Circle of Friends Complete Collection

by Susan Mallery

  But in the meantime, avoiding him was just plain dumb.

  That decided, she picked up the phone and called his office.

  “Hi,” she said, when the receptionist answered. “I’m Crissy Phillips, a friend of Josh’s. Ah, Dr. Daniels. I wondered what his schedule looked like. If he was available for lunch.”

  “Oh, it’s you!” the woman squealed. “I can’t believe you’re calling. We couldn’t believe it when Dr. Josh told us he was dating. Finally. This is so exciting. You have to come by. I don’t know if he’ll have time for a long lunch, but he’ll have a few minutes.”

  He talked about her? To his staff? She wasn’t sure what to make of that, but decided it had to be a good thing. He wasn’t exactly the kind of guy to share everything about his personal life. Which meant she was significant. At least that was going to be her interpretation of things.

  “That sounds good,” she said. “I’ll come on over.”

  “I’m so glad. He really needs to see you. It’s been a tough morning for him.”

  Which meant something had happened with one of his kids, she thought sadly.

  “Thanks for telling me,” she said. “Give me twenty minutes.”

  She parked across from the door to his offices and walked inside. The first thing she noticed was the bright colors of the walls. They were an ocean-blue—a fitting color considering the entire waiting-area walls were an underwater mural. There were fish and turtles and bits of seaweed. A diver lurked in a corner while four sharks played an intense game of volleyball by the window.

  The overall effect was one of light and color. It was a cheerful, happy space, something his patients and their parents would appreciate.

  The waiting room was empty. Crissy walked to the reception window where a young woman in a puppy-covered smock grinned at her.

  “Ohmygod! You’re Crissy, aren’t you? I’m Natalie. I’m so excited to finally meet you.”

  Natalie turned and called out, “She’s here, guys. Come meet her.”

  Three other woman clustered around the window. They introduced themselves so quickly, Crissy couldn’t put names with faces.

  “I go to your gym,” one of them said. “The one across from the mall. I love it so much. No guys, which is the best. I work with a trainer and I’ve lost twenty pounds in just over two months. I’m trying to drag these slackers with me to one of the classes, but they’re too lazy.”

  Natalie pulled a cookie out of her desk and waved it around. “Hey, I like my lifestyle just as it is. You’re healthy enough for all of us.”

  “If you change your mind, we offer a free one-week membership,” Crissy said. “You’d be welcome.”

  “Maybe.” But Natalie looked doubtful. “Okay, we’ll tell Dr. Josh you’re here. It should just be a second.”

  Crissy took a seat, noting how a lot of the chairs were lower to the ground, probably so they would be more comfortable for the kids. There were plenty of toys lying around and a TV with a stack of DVDs next to it. She reached for a magazine and began flipping through it.

  The front door opened and a little girl walked in with her mother behind her. The child was maybe five or six and she wore a hat.

  Natalie leaned out the reception window and grinned. “Why Heather Wilson, is that you? I swear you’ve grown an inch since you were last in here. Are you growing? Does your mother know about this?”

  Heather giggled, then pulled off her hat. “Look!” she said proudly.

  Short, blond curls covered her head. Natalie clapped her hands. “You have hair. Come see, everyone. Heather has hair!”

  The office staff spilled into the waiting area and cooed over the little girl. While that was going on, the mother took a seat across from Crissy’s.

  “She’s doing so well,” the woman said with a relieved and happy smile.

  “I can see that. She’s beautiful.”

  The mother nodded. “We’d hoped, of course, for a miracle. But everyone told us it wasn’t possible. That with her kind of cancer...” She swallowed. “I nearly lost hope. Then someone told us about Dr. Josh. He said there was a chance and he was right. The long nights in the hospital were a nightmare. But he was always there. It could be four in the morning and he’d just pop in to check on us. I’ve never known anyone like him.”

  She paused. “I guess I’m trying to tell you that if anyone can save your child, he can. Don’t give up hope.”

  “Oh,” Crissy said, not sure how to deal with the misunderstanding. “I’m, ah, not... I don’t have a child here.”

  “She’s his girlfriend,” Natalie offered helpfully.

  The mother laughed. “Really? That’s great. He’s been single far too long. We were all thinking he’d given up on love altogether. I’m glad he found someone.”

  Crissy smiled, even as she wondered if everyone on the planet had to know about her personal life.

  “He’s so caring and giving,” the other woman continued. “Sometimes I think he’s too good to be real.”

  Crissy knew for a fact that Josh was totally human. She’d seen him naked. But she understood the point being made. That he was one of the good guys.

  A rush of longing filled her. Longing that they could work things out and that he could be the one. She cared about him more than she’d ever cared about another man. He was loving and compassionate, smart and funny. He could make her bones melt with just a smile. Wasn’t that worth fighting for?

  Little Heather came over and beamed. “I love Dr. Josh. He gives the bestest hugs. He always told me the truth. When it was gonna hurt, he didn’t pretend it wasn’t.” She leaned forward. “I hate it when they tell me it’s not gonna hurt and it does.”

