Czytaj książkę: «The Billionaire's Christmas Wish»

CHAPTER ONE

“THEO—IVY IS asking for you.”

Theo Hawkwood’s heart dropped into the acidic pool in his stomach as the nurse’s voice came through his cellphone.

“Is she okay?”

Of course she wasn’t. His daughter hadn’t been “okay” for months. Which was why she’d been moved to a room a short distance from his office.

“There’s no change. I think she just wants to see you.”

A familiar nagging ache went through his chest, filling the space his heart had just vacated. His wife’s sudden death four and a half years ago had left him with a hole in his life and an infant daughter to raise. And now Ivy was sick. Very sick. And no one could tell him why. If he lost her too...

You won’t. You have one of the best diagnosticians in the world on the case.

Except even she was stumped.

“I’m on my way. Can you find Dr. Archer for me?”

“She’s already there. She’s the one who asked me to call you.”

Shoving his phone into the pocket of his jeans, he pushed away from the desk and the pile of requisitions he’d been studying. Once on his feet, he dragged a hand through his hair. It had been months. And still no definitive diagnosis. They knew what it wasn’t but not what it was that was making Ivy’s arms and legs grow weaker by the day. As unfair as it was, he’d been pinning all his hopes on Madison Archer, only to have them dashed time and time again.

Striding across the bridge that joined his section of the hospital with the area that housed the family suites, he tried to avoid looking at the festive ribbons and lights that twinkled with the joy of the season. Joy? He just wasn’t feeling it. As much as he tried to put on a cheerful face for the sake of his daughter, the storms raging inside him were anything but cheerful. How long before Ivy noticed?

Maybe she already had.

He took his gaze from the decorations and fixed them straight ahead until he came to Ivy’s room. He didn’t bother knocking, just pushed quietly through the door then stopped in his tracks. Madison was seated on the side of his daughter’s bed, their heads close together, and they were...laughing.

Had he ever actually heard Madison laugh?

He didn’t think so. She was professional to a fault. He’d even overheard the word “Scrooge” attributed to her after she’d refused to give an opinion on the lights on the banister leading to the family suites. A quick glance from him had silenced the comment in mid-sentence.

And now? The deep copper highlights of the diagnostician’s hair cascaded in waves that covered the side of her face so he couldn’t see her, but she was writing something in a small notebook. She giggled again. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” his daughter replied.

Something in his gut gave a painful jerk.

“What’s going on in here?”

The second the gruff question came out of his mouth the laughter came to an abrupt halt, and Madison slammed the notebook shut.

He wished he could take the words back. Wished he could take a whole lot of things back, but he couldn’t.

Madison’s face came into view as she shook her hair back to peer up at him, her indrawn brows causing tiny puckers to form between them.

Hell, he needed to get a grip. The nurse’s message a few moments earlier had made him think something was wrong, and he’d buzzed in here like some kind of hornet, looking for something or someone to strike.

Only there was no one. Only some mystery illness that refused to poke its head out so it could be seen for what it was.

A stealer of life. A stealer of joy.

For Theo, the feeling of helplessness was the worst sensation in the world. Worse than the loss of his wife to a drunk driver over four years ago. At least that had been something concrete that he could understand. He’d known exactly where to place the blame that time. But this time there was nothing.

“Are you okay?” Madison’s smile had morphed into professional concern, her fingers balancing her pen over the notebook. Scrooge? Hell, he was the Scrooge, not her.

“I’m sorry. You called me down here, and I thought...” His voice trailed away and a lump formed in his throat when Ivy didn’t immediately jump off her bed and squeeze his legs in a tight hug, like she used to.

She couldn’t. Ivy couldn’t even walk now.

The diagnostician tucked the pen and book into the front pocket of her long gray tunic and then got up and stood in front of him. Those long legs of hers brought her almost to eye level. She still had to tilt her head a bit, but she didn’t have to crane her neck like Hope used to do.

He swallowed and threw another log onto the fire of guilt.

