Читать книгу Surprise, Doc! You're A Daddy! - Jacqueline Diamond - Страница 11

Two years later…

Through the tinted window of the high-rise office building, Dr. Hugh Menton stared down over the sundrenched vista of West Los Angeles. Below, expensive cars navigated the street between sleek modern structures.

He ought to be thrilled that he and his brother could afford a suite in such a prestigious area. Once, being pediatrician to the children of celebrities and business tycoons had been everything he’d hoped for.

Yet, even though he’d outwardly recovered from the still mysterious loss of a year and a half of his life, and even though he’d regained his medical skills, Hugh didn’t feel right working here, catering to the rich.

His mouth twisting with disappointment, he turned and tossed the morning mail onto his gleaming oak desk. There was no response yet to his application to take part in a research project working with poor children. He’d hoped to hear from Pacific West Coast University Medical Center by now, since the Whole Child Project started next month, in October.

“You know, the reason you didn’t get your letter is that I’ve been stealing your mail and burning it,” said a tenor voice from the hallway.

Hugh looked up with a grin. “Sure you have.”

“You’ll get tired of playing Dr. Schweitzer,” warned his brother. Despite the teasing tone, there was a glint of worry in his green eyes, so much like Hugh’s.

Although at thirty-seven Andrew was only two years Hugh’s elder, he played the role of senior partner to the hilt. That might be partly because, with his shorter, stockier build and brown hair, he more closely resembled their late father, Frederick Menton, a legendary physician.

And, Hugh reminded himself, Andrew had had to assume the entire responsibility for their joint practice during his own disappearance. “I hope you know that I’d stay here with you if I could. But ever since I got back, I’ve been restless.”

“I’ve noticed.” His brother fiddled with the stethoscope around his neck. “Regardless of how well your injuries have healed, you shouldn’t trust these impulses, bro. This isn’t like you. You used to enjoy the good life.”

Maybe he was right. Hugh couldn’t account, rationally, for the sense of incompleteness that had dogged him since his return.

As far as anyone could tell, he must have spent that year and a half as a drifter. He’d disappeared at sea off Oceanside and been found unconscious nearly eighteen months later in Los Angeles, with a fresh head wound and no identification. In between, there wasn’t a clue where he’d been.

The only thing Hugh knew for certain was that the experience had changed him. Once ambitious for prestige and material success, he now longed to do something meaningful with his life. And for an emotional release that he couldn’t name.

If only he knew what had happened during that lost time!

“As for my leaving, it may be a moot point,” he told his brother. “I haven’t heard from the project, so it doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere.”

“Good.” Andrew checked his watch. “No wonder Helen isn’t bugging us. It’s time for lunch.”

Helen Nguyen was their nurse and, with patients prepped in the examining rooms, would never have allowed them to chat for so long. However, no appointments were scheduled between noon and 1:00 p.m.

“Where shall we go?” Hugh asked. Every Wednesday, the two of them lunched at one of the many restaurants in the area.

Once or twice, he’d had in inexplicable urge to point out to a waiter when he noticed an uncleared table or a messy front counter. It made him wonder whether he might have worked in a restaurant while he was gone, but that didn’t give him much to go on.

Chelsea Byers, their receptionist, appeared behind Andrew, pushing back a strand of her newly dyed maroon hair. “Excuse me.” They both turned toward her. “There’s a woman here without an appointment.”

“Tell her to make one for later,” Andrew said.

“We’re full all afternoon, and she says she’s driven a long ways.” Chelsea bounced a little, as if she were dancing at one of the trendy nightclubs she often mentioned. “Her little girl has an ear infection.”

“If she comes back after lunch, I’ll work her in,” Hugh said. “Have we seen her before?”

The receptionist shook her head, raising an odd-colored cloud. “She doesn’t have insurance, either.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Andrew snapped. “This isn’t the welfare office. Where’s Sandy?” Sandy Craven, their office manager, was in charge of making sure bills got paid.

“Sandy already went to lunch. The woman said she can pay cash,” Chelsea answered. “I’m sorry. I’ll tell her she has to arrange payment with Sandy and then make an appointment.”

Annoyance at his brother’s high-handed attitude spurred Hugh to intervene. “Never mind. I’ll see her now.”

It was highly irregular and an imposition on Helen, who would need to weigh the little girl and take a brief medical history. Ear infections hurt, though, and he didn’t want the child to suffer.

“Don’t wait. Go ahead without me,” he told Andrew.

“I’m not hungry.” Although clearly disgruntled, his brother accepted defeat without further argument.

It occurred to Hugh that, if he did get the research position, Andrew could find a partner who more closely shared his values, someone like Hugh used to be. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

A few minutes later, Helen handed him a chart. “Don’t wait,” Hugh said. “I’m sorry I used up part of your lunch.”

“You might need me,” the nurse warned.

“Thanks, but I’ll handle whatever comes up.” He wasn’t too snooty to administer a shot if necessary.

After Helen left, Hugh glanced at the chart. The child’s name was Dana Avery, age two years. No surgeries or major medical problems. Mother’s name Meg, father’s name Joe.