  “I’m with you on that,” Crissy told her.

  Natalie leaned out of the reception window. “Okay, Crissy. You can come back now.”

  “Take your time,” Heather’s mother told her with a knowing smile. “We can wait.”

  Crissy had no idea what to say to that, so she just waved and followed Natalie to a large corner office. Here the colors were more subdued, but the space was still bright and open. Instead of the usual degrees hanging on the wall, there were posters of animals, including horses, penguins and a family of meerkats.

  Seconds after she’d been ushered inside, the door opened again and Josh joined her.

  “I’d heard you were in the building,” he said as he crossed to her and took her hand in his.

  “Just me and Elvis,” she teased. “I was heading this way and I thought I’d stop by. How are you?”

  As she asked the question, she stared into his eyes and saw the shadows there.

  “Never mind,” she told him. “I can see for myself that something bad happened.”

  “A patient,” he said sadly. “He was barely two. That’s wrong on so many levels. I never know what to say to the parents. How do you say you’re sorry for that?”

  “You did everything you could,” she said, knowing it was true.

  He squeezed her hand tighter. “I need to do more. I need to be able to save all of them and I don’t know how. I have equipment so complicated it would take a year to teach you how to use it. I can study cells and make predictions. I have access to cutting-edge medicine. But it’s all crap. In the end, I can’t save them all.”

  Her heart ached for him. “No one expects you to.”

  “Matt’s mother did. She sat in this office with hope in her eyes and asked for a miracle. I didn’t have one for her. She’s a single mother. Was a single mother. She was barely making it but she put all her hopes and dreams into that little boy. And last night those dreams ended.”

  Crissy’s eyes filled with tears. “You’re not superhuman. You’re just a man.”

  “A useless one,” he said, his voice thick with pain. “I was with them at t
he end. We both held him and then he was gone.” He glanced at the wall. “He liked the meerkats best.”

  His pain filled the room and made it hard for her to breathe. How could he keep going through this time after time? How was there anything left? What price did he pay for caring so much? Did each child he lost take him back to Stacey’s death? After being in so much darkness, could there be any light at all?

  He released her hand and stepped back. “I know why you’ve been avoiding me,” he said flatly.

  She started to protest that she hadn’t been, then decided to spare them both the lie.

  “I’m too intense,” he said. “The past five minutes would be a perfect illustration of that. I’m scaring you off and I don’t blame you for wanting to run.”

  Did he really think that? Did he worry about losing her or did he want her gone?

  “I don’t have any plans to run,” she said quietly. “Unless you want me to.”

  “What? No. Crissy, sometimes my job is the best one on the planet and sometimes it’s the seventh level of hell. I can’t disconnect from what I do. It makes me want to crawl inside myself and never care again. But I do care, about the kids, about you. I can’t stop thinking about you and I’ve tried. You haunt me.”

  She liked the sound of that. It gave her hope.

  She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth. “I’m haunting you in a good way, right? Not a scary, icky zombie way.”

  He smiled. “No zombies, I promise.”

  Her chest tightened. She wasn’t ready to tell him about the baby, but she didn’t want to give up, either.

  “I can handle what you do,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t want to drag you down,” he told her. “It’s not a good place to be.”

  “Maybe you should spend less time there.”

  “That happens when I’m with you.”

  “Good. So I was thinking of getting some fabulous takeout tonight. Want to join me?”

  He kissed her slowly, thoroughly, claiming her with a passion that took her breath away. He used his mouth and his tongue until she was ready to get naked right there in front of the meerkats.

  “About seven?” he asked as he pulled back.

  “What? Oh, tonight. Yeah. Seven works.”

  He grinned. “You’re looking a little wild-eyed.”

  “That would be your fault.”

  He pulled up the front of his white coat, grabbed her hand, then pressed it to his groin. He was hard, which made her want to whimper.

  “You have something to answer for, too.”

  “Then you’ll have to punish me later,” she whispered, teasingly.

  “You can count on it.”

  * * *

  JOSH ARRIVED AT Crissy’s house a few minutes early. The need to see her was strong. Being around her made his life better and right now he could use a little of that.

  She opened the door before he could knock and waved him in.

  “I got Chinese,” she said by way of greeting. “A very traditional, but well-loved form of takeout. I thought I should ease you in to some of the weird stuff I eat.”

  “Like?”

  She grinned. “Oh, honey, you don’t want to know.”

  “I’m tough.”

  “No guy is that tough.”

  They stood in the foyer. She motioned to the living room. “Do you remember my place or should I give you a tour?”

  Now it was his turn to grin. “I remember everything about being here.”

  It had been the night of the party for Hope. When he’d followed Crissy home to see how she’d coped with meeting Brandon for the first time. He’d stopped by to offer comfort, but he’d ended up being the one transformed.

  A black and white cat strolled past them. Crissy bent down and scooped him up.

