Czytaj książkę: «A Second Chance For The Single Dad»

Chapter One

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Dr. Dolan, you look a little lost. Is there anything I can do for you?” Cecilia Parnell asked kindly.

As was her habit since she’d begun her housecleaning service—long before she had the large staff of excellent workers that she had now—Cilia would come by and personally check in with her clients once a month to make sure everything was more than satisfactory as far as the service went. Ordinarily, her clients had nothing but praise for the women in Cilia’s employ.

But this admittedly was not an ordinary situation.

Cilia had taken a special interest in Dr. Lucas Dolan ever since he had abruptly returned from serving his country overseas. A highly respected orthopedic surgeon who was also a reservist, he had selflessly done two tours of duty in the Middle East, seeing to the needs of not only wounded US soldiers but the native population, as well, many of whom had never even been to a doctor.

And then a call had come nine months ago that changed everything.

His wife, Jill, was driving their four-year-old daughter, Lily, home from preschool when she was broadsided by a driver texting to her boyfriend. Jill and Lily were rushed to the hospital. Luke flew home immediately, praying all the way. But Jill died before he could reach her bedside.

Lily had sustained cuts and bruises and was shaken up by the accident, but apart from being very confused and frightened, she was all right.

“Lost?” Luke repeated, glancing at the woman whose services Jill had engaged the week that they had moved into their house as a husband and wife.

Sitting in his living room, Luke struggled not to allow the sadness that had become his constant companion to overwhelm him.

Yes, he was lost, Luke thought. Lost because his high school sweetheart, the woman he had come to rely on for absolutely everything, was gone. Jill had generously freed him up so that he could concentrate on being the best surgeon he could be.

And now she’d been ripped out of his life without warning, leaving him not just to cope with all those details she had been so good at attending to, not just to cope with the emptiness that her absence had created, but also to cope with the prospect of being a single father to a little girl he hardly knew.

Sometimes it was almost too much for him to bear.

Lily was two when his reserve platoon had been called up and sent overseas. She was four when he came back into her life.

Now she was five, and things were somewhat better between them. But, like a blind man, Luke was still trying to find his way around in a world that was totally unknown to him.

He forced himself to smile at Cilia, knowing that the older woman was only trying to be kind. But as far as her question went, he couldn’t open up to her any more than he could open up to his mother-in-law. Barbara Baxter had moved in to help bridge the gap for Lily after her only daughter had died. Barbara was still there, taking care of Lily since he’d gone back to work.

Because Cilia appeared to be waiting for more of a response from him, he grasped at the first thing that came to mind.

“I’m just a little stressed out, I guess,” he told her. “I went back to my old orthopedic medical group recently and so far, I’ve been sharing the services of a physician’s assistant with another one of the surgeons. But I can see it’s exhausting for her, trying to be accommodating to my patients as well as his. I’ve been looking into hiring a physician’s assistant of my own, but finding the right person has turned out to be more challenging than I thought.”

“Really?” Cilia said sympathetically. “Well, I have the occasion to interact with a lot of people in my line of work, not to mention that my two closest friends have their own businesses, as well, and they come in contact with an even larger variety of people than I do. I’ll tell them to keep an eye out for a possible candidate for you to interview. I’m sure that between the three of us, we’ll have you set up with someone more than suitable for your needs in no time,” Cilia promised with a warm, motherly smile.

“I’m looking for a physician’s assistant,” Luke emphasized, wanting to be absolutely clear that she understood what he needed.

Cilia’s smile widened. “But of course—I understand completely,” she told him. “I’ll let you know the moment one of my friends or I find one,” she promised. “Always a pleasure talking to you, Doctor.”

She nodded at Luke’s mother-in-law as she passed the woman on her way out.

Barbara had filled her in on her son-in-law’s story, sharing with her that she was worried about Luke. He was like a fish out of water without Jill in his life, she’d told Cilia. It was obvious that Barbara grieved for the loss of her daughter, but Cilia could tell that the woman also grieved for Luke and for Lily. She and Barbara were in agreement that Luke needed a wife and Lily needed a mother, and Barbara was unselfish enough to realize that.

Aware of what she and her two friends did on the side, Barbara had called and spoken to Cilia earlier today, appealing to her as a mother—and a grandmother. Quite blatantly, Barbara had asked Cilia for her help.