Joe Avery. It had a familiar ring, but he couldn’t place the man.

Hugh tapped on the door and stepped into the examining room. A small girl with bright green eyes and Little Orphan Annie red hair sat on the examining table, her hands folded in her lap.

It was the sight of the woman standing beside her that, inexplicably, made Hugh’s breath come faster. Despite the well-worn blouse and jeans, despite the frizzy reddish-brown hair pulled into an ungracious ponytail, there was something riveting about her.

She was staring at him, too.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Menton.” Hugh extended his hand. Dazed, she shook it.

He wanted to ask why she looked so startled, but it seemed intrusive. Hugh’s natural reserve would have held him back even if he hadn’t been concerned about professionalism.

“You must be Dana,” he told the little girl. “Which ear hurts?” She pointed to the left. The child had delicate features and the same alert expression as her mother, he noticed.

“Are you Daddy?” she asked as he examined the ear.

“Dana!” Meg Avery found her voice at last.

“Mommy, you said…”

“No, honey. I’m sorry, Doctor.”

“It’s all right.” Hugh was accustomed to hearing kids blurt out unexpected remarks. “Young children see any adult male as a daddy. It’s a generic category.”

“‘Generic category.”’ Nervously, the woman pushed back a strand of hair. “That’s how you used to talk, using those formal words, and I couldn’t figure it out!”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, someone I know talked that way.” The woman took a deep breath, as if fighting the urge to say more.

Hugh hoped she wasn’t unbalanced. Perhaps Andrew had been right to be wary of a new patient who turned up without an appointment.

“Your daughter does have an infection.” Briskly, he reached for his pad. “I’m going to prescribe an antibiotic and a decongestant. Make sure she takes all the antibiotics, and have her rechecked in two weeks. You can take her to her regular pediatrician if you prefer.”

Meg bit her lip as she took the slip from his hand. Perhaps money was a problem, Hugh thought.

“If you can’t afford to fill the prescription, I have some samples in my desk,” he said.

Quickly, she shook her head. “I pay my bills.”

“I’m sorry.” He hadn’t meant to offend her pride. And, instinctively, he knew she had a lot of it.

In fact, he felt as if he knew many things about her. That she laughed infectiously. That she was an easy touch for a friend in trouble, but tough as nails toward anyone who tried to rip her off.

He must be imagining things.

“You really don’t recognize me, do you?” Meg asked.

“Not offhand,” Hugh said. “Have we met?”

“I don’t know.” She hesitated, shifting from foot to foot as if unsure whether to ask him another question or bolt from the room.

“Did someone refer you to me?” he asked.

“No. Yes.” She gave an apologetic shrug that was inexplicably familiar. “My brother Tim saw your picture in the newspaper. He’s a truck driver and he stops in L.A. sometimes.”

Hugh and Andrew had been photographed at a recent medical conference. That didn’t explain why this woman would come to see him.

He glanced at the chart. “You live in Mercy Canyon. Where’s that?”

“San Diego County,” she said. “It’s amazing. You look exactly like him. You talk like him, too.”

An uncomfortable suspicion sprang up inside Hugh. “Like who?”

Although the recent photo caption didn’t mention his earlier disappearance, the newspapers had written it up at the time. The unfortunate result had been several attempts to defraud him.

One man claimed he was owed a large gambling debt, and a couple contended they were due hundreds of dollars in back rent. None of them could produce witnesses or signed documents, and the threat of a police investigation had put an end to their claims.

Now this woman contended she had known someone exactly like him. Maybe she’d stumbled across the information on the Internet and decided to try to squeeze out some money.

Yet she didn’t strike Hugh as the manipulative type. Perhaps someone else had put her up to it.

Meg swallowed hard and picked up her daughter. “You can’t have forgotten Dana. You delivered her yourself.”

“I haven’t delivered babies since my internship.” Hugh kept his tone level.

“The paramedics said you were as good as a doctor, and I couldn’t figure it out because you didn’t even have a high school education. You worked at a cafe, like me.” Now that she’d started talking, the words spilled out. “Then you vanished with my car. You left us at a gas station. Doesn’t this ring a bell?”

“Mrs. Avery, you’re clearly distressed,” Hugh said gently. “But I’ve never seen you before.”

“The longer I talk to you, the more sure I am that you’re my husband!”

“Your husband?”

She shifted her daughter against her shoulder. “It’s so hard…you have to remember, Joe. Wait! I can prove it.”

She set the little girl on a chair and fumbled in her purse. From the doorway, Andrew peered in and frowned. “What’s going on?”

“He’s my husband!” Meg said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for him.”

“You believe my brother is your husband?” Andrew lifted a skeptical eyebrow.

Hugh felt awkward for the woman. She spoke so sincerely and so urgently. And the little girl did resemble him, especially those unusual green eyes.

“Look!” Meg Avery thrust a photograph into his hand.

It was a candid shot of her and a man, both beaming at the camera. The man was the spitting image of Hugh.

“He does resemble me.” He passed the picture to Andrew.

His brother glanced at it. “Photographs can be altered. Besides, you can’t tell me you married a man without knowing who he was.”

