Doctoring the Single Dad Read online

  “It smells really cold,” Maizie contradicted. “I was waiting for an hour.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t waiting all that long.”

  “I lied. One of the few times,” Maizie was quick to add.

  “Right.” Nikki let that slide, choosing instead to explain why she was late. “Mrs. Lee went into early labor. This was her first baby and she didn’t have a pediatrician. Larry called me just as I was leaving the office.”

  Maizie instantly became alert. “Larry? Larry Bishop?”

  Too late. Nikki realized the minefield she’d just walked into. She and the ob-gyn had dated for a few months. Until she discovered that Larry’s idea of exclusive dating meant that she dated him exclusively and he dated anyone he wanted to.

  “Yes, Mother,” she answered patiently, “Larry Bishop.”

  “How is Larry these days?” her mother prodded.

  “Engaged,” Nikki responded, taking the casserole dish and bringing it over to the microwave. She set the dial for three minutes.

  Maizie shifted around in her chair. “Permanently?” she asked.

  “No, I imagine one of these days, he’ll get tired of being engaged and get married.” And I feel sorry for his wife, she added silently. Nikki turned away from the oven and leaned her back against the counter. “Don’t frown like that, Mom. Didn’t Grandma tell you that your face’ll freeze that way if you’re not careful?” she teased with a straight face.

  “She might have, but I was too busy taking care of my baby,” Maizie emphasized, “to hear her at the time.” Exasperated, she reminded Nikki, “Your internal clock is ticking, you know.”

  How did they get back here? “I know, Mom. And I promise, when the alarm goes off, I’ll get you a grandchild even if I have to steal one.”

  “Wonderful—my daughter, the felon.”

  “Everyone has to have something to look forward to,” Nikki said cheerfully. The bell went off. Slipping her hands into oven mitts, she took the casserole out and brought it back to the table. She set it down in front of her mother, then took her seat. “So, what’s new in your life?” Nikki asked, spooning out some of the stew on to her plate.

  “You mean other than a disrespectful daughter?”

  “That’s not new, that’s old,” Nikki reminded her mother and then smiled as the meal hit bottom and flavor radiated out. “Hey, this is good, Mom,” she enthused. “I’ve forgotten how much I like your stew.”

  Maizie perked up. “I’ll cook for you every night when you’re married.”

  There’d been times when her mother’s persistence got under her skin and annoyed her. But it had gotten so familiar, it now had the aura of home about it.

  Nikki laughed, shaking her head. “Thanks, but I can go back to takeout. Besides, I’m too busy for a husband.” After several disastrous choices, she had resigned herself to being alone. “No man is going to want to compete with a thriving practice.”

  “Your patients will outgrow you,” her mother pointed out. “They’ll move on.” The implication was clear. She would be alone again.

  “New ones’ll come,” Nikki said.

  “And they’ll outgrow you, too.” Maizie placed her hand on top of Nikki’s, cornering her attention. “Play your cards right and your own children will never outgrow you, Nikki.”

  “They will if I nag them,” Nikki said pointedly.

  Maizie drew herself up. “This isn’t nagging. This is suggesting.”

  Nikki grinned. “Over and over and over again.”

  Maizie nodded her head. “Just until the suggestion is taken, dear.”

  Nikki quickly put another forkful of stew into her mouth to keep from talking and giving voice to the thought regarding suggestions and where they could be put that streaked across her mind.

  Whenever anyone talked about which sign they were born under in the zodiac, Maizie always maintained that she was born under the sign of The Optimist. And she had good reason to feel that way. With the notable exception of losing her husband years before she should have, life seemed to just go her way. The day after she’d had dinner with Nikki, life ushered the perfect prospect for her daughter into the real-estate office she ran.

  That was when the first client of the day walked through her door. Beyond a doubt, the tall, muscular, dark-haired stranger with the face of an action hero had to be the best-looking man she’d ever seen outside of a movie screen. Maybe even on the screen as well. His name was Lucas Wingate and it turned out that he was new to the area. The man was looking for a house for himself and his seven-month-old daughter. Not only was he looking, but he actually bought one.

  To add icing to the cake, once he’d made up his mind about the house, he’d said, since he was new to the area, could she possibly recommend a pediatrician for his daughter.

  Maizie thought she’d died and gone to heaven. Since Nikki’s last name was Connors and Maizie used her maiden name at the agency, she’d sung praises about her daughter without telling him the connection. When he asked if she had sold “Dr. Connors” her house, she’d slyly sidestepped the question by saying she’d put a roof over Dr. Connors’s head.

  And then crossed her fingers.

  Funny how you got accustomed to things without even realizing it, Lucas thought several days later as he glanced around the waiting room.

  Take coming to the doctor. He no longer felt like a fish out of water whenever he walked into a pediatrician’s office, despite the fact that more likely than not, he was the only male over the age of ten in the room. He’d long since become used to the curious looks, covert and blatant, that would come his way from the other adult occupants of the waiting room.

