Promise of Forever

by Patt Marr

  Now, that was the way to his heart. A kindness to his little girl topped anything Beth could have given him. “Chocolate chip cookies are her favorite, but she’ll think these are too pretty to eat.”

  “I know!” Beth said with that soft laugh he was getting to know. “That’s why I got these.” She handed over the smaller bag which held a commercial brand of chocolate cookies with icing. “These are for eating until the novelty of the others wears off.”

  Three for three. She couldn’t do better than that. “I have something for you, too,” he said, unrolling his daughter’s sign.

  “Oh, Noah!” Her voice rose in delight.

  For a second, he thought his new boss might cry.

  “Your daughter made this, didn’t she? And she signed her name, Kendra McKnight. We need to put this up for everyone to see.”

  He couldn’t have asked for a better reaction. “I wanted to have it up before you got here.”

  “Her drawing really looks like the clinic. How old is your daughter?”

  “She just turned seven.”

  “So, she just started second grade?”

  He nodded. “She loves school.”

  “It’s very advanced artwork for a child so young,” she said with that truly knockout smile, taking the picture to the bulletin board and placing it in the center.

  A piercing screech came from the lobby. Noah took a deep breath and geared up for the storm. Hurricane Mona had arrived, and there was no telling the damage she’d do.

  Chapter Three

  Beth squared her shoulders and prepared for the blast of anger about to walk through the door. As Grandpa had said, getting along with Mona Fitz would be as challenging as getting along with Beth’s own mother, but Beth could walk on eggshells in her sleep.

  “Beth Brennan, you’ve turned this place into a zoo.”

  “Good morning, Mona,” Beth said, as pleasantly as rushing adrenaline would allow. Her body might react to Mona’s wild accusations, but her mind would stay clear.

  Judging from Mona’s flushed face, Beth would say the woman’s blood pressure was stroke-high. She’d hate for her first patient to be her own nurse.

  “Good morning, Mona,” Noah echoed, going to his desk as if this were just another day.

  “I suppose you think this is just fine and dandy,” Mona said as she brushed by him to her own desk.

  “Take another look,” he teased. “Notice the pairs? It’s Noah’s ark.”

  “Ark, smark,” Mona said, her face puckered angrily. “It’s not appropriate for a professional office.”

  “I like it,” Noah said, the corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. “But then I get to play the part of Noah. Be nice, and you can be Mrs. Noah—either my wife or my mom.”

  Beth couldn’t believe it. A smile crept over the woman’s lips. Grandpa’d said he thought Mona might have a soft spot for Noah. If she did, who could blame her? Noah seemed to be as nice as he was good-looking. Even better, he didn’t seem to know it.

  If he’d been this nice when they met, why couldn’t she remember him? Guys this great weren’t forgettable.

  Mona shoved her purse into the bottom drawer of her desk and noticed her flowers.

  Beth was counting on those flowers. What woman could resist something that lovely, to say nothing of the sweet dove container?

  “Achoo!” Mona sneezed, not once but again. Grabbing a tissue, she held it to her nose. “Noah, get those flowers out of here.” Another sneeze punctuated her complaint.

  Beth bit her lip, trying not to laugh. A child could have faked sneezes better than that.

  “Your office?” Noah muttered, barely suppressing a grin as he walked by her with the flowers.

  She nodded. Perfect. It would keep Mona out.

  “All better?” she asked as Mona’s sneezing ended miraculously. “Are you taking something for that allergy, or can I prescribe something?”

  “No, you can not!” Mona pointedly ignored Beth.

  “Oh, wow!” Someone in the lobby liked the ark.

  Beth opened the door and saw a beautiful dark-haired young woman with absolute delight in her sparkling eyes.

  “Would you look at the aquarium! And all the little fish! And the darling animal chairs for the kids! This is unbelievable! Hey, Noah! You have an ark out here!”

  Noah joined her, wearing a big matching grin. “Kendi’s going to love this, isn’t she, Vanessa?”

  “Oh, she will. All the kids will!”

  The glowing approval was a boost after Mona’s reaction.

