A Second Chance for the Single Dad Read online

  As she began to tell Theresa and Cilia about what had inspired her to take on this match, she wondered if her friends were going to think she had gone over the deep end.

  She looked from Theresa to Cilia. “You two remember my friend Karen Quartermain, don’t you?”

  Theresa’s response was an animated “Of course.”

  Cilia looked momentarily saddened as she told Maizie, “Karen was much too young when she died.”

  Maizie nodded. “Agreed. Karen always said that if she died first and ever needed to get me to do something, she’d find a way to drop a penny in my path so I’d know she was trying to communicate with me.”

  She gazed at the two women she’d been friends with since the third grade. She was fairly certain that they would understand what she was about to say next, but she wasn’t 100 percent convinced. Mentally crossing her fingers, she continued.

  “I dreamed about her last night. It was a very vivid, very real dream. She asked me to find someone for her daughter, Kayley. When I woke up, there was a penny on my carpet. I have no idea how it got there, but I know it wasn’t there when I went to bed.”

  Cilia studied her closely. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Absolutely,” Maizie answered with feeling. “Kayley is a wonderful girl. She gave up her job at a medical clinic in San Francisco to come home and nurse her mother through her final stages of bone cancer.”

  The words medical clinic instantly caught Cilia’s attention. “What did she do at the medical clinic?” Cilia asked.

  “Kayley’s a physician’s assistant. I can’t tell you what a comfort she was to her mother—What?” Maizie asked, seeing the wide smile on Cilia’s face.

  Cilia suppressed a laugh. “I think that you just came up with the perfect solution for both of us,” she told Maizie.

  It was Maizie’s turn to be confused. “Come again?” she asked uncertainly.

  Cilia’s face was a wreath of smiles as she happily said, “Trust me, I have the perfect guy for your goddaughter.”

  * * *

  Kayley Quartermain glanced at the address on the piece of paper that her godmother, Maizie Sommers, had given her.

  After her college graduation, Kayley hadn’t seen the woman she called Aunt Maizie for several years. Then Maizie had visited a week before her mother died. Maizie had been upset that she hadn’t heard about Karen being sick until the cancer had reached stage four. It was Aunt Maizie who had kept Kayley from going to pieces. She’d also been the one to help her with her mother’s funeral arrangements.

  Looking back now, Kayley had to admit that she didn’t know what she would have done without her godmother’s help.

  She laughed softly to herself as she pulled into the medical building’s parking lot. Aunt Maizie was more like a fairy godmother than just a run-of-the-mill godmother, Kayley thought. Not only had she helped to get her through what had to be the worst point in her life, but just last night, Aunt Maizie had called her to say that she thought she had found a possible position for her. She had a friend who knew a surgeon reestablishing his practice and he needed—wait for it, she mused with a smile—a physician’s assistant.

  Maybe life was taking a turn for the better after all, Kayley thought, pulling her car into the first space she found.

  It was a tight fit, requiring her to pay close attention to both sides of her vehicle as she pulled into the spot. Getting out of the car, she found she had to inch her way out slowly in order to keep from pushing her car door into the other vehicle.

  Being extra careful, she eased her door closed and fervently hoped that the owner of the car next to hers would be gone by the time she was finished with her job interview.

  She moved away from her door, backed out gingerly, then turned to make her way to the entrance of the two-story medical building.

  Which was when she saw it.

  There, right in front of her just as she was about to walk to the entrance of the building, was a bright, shiny new penny.

  She stared at it for a moment, thinking she was imagining it.

  Ever since her mother had died, she’d been on the lookout for pennies, even though she told herself she was being foolish because only a fool would really believe that her late mother would be sending her a sign from heaven.

  But there it was, a penny so new that it looked as if it had never been used.

  Unable to help herself, Kayley smiled as she stooped down to pick up the coin.

  She was also unable to keep herself from wondering, Does this mean I’m going to get the job, Mom? That you somehow arranged all this for me?

  Even as the question darted across her mind, she knew it was silly to think like this. Logically, she knew that the departed couldn’t intervene on the behalf of the people they had left behind.

  She was letting her loss get to her.

  And yet...

  And yet here was a penny, right in her path. And now right in the middle of her hand.

  Was it an omen, a sign from her mother that this—and everything else—was going to work out well for her?

  She really wanted to believe that.

  Kayley caught her lower lip between her teeth and looked at the penny again.

  “Nothing wrong in thinking of it as a good-luck piece, right?” she murmured under her breath, tucking the coin into her purse.

  Lots of people believed in luck. They had lucky socks they wore whenever they played ball, lucky rabbits’ feet tucked away somewhere on their bodies when they took tests.

  They believed that luck—and objects representing that luck—simply tipped the scales in their favor.

  Nothing wrong with that, Kayley told herself again.

  Thinking of the penny in her purse, she squared her shoulders and walked up to the entrance of the medical building.

  The electronic doors pulled apart, allowing her to walk in. The entrance, she realized, opened automatically to accommodate people who might have trouble pulling open a heavy door because of conditions that brought them to an orthopedic surgeon in the first place.