“Hey.” Her fingers landed on his arm with a quick squeeze that sent something skittering up his spine to his brain—a flash of something he had no intention of analyzing. “Don’t you quit on me.”

She didn’t have to translate the meaning for him, and Theo was smart enough to nod at her subtle warning not to scare his daughter unnecessarily.

But how about him? He was scared out of his mind right now.

“No quitting involved.” His voice sounded a lot more sure than he felt. Even so, he softened his tone for the next part. “So I’ll ask again. What’s going on?”

“We were just making some plans for... Christmas.”

He blinked. There had been an awkward pause before she’d added that last word. And the way she’d blurted it out—like she couldn’t wait to fling it off her tongue—made him wonder.

Was it because she wasn’t sure Ivy was even going to be around to celebrate the event, which was a short two weeks away? That thought sent icy perspiration prickling across his upper lip. “Plans for?”

Ivy, who had been silent for the exchange, said, “For Sanna Claus. And your presents.”

Her mispronunciation of good old Saint Nick’s name made him smile, relief making his shoulders slump. It had become a running joke between them, with him correcting her and Ivy persisting in leaving out the “t” sound with a nose crinkled in amusement.

He glanced at his daughter and then at Madison. “The only present I need is for you to get better, sweetheart.”

He put a wealth of meaning into those words and aimed them at the diagnostician.

Uncertainty shimmered in the green depths of the other doctor’s eyes and his relief fled in an instant. Theo knew how she felt, though. Before he’d founded the hospital—back when he’d been a practicing surgeon—there’d been a few cases where he’d been unable to promise the family a good outcome. He’d still done his damnedest for those patients despite seemingly impossible odds. Was Madison feeling that same pressure? Worse, did she think Ivy’s case was hopeless?

Unable to face what that might mean, he turned his attention to Ivy. “Have you been out of bed yet today?”

“Yes. Madison helped me.” Ivy took the rag doll she carried everywhere with her and struggled to lift it to her chest in a hug. “I had to leave Gerty on the bed. She was too heavy today.”

The ache in his chest grew. Hope had made that doll for their daughter a few months before she’d given birth to Ivy.

“Wheelchair? Or walking?” He kept his eyes on his daughter, even though the question was directed at Madison.

The other doctor went over and laid a hand on Ivy’s head. “I’m going to have a chat with your dad outside, okay? You keep thinking about that list.”

Right on cue, Ivy yawned. “I will.”

Madison led the way through the door. Once it swung shut, she said, “She’ll be asleep in five minutes.”

Was she avoiding answering his question? “Wheelchair or walking?”

“She hasn’t walked in a week, Theo. You know that.”

“Yes. But I’d hoped...” His eyes shut for several long seconds. “Tell me again what we’ve ruled out.”

“Did you get the list I emailed you? Your staff had already ruled out most of the obvious conditions before I arrived.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, fingers worrying the ends for a second or two before continuing. “There is no brain tumor. No lesions that suggest something is going on with the synaptic connections. And the results of the muscle biopsy I ordered came back yesterday. There’s no sign of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy.”

She must have seen something in his face because she hurried to add, “That’s a good thing.”

“Then why are her arms and legs getting progressively weaker?” As relieved as he should be that there was no sign of the deadly condition, his inability to help his daughter made his voice rough-edged yet again.

“I don’t know.” She pulled in a deep breath and blew it back out. “But I’m still going down a list of possibilities. I just don’t want to rush through them and overlook something and then have to double back. Wasted time can’t be recaptured.”

No, it couldn’t. What was gone was gone.

He did his best to ignore those last words and tried to focus on the positive: she hadn’t exhausted everything. Not yet, at least.

“Multiple sclerosis?” Although MS normally affected adults, he’d researched everything he could think of and had found cases where children were diagnosed with it.

“Again, there’s no sign of brain lesions. I went over the MRI scans with a fine-toothed comb. I saw no anomalies at all.”

“Damn.”

