A Home for the M.D.

“Oh, I—”

Alice gave her a pleading, puppy-dog-eyes look that would have put Waldo to shame. “Please. Games are more fun with three.”

“I wonder if I should resent that,” Mitch mused aloud.

Both women ignored him. Conceding to Alice’s expression, Jacqui set aside her project. “All right. But just for a little while.”

Two hours later, they still sat around the game table. Empty soda cans sat beside Alice and Mitch, and Jacqui had just finished her second cup of hot tea. Crumbs were the only thing remaining on the plate of cookies Jacqui had brought out earlier. Scribbled score pads documented individual victories in the games they’d played that evening.

She was startled to realize how much time had passed when she glanced at the clock on the mantel. Those two hours had flown by in a blur of rolling dice and laughter. Mitch and Alice were cute together. A stranger observing them would never have believed they’d known each other only a little longer than a year, that Mitch had not known his niece-by-marriage all her life. He teased her and chatted with her with an ease that proclaimed family bonds. At least the type of family bonds Jacqui had observed while working in this household. Not so much in her own.

How might her life have been different, she wondered idly, if her own family had spent time around a table, laughing over a board game? Or even just chatting over dinner? How might she have been different?

A memory popped into her head, dimming her smile. She and Olivia sat cross-legged on the floor of a cheap motel room, playing Monopoly with a battered, salvaged set. They’d replaced the missing game tokens with different-colored pebbles and had made their own deeds and play money with scraps of paper. They’d had a few little plastic houses and hotels and enough instruction cards to make it possible for them to play. She’d been maybe twelve at the time, which would have made Olivia ten.

She remembered the wistfulness in Olivia’s smile when she’d earned enough scrap-paper money to buy a house.

“Don’t you wish it was real?” Olivia had asked, studying the little green plastic house in her hand. “Don’t you wish we could really buy a house and live in it forever?”

“Not likely,” Jacqui had answered with a brusqueness designed to hide her own old longings. “Dad would be ready to move on before we even mowed the grass the first time.”

“I’d like to mow grass.” Olivia set the little plastic house carefully into position on the game board. “When I grow up, I’m going to have a house with a big yard and I’ll mow the grass and plant flowers. Maybe I’ll have a garden and grow peaches. I love peaches.”

“You don’t grow peaches in a garden. You grow them in an orchard,” Jacqui had corrected with the wisdom of her additional two years.

“Then I’ll have an orchard,” Olivia had replied, unperturbed.

Jacqui snapped back into the present when Alice demanded her attention.

“Let’s play Monopoly now!” the teen suggested with an eager look at the stack of games they hadn’t already played.

Because there were only a few games left in that stack, Jacqui found no particular significance in Alice’s choice, despite the coincidence. Still, her throat clenched enough that she had to clear it silently before replying. “That’s all for me tonight, Alice. It’s getting late, and I have a few things to do before bedtime.”

Alice sighed, but didn’t argue, to Jacqui’s relief. When Mitch announced that he had early hospital rounds to make the next morning, Alice accepted that game night was over and began to put away the supplies.

Mitch helped Jacqui clear away the remains of their snacks. Carrying empty soda cans to the recycling bin in the kitchen, he smiled down at her when they almost bumped into each other as he reached around her to drop the cans in the bin. “Sorry.”

This usually roomy kitchen had never felt as small as it did at that moment, with Mitch standing right in front of her and the kitchen counter at her back. All she’d have to do was take one small step forward and she’d be in his arms, plastered against him. Not that she intended to do anything of the sort, of course. It was strictly an observation.

Mitch studied her face for a moment, making her wonder what he might see in the expression she tried to keep carefully blank. And then he moved back a few steps. She drew in air, realizing she’d held her breath while he stood so close. What was it about this man that flustered her so much?

He moved toward the doorway. “I’m going to do some paperwork in my room, then turn in. I need to be at the hospital by six in the morning for a breakfast meeting with a partner. Told my mom I’d have lunch with her and Madison and our aunts, then I’m heading to the mall to buy a few things. Tomorrow evening I’ll be playing soccer with the guys, so I won’t be around here much.”

She nodded, telling herself she should be relieved he wouldn’t be underfoot the next day.

“Good night, Jacqui.”

“Good night.” He didn’t seem to like it when she called him Dr. Baker, but she wasn’t quite comfortable using his name yet, so she tended to avoid calling him anything.

He didn’t look back when he left the room. She knew that because she watched him until he was out of her sight.

Two more weeks, max, under the same roof. She could do this. She assumed the novelty of him would wear off after a couple days of proximity. At least she hoped it would. She wasn’t sure how much she could take of having her pulse race this way every time Mitch stood close to her.