  Once inside the building, Kayley moved aside, away from the electronic door sensors. She needed to gather herself together in order to focus. She was good at what she did, very good, but she knew that she could still wind up tripping herself up.

  You want me to get this job, don’t you, Mom? You brought Aunt Maizie back into my life because you knew I was going to need her to get through this. And then, because you were always worried about me, you had her call me about this job opening.

  Suddenly wanting to take another look at the penny, Kayley opened her purse and gazed down at it.

  You’re still looking out for me, aren’t you? Kayley silently asked, although, in her heart, she knew the answer to that.

  The elevator was just right of the entrance. The elevator doors opened as she walked up to them.

  Another good omen? she wondered, trying to convince herself that she was a shoo-in for the job.

  The elevator car was empty.

  The nerves that usually began to act up each time she had to take on something new—a job interview, an admission exam, anything out of the ordinary—seemed oddly dormant this time.

  Kayley smiled to herself. She had a feeling—irrational though it might be—that she wasn’t going to be facing this interview by herself. Even so, she did experience a fleeting sensation of butterflies—large ones—preparing to take flight. And quickly.

  “It’s going to be all right,” she promised herself in a low whisper since no one else was in the elevator with her. “Nothing to be afraid of. You’re going to be fine. The job’s yours.”

  Just as the doors were about to close again, a tall athletic-looking man with wayward dark blond hair put his hand in.

  The doors still closed, then imm
ediately sprang open again, receding back to their corners and allowing him to walk in.

  “I’m sorry, did you say something?” he asked, looking straight at her, his head slightly cocked as if he couldn’t decide if he’d overheard something he shouldn’t have.

  “Not a word,” Kayley answered brightly.

  It was a lie, but she wasn’t about to admit to a perfect stranger—and he really was perfect—that she was giving herself a pep talk. It would have made him think that he was sharing the elevator with a mildly deranged woman.

  That was how rumors got started, she thought, smiling at the man.

  He didn’t return the smile.

  Chapter Two

  The Orthopedic Surgeons Medical Building was a square white building that had only two floors. The bottom floor housed an outpatient operating facility as well as an area where MRIs and other diagnostic scans were taken. The front of the second floor was a communal reception area where patients could sign in and then wait to be taken through the double doors to the myriad of rooms that honeycombed the rear of the floor. That was where a variety of orthopedic doctors, each with his or her own specialty, would see them.

  When the elevator doors opened on the second floor, the solemn-looking man riding up with her put his hand out again, this time to assure that the car’s doors would remain open. Then he stared at her, waiting.

  “Oh.” Kayley had been lost in thought, but now she came alive, realizing that the strikingly handsome man was holding the doors open for her. “Thank you,” she told him quickly, hurrying out of the elevator.

  “Don’t mention it,” the man murmured in a deep voice that seemed to surround her even though there was all this wide-open space around her.

  As she tried to orient herself, the first thing Kayley saw was a long dark teak reception desk. There were currently three women seated there, each incredibly perky looking and each busily engaged, typing on computer keyboards.

  Kayley waited until one of them was free and then walked up her. It was a petite brunette with lively green eyes.

  Giving her a cursory glance, the brunette asked, “Name?”

  It had been several years since she’d had to go through the interview process. Kayley felt the tips of her fingers grow icy as she answered, “Kayley Quartermain.”

  The receptionist skimmed a list she pulled up on her screen. Frowning, she looked up again and asked, “And you’re here to see...?”

  She’d memorized everything on the piece of paper Aunt Maizie had handed her, but she still looked down at it before answering.

  “Dr. Dolan.” It felt as if the man’s name was sticking to the roof of her mouth.

  The receptionist pulled up a new list, this one apparently highlighting that particular doctor’s schedule for the day. If anything, the frown on her lips deepened.

  “Are you sure you have an appointment?” the woman asked. “I don’t see you on Dr. Dolan’s list.”

  “I’m sure,” Kayley told her. “I called your office to verify the appointment yesterday afternoon.”

  The receptionist shrugged and reached toward a shelf where two sets of forms were stacked. “New patient or follow-up?” she asked.

  “Oh.” It dawned on Kayley that the receptionist was making a mistake. “Neither.”

  Confusion creased the young woman’s high forehead. “Well, then, I’m afraid that you can’t—”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Kayley said, cutting her short. “I’m applying for the position of Dr. Dolan’s physician’s assistant,” she explained. “I was told he was looking for one.” Then, to back up her claim, she added, “I emailed him my résumé.”

  The receptionist instantly became friendlier. “Boy, is Rachel going to be happy to see you,” she said with enthusiasm.

  “Rachel?” Kayley asked uncertainly, not sure what the receptionist was telling her.

  “That’s Dr. Barrett’s physician’s assistant,” the receptionist explained. “She’s helping Dr. Dolan out until he finds his own PA. But she’s also working for Dr. Barrett and between the two, she can hardly draw two breaths consecutively.” The receptionist lowered her voice. “The poor thing’s worn out,” she confided.

