Page 1 of Dr. Grump's Surprise Baby

CHAPTER 1

EMILY

Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m going to be late on my first day!

Emily Swinton leaned out the window to look at the road ahead of her, as if catching sight of the obstacle might somehow help her to clear it. Her GPS was informing her that the traffic slow-down was due to a collision that hadn’t been cleared from the road, something Emily would ordinarily have felt a lot of empathy for. But did this have to be happeningtoday?

It was the first day of the next phase of her career. The first day of her internship under the great Dominic Berger, famed ER doctor and diagnostician.

This shouldn’t be happening. She had left her apartment early. She had planned this day down to the minute, and her plan should have gotten her to the hospital with plenty of time to spare.

Unfortunately, it seemed that a wrench had been thrown in the gears.

Up ahead, she saw an exit. Heart pounding, she grabbed her phone and tapped the button to request an alternate route to her destination.

Yes!She could take the exit! Getting off the highway would make her journey a bit longer, but it shaved seven minutes off of her projected arrival time, putting her at the hospital atexactlythe time she was due to arrive. If she could get lucky with green lights and keep her speed at the max allowed by law, if she could find a decent parking spot… there might still be a chance.

Exactly thirteen minutes later, feeling nauseous with anxiety and nothing like the way she would have wanted to feel on her first day, Emily tore down the hall of Chicago Grace Hospital toward Dr. Berger and a group of interns in scrubs. She skidded to a halt at the back of the group, expecting a dirty look and possibly a reprisal later, hoping that her explanation about what had happened would be enough to win Dr. Berger’s forgiveness.

Even though she had expected it, the look he fixed her with froze her blood in her veins. “And who might you be?” he asked her.

“Emily,” she said. “Emily Swinton.”

“You’re late, Emily Swinton.”

“I know. I’m so sorry. There was a traffic?—”

He held up a hand. “I don’t have time for this,” he said. “And neither do our patients. Do you understand that this is an emergency room? People who come here are often in life-or-death situations. They don’t want to hear that their doctor was running late because she couldn’t find her mascara.”

“Hang on,” Emily objected. She would take the scolding for being late, but this wasn’t fair. “I wasn’t doing my makeup, Dr. Berger, I was?—”

“I really don’t want to hear it,” Dr. Berger said. “We’ve all waited long enough for you today, and I’d like to get on with our rounds, if that’s all right with you.”

Emily blushed. Even though he was being exceedingly unfair, he did have a point. This wasn’t the right time to get into an argument. Now she had made a second bad first impression.

We’re not off to a great start.

Even though it was the last thing in the world she wanted to do, she stuck to the back of the group as Dr. Berger went through his rounds. She had always imagined that she would be at the front today, showing active interest in everything he had to teach them, asking questions, maybe even engaging with patients. But when Dr. Berger presented a case he was having trouble diagnosing, another intern asked one of the questions Emily had about the patient’s symptoms, and her other question simply went unasked. She felt too intimidated, after the way the day had started, to speak up. And when there was an opportunity for one of the interns to do a blood draw, Emily didn’t put her hand up, even though she knew she could have handled the procedure with no problem.

She would allow herself one day only to hang back like this, she decided. Starting tomorrow, she was just going to have to get over the way this morning had made her feel. She was going to have to find a way to put this behind her. It was all right that Dr. Berger was upset with her today — she could understand that. But she wasn’t going to create a reputation for herself based on the fact that she had disappointed him one time, and she wasn’tgoing to fail to be the kind of doctor she knew she was capable of being just because of this bad start.

When rounds were over, Dr. Berger turned to the group. “Nurse Katie will show you to the locker room,” he said. “Get acclimated. Once you’ve done that, pick a nurse to shadow for the rest of the day. They all know to expect you. I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

A couple of the interns grumbled at the realization that they were going to be handed off to nurses instead of spending the whole day with Dr. Berger, but Emily didn’t mind. It made sense that he was too busy to give them much of his time.

But as they began to follow Nurse Katie away, Dr. Berger beckoned to her.

Swallowing her anxiety, Emily stopped in front of him.

“Come to my office before you go home this evening,” he said in a low voice.

Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to relax for the rest of the day, Emily nodded.

“Can you believe we’re going to be interning underDominic Berger?” the girl next to Emily enthused with a giggle. “It feels like working for a movie star.”

Emily laughed. She wouldn’t have put it in those terms, but she did understand what her new fellow intern was so excited about. Dr. Berger was the best in his field. Emily had read his papers in college and studied his diagnostic work for years. She hadn’texactly written her thesis on him, but he had certainly come up in the notes. “I know what you mean,” she said. “I’m Emily Swinton, by the way.”

The girl smiled. “Sara Flaherty,” she said. “Are you new to Chicago, Emily?”

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