The Good Mom by Cathryn Parry

Author:Cathryn Parry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-10-16T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

AIDAN HAD CALMED Ashley down enough that she was seated in the emergency waiting room, nursing a cup of coffee and filling out forms for the hospital. He was still incredulous that she’d implied he was the boy’s father. Furious, too, and with good reason, in his opinion.

But now wasn’t the time to go into any of that. Or to think about the fact that he’d kissed her. No, now was the time to concentrate on the patient. And Aidan was very good at concentrating.

He sat opposite Brandon in the examination room, keeping the boy’s eyes focused on his.

“I was so stupid,” Brandon was saying. “I don’t know how it happened, Dr. Lowe, but I was walking backward and I tripped over a bat.”

Aidan nodded. Brandon likely was waving at a cute girl in the audience. Focus wasn’t Brandon’s strong point.

But now wasn’t the time to go into that, either.

The door to the examination room opened, and Dr. Rodriguez walked in. A former colleague of his.

Dr. Rodriguez did a double take when he saw Aidan. “Dr. Lowe! I didn’t know you were back in the country.” Without even greeting Brandon, he shook Aidan’s hand.

“Thanks. I, ah, just got back two weeks ago.”

“You’ll be joining us on staff again, I suppose.” Dr. Rodriguez took a stool beside the computer. As he spoke, he drew up Brandon’s file.

Aidan cleared his throat. “This is Brandon,” he said by way of introduction. “He’s a student at St. Bart’s. I’ve been tutoring him lately.”

Dr. Rodriguez glanced at the chart the emergency workers had keyed in. “It says here that you’re his—”

“No,” Aidan said flatly. He wasn’t the boy’s dad, and he didn’t want that repeated, especially not in front of Brandon.

Brandon was too distracted by the fracture in his right wrist to worry about what the doctors were talking about. It was a closed fracture. The bone wasn’t protruding through the skin, thankfully, but there was obvious displacement. Despite the ice pack the ambulance attendants had applied, the limb was swollen to twice its natural size.

“Brandon,” Dr. Rodriguez said, showing him the X-ray on the computer screen. “It looks like you have a clean break. That’s good news. None of the bones in the wrist were crushed. We’re going to prep you for surgery, set the break and when you wake up, you’ll have a cool new cast on your wrist.”

“I can’t have a cast!” Brandon protested. “And I don’t want surgery! It’s not that bad!”

Dr. Rodriguez exchanged a look with a nurse, who’d just knocked and entered the small examination room.

“The surgery is so you won’t feel any pain when the bone is set,” Aidan said quietly to Brandon. “If you can handle some pain and are brave enough, the bone can be set here in the office.”

At this point, Brandon perked up. “I’m brave.”

Aidan nodded. “I know.” Good, he’d hoped the kid would agree to an office procedure. Aidan didn’t think that Ashley would hold up so well if her son was in surgery for a few more hours.

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