Playboy Doctor to Doting Dad

Abby tugged her blouse down over her hips and crossed to read the arrivals screen. Just where was this guy who had her little household all in a twitter? And who made her head spin with worry?

Kieran peered through the window down onto the glittering sea of horseshoe-shaped Tasman Bay. What a damned long way to come for two months’ work. But he’d have gone to Siberia if that’s what it took to please the chairman of the Board and further his own career. He sighed. He still didn’t understand why the old boy thought it necessary for him to take a secondment overseas before he put in his application for head of the emergency department of Mercy Hospital in Dublin.

He’d been heading to Adelaide, Australia, for his secondment until this one in New Zealand had suddenly appeared. Adelaide had been the obvious choice. A much larger facility with higher patient numbers, which would look good on his CV. But Nelson required someone urgently as the current head of department had a very ill child needing care in Australia. Something about a liver transplant.

Even then Kieran had resisted, but whenever he’d glanced at the travel brochure on Nelson an image of a woman and one heated night of passion, the likes of which he’d never known before or since, had kept flicking across his mind.

Abigail. She lived in Nelson. Not that he intended picking up where they’d left off that night. No, thank you. That was a road to disaster. But the mental pictures of her and that one night had caused him to fill in the wrong set of papers.

Don’t forget Olivia. It had broken his heart to watch her at the airport in Dublin, clinging to Abigail’s hand as she had disappeared from his life through the bland doors of Immigration. Even knowing he’d done the best thing for Olivia hadn’t made the pain any easier. He missed his sister, and Olivia was the only connection he had left to her. Two losses in one week had been horrendous. But no way would he change the arrangement. Olivia was far better off living with Abigail.

Kieran’s hands clenched against his thighs as the plane shook and bucked. Why couldn’t the pilot fly it in a straight line? Sweat slithered down between his shoulder blades, plastering his shirt to his skin.

A gnarled hand tapped his forearm. ‘It’s a bit bumpy, isn’t it, dear?’

Kieran flicked a glance sideways at the elderly lady sitting beside him, her crotchet momentarily still in her lap. She didn’t seem at all fazed by the turbulence. A benevolent smile and sparkling, washed-out blue eyes focused on him.

‘Just a little,’ he concurred, dragging out a smile.

‘We won’t be long now.’

‘I certainly hope not.’ He peered out the window looking for a distraction. But his mind quickly turned back to Abigail.

Of course, if he’d known of the bombshell she had been about to drop on him he’d definitely have chosen Adelaide. His muscles tensed. Would he? Truly? He shrugged, trying to ignore the multitude of questions that had buzzed around his skull since that phone call from her. Now here he was, minutes away from landing in her town. He shivered. Nelson. Where a whole bundle of difficult issues and decisions awaited him. And none of them medical.

A son. Abigail said the lad looked like him. Some alien emotion stirred within his chest, a feeling he didn’t recognise. Surely not curiosity? Or pride?

Was it the familiar fear that he’d let Olivia down? And now Seamus? But how did a man who’d never experienced love from his parents love his own child? As his father had said often enough, he’d make a terrible parent. He didn’t have it in him to love and care for children. The sooner he explained so that Abigail understood, the sooner her expectations about his role in the children’s lives would disappear. For ever.

Just grand. He’d been coming for work, and now that had been pushed to the back of his mind with thoughts of Abigail and the children, making him feel rattled. Inadequate, even.

At least he’d be busy putting in long hours covering for staff on leave over Christmas and New Year. Apparently this was the time of year that Kiwis took their major holidays, spending weeks at the beaches, out in the mountains or following major sports events. At least there’d be time to get used to the idea of being a father and to decide how to deal with it.

‘Don’t bother. You’ll make a mess of parenting, like you make a mess of most things in your life.’ His father’s voice slammed into his brain. The words that had spurred him to become an exceptional emergency specialist.

Bitterness soured his mouth as the old litany made its umpteenth rerun in his skull. He wasn’t good at looking out for people he cared about. He’d known that since the day when Morag, his sister, had tripped and broken her ankle during a student party in his flat. She’d wrecked her chances at the European ski championships. In a blind fury their father had unfairly laid the blame firmly at Kieran’s feet, telling him he was incapable of thinking of anyone except himself.

