Doctoring the Single Dad

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Don’t nitpick, dear. It’s not becoming. And for your information, I can still have their honor.”

  “Only if you stole it, Mother.”

  “Is that any way to talk to the woman who gave you life? And is responsible for bringing a very nice man into your life—nothing more, just bringing him in,” she emphasized.

  Nikki rolled her eyes. “You keep telling yourself that, Mom.”

  “I will, because it’s the truth.” And then her voice became more serious. “And why are you so angry about it?” There was a momentary pause and then her mother asked in a low, intuitive voice, “Is it because you like him? Is that why you’re so angry with me? Because you’re afraid that this is someone you could care about?”

  “Mother—” Nikki suppressed the quick flare of anger she felt. There was a warning note in her voice, clearly intended to make her mother back away.

  But Maizie wasn’t the type to heed warnings, especially from her daughter. Doggedly, she pursued what she felt was her lead. “That’s it, isn’t it? You like him.”

  “He’s a nice person,” Nikki allowed. “But even so, I don’t—”

  “He’s more than that,” Maizie interrupted, pressing her advantage. “He was late coming home. He’d told me that he was going to be back before ten. It’s almost midnight.” The smile was practically radiating through the phone. “You had fun, didn’t you, dear?” It was more of a statement than a question.

  Denial wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Once her mother had a notion in her head, it was impossible to shake it loose. Escape was the only answer. “I’ve got to go, Mother.”

  Why wouldn’t Nikki let her guard down? When she’d been younger, they’d talked for hours, talking about the boys she liked, sharing feelings. Where had those times gone? Maizie lamented sadly.

  “Nicole, there’s nothing wrong with having fun. There’s absolutely nothing wrong in letting yourself go a little. Even if you feel you made mistakes with your other choices, the odds are in your favor to finally make the right choice. Lucas Wingate could be that ‘right’ choice.”

  She never told her mother about Tony. Never told her how close she came to marrying him, only to discover that he was addicted to sex. Sex with every willing, breathing female who crossed his path.

  She needed to think right now, not talk. Certainly not to be badgered. And then she heard a “beep” in the earpiece. The cavalry had arrived!

  “I’ve got another call coming in, Mom. It’s my answering service.” She lied about the last part because she hadn’t looked to see the identifying LCD display. Right now, she would have taken a call from a Riker’s Island inmate.

  “You’ve got another call coming in, all right. But it’s not your answering service,” Maizie told her knowingly. “It’s your destiny.”

  This was getting her nowhere. Nikki stopped trying to talk her mother off the phone. Instead, she just broke the connection.

  “Talk to you later, Mom.” Pressing another button, she took the second call. “Dr. Connors.”

  “Did I remember to mention that I had a really nice time?”

  The sound of Lucas’s low, sexy voice warmed her all over, even as her mother’s prophesy about destiny calling throbbed in her temples as she said, “Yes, you did. But I don’t mind hearing it again.”

  “Good, because I’d like to see you again,” he said, picking up on the word she used.

  “When?” Did that sound too eager?

  “Whenever you’re free.”

  Both joy and fear ran at her from opposite ends of the spectrum. Reaching her at the same time, they wrapped themselves tightly around her.

  This was good, she told herself. His wanting to see her again was good.

  So why did her fingertips feel so icy?

  Chapter Thirteen

  There were times when Nikki felt as if she was inching her way across a pond covered with a thin sheet of ice, holding her breath as she tried to get from one end to the other while the early spring sun beat down on her. Any second, she expected to hear the ice cracking. To feel it opening up beneath her feet and then sending her plunging into the cold water just underneath. But even as she expected the worst, it—in this case her relationship with Lucas—held. Held firm as the days, then the weeks and finally the months slipped by.

  Saying “months” made it sound longer than it actually was, she supposed. But technically, anything more than one qualified it to be thought of in the plural sense. And she and Lucas had been seeing each other for almost six months now.

  Six months and they were exactly in the same place as they had been that first time. Exactly, she thought, the word throbbing in her brain as she let herself into her house and hurried to get ready.

  She’d actually planned on getting home early to give herself enough time to get ready slowly. To this end, she’d had Lisa reschedule her last appointment of the day. Jeremy Myers’s mother was just bringing him in for a routine well-baby visit. That could very easily be put off until tomorrow morning without any problem and Edda Myers had been agreeable to the switch.

  But just as she’d gotten into her car and turned the ignition, her answering service had buzzed her. One of her younger patients had had what wound up being an asthma attack—very scary for a young mother who had never witnessed one before.

  Mrs. Wells was certain her three-year-old was going to die as she’d rushed him to the E.R. Heart in her throat, she’d frantically placed a call to Paul’s pediatrician and had become almost hysterical when she got the answering service.

  The service called her and just like that, the best laid plans of mice, men and pediatricians in love went awry.

  Nikki had suppressed a sigh. “Call Mrs. Wells back. Tell her I’ll be right there,” she instructed and then drove the short distance to the hospital parking lot that was reserved for its MDs. She arrived there five minutes before Mrs. Wells and Paul did. It was almost textbook routine. Mrs. Wells left relieved and educated.

  So now here she was, running late instead of early, hurrying and trying to stay one jump ahead of her thoughts.

  But they still insisted on infiltrating, seeping into her head and making her question what should have been left alone.

  Exactly.

  The word rose up again to haunt her. Her relationship with Lucas was exactly the same as it had been last week and the week before that.

  And the week before that.

  Steadfast. Unchanged. No less and no more.

  She knew she should be happy things were just the way they had been when they’d started sleeping together. She knew that.

  And yet…

  And yet, if everything was all right, shouldn’t they be going somewhere? Progressing to another plateau?

  Late at night, when she lay beside Lucas, waiting for her breathing to return to normal again, a tiny, tiny part of her kept wondering why there wasn’t anything more on his end. Even though she tried to resist, she knew, knew that she was falling for him. Really falling for him. But she didn’t get the sense that Lucas felt even an iota closer to her than he had in the beginning.

  And he never talked about his wife.

  Did that mean he was over her and moving on? Or did it mean that the mere mention of her name was too painful for him to bear? Was he carrying a torch for the woman? Was he comparing the two of them and finding that she came up short?

  Oh, God, she wished she knew.

  If she hadn’t, early in the game, fallen for one charming, deceptive loser after another, she wouldn’t be this nervous about parting with her heart.

  “You’re making yourself crazy,” Nikki complained out loud.

  Having swiftly changed out of her skirt and sweater into a stylish little black dress, she found that the strappy high heels she’d intended to wear weren’t where they should have been.

  “Terrific,” she muttered. “Just what I need to calm me down. Lost shoes.”

  Nikki dropped to her knees and began pushing things aside on the
floor of her closet, searching for the missing shoes. Painfully aware that time was short, she compromised and settled on another pair. She didn’t have time to waste and she still wanted to check her makeup and fix her hair before Lucas arrived.

  She was acting like a schoolgirl with her first serious crush, Nikki upbraided herself. She stopped combing her hair as the thought sank in. Well, in a way, she supposed that fit. She was acting like a schoolgirl. It had been a long while since she’d been willing to risk her heart.

  And she was. It was out there, exposed, naked, for Lucas to pick up and cherish—or run over with his car.

  Was she making a mistake? He seemed perfect, but was he just too perfect to be true, she asked herself for quite possibly the hundredth time. Her mother would tell her that she should be happy and just enjoy what was happening without making any real plans, but that was just the problem. She was a making-plans type of woman. She knew that no matter how many times she told herself that it was wise to keep her distance emotionally, she kept whittling that distance down to nothing.

  Being with Lucas had blown up the safe little haven she’d constructed for herself. He made her want what she’d been brought up to want: A home, a family. Somewhere, she felt certain, her mother was smiling.

  “Obviously, you can take the girl away from the mother but you can’t take the mother out of the girl.” With a sigh, she put her lipstick down and leaned her forehead against the mirror. “What are you doing, Nikki? Are you willingly setting yourself up for a fall? Because if you are, this time it’s going to be a doozy.” She straightened again, picking up the mascara wand and applying another coat to her lashes. “This time you’re falling from the top of the Empire State Building.” Her lips twitched into a smile that had no humor behind it. “And not even King Kong was able to survive that, remember?”

  The sound of the chimes had her quickly make one last pass at her lashes. Grabbing her shoes, she quickly headed for the stairs.

  Nikki was almost halfway down before she realized that what she was hearing wasn’t the doorbell. It was the telephone. She flew down the rest of the way and grabbed the first available phone.

  “Hello?”

  The calm, melodic voice belonging to Helen, the woman who had the evening shift at her answering service, greeted her warmly.

  “Good evening, Dr. Connors. Emily Patterson asked that you meet her in the emergency room. She’s rushing her daughter there. Janie was playing hide-and-seek in her girlfriend’s yard. She tried to hide inside a rosemary bush, now she has a rash all over her arms and face and she’s wheezing.”

  “This must be the day for allergies,” Nikki murmured under her breath. So much for dinner. “Tell Mrs. Patterson that I’m leaving from my house, Helen. I’ll be at the hospital as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” Helen replied. A moment later, she ended the call.

  Nikki dropped the portable receiver back into the cradle. The second it made contact, there were more chimes. But this time it really was the doorbell.

  I’m going to have to turn him down. Maybe this is just as well, Nikki thought, hurrying to the door. Maybe, since Lucas wasn’t moving forward, she needed to take a step back and evaluate everything from a different perspective.

  Nikki pulled open the door. Her breath caught in her throat.

  The man had to be taking “handsome” pills. There was no other explanation why he just kept getting better looking each time she saw him. He was wearing a navy jacket, a light blue shirt and light gray slacks. Nothing spectacular, at least, not on another man. On him it seemed incredible.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked the moment she opened the door and he looked at her.

  Assuming that something was wrong with her apparel, she looked down at herself. “Why? Did I put my dress on backwards?”

  “No,” he corrected, “You put your expression on backwards.” When she looked at him, puzzled, he explained, “You’re frowning.”

  She was going to have to get better at keeping a poker face, Nikki chided herself. “I’m going to have to cancel our date.”

  “Oh. Any particular reason?”

  He sounded unfazed by what she’d just said. As if it was all one and the same to him. She was right. He didn’t really care.

  Banking down her feelings, she answered his question trying to sound as detached as possible. “My answering service just called. One of my patients is having an allergic reaction to rosemary.”

  Curious, Lucas asked, “The seasoning, or is that a person?”

  “Neither. She had an allergic reaction to a rosemary bush from what I gather.” She picked up her purse. She’d just transferred her wallet and keys into the clutch bag. It seemed inappropriate for a hospital, but she didn’t have time to switch back. “I’m meeting the girl and her distraught mother in the E.R.”

  He nodded, stepping back as she crossed the threshold. “Is it serious?”

  Quickly locking up, she turned to look at him. “I don’t know. I won’t know until I get there.” She pressed her lips together, debating apologizing. After all, he didn’t exactly look disappointed by this turn of events. In the end, she decided to make a token apology. “I’m sorry.”

  Lucas waved away her words. “Can’t be helped.” He walked her to her car, then waited as she unlocked it. He held the door open for her. “I’ll call you.”

  Nikki forced a smile to her lips and just nodded in response as she got in behind the steering wheel of her car. A second later, she was pulling away.

  The least he could have done was look disappointed. At least a little bit. It wouldn’t have cost him anything to fake it. But it looked as if it didn’t matter to him one way or another if she broke their date. Maybe she was just a place holder. Good enough to pass the time with until something better came along.

