by Gina Wilkins
And then she wondered in exasperation why she should care in the least that Seth might find another woman attractive. Or that Alice just might bond with another woman. Nina was the one being replaced, not herself. Her own role in Seth and Alice’s life was fleeting, at best, she thought, trying to ignore the hollow feeling that thought left in the pit of her stomach.
Because of an unexpected cancelation, Seth got away from the office a little earlier than usual Thursday. He drove away from the parking lot in a good mood, thinking of the extra time he’d have to spend with his daughter.
The days were growing longer as May wound to a close, and the neighborhood was active on this warm afternoon. The drone of lawnmowers underlay the scents of fresh-cut grass and charcoal grills. His neighbors were taking full advantage of the nice weather in preparation for the rain predicted for the weekend, he thought with a smile. He should get outside and play with Alice and Waldo for a while this afternoon.
Alice and Waldo were already outside, he realized, spotting them in Meagan’s front yard as he drove down his street. Meagan stood nearby, watching and applauding while Alice walked Waldo up and down the driveway on his leash. They were all smiling and looked like they were having a great time—even the dog. Alice had worked with Waldo every day since he’d started obedience training, walking him on the leash, firmly repeating commands, rewarding him with praise and pats, as she’d been instructed to do. Her efforts were beginning to pay off.
On an impulse, Seth parked at the curb and climbed out of his car. “Hello, ladies. And Waldo.”
Alice whirled with a flash of braces. “Hi, Dad! You’re early. Cool. Did you see me walking Waldo? He’s doing great.”
Seth moved to stand beside Meagan, exchanging smiles of greeting with her. “Let’s see it again.”
Waldo strained at the leash, trying his best to bound over to greet Seth with barks and licks. Her feet firmly planted to keep the dog from toppling her over, Alice tugged on the leash to get his attention. “Come on, Waldo. Heel.”
It took a couple of repeated commands but he cooperated eventually, dutifully walking at her left side and sitting whenever she stopped walking as he was being trained to do in obedience classes. After she’d walked him up and down the driveway a few times, Alice ordered Waldo to sit, then dropped her end of the leash, repeating the word “stay” as she backed away from him. The dog whined and twitched a little, but stayed where she’d left him until she told him to “break.” The moment he heard the word, he bounded from his spot and dashed toward Seth.
Seth caught the dog in midleap, saving his face from being swiped by an eager, wet tongue. “Down, Waldo. Good boy.”
Alice caught the trailing leash to keep her pet from running toward the road. “He’s doing a lot better, isn’t he, Dad?”
“Much better.” He glanced again at Meagan. “Maybe I won’t have to send him to doggie military school, after all.”
“Daddy.”
Still looking at Meagan, he asked, “Did you roll your eyes that way when you were her age?”
“Every teenage girl has that mastered,” Meagan replied lightly.
“Must be in the genes.”
She laughed. “I suppose it is.”
“Did Nina leave the hospital today, Dad?”
He turned to Alice and nodded. “She did. I went by to see her on my lunch break, while Lisa was helping her get ready to go. Nina said to tell you she’d send you a computer message as soon as she’s settled into her daughter’s house.”
Alice nodded, her smile gone now. Seth had taken her to say her own goodbyes the night before, and it had been a difficult visit for all of them. Nina had been so much a part of their family.
Meagan spoke brightly. “I have salsa chicken in the oven for dinner. It should be ready in about…” She checked her watch. “…ten minutes. I’d love it if you both could join me.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d cooked dinner for them that week. Seth had assured her he could manage to feed himself and Alice, but she’d argued that she didn’t mind. It gave her something to do with herself during this last week of her sick leave.
Alice’s expression brightened, which made Seth even more grateful for Meagan’s well-timed invitation. “We’d love to, wouldn’t we, Dad?”
“You don’t have to twist my arm. We appreciate the offer, Meagan—even though you didn’t have to go to all this trouble for us.”
