“Thank you,” Trent said.
“About the DNA, Mr. Montgomery... I’m sure your lawyer has made you aware that the results when testing for an aunt or uncle of a child will not be definitive. It will give us more of a likely match than proof of a biological relationship.”
“Actually, it’s Dr. Montgomery, Ms. Nelson. But please call me Trent.”
For a moment Lana thought her brain would explode at this new piece of information. While she knew the court wouldn’t show any prejudice as far as financial circumstances were concerned, it would surely still consider if a child’s needs could be met. What if they felt that this Dr. Montgomery could provide better for Maggie?
“I’ll contact you both after we receive the DNA results and set up another appointment,” Ms. Nelson continued as she stood, letting Lana know that there wasn’t anything else to be said today.
Lana stepped out of the room and drew her keys out of her purse with trembling hands. She was glad she had sent Maggie home with Amanda instead of having them wait for her. She would have to use the time it would take her to get home to get herself together.
Thank goodness she had found Amanda, a medical student, while she had been looking for a roommate. With Amanda able to fill in as babysitter in exchange for rent, she had the extra help that a single parent needed.
She’d go home and get Maggie into bed, call Nathan to see what her options were, and then she would come up with a plan. Dr. Trent Montgomery might think that he had everything going his way, but they said possession was nine-tenths of the law and right now Maggie was hers.
Lana had only been fifteen when she had beaten the cancer that had been growing in her body. She’d lived through chemo and radiation treatment. She’d stumbled a bit when she had learned that the treatments that had saved her life had destroyed her dreams of having children, but she had managed to keep going even though she’d been hurting.
She was a fighter and she didn’t give up. And she was about to make a certain cowboy wish he had never left Texas.
LANA WALKED OUT of LDR Four and headed for the OB nurses’ lounge. The delivery had been complicated, due to the size of the baby boy, and the new mom had needed extra reassurance that everything was fine with both her and her baby. Now she would have to hurry back to the office as soon as she’d finished signing off on her orders.
She could hear the whispers and laughter of the nurses as she turned the corner of the nurses’ station. There had to be some new rumor spreading through the hospital, because she noted that everyone was gathered around Kat, the queen of hospital gossip. Usually she would have paused to hear what the newest bit of gossip was, but today she didn’t have time.
As soon as her paperwork was completed she changed out of her scrubs and headed back to her office. She didn’t want to leave her patients waiting any longer. Irate pregnant women could be downright scary, and her staff could only appease them with promises of her return for so long.
John Lincoln, one of the pediatricians employed by the hospital working the obstetric hall, waved from the nursery hallway as she passed. A few seconds later she heard her name called and turned to find John was following her, with another man dressed in the hospital’s light blue scrubs beside him.
Lana stopped and stared at the two men even as she shook her head in denial. There was no way this could be happening to her.
“Hey, Lana,” John said as he approached. “This is Dr. Trent Montgomery. He’s taken the locum tenen position we’ve had open since Dr. Lee left.”
“We’ve met,” Lana said as she turned toward Trent. “What are you doing here?”
“As John just told you, Ms. Sanders, I’ve accepted a temporary job with the pediatric department,” Trent said. “I’m looking forward to the two of us working together.”
Work with the person who was trying to take Maggie away from her? No way was that going to happen.
“But why? Why are you here?” Lana asked.
John looked at Lana, then back at Trent with a frown. “I take it you two know each other?” John asked.
“We’ve met.” Lana said as she moved to one side of the hall to let a nurse pushing a patient in a wheelchair pass.
She noticed the look the nurse gave this new doctor in town. Yeah, she hated to admit it, but he was something to look at. Even with his high-dollar suit and cowboy boots gone he looked good. The pastel color of the cotton scrubs should have dimmed some of that masculine power that he threw off, but instead it seemed to amplify the hardness of the body they covered.
There would be a swarm of women circling around him as if he was roadkill as soon as they got a good look at him. And she would just leave them to it. Because no matter how good he looked she didn’t want him anywhere near her and Maggie. Why was he doing this to her? Her life was stressful enough without him in her hospital, where she would be running into him all the time.
Crossing her arms, she leaned against the wall. There was no way she was going to let him know how rattled he made her. She didn’t care how sexy he looked standing there, she was going to let him know exactly how she felt about this ploy of his. Because that had to be what this was—just one more way to intimidate her into giving up Maggie.
But it wouldn’t work, she was tougher than that. She would not let him get to her. There was too much at stake here. She had too much to lose to let a hard-bodied, hard-headed man get the best of her. She’d play his game if that was what it took to beat him.
“I’ll catch up with you in the lounge,” Trent said to John.
Lana waited till John was out of hearing range before asking the question that was burning her tongue. “What do you think you’re doing here, Dr. Montgomery?” she asked. “Why aren’t you back in Houston?”
Lana watched him take in her knowledge of that piece of information. Yeah, she’d done a little online stalking and it had paid off.
She’d found out that he worked in one of the largest women and children’s hospitals in Houston as a pediatrician, for Pete’s sake. Why he worked as a doctor at all, when he came from a family loaded with oil money, she didn’t understand.
After seeing several pictures of him at different social affairs, all with a different beautiful woman on his arm, she had thought her heart would stop when she’d found an article that listed him as one of Houston’s most eligible bachelors and had seen what was listed as his estimated net worth.
After that she had read everything the internet had on him, looking for something—anything—to use against him. But she hadn’t found anything, and with every article her fear of losing Maggie had increased.
And apparently all the while she had been checking him out, he had been checking her out too. Because even if he had a good reason for leaving the hospital in Houston, the fact that he’d shown up at the hospital where she practiced out of all the hospitals in Miami meant he’d done his research. Or paid someone else to do it.
