Dance with the Doctor

Darcy again. Taylor was clearly captivated by her attractive teacher. “I imagine she’s been practicing for quite a few years.” Though how long could that be, really? Maybe her petite size made her look young for her age, but she hadn’t seemed a day over twenty-five to Mike. At thirty-six, he felt positively ancient next to her.

“If I start now, I could be that good by the time I graduate high school.”

“I thought you wanted to be a doctor.” He tried to keep his voice neutral.

“I do. But I could belly dance on the side. As a hobby.”

A belly dancing doctor. “That would certainly give your patients something to talk about.”

“Dad, please!” Taylor’s voice drifted toward an unpleasant whine. “You’re always telling people how important it is to exercise. Dancing will be good for me.”

It probably would. And she was bored with spending so much time at his office after school, where he worried she might come down with an opportunistic infection despite all his precautions. But he hadn’t found a sitter he trusted and he couldn’t leave Taylor at home alone.

Even two years out from her transplant surgery, she was still so vulnerable. How could he trust her with a woman he barely knew? “Like it or not, you’re always going to be more vulnerable than other people to illness,” he said. “What if something happened while you were in dance class? What if you have a reaction to one of your medications?”

“Dad, that only happened one time! And it was months ago.”

“But what if it happened? I don’t know if Darcy is prepared to handle that.”

“She would do the same thing they would do at school—she’d call nine-one-one.”

Taylor had to go to school, but Mike tried to keep her away from large groups of people otherwise. Maybe he was being overly cautious, or even silly, but he couldn’t help himself. The knowledge of everything that could go wrong, and the memory of how close he’d come to losing the most precious person to him, haunted him. “I’d be happier if you’d wait a little longer,” he said. The past two years had been a nightmare of hospital rooms and surgeries, antirejection drugs, infections and the constant fear that something as simple as a cold virus could undo all her progress.

“I just want to do something a normal kid would do.”

The plaintive words cut through him. Wasn’t that all he wanted, too—for his little girl to be happy and healthy, and to live a full, normal life? And she was doing better. She’d started growing, and it had been four months since she’d been sick a single day.

“I know,” he said. “And dance class will probably be fine. But if you have any problems at all …”

“I’ll have to quit. But I’ll be fine, I promise. Thank you, Daddy. I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetheart.” All that love made making the right decisions for her even harder sometimes.

They pulled up to their townhome and Mike pressed the button to open the garage. He and Melissa had purchased the home shortly after their wedding. When they’d divorced they’d both agreed it would be better for Taylor to remain in the only home she’d ever known, and Melissa had moved into an apartment near the airport, convenient to her work. If not for Taylor, Mike would have moved, too. The house was one more reminder of dreams that hadn’t come true. He and Melissa had planned to raise a family in this home.

Taylor was out of the car as soon as Mike released the child locks. “I’m gonna call Mom and tell her about the class,” she called over her shoulder as she raced to the door.

Mike hoped Melissa would be able to answer Taylor’s call. If she was in the middle of a flight that wasn’t possible. Taylor could leave a message, but Melissa wasn’t always good about returning her calls right away.

He followed Taylor inside, stopping to hang his coat on the rack in the foyer, opposite the portrait of the three of them as a family. Melissa smiled straight into the camera; a younger Mike focused on the toddler in Melissa’s lap. Taylor, in a lacy white dress, had been barely two then. She was laughing up at Mike—the happiest baby in the world.

And he’d been the happiest man, just beginning his practice, starting a family. How naive he’d been.

Taylor’s illness had changed all that. Mike didn’t know if he’d ever trust happiness again. He’d always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. He’d emerged from more than two years in hell with his daughter safe, for now, but the perfect family was gone. The messiness—both emotional and physical—of dealing with a chronically ill child had ended a marriage already strained by Mike’s long hours at work and Melissa’s erratic schedule.

The failure to save his marriage still stung. Mike’s parents had been married more than forty years now, while his grandparents had lived to celebrate seventy-five years together. His two sisters both enjoyed long marriages. Only Mike had failed.

He didn’t blame Melissa. Mike had deserted her when she needed him most. He’d been too focused on Taylor and on keeping his practice going to have much left over for his wife.

He found Taylor in the living room, curled on one end of the sofa, the phone still in her lap. “Did you talk to your mom?” he asked.

“I had to leave a message.” Her shoulders drooped.

“I should talk to your mother about setting up a schedule to see you more often,” Mike said. As it was, Melissa flew in and out of town, and her daughter’s life, with no predictable regularity. Taylor missed her mother, though she seldom said it.

He and Melissa had agreed to family counseling to help Taylor deal with the divorce, but her frequent hospitalizations had interfered with those sessions, and Mike wasn’t sure how much good they’d done. Taylor seemed well adjusted to their situation, but how could he be sure?

Right now, Taylor looked as worried as he felt. She was chewing on her lower lip, an unattractive habit he’d tried to discourage. “Honey, is something wrong?”

She glanced at him, then away. “Mom told me something last time I saw her. She didn’t tell me not to tell you, but I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”

“What is it?” What had Melissa done that had Taylor so worried?

“She said she has a boyfriend. His name is Alex and he’s a pilot.”

“Oh.” He shifted in his chair, trying to get comfortable with the idea of his wife—he still thought of her that way sometimes—dating another man. The emotion that rose to the surface wasn’t so much jealousy as regret that things hadn’t worked out the way they were supposed to.

One of them ought to at least be happy; he wouldn’t begrudge Melissa that. “That’s good, honey,” he said. “Are you okay with it?”

“It would be nice if she had someone, so she wouldn’t be alone,” Taylor said thoughtfully. “I mean, you and I have each other, except …” The words trailed away.

“Except what?”

“Do you think you’ll ever get married again, Dad?”

Was Melissa close to marrying this guy? Was that why she’d mentioned him to Taylor? “I don’t plan on getting married again, honey,” he said. “Not for a very long time, anyway.” Not before Taylor was grown, if then. He’d already proved he was lousy at dividing his attention.

“I wouldn’t mind if you did,” she said. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind having a stepmom, if she was nice.”

So that’s what this was all about. Mike moved to sit beside his daughter and pulled her close. “I know you miss your mom,” he said. “There’s not much I can do about that, but I’m not sure a stepmom is the answer. You and I will just have to muddle along like we have been.” He kissed the top of her head.

“I’m okay, Dad.” She squirmed around to look up at him. “Really. I just thought you might, you know, be lonely sometimes.”

Yes, he was lonely sometimes, but he’d survive. “Don’t worry about me, sweetheart,” he said. Life demanded sacrifices sometimes. Right now his priorities were Taylor and his medical practice, in that order. Any woman in his life would be shortchanged. He wouldn’t put himself or anyone else through that hurt again.

CHAPTER TWO

“SISTER, DEAR, if you lived a more normal life, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.”

Darcy helped her older brother, Dave, wrestle the snowblower from the snowbank where it had skidded and stopped working. “I do—” puff “—have a normal—” puff “—life,” she said. “At least it’s not abnormal.”

“If you had a normal life you’d store your snowblower in your garage instead of using the space for a dance studio. Then parts wouldn’t rust and you wouldn’t have to call me to come to the rescue.”

“You love playing the big, strong hero and you know it.” She folded her arms over her chest and watched him tinker with something on the snowblower. “Can you fix it?”

“What do you mean, can I fix it? Of course I can fix it.”

“Can you fix it today? In time to finish my driveway before my evening classes?”