It was what had prompted Cilia’s visit today, since Barbara had told her that her son-in-law had taken the day off.

Cilia had wanted to feel Luke out for herself. Looking into the handsome thirty-eight-year-old’s eyes and exchanging a minimum of words, Cilia had decided that the young doctor was definitely someone she and her friends could help.

Indeed, they needed to help the man who had suffered such a terrible loss while he’d been nobly serving his country.

Leaving the doctor’s house, Cilia couldn’t wait to talk to her friends. She called Maizie and Theresa from her car before she even started it, suggesting they get together that evening to play cards, which had become their euphemism for undertaking the very challenging task of matchmaking.

* * *

“I’ve got a candidate for us!” Cilia declared as she crossed the threshold later that evening, walking into Maizie’s living room.

“We’re in here,” Theresa called out to her from the family room.

The moment Cilia entered the family room, where all their card games took place, Maizie told her, “Cilia, you took the words right out of my mouth.”

Slightly puzzled, Cilia looked at her friend. “I was the one who called for a meeting,” she reminded Maizie.

“Only because I haven’t had a chance to,” Maizie answered. “I was busy meeting with our next matchmaking candidate.”

Cilia was accustomed to Maizie being the unofficial leader of their group. She always had been. But this one time, she decided to dig in her heels. “I think my candidate needs our attention first.”

Maizie wasn’t used to arguing, but she stuck to her guns—because this was personal. “Mine’s my goddaughter.”

One of the reasons they had remained such close friends over the decades, weathering good times and bad, was that none of them pulled rank or disregarded the other two. Because it sounded as if this match Maizie had brought up was so important to her, Cilia inclined her head in agreement.

Sitting down at the card table where they did all their best brainstorming, Cilia said, “All right, it’s your house, Maizie. You go first.”

As she began to tell Theresa and Cilia about what had inspired her to take on this match, she wondered if her friends were going to think she had gone over the deep end.

She looked from Theresa to Cilia. “You two remember my friend Karen Quartermain, don’t you?”

Theresa’s response was an animated “Of course.”

Cilia looked momentarily saddened as she told Maizie, “Karen was much too young when she died.”

Maizie nodded. “Agreed. Karen always said that if she died first and ever needed to get me to do something, she’d find a way to drop a penny in my path so I’d know she was trying to communicate with me.”

She gazed at the two women she’d been friends with since the third grade. She was fairly certain that they would understand what she was about to say next, but she wasn’t 100 percent convinced. Mentally crossing her fingers, she continued.

“I dreamed about her last night. It was a very vivid, very real dream. She asked me to find someone for her daughter, Kayley. When I woke up, there was a penny on my carpet. I have no idea how it got there, but I know it wasn’t there when I went to bed.”

Cilia studied her closely. “Are you sure about that?”

“Absolutely,” Maizie answered with feeling. “Kayley is a wonderful girl. She gave up her job at a medical clinic in San Francisco to come home and nurse her mother through her final stages of bone cancer.”

The words medical clinic instantly caught Cilia’s attention. “What did she do at the medical clinic?” Cilia asked.

“Kayley’s a physician’s assistant. I can’t tell you what a comfort she was to her mother—What?” Maizie asked, seeing the wide smile on Cilia’s face.

Cilia suppressed a laugh. “I think that you just came up with the perfect solution for both of us,” she told Maizie.

It was Maizie’s turn to be confused. “Come again?” she asked uncertainly.

Cilia’s face was a wreath of smiles as she happily said, “Trust me, I have the perfect guy for your goddaughter.”

* * *

Kayley Quartermain glanced at the address on the piece of paper that her godmother, Maizie Sommers, had given her.

After her college graduation, Kayley hadn’t seen the woman she called Aunt Maizie for several years. Then Maizie had visited a week before her mother died. Maizie had been upset that she hadn’t heard about Karen being sick until the cancer had reached stage four. It was Aunt Maizie who had kept Kayley from going to pieces. She’d also been the one to help her with her mother’s funeral arrangements.

Looking back now, Kayley had to admit that she didn’t know what she would have done without her godmother’s help.

She laughed softly to herself as she pulled into the medical building’s parking lot. Aunt Maizie was more like a fairy godmother than just a run-of-the-mill godmother, Kayley thought. Not only had she helped to get her through what had to be the worst point in her life, but just last night, Aunt Maizie had called her to say that she thought she had found a possible position for her. She had a friend who knew a surgeon reestablishing his practice and he needed—wait for it, she mused with a smile—a physician’s assistant.

