Читать книгу The M.D. Next Door - GINA WILKINS - Страница 7

Dressed in a long-sleeved purple T-shirt and comfortable black yoga pants, Meagan Baker reclined in a padded chaise lounge. She had a white cashmere shawl draped over her shoulders, cold soda by her hand, good book in her lap. The chair was one of several arranged in a companionable grouping on the rock patio surrounding her smallish, in-ground pool, which sparkled in the afternoon sun. A spreading oak tree canopied with early spring leaves shaded her chair. Birds played among the branches, singing cheerily. A pleasant, floral-fragrant breeze brushed her cheeks and rustled the new leaves above her, harmonizing sweetly with the birdsongs.

Glumly, she studied her feet clad in flirty purple ballet flats. Most people would think she was crazy for wishing she were in an operating room in scrubs, paper gown, cap and mask, and arch-supporting shoes.

“Can I get you anything else, sweetie?” She forced a smile as she looked up at her mother, who hovered nearby. “I’m fine, thanks. You should go home and take care of Meemaw.”

“You’re sure?” Her mom, LaDonna Baker, looked torn between caring for her convalescing daughter and returning home to tend to her own ailing mother, who lived with her. “I could warm a pot of soup before I go.”

“I can warm my own soup. You’ve filled my fridge and freezer with meals I can pop into the microwave. I won’t go hungry.” Meagan hated the feeling that she was adding to her mother’s already sizeable load of responsibilities. As the eldest of three children and a surgeon by trade, Meagan was much more accustomed to being a caretaker than having one.

Only a couple of days out of the hospital after undergoing emergency surgery, she still felt annoyingly weak and achy. She had pain pills if she needed them, but she limited herself to over-the-counter meds as much as possible. Having declined an invitation to recuperate at her mother’s house, Meagan preferred to keep her head clear. She lived alone, but she had promised her concerned family she would keep a cell phone always close at hand. Her mother and two physician siblings all lived within a ten-minute drive, so she had no fears about being on her own.

“Go home, Mom,” she repeated gently. “You’ve been here most of the day. I know you have things to do at home.”

Torn by her responsibilities, her mother finally, reluctantly left, though she made Meagan promise to call if she needed anything. Anything at all.

Alone at last, Meagan rested her head against the back of her chair and closed her eyes. She hadn’t wanted to display her weakness in front of her worried mother, but now she could relax and moan, unheard by anyone but herself. She remembered patients complaining they felt as though they’d been hit by a truck; she now knew exactly what they meant. Every inch of her seemed to ache or throb, not just the healing incision in her abdomen. She’d always tried to be sympathetic to her patients’ discomfort, but she thought she’d be even more so now that she’d actually experienced post-surgical pain, herself.

As much as she appreciated her mother’s loving care, it felt good to be alone for a while and outside in the fresh air. Ever since she’d been hospitalized six days ago for emergency surgery to repair an ovarian torsion, she’d been pent up and poked at and hovered over and treated like a …well, like a patient. She had quickly realized that she much preferred being the doctor.

She rested a hand lightly on the incision site, from force of habit, feeling for excessive heat or swelling. Despite her discomfort, she was healing just fine. She wished fleetingly that the surgery could have been performed laparoscopically, which would have resulted in a much shorter recovery period, but her condition had been too severe. Her left ovary had been twisted to the point of necrosis, and the surgeon had been unable to salvage it.

She might have saved the ovary if she’d caught the condition earlier, Meagan thought regretfully. She had mistaken the symptomatic pain for her usual menstrual cramping, popping OTC pain relievers and staying too busy taking care of other people to pay attention to her own well-being—a common failing among physicians. Only when she’d been incapacitated by sudden, severe pain, nausea and fever had she sought emergency care. She’d been rushed into an O.R. by a surgeon she worked with and trusted implicitly. If anyone could have salvaged the ovary, it would have been Meilin Liu, but no such luck.