She shrugged. “I have to eat, anyway. And this recipe makes too much for one, so I only get to have it myself when I’m cooking for company.”
“I’ll take Waldo home and then I’ll be right back, okay?” Alice said, tugging at her dog’s leash again.
“Make sure the gate locks behind you so he doesn’t get out,” Seth warned automatically.
With another roll of her eyes, Alice muttered, “I will, Dad.”
Seth met Meagan’s gaze and both of them sputtered a laugh as Alice led her dog away.
Meagan led Seth into the house. She invited him to sit in the living room and relax while she finished in the kitchen, but he chose to give her a hand instead, figuring that was the least he could do. Accepting his offer, she had him set the table while she completed the meal preparation.
Meagan opened the oven door and carefully removed a bubbling casserole dish, filling the kitchen with a savory scent. She carried the dish to the table, setting it on a decorative trivet.
“Wow, that smells good.” He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the aroma of her casserole surrounded him.
“It’s my mom’s recipe. One of my favorite dishes. I figured you and Alice like Mexican food since you were having enchiladas the first time I joined you for dinner.”
“We like just about any kind of food,” he said with a shrug, then glanced at the table again. “I can tell we’re going to enjoy this.”
“I hope so.” She set a salad bowl filled with chopped tomatoes, red onions and cilantro on the table. “I don’t cook often, but I like making something from scratch on occasion.”
“I cook on weekends, but usually it’s just simple stuff. Spaghetti, burgers, steaks, fish. I make a pretty mean chocolate pie, though. Nina taught me when we learned that Alice was moving in with me. Alice loves chocolate pie.”
Pouring iced tea into glasses, Meagan looked over her shoulder at him. “Do you make meringue?”
“Of course. I pile it high—at least four inches.”
“I can never make a decent meringue. Mine always weeps.”
“Got to make sure your pie filling is hot and that you have a good seal with the meringue around the edges. Nina takes special pride in her meringue and she made me practice until I got pretty close to hers. I’ll have to make a pie for you sometime.”
Setting the tea glasses on the table, she smiled at him. “I’d like that.”
Their gazes met and held for a long moment. Seth found himself indulging in a random fantasy about feeding bites of pie to Meagan—followed by a few lingering, chocolate-flavored kisses. He hadn’t had a chance to kiss her since they’d parted the night after the charity gala, though he’d certainly thought of doing so again since. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet when Alice burst into the room, already prattling a mile a minute.
Clearing his throat, he took his seat at the table, trying to rein in his ill-timed, overheated imagination.
Alice was in rare form as they began to eat, chattering nonstop about school, about swim team, about Waldo and about her friends. Meagan was in a good mood, too, making several humorous comments that had them all laughing. His tie and coat abandoned, collar unbuttoned and sleeves rolled back, Seth felt the stress of the workday seep slowly out of him during the leisurely meal.
He decided he could sit there for several hours just watching Alice and Meagan chatting and eating. A passing mention on Meagan’s part about returning to work on Monday reminded him how unlikely it was that there would be many more meals like this one once her leave was over and he had a new
housekeeper to cook for him and Alice.
“You’ll be at work all day Monday, Meagan?” Alice asked, her thoughts seeming to take a similar path to Seth’s.
Dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a colorful linen napkin, Meagan nodded. “Yes. I’ll be seeing patients in the morning and I have a couple of meetings to attend Monday afternoon. I won’t be back at my full schedule until later in the week, but it will feel good to be back at work. I’ve missed my coworkers and my patients.”
“Will you operate on anyone Monday?”
“I don’t expect to. I’ll be back in the O.R. Tuesday.”
“You really cut people open and take stuff out of them?”
Meagan exchanged an amused glance with Seth in response to Alice’s slightly appalled expression. “Yes, I do, when it’s necessary for their health.”
“Have you ever passed out? Because even though I think surgery would be really interesting, I’m afraid I’d pass out if I had to cut someone open and see all the blood and guts and everything.”
