Promise of Forever

by Patt Marr

In the doctors’ lounge, she slipped into a lab coat and looped her stethoscope around her neck. Sitting at the nurses’ station was her favorite nurse, a seasoned Christian who’d witnessed to Beth about the Lord many times before her brother Ry had prayed with her.

  “Well, look who’s back! Couldn’t live without us, huh?” Sandy Beecham teased, her dear face full of welcome.

  “Just doing rounds,” Beth said, claiming a hug. “I’ll be in and out before you know it.”

  “You’ve already admitted patients?”

  “No, it’s my turn to see the patients in my group.”

  “That would be doctors Knedler, Moffitt, Schwabe and Teal?” Sandy asked, reaching for the charts of their patients.

  “The very ones.” Beth looked through the charts to see what she needed to do.

  “Beth!” That voice used to make her heart race.

  Dr. Luke Jordahl, her former attending, smiled down at her as if just seeing her made his day. “I knew you’d be back,” he said, the lines around his hazel eyes crinkling as he smiled. He gave her shoulders a loving squeeze.

  “Well, this is where my patients are,” she answered, moving away from his touch, though once she had loved it.

  “You have patients here already?” That deep, raspy voice used to send butterflies spiraling in her stomach.

  “They’re the patients of my peds group.”

  He looked at the stack of charts. “No problems here.”

  She didn’t doubt his assessment. As her attending, Luke Jordahl had driven her crazy, looking over her shoulder, but she was a better doctor for it. No one had better diagnostic skills than Luke. She’d wondered if she hadn’t fallen for him because he was such a good doctor. And liar.

  “Have you had dinner?” he asked, his eyes scanning her face as if he couldn’t get enough of the sight of her.

  She knew better than to believe that, but this was the perfect opportunity to get their relationship started off on a new track. Since they would run into each other often, they needed new boundaries. Her goal was to be friendly, as a Christian should be. Nothing more. For sure, he needed to stop the flirting and realize he couldn’t play with her heart again.

  “I haven’t eaten,” she said, “and I’m hungry enough to eat hospital meat loaf and instant mashed potatoes.”

  “Hold on to these charts, will you, Sandy?” he said, handing them off.

  Sandy looked over her glasses at him, then lifted one warning brow at Beth.

  Beth nodded. She knew what she was doing.

  On the elevator, she talked about her first day at BMC and tried not to mention Noah more often than she did Vanessa and Mona.

  Luke was still too handsome for his own good, in a shaggy sort of way, especially compared to Noah’s clean-cut good looks. His prematurely gray hair did look great against his tan, though. He had soulful, compassionate eyes that could connect with a child or melt a woman’s heart and make her believe she was the only one in the world.

  They selected their food in the cafeteria and sat down at a table for two in the physicians’ dining area. She wolfed down greasy meat loaf, canned green beans that were barely warm and instant mashed potatoes as if they were good, but she was nervous, thinking about what she wanted to say.

  Luke ate a few bites from his matching dinner before pushing it away. “I missed you, Beth,” he said, his voice raspy and low, his hazel eyes puppy-dog soft.

  Adrenaline charged through her body as if it still mattered what he thought. She blotted her lips with a paper napkin and tried to think of a response that would get their relationship on to the new track.

  “You know what I missed, Luke? I missed this meat loaf. Either it’s wonderful or I ate it so often while I was a resident that I’m completely addicted. Are you going to eat the rest of yours?” She forced herself to look longingly at his cold food.

  A fleeting look of disgust crossed his handsome face, but he pushed his tray over. “There you go. Eat up.”

  That look of disgust was perfect, a very nice first step. “I really shouldn’t,” she said, digging into the meat loaf. “Thanks for sharing,” she said, wiping grease from her mouth.

  “I’d like a chance to share more than a meal with you, Beth,” he said. “While you were gone, I realized how badly I messed up when we were together.”