It still surprised her how shaken she had been by the crisis. Meagan had spent the past ten years in the medical field, but seeing it from a hospital bed had been a completely different experience. She had been fortunate not to have had any health crises during her first thirty-two years, having been hospitalized only once for a tonsillectomy when she was nine. She had decided then that she wanted to be a doctor, but she had been so young she hardly remembered the hospital experience itself.

This had been different. She’d been forced during the past week to face both her mortality and her fertility, and she had been taken aback by her reactions.

Meilin had assured her the loss of an ovary would not prevent her from conceiving a child. But Meagan was thirty-two and not even dating anyone in particular. She had maybe another decade, more or less, to have a child should she decide to do so.

As for mortality—she had always thought there would be plenty of time for the things she had neglected in her single-minded pursuit of her career. Hobbies. Travel. Marriage. Children. Now she was suddenly aware of how quickly time had passed. Her twenties had sped by in a blur of medical school studying, long, sleepless residency hours, then establishing her practice as a surgeon in a Little Rock, Arkansas teaching hospital. The people she loved were growing older. Her mother was nearing sixty, her grandmother was in her eighties. Her younger brother had just turned thirty and their little sister wasn’t far behind.

She remembered as a child hearing older people talk about how quickly time flew. Back then she hadn’t understood; now she identified all too well with that sentiment.

“Oof!” Her wistful musings ended abruptly when a solid, wiggling weight landed directly on her stomach, only inches from her still-healing incision.

“What the—?”

Warm breath bathed her face while an eager pink tongue tried to do the same. Her hands were filled with a squirming, panting yellow puppy—a good-sized one at that, with paws as big as her fists and a smiling, wet-nosed face. The dog wasn’t still long enough for her to read the red metal tag dangling from his collar. Every time one of his big feet landed on her abdomen, she groaned.

“Waldo!”

A girl with a fresh, freckled face almost hidden behind round glasses and an unruly mop of brown curls rushed to rescue Meagan from the friendly assault. She grabbed the pup and wrestled him into a firm clench in her skinny arms. “Be still, Waldo. I’m so sorry, ma’am. I hope he didn’t scare you. He’s really friendly.”

Apparently, Meagan’s mom had accidentally left the backyard gate open when she left. Pressing one hand to her throbbing scar and wiping her damp cheek with the other, Meagan managed to smile at the girl. “He is definitely friendly. You called him Waldo?”

The girl nodded shyly. “My dad named him that because we’re always asking where’s Waldo?”

Meagan laughed, which only made her incision hurt worse. “Cute. You’d better keep him on a leash, though. I’d hate for him to run out in the street and get hit.”

“He got away from me when I was trying to untangle his leash.” Juggling the dog, the girl managed to snap a sturdy leather leash onto his collar. Only then did she set him down, clinging to the strap with both hands when he immediately tried to dash away from her. He almost tugged her off her feet before she braced herself. “Be still, Waldo. We’re taking him to obedience classes.”

Meagan eyed the bounding pup skeptically. “Um—how’s that going?”

“We just signed him up for six classes. They start a week from Saturday.”

The dog pounced on the only errant dandelion sprouting from Meagan’s immaculate backyard and enthusiastically ripped the puff from the top, shaking his head, play-growling and scattering seeds everywhere. Meagan thought the obedience class teacher would have quite a challenge with this particular student.

“I’m Alice Llewellyn,” the girl volunteered, still clinging to the leash. “I live in the red brick house on the other side of the street, two houses down.”

Though she had never met the inhabitants, Meagan knew the house. She nodded. “Hi, Alice. I’m Meagan Baker.”

“We just moved here a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t met many of the neighbors yet.”

