Dr Mathieson's Daughter

Where passions run high and lives are on the line!

Irresistible Dr. Elliot Mathieson has dated most of the female staff in St. Stephen’s hospital. And it’s Jane Elliot he turns to when he discovers he has a daughter! But is he just looking for a temporary nanny, or does he really want a wife?

Join the dedicated team in St. Stephen’s emergency room, where the pace is hectic, tempers flare and sexual tension is in the air!

Dear Reader,

I’ve always thought working in an emergency room must be one of the most exciting, terrifying and challenging medical jobs in the world. When my own mother was whisked into an emergency unit recently, I found myself wondering what motivated the people who chose to work there. They’d have to be very special people, of course—knowing every day could bring life-threatening situations—but surely these people must be like you and me, with their own fears and hopes and dreams. It was these thoughts that inspired me to create Robert Cunningham and Hannah Blake, the characters in my first book of the EMERGENCY DOCTORS DUO, A Wife for Dr. Cunningham.

As for Dr. Mathieson’s Daughter? Well, I couldn’t possibly leave blond, blue-eyed Elliot Mathieson with no one in his life—now, could I? I thought he should find happiness too, but not in a way he could ever have imagined!

Maggie Kingsley

Dr Mathieson’s Daughter

Maggie Kingsley

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Cover

Dear Reader

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

ELLIOT MATHIESON gazed blankly at the solicitor for a second, then shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, but there has to have been some mistake. I have no daughter.’

The solicitor sifted through the papers on his desk and selected one. ‘We have a birth certificate with your name on it, Dr Mathieson—’

‘I don’t care if you have a hundred birth certificates with my name on them. I have no daughter. No children at all, come to that!’

‘Your wife—’

‘My ex-wife—’

‘Was quite adamant in her will that Nicole is yours,’ the solicitor declared calmly. ‘I can, if you wish, instigate court proceedings to dispute paternity, but…’

It would be a waste of time, Elliot finished for him silently. Whatever else Donna might have been, she hadn’t been a fool. She would have known Nicole’s paternity could be easily established by means of a simple blood test.

Which meant he had a child. A six-year-old daughter he’d known nothing about until he’d stepped into the solicitor’s office this morning, but how?

He and Donna had been divorced for five years. They hadn’t even spoken to one another since that disastrous attempt at a reconciliation in Paris almost seven years ago. A reconciliation which had ended in heated words and angry exchanges.

But not at first, he suddenly remembered, his blue eyes darkening with dismay. There’d been no angry words on that first night when they’d gone out to dinner, she’d invited him back to her flat for coffee and somehow they’d ended up in her big double bed.

Oh, hell, but it must have happened then. Nicole must have been conceived then.

‘I realise this has come as something of a shock to you, Dr Mathieson,’ the solicitor continued, gazing at him not without sympathy, ‘but I’m afraid there really wasn’t any easy way of breaking the news. If you wish to dispute paternity—’

‘Of course I don’t,’ he interrupted brusquely. ‘I accept the child is mine.’

The solicitor smiled with relief. ‘Then Nicole will be arriving from Paris tomorrow—’

‘Arriving?’ Elliot’s jaw dropped. ‘What do you mean, she’ll be arriving?’

‘She can hardly remain in France now her mother is dead, Dr Mathieson.’

‘What about my wife’s sister? Surely she—’

‘I’m afraid we haven’t even been able to inform Mrs Bouvier of her sister’s death. She and her husband are on an archaeological dig in Iran where communications are very poor. And you are the child’s father, Dr Mathieson.’

‘Yes, but I can’t possibly look after a child,’ Elliot protested. ‘I’ve recently been promoted to special registrar in St Stephen’s A and E department. I work long hours—never know when I’m going to be home—’

‘You could employ a nanny or a housekeeper,’ the solicitor suggested. ‘Or what about boarding school? Many professional people send their children to boarding schools.’

They did, but he’d have to be the biggest louse of all time to send a six-year-old kid who had just lost her mother to a boarding school. A nanny or a housekeeper might be the answer, but where on earth did you get people like that in twenty-four hours?

‘Look, it’s not that I don’t want Nicole living with me,’ he declared, raking his hands through his blond hair in desperation. Like hell it wasn’t. ‘But I don’t know anything about raising a child.’

‘Nobody does initially,’ the solicitor said bracingly.