  The urge to snap off a sarcastic reply was hard to resist. She wished Luke could know what it felt like to love someone dearly, only to discover she wasn’t the only one he claimed to love. When she’d realized he couldn’t be true to one woman if his life depended on it, she’d moved on, though she hadn’t trusted anyone since.

  “You’ll never know how many times I thought about coming to see you in New York,” he said, his eyes roving her face. “I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

  He’d been right about that.

  “When I heard you were back, I let myself hope we could start over. I’ve changed, Beth,” he said earnestly.

  Good for him. He needed to change, but not for her.

  “I see you don’t trust me, but you will. I can wait.”

  She had to give him credit for sustaining the romantic tone while she ate like a pig. She took a drink of her soda, stalling for time. How could she show him Christ’s love, yet quash this proposal of new friendship? Was there any scripture that said she had to give him a chance to let him walk on her heart a second time?

  “You know, I have this rule,” she said, choosing her words carefully while she played with her straw. “A guy gets to break my heart once. Just once.”

  The pain on his face seemed genuine. “I was an idiot.”

  That was something they could agree on.

  “Beth, I didn’t know what I had with you. I’d never been in love. It scared me. What if we just take it slow,” he said, his eyes pleading. “Let me prove how much you mean to me. We were perfect together.”

  It had felt perfect to her at the time. Later, she’d felt perfectly stupid, letting herself fall for an unfaithful man.

  “We made a great team. We can again.”

  A team?

  “I wish you knew how much I love the idea of being with you every day, all the time.”

  Every day? Literally? This was not a man to talk marriage. What did he have in mind?

  Suddenly, she got it. She’d been a little slow, but she definitely understood where Luke was going with this.

  “Every day, all the time?” she echoed, putting a bit of wonder in her voice. “Luke, could it be that you’re thinking of going into private practice?”

  “I might be,” he said lovingly, as if he was proud of her for getting on board and seeing the wonderful future that lay before them. “We would make a great team.”

  She took a deep breath, trying to hold on to her temper. “A great team. I see what you mean. You with your pediatric experience and me with my office at Brennan Medical Clinic. The only problem with that is…”

  He leaned forward, concerned and ready to solve that problem.

  “I already have a team. I have my two nurses and my receptionist. We worked together like clockwork today. I don’t need a partner.”

  He looked genuinely crushed. She knew the feeling. Getting away from him when she moved to New York had given her a chance to heal.

  Either Luke was a first-class actor or her response had actually taken the wind out of his sails. Had he been that sure that she would fall for him again? Was his ego that gigantic, or did he truly care?

  Lord, if I’ve misjudged Luke, let me feel sorry for him or loving or…anything that keeps me from walking away.

  She waited.

  “Dr. Beth Brennan, please report to pediatrics,” the PA announced. It wasn’t a voice from heaven exactly, but Beth smiled and glanced heavenward.

  Just in case You set that up, Lord, thank you.

  Chapter Six

  Noah heard his daughter singing in her bedroom as he slicked the comforter over his bed and added the decorative pillows, tidyi
ng the room just the way Merrilee used to. He turned, knowing Kendi would be at his door in a heartbeat, and she was, her eyes as bright as if she’d been up for hours. Even when she was tiny, she’d started her day singing before her feet hit the floor.

  “Good morning to my dad-dee,” she sang.

  “Good morning to my pud-din’,” he sang back, his voice early-morning husky and so much lower than hers.

  “I’ll fix you break-fast,” she sang.

  “I’ll wash your clothes,” he returned. If anyone heard their peculiar daddy-daughter operetta, they might question his fitness to parent. It was Merrilee who’d started this ritual with Kendi, but he’d continued it because his baby had so obviously wanted her little life to remain the same.

  She waltzed down the hall toward the kitchen, humming away, and he gathered up a load of clothes for the washer. While he started the laundry, Kendi poured cereal from the box he’d put on the kitchen counter last night, along with two cereal bowls. She got the spoons. He poured the milk and juice. She climbed onto the counter stool, and he sat beside her. She took his hand and bowed her head.