  That wasn’t about to change any time soon, he thought. It just no longer bothered him. He’d been Heather’s mother and father from the time she was seventy-two hours old. That meant taking on duties he’d never in his wildest dreams thought he’d come within ten feet of tackling. He’d certainly never thought about this less than emotionally satisfying side of parenting when Carole had called him from the doctor’s office with the news, so excited that she was utterly incoherent.

  Eventually, he got her to calm down long enough so that her words were no longer colliding into one another, forming gibberish rather than making sense. Between Carole’s gasps and her squeals of joy, he quickly realized that his wife of two years, the light of his life, was telling him that he was eight months away from becoming a father.

  It seemed like a million years ago, he suddenly thought. Damn, he wasn’t supposed to go there, wasn’t supposed to dwell on what couldn’t be changed.

  With effort, he refocused.

  Now that finding a suitable house was behind him and Heather and his days at the hotel were numbered, Lucas decided there was no time like the present to take Heather to meet her new pediatrician. He wanted the doctor to be acquainted with his daughter before any sort of an emergency arose. He couldn’t think of anything worse than having a first meeting in the middle of the night in the emergency room.

  These days, Lucas believed in being methodical, in being organized and having all his bases covered. He was a far cry from the carefree computer programmer he’d been a short seven months ago. Becoming a father and losing a wife, going from supreme joy to agonizing sorrow, all in the scope of seventy-two hours, changed the way a man looked at everything in life.

  Trying to hold on to his squirming daughter while filling out the forms that the nurse/receptionist had handed him turned out to be more of a challenge than Lucas had initially thought. His handwriting, never good under ideal conditions, looked as if he’d dipped a chicken in ink and allowed it to race across the pages several times over.

  It probably made the doctor’s handwriting look legible, he thought.

  “Sorry about that,” he apologized when he finally returned the forms and the clipboard to the receptionist.

  Lisa glanced down at the top form, then looked up at Lucas and his restless daughter. She flashed a sunny smile
at him. “You did a lot better than most of the people filling out forms while trying to hold on to their little bundles of energy.” She clipped the forms inside a brand new, flat pink folder and inserted the folder behind the others standing at attention on her desk. “Take a seat,” she directed, nodding at the chair he’d just vacated. “There’s a small wait.”

  The receptionist’s definition of “small” definitely differed from his, Lucas thought as he tried his best to amuse a more than slightly cranky Heather. In this case, “small” turned out to be another fifty minutes. Technically, given that he was his own boss and did most of his work at home, his hours were as flexible as he was and he could spare the time. At least, he could today. And Maizie Sommers had said that this pediatrician was one of the best in the area.

  “Mister Wingate?”

  Thank God, Lucas thought, hearing the deep, rumbling male voice uttering his name.

  Looking toward the opened door that led to the doctor’s exam rooms, Lucas saw that the voice belonged to a slightly balding man of medium height and medium build. A man who, he thought, could have easily escaped notice as he mingled with the rest of humanity. He didn’t look as if a voice that deep could belong to him.

  “Here,” Lucas said eagerly in case the man didn’t see him standing up. “Let’s get this show on the road, Heather,” he murmured.

  Crossing the toy-laden, child-filled waiting room, Lucas quickly strode over to the man in the white lab coat who was holding Heather’s pink folder.

  “Doctor Connors?” Lucas asked when he reached the man.

  The latter laughed, shaking his head. “Afraid not. I’m Bob Allen, Dr. Connors’s head nurse.”

  “Oh.” He supposed it was a natural mistake. He wasn’t accustomed to male nurses. Lucas hoped that the man didn’t take offense at his surprise.

  Following Bob through the winding hallway and making a left turn, he was aware of several closed doors. Heather’s old pediatrician had only two rooms plus his own office. “Are all these exam rooms?” he asked.

  Bob looked over his shoulder and Lucas thought he detected a hint of pride in the man’s thin face. “She’s extremely popular.”

  “She?” Lucas echoed. Surprise number two. He’d just assumed, since Heather’s previous pediatrician had been a man and no pronoun was used in reference to the present one—even the name on the door only had a first initial—that Dr. Connors was a man. Obviously, he’d assumed wrong. “Dr. Connors is a woman?”

  “Last we checked,” Bob responded with an amused chuckle. “Now, let’s get acquainted with the young lady, shall we?” he said, looking at Heather.

  In response, Heather picked that moment to let out a frustrated wail.

  “Well, her lungs are fully developed,” Bob noted as he opened the pink folder.

  Skimming down the pages, he asked questions whenever he felt something needed clearing up or if what the baby’s father had written down was incomplete. Bob made a few notations in the margins, nodding to himself. Finished, he closed the folder and held it against his shallow chest.

  “Well, that about does it on my end. Dr. Connors’ll be right in,” he promised just before he left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Lucas heard Heather’s folder being tucked into the slot that had been mounted on the door just for this express purpose.

  “Won’t be long now, Heather,” he told his daughter. Heather scrunched up her face anyway, making known her displeasure at having to wait. “You and me both, kid,” he murmured under his breath.

  It occurred to Lucas, some twenty minutes later, that none of the people who worked for Dr. Connors had any kind of concept of time. Granted, he didn’t have to be anywhere in particular this time, but in the future, he would be on a tighter schedule, depending on what software project he found himself working on. Didn’t this woman have any regard for other people’s time?