  “Hi, Dr. Brennan. I’m Vanessa Taylor, as you’ve probably figured out, and I’m so happy you’re here.”

  How nice that her patients’ first impression would be this lovely young woman’s smile. “Hi, Vanessa. Please call me Beth.”

  “Really?” Vanessa looked as if she’d been offered a raise. “But what if I forget around the patients? Maybe I should call you Dr. B or something?”

  “Pfft!” The sound was comically incongruous coming from an impeccably groomed woman. Mona’s manicured nails matched the rose color on her thin lips and the flowers of her smock. There wasn’t a hint of gray in her upswept black hair, and her pants, shirt and shoes were very white.

  “A man of Dr. Crabtree’s stature didn’t require a nickname,” she said with a sniff.

  But the Brennan kids had given him one anyway. Dr. Crabby had seemed perfect back then. When Beth knew him as an adult and realized he was just shy, she’d felt bad about that.

  “Let’s go with Beth or Dr. Beth,” she told Vanessa.

  “Got it!” Vanessa said, heading for her desk. She spotted the kangaroo candy dish and stopped. “Look at this! It is so cute. Thank you, Dr. Beth.”

  Beth nodded, feeling exceptionally good about how things were going. “Let’s all get settled, then we’ll take a little tour and go over a couple of new procedures.”

  Mona swung around. “A tour?” Her shrill voice could have stripped paint from a wall. “I hardly need a tour! I was here in this office, taking your temperature, before you knew how to count, Beth Brennan.”

  “You were, weren’t you?” Beth struggled to be cordial when every instinct said her grandfather was right and Mona Fitz should go.

  “Dr. Crabtree took good care of all you little Brennans, though a lot of thanks it got him.”

  Beth wasn’t sure what that meant, but, trying again to be nice, she said, “It must seem strange that most of us are doctors here now.”

  “It isn’t strange at all! Or it wasn’t until today. Your brother and your cousin know how to fit in. They haven’t created an eyesore like that mess outside.”

  This disrespect had to end. No one should have to work in unpleasant conditions. “Mona, do our patients and their parents still call you by your first name?”

  “Of course! My name hasn’t changed.”

  “With respect for your many years on the job, I think it’s time you were called Ms. Fitz.”

  Clearly, Vanessa and Noah hadn’t heard Mona called that or thought how the two syllables sounded together. To their credit, neither cracked a smile, though Vanessa rushed to the restroom and Noah checked on a lab report.

  “My name is Mona!” the woman said, her voice quivering with rage.

  “Are you sure?” Beth said doubtfully. “It’s important to treat everyone with respect, don’t you think?”

  Whew! If looks could kill, she’d be dead. Mona’s glare was so piercing that Beth had the urge to check for entry wounds, but Mona turned abruptly to her desk.

  Beth took a deep breath and walked down the hall to her office, almost skipping. That had gone better than she’d expected, even though she had prayed it would. There was nothing that the Lord and she couldn’t handle.

  Grandpa’d said there was no way she could handle Mona. Ha! Nothing fired Beth’s determination like being told what she couldn’t do. They would get along fine.

  Beth opened the door to her office and paused to see if it still f
elt as if she were trespassing there. Missing were Keith’s books, personal items and diplomas, but everything else was as he’d left it, everything but the flowers she’d intended for Mona.

  Noah had placed them on the massive mahogany desk. Beth leaned down and sniffed their lovely fragrance. What a shame that Mona couldn’t have enjoyed them as a sweet reminder of all that was good and pleasant in this world.

  Sitting in Keith’s big office chair, Beth swiveled slowly, taking in the view of the clinic’s lush grounds, the empty bookshelves, the armchairs in front of her desk, the monstrous mahogany desk and the credenza behind her. She would feel more at home when her diplomas were on the wall and the furnishings were her own. There’d been so much to do, her office had been her last priority.

  Lord, thank you for what I have, and help me do this job right. I don’t want to let Grandpa down.

  “Dr. Beth.” Noah stood at the open door, holding two more floral arrangements. “Where would you like these?”

  The flowers were extraordinary, but the guy holding them took her breath away. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen her share of good-looking men, