A Baby to Care for (Mills & Boon Medical) Read Online Free PDF Page B

after you, and you like Bub. And you’ll have to eat soft, mushy foods.’
    ‘Like puréed spinach?’ Watson whispered, and wrinkled his nose. Iris found it difficult not to laugh.
    ‘I think we can do better than that.’ Dex chuckled and she tried not to let the sound wash over her. The man really did have the sexiest laugh she’d ever heard. So smooth, so rich and so genuine. ‘Like…Oh, I don’t know. What do you think, Dr Iris? Ice cream?’
    She snapped her attention back to what was happening, rather than being concerned about Dexter Crawford’s husky laugh. ‘Hmm.’ She pretended to think for a second. ‘Ice cream, eh? That might do.’ She looked at Watson and snapped her fingers. ‘Oh, I know. What about jelly?’
    ‘And custard.’ Dex nodded and licked his lips. ‘I think I’m going to enjoy visiting you in hospital. Maybe you’ll share?’
    Watson grinned and shook his head. Iris was pleased there was colour coming back into the boy’s cheeks. He’d had a terrible scare but he’d do just fine.
    ‘Well…OK, then. I guess that’s fair,’ Dex remarked. ‘But you do know there’s something extra-special about you now.’
    ‘What?’ Watson whispered.
    ‘You’re Dr Iris’s first patient in Didja.’ He nodded. ‘And what a fine initiation it was for her.’ He looked at the crowd around them. ‘What d’ya say, mates? How about a big round of applause for our new resident paediatrician—Doc Iris.’
    And indeed a round of applause was exactly what she received. Iris felt highly self-conscious as she stood and smiled, politely accepting the thanks from the people of this strange but loving outback town.
    She glanced down at Dex who winked at her, then treated her to one of those butterfly-inducing smiles. His tone was warm and inviting as he said more quietly, ‘Welcome to Didja, Iris.’

CHAPTER THREE
    T HE clinic, which had a little ten-bed hospital at the rear of the premises, wasn’t what Iris had been expecting.
    They’d bundled Watson into the rear of her four-wheel drive, Watson’s mother beside him and Dex sitting in the front passenger seat, exuding way too much heat and male pheromones for Iris’s liking. Thankfully, the drive had been relatively short and Dex had directed her to park the car around the rear of the building.
    ‘That’s where we live.’ He pointed to a set of four ground-level apartments, which were separated from the clinic by the small and private car park they were in. Even Dex’s words— ‘That’s where we live’—made her want to blush, made her want to correct him and point out that they weren’t, in fact, living together but rather sharing an apartment block. Then again, she knew she’d only be arguing semantics and it would only show Dex how much his words had affected her. Besides, they had a patient to deal with.
    As they headed inside, Dex carrying young Watson whilst the boy’s mother trailed behind, Iris marvelled at the difference between outback medicine and that of its counterpart in the city. A wheelchair would have been provided for Watson back in Sydney to transport him from the vehicle—which would have been an ambulance—into the sanctuary of thehospital building. There would have been paperwork to be filled out and red tape to be processed. Insurance. Public liability. Doing everything by the book. Instead, she’d driven the patient to the hospital in her own vehicle and Dex had carried the patient inside, talking animatedly to him as they went.
    He was very good, very natural with the boy, and she wondered if he was like this with all of his patients. She knew he had the charm and charisma to seriously affect the female population but it appeared Dex could charm anyone, regardless of age, race or sex. He was obviously well liked and respected within the community and for that reason Iris decided to try and control her need to make snap judgements, to pigeonhole people and put them in a box marked ‘X’ so she could