Dr. Forget-Me-Not (Matchmaking Mamas)

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Got it. Okay,” she agreed. “Don’t worry, I’ll stick to him like glue.”

  Polly headed to the linen closet while Melanie made her way back to the dining hall to inform the doctor that he had his private exam room.

  The moment she walked into the hall, April lit up and gravitated to her side as if she were being propelled by a giant magnet.

  Melanie barely had time to pat the little girl’s head before she found herself looking into the doctor’s dark blue, accusing eyes.

  “I thought maybe you decided to clock out.” There was no missing the touch of sarcasm in the man’s voice.

  Theresa wasn’t kidding when she said the man was lacking in bedside manner—his would have seemed harsh when compared to Ivan the Terrible, she thought.

  Out loud she told him, “Things don’t happen here in a New York minute. It takes a little time to arrange things. But the director’s office is ready for you to use now. So if you’re ready to examine your first patient, I’ll show you where it is.”

  He didn’t answer her one way or another. Instead, he gave her an order. Orders seemed to come easily to him.

  “Lead the way.”

  For a split second, a comeback hovered on her lips. After all, she wasn’t some lackey waiting to be issued marching orders. But then she decided that the man just might get it into his head to walk out on them and while personally she didn’t care, she did care about all these women and children at the shelter and they did need to see a doctor.

  So, for now, she kept any observation to herself, much as it pained her to keep silent.

  With that in mind, she turned on her heel and led the way down the hall, preceding the doctor and the woman who was to be his first patient, Jane Caldwell. Like Jimmy, Jane had a hacking cough and Melanie suspected that was possibly how Jimmy had contracted his cough in the first place.

  “It’s right in here,” Melanie told the doctor. Pushing the door open farther, she waited for Dr. Stewart and then his patient to walk in before she followed them inside.

  “There’s no exam table,” Mitch immediately observed, disapproval echoing in his voice.

  “No.” Melanie indicated the desk. “But Polly thought that you might be able to use the desktop in place of one. It’s not exactly what you’re used to, but it’s flat and it’s big,” she pointed out.

  He found her cheerfulness irritating. “So’s your parking lot, but I’m not about to examine this woman on it.”

  “I’ll see what I can come up with for your next visit,” Melanie told him.

  By the expression she saw pass over the man’s face, Melanie had a feeling that the good doctor wasn’t about to think that far ahead—or commit to it, either. Hopefully, once he saw how desperately a doctor’s services were needed here, the man would change his mind by the end of his visit.

  Melanie mentally crossed her fingers.

  Still trying to convince the doctor to make do with the conditions facing him, she pointed out, “The director does have a fresh bed sheet spread over the desk. Couldn’t you use that for the time being?”

  “I guess I’ll have to make do,” he murmured under his breath, more to himself than to her. Then he said a bit louder, “All right, thanks.”

  His tone was dismissive.

  He turned his attention to the woman who was to be his first patient here. “If you sit down on top of the desk, I can get started,” he told Jane.

  Mitch had already taken his stethoscope out of his medical bag and he was about to raise it in order to listen to the woman’s lungs. A noise behind him made him realize that his so-called “guide” was still in the room, standing before the closed door.

  Looking at her over his shoulder, he repeated what had been his parting word, “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” Melanie replied, thinking that perhaps the doctor was waiting for some kind of formal acknowledgment of his thanks.

  Mitch stifled an exasperated sigh.

  “You can go now,” he told her.

  Melanie smiled patiently in response as she told him, “No, I can’t.”

  He lowered the stethoscope. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Melanie proceeded to take his sentence apart. “Well, no is pretty self-explanatory. I refers to me and can’t goes back to the first word, no,” she told him glibly. “What part of those three words are you having trouble with?”

  “The part that involves you.” He spelled out his question for her. “Why are you still in the room?”

  “Because you don’t have a pocket-sized nurse with you,” she answered, following her words with another glib smile.

  Did this woman have some sort of brain damage? Why was she here? Why wasn’t she committed somewhere? “What?” he demanded.

  “You can’t examine any female without another female being present. You usually have a nurse present when you conduct your exams in the hospital, right?”

  Mitch frowned. He wasn’t about to argue with her because she was right, but having to concede to this woman irritated him nonetheless.

  Taking a second to collect himself, Mitch barked out his first order. “Make yourself useful, then.”

  He expected an argument from her. Instead, the woman surprised him by asking, “And how would you like me to do that?”

  The first thing that flashed through his mind was not something he could repeat and that surprised Mitch even more. So much so that for a second, he was speechless. He was stunned that he’d had that sort of a thought to begin with under these conditions—and that he’d had it about her, well, that stunned him even more.

  “Take notes,” he said, composing himself.

  “Do you want me to use anything in particular in taking these notes?” she asked.

  She really was exasperating. “Anything that’s handy,” he answered curtly, turning his attention back to the patient—or trying to.

  Melanie opened the center drawer and took out a yellow legal pad and pen. Stepping back and standing a couple of feet to his left, holding the pad in one hand, she poised the pen over it and announced, “Ready when you are, Doctor.”