As he climbed into the guest bed that night, Mitch wondered what it was about a suggestion of playing Monopoly that had made Jacqui’s dark eyes go so bleak it had made his heart hurt for her. The most obvious explanation was that it had something to do with her late sister. Childhood memories, perhaps?

She hadn’t said how long her sister had been gone, but it was apparent that the loss was still raw. He imagined what it would be like to lose one of his own sisters, and the pain was so immediate and so piercing that he put the thought quickly out of his mind. He didn’t even want to consider the possibility. Losing his possessions was a minor inconvenience; losing members of his family—well, that was very hard for him to handle. He’d already lost one parent, his beloved dad, and that had been a horrible time for his whole family. It had been difficult enough saying goodbye to his grandmother last year, and they had all been braced for months for her death.

He didn’t like seeing pain in anyone’s eyes, but for some reason it had especially bothered him to see Jacqui looking so unhappy, even momentarily. That sadness had been in such stark contrast with her laughter only moments before whatever memory had assaulted her.

She’d seemed to have fun during their game session with Alice. She’d teased along with him and his niece, and he’d been struck by her soft, rich laughter. For those two hours, she had even lost some of the reserve she usually showed around him—and that he still couldn’t understand. He’d found himself having to make an effort to concentrate on the games rather than the glint of pleasure in her pretty, dark eyes.

Lying on his back in the darkened room, he stared upward, seeing Jacqui’s face rather than the shadowed ceiling. Despite her obvious and bewildering wariness of him, he still found himself drawn to her.

He’d been intrigued by her from the first time he’d met her. He’d been surprised that the housekeeper his sister and her new family had raved so much about had been a rather gamine young woman rather than the stereotypically sturdy matron he’d vaguely envisioned. He’d admired her big, dark eyes, pointed little chin and soft, nicely shaped mouth, and although he usually was attracted to long, wavy hair, he’d liked her tousled pixie cut. It suited her.

As busy as he’d been the past year, and as awkward as it would have been to pursue his sister’s employee, he’d done nothing about his initial tug of attraction to Jacqui. But now that they were under the same roof and spending more time together, the fascination was only growing harder to ignore. He was still busy, and it was still awkward—not to mention that she’d given him no encouragement at all—but maybe they could at least be friends by the time he moved into a new place. Maybe in the future she would smile warmly when she saw him, rather than that politely distanced expression she usually wore when he was around.

He’d like that.

Chapter Three

Jacqui had no intention of attending Mitch’s soccer game. She knew very little about soccer, and she still winced at the way she’d reacted to Mitch’s pretentious friend’s affectations. She doubted she’d have much in common with a bunch of highly educated soccer enthusiasts—or football, as Scott had referred to it. To her, football would always involve pads and helmets and “Hail Mary” passes and touchdowns, but whatever.

She hadn’t counted on Alice wanting very much to go.

“Mitch said there are usually some other kids my age hanging around to watch,” Alice explained. “They don’t let anyone younger than sixteen play because they’re afraid the kids might get hurt playing with adults, but sometimes there’s a kids’ game on the next field. And sometimes they need help with carrying water and chasing soccer balls and stuff like that. Besides, I want to watch Mitch play. I bet he’s really good.”

“It’s going to be pretty hot at the park today,” Jacqui warned. “In the mid-nineties, according to the weather forecast.”

Alice shrugged. “It’s always hot in July,” she said pragmatically. “Can we go, please?”

“Well, um—”

“You could just drop me off if you don’t want to stay. Mitch can bring me home.”

Jacqui envisioned Alice wandering around the crowded park alone while her uncle was engrossed in his game. Although Alice was fourteen and fairly levelheaded for her age, Jacqui didn’t like the thought of her being entirely on her own in such a public place. And what if Mitch wanted to go out for beers or something with his friends after the game?

“I thought maybe you and I could go to a movie this afternoon,” she suggested in a weak bait-and-switch attempt.

Alice wasn’t falling for it. She shook her head. “There’s nothing I really want to see right now. I’d rather watch Mitch’s soccer game.”

Jacqui sighed heavily. “Fine. I’ll take you.”

Had she conceded too easily? Was her capitulation entirely a result of not wanting to disappoint Alice? Was it possible she secretly wanted to see Mitch at play, herself?

Frowning, she pushed a hand impatiently through her hair. “We don’t have to stay for the whole game if it gets too hot or if you get bored.”

“Okay.” But Alice was grinning broadly in anticipation, seemingly undaunted by the risks of heat or boredom. Jacqui resigned herself to a long stay at the soccer field.