The Doctor's Baby Dare. Michelle Celmer

to leave the cafeteria. Keeping her eyes on her phone, she watched in her peripheral vision as Parker neared her table, and when he walked past she could feel the air shift.

      Would he stop and give her a hard time? He was always making excuses to talk to her about things that weren’t work related. Probably because he knew it annoyed her. That’s what she wanted him to think anyway.

      Parker must have been in a hurry because he didn’t stop this time. She should have been relieved, so why the feeling of disappointment? She couldn’t go on this way, harboring an irrational lust for a man who was completely wrong for her, walking around in a state of constant confusion.

      Her phone rang and she answered, instantly back in work mode when Vanessa, one of her nurses, told her Janey’s vitals were no longer stable and getting worse by the minute.

      Clare jumped up, leaving her tray on the table and shoving her phone in her cardigan pocket as she headed for the closest elevator. Since she’d been discovered in the truck stop, just minutes after her birth and barely clinging to life, Janey’s condition had been touch and go. Being in the medical field, Clare had been trained to put her personal feelings aside and remain objective, but Janey was like no other patient she’d ever had. She had no one, and despite efforts to find her family, or anyone who may have known who her family was, the police had come up empty, so Janey had become a ward of the state. Clare couldn’t imagine being so helpless and alone, nor could she understand how a woman could abandon her child that way. Though she had no children of her own, or plans to have a baby anytime soon, Clare could see how fiercely protective her sisters were of their children. What could have happened to Janey’s mom to make her think that her baby would be better off without her? Or maybe she hadn’t been given a choice.

      The idea gave Clare a cold chill.

      She rounded the corner to see the elevator doors sliding closed and broke into a run, calling, “Hold the elevator!”

      A hand emerged to stop the door, a hand that she realized, as she slipped inside, was attached to the very person she was trying to avoid. And now she was the last place she wanted to be.

      Stuck alone with him.

      He hit the button for the fourth floor, wearing a look that made her knees weak, and as the doors slid shut said, “Hey there, sunshine.”

Two

      Clare shot Parker one of those looks. This one seemed to say, Seriously, did you really just call me that?

      But a month ago she would have completely ignored him, so that was progress. Right?

      “They called you about Janey?” he asked her.

      “Erratic vitals,” Clare said, her concern for the infant clear on her face. Janey had made an emotional impact on everyone in the NICU, but Clare seemed more attached to her than anyone. He couldn’t deny that Janey’s case had tested his objectivity from the minute she was admitted to the hospital, barely clinging to life. And now, with treatment options diminishing, he was feeling the pressure.

      There had to be something he was missing...

      “She’s not getting better,” Clare said as if she were reading his mind.

      “No,” he agreed. “She isn’t.”

      A code blue was called over the PA for the fourth floor. Parker looked at Clare, and she looked at him, and they cursed in unison. Their fragile patient had gone from unstable to arrest.

      Knowing it wouldn’t do a bit of good, he stabbed the button for the fourth floor again. Janey could be dying and the two people responsible for her care were stuck on a damned elevator.

      “If this thing moves any slower I’ll have to get out and push,” he told Clare.

      It felt like an eternity before the elevator dinged for their floor. They stood side by side, like sprinters at the starting line. The instant the doors slid open they broke into a run. By the time he reached her, Janey was in full cardiac arrest. Nurses stood around watching anxiously as a pediatrics resident performed manual CPR on her pale and limp little body. The sight of it was so heartbreaking Parker had to dig down extra deep for the focus to perform his duties.

      “Let me through,” he barked, and a group of startled staff instantly cleared the way. He never raised his voice to his team, or anyone for that matter, but this was bad.

      “She’s not responding,” the resident said as Parker took over the heart compressions.

      “Call her cardiologist,” he barked to no one in particular, knowing someone would do it.

      He tried to find a pulse, and couldn’t. “Come on, little one. Fight for me.”

      He continued the compressions to no avail.

      Damn it, he had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. “Paddles,” he said, turning to his left where Clare always stood, surprised to find a different nurse there. He glanced around and found Clare standing way over by the door. Her face looked pale and her eyes wide, and for an instant he was sure she was about to either be sick or lose consciousness. Unfortunately he had a sick infant who took priority.

      Even using the paddles it took almost thirty minutes to get Janey stable, and afterward everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief, including him. She was okay for now, but that had been a really close call. He turned to find Clare, who he had assumed wouldn’t leave Janey’s side for the reminder of her shift, but she was gone.

      He texted her, checking the hallway as he waited for an answer, but after several minutes the message was still tagged as unread. Clare always read and answered her messages.

      He frowned. Something was definitely up.

      Assuming she’d gone back to the nurses’ station, he headed that way. “Have you seen Nurse Connelly?” he asked Rebecca, the nursing assistant sitting there.

      “She walked by a second ago.” She looked up at him through a veil of what he was sure were fake lashes. “So, I was thinking we could get together again this weekend.”

      Oh, no, that was not a good idea. He liked Rebecca, but she was a party girl and these days he could barely stay awake past eleven thirty. His father used to tell him, You’re only as old as you feel. After a night of partying with Rebecca and her friends, he felt about eighty. She was fun and sexy, but the inevitable hangover wasn’t worth it. He could no longer stay out till 3:00 a.m. then make it to work by seven and still function. He was pushing forty. His party days were over.

      He checked his phone but still no text.

      “Did you see where Nurse Connelly went?” he asked Rebecca, ignoring her suggestion completely, which she didn’t seem to like very much.

      “Sorry, no,” she said tartly.

      He doubted he would be getting any more help from her. Ironically, this very situation was probably why Clare didn’t date people from work. A lesson he clearly hadn’t learned yet.

      So, where the hell had she disappeared to? Did she go back down to the cafeteria? Had she slipped past Rebecca and gone to the elevator? No, he thought with a shake of his head. Knowing Clare, she wouldn’t want anyone to see her lose her cool, so where would she go for guaranteed privacy? At the end of this hall there was a family waiting room—the last place she would go—and the door to the stairs...

      Of course! That had to be it. He’d taken a breather or two in the stairwell himself. Or used it to sneak a kiss with a pretty young nurse. She had to be there.

      He found Clare sitting on a step halfway between the fourth and fifth floor, arms roped around her legs, head on her knees so her face was hidden.

      “Here to harass me in my moment of weakness?” she asked without looking up.

      “How did you know it was me?”

      “Because that’s the kind of day I’ve been having.”