Meagan had lived in this upscale, young-professionals neighborhood for almost two years and hadn’t met many of her neighbors either. It wasn’t that she was unfriendly, she assured herself. She simply wasn’t home much. Her working hours started very early, so she rarely saw any neighbors when headed for the hospital. She usually returned home tired and hungry, drove straight into the garage and put the door down behind her, then walked directly into her kitchen. Because of her busy schedule, she paid someone to keep up her lawn and pool. She did her walking and weight training at the hospital gym. And while she enjoyed swimming laps in her solar-heated pool, she usually did so after dark within the privacy of her tall redwood fence—the gate of which was now swinging open.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Alice. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

The dandelion conquered and demolished, Waldo moved on to sniff the base of an azalea bush covered in pink blooms. Fortunately Alice tugged him away from it before he could destroy that, too.

“When we moved here, I hoped there would be some other kids my age in one of the houses close to ours,” Alice confided. “My best friends from school live in other parts of town, so someone has to drive me to their houses. We’re on spring break from school, but there aren’t any other teenagers to hang out with on this street. A few little kids, but no one my age. I turned thirteen last week.”

Alice was quite obviously proud to call herself a teenager now, Meagan thought with a smothered smile. “Happy belated birthday.”

Alice grinned, showing a quick flash of braces. “Thanks. Waldo was my birthday present. But now my dad says he wishes he’d bought me something less destructive. Like a chainsaw.”

Alice’s dad seemed to have quite the sense of humor. Because the girl seemed lonely, Meagan motioned toward another outdoor chair. “Would you like to have a seat? I can get you a soda or some lemonade.”

“No, thank you, my nan—um, the housekeeper is probably wondering where I am.”

Meagan deliberately gave no indication that she’d noticed the young teen’s quick substitute of the word housekeeper for nanny. Teenagers, of course, would never admit to having or needing a nanny.

“I like your pool,” Alice added with a glance around the backyard. “Dad says maybe we’ll get one when he gets time to think about it. He’s a lawyer and he’s been real busy at work lately. There was a pool at the condo where he used to live, but he decided he needed a real house now that I live with him and this one didn’t come with a pool. It has room for one in the backyard, though, so he said he’ll think about it because I love to swim.”

Charmed by the artless chatter, even though she was bemused by how much personal information the girl had crammed into a few sentences, Meagan motioned toward her small, but functional pool. “You’d be welcome to swim in mine during your spring break. I’m home every day for the next few weeks to recover from a surgical procedure, and I’d enjoy the company if it’s okay with your dad and your, um, housekeeper. The pool is heated, so you’d be warm enough as long as you bring a cover-up for when you get out of the water. As warm as it has been this month, it’s still a little too cool to stand around in a wet bathing suit.”

Alice’s face lit up with her smile, making Meagan realize the girl was actually quite pretty beneath the glasses and wild hair. “That would be so cool. I really love to swim. I’ll ask my dad. I’m sure he’ll say it’s okay. Thanks, Miss Baker.”

“You can just call me Meagan.” She’d never been one to insist on being called “doctor,” like some of her more pretentious colleagues.

“Thanks, Meagan. I’ll see you later, okay? Come on, Waldo, let’s go home.”

“Would you mind closing the gate behind you?”

“Sure. See you later.”

Meagan watched in amusement as Alice tugged at the leash to get the rambunctious pup headed in the right direction, then was nearly pulled off her feet when the dog dashed away. Obedience classes were definitely going to be interesting with Waldo in them.

“So then Waldo took a big jump right into the pool. Water sprayed everywhere and he yelped like he was surprised he got wet. Then he started swimming and splashing and shaking his ears and he had the best time. Me and Meagan—”

“Meagan and I.”

Setting a plate on the dining room table for Friday evening’s dinner, Alice continued with barely a pause for her father’s correction. “Meagan and I were laughing so hard at him, and that just made him act sillier. She said she didn’t mind letting him into her pool because she has someone who cleans it for her. Waldo loves going swimming, Dad. We really should get a pool.”

“If we get a pool,” Seth Llewellyn replied firmly, laying napkins beside the two place settings on their table, “it will be for our use, not for Waldo’s.”