  Kayley nodded sympathetically. “Hopefully, she’ll be able to draw a lot of consecutive breathes shortly.”

  “Yes.” The receptionist offered her a quick one-size-fits-all smile and then told her, “Please take a seat in the waiting room. Someone will be with you very shortly.”

  The “someone” turned out to be the physician’s assistant who was currently juggling patients for both Dr. Dolan and Dr. Barrett.

  Young and undoubtedly vibrant, Rachel Mathews fairly burst through the double doors that led to the back offices.

  After a brief word with the receptionist, the beleaguered physician’s assistant made eye contact with her and immediately broke out in a huge relieved smile. Rather than standing and waiting by the door to the back rooms, Rachel swiftly came up to her and put her hand out as she asked hopefully, “You’re the one here about the opening for a physician’s assistant?”

  “Yes, that’s—”

  Rachel wouldn’t even let her finish her sentence. Judging by the young woman’s expression, Kayley had the feeling that Rachel was fighting the urge to throw her arms around her.

  As it was, Rachel cried, “Thank God! I don’t think I could have taken one more week of doing double duty.” She shook her hand vigorously. Again, the woman seemed as if she was on the verge of embracing her.

  Had she already landed the position? Kayley asked herself. Granted, she was very proud of her medical skills and what she had learned during the last round of courses she had taken to improve upon her degree, but there was no way that this Rachel person could know that. For all she knew, Kayley could have fabricated everything on her résumé.

  “Come with me,” Rachel told her. “I’ll take you to the back and you can tell me about yourself.”

  “It’s all there, in my résumé,” Kayley told the back of Rachel’s head as the PA led the way through a maze that eventually brought them to a room in the extreme rear.

  “It’s always good to get the feel of a person,” Rachel said. “Looking into a person’s eyes tells me more than the words on any résumé.”

  Taking her into what was clearly an exam room, complete with a monitor that highlighted X-ray films, Rachel gestured for her to take a seat.

  “You can sit on either the chair or the exam table, whatever makes you feel the most comfortable.” It was obvious by her mechanical tone that she recited those words to anyone she brought into either of the two doctors’ exam rooms.

  “I’ll take the chair,” Kayley told her. Sitting on the table would make her feel too vulnerable. As it was, she could feel her fingertips getting cold again.

  She handed the woman a copy of the résumé she’d sent the doctor by email and then braced herself for a shower of questions.

  The shower didn’t come.

  Instead, Rachel just began to talk to her. “Dr. Dolan is a really nice man. But the poor man’s sad. Very sad. He’s going through a rough patch. You shouldn’t take that as any kind of reflection on you,” Rachel warned.

  After having given up a rather lucrative, promising position for a prominent doctor to come back home and nurse her mother, she couldn’t afford to be overly picky. Her mother had left her a little bit of money in her will, so there was no need to sell her soul—not until the end of next month, at any rate.

  “Is there a reason why he’s so sad?” Kayley asked, wondering if there was something that she should know ahead of time. She didn’t want to inadvertently make a tactless remark.

  “An excellent reason,” Rachel told her. “The doctor’s wife was in a car accident and died. His four-year-old daughter was in the car at the t
ime, too, although she’s all right now—at least that’s what I’ve heard,” Rachel said in a lowered voice. “If you ask me,” she continued in an even lower voice, “the doctor blames himself for not being there when it happened.”

  “There probably wasn’t anything he could have done at the time, anyway,” Kayley said, thinking of her mother and how hard she’d tried to find a way to get that awful disease to go into remission.

  “You’re probably right,” Rachel agreed. “But word has it that’s not the way he feels, which is all that counts. Anyway—” the physician’s assistant shifted her focus and skimmed over the copy of the résumé that Kayley had just handed her “—everything looks in order and I, for one, would love to have you on board,” she said with a great deal of enthusiastic sincerity. “But you understand, the doctor has to have the final say.”

  “Of course,” Kayley concurred. She expected nothing less. “To be honest, I thought he’d be the one conducting the interview.”

  “He’s still with his patient, but he’ll be here,” Rachel promised. “He’ll probably ask you a couple of things,” the young woman told her. “And, just so that you know, for some reason he turned down the other five applicants.”

  That didn’t sound promising, Kayley thought, her uneasiness growing, although she managed to keep it from Rachel.

  “Was there a reason?” she asked, wanting to know what she was up against. If she knew, she might be able to be more in line with what the surgeon was seeking.

  But Rachel shook her head. She seemed really disappointed that she couldn’t offer anything helpful. “Not that he said. He just shook his head after each of the people he interviewed had left and murmured, ‘Not the one.’ I thought for sure he clicked with Albert,” Rachel told her, and then sighed, “but I was wrong.”

  “Albert?” she asked.

  At least the doctor had no preconceived notions about the person he was looking for to fill the position. If he had, he wouldn’t have interviewed a man for it—or if he had set notions, he might have only interviewed men for the job.