Playboy Surgeon, Top-Notch Dad

“Noticed that, did you?” Dr T pressed the button on his hospital bed to raise him to a sitting position. “Question is, what did you do and what are you doing to make things better?”

“She’s upset I took Addy out in my boat.” He wouldn’t go into all the other things Blair was upset about. Rightly so. He sighed. He should just leave her alone. He wasn’t good for her and she didn’t trust him. So why couldn’t he just put her out of his mind? “I’ve tried talking to her twice since the night you were admitted, but she refuses to talk about it.”

“Just twice?” Dr T looked disappointed. “Surely you know women well enough to know that groveling twice isn’t nearly enough when you committed that big a mistake.”

“Taking Addy sailing wasn’t a mistake.” Perhaps he should have asked Blair first, but she should have trusted him.

“No?”

“Blair shouldn’t put her fears on Addy. It isn’t healthy.”

Dr T’s thin brow lifted. “She told you about Chris? About how he died?”

He nodded.

Dr T’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “She’s in love with you. That’s what all of this is about.”

“Blair doesn’t love me.” He’d thought so, but now he knew better. Otherwise, how could she have turned on him so quickly? How could she have kicked him when he was in just as much pain as she was? When they should have been helping each other through their pain, she’d turned her back on him.

But it had been her verbal attack that had left him cold. Listening to her curse him had opened old wounds of fights between his parents, reminded him that he’d had no business to think he could have a relationship with Blair.

After all, he was a Manning male, and wasn’t that better than giving Blair the power to hurt him?

“Hogwash.”

Oz’s gaze cut to Dr T.

“If you really believe that, then you’re a fool. Just like you’re a fool if you think I don’t know what goes on in my house. I may be dying, but I’m not dead yet.”

Oz winced. Nope, his friend didn’t mince words.

“She scares you, and you’re doing what you do best. Playing the role you think you’re supposed to.”

Oz leaned back in the chair, propped his feet against the side railing of Dr T’s hospital bed. “Blair doesn’t scare me.”

“You think not?” The older man’s thin brow rose. “Then why aren’t you fighting for her?”

Fighting for her? Not meeting Dr T’s eyes, Oz crossed his arms over his chest. “She doesn’t trust me.”

“Do you trust her?”

Oz glanced up, stared into unrelenting pale blue eyes. “I’m not the one who threw a fit about my taking Addy out in my sailboat.”

“If you trust her, why haven’t you told her how you feel?” Dr T’s pale eyes narrowed and as usual he cut right to the heart of the matter. “How you really feel about her?”

Why, indeed?

That evening, Blair and Addy helped Stephanie blow up balloons and hang a welcome home banner in Dr T’s living room. Ever efficient, Stephanie had even had a cake made. When Oz had arrived with Dr T, they’d cheered, “Welcome home.”

“You’re looking at him again,” Reesee whispered in Blair’s ear.

Standing just inside the patio door, Blair sighed. Darn it. She wasn’t. “I was looking at Addy.”

“Who just happens to be sitting in Oz’s lap.”

True. Much to Blair’s chagrin, Addy couldn’t get enough of Oz. From the moment Oz had arrived, Addy clung to him, telling him in no uncertain terms that she’d missed him and demanding to know why he’d yet to take her sailing again.

“Personally, I agree with Addy. He’s hot.”