Alice gave him an innocent look. “Of course. But we can let Waldo swim with us, too, can’t we?”

“We’ll see how he does in obedience classes.”

“He’ll ace them, you’ll see,” Alice said confidently. “He’s really very intelligent.”

Seth was still reserving judgment on that call.

At least they could eat in peace. The rowdy dog was safe in the fenced backyard. He had a cozy, overpriced dog house to keep him warm and dry, and more toys than any one dog should own. Within the course of the past ten days, Waldo had gone from shelter pup to pampered pet and he was adjusting quite happily to the transition.

When Seth had taken Alice to the Humane Society to rescue a dog for her birthday present, he’d given her the choice of adopting a small, indoor dog or a larger dog that would live outside. She’d chosen the latter, though she’d hinted broadly that one of the homeless cats in the shelter would do quite well inside their house. Seth had told her hastily that they would concentrate on one pet at a time for now.

“Meagan said she thinks Waldo will be the greatest dog ever once he graduates from obedience school.” Alice shook out her napkin and laid it across her lap without pausing to breathe. “She thinks he’ll be sitting and staying by the end of the first lesson and heeling and fetching by the third. Maybe I can even teach him some fun tricks—you know, like roll over and play dead and …”

“And wash the dishes and take out the trash and scrub the toilets.”

Alice laughed musically. “Daddy, he’s just a dog.”

“Mmm. Tell your friend Meagan that.”

“She knows. She calls him my wild child now, but she says she’s being an optimist about obedience classes.”

Seth had yet to catch a glimpse of his daughter’s new friend, though Nina, the sixty-two-year-old housekeeper who doubled as a caretaker for his young daughter, had discreetly checked her out. When Alice had asked permission to go swimming at the neighbor’s house during her spring break, he’d agreed only on the condition that Nina would first meet the woman and confirm that Alice was a welcome guest. Nina had reported back that there was no reason for concern about the situation.

Nina had apparently liked Meagan Baker immediately. She had confirmed Alice’s explanation that the woman was home from work on a medical leave and seemed to enjoy Alice’s company during the afternoons. Neither Alice nor Nina had mentioned what Meagan did for a living, though Alice had said vaguely that she believed Meagan worked at the local teaching hospital. Seth had formed a hazy image of a middle-aged secretary or insurance clerk recuperating from a hysterectomy or some such female ailment.

Alice was certainly taken with Meagan. During the past three days, all Seth had heard from her during the dinners they shared was “Meagan said this” and “Meagan said that.”

He was aware that Alice missed her mother. His ex-wife had moved to Hong Kong six months ago to accept an impressive position with an American law firm there. Though she called Alice almost every day, the distance between them was hard on them. Seth knew how Colleen had agonized before accepting that job she had wanted so desperately. Her long hours and freely acknowledged ambition had ruled out Alice joining her there, even if Seth would have agreed—which he would not have, not without a battle.

Though he, too, was an attorney with a busy schedule, Seth had always been the one to scale back his hours to allow time for Alice even if he risked forfeiting career advancements at times. He and Colleen had shared custody while Colleen lived in the same country, but Seth had always been the primary caregiver. Colleen loved their daughter as much as he did, but ambition had always come first for her.

She would be the first to admit that family had been sacrificed on the altar of career in her case, ending their ill-fated marriage and affecting her relationship with her only child. More than once Colleen had confessed to Seth that she simply wasn’t the maternal type. Had she not accidentally become pregnant with Alice while she and Seth were dating in law school, she probably would never have had a child. There would be no others for her.

They’d both been twenty-three and in their first year of law school when Alice was conceived in a spontaneous interlude during what was to have been a study session. After taking a couple of weeks to consider her options, Colleen had suggested it was actually the ideal time to start a family, before they graduated and leapt into the race for career advancement. She’d been a bit concerned that having a child would be counted against her in job interviews, but there was always the appearance of settled respectability to balance that, she’d concluded. If she could demonstrate that she could graduate at the top of her class after pregnancy and childbirth, then she could surely convince any potential employers that she was prepared for all challenges.