“I did know, or I thought I did,” Meg said. “Joe was from Tennessee. Right after he got to California, he fell off a pier in Oceanside and nearly drowned, and he lost his memory. He had ID but…” She stopped in confusion.

“What?” Hugh asked.

“Well…” She spoke hesitantly. “After he vanished, I remembered little things. Like that the picture on his driver’s license was a poor resemblance. And it had his height wrong, too.”

Andrew regarded the woman scornfully. “Let me see if I get this right. You think my brother—a respected pediatrician—stole someone’s ID, married you and then fled? Oh, sure. It happens all the time.”

“Wait a minute,” Hugh said. “Neither of us knows what I did while I had amnesia. I was missing for quite a while.”

“When?” Meg asked.

“I turned up two years ago.”

“That’s when Joe left me!” she said. “I can show you the police report.”

Her story wasn’t as far-fetched as it might seem, Hugh had to admit. He’d disappeared at sea in the accident that killed his friend Rick. Could he have washed up and been mistaken for another accident victim?

On the other hand, if someone had invented this tale, he or she had cleverly woven in the well-publicized details. And chosen a child the right age to fit the timing.

“You’re saying that this is my daughter?” Now Hugh understood why the little girl had called him Daddy. If she’d been deliberately lied to as part of a scheme, it had been a cruel thing to do.

“She is yours,” Meg said. “Can’t you see she’s got your eyes?”

“How do we even know she belongs to you?” Andrew said. “You could have borrowed her to pull a scam.”

Hugh wanted to kick his brother. Whatever Andrew’s opinion of the woman, he shouldn’t speak so harshly in front of the little girl. “The whole question can be resolved by a DNA test,” he said quietly.

This was the point at which he expected Meg to feign outrage. With her unruly hair and flashing amber eyes, she could make a great show of being offended.

Of course, she’d never really had a chance of conning him. A doctor wouldn’t buy a story like hers without proof, but this woman and whoever had encouraged her might be too unsophisticated to realize that.

She visibly fought to subdue the anger smoldering in her gaze. “All right. What do you need? A blood sample?”

Her agreement startled Hugh. Maybe she honestly believed him to be her missing husband.

“That would suffice.” He turned to Andrew. “Would you draw blood for us?”

“You’re joking, right?” said his brother. “You’re not going to dignify this nonsense by submitting to a test!”

Hugh supposed it was insulting to have to go to such lengths to defend himself. He might have withdrawn his offer, except for the tears trembling on the little girl’s lashes.

The grown-ups’ arguing clearly had upset her. He’d always been empathetic toward children, and this girl’s wistfulness touched him deeply.

“What harm can it do? And it will resolve the matter completely.” To Meg, he said, “It’ll take about a week to get the results.”

“I can wait.” While Andrew went to find syringes, Hugh rolled up his sleeve and swabbed his arm with alcohol. He did the same for Dana, while explaining gently that it would hurt a little but was for a good cause.

She believed him instantly. As he leaned close, he inhaled her scent, a blend of baby powder and freshness. The aroma brought a scene vividly to mind.

It was a small room, patchily decorated with flowered curtains and a Minnie Mouse poster. A woman with bushy red hair sat in a rocking chair, nursing a baby.

Maybe it was a scene from a movie, except that it had been summoned to mind by a scent, and movies didn’t have scents. As for Meg’s hair, his mind might be filling in details from the present, Hugh told himself.

“What?” the woman asked. “Are you remembering something?”

Her face was close to his, the eyes wide, the lips parted. Hugh got a sudden urge to kiss the freckles on her nose. He pulled back.

“No. I haven’t eaten lunch yet. I get distracted when I don’t eat.”

“I know,” she said. “You always carried mints for between meals.”

There was a roll of mints in his coat pocket right now. Hugh wondered if she had seen the bulge and guessed at its cause. If so, she was very sharp.

Andrew returned with the equipment. Expressionlessly, he drew blood while Meg hovered over her daughter. The little girl winced but didn’t cry out. After he finished, Meg handed Hugh a scrap of paper with a phone number. “Please call me when the results come in.”

“Our lawyer will call you,” Andrew said.

“She’s either his daughter or she isn’t!” the woman answered. “If she is, that proves he’s my husband. I don’t see why anyone needs a lawyer.”

“If by some bizarre chance you did manage to snare my brother while he wasn’t in his right mind, it isn’t legal,” Andrew said. “You admitted he was using a false ID. You’re married to someone who doesn’t exist.”

“I—” She stared at him in distress. “I never thought of that.”

Her mouth trembled as if she might cry. Before any tears could fall, she gathered her daughter and left.

Once her footsteps had faded away, Andrew said, “You don’t believe a word of this, do you?”

“I can’t dismiss it out of hand.” Hugh’s skin tingled with the memory of the woman’s nearness. He couldn’t explain why he felt such a powerful response to a stranger, and yet it was hard to imagine that the two of them had anything in common.

Except, possibly, for one very sweet little girl.

“We should get the results by next Wednesday,” Andrew said. “Until then, put her out of your mind.”

Hugh wondered if that was possible.