A Second Chance for the Single Dad Read online

  He contemplated her words for a moment. “Am I that much of an ogre?” he asked.

  “No, not an ogre,” she quickly denied. “You’re just that...reserved,” she said at last, feeling that she’d found a safe word to describe his particular distant approach.

  The slightest of knowing smiles played on his lips. “That wasn’t what you wanted to say.”

  “I always say what I want to say,” Kayley assured him, but there was a certain look in her eyes that left him wondering about the complete validity of that statement.

  He began to rise. The surgery was over, the patient was in recovery and he had to be getting back. “Well, I’ve got patients to see,” he reminded her.

  Kayley sighed. Suddenly, his office seemed miles away instead of just across the street. “That requires walking, doesn’t it?”

  He slanted a glance at her. “Well, I’m not about to carry you across the street, if that’s what you’re indirectly hinting at.”

  “A sense of humor,” Kayley acknowledged, staring at him. “Wow. Who knew?”

  His expression never changed. “I was being serious,” he told her.

  Just then, an ashen-faced couple in their mid-to late fifties came hurrying up to the OR.

  It was the frantic-looking woman who spoke first, her words tumbling over one another in a nearly garbled fashion. “We’re looking for a Dr. Dolan. Our son Kyle was in some kind of motorcycle accident.” She pressed her lips together as a sob escaped. The next second, squeezing her husband’s hand to the point that his fingers took on a very red hue, she said, “I told him not to get that motorcycle. I told him.”

  “I’m Dr. Dolan,” Luke said, interrupting the woman as he reverted back to his extremely formal, reserved persona.

  “Is he all right? Is our son going to be all right?” Mrs. Brubaker asked, almost aggressive in her grief as she all but assaulted Luke with the question.

  Kayley immediately sensed that the man beside her was searching for words. He might be a total miracle worker in the OR, but when it came to words, his ability to find any that offered even a shred of comfort totally failed him.

  Hoping he wouldn’t chastise her for this, Kayley came to his rescue. “His left leg was broken in two places and he shattered his left knee,” Kayley told the accident victim’s parents. She avoided looking in Luke’s direction. Even so, she thought talking to the parents was the least she could do for Luke. He had already shown that he had no idea how to go about softening blows or comforting loved ones.

  Hearing the description of the injury, Kyle’s mother made an unintelligible noise.

  Kayley was quick to set the woman—and her husband—at ease. “But the doctor managed to repair the damage, and given time and physical therapy, your son should make a full recovery.”

  “Well, I know that the first thing he’s going to do is sell that damn motorcycle of his,” Kyle’s mother declared.

  “And you are?” Kyle’s father asked her, speaking up for the first time.

  Kayley waited half a second for the doctor to validate her position. When he didn’t, she did it herself. Obviously, he was content letting her do all the talking, she thought.

  “I’m Kayley Quartermain. I assisted Dr. Dolan. Your son is in the recovery room right now. After about an hour, they’ll be moving him to his room. You can see him then,” she told the motorcyclist’s parents. “Until then, why don’t you go down to the cafeteria while you wait?” she suggested. “They have some really bracing coffee. It might do you some good,” she added kindly.

  “Thank you,” Mr. Brubaker said. “I think we will.” He nodded at Kayley and then the doctor she was speaking for.

  With that, the couple supported each other as they left, seeming a great deal better for having been able to put some of their immediate fears to rest, at least for the time being.

  That fact wasn’t lost on Luke.

  “You’re pretty good when it comes to running interference,” he commented.

  Kayley shrugged off the compliment as if what she’d done were no big deal, at least not to her. The last thing she wanted was for the doctor to think she wanted to be flattered.

  “I thought you looked like you might need to have someone intercede with the guy’s parents.” She paused briefly, waiting. When he said nothing, she asked, “Did I speak out of turn?”

  “No,” he answered.

  In truth, he had to admit that having her there to talk to Kyle’s parents had turned out to be a relief. He’d never gotten the knack of being able to say the right things to patients’ loved ones and that included knowing how to reassure them. Words had never been that important to him. It was the deeds that always counted.

  “I’m not much of a people person,” he stated matter-of-factly.

  “Some people just have a harder time than others when it comes to communication,” she said philosophically. “But no one could ask for a finer orthopedic surgeon, and when push comes to shove, I’m sure Kyle’s parents would have much rather had their son successfully operated on than had a good conversation with you about the procedure.” Even as she said the words, she realized that she was paraphrasing something he had told her the first week she’d been hired.

  Luke said nothing in response, but he had to acknowledge, at least to himself, that she did have a gift for saying things that put situations into perspective—and that in turn made him feel better.

  It wasn’t that he felt bad about not being able to communicate, but it was a shortcoming that he wasn’t happy about. He didn’t like having shortcomings, even minor ones.

