There were no coincidences with men like Trent Montgomery. No, he had an agenda in coming here, and she would find out what it was one way or the other.
“After my lawyer informed me that the courts would look favorably on me being within their district, I took leave from my job in Houston. Also, it made sense that it would be easier to work with you as far as visitation goes if I was living in the area. A temporary position opened up here, so I inquired and was offered the position.”
As if the pediatric department was going to turn down a qualified pediatrician who had graduated from Emory and done a residency in neonatology when they were so short on staff.
“Besides, Miami is a beautiful city,” he said as he moved closer, leaning in toward her as a group of staff members came down the hall. “Who wouldn’t want to live here?”
She knew better than to let his look of innocence fool her, and she certainly wasn’t going to let the fact that his body was now only inches away affect her.
“What did you tell the interviewers?” she continued, as she tried to ignore her speeding heartbeat. She hadn’t discussed her court appearance with anyone at work—had just told those who’d asked that there had been a small delay in the paperwork at the court.
“I told them I had an interest in the position due to some business I had here in Miami,” Trent said as he moved back a few inches. “I don’t see why the hospital should have any concern for our private affairs.”
Realizing she had been holding her breath, Lana let her lungs expand fully. The racing of her heart let her know she was allowing this man to get to her, and that wasn’t acceptable. She would have to stop letting him intimidate her.
“And I’m supposed to believe that you just happened to end up at the same hospital where I work?”
Trent shrugged a shoulder, then gave her a smile that set her teeth on edge. This was a man who not only knew he was charming, but also knew how to use it to his advantage.
“That’s what I thought,” Lana said as she moved once more to let one of the unit nurses pass.
The fact that it was the same brunette nurse who had walked by earlier didn’t surprise her. Word had clearly already gotten out that there was a new male doctor on the unit, and the fact that he was sexy as hell meant that he would be getting even more attention than usual.
Soon the fact that she knew the new doc would come to the attention of the staff. And that was something that she didn’t want to deal with right now.
* * *
Trent watched Lana as she stomped off, then stopped to pull a ringing phone from her pocket and answer it. He’d known she’d be angry when she found out he’d obtained a job at the hospital she worked at, and he couldn’t blame her. What had surprised him was his reaction to her anger. The woman was as feisty as a wild filly, and reluctantly he had to admit that he’d found it entertaining and even a little arousing to watch her spit and sputter as she reached her boiling point with him.
And that was the strangest thing. Normally the sight of a woman’s anger sent him running in the opposite direction. He’d seen enough of his mother’s tantrums with his father to know he didn’t want any part of that in his life. But this woman’s anger was different. It was hot and furious, but at the same time it was controlled and non-threatening.
And she was sure something to see when her green eyes started to spark lightning strikes at him.
The woman would have his head if she knew that while she’d been doing all that ranting and raving he’d been thinking about how cute she was, trying to intimidate him with her five and a half feet against his six-feet-two-inch self.
The insistent screech of the beeper attached to his scrub bottoms went off and he read a message from the ER, concerning a preterm imminent delivery coming in.
“Which way to the ER?” he asked Lana as she ended her call.
For a second she just stared at him. Then, shaking her head, she turned down another hallway. “Come on, I’ll show you,” she said, not looking back to see if he was following her.
“There’s a thirty-three-week antepartum coming in by ambulance,” he said when he caught up with her.
“She’s thirty-four weeks and six days. That was her husband on the phone,” she said.
He knew those six days could make a big difference in the outcome of the delivery.
“Your patient?” he asked as they boarded an empty elevator to the bottom floor.
“Her name is Taylor. Her husband Dean says that her water suddenly broke and contractions started immediately. She has a history of preterm delivery and was on bedrest.”
“How early were her other deliveries?”
“She’s only had one. Her son Phillip was born at thirty-six weeks.”
Trent waited for Lana to leave the elevator, then followed her through the double doors leading into the emergency room. Multiple glass-doored rooms opened up from what looked like the hub of the department, where nurses and doctors could be seen in front of monitors and answering phones.
“This way,” Lana said as she turned left. “The department is basically set up with the trauma rooms on this end and the less urgent patients on the other.”
She stopped in front of a large monitor set up at the end of the hallway then preceded into a room labeled Trauma Four.
As he entered the large room he noted the baby-warming unit set up in the corner, and the nurses around them opening up the delivery set on a stand near an empty stretcher.
He grabbed Lana’s arm and moved her back as a couple of emergency responders pushed a stretcher into the room, holding a pregnant woman panting and gripping the hands of the female responder.
As he gowned and gloved up he listened as the other responder gave his report to the room. “Spontaneous rupture of membranes twenty minutes ago with contractions starting immediately. Contractions now every two minutes. Vital signs with blood pressure elevated and heart-rate tachy at one-twenty.”
He watched as Lana, also gowned and gloved, helped move the patient to the trauma bed then immediately did a vaginal exam, all the time talking to her patient in a calm voice.
“Is there time to move her upstairs?” he asked. He knew everyone would feel better if they could do the delivery on the obstetric unit.
“Nope,” Lana said. “This one is coming right now.”
A young nurse he was sure he had been introduced to earlier as belonging to the NICU team laid a blanket over his arms and he moved over to where Lana stood.
A breath later and Lana was holding out a small baby for the sobbing mother to see, then reaching for clamps and scissors as she made fast work of freeing the baby from its cord.
Rubbing its back to stimulate a cry, she turned toward him. Pausing for a second, she gave him an assessing look, then with a hesitant nod she handed the baby girl to him.
He took over from where Lana had stopped, and rubbed the baby’s back as
