Capturing The Single Dad's Heart. Kate Hardy

she said, feeling slightly flustered.

      ‘Yeah.’

      * * *

      Once Nate was happy that Kevin Bishop and his other patients from Theatre that afternoon had settled back on the ward and there were no complications following surgery, he finished writing up his notes. And then he braced himself for the drive to his mother’s house.

      Guilt flooded through him. What kind of a father was he, to dread picking up his own daughter? But being her full-time parent—the one with total responsibility—was a far cry from being the part-time dad who saw her for a few snatched days in school holidays and odd weekends. Before Caitlin had come to live with him, they hadn’t spent long enough together at a stretch to run out of things to talk about. Now, it was the other way round: he had all the time he could’ve wanted with her, and not a clue what to say.

      As he’d half expected, Caitlin wasn’t in the mood for talking.

      ‘How was your day?’ he asked as he pulled away from the kerb.

      Her only answer was a shrug.

      Great. What did he ask now? Clearly she didn’t want to talk about school or her friends—he didn’t even know whether she’d made friends, yet, because she always sidestepped the question whenever he asked.

      Food would be a safe subject, surely? ‘Do you fancy pizza for dinner tonight?’

      A shake of her head. ‘Your mother already cooked for me.’

      As part of her protest about being forced to move from Devon to London, Caitlin had shut off from Sara, her paternal grandmother; she avoided calling Sara anything at all, just as she’d stopped calling Nate ‘Dad’. He had no idea how to get round that without starting another row—and he was trying to pick his battles carefully.

      By the time he’d thought of another topic, they were home. Not that Caitlin considered his house as her real home, and he was beginning to wonder if she ever would. Though neither of them had any choice in the matter.

      ‘Do you have much homework?’ he tried as he unlocked the front door.

      ‘I’ve already done it. Do you have to be on my case all the time?’ she demanded.

      It took her five seconds to run up the stairs. Two more to slam her bedroom door.

      And that would be the last he saw of her, that evening.

      He didn’t have a clue what to do now. Stephanie had made it clear that it was his turn to deal with their daughter, and being a full-time dad was as much of a shock to the system for him as it was for Caitlin. Of course he understood that it was hard starting at a new school and being away from the friends you’d known since you were a toddler, but Caitlin had been in London for a month now and things still hadn’t got any better.

      He’d rather face doing the most complicated and high-risk spinal surgery for twenty-four hours straight than face his teenage daughter. At least in Theatre he had some clue what he was doing, whereas here he was just a big fat failure. He didn’t know what to do to make things better. When he’d tried asking her, she’d just rolled her eyes, said he was clueless, stomped upstairs and slammed her bedroom door.

      Why was parenting a teenage girl so much harder than the job he’d trained for more than ten years to do?

      And how was he ever going to learn to get it right?

      He grabbed his mobile phone and headed out to the back garden. Hopefully Caitlin would be less likely to overhear this particular conversation if he was outside; he didn’t want her to misunderstand and think he was complaining about her. And then he called his ex-wife.

      ‘What now?’ was Stephanie’s snapped greeting.

      He sighed inwardly. Caitlin had definitely inherited her mother’s hostile attitude towards him. ‘How are you, Steph?’

      ‘Fine.’ She sounded suspicious. ‘Why are you calling?’

      ‘Because I need help,’ he admitted. ‘I’m absolutely rubbish at this parenting business.’

      ‘You can’t send her back here,’ Stephanie said. ‘Not after the way she’s been with Craig.’

      ‘I know.’ Caitlin had been just as hostile towards Nate’s now-ex-girlfriend. Though, if he was honest with himself, the relationship with Georgina had been on its last legs anyway. If the final row hadn’t been over Caitlin, it would’ve been about something else, and he was pretty sure they would’ve broken up by now. Maybe Stephanie’s new marriage had slightly firmer foundations. For her sake, he hoped so. ‘I don’t know what to say to her. How to get through to her. All she does is roll her eyes at me and slam her bedroom door.’

      ‘She’s a teenage girl.’

      ‘I know, but they’re not all like that. Not all the time. And she wasn’t like that when she visited me or I came down to Devon.’

      ‘So it’s my fault?’

      ‘No. I don’t want to fight with you, Steph.’

      ‘But you’re judging me for putting my relationship before her.’

      ‘No, I’m not,’ he said tiredly. ‘Who am I to judge, when I put my career before both of you?’

      ‘I’m glad you can see that now,’ Stephanie said.

      Nate told himself silently not to rise to the bait. It was an old argument and there were no winners.

      ‘Well, you’ll just have to keep trying. Because she can’t come back here,’ Stephanie warned. ‘She’s your daughter, too, and it’s your turn to look after her.’

      ‘Yeah.’ Nate knew that asking his ex for help had been a long shot. Given that Stephanie had spent the last ten years hating him for letting her down, of course she wouldn’t make this easy for him now. And he knew that most of the fault was his. He hadn’t been there enough when Stephanie had been struggling with a demanding toddler, and he hadn’t supported her as much as he should have... It wasn’t surprising that she’d walked out and taken the baby halfway across the country with her.

      Maybe he should’ve sucked it up and gone after her. Or at least moved closer so that access to their daughter wasn’t so difficult. Even though he had a sneaking suspicion that Stephanie would’ve moved again if he’d done that.

      In the end they’d compromised, with Nate doing his best to support his daughter and ex-wife financially by working hard and rising as fast as he could through the ranks. He’d called Caitlin twice a week, trying to speak to her before her bedtime even when he was at work, and then as soon as video calling became available he’d used that—though Steph had made pointed comments about him being the ‘fun parent’ buying their daughter expensive technology. But without that he would’ve been limited to the odd weekend and visits in the school holidays. He hadn’t bought the tablet to score points or rub in the fact that he was making good money—he’d simply wanted to see his daughter as much as he could, even though they lived so far apart.

      ‘Thanks anyway,’ he said, hoping that Stephanie would take it for the anodyne and polite comment it was rather than assume that he was being sarcastic and combative, and ended the call.

      Being a new single dad to a teen was the most frustrating, awkward thing he’d ever done in his life.

      But he’d have to find a way to make this work. For all their sakes.

       CHAPTER TWO

      NATE HAD DARK shadows under his eyes, Erin noticed. And, although he was being completely professional with their patients, she could see the suppressed misery in his eyes.

      I shouldn’t bring my baggage to work.

      His words from the previous day echoed in her head. Right at that