by Gina Wilkins
“It took you too long to reach that realization. Because you were so busy taking care of everyone else.”
“Look who’s talking, Dr. Baker. Who’s training to spend the rest of her life taking care of troubled kids?”
“A job,” Madison said with a wave of her hand. “I don’t plan to spend my every waking moment doing it. That was one reason I chose psychiatry over surgery, remember? Better hours.”
Knowing career demands had much less to do with her sister’s choice than the calling of her heart, Meagan didn’t even bother to argue that point. “This is an academic conversation, anyway. Seth and I spent all of an hour together, and that hour was mostly focused on Alice. It’s not as though he asked me out or anything.”
“And if he should?”
Meagan shrugged, trying to hide the little ripple of nerves that coursed through her at the suggestion. “I doubt he will. I’m Alice’s friend, not Seth’s.”
“Mmm.”
She didn’t even ask what her sister meant by that enigmatic murmur. Instead, she glanced toward the chair where Alice was being worked on. “Ouch. That looks like a lot of hair falling.”
Madison shrugged dismissively. “She needed a good cut. She has pretty hair, but you couldn’t even see her face in that mop of curls. Wonder how her dad feels about contact lenses.”
“We’re not getting her contact lenses today.”
Laughing, Madison shook her head. “I’m not sure we could arrange that on such short notice, anyway. Just saying.”
Meagan was relieved that the conversation had drifted away from her dating life—or lack of one. Maybe she privately agreed that it was time for her to get back into the social scene, and had thought about doing so quite a bit during the past few days but that didn’t mean she regarded every single man she met as a viable partner. No matter how intriguing Alice’s father might be.
Seth arrived home just over half an hour before he was scheduled to drive Alice to her party. He was rather proud of himself for concluding his work early enough that he didn’t have to make a mad rush to get her there. He had time to change and have a cold glass of tea before they walked out the door.
“Alice?” he called out as he walked into the kitchen from the garage, dropping his car keys on the counter and setting his brief case on the kitchen table. “I’m home.”
“Hi, Dad,” she called from another room. “Just a sec, I’m almost ready.”
He could hear Waldo barking from out in the backyard. The dog must have heard Seth’s car. Seth decided to spend a little time with the mutt while Alice was at her party. It wouldn’t hurt to get a head start on those obedience lessons, he figured, and he knew the dog would enjoy the extra attention, though Alice had probably played with him all afternoon after her shopping excursion. She sure loved that dopey—
His thoughts drifted off to stunned silence when his daughter walked through the kitchen door.
She made a slow rotation in front of him, her smile self-conscious and satisfied. “How do I look?”
“You look…like a teenager.” His voice sounded a bit husky even to him.
Her smile flashed even brighter, braces gleaming. “Sweet.”
He couldn’t decide at first exactly what was different about her. There seemed to be several changes. Her hair, for example. The wild mop she had always bemoaned but he’d thought impishly cute had been shortened, layered and tamed into softer curls framing her face and just brushing her nape. While still youthful, the new style was a little more sophisticated than before.
She was wearing makeup. Not enough for him to object to—just a touch of glitter on her eyelids and a little clear gloss on her pretty pink mouth.
Her new dress was a halter style, baring her slender shoulders and arms, but still modestly styled. A yellow satin cummerbund with a jaunty bow separated the black surplice top from the flared white skirt with three rows of narrow black ribbon at the hem. Her shoes were black, with lots of straps and low platform bottoms that gave the illusion of heels even though they weren’t too high for her age. All in all, a very pretty and appropriate outfit—for a teenager, he thought again, swallowing hard.
Her smile wavered a little. “Don’t you like it, Dad?”
“You look beautiful,” he told her simply.
She beamed again. “Really?”
“Yes. Uh—you couldn’t find a ruffled pink dress with puffy sleeves and a lace pinafore?”
“Daddy.”
He laughed wryly. “Just teasing, sweetheart. It’s not easy for a dad to admit his little girl is growing up. I guess we’ll have to see about an appointment for those contact lenses you’ve been begging for. We’ll get you some as soon as school’s out for the summer, which will give you plenty of time to get used to them before fall semester starts.”
She almost bounced in pleasure, pushing her glasses up on her nose as if in eagerness to be rid of them. “I was going to remind you about that. Madison said I have pretty brown eyes and it’s a shame to hide them behind glasses.”
“Madison is right.” He opened the fridge and pulled out a canned drink. “So you had a good time on your girls’ outing?”
He’d already talked with her since she’d returned; he’d made her promise she would call as soon as she was home safely. She’d chattered excitedly about the shopping excursion until he’d had to disconnect the call and return to his client.
“I had a great time. Madison is really fun and cool and she knows everything about fashion. And Meagan always makes me laugh with her little comments about stuff. I got my hair cut and then I tried on a lot of dresses and then we had Chinese for lunch—Meagan treated us—and then Madison bought me this bracelet from a little booth out in the center of the mall.”
She showed off a band of small black stones tied with a yellow ribbon to match her dress. “I paid for the dress and shoes and haircut with my debit card, like you told me. And I stayed on the budget you gave me. The dress was on sale! Twenty percent off. Madison says she never pays full price when she can find a sale.”