Maybe life was taking a turn for the better after all, Kayley thought, pulling her car into the first space she found.

It was a tight fit, requiring her to pay close attention to both sides of her vehicle as she pulled into the spot. Getting out of the car, she found she had to inch her way out slowly in order to keep from pushing her car door into the other vehicle.

Being extra careful, she eased her door closed and fervently hoped that the owner of the car next to hers would be gone by the time she was finished with her job interview.

She moved away from her door, backed out gingerly, then turned to make her way to the entrance of the two-story medical building.

Which was when she saw it.

There, right in front of her just as she was about to walk to the entrance of the building, was a bright, shiny new penny.

She stared at it for a moment, thinking she was imagining it.

Ever since her mother had died, she’d been on the lookout for pennies, even though she told herself she was being foolish because only a fool would really believe that her late mother would be sending her a sign from heaven.

But there it was, a penny so new that it looked as if it had never been used.

Unable to help herself, Kayley smiled as she stooped down to pick up the coin.

She was also unable to keep herself from wondering, Does this mean I’m going to get the job, Mom? That you somehow arranged all this for me?

Even as the question darted across her mind, she knew it was silly to think like this. Logically, she knew that the departed couldn’t intervene on the behalf of the people they had left behind.

She was letting her loss get to her.

And yet...

And yet here was a penny, right in her path. And now right in the middle of her hand.

Was it an omen, a sign from her mother that this—and everything else—was going to work out well for her?

She really wanted to believe that.

Kayley caught her lower lip between her teeth and looked at the penny again.

“Nothing wrong in thinking of it as a good-luck piece, right?” she murmured under her breath, tucking the coin into her purse.

Lots of people believed in luck. They had lucky socks they wore whenever they played ball, lucky rabbits’ feet tucked away somewhere on their bodies when they took tests.

They believed that luck—and objects representing that luck—simply tipped the scales in their favor.

Nothing wrong with that, Kayley told herself again.

Thinking of the penny in her purse, she squared her shoulders and walked up to the entrance of the medical building.

The electronic doors pulled apart, allowing her to walk in. The entrance, she realized, opened automatically to accommodate people who might have trouble pulling open a heavy door because of conditions that brought them to an orthopedic surgeon in the first place.

Once inside the building, Kayley moved aside, away from the electronic door sensors. She needed to gather herself together in order to focus. She was good at what she did, very good, but she knew that she could still wind up tripping herself up.

You want me to get this job, don’t you, Mom? You brought Aunt Maizie back into my life because you knew I was going to need her to get through this. And then, because you were always worried about me, you had her call me about this job opening.

Suddenly wanting to take another look at the penny, Kayley opened her purse and gazed down at it.

You’re still looking out for me, aren’t you? Kayley silently asked, although, in her heart, she knew the answer to that.

The elevator was just right of the entrance. The elevator doors opened as she walked up to them.

Another good omen? she wondered, trying to convince herself that she was a shoo-in for the job.

The elevator car was empty.

The nerves that usually began to act up each time she had to take on something new—a job interview, an admission exam, anything out of the ordinary—seemed oddly dormant this time.

Kayley smiled to herself. She had a feeling—irrational though it might be—that she wasn’t going to be facing this interview by herself. Even so, she did experience a fleeting sensation of butterflies—large ones—preparing to take flight. And quickly.

“It’s going to be all right,” she promised herself in a low whisper since no one else was in the elevator with her. “Nothing to be afraid of. You’re going to be fine. The job’s yours.”

Just as the doors were about to close again, a tall athletic-looking man with wayward dark blond hair put his hand in.

The doors still closed, then immediately sprang open again, receding back to their corners and allowing him to walk in.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?” he asked, looking straight at her, his head slightly cocked as if he couldn’t decide if he’d overheard something he shouldn’t have.

“Not a word,” Kayley answered brightly.

It was a lie, but she wasn’t about to admit to a perfect stranger—and he really was perfect—that she was giving herself a pep talk. It would have made him think that he was sharing the elevator with a mildly deranged woman.

That was how rumors got started, she thought, smiling at the man.

He didn’t return the smile.