A tug at his sleeve brought his eyes back to hers. “I told you I’d tell you when to worry. We’re not there yet.”

“Yes, we are. I can see it in your face.”

“It’s not that I’m worried. I’m just frustrated I don’t have an answer for you. I’m exploring every avenue I can think of.” Her fingers tightened.

“I know you are, Madison. I’m treating you like Ivy is your only patient, and I know that’s not true.”

“I’m here for her and for patients just like her. She has a great team of specialists fighting on her behalf, and I’m grateful to be included in that. Ivy is a big part of Hope Children’s Hospital.”

Named after his late wife, who’d waited patiently in the wings for him to break ground on his dream, even putting her own career on hold to look after Ivy while he’d worked day and night. She’d died before seeing the fruits of their labor or being able to practice medicine again. And he damned himself every single day for not spending more time with her and Ivy while his wife had still been here.

“Wasted time can’t be recaptured.”

Truer words had never been spoken.

He leaned a shoulder against the wall and turned to fully face her. Her fingers let go of his sleeve in the process.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked.

“Just throw out any ideas that might help—even if they seem farfetched. I sent a panel off looking for some markers of Lyme disease or any of the co-infections that might be related to it. I should have something back in a few days.”

“Lyme. Is that even a possibility? I keep going back to it being a brain issue.”

Madison’s brow puckered the way it had back in Ivy’s room. She was either thinking or irritated. Maybe she thought he was challenging her readings of the MRI scans. He wasn’t. He just couldn’t get past the possibility that something in Ivy’s head was misfiring or inhibiting signals. The condition mimicked one of the muscular dystrophies. But the biopsies said it wasn’t. So if it wasn’t in the muscles themselves...

“I thought for sure it was too. But there’s nothing there, Theo.”

Every time she used his name, something coiled inside him. Lots of people called him by his given name rather than his professional title, but that husky American accent, devoid of the crisp consonants that peppered the speech of those in Britain, warmed parts of him that had been frozen in time and space.

She provided hope. A fresh perspective. She was unconventional, could think outside the box. Her files listed one of her weaknesses as being her hard-nosed approach. She had difficulty being a team player, and she wasn’t afraid to question findings or demand a test be run again if it wasn’t done to her satisfaction. He didn’t see that as a weakness. In this case he viewed her reputation as a strength, which was why he hadn’t insisted she attend the staff meetings related to Ivy’s care.

She’d made a few enemies back home—and even here in Cambridge. But she’d also made friends. And one of those friends appeared to be his daughter.

“Where do you look next? She’s had no headaches. No symptoms other than the growing weakness in her limbs. And wondering whether that weakness is going to progress to her breathing or autonomic nervous system is making me—”

“Crazy? I know. It’s making us all a little crazy. That kid has a lot of people wrapped around her little finger.”

“Yes, she does.” He smiled. “Including her father.”

Her fingers toyed with the edge of his sleeve again, not quite touching him, as if she wanted to give comfort but was afraid of skin-to-skin contact. “We’re going to figure this out.”

Right now he was glad she wasn’t touching him. Because the warm flow of her voice was doing what her hand wasn’t. It was permeating his pores and meandering through his bloodstream, where it affected his breathing, his heart rate and his thoughts—taking them into dangerous territory. Territory that only his late wife had occupied. He couldn’t afford to let Madison trespass there. If he did, it could spell disaster for both him and his daughter.

“I’m sure you will.” In a deliberate move, he tugged his sleeve from her grasp. “I’m counting on it. And so is Ivy.”

Then he was walking away, before he could ask exactly what she and Ivy had been planning for Christmas, or ask if Madison was including herself in those plans.

* * *

Once back in the tiny office she’d been given while Dr. Camargo’s office was being renovated, Madison fingered the notebook in her pocket. She was glad that Theo hadn’t asked her to hand it over to him. He’d seemed pretty upset to find the two of them in there laughing, but it hadn’t been easy to pretend when her heart was aching over the little girl’s revelation. Because the first thing on Ivy’s wish list was for her father to like Christmas.