“Well, that’s—”
“And Meagan said she’ll take me shopping again sometime if I want her to. I said a lot of my clothes are getting too little because I’m getting taller and I’m going to need some new shirts and shorts and stuff for summer.”
“Nina can take you shopping whenever you need to go,” he reminded her, hoping she wasn’t expecting Meagan and Madison to be her personal shoppers now. “I’ll talk to her about giving you more leeway in choosing your own clothes. Or I can take you, though I’ve got to admit I don’t know a lot about what’s in style for girls your age.”
She waved a hand, looking unenthused by either prospect. “Anyway, at lunch we were talking and I said some of my friends think you’re hot, which is, you know, kind of gross, and Madison laughed and said she’d already heard you were cute. And then she looked at Meagan and laughed some more, so I think Meagan told her you’re cute. Which you are, for a dad, I guess.”
Seth had gotten totally lost in that rush of words, but he pulled one phrase out of the babble. Meagan told her you’re cute.
Seriously? He sipped his cold soda thoughtfully, a nice feeling expanding inside his chest. Meagan thought he was…?
Scowling, he set the can on the counter with a thump that made drops of cola spray from the opening. He wiped up the spill with a sponge, berating himself for acting like a teenager, himself.
“I’ll run up and change into jeans, then I’ll drive you to the party,” he said, concentrating on the business at hand. “Don’t forget to take your cell phone in case you need to reach me for any reason before I’m supposed to pick you up.”
She rolled her eyes a little—the long-suffering teen expression more marked now that he could see her face better. “I’ll be fine, Daddy. We’ll have plenty of chaperones.”
He trusted in that. He sent his daughter to a highly-respected private school with strict rules of behavior and an outstanding academic reco
rd. The administrators approved parties and social activities for the students, but they were well supervised. Uniforms were required for classes. The dress code for parties was more lenient, but attendees were still expected to dress tastefully whether for one of the casual jeans-and-tees events or a dressier affair like tonight’s.
He was doing his best to make sure his daughter made it safely through these risky years, he thought wryly on his way to his bedroom. Which didn’t guarantee, of course, that she wouldn’t go wild or get into the wrong crowd or all those other possibilities that would keep him awake nights if he dwelled on them.
He was relieved that Meagan and her sister had helped Alice choose an appropriate outfit. Not that he’d worried too much that they wouldn’t. Judging from Nina’s initial assessment and his own impressions of Meagan so far, she was rather conservative, herself, and could be trusted to serve as a good role model for Alice. At least, he hoped he was right about that.
And she thought he was—
He sighed heavily.
Apparently, it had been much too long since he’d been with a woman.
Meagan felt a bit self-conscious entering the school auditorium Tuesday evening. She figured most parents and students at the private academy knew each other, and would probably wonder about this stranger who had wandered in to attend the junior high choir concert. The turnout was certainly good. She had arrived almost twenty minutes before the program was to begin and the parking lot was already almost full.
Accepting a program printed on a folded sheet of red paper, she entered the auditorium. Rows of fold-down wooden seats arranged on a sloping concrete floor faced an elevated stage draped in black and burgundy velvet. Most of the seats were filled. The noise level was quite high, with people talking and laughing, children chattering, a few toddlers shrieking, almost drowning out the generic recorded music playing from surrounding speakers. She was glad she’d decided not to dress too formally; her green knit top and casual khaki pants fit in very nicely with the other attendees.
She had deliberated for quite a while before she’d decided to attend this event. Alice had mentioned at lunch Saturday that she would be singing in a choir concert this evening. She’d said she would have to wear her required choir dress but she would wear her new shoes with it. Rather wistfully, she had added that her father wouldn’t be able to attend this end-of-the-year concert.
“He’s only missed a couple of my school programs before,” she said quickly, in case Meagan or Madison formed a poor opinion of her beloved father. “He hates having to miss them, but he said he’ll be in a big meeting in Hot Springs Tuesday and he doesn’t think he’ll be back in time for the concert. They always start at six because the teachers want to get home early. Sometimes my grandparents from Heber Springs come to my concerts and things, but they can’t come this time. But Nina’s going to be there. She said she loves to hear me sing.”
Meagan had told herself there was no need for her to attend the concert. Alice would probably be perfectly happy with Nina there to appreciate her performance; she seemed very fond of the housekeeper who’d been employed by Seth for several years. Would it really mean much to the girl to have her neighbor—a woman she’d known for only a week—applauding in the audience?
But somehow Meagan had found herself in her car that evening, headed for the school. As hard as Alice had tried to hide it, she was obviously disappointed that her dad wouldn’t be there. Meagan doubted that she made a suitable replacement, but maybe Alice would appreciate having another friend in the audience, anyway. Besides, it was another excuse to get out of the house for an evening. And how bored was she getting that a junior high choir concert sounded more interesting than another night of reading and TV?
She really needed to get back to work soon.
Thinking she might sit with the housekeeper during the concert, Meagan had looked for Nina when she’d arrived, but couldn’t find her in the crowd. She assumed Nina had taken a seat close to the front.