  “I think you might have missed your calling,” he told her as they went to the first-floor locker rooms located behind the OR. They’d both donned surgical scrubs and he was more than ready to get back into his regular clothing.

  “I messed up in the OR?” Kayley asked. She’d been confident that she had done well.

  “No, you did very well. Surprisingly well,” he conceded.

  She was confused. “Then why did you just say that I missed my calling?”

  Separated from her by a wall of lockers, he quickly changed back into his regular clothes. “Because you could have been on some kind of philosophical debating team, the way you seem to be able to twist and turn words to your advantage.”

  She guessed that was a compliment, although it could be taken otherwise.

  “I’m not as brilliant as you are,” Kayley said honestly, briskly shedding her scrubs and slipping back into her own clothing. “That allows me to see things in a more simple light. I don’t overthink things. That’s why you might have a problem,” she said earnestly, adding, “You overthink things. That gets in the way of you being able to relate to everyday average people.”

  She came around the front of the lockers, carrying her scrubs and looking to deposit them somewhere. “Maybe it would help you if you just think of what you’d want to hear in a similar situation. You know, that old adage—think of yourself as walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.”

  He took the scrubs from her and dumped them, along with his own, into a receptacle. “Well, in the first place, it’s not sanitary—”

  “Pretend that it is,” she coaxed, overriding his complaint. “See, you’re overthinking again. Keep it simple,” she told him, then smiled. “I guess that’s what you have me for.”

  “Is that why I hired you?” he deadpanned.

  She grinned at him. “I’d say it was as good a reason as any.”

  He laughed softly to himself as they left the locker area. “You just might have something there.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Without Luke fully realizing it until sometime after the fact, he found himself relying on Kayley more and more in his day-to-day dealings with his patients. Since she had demonstrated her capability during th
e emergency reconstructive surgery, he had her doing pre-interviews with his patients. He also had her scheduling and reviewing X-rays and scans, as well as administering anti-inflammatory injections to those of his patients he felt could benefit from them rather than surgery. He trusted her to draw conclusions for him to read over and consider before he ever interacted with his patients.

  This interdependent relationship was definitely something new for Luke. He was fully aware that he’d never been one to work well with others. Oh, he could work with them but there’d always been a bit of abrasiveness or prickliness involved that interfered with the regular flow of getting things done.

  Kayley was different.

  She seemed to be amenable to anything he needed while simultaneously subtly interjecting her own take on the situation. The result was an amalgamation of both their inputs to ultimately compose one solid acceptable whole.

  He wasn’t entirely cognizant of any of this on a conscious level at first. All he really noticed was that things were going well.

  Very well.

  Consequently, Luke found himself not escaping to work but actually being happy about coming to work each day, which in turn made him a happier man at home. That made him come across in a better light in both spheres.

  Both his daughter and Barbara commented on that fact in their own ways, Lily’s statement being the more direct one.

  “You seem nicer, Daddy,” she told him out of the blue at dinner one night.

  “Nicer?” Luke asked, pausing to look at the pint-size adult sitting across from him. “What do you mean, nicer?”

  She’d blossomed in the last two months, unafraid to speak her mind instead of just remaining silent. “Your eyebrows don’t come together so much anymore. You know,” she prompted when he didn’t seem to understand, “like you’re mad at everything.”

  Luke raised his eyes to look at his mother-in-law, a silent question in them.

  “What she said,” Barbara told him, pointing toward her granddaughter and preferring to let Lily speak for both of them.

  “I’m not mad at everything,” Luke protested, about to say that he never had been and had no idea where Lily had gotten that idea, but he never got the opportunity to continue.

  Lily had become a great deal more articulate in the last couple of months. More articulate as well as frank, she went right to the heart of what was on her mind. “Can Kayley come over for dinner again? She hasn’t been here in a long, long time and I want to see her again.”

  He glanced again at his mother-in-law, silently asking if she had put Lily up to this, but Barbara spread her hands wide, disavowing having anything to do with the little girl’s request.

  “She’s direct, like her father,” Barbara told him, a hint of a smile curving her lips. She didn’t bother attempting to hide it from him.

  “Well, Kayley’s busy—” Luke began, only to be ambushed.

  Lily talked quickly, a lot more quickly than she used to. It left little room for him to offer an objection against anything she said.

  “But she’ll listen to you. Ask her, Daddy. Please, please, please, ask her to come over. She can’t say no to you. You’re the boss.”

  “Wonder where she got that idea from,” Barbara remarked under her breath just loudly enough for her son-in-law to hear.

  “I can ask her to come to dinner,” Luke told his daughter in a tone that said acquiescence wasn’t a foregone conclusion. “But she might be busy.”

  “Busy every night?” Lily asked innocently, as if even she knew that wasn’t possible.

  Luke wasn’t fast enough to suppress the laugh that surfaced. The corners of his mouth turned up as he shook his head. “You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you, Lily?”

  Lily didn’t answer. She merely continued looking at him with her wide, earnest eyes until he promised to ask Kayley “as soon as you get into work, Daddy.”

  * * *

  But Luke didn’t get a chance as soon as he got into work.

  Since he’d taken to arriving at the clinic at a regular time—except for that Monday morning after Kayley’s first dinner with his family—he no longer was the first one there to unlock the main doors to the orthopedic offices. His schedule that day was straining at the seams and he didn’t have two minutes to rub together until well after what was supposed to be the lunch break taking place between noon and two.

  It was closer to two.

  He waited until he was alone in his office and fairly confident that most of the staff as well as the doctors he worked with were still out to lunch, running errands or doing their rounds.

  Rather than buzzing for her to come in, he sent Kayley a text.

  No sooner had he pressed Send than there was a knock on his door.

  That caught him off guard. Maybe there was someone else in the office, he thought. One of the staff had to have come back early. “Come in.”

  But it wasn’t someone else; it was Kayley, responding to his text. Had she been somewhere in the vicinity and he’d missed her?

  “You wanted to see me, Doctor?” Kayley asked, popping her head into his office.

  He congratulated himself on not reacting to the sound of her voice or the sight of her face. Lately she came across like the first ray of sunshine in the morning and that worried him.

  He was afraid that someone else—or perhaps even Kayley—noticed his response. He was trying to keep that all under wraps until it went away on its own.

  “Come in and close the door,” he instructed, his voice deep and resonant.

  She did as he asked.

  Since she’d assisted him with that motorcycle-accident patient, she felt that things had been progressing rather well. She’d let her guard down a little, and while still maintaining a respectful air, she had kidded with him in off moments.

  Had she inadvertently crossed some line? Did he resent her asking after Lily and his mother-in-law? She was getting personal, but she really did like both the little girl and Barbara and honestly wondered how they were doing.

  And, if she was being honest, although most of the time he tried to maintain a distant, blustery air, she liked Luke, as well.

  Maybe more than liked him, she amended in the next moment. Was that it? Was that the problem? Had he called her in because he sensed her shift in feelings? Had he caught something in her gaze when she’d assumed he didn’t notice the way she was looking at him?

  Her mother had always told her to meet everything head-on.

  “Did I do something wrong?” she finally asked Luke when he said nothing.

  “I’m not sure,” Luke replied, slowly picking his way through what he viewed as a verbal minefield. He never took his eyes off her face as he said, “My daughter and her grandmother both asked me to invite you to dinner again, so you be the judge.”

  Kayley eyed him uncertainly. Her first reaction was to happily accept the invitation, but was it an invitation, at least from him—or was it just from Barbara and Lily and he was extending it under duress? She wasn’t sure.

  “Do you want me to come to dinner?”

  “What I want doesn’t matter,” Luke said quite honestly.

  Kayley raised her chin in what appeared to be almost a combative manner. “It does to me. I’m very flattered that they’d ask me.” Her eyes met his. “But I don’t want to come to dinner if you don’t want me to be there.”

  “I never said that,” he denied.

  “Not in so many words,” she agreed. “But there’s a look on your face that tells me you’re delivering the invitation under protest.”

  He had a feeling she was being truthful with him. That meant she didn’t want to accept if the invitation wasn’t from all three of them. But he didn’t want to say he wanted her to come, too, because that would be admitting more than he was ready to
admit.

  So he tried diversion. “Tell me, have you always had this overactive imagination, or is it something that came over you gradually?”

  “I just pick up on signs,” she told him simply.

  “Obviously, you need to study the language a little better.”

  “Does that mean you do want me to come to dinner?”

  “I am a grown man. I don’t do what I don’t want to do.”

  “So that’s a yes?” Kayley asked brightly.

  Luke was nearing the end of his patience. “Are you coming or not?” he asked.

  “Coming,” she fairly sang back, making her choice, the one she’d made from the first moment he’d told her about the invitation. “Just tell me the day.”

  “Saturday, of course.” He thought since she seemed to have burrowed into his life, she already knew that. “As it so happens, I’m off this weekend.”

  She smiled and he watched her eyes crinkle, trying not to be drawn in by the sight. “I know. I arranged your schedule, remember?” Her hand on the doorknob, she opened the door, ready to slip out, then added one last thing. “I’ll bring dessert.”

  “You’ll bring yourself,” he informed her. “Dessert’s being taken care of.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  He saw the reflection of her smile in the door’s glass just as she went into the small hallway.

  Why that all-but-see-through image should captivate him, he hadn’t a clue.

  He had even less of a clue why it should remain with him for the better part of the afternoon.

  * * *

  When she arrived home that night, Kayley found another penny. It was lying in the gutter, right in front of her mailbox. She’d gone to get her mail right after she’d parked her car in the garage. She’d almost missed seeing the penny, but she’d dropped a letter and when she stooped to pick it up, her fingers had brushed against the copper-colored coin.