  Mitch spared her one dark glare before he began his first exam.

  Like a robot on automatic pilot, Mitch saw one patient after another, spending only as much time with each one as was necessary.

  Most of what he encountered over the course of the next three hours fell under the heading of routine. Some patients’ complaints, however, turned out to be more complicated, and those called for lab tests before any sort of comprehensive diagnosis could be reached. The latter was necessary before any sort of medication could be dispensed.

  Those Melanie marked down as needing more extensive exams.

  Three hours later, feeling as if he had just been on a nonstop marathon, Mitch discovered that he had barely seen half the people who had initially lined up to be examined.

  This really was like war-zone medicine, he couldn’t help thinking.

  “Do you have to go?” Melanie asked him as he sent another patient on her way. Granted she’d done an awful lot of writing in the past three hours, but she was keenly aware of the patients who were still waiting. The patients who were going to have to accept a rain check.

  Mitch hadn’t said anything about leaving, although he was ready to pack it in. He looked at the woman beside him in surprise. At this point, he was ready to believe she was half witch.

  Maybe all witch.

  “How did you know?” he asked her.

  “Well, you said you were going to give us an hour and you’ve already gone two hours past that. The math isn’t that challenging,” she told him matter-of-factly.

  Mitch frowned. They were alone in the so-called “exam room” and part of him was dealing with the very real urge of wanting to throttle her. The other part was having other thoughts that seemed to be totally unrelated to the situation—and yet weren’t.

  “Anyone ever tell you that you have a smart mouth on you?” he asked.

&nb
sp; He didn’t pull punches, she thought. A lot of people kept treating her with kid gloves and maybe his way was more like what she really needed—to get into a fighting mode.

  “It goes with the rest of me,” she answered flippantly, then got down to business. What was important here were the children and their mothers, not anything that had to do with her. “When can you come back?” she asked him.

  Caught off guard, Mitch paused. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  In all honesty, the only thing that had been on his mind was getting through this session. As far as he was concerned, he’d fulfilled his obligation. He’d agreed to come here, as his mother had asked him to, and here he was—staying longer than he’d either intended to or wanted to. But apparently, that didn’t seem to be enough.

  “Maybe you should,” Melanie was telling him. And then she added with a smile that appeared outwardly cheerful—but didn’t fool him for a minute. “We’re available anytime you are.”

  Mitch sighed. “I’ll check my calendar.”

  “Why don’t you do it now?” she suggested, pushing the issue. “This way, I can tell the director and your new fans out there,” she nodded toward the door and the people who were beyond that, “when to expect you.”

  “Definitely a smart mouth,” Mitch muttered as he took out his phone and checked the calendar app that was on it. His frown deepened when he found what he was looking for. “I can possibly spare a few hours Friday morning,” he told her grudgingly.

  She met his frown with nothing short of enthusiasm. “Friday works for us,” she assured him. “I’ll get the word out.”

  His tone was nothing if not dour when he said in response, “Why don’t we wait and see how things gel?” he suggested, then qualified, “Things have a way of cropping up.”

  Her eyes met his and there was a defiance in them he found both irritating beyond words—and at the same time, oddly intriguing.

  He supposed that maybe his mother had a point. He could stand to get out more. Then people like this annoying woman would hold no interest for him.

  “Why don’t you write the shelter into your schedule anyway?” she said. “Having a commitment might make you more inclined to honor it.”

  “Are you lecturing me?” he asked point-blank.

  “I’d rather think of it as making a tactful suggestion,” she replied.

  She could call it whatever she wanted to, Mitch thought. But no matter what label she put on it, they both knew what she meant.

  Chapter Four

  Melanie looked at her watch. It was the old-fashioned, analog kind which required her brain to figure out the exact time.

  Right now, the second hand seemed to be taunting her. As it moved along the dial, hitting each number one at a time, she could almost hear it rhythmically beating out: I told you so. I told you so.

  A deep sigh escaped her.

  It was Friday. The doctor should have been here by now.

  She supposed, giving the man the benefit of the doubt, he could have been held up in traffic, but it would have had to have been a monumental traffic jam for Dr. Stewart to be this late. After all, it wasn’t like this was Los Angeles. If anything, Bedford was considered a distant suburb of Los Angeles, located in the southern region of the considerably more laidback Orange County area.

  Granted, traffic jams did have a nasty habit of popping up in Orange County, but when they did, they had the decency of doing so between the hours of six and nine in the morning or four and seven in the evening, otherwise whimsically referred to by the term “rush hour,” which was a misnomer if ever she heard one.

  “Isn’t he coming, Melody?” April asked her, the small voice echoing with the same concern that she herself felt. The five-year-old had decided to keep vigil with her today, unofficially appointing herself Dr. Stewart’s keeper.

  Melanie came away from the window. Staring out into the parking lot wasn’t going to make the man appear any faster—if at all.

  “I don’t know, honey,” she answered.

  “But he said he would,” April said plaintively.