  “I don’t believe you two met formally before,” she said. “This is King Edward. He has a great sense of humor, which is unusual in a cat.”

  The cat was large and hairy, with big green eyes. Josh wasn’t much of a cat person, but he reached out to pat the animal.

  “Hey, Eddie,” he said.

  Both Crissy and the cat stiffened.

  “He doesn’t like to be called that,” she whispered. “We use his full name at all times.”

  “Okay. King Edward it is.”

  Eddie sniffed his fingers, then raised his chin slightly as if saying he could be scratched now. Josh obliged him.

  “He likes you,” Crissy said as she put the cat down. “That’s unusual.”

  “I’m a likable guy.”

  “I keep hearing that from other sources. Your staff was very excited to meet me.”

  He remembered their questions after Crissy had left and how they’d all adored her. “I don’t get out much.”

  “Apparently. I thought they were going to offer me money to keep seeing you.”

  “Would you take it?”

  “I’m thinking of expanding again soon, so probably. I’ll need the cash for financing.” She linked her arm with his. “Come on. I want to impress you with my ability to ladle food onto plates and heat it in the microwave. It’s an art form not enough people appreciate.”

  He let her lead him into her kitchen, where she settled him on a bar stool by the island.

  “I talked to Abbey this afternoon,” she said as she pulled cartons of Chinese food out of the refrigerator. “Brandon is still doing well, so I guess I can let that worry go. We did talk about how I could maybe spend the day with him. Or at least an afternoon. By myself. Just the two of us.” She bit her lower lip. “The thought terrifies me. What do you think? Can I do it? I mean I know I can, but would I get through two or three hours all right?”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “I hope so.”

  She continued talking, but he wasn’t listening. As he stared at her he realized he wasn’t here for dinner, or even for sex, although he had big plans in that department. He was here because he needed her. Being around her made him feel alive. She was laughter and light and he was tired of living in the dark.

  CHAPTER TEN

  CRISSY PACED THE width of Rachel’s classroom as her friend stacked colored paper.

  “It’s three hours,” Crissy said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. Three hours? It was a lifetime!

  “I thought we’d go to one of the multientertainment venues. It’s not my thing, so I did some research. The one I like best has laser tag, video games, bumper cars, go-karts, miniature golf and boat bumpers.” She paused and grimaced. “I really don’t want to get on a tiny boat in an oversize pool, but if Brandon insists, I’ll suck it up and do it. Anyway, when we’re tired of all the activities, we can get a pizza. Afterward we can stop by some batting cages and get him ready for the season. Assuming he plays baseball. Do you think he does? Or is he more a soccer guy? I never played soccer. I don’t know very much about it.”

  Rachel looked at her and laughed. “Is that all? What about a movie?”

  Crissy hadn’t thought of that. “Do you think there’s time?”

  “No, there isn’t time for a movie, you nut. There isn’t time for half of what you have planned. Come on. We’re talking about three hours. That’s nothing.”

  “So speaks the kindergarten teacher,” Crissy mumbled. “You’re good with kids.”

  “You’ve hung with Brandon before. You’ll be fine.”

  “I haven’t hung out with him at all. We’ve barely spoken. Plus now he knows I’m his birth mother. Before I was just some adult. The stakes are higher now. He’s going to have expectations and I don’t know what they are. What if I let him down? What if he hates me?”

  “Why would he? You’
re great.” She shook her head. “I’m talking to a wall. Do me a favor and collect all the crayons lying around, then sort them into the six containers on the side table. There should be about the same amount in each container.”

  “You’re just giving me busywork to distract me.”

  “Maybe. You’re making yourself crazy for nothing. Look, you pick him up and drive to the game place. There’s fifteen minutes. The same taking him home. So that’s a whole half hour gone. Eating is another twenty minutes. Make that thirty, if you’re ordering a pizza. We’re talking about filling two hours. You have more than enough planned.”

  Crissy knelt on the floor and began picking up crayons. “What if he hates being with me? What if I’m boring or uncool?”

  “You’re a grown-up. You’re uncool by definition.”

  She hated the sound of that. “But I want to be cool.”

  “Sorry. That’s not how it works.”

  Damn. “What do we talk about? I don’t know anything about him. Not really.”

  “So ask,” Rachel said, obviously amused by the entire situation. “Have him tell you about school. What classes he likes and what he doesn’t. Does he want to play sports in high school? Is he into cars? What does he want to study in college, that sort of thing. Argue about baseball teams or football. You’re making this way too hard.”

  “You’re being annoyingly rational.”

  “It’s the friend’s job.”

  Crissy scrambled under a small desk and grabbed three more crayons. “I guess it will be okay. I wonder how long he’ll play each video game. If I knew that I could calculate how much time that would use up.”

  “Stop! Relax. Take a breath.”

  “I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can only panic.”

  * * *

  LATER, AS CRISSY walked to her car, she tried to think positive thoughts, but it was impossible. There were so many ways for her to fail with Brandon. She needed a better plan.