Her eyes had burned. It seemed that she wasn’t the only one with an aversion to the season. And the last thing she could promise anyone was that she’d help them learn to like a holiday she detested. Maybe she should put that on her Christmas list too.

Except Madison had no interest in changing her ways at this late date. She did what she could to get through the last month of the year, closed her eyes as she passed the festive trees and lights, and then breathed a sigh of relief once the calendar rolled over into a new year.

Fingering the thick file folder on her desk, she flipped it open to the first page, where Ivy’s vital statistics were listed in bold clinical letters. The child was far wiser than her five years. And she saw things Theo probably didn’t even know she was aware of. Or maybe his daughter had already shared her longing with him. Madison didn’t think so, though.

She knew he was widowed, from the hospital grapevine. And his ring finger no longer held a wedding ring, so he’d gotten over the loss. Or had he? Some people never really got over that kind of life change.

Another thing Madison could relate to. Although her loss had nothing to do with a husband, or even a boyfriend.

Shaking herself free of her funk, she pulled the notebook from her pocket and dropped it onto her desk. She’d have to figure out a way to get a few of the things on Ivy’s list without making her dad suspicious. Or angry. He had to know how fortunate he was to have a daughter who was worried as much about him as he worried about her. She was small and so very ill, and yet her determination to do all she could to get better—for her dad’s sake—was one of the most touching things Madison had seen in a long time.

She flipped the first page open and perused the list, forcing her glance to leap over that first item. The rest of the things ranged from sweet to hilarious.

A new stethoscope—in purple, if Santa has one, because that is Ivy’s favorite color.

A book about horses so he’ll fall in love with them like she has.

An adult coloring book. One of Ivy’s nurses talked about how every grown-up should have one.

Somehow, Madison couldn’t picture those big hands clutching a crayon—although he was very much a paint-by-numbers type of person. No coloring outside the lines for him.

Macaroni and cheese. Evidently Theo’s favorite food. Santa must carry casseroles around in his toy sack.

A puppy. Ha! Wouldn’t Theo love coming home to find a puppy under the tree.

That was all they had so far on the list. Except for that very first thing. Her eyes tracked up to it against their will.

Make Daddy love Christmas.

God, even the real Santa would have a tough time granting that wish. The rest was doable. Well, maybe not the puppy. But everything else could be gotten for a relatively inexpensive price, wrapped and listed as being from Santa.

Why did she even care? She wasn’t here to buy anyone gifts. Or to make a little girl happy.

She was here to help solve difficult diagnoses. That was it. And to fulfill a lifelong dream of visiting the UK. She should be on cloud nine. Instead, she felt itchy and slightly uncomfortable, like wearing a new wool sweater without anything else beneath it.

You need to get out and see more of England. Staying around this hospital day in and day out isn’t healthy.

But there was something about Ivy...

She’d found herself spending more and more time with the little girl, almost succeeding in convincing herself it was to help figure out the child’s condition. Except she knew it was a lie. She was here for Ivy, even if being around her dad made her squirm in discomfort.

She wasn’t exactly sure why that was, but she’d better figure it out before she did something stupid. Really stupid. Like wish Ivy were hers, maybe?

She stood in a rush and clasped her hands behind her back, lifting them away from her body while bending forward at the waist, hoping the resultant stretch would help clear her head of its current thoughts. Higher and harder she stretched, vaguely aware of her door opening with a couple of light taps.

“Dr. Archer?”

Madison froze in place. Oh, Lordy. But at least the voice was female and not the man who’d jerked away from her a couple of hours earlier. How humiliating had that been? She’d just been trying to help.

Letting her arms drop back to her sides, she stood and saw Naomi Collins, one of the physical therapists at the hospital. Her romance with pediatric surgeon Finn Morgan was the stuff dreams were made of.

“Hi. Sorry about that. I had a kink in my neck and was trying to work it out.” More like a kink in her head, but it was pretty much the same thing.

