A Second Chance For The Single Dad

She needed a job.

Maybe not this very minute, but soon.

Very soon.

Some people would have eagerly jumped at having so much free time stretching before them, using it to catch up on their reading, watch movies they hadn’t gotten around to seeing and in general just enjoy themselves. But she had never been any good at kicking back and doing nothing. The way she saw it, free time didn’t mean anything if that was all there was. It was precious only if it was very limited and doled out a tiny bit at a time.

She took another mouthful of ice cream, hoping it would console her. But it didn’t.

“Wonderful,” she murmured, licking the spoon clean before sinking it into the container again. “Thirty-two years old and I’m sitting in the middle of my kitchen swallowing empty calories, getting fat and spouting philosophy to a pint of rum raisin ice cream,” she said critically, shaking her head. “I really hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.”

Just then the phone rang again. Turning her head toward the sound, she debated letting the answering machine pick up the caller. She just knew it was her godmother calling her back with another suggestion. She really wasn’t in the mood for another pep talk.

It was the kind of thing that Maizie did. Her godmother wouldn’t rest until she got Kayley to either agree to come over or invite Maizie to come to her mother’s house.

Her house now, Kayley corrected. Lord, it was hard to think of it that way.

The phone continued to ring.

Kayley pressed her lips together, frustrated. But ignoring the phone and letting the machine pick up was rude and she knew it. And the last person she wanted to be rude to was her godmother since Aunt Maizie had been so good to her. Most kids lost contact with their godmothers by the time they were five or six but Maizie had always been there for her, one way or another. Being rude was no way to pay Maizie back and the woman knew she was home right now.

With a sigh, Kayley momentarily abandoned the dwindling pint of ice cream, leaving it on the kitchen table as she hurried over to the phone.

“Really, I’m fine, Aunt Maizie,” she told her godmother the moment she picked up the receiver. “You don’t need to keep calling to check up on me.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and then she heard a distant-sounding male voice say, “I’m not Aunt Maizie, but I’m glad you’re fine.”

Dr. Dolan? It couldn’t be.

And yet...

Her fingers had gone slack and the receiver almost slipped out of her hand. Getting a better grip on it, Kayley fumbled with an apology. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else—”

There was just the slightest hint of a laugh. Or maybe it qualified as only a dismissive chuckle.

“Obviously,” the deep voice said.

Her heart was fluttering like a hummingbird.

“Who is this?” she asked uncertainly, although a part of her thought she already knew who it was—but that was probably just wishful thinking on her part.

Nobody called back this fast—unless it was to put her out of her misery by delivering the bad news quickly and cleanly.

Was he calling to do that?

“I’m sorry—let’s start over,” the man on the other end of the line said. “This is Dr. Dolan. I’m calling to speak to a Ms. Kayley Quartermain. Is this a number where I can reach her? I’ve already tried the cell phone number on her résumé, but I can’t get through to leave a message on her voice mail.”

Kayley closed her eyes.

Idiot!

She had to remember to recharge her phone. The battery kept draining and this had to be the third time this week that this had happened, she thought, flustered that she’d committed such a birdbrained oversight.

“Oh, Dr. Dolan, I’m so sorry. This is Kayley Quartermain. My cell phone’s old and it has trouble holding a charge for more than a couple of hours. It probably died, which is why you couldn’t get through.”

To her relief, the surgeon took the information in stride. “If that’s the case, you might want to look into getting a new cell phone.”

“I will,” she quickly agreed. “But I’ve been kind of busy with other things.” When he didn’t say anything to that, she asked, “Um, is there anything I can help you with?”

He’d probably thought of another question he wanted to ask her. There was no reason for her to get her hopes up. If they were up, they only had that much farther to fall.

Even so, she caught herself crossing her fingers as she waited for the doctor to say something.

“As a matter of fact, there is. How soon can you come in?”

“For another interview?” she asked, not knowing what to make of this.

“You’re not being vetted to run for president, Ms. Quartermain,” he informed her. “I don’t need to conduct another interview. I made a call and talked to the last doctor you worked with. He told me he was very pleased with your work and he wanted to know if there was any way you’d consider coming back.” And then he caught her completely by surprise by asking, “Is there?”

“No,” Kayley answered, trying to be diplomatic. “I enjoyed my time there and Dr. Andrews was great to work with, but as I told you, Bedford is home and right now I need to feel like I’m home.” She paused for a moment. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. You still haven’t answered my first question,” he told her. “How soon can you come in? And I mean to work.”

The hummingbirds began to crash into one another in her chest. “Is now too soon?”

“We’re closed now,” he said.

“Tomorrow, then.” She saw no point in attempting to hide her eagerness.

“Tomorrow,” he agreed. “Come in at eight. We’ll go over the rules and there’s paperwork to fill out.” And with that, he hung up.

“Yay!” With a laugh, Kayley threw out what was now incredibly soupy rum raisin, then went to call Maizie with the good news.

Chapter Four (#u83fb0d1f-d303-5e0e-a17c-bc15dd2ee8f2)

Since returning to the Orthopedic Medical Group, Luke had taken to being the first one in each morning.

Although no specific arrangements had been made regarding this practice, he became the one who usually unlocked the office doors. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to get a jump start on the day as he was there to avoid being at home with Lily.

Not that he didn’t love his daughter. He loved her a great deal. But he had no idea how to talk to her or how to relate to someone who came up to his belt buckle and with whom he had nothing in common except for the blood that ran through their veins.

He used work as his excuse for getting away. Work was also his excuse for not dealing with the terrible hollow emptiness he felt because Jill was no longer there to act as his go-between.

In addition, being the first in and opening up the office at that time guaranteed Luke at least twenty, possibly thirty, minutes alone. Because his field of expertise ran in a different direction, when he came in, he couldn’t get the coffee machine up and running to provide that vital first cup of coffee in the morning. But there was a coffee shop half a block from the medical building and he stopped there first for his daily strong shot of caffeine.

After walking in through the electronic doors, he took the elevator up the single floor and got out. He wasn’t prepared to find anyone standing by the locked double doors, waiting.

But there she was, bright eyed and smiling, the woman he had hired the day before. The woman he wasn’t 100 percent certain he should have hired the day before. But he’d been without a physician’s assistant of his own since he’d rejoined the medical group, and while he had a tendency to be oblivious to certain kinds of day-to-day details, even he noticed that Rachel, the physician’s assistant he was presently sharing with one of his colleagues, looked a little worn around the edges.