Once Upon A Christmas. Sarah Morgan

stroking her daughter’s silken curls with a gentle hand, ‘I’m sure Santa will get it for you. You’re such a good girl and I love you.’

      ‘I love you, too, Mummy.’ Lizzie reached up and hugged her and Bryony felt a lump building in her throat.

      ‘OK.’ She extracted herself and gave her daughter a bright smile. ‘So, what is it you want for Christmas?’

      Lizzie lay back on the pillow, a contented smile spreading across her face. ‘A daddy,’ she breathed happily. ‘For Christmas this year, I really, really want a daddy. And I know that Santa is going to bring me one.’

      

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘SIX-MONTH-OLD baby coming in with breathing difficulties.’ Bryony replaced the phone that connected the accident and emergency department direct to Ambulance Control and turned to the A and E sister. ‘That’s the third one today, Nicky.’

      ‘Welcome to A and E in November.’ The other woman pulled a face and slipped her pen back in her pocket. ‘One respiratory virus after another. Wait until the weather gets really cold. Then everyone falls over on the ice. Last year we had forty-two wrist fractures in one day.’

      Bryony laughed. ‘Truly?’

      ‘Truly. And you wouldn’t laugh if you’d been working here then,’ Nicky said dryly as they walked towards the ambulance bay together. ‘It was unbelievable. I wanted to go out with a loudhailer and tell everyone to stay at home.’

      As she finished speaking they heard the shriek of an ambulance siren, and seconds later the doors to the department crashed open and the paramedics hurried in with the baby.

      ‘Take her straight into Resus,’ Bryony ordered, taking one look at the baby and deciding that she was going to need help on this one. ‘What’s the story?’

      ‘She’s had a cold and a runny nose for a couple of days,’ the paramedic told her. ‘Temperature going up and down, and then all of a sudden she stopped taking any fluids and tonight the mother said she stopped breathing. Mother came with us in the ambulance—she’s giving the baby’s details to Reception.’

      ‘Did she call the GP?’

      ‘Yes, but he advised her to call 999.’

      ‘Right.’ Bryony glanced at Nicky. ‘Let’s get her undressed so that I can examine her properly. I want her on a cardiac monitor and a pulse oximeter—I need to check her oxygen saturation.’

      ‘She’s breathing very fast,’ Nicky murmured as she undid the poppers on the baby’s sleepsuit. ‘Poor little mite, she’s really struggling. I suppose we ought to call Jack—even though calling him will massage his ego.’

      Bryony looked at the baby, saw the bluish tinge around her lips and heard the faint grunting sound as she breathed.

      ‘Call him,’ she said firmly. ‘This baby is sick.’

       Very sick.

      She didn’t care if they massaged Jack’s ego. She trusted his opinion more than anyone else’s and not just because he was the consultant and she was a casualty officer with only four months’ A and E experience behind her. Jack Rothwell was an incredibly talented doctor.

      Nicky finished undressing the baby and then picked up the phone on the wall and dialled, leaving Bryony to carry out her examination. She watched the baby breathing for a moment and then placed her stethoscope in her ears, strands of blonde hair falling forward as she bent and listened to the child’s chest.

      When she finally unhooked the stethoscope from her ears, Jack was standing opposite, looking at her with that lazy, half-bored expression in his blue eyes that always drove women crazy.

      And she was no exception.

      She’d known him for twenty-two years and still her knees went weak when he walked into a room. She’d often tried to work out why. Was it the sexy smile? The wicked blue eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled? The glossy dark hair? The broad shoulders? Or was it his sense of humour, which had her smiling almost all the time? Eventually she’d come to the conclusion that it was everything. The whole drop-dead-gorgeous, confident masculine package that was Jack Rothwell.

      When she’d started working in A and E in the summer, she’d been worried about how it would feel to work with a man she’d known all her life. She was worried that finally working together would feel odd. But it didn’t.

      She’d fast discovered that Jack at work was the same as Jack not at work. Clever, confident and wickedly sexy.

      ‘So, Blondie,’ his deep masculine tones were loaded with humour. ‘You need some help?’

       Blondie …

      Bryony grinned. He’d called her ‘Blondie’ when she’d been five years old, and now she was twenty-seven he was still calling her ‘Blondie’. She’d even had a brush with being brunette at one point in her teens but it had made no difference. He’d still called her ‘Blondie’. It was one of the things she loved about their friendship. The way he teased her. It made her feel special. And, anyway, it meant that she could tease him back.

      ‘This baby’s sick.’

      ‘Which is presumably why she’s in hospital,’ Jack drawled, leaning across and reaching for her stethoscope, the fabric of his shirt moulding lovingly to the hard muscle of his shoulders. Despite his teasing words his eyes were on the baby, looking, assessing, mentally cataloguing his findings.

      Bryony watched him with admiration and more than a touch of envy. His instincts were so good. If anyone she loved ever ended up in A and E, the doctor she’d want them to see would be Jack. He had a brilliant brain and an amazing ability to identify medical problems based on seemingly scanty information. And she’d learned more from him in her four months in A and E than she had from any other doctor in her career so far.

      ‘So what did you notice, Blondie? Apart from the fact that there’s a little patient on the trolley?’

      He stood back while Nicky attached leads to the baby’s chest and connected them to the monitor.

      ‘She’s cyanosed, has intercostal recession and she’s grunting,’ Bryony said immediately, her eyes on the baby. ‘Her resps are 60 per minute and she’s becoming exhausted.’

      Jack nodded, his eyes flickering to the monitor, which was now operational and giving them further clues to the baby’s condition.

      ‘She has acute bronchiolitis. We need to get a line in this baby fast,’ he ordered softly, holding out a hand to Nicky who immediately proffered the necessary equipment. He handed it to Bryony. ‘Go on. Impress me.’

      ‘You want me to do it?’ Bryony looked at those tiny arms and legs and shook her head. ‘I’d rather you did it.’

      She could see how ill the baby was and she didn’t have the confidence that she’d get the line in first time. She knew Jack could. And with the baby that sick, his skill was more important than her need to practise.

      His eyes narrowed and his gaze was suddenly serious. ‘Don’t doubt yourself,’ he said softly, his blue eyes searching as he read her mind. ‘Do it.’

      He was still holding out the equipment and Bryony sucked in a breath. ‘Jack, I—’

      ‘Can do it,’ he said calmly, those wicked blue eyes locking on hers. ‘In three months’ time you’re going to be working on the paediatric ward and you’re going to be taking blood all the time. You need the practise. Go for it.’

      Bryony hesitated and Jack lifted an eyebrow, his blue eyes mocking.

      ‘You want me to hold your hand?’ His voice was a lazy drawl and Bryony blushed. How