Because she hadn’t wanted to wander up and down the aisles searching for Nina, she chose a seat closer to the door instead. She thought she’d be able to see well from there, though a child a few rows ahead of her kept standing up in his seat. Other than the empty seat next to her, the section was full. People around her laughed and talked and waved at acquaintances across the auditorium. Feeling a bit like an imposter among all the friends and family members waiting for the concert to begin, Meagan smiled and nodded to the older woman sitting beside her, who murmured a greeting in return then turned away to chat with her companions.
“Excuse me, ma’am, is this seat taken?”
In response to the polite question only minutes before the concert was to begin, she glanced up automatically from the program she’d been studying to assure the speaker that the seat was free. The words died when she saw who stood in the aisle, smiling down at her.
Seth’s hair was a little tousled, she noticed, and he looked just a bit disheveled, as if he’d rushed to get there. He wore a beautifully tailored gray suit, more formal than most of the more casually garbed audience, but he’d loosened the blue-and-silver tie at the collar.
Definitely cute, she thought, remembering the teasing conversation with her sister. And when he took her up on her gestured invitation and dropped into the seat beside her, he was close enough that their arms brushed when he shifted his weight.
The concert had just gotten even more interesting.
Chapter Three
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Meagan and Seth said at almost exactly the same time.
They laughed, then she said, “Alice said you had to work late tonight.”
“I was able to get away a little earlier than I expected. I might have driven a little too fast to make it here on time. I saw you when I walked in just now and I had to look twice to make sure it really was you.”
“Alice told me about the concert during our outing Saturday. She invited me to come and it sounded like fun.”
“You must be getting cabin fever if this sounded like fun.”
The unwitting repetition of her own earlier thoughts made her laugh again. “You could be right.”
He wasn’t smiling now. “Or maybe you were being nice. You didn’t think I’d be here, so you wanted to make sure Alice had more than our housekeeper supporting her in the audience.”
She didn’t want him to think Alice had said anything at all critical of him, or had deliberately played on Meagan’s sympathies. “Alice made it very clear you wanted to be here, Seth. She said you almost never miss any of her programs or performances. I didn’t come because I felt sorry for her or anything like that.”
His lips quirked a little, as though he were almost amused by her reassurances. “I appreciate that. I can’t help feeling guilty when work threatens to interfere with Alice’s plans.”
“I’m sure every working parent, married or single, struggles with that guilt.” Which was why she wasn’t entirely sure she should ever take on that responsibility, she mused as the overhead lights blinked to notify the noisy audience that the program was about to begin. Had she been back at work, it would have been very difficult for her to attend a six o’clock school program—not without reshuffling her usual work schedule, anyway.
The velvet curtains parted on stage and an expectant hush fell over the audience—except for one toddler who wanted to “go pee pee right now!” A few giggles broke out in response to the vocal demand, but most eyes were focused on the stage when the performers filed out from the wings to encouraging applause. The boys wore white shirts, black pants and black vests, and the girls were in long black dresses with three-quarter sleeves and white satin waist sashes. They all looked very much alike, Meagan thought with a frown, but then she smiled when she saw Alice on the second row.
Squirming a little in the not-particularly-comfortable auditorium seat, Seth propped his elbow on the wooden armrest between them just as Meagan leaned a bit that way. Their shoulders bumped
, hands brushing on the armrest. Both straightened quickly, murmuring apologies and looking intently toward the stage. Meagan moistened her lips, a little shaken by that momentary contact. It had been a long time since a man’s fleeting touch had made her pulse rate trip. She had to admit it was a nice feeling—even though she wasn’t at all sure she should be reacting that way to this particular man. Didn’t she have enough complications in her busy life?
She focused intently on the reason she was there, rather than the imagined warmth emanating from the man sitting so close to her. It was an interesting concert. The choir performed a mix of classical pieces, oldies and more recent pop numbers—whatever the director had been able to afford to license for performance, Meagan figured in amusement. The kids were pretty good overall, though occasionally a note escaped that should not have been made by human vocal cords. The doting parents and grandparents in attendance didn’t seem to mind; they clapped as enthusiastically for the bad notes as the good.
“Alice has a very pretty voice,” she commented to Seth after one of the numbers. Alice had sung a couple of solo lines, and though nerves shook her voice a little, she still had a very nice tone.
“She got that from her mother,” Seth admitted ruefully. “I can’t sing a lick.”
Meagan spent the time during the next number wondering how Seth felt about his ex-wife. She’d heard little animosity in his voice on the few occasions he’d spoken of her. Had the split been amicable or was he hiding bitterness for his daughter’s sake? Had his heart been broken or hardened or relatively unscathed? Did he still love his wife? Had he ever, really?
Realizing she was indulging in idle speculation—a game of solitaire gossip—she told herself those questions were absolutely none of her business. She concentrated intently on the remainder of the concert, making a rather futile effort to keep her attention from wandering…elsewhere.
“To Alice. The star of the Pulaski Preparatory Academy junior high choir.” Seth lifted his plastic tumbler of fountain soda as he made the teasing toast a half hour after the concert’s end.