  “Thank you, God, for this be-yoo-ti-ful day and for our food. Help Daddy be a good nurse to the kids at work and help me be a good nurse at Harlene’s and a good friend at school. In Jesus’ name, amen!”

  Kendi was the official praying person at their house, and that was her standard morning prayer on school days. He wished he had her sweet, simple faith. Belief in God was a great comfort to those who still thought He cared.

  She spooned her cereal, as always, just as carefully and tidily as she could, wiping her mouth with a napkin in a style her mother would have been proud of. He followed suit just to keep her from getting on his case about manners.

  “Daddy, what color hair does Dr. Beth have?”

  Were they back to that? Last night, she’d interrogated him about his new boss until he’d threatened no bedtime story if she didn’t quit. “Like I told you last night, blond, like you.”

  “Blond is yellow, right?”

  She knew that. To Kendi, anything yellow was the absolute best.

  “Is her hair long?”

  “Nope, kind of short.”

  “Was it curly or straight?”

  He had to think. Describing hair was not his forte. “Straight, I guess, or kind of…fluffy?”

  “Does she wear glasses?”

  “Nope.” Where did Kendi get all these questions?

  “How old is she?”

  He shrugged. If he didn’t answer, maybe she would hop to another topic. She usually did.

  “Is she as old as you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Just guess.”

  Even though Beth had finished college early, so he’d been told, with the years it took to get through med school, residency and her stint in New York, she had to be close to thirty. Since he’d just turned thirty-one, he answered, “Maybe not quite as old as me.”

  “Does she like to read books?”

  “Probably. Doctors have to read a lot of books before they become doctors.”

  “Does she like kids?”

  “She’s a pediatrician, and you know that’s a doctor for kids, so I’m sure she does.”

  “Does she say her prayers at night?”

  Remembering Beth’s talk of faith, he felt confident that she did. “I expect so.”

  “Can she cook macaroni and cheese?”

  Noah stopped eating and looked at his child. That was Kendi’s favorite dish—which he made for her all of the time. “If I can cook it, I suppose she can, at least the kind that comes in a box.”

  “But can she bake, Daddy? I love to bake.”

  A child Kendi’s age wasn’t particularly subtle. His daughter was asking if Beth Brennan had mommy potential. “Harlene lets you bake.”

  “I like to bake at my house. Can Dr. Beth bake?”

  “I don’t know.” It was time Kendi got her mind on something else.

  “Do you like her, Dad?”

  “She brought cookies for my Kendi, so, sure, I like her. Why don’t we eat one of those flower cookies for dessert?”

  “Dessert for breakfast?” she asked incredulously.

  It was a first, but that’s all he could think of to divert her attention. Kendi was always full of questions, but not ones like this. He opened the long box and offered Kendi first choice.

  She handled the cookie flower carefully, nibbling at the edge as if she weren’t quite sure she should be. He bit into his, manlike, expecting her to be appalled.

  And she was. “Daddy, you only get one flower cookie.”

  “Just one and no more?”

  She grinned, recognizing the phrase she used all the time. But then she pointed her finger at him. “Daddy! You changed the subject!”

  He couldn’t catch a break.

  “When I asked you if you like Dr. Beth, I mean like Richie Hoover likes me. You didn’t tell me.”

  “Like I told you yesterday, a man doesn’t ‘like’ his boss, puddin’, not that way.”

  He could almost see the wheels turning in her mind. Once Kendi got an idea in her head, she seldom let it go.

  He supposed he should be grateful that the questions meant Kendi didn’t miss Merrilee as much as she used to, but that didn’t mean he was ready to find her a new mother. Even if he were, it wouldn’t be a woman as far out of his league as Beth Brennan.

  Beth sat at Vanessa’s desk with a phone to her ear, waiting for a lab report. Vanessa or one of the nurses could have made this call, but she had no patients waiting, and the three of them were busy.

  Her stomach growled with hunger, which meant it was nearly time to have lunch with Uncle Al. No doubt he would offer plenty of advice on how she ought to run her office.

