A Wife for the Baby Doctor

‘Dammit, Dani—’ Josh began, but this time she wasn’t going to take no for an answer—not when it was obviously what they both wanted.

Her mind wasn’t really on what she was saying. What did conversation matter when she was finally where she’d wanted to be for so many years?

And it felt so good.

Ever since she’d first fallen in love with him she’d imagined what it would feel like when he finally held her in his arms, but this surpassed anything she’d ever dreamed. He was so tall and strong—the sort of solid bulwark that a woman could depend on to protect her when life turned rough.

‘Dani…’ he muttered, almost incoherently, and his head swooped down towards her even as he swept her up into his arms and pressed his lips to hers.

At last!

Josie Metcalfe lives in Cornwall with her long-suffering husband. They have four children. When she was an army brat, frequently on the move, books became the only friends that came with her wherever she went. Now that she writes them herself she is making new friends, and hates saying goodbye at the end of a book—but there are always more characters in her head, clamouring for attention until she can’t wait to tell their stories.

Recent titles by the same author:

SHEIKH SURGEON CLAIMS HIS BRIDE*

THE DOCTOR’S BRIDE BY SUNRISE* TWINS FOR A CHRISTMAS BRIDE A MARRIAGE MEANT TO BE

*Brides of Penhally Bay

Look out for the second book in Josie Metcalfe’s neonatal duet—coming soon from Medical™Romance

BY

JOSIE METCALFE

CHAPTER ONE

JOSH peered cautiously through the window in the door that barred the entrance to the unit, wary in case it was that fierce senior sister on duty.

He knew that his mother preferred to collect him from the homework club at school rather than have him walk for five minutes to the hospital on his own; knew he wasn’t really supposed to come up here to wait for her shift to end; and he definitely shouldn’t know the code to let himself into the unit, but he was so fascinated by the tiny babies she cared for that he just couldn’t resist.

‘Hi, Josh,’ called one of his mother’s friendlier colleagues, looking across at him from her position at the desk. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her welcoming smile. With Sally Nugent on duty he knew he wasn’t going to be summarily ejected tonight. ‘Your mum’s nearly finished. Go on into the staff lounge while you’re waiting for her. There might even be some biscuits left in the tin.’

His stomach was empty but it was easy to ignore it when there was the fascinating world of medicine surrounding him. He might only be nine, but he already knew what he wanted to do when he grew up.

‘Have you had any new babies in today?’ he asked, lingering beside the desk while Sally frowned at something on the computer screen.

‘Not so far,’ she said with a distracted smile in his direction, just as the phone began to ring.

Josh could only hear Sally’s side of the conversation but he could tell from the expression on her face that she was being told something serious. Usually Sally could manage to find a reassuring smile for everyone, no matter what was happening in the unit. This time he could tell from the way she suddenly went white that something very different had happened.

She clattered the phone down almost before she’d finished speaking, and instead of hurrying him through to wait out of sight in the staff waiting room—the way she normally would—she sat there for several seconds, biting her lip, apparently unable to bring herself to look in his direction.

Suddenly he felt sick with apprehension.

‘Sally?’ he prompted, hating the fact that his voice still sounded like a kid’s when he’d been the man of the house from the moment he’d been born. Had something happened to his mother? She and Pammy were all he had in the world, at least until Pammy’s baby arrived. ‘What’s the matter? What’s going—?’

‘I’m sorry, Josh,’ she interrupted abruptly, getting to her feet. ‘You’re going to have to leave the unit. Go down and wait in the main reception area.’ She started ushering him towards the door. ‘Your… There’s an emergency coming in and your…your mother’s going to need to stay on late tonight. Is there someone who can come and fetch you…to take you home?’

He knew she wasn’t telling him the truth—at least, not the whole truth—and he dug his feet in, refusing to move another inch until he had an answer to the most important question.

‘Is it Mum? Has something happened to her?’ he demanded, a strange shaky feeling starting deep inside him. It was the same feeling that he’d got the day his mother had phoned to tell him there had been an accident and she was delayed in A and E.

He’d been so convinced she’d been injured that initially he hadn’t been able to hear her telling him that she’d been nothing more than a bystander and was taking care of the victim’s children until their father arrived. He’d known then just how devastating it would be if anything were to happen to his mother or to her best friend, Pammy. The three of them had been together all his life and were the only family he had in the world.