Encouraged by their youthful infatuation and confident determination, they had married, thinking they had enough in common to sustain a long-term partnership. They were both fascinated by the law, though Seth’s interests ran to local corporate practice while Colleen’s sights had been set on more far-reaching and international goals. They got along well, and were great together in bed. Both came from successful, overachieving families and would be able to afford housekeepers and nannies to help them run their household. They figured marriage and parenthood would be easy compared to their other achievements.

Their common grounds had not been enough to overcome the other obstacles between them. The divorce had been reasonably amicable, the division of property and terms of custody settled with only a few heated battles in the process. The past six years had passed quickly and relatively quietly. Seth had risen into a junior partnership at a prestigious Little Rock law firm while Colleen traveled extensively in her skyrocketing international law career, leaving Alice more and more in Seth’s care. He and Colleen had remained on distantly friendly terms. After all, they would be bound for the rest of their lives by the daughter they both loved, so they might as well make it as pleasant as possible for everyone involved.

Was Alice subconsciously searching for another female role model in her new friendship with Meagan, or was she simply a bit lonely in her new neighborhood and looking for entertainment? With an all-too-familiar pinch of parental guilt, Seth wondered if he should have done more to provide activities for her during this week off. He’d thought spending time with her new puppy and her beloved books and art supplies would have kept her entertained for a few days out of classes.

Unfortunately, he was involved in an important and convoluted case with one of his most influential clients and it simply hadn’t been possible for him to get away from work now. He’d have to work quite a bit this weekend, too, but the case should be resolved by the middle of next week. There would be other cases, of course, and piles of other career responsibilities but he was going to take his full two weeks of vacation this summer to spend with Alice, whatever it took to accomplish that feat.

He’d have a whole month this summer—the last two weeks of June and the first two weeks of July—to devote to clearing his schedule. Alice would be spending those four weeks in Europe with her mother, who was combining some vacation time with a few business obligations in France, Switzerland and Belgium. Colleen had arranged her schedule so Alice would join her in London, then accompany her on her travels during the following month, along with a responsible au pair to entertain Alice when Colleen was busy.

Seth dreaded those weeks. He would miss Alice horribly. He would also worry about her safety the entire time, though he knew Colleen would be as obsessively conscientious about that as she was with all the other details in her minutely-organized life.

“This dinner looks good,” he said, slicing into the chicken enchilada on his plate. “I’m starving.”

Alice smiled smugly. “I helped Nina make the enchiladas. She’s teaching me to cook. And she’s going to teach me to knit. We were talking while we made the enchiladas and I said I wished I knew how to knit and she said she used to knit all the time before her arthritis made it hard for her to hold the needles for too long, but she said she was sure she could teach me if I really want to learn. She’s bringing needles and yarn Monday. Cool, huh?”

“Very cool.” He loved that his daughter had an almost insatiable thirst for knowledge. She wanted to learn about everything. She’d been taking piano lessons since she was eight, and played clarinet in school band. She was an avid reader and enjoyed visiting museums and science exhibits. Yet he made sure she took some time just to relax and play, something neither he nor Colleen had been encouraged to do as children.

Seth’s father was still a workaholic architect and his late mother had worked for the state government in a high-pressure, supervisory position in the family services department. His mother had dropped dead at fifty-one of a massive heart attack; she’d been in the middle of a conference call when it had happened. That had been ten years ago. Seth had vowed then that he wouldn’t let his job work him to death.

Playtime and vacations had been very rare in his own overly scheduled and often-lonely childhood; he had tried very hard to make Alice’s different despite his career obligations. And if there were times when he felt like he neglected his own needs in favor of hers and his job’s—well, that was a choice he’d made when he’d become a single dad. All too soon, she would be eighteen and leaving for college. He’d have plenty of time for himself then, he thought with a ripple of anticipatory melancholy.

