A Match for the Doctor / What the Single Dad Wants…: A Match for the Doctor

If she was going to be of any use to this man, she needed to have the avenue of communication open, not sealed. He needed to talk to her.

“Then why—”

“And I do mind your asking,” he told her, answering what she’d assumed was the rhetorical portion of her question.

It took Kennon a second to collect herself. “Okay. Then I won’t ask,” Kennon replied gamely, moving on. “When are you free?”

It was his turn to look at her blankly. Just what was the woman asking him? “For what?”

“To come shopping with me.” She held her breath, waiting. Nothing was going to be easy with this man, was it?

He looked at her as if she’d just suggested that he go out for a run over hot coals while barefoot. “I’m not going shopping.”

“All right, then I’m going to have to ask you some questions.” A lot of questions. She resigned herself to the fact that it would probably be like pulling teeth. “Not about what happened to your things,” she clarified quickly in response to the sharp look he sent her way. “But about your tastes, what you have in mind, how you see a particular room, like, let’s say the family room.”

“I see it as empty,” he told her flatly. “I want to see it filled.” That wasn’t strictly true, so he amended his statement. “Actually, the girls and Edna want to have the rooms furnished. As for me, I don’t care,” his tone was devoid of any emotion, any feeling. “All I require is a bed, a table and some illumination at night in case I have some reading to do.”

She stared at him for a moment, the spoon she was using to stir the soup suddenly frozen in midmovement. He was serious, wasn’t he? “And nothing else? No sixty-inch HDTV set? No entertainment unit?”

Things like that had never been important to him. “No.”

She laughed softly in disbelief. “I’m surprised some museum hasn’t snatched you up and placed you under glass for viewing by the public. I’ve known men who’ve had to have their remote control surgically removed from their hand.”

When Nancy and he had been dating, he could remember the two of them curling up on a sagging sofa, watching TV together. He’d done it mainly because Nancy enjoyed the programs. Since she was gone, he’d lost all interest in being vicariously entertained. Occasionally, one of the girls would drag him over to the set and attempt to get him to watch a show. He’d pretend to watch because it obviously meant something to his daughters, but usually his mind was far away. If anything, it was his work that grounded him. His work and his obligation to his daughters.

Pressing the dinner plate into service as a large saucer, Kennon placed the bowl onto it and then gingerly carried it out of the kitchen to the living room, where Edna sat, waiting.

“Are you going to give me any hints as to what you want?” she asked the doctor before she reached the older woman.

“For you to do your job,” he replied simply. He saw the skeptical look in her eyes. “I promise I won’t be difficult to please.”

Too late for that, though she decided that it was wiser to keep the comment to herself. She did, however, want to set him straight about the job that was before her.

“Without a hint as to what direction your tastes run—country, modern, French provincial, eclectic, et cetera—my job is going to be pretty difficult.”

“I thought this was what decorators dreamed of, a client who gives them free rein to do what they want.”

The homes she decorated were extensions of her clients, not of herself.

“I have nothing to prove, Doctor, no ego to feed. My main objective is to please the clients, to have them walk into their house and feel as if they’d entered not just their sanctuary but their dream home. I can’t succeed in creating that kind of feeling unless I know exactly what you’d like—and what you don’t like,” she emphasized.

He came to the only conclusion he could from her statement. “So you’re turning down the assignment?” he asked.

“I never turn down work,” she informed him. “But this is going to be a huge challenge.” Not that she wasn’t up to challenges. She would just have to pick up hints from his behavior. And hopefully from his daughters and the nanny. “It’s a little like being asked to paint something beautiful on a canvas and then someone blindfolds you just before you begin.”

Feeling as if she’d ignored the housekeeper long enough, Kennon stopped talking about work and smiled at the woman who appeared to be taking in every word that had just been said. “How are you feeling, Edna?”

“A little shaky,” she confessed.

“Well, this will help,” Kennon promised. Since there was no table for the bowl, Kennon volunteered her services instead. “Here, I’ll hold the bowl and plate up for you while you eat—unless you’d like me to feed you,” she offered.

“I haven’t had to be fed since I was in a high chair,” Edna told her, slowly pulling herself up into a sitting position and trying to get comfortable. “I’ll do this myself, thank you.” With that she took the spoon from Kennon.

The woman looked exceedingly weak to her. “I’ll still hold the bowl,” Kennon told her cheerfully. Anticipating Edna’s protest, she was quick to add, “It’s no problem.”

About to say something, Edna stopped and then shifted her eyes to Simon. Shaking her head, she said, “She’s a stubborn one.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Simon replied dryly. He looked at Edna, debating whether to remain down here with the woman or not. Right now, he felt like a fifth wheel—or, technically, a third one. “You’ll be all right if I leave you alone?”

Kennon cleared her throat. “In case you haven’t noticed, Doctor, she’s not alone. I’m here.”

“I’m assuming that you’ll be going home, or to your office, or wherever it is that you go to, soon,” he emphasized.

“Eventually.” Business was slow and if something came up, Nathan would either handle it, or call her. Either way, she was covered.

A smile began to curve the corners of Edna’s mouth. “It appears that I am in good hands, Doctor. Thank you for your concern, but I’m sure that I will be just fine.”

With a nod, and not wanting to get drawn into another conversation, Simon withdrew. His intention was to go up to his room. He had no plans beyond that. His days and nights were still comprised of a myriad of tiny, disjointed pieces, glittering, winking mosaics that made up patterns with no rhyme or reason.

But his intentions were abruptly arrested as he passed the kitchen once again. The strong aroma wafting from the large pot on the stove reminded him that he hadn’t eaten breakfast. Nor could he really remember if he’d had dinner the night before. He’d ordered out for the girls and Edna, but hadn’t eaten with them. Or alone, either.

His stomach reminded him that it did need tribute occasionally.

He supposed there was nothing to be lost by sampling a little of what that decorator with the smart mouth had made.

Pausing, he put a little of the soup into one of the remaining bowls. It amounted to barely more than a couple of large spoonfuls. He sipped a small spoonful. It was followed by a second. And then a third. By then he decided that he should have a proper serving.

No sense in wasting her efforts, he told himself just before he set the filled bowl down on the counter and dug in.

He didn’t hear her come into the kitchen, but he saw her reflection in the black oven door, which was just above the stove and at eye level. He braced himself for another assault of rhetoric.

But she didn’t cross to him. Instead, she quietly withdrew from the room, leaving him in peace to eat her soup.

Maybe the woman was intuitive after all.

But he doubted it.

Chapter Five

“Is she going to be coming back, Daddy?”

Madelyn’s questions came right on the heels of the quick greeting she’d given him when he picked her and her sister up from school that afternoon. She looked at him pointedly after she scrambled into the backseat and sat down beside Meghan.

“Is who coming back?” Simon asked absently as he helped Meghan fasten her seat belt and then tested it to make sure it had snapped into place.

“Kennon,” Meghan piped up. She smiled broadly as she gave the absent woman her seal of approval. “I like her, Daddy.”

He glanced at his younger daughter. Meghan was the warm and sunny one. She took after Nancy, while Madelyn was more like him. Cautious. At least, until today, he amended.