Seth grimaced around a bite of salsa chicken. “Alice.”
Meagan only smiled in understanding. “I’ve never passed out, but I have to admit the first operations I observed back in medical school were a little difficult. You get used to it, though.”
“I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do. Since Mom and Dad are both lawyers, some people assume I’ll do that, but I’m not so sure. I think orthodontia is sort of interesting.”
Meagan’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Orthodontia?”
Knowing he was about to be in trouble, Seth grinned mischievously. “I think Alice has a crush on her orthodontist. According to the way she described him to her best friend, Jessica, Dr. Samuel is hot.”
“Daddy!”
The outraged exclamation—accompanied by a classic eye roll—was exactly what he’d expected in response to his teasing. He laughed unrepentantly.
Meagan leaned a little closer to his red-cheeked daughter, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial just-us-girls tone. “Is he really cute?”
Alice sighed, then frantically fanned her face in illustration. “Totally.”
“Maybe I should take you to one of your appointments sometime,” Meagan quipped.
Seth felt his smile fade. “And maybe I should start looking for an older and uglier orthodontist for my impressionable daughter.”
“Daddy.” But Alice giggled this time, sharing a look with Meagan, and Seth tried to ignore the feeling that had come uncomfortably close to unwarranted jealousy at the thought of Meagan checking out Alice’s orthodontist.
The conversation wound around eventually to the search for a new housekeeper.
“I talked to the last applicant this morning,” Meagan reported. “Theresa Washington. I’ve added her name to the top three or four I think you should look at more closely. I’ll give you the envelope with all the applications and the names of my top suggestions before you leave this evening.”
Seth nodded. “I’ll call tomorrow and start setting up interviews for this weekend. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help with this.”
Before she could respond, Alice spoke up, a frown on her face now. “I’ve already told you who you should hire, Dad. Jacqui Handy. She’s the one I want.”
They’d had this discussion the evening before when Alice hadn’t been able to stop talking about the applicant she had met at Meagan’s house that afternoon. He’d told her then—numerous times—that while he would keep her opinions in mind, he still intended to interview several people and choose the one he thought would be best for the job. He could see now that she was still determined to convince him to hire Jacqui.
“Meagan thinks she’s the best, too, don’t you, Meagan?”
Meagan corrected Alice hurriedly. “I’ve told you, it’s up to your father who to hire. I agree that he should meet Jacqui, but there were others I think are equally well suited to the position.”
“I will definitely want to interview several.” He looked at Alice as he spoke. As important as her opinion was to him, he wasn’t leaving the hiring of a housekeeper/nanny in the hands of his thirteen-year-old daughter. “We discussed this last night.”
She pouted. “You can talk to them, but you’d be wasting your time. Jacqui’s the best one.”
“Mrs. Keppler was very nice, too, Alice,” Meagan assured her. “I liked her very much.”
Alice groaned. “Too old.”
“You didn’t even meet her.”
“You told me about her. You said she has grandkids my age.”
“I thought that would be a plus. It means she has experience with teenagers. Maybe you could meet them sometime and make friends with them.”
“I have friends at school. I’d rather have someone younger to hang out with at home. Someone who’d take me shopping and wouldn’t try to get me to buy ruffly pink dresses.”
Catching the not-so-subtle shot aimed directly at him, Seth grimaced a little but kept his attention on Meagan. “Just how young is this candidate Alice likes so much? Alice hasn’t directly answered that question when I’ve asked.”
“In her late twenties. But she seems older—you’d have to meet her to quite understand.”
Late twenties? Even younger than he’d guessed. Seth studied Meagan skeptically across the table. “I was actually thinking of hiring someone older.”
She nodded. “I know. I was hesitant about her age at first, too. But, I think you should give her a chance. She’s…interesting.”
“Her age doesn’t even matter all that much. I liked her,” Alice insisted, her tone uncharacteristically stubborn. “And I’m the one who’d have to spend the most time with her, after all.”
