Read Needed: Full-Time Father (Medical Romance) for Free Online Page B

crisply laid out on the sofa.
    ‘Which is what I’ve put out for you,’ Madison answered, depositing a glass of fruit juice on the coffee-table for her daughter. She started applying her foundation as she made a speedy exit towards the bathroom.
    ‘You gave me stripy socks!’ Emily’s words stopped Madison in her tracks, her un-mascara’d eyelashes blinking at the simple but unusual mistake. ‘They have to be plain white socks, but these have got a red stripe around the top!’
    ‘Then I’ll get you some plain white ones,’ Madison answered, annoyed at herself for that simple slip-up. The morning routine was usually written in stone, but the morning wasn’t normally preceded by a fitful night spent tossing and turning. To Madison’s shame, it hadn’t just been Gerard’s sudden death that had kept her staring at the ceiling into the small hours, but Helen’s rather pointed comments. Despite the irrefutable evidence, Madison resisted the thought—was it the verynew, very inappropriate consultant who had caused her sudden brush with insomnia?
    He unsettled her.
    Heading into Emily’s bedroom on autopilot, she opened the top drawer in the chest and pulled out a pair of neatly folded white socks without even having to look. But she did. She stood and looked, with her fingers still massaging the foundation into her cheek, at the rows of neatly folded white socks, the perfectly ironed knickers. Her eyes then darted around the room, taking in the neatly ordered bookshelves, the already made bed, and, instead of drawing comfort from it, it unnerved her.
    ‘Here!’ Madison said, handing Emily the socks, wondering, not for the first time either, what other five-year-old would even have noticed a single red stripe.
    Wondering, not for the first time, if maybe, just maybe, Helen was right and it was time to loosen up a touch.
    Back in the bathroom Madison stared at her reflection in the mirror, taking in the neutral foundation, no doubt to be accentuated by the neutral blusher and lipstick that was about to follow—years’ worth of order and restraint summed up in her make-up bag.
    And for what?
    ‘Morning, Madison!’ A cheerful wave from Max, a paramedic, coupled with a roll of his eyes told Madison that he wasn’t overly concerned with the condition of the patient on the stretcher. Glancing at the large grimacingface of the woman, clutching her stomach and writhing in pain, Madison immediately understood why. ‘Is there anyone I can hand this patient over to?’
    ‘Won’t I do?’
    ‘You’re the NUM.’ Max grinned. ‘Shouldn’t you be in your office?’
    He was joking, sort of. As an NUM, the department was her responsibility and it didn’t allow much time for patient contact—unless there was a complaint to deal with! And patient contact was something Madison sorely missed.
    ‘Sorry.’ Alanna, one of the RNs, dashed over. ‘I’ve got this, Madison. I was just taking a patient up to the ward. You can go back to whatever you were doing.’
    And even though she undoubtedly meant it with the best intentions, inwardly Madison bristled. Alanna had actually gone for the NUM position as well, and even though she had insisted there were no hard feelings when Madison had been given the job, Madison wasn’t entirely convinced that was the case. Alanna wanted to be filling Madison’s shoes, but perversely sometimes Madison wanted to be wearing Alanna’s. Holding on firmly to the casualty card, Madison forced a smile. ‘I’ll take this patient. Why don’t you go and have your coffee-break, Alanna?’
    It came as no surprise when her smile wasn’t returned.
    ‘We got the call as a Julie Bartram, collapsed at the petrol station,’ Max said. ‘However, when we arrived we found it to actually be Judith Baker, forty-eightyears old, with a past history of multiple abdominal operations and—’
    ‘I know Judith’s history.’ Madison gave a slightly wry smile. Practically every emergency department in the