  Lucas found himself growing more annoyed by the moment.

  He couldn’t afford to waste the better part of his day waiting for a pediatrician to put in an appearance, no matter how good she supposedly was. There had to be someone equally as good, or at least almost as good, who knew how to show up on time.

  He heard the door open behind him. So much for making good their escape, he thought. But he wasn’t about to stand quietly by, agreeing to having his time wasted by virtue of his silence.

  Prepared to give this Dr. Connors a dressing down, Lucas turned around to look at the doctor his daughter more than likely wouldn’t be seeing in the future.

  Anything he was about to say evaporated from his tongue and simultaneously vanished from his mind without leaving so much as a single trace.

  This couldn’t be the doctor. She was too young, not to mention much too striking. The woman had blond hair the color of sunshine on an early spring morning and eyes like a bright, cloudless sky. If anything, with those cheekbones, she belonged on the cover of a fashion magazine. This had to be another nurse, he thought. Just how long did they expect him to wait?

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to—”

  “Leave?” the slender blonde in the lab coat guessed. “I’m really sorry about the delay, but if you can spare a few more minutes, I promise to be thorough and fast.”

  That’s when it hit him. “You’re Dr. Connors?” Lucas asked skeptically.

  The bright smile that flashed had more wattage than the lamp on his nightstand. “Guilty as charged. I realize that I must have given you a terrible first impression,” she apologized again, “but it really couldn’t be helped. One of my patients decided that her bath towel had magic properties. Full of the kind of confidence found only in eight-year-olds, she tied it around her neck and tried to fly off the top of her brother’s bunk bed. Needless to say, the towel wasn’t magical. Ally wouldn’t let Dr. Gorman—the pediatric surgeon—touch her unless I was in the room with her.”

  Her apology tendered, the woman’s attention shifted to Heather who had stopped fussing so much and appeared to be listening to the sound of her voice. Dr. Connors smiled at Heather. “And who is this beautiful young lady?”

  Heather gurgled in response, as if to answer her.

  Chapter Two

  Lucas watched his daughter in muted awe.

  The only other person the tiny light of his life had ever responded to in a positive manner was his father. That had struck him as unusual at the time because, brusque, deep-voiced and accustomed to storming his way through life, Mike Wingate was the living embodiment of his former profession—that of a Navy SEAL.

  When it came to the rest of the world, Heather was either shy or tearful. So when she appeared to be listening to the doctor’s voice instead of fussing or trying to bury her face in his shoulder, Lucas had to admit he was both surprised and impressed.

  “She seems to like you.”

  “Most kids do, unless I’ve got a needle in my hands,” she deadpanned. “I need to get her undressed for her exam,” Nikki told him.

  He opened the snaps at the bottom of Heather’s romper. “At the risk of sounding like a stereotypical father,” he told his daughter’s new doctor, “Heather isn’t like most kids.” To prove it, he added, “She doesn’t like anybody except for me and for my father.”

  Nikki undid the diaper tabs, first on one side, then the other, leaving the diaper in place for the moment. “That must really be hard on her mother’s ego,” she commented, working her fingers gently along Heather’s nicely rounded tummy.

  The image of Carole, lying in the hospital bed, Heather pressed to her breast, flashed across his mind. “I imagine that if she were around, Heather would be different.”

  Her new patient’s parents were obviously not together, Nikki concluded. She wondered if the divorce had been acrimonious. Babies sensed and reacted to so much more than people realized.

  She made her voice sound nonjudgmental as she asked, “You don’t have joint custody?”

  “No.”

  She wouldn’t have said tha
t the word had exactly been bitten off, but it definitely had the ring of finality. Huge “no trespassing” signs were popping up all around the subject.

  As she resealed the diaper tabs, Nikki silently admitted that her curiosity had been aroused a little. But she wasn’t attempting to satisfy her curiosity when she pressed Heather’s father for more of an explanation. She needed a full history on the child. This included finding out just what kind of living conditions her patient had to deal with on a daily basis. Doing without any contact with her mother could have some far-reaching consequences down the line.

  “Do you need me to do anything else?” he asked, wanting to make this examination as painless as possible for his little girl. He still couldn’t believe she wasn’t fussing.

  “I can take it from here, Mr. Wingate,” Nikki answered, slowly edging him away from the examination table with her body. “Okay, let’s see what makes you tick, little one.”

  Watching her little patient carefully, Nikki began going through the rest of the paces for a routine exam. She checked Heather’s reflexes as well as her response to different stimuli. She checked her overall skin tone and, in general, looked over anything that would enable her to have a clearer picture of as many aspects of Heather’s health as possible.

  Using a small rubber hammer, she gently struck just above each sturdy knee. The response was immediate. “Strong kick,” Nikki commented with approval. “I’d say she was a good candidate for martial-arts training in a few years. Everything going well at home in regards to her care?” she asked casually as she continued her examination. “No questions, no concerns?”

  Lucas sighed. Most of the time he felt like a lost tourist in a foreign country who didn’t speak the language. “A thousand questions and concerns,” he heard himself saying.