Naomi chuckled. “It’s fine. You should see the things I do when I’m alone.” Another laugh. “Forget I said that. I didn’t mean that quite the way it sounded.”

“I didn’t think it sounded odd at all.” She smiled to reassure her. After all, if Naomi could have gotten a good look at what was rattling around in her head, she might be a little more than shocked. “Can I help you with something?”

“I just wanted to talk with you about Ivy. What you wanted me to work on with her tomorrow.”

With her clear complexion and deep gorgeous skin tones, Naomi was beautiful. And she was a huge hit with all her young charges, including Ivy.

“I’m not her only doctor, you know.”

Naomi entered the office and closed the door behind her. “Maybe not, but right now everyone—if they’re smart—is deferring to you and hoping you’ll solve whatever is going on with her.”

“And if I can’t?” The words that she hadn’t dared say aloud in the hallway with Theo came tumbling out before she could stop them. She dropped into one of the metal chairs that flanked her desk.

The physical therapist came over and sat in the other one. “It’s a bit of pressure, yes?”

“Yes. And I want to figure it out. But I’m at a dead end at the moment.” She didn’t know why she was suddenly voicing her fears, but there was something in the other woman’s eyes that said she’d known fear—intimately—and had come out on the other side.

“Sometimes we just have to give ourselves a bit of space to regroup. And that’s when it normally comes to us. That realization that’s been in front of us all along.”

Were they still talking about Ivy? Or about something else?

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am. You’ll see.” Naomi leaned forward and captured her hands. “Just give yourself permission to take a step or two back and look at the problem with a wide-angle lens.”

Something about those words caught at an area of her brain, which set to work in the background. “Thank you. I think I needed to hear that.” She squeezed the other woman’s fingers before letting go. Gently. Not the way Theo had done in the hallway. “How are things with you and Finn, if I may ask?”

Naomi’s smile caused her nose to crinkle in a way that was both adorable and mischievous. “You can. And it’s great. Better than I have a right to expect.”

“It’s exactly what you should expect. And what you deserve.” From what Madison had heard, Naomi had had a hard time of it, losing loved ones in a terrible conflict in her home country. But she’d overcome it and had learned to live her life in the present.

Maybe Naomi should write a how-to book on how to do that. Madison would be one of her first customers if that ever happened.

“Thank you. Finn’s a good man.” Naomi sucked down a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Now, about Ivy...”

Madison went over what she would like to see happen with Ivy’s therapy tomorrow. Although she couldn’t walk or even hold herself up on the parallel bars they used to help people learn to walk again, they could still try to utilize what muscle strength she did have to its best advantage. Having her kick a large exercise ball and do some resistance bands to hopefully keep things from atrophying any faster than they already were was the biggest goal at the moment.

“I agree. That’s the perfect thing for her. I did a little work with the bands today, in fact. Right now the hope is to slow that downward spiral as much as possible, to buy ourselves time to find whatever’s going on.”

“Yes, and thank you. Do you want me to check with Theo to make sure he agrees?”

Naomi shook her head. “He’ll agree. He’s desperate to find anything that will work. As are we all. We all want her to beat whatever this is.”

With that she stood to her feet. “I think I’ll check in on her on my way out.”

“Thank you. And thanks for the pep talk.”

The physical therapist fixed her with a look. “It wasn’t a pep talk. It was the truth.”

She showed herself out, leaving Madison to think about what the other woman had said. Maybe she was right. Maybe she was going about this the wrong way. Maybe she really was using a microscope and focusing very narrowly when she should be casting a wide net and seeing what she could haul to shore.

Ha! That was easier said than done, but the more she mulled over the idea, the more it felt right. Now all she had to do was figure out what it meant. And then how to go about implementing it.

And she’d better do it soon. Before that slow downward spiral increased its pace, becoming something that no force on earth could stop. Before a child’s modest wish list was nothing more than a memory, and a father’s last hope was pulverized into dust.