He had just swallowed his first spicy bite of chicken enchilada when the doorbell rang. With a frown, he set down his fork. He wasn’t expecting company. It was a little late for deliveries. Casting a wistful glance at his cooling meal, he rose. “I’ll be right back.”

Anxious to get back to his dinner, he opened the front door without checking to see who stood on the other side. He blinked a few times when he recognized Waldo, wiggling and yapping like the idiot mutt he was. And then his gaze lifted to the face of the slender blonde woman awkwardly juggling the squirming pup in her arms.

“Are you missing someone?” she asked in a pleasant, amused voice.

The dog barked happily, twisting his head to lick his companion’s chin.

“Waldo!” Having heard the commotion, Alice rushed forward to rescue the caller from the dog. “How did you get out?”

“He came to my door,” the woman explained, rather eagerly surrendering her burden. “I heard scratching and when I went to investigate, he bounded right inside as if he’d come for dinner. I told him he was out of luck because I haven’t cooked anything yet. I figured you didn’t know he was out.”

“No, we didn’t.” Seth glanced at Alice. “Obviously he’s found a break somewhere in the fence. He’ll have to stay in the garage until I can find where he got out. I’ll look as soon as we’ve finished eating.”

“Bad boy, Waldo,” Alice scolded. “You could have been hit by a car! You’re just lucky Meagan rescued you before you got hurt.”

“Put him in the garage and wash your hands, Alice. We’ll take care of him after dinner.” He knew they would never be able to eat in peace if they left the boisterous pup in the house. He certainly hoped the obedience classes would be as worthwhile as Alice predicted.

He turned back to their caller when Alice hauled the dog away. “Thanks for bringing him home. I guess.”

She smiled. “You’re welcome. You’re Alice’s dad?”

“Yes, I’m Seth Llewellyn. And you must be Meagan Baker. Alice talks about you all the time.”

Alice hadn’t mentioned, though, that their neighbor was in her early thirties and quite attractive. Her just-above-shoulder-length hair looked soft and slightly wavy, probably salon-lightened to a pretty honey blond. Her eyes were blue, her gaze direct and confident. She didn’t appear to be wearing much makeup, but then she didn’t need any. Her skin was smooth and clear, a little pale, and her nicely-shaped mouth was a soft, natural pink. Very nice.

They shook hands, and he noticed her grip was firm, her skin smooth and warm.

“Alice is such a sweet girl. I’ve enjoyed visiting with her.” She smiled as she spoke, making him believe her.

“She enjoyed spending time with you this week.” He grimaced ruefully. “I wish I could have spent more time with her during her break but I couldn’t get away from work. I hoped her new pup would entertain her for a few days, but having you to visit and being able to swim in your pool has really added to her enjoyment of the days off from school.”

“I’m glad. She’s made my week pass more quickly, too. I’m not used to being at home with nothing much to do.”

Seth studied her face more closely. Her skin was naturally fair, but was she just a bit too pale?

“Are you okay?” he asked tentatively. “You look a little—”

She pushed a strand of hair from her face and he noted her hand wasn’t quite steady.

“I had surgery two weeks ago,” she admitted, and he thought he detected just a hint of frustration in her tone. “I guess Waldo was a little heavier than I realized.”

He recalled that he’d been ordered not to lift anything heavy for a few weeks after an emergency appendectomy back in college, the only time he’d had surgery. Waldo was not only rather heavy, he’d probably wiggled and squirmed all the way from Meagan’s house.

“You should have called us to come get him. Please, come in and sit down for a minute. Let me get you a glass of water.”

“I didn’t have your number. And I’ll be fine, really. I don’t want to disturb your dinner.”

“You said you haven’t made anything for yourself yet. Why don’t you join us? There’s plenty of food.”

Returning just in time to hear the offer, Alice added her own appeal. “Oh, yes, join us, Meagan. We just started eating. I helped Nina cook, and she said we made way too much for just two people.”