  It was obvious that the little girl had taken the doctor’s word to be as good as a promise. But then, Melanie reminded herself, according to what she’d said, the little girl still believed in Santa Claus. Apparently the doctor’s word fell into the same category as the legendary elf did.

  “Yes, he did,” Melanie agreed, searching for a way to let the little girl down gently. “Maybe he called Miss Polly to say he was running late.”

  “How can he do that?” April asked, her face scrunching up as she tried to wrap her little mind around the phrase. “If he’s running, how can he be late?” she asked, confused.

  “I’m afraid it’s something grown-ups do all the time, sweetie,” Melanie said evasively. “Tell you what. You stay here and keep on watching for him,” she instructed, turning April back toward the large window facing the parking lot. She felt having her here, standing watch, was better than having April listen in on the conversation she was going to have with the director. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay!” April agreed, squaring her small shoulders as she stared out the window, as intent as any soldier standing guard. “He’ll be here, I know he will,” were the words that followed Melanie out of the room.

  “If he’s not,” Melanie murmured under her breath, “I’ll kill him.” It would be justifiable payback for breaking April’s heart.

  Melanie turned the corner just as the director was walking out of her office. A near collision was barely avoided and only because Melanie’s reflexes were sharp enough for her to take a quick step back before it was too late.

  Her hand flying to her chest, the tall, thin woman dragged in a quick, loud breath.

  “I was just coming to look for you,” Polly declared breathlessly.

  “Well, here I am,” Melanie announced, spreading her hands wide like a performer who had executed a particularly clever dance step.

  She was stalling and she knew it, Melanie thought, dropping her hands to her sides. Stalling because she didn’t want to hear what she knew was coming.

  Raising her head, she looked the director in the eye. “He called, didn’t he?” she asked. “Dr. Stewart,” she added in case her question sounded too ambiguous.

  Just because she was thinking of the doctor didn’t mean that Polly was. The woman did handle all facets of the shelter, from taking in donations to finding extra beds when the shelter was already past its quota of homeless occupants. In between was everything else, including making sure there was enough food on hand as well as all the other bare necessities that running the shelter entailed.

  The look in Polly’s eyes was a mixture of distress and sympathy. “Just now. He said that something had come up and he couldn’t make it.”

  Since it was already almost an hour past the time that Dr. Stewart should have been here, Melanie murmured, “Better late than never, I suppose. So when is he coming?” she asked. She wanted to be able to give April and the others a new date.

  Polly shook her head. “He didn’t say anything about that.”

  Melanie looked at her in surprise. The question came out before she could think to stop it. “You didn’t ask him?”

  “I didn’t get a chance,” Polly confessed. “I’m afraid he hung up right after saying he was sorry.”

  “Right,” Melanie muttered under her breath. “I just bet he was.”

  Polly had been in charge of the shelter for a dozen years and had become accustomed to dealing with other people’s disappointments as well as her own. She apparently survived by always looking at the positive side.

  “We were lucky that he came when he did,” she told Melanie.

  But Melanie was angry. Angry at the doctor for breaking his promise to the shelter, but most of all, angry that he had in effect broken his promise to April because the little girl had taken him at his word when he’d said he was returning Friday—which was today.

  “We’d be luckie
r if he honored his word and came back,” Melanie bit off.

  “A volunteer is under no legal obligation to put in any specified amount of time here,” Polly pointed out. “Just because he came once doesn’t mean that he has to come again.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Melanie agreed. “But most people with a conscience would come back, especially if they said they would.” Turning on her heel, she started back down the hall.

  “Melanie, where are you going?” Polly called after her nervously.

  “Out,” Melanie answered, never breaking stride or turning around. “To cool off.”

  And she knew exactly how to cool off.

  She slowed down only long enough to tell April that she was going to go talk to Dr. Stewart.

  “Why can’t you talk to him here?” April asked, following her to the front door.

  There were times when April was just too inquisitive, she thought. “Because he isn’t here yet and if I wait for him to get here, I might forget what I want to say to him.”

  “Maybe you should write it down,” April piped up helpfully. “That way you won’t forget.”

  Melanie paused at the front door and kissed the top of her unofficial shadow’s head. This was the little girl she was never going to have. The kind of little girl she and Jeremy would have loved to have had as they started a family.

  Tears smarted at the corners of her eyes and she blinked hard to keep them at bay. “This way is faster, trust me,” she told April.

  With that, she was out the door and heading to her car.

  In all fairness, she knew what Polly had said was absolutely true. Mitchell Stewart had no legal obligation to show up at the shelter ever again if he didn’t want to, even though he’d said he would. He’d signed no contract, was paid no stipend.

  But how could a man just turn his back on people he knew were waiting for him? Didn’t he have a conscience? Didn’t the idea of a moral obligation mean anything to the man?

  She gunned her car as she pulled out onto the street.

  Maybe it didn’t mean anything to him, but in that case, he had to find out that there were consequences for being so damn coldhearted. If nothing else, calling him out and telling him what she thought of him would make her feel better.