  But things had gone well this morning. Mona hadn’t exactly been friendly, but at least she was civil. Maybe she’d realized her anger was misdirected. It wasn’t Beth’s fault that Keith had left abruptly without a proper goodbye. In Beth’s opinion, Keith had treated his faithful nurse quite shabbily.

  With nothing better to do while she waited for the lab report, Beth’s eyes roamed the room. Noah sat at his desk, making a call of his own, checking on a patient’s aftercare. Some women noticed a man’s eyes or his height first thing. For Beth, it was shoulders, and Noah’s were perfect. Wide, but not too wide; strong, but not body-builder muscular. She wondered what he did to work out. His well-toned body didn’t get that way by itself.

  He turned and caught her staring, but she could handle that. She let her eyes drift to the ceiling, the cold-air vent, the drinking fountain. Was he watching?

  Sneak peek. Yes, he was.

  So, maybe he would look away if she pretended to listen to someone speaking on the phone. She leaned forward, listening intently to nothing, a pen in her hand, ready to take notes. He smiled and turned back to his desk.

  She’d just faked a phone conversation! How bad was that?

  What was it about this guy? In a heartbeat she’d traded her integrity for a way to get out of trouble, just like a kid. And this morning, when she’d accidentally brushed against him in the hallway, she’d all but come unglued. That couldn’t keep happening.

  She really should start to see someone…and not just to influence clinic gossip. A woman ought to have some sort of a love life when she was thirty.

  In New York City, there had been a zillion people, but eligible bachelors didn’t frequent the free clinic where she’d worked or the little storefront church where she’d worshipped. She should have gone out more.

  Here in L.A., Noah was the only single guy she’d met, but they had to be out there. She couldn’t keep getting all twittering and stupid around her good-looking nurse.

  Lord, please, may I meet a man of my own…a man to love, to cherish—

  Wedding words! Those were wedding words!

  Lord, I’m not exactly desperate, but I am ready to meet the man of Your choice. When You make it clear he�
�s my guy, I would like to be married. I know women—and men, too—make the mistake of setting the bar too high and miss the partners You intend. Don’t let me miss my guy, Lord.

  A whiff of very pleasant-smelling aftershave made her open her eyes. Noah stood at the counter, a patient chart in his hand, watching her.

  “Are you still on hold?” he said softly, his voice a buttery baritone.

  It didn’t feel like she was on hold. Every cell in her body perked up with him standing this near. But she knew he meant the call, and nodded, admitting the truth.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t mention this,” he said hesitantly, “but you were watching me, right?”

  Oh, for those pre-Christian days when she could have lied her way out of this. “Um-hmm,” she responded reluctantly, gearing herself up to apologize.

  “I don’t want you to think that I mind.”

  What was she missing? Nobody liked being watched. Was he that vain or totally weird?

  “It’s cool with me that you’re…cautious, Beth. A good doc ought to observe the work of her staff before she trusts her patients with them.”

  Talk about a misdiagnosis! She felt entirely stupid. “Thank you, Noah,” she said, clearing her throat, switching into professional mode. “I appreciate your attitude and the fact that you told me. I wish I’d been more subtle with the observation, but you’re right. And I like what I see.”

  Were his eyes laughing at her?

  “Of your work,” she added quickly. “It’s first-rate, tip-top, great…really great.”

  His mouth lifted at one corner in a smile that might be acknowledging her compliment, or, quite possibly, her tendency to babble when nervous. Tip-top? Where had that come from? She should never speak again.

  “If you see things you want done differently,” he said, “just tell me.”

  “And if you see things I’m not covering, I want you to tell me.”

  He put out his hand, ready for a handshake. “Deal?”

  “Deal.” She slipped her hand into his…and wanted to leave it there. She really was pathetic.

  “Your cousin Collin’s office called. He has a new neighbor with a sick child, a five-year-old with an earache. That will be your last patient before lunch.”