  There was an ache in the center of her chest. In her heart.

  Think about it later, Nikki. You need to be a doctor right now, not some paranoid, lovesick woman.

  Biting down on her lower lip, making her mind as much of a blank as she could, Nikki floored the car as she drove on to the freeway on-ramp.

  “I don’t know how to thank you for coming,” Emily Patterson said for the third time in twenty minutes, hovering over her daughter as she watched every move that Janie’s pediatrician made.

  Nikki smiled at the little girl lying on the cot. Janie’s sobs and screams had finally subsided, thanks to the injection she’d administered fifteen minutes ago. The rash on both of Janie’s arms and on her neck was no longer an angry red, more like a blushing pink that even now, was fading away.

  “I want you to promise me that you won’t play any more hide-and-seek inside bushes you don’t recognize. Better yet, no more bushes at all.” She stroked the little girl’s golden-blond hair. “Okay, kiddo?”

  “Okay,” Janie promised. There were dried tracks of tears on her face.

  As Nikki turned away from the gurney, Emily Patterson drew her aside. She made no attempt to hide the concern on her face.

  “Should I be worried, Dr. Connors?”

  In Nikki’s opinion, Mrs. Patterson was always worried and always anticipating the worst. It made her grateful that she’d had the mother she had. Despite the fact that there were times her mother drove her crazy, she had to hand it to Maizie Sommers. She’d always given her enough freedom to stretch and grow.

  “No,” Nikki advised. “Just be careful. Read the labels on any boxes or cans of prepared food.” She could see by Mrs. Patterson’s puzzled expression that the woman wasn’t following her. “If one of the ingredients mentioned is rosemary, I’d suggest skipping it unless you want a repeat performance of this afternoon.”

  Janie’s mother looked horrified at the mere suggestion. “Oh, God, no.”

  Nikki removed the small piece of paper from the clipboard that held all of Janie’s information. The top paper contained the prescription that she’d written for the little girl.

  “Here, fill this at the hos
pital pharmacy—it’s in the basement right by the elevator,” Nikki told her. “And then you’re good to go.”

  Mrs. Patterson folded the slip and tucked it into her purse. “Thank you.” Tears glistened in the woman’s eyes. Nikki sincerely hoped the woman learned how to relax before Janie became a teenager. “Thank you,” Mrs. Patterson repeated, squeezing her hand.

  Nikki nodded. She winked at Janie, then said to Mrs. Patterson, “You’re welcome.”

  The woman’s eyes swept over Nikki’s black dress. “And I’m sorry I took you away from your evening,” she apologized.

  Nikki almost asked her how she’d known, then remembered that she wasn’t exactly dressed the way she usually was.

  “That’s all right,” she assured Janie’s mother. “I’m just glad we could resolve this so quickly. You were very brave, Janie,” she added.

  Janie beamed.

  Pausing to sign the little girl’s paperwork which officially released her, Nikki handed over the clipboard to a nearby nurse. “She’s ready to go once her mother picks up her medicine.”

  With that, Nikki headed for the rear of the large room. She walked out through the electronic doors the paramedics used when they brought patients into the ER. Evening was in full bloom. A large amount of stars were woven through the sky.

  It was a night made for lovers, she thought with a pang.

  As if to remind her of the detour her evening had taken, her stomach rumbled. She realized she hadn’t eaten yet.

  Out of the corner of her eye she caught a movement in the tiny parking lot reserved for E.R. patients. Someone was either coming or going. Hopefully, it wasn’t another one of her patients. She felt drained. And yet, she was really wired as well. The wired part had nothing to do with Janie and her sudden allergic reaction to rosemary.

  Lucas was responsible for that feeling.

  She debated calling him, then decided against it. She didn’t want to appear needy.

  Maybe she’d stop at a drive-through and get a hamburger and fries. Not particularly healthy but at least it would be fast.