“And I’m the one who will be paying her,” Seth responded firmly. “I’m the one who’d be trusting my daughter and my home to her care. I’ll interview her, but if I decide one of the other applicants is more qualified, you’ll just have to accept my choice. I’m sure all the top applicants are nice people. I doubt Meagan would recommend someone she thought you wouldn’t like.”
“Of course not,” Meagan confirmed quickly. “The two other women who top my list of recommendations are both very nice. Marilyn Keppler has a great sense of humor and a smile you can’t help but respond to. Theresa Washington is a little quiet, but I got the impression that she’s very capable and organized, both traits that were mentioned repeatedly in her reference letters.”
“But you’ll talk to Jacqui, Dad?” Alice repeated, still looking prepared to mutiny. “You’ll give her a fair chance?”
“I said I would, and I will,” he promised again, hoping this wouldn’t be a major problem. Alice had never caused him any real trouble, but she was just becoming a teenager, after all. According to those warnings he’d received from more experienced parents, he was going to have to brace himself for cold shoulders, slammed doors and it’s-not-fairs. All things he’d never expected from his sweet-natured daughter, but one never knew what would happen when hormones took over, apparently.
“I have some fresh sliced strawberries and angel food cake for a light dessert,” Meagan said, smoothly directing the conversation away from the potential quarrel. “Who wants some?”
“Sounds good to me.” Seth directed a look at Alice, who sighed lightly and nodded, accepting that the argument was over. For now.
They didn’t stay long after dessert. Saying she would feed and then play with Waldo, Alice dashed ahead toward home while Seth paused a moment to speak with Meagan at her door. “Thanks for feeding us again. Dinner was delicious.”
She smiled up at him. “You’re welcome. I enjoyed the company.”
“I owe you a few meals now—not to mention all you’ve done to help me in the housekeeper search.” He made a vague motion with the manila envelope filled with applications from all the women she had screened for him.
“It really wasn’t that difficult. I just chatted with a few women. The most suitable choices were fairly obvio
us.”
“You keep saying the top three are equal choices in your opinion. You’re sure you don’t have a personal favorite?”
She gave a little shrug and a wry smile. “I don’t want to influence your decision that much,” she admitted.
“This Jacqui that Alice likes so much—you said you put her in your top three?”
“I did. I think you’ll understand why once you meet her. I’m not saying she’s a better choice than the other two—but I do think she’s equally qualified.”
He smiled. “You sounded more like a lawyer than a doctor just then.”
“Heaven forbid.”
Chuckling, he tucked the envelope beneath his arm. “I was just thinking—since Alice is going to be at her grandparents’ house this weekend…”
Meagan lifted an eyebrow, and he finished hastily, “Maybe I could take you out for a nice dinner Saturday evening?”
She took a moment to think about it—mentally reviewing her calendar? Trying to figure out a way to politely decline?—and then she nodded. “That sounds nice.”
He smiled, wondering if there was ever an age when a guy didn’t get a little nervous about asking out an attractive woman. “Great. It’s the least I can do after all you’ve done for me.”
A little frown appeared between her eyebrows and he spoke quickly again, not wanting her to think he was asking her out only because he felt like he owed her. “I mean, I’ll enjoy having dinner with someone, since Alice will be out of town and I…uh.”
No. He winced. That wasn’t a bit better.
Meagan laughed softly. “You lawyers have such an eloquent way with words.”
He smiled ruefully, knowing she’d just gotten him back for the crack he’d made to her. “Touché.”
“Good night, Seth. Tell Alice I’ll see her tomorrow.”
He looked at Meagan’s mouth, wanting nothing more at that moment than to kiss her smiling lips. But because he wasn’t entirely sure Alice wasn’t looking back at them, wondering what was keeping him so long, he restrained himself to a fleeting touch against Meagan’s soft cheek. “Good night.”