A fact his father had taken great delight in rubbing in again when Kieran’s girlfriend at the time had miscarried. Kieran had been working late and hadn’t had his cellphone switched on. His girlfriend had accused him of not being there when she’d needed him most. His father had added his taunt, saying that surely Kieran had finally learned his lesson and accepted he shouldn’t get involved with anyone who would depend on him to look out for them.

Oh, he’d learned his lesson all right. He’d made a lifetime commitment to it. And nothing one little boy could do would change his mind.

Swallowing the bile rising in his throat, Kieran tried to focus on something brighter, less distressing. Abigail. Again. Funny how she popped straight into his mind. It had never once occurred to him that she’d be working in the same department he was going to. What if she insisted on being overly friendly at work? Worse, what if everyone already knew he was the father of her child? He cringed. That would put him on the back foot straight away. He was the head of the department, albeit temporarily, and fraternising with the staff was not good for staff relations.

Too late, boyo. The fraternising has been done, can’t be undone. Abigail has a child, your child. A boy named Seamus.

He would do his damnedest to keep that information under wraps. If he wasn’t already too late.

‘I’d better not be,’ he muttered.

All his muscles tightened. As they had done a thousand times on this trip whenever he thought about the situation. He still couldn’t believe he was a father.

Was that because he didn’t want to believe it?

He’d always taken care to avoid an accident of this kind. That’s why he bought condoms by the ton. But he knew the boy was his. He knew Abigail wasn’t one of those women who went from one man’s bed to the next without a care. Neither would she use something like pregnancy to snag a man into marriage. If that had been her intention, she wouldn’t have kept Seamus’s arrival a secret from him. No, Abigail was honesty personified.

Discomfort made him squirm as he remembered that night in Dublin two years ago. Both of them had been totally smothered in grief after the joint funeral of his sister and Abigail’s brother. They’d turned to each other for comfort, and for a few hours had forgotten everything as they’d discovered each other. He knew her all right. Intimately.

The plane shuddered. So did Kieran. His tense fingers ached, bent like claws. He squeezed his eyes tight. God, he hated flying. Think of something else, anything else. Abigail again. Wrong focus. But her image burned his eyeballs. As it had at unexpected moments ever since they’d made love.

‘Did I hear an Irish accent?’ Beside him the metal hook flicked in and out of the cotton. ‘What brings you out here?’

A hurricane of waist-length dark blonde hair, and long arms and legs. A quirky smile that challenged him, and piercing hazel eyes that devoured him. Abigail.

No. He hadn’t endured this agony to see her. ‘I’m working at the local hospital. I also have a three-year-old niece living here.’ And your son. What about him? If he mentioned Seamus then he was acknowledging the boy was a part of him. I’m not ready for that.

‘

They’re a bundle of fun and tricks at that age. My grandson is into gardening at the moment, much to his mother’s consternation, digging being his favourite occupation.’

‘I can see how that could be a problem.’ What did Olivia enjoy doing? Damn it, who does Olivia look like? His sister? Or David? How tall was she? He didn’t know anything about her.

Appalled, he leaned his head back and stared at the moulded-plastic ceiling. He’d barely acknowledged any correspondence from Abigail about Olivia. He had behaved dreadfully, deliberately keeping out of touch. Arranging a regular money transfer from Dublin for Abigail to use for Olivia had been easy, and had salved his conscience whenever he’d thought there might be something he should be doing for his niece. No wonder Abigail hadn’t contacted him about Seamus. She must have a very low opinion of him. Would she be waiting at the airport with a bat to bludgeon him over the head so she could drag him home to see the children? He forced his fingers straight, loose. Expanded his lungs. He couldn’t blame her if she did.

Beside him the lady asked, ‘So, your niece, is she a Kiwi?’

‘Yes, she is, but she’s Irish as well. My sister married a doctor from here, a friend of mine.’ Best friend he’d ever had. ‘They were killed in a car accident in Dublin a couple of years ago.’