind his own business but shut it instead, curious to know the answer.

Hailey’s hand stilled on the page. Just like a kid to cut to the chase. ‘I almost was,’ she said, her pulse reverberating loudly through her head. ‘A few years back. But then it didn’t happen.’

Callum straightened. Almost? Had Hailey had a miscarriage? Was this the sorrow he sensed she carried with her? Was this why looking after Tom was so hard?

‘My mummy’s dead.’

Callum shut his eyes. It was so matter-of-fact. So childlike. Spoken with no emotion from a little boy who had no true concept of what a mother was. It was so unfair.

Hailey nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I know. That’s very sad.’

‘It would have been good having a mummy in hospital. I was scared.’

Callum sucked in a breath. Tom had never verbalised that before.

Hailey noted Tom’s vice-like grip on his torch and her heart went out to him. ‘You’re lucky you have a very special daddy who was there for you.’

Tom nodded. ‘A mummy would have been good too. For Daddy also. He misses her. Grandma says so and he goes all googoo-eyed sometimes when he thinks I’m not watching.’

Hailey smiled at the description despite the heaviness in her heart. Another man still in love with his wife—she sure knew how to pick ’em.

Callum pushed off the wall. OK—that was definitely enough! ‘Right, well, I’m off,’ he said, forcing a cheery note into his voice as he advanced into the room from behind them.

Hailey blushed. She felt like she’d been caught prying, fishing for background info. She hadn’t asked for any of it and she most certainly didn’t want to know it. All it did was give this little boy and his father an even bigger inroad to her heart, and that was the last thing she wanted.

‘Are you sure?’ Callum asked Hailey again. He hoped he looked normal. Not like he’d been eavesdropping.

Hailey looked at him, feeling nervous and all fluttery inside. Poor Callum had been through the mill and Tom’s innocent admission that Callum still missed his wife made her heart ache for him. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she said quietly over Tom’s head. ‘Just go.’

Callum nodded. He crossed to say goodnight to his son. ‘You be good for Hailey, OK?’ Callum leaned down to drop a kiss on Tom’s head. Hailey’s cleavage came into view and her scent, like raindrops on roses, enveloped him. He pulled away sharply after the merest of pecks.

‘Yes, Daddy.’

‘Another half hour,’ Callum said, clearing his throat, not daring to look at Hailey. ‘Then bed.’

‘Oh, but, Daddy…’

Callum laughed and tousled his son’s hair. ‘No, “oh-but-daddys”.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, forcing himself to look Hailey in the eye. ‘Have you eaten?’