Looking a little flustered, Meagan demurred at first, but Alice was hard to resist. Mere minutes later, the three of them sat at the dining table where Alice served Meagan a heaping plate of chicken enchiladas and Spanish rice while Seth poured their guest a glass of raspberry iced tea.

She seemed to be catching her breath, he noted in satisfaction as she sipped the tea. Her cheeks were a healthy pink now, and the faint lines of pain around her mouth had eased. It had been very thoughtful of her to return Alice’s fugitive mutt despite the discomfort it had caused her.

They didn’t have to worry about making conversation. Alice took care of that for them, chattering almost without stopping while they ate. She told them all the latest news from her school friends, gleaned from phone calls and internet friend sites. She babbled about her hopes for Waldo’s training, and all the tricks she wanted to teach him once he’d mastered basic obedience. She shared a funny story her mom had told her in their daily phone call about a reckless cab driver in Hong Kong.

“I’m going to Europe in June, did I tell you, Meagan?” she asked, using the anecdote as a segue.

“Yes, you’ve told me.”

Judging from Meagan’s tone, Seth suspected Alice had mentioned the upcoming trip several times, but Meagan still sounded encouraging when she added, “I know you’re really looking forward to the adventure.”

Alice nodded with the eagerness and trace of hesitation she always displayed when they talked about her trip. “It’ll be great to be with Mom and see all those countries. But I guess I’m a little nervous about the flight to London. I’ve never been on a flight that long by myself before.”

“You’ll be fine. My younger sister Madison went to France when she wasn’t much older than you to visit a school friend whose family had moved there. She was fifteen, I think, which would have made it about twelve years ago. Our parents were nervous about letting her go, but they knew it was a great opportunity for her. The flight attendants took very good care of her and escorted her straight to her hosts when they reached their destination. She had a fabulous time.”

Alice seemed to find reassurance in Meagan’s story. Seth tried to find some measure of encouragement, himself, though he couldn’t help thinking the world had changed in those past twelve years. He dreaded the day he put Alice on that plane, though he was doing his best to keep her from seeing the extent of his reluctance.

“I didn’t know you have a sister, Meagan,” Alice said, already skipping to the next topic.

“I have a sister and a brother, both younger. Madison and Mitchell. My parents had a thing for the letter M, apparently,” Meagan added with a wrinkle of her nose that Seth found enchanting.

“Are you close to them?”

The faintest hint of wistfulness in Alice’s question made Seth frown. Alice had a few weapons in her arsenal for making-dad-feel-guilty. A couple of times she had pulled out the I’m-an-only-child-from-a-broken-home lament, just to see how far it would take her in an argument. She had learned quickly enough that it didn’t take her far at all, but he knew he would hear versions of the grievance again.

As well behaved as she was, Alice was a normal kid just coming into the hormonal teen years. He suspected there would be conflicts ahead in which she would not hesitate to pull out whatever tool she deemed most useful for manipulating Dad. He’d been warned about it by several friends and coworkers with teenagers, and he thought he was as prepared as he could possibly be. At least, he hoped so, he thought with a swallow.

“I am close to my siblings,” Meagan replied lightly. “As much as we can be, at least, with all of us so busy in our careers. We try to get together at least once a month and to call each other several times a week. Our mom is the one who keeps us all informed about what’s going on with the others.”

“We don’t have a big family,” Alice confided. “Dad’s an only child and his mom died when I was too little to remember her. Grampa Llewellyn lives in Dallas, and we only see him a few times a year. My mom has a sister who lives in Denver. She has two kids, but they’re older than me and I don’t know them very well. I see my mom’s parents, though. They live in Heber Springs and I spend one weekend a month with them.”

Seth wondered what it was about Meagan that turned his normally somewhat-reserved-with-outsiders daughter into such a chatterbox. Even if Alice were looking for someone to fill in for her absent mother, Meagan bore little resemblance to Colleen, either physically or in mannerisms.

