Christmas With The Single Dad. Louisa Heaton

about your beeper going off? Or is it something else?’

      She looked at him directly now. ‘Look, Dr Preston has given me the pills before. I’m sure he won’t mind if you give me some more.’

      She didn’t like him prying. He glanced at her records, his eyes scanning the previous note. Yes, she was correct. She’d been given sleeping pills by Dr Preston this time last year...

      ‘...due to the sudden death of the patient’s daughter three years ago, patient requested tranquillisers...’

      He felt a lump of cold dread settle in his stomach as he read the notes fully.

      She’d lost her child. Sydney Harper had lost her daughter and she couldn’t sleep when the anniversary of her death got close. It happened every year. Oh, heavens.

      He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, mentally apologising.

      ‘I...er...yes. I can see that in your notes.’

      How terrible. The most awful thing that could ever happen to a parent. And it had happened to her and he was trying to poke around in her despair when it was clear in her notes why she needed the pills. But would he be being a good doctor just to give them to her? Or would he be a better doctor if he tried to stop her needing them? They could be addictive...

      ‘I’m sure he won’t mind if you give me some more tablets.’

      Nathan had a daughter. Anna. She was six years old and she was all he had in this world. He couldn’t imagine losing her. She was everything to him right now. What this poor woman had been through...! No wonder she looked the way she did.

      ‘I can write you a prescription, but...’ He paused. ‘Have you ever been offered counselling?’

      She looked directly at him, her demeanour suggesting she was about to explain something to a child. ‘I was. And I did go to start with. But it didn’t help me so I stopped going.’

      ‘Perhaps you weren’t ready for it then. Would you be interested in trying it again now? It might help you with this sleeping issue. I could arrange it for you.’

      The computer whirred out the prescription and he grabbed it from the printer and passed it over to her.

      ‘Counselling is not for me. I don’t...talk...about what happened.’

      ‘Maybe that’s the problem?’ The words were out before he could censor them. He bit his lip with annoyance. Too late to take the words back. He needed to cover their crassness. And quickly. ‘Have you tried a different night-time routine? Warm milk? A bath? That kind of thing?’

      But she’d stood up, was staring down at him, barely controlling the anger he could see brewing behind her eyes. ‘Are you a father, Dr Jones?’

      He nodded solemnly, picturing his daughter’s happy, smiling face. ‘I am.’

      ‘Have you ever experienced the loss of a child?’

      He could see where she was going with this, and felt horrible inside. He looked away. ‘No. Thankfully.’

      ‘Then don’t tell me that warm milk—’ she almost spat the words ‘—will make me better.’ She spun on her heel and when she got to the door, her hand on the handle, she paused, her head low, then glanced over her shoulder, her teeth gritted. ‘Thank you for my prescription.’

      Then she left.

      He felt as if a hurricane had blown through the room.

      He felt winded. Stunned. He had to get up and pace, sucking in a lungful of air, running both hands through his hair before he stood and stared out of the window at the sparrows and starlings trying to take food from the frozen feeders hanging outside. The smaller birds were carefully picking at the peanuts, whereas the starlings were tossing white breadcrumbs everywhere, making a mess.

      No, he had not experienced the same pain that Sydney had gone through. He would never want to. But he did know what it felt like to realise that your life had changed for evermore.

      People dealt with tragedies in different ways. Some found comfort in food. Some in drink or drugs. Some kept it all inside. Others found it easy to talk out their feelings and frustrations. A few would blindly choose to ignore it and pretend it had never happened.

      He felt deflated now that she’d left his room. Sydney Harper was intense—yes—and hurting—definitely—but there was something about her. He couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

      It bothered him all day. Through seeing all his patients. The chest infection, the sprained ankle, a case of chicken pox, talking someone through using his asthma medication. His thoughts kept returning to his first patient at his new job.

      Sydney Harper.

      Beautiful. Elegant.

      Fragile.

      And then it came to him. The reason why he couldn’t forget her. The reason he kept going over and over their interaction that morning.

      I’m attracted to her.

      The thought stopped him in his tracks. No. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—be. He had nothing to offer her. Besides, he had a child to take care of. Clearly!

      No. That way danger lay.

      He doubted he would ever see her again. Not as his patient. She had clearly wanted to see Dr Preston, and the way she’d stormed from the room had left him feeling a little bit stunned. He’d never had a patient walk out on him like that.

      A fiancée, yes.

      The mother of his child, yes.

      But never a patient.

      * * *

      Sydney strode from the room feeling mightily irritated with Dr Jones, but not knowing why. Because she had the prescription she needed. She’d obtained what she’d wanted when she’d made the appointment. But now that she was out from under Dr Jones’s interested, unsettling gaze she felt restless and antsy. Almost angry. As if she needed to go running for a few miles to get all of that uncomfortable adrenaline out of her system. As if she needed to burn off some of the inner turmoil she was feeling. As if she needed to let out a giant enraged scream.

      Averting her gaze from the people in the waiting room, she went straight back to Reception and leant over the counter towards Beattie the recetptionist—the owner of a moggy called Snuggles.

      ‘Beattie, I’ve just been seen by Dr Jones. Could you make a note on my records that when I make an appointment to see Dr Preston—my actual doctor—that I should, indeed, see Dr Preston?’

      Beattie looked up at her in surprise. ‘You didn’t like Dr Jones?’

      Her jaw almost hit the floor.

      ‘Like him? Liking him has nothing to do with it. Dr Preston is my GP and that is who I want to see when I phone to make an appointment!’

      Beattie gave an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry, Syd. Dr Jones offered to see you as Dr Preston was overrun and he knew you were in a rush to get back to work.’

      Oh. Right. She hadn’t thought of that. ‘Well, that was very kind of him, but...’

      It had been very kind of him, hadn’t it? And what was she doing out here complaining? Even though she’d got what she needed.

      Deflating slightly, she relaxed her tensed shoulders. ‘Next time just book me in with Richard.’

      ‘Will do. Anything else I can help you with?’

      Not really. Though a niggling thought had entered her head... ‘This Dr Jones that I saw today... Just a locum, is he? Just here for the day?’

      She tried to make it sound casual. But it would be nice to know that she wouldn’t be bumping into him in the village unless she had to. Not after she’d stormed out like that. That wasn’t her normal behaviour. But something about the man had