The Single Dad's New-Year Bride

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.’