Colleen’s appearance was a bit more striking than Meagan’s, a slightly exotic attractiveness she played up deliberately with makeup and fashions. Meagan was more girl-next-door pretty, a look he found more appealing these days. Colleen spoke in a mile-a-minute, no-nonsense tone, all traces of the South deliberately scrubbed from her accent. Meagan’s voice was softer, her speech slower, the slight hint of Southern drawl soothing and charming, in his opinion.

Both women projected intelligence, competence and independence—at least, from what little he’d seen of Meagan—but Meagan was less …well, stressful was the first word that popped into his mind. Maybe Alice focused more on the few qualities her mother and her neighbor shared rather than the differences. Or maybe she just enjoyed having the attention of any encouraging adult, he thought with another little ripple of guilt.

He could sort of understand Alice’s fascination. As the meal progressed, he realized he wouldn’t mind having Meagan Baker’s attention, himself. Granted, it had been a while since he’d spent an intimate evening with an attractive woman, considering how busy he’d been with work and his daughter. But he thought it was more than that, that drew him to his appealing neighbor. Maybe he was falling under the same spell that seemed to have affected his daughter.

He wasn’t sure whether to be more intrigued or unnerved by the possibility.

“Did you hear me, Dad?” Alice asked with an exasperation that made him suspect he’d momentarily tuned her out.

“Sorry, Roo, I was concentrating on this delicious dinner you prepared. What were you saying?”

She rolled her eyes in response to both the childhood nickname and the blatant flattery. “I said I need you to take me shopping tomorrow. You know, for the class party tomorrow night? I tried on the dress I was planning to wear—the really pretty one Mom bought me before she left for Hong Kong—and it’s gotten too little. I guess I’ve grown a little taller in the past six months.”

He heard both pride and disappointment in her tone. She’d worried about being a “late bloomer,” shorter and less developed than some of her classmates, and he suspected she was relieved by the recent growth spurt but he knew she’d wanted to wear that fancy dress. She’d worn it only once, at a Christmas party with her maternal grandparents.

He’d thought when she’d first shown it to him that the expensive garment had been a frivolous purchase at her age. She didn’t attend that many dressy parties, and she was growing too fast to invest too much in clothes that wouldn’t fit her in another couple of months. Colleen wasn’t usually so impractical, but he suspected she’d been suffering from a guilty conscience at her impending move so far from her daughter. She’d given Alice several lavish gifts before her departure.

And speaking of guilt….

“I’m sorry, Alice. I have to work tomorrow. I’ll ask Nina to take you shopping in the morning.”

“But, Dad.”

Uh-oh. He knew this tone. “Alice—”

“Can’t you take just a couple of hours in the morning before you go to the office? I’ll choose fast, I promise.”

Wishing fervently that she’d waited until they were alone to start this particular argument, he shook his head in regret. “I’m sorry, I can’t. I have a meeting that starts at nine, before most of the shops even open. It will last most of the day, and that would be too late to find you a dress and get you to the party on time. You should have tried the dress on sooner, rather than waiting until the last minute. Surely you have something else you can wear. You went shopping with your grandmother just last month.”

“We bought new school uniforms and some weekend clothes. I just won’t go to the party,” Alice finished with a melodramatic sigh. “I’ll stay home and play with Waldo or something.”

He winced in response to her long-suffering, self-pitying tone. Great. Could she make him look like a worse parent in front of her new friend? “Okay, maybe I can—”

“I’d be happy to take you shopping, Alice,” Meagan volunteered unexpectedly—or had that been his daughter’s hope all along? “If it’s okay with your father, of course.”

Finding himself the focus of two pairs of feminine eyes, Seth reached for his tea glass to wash down a bite of enchilada that seemed to have caught in his throat. How was he to say anything but yes when his daughter and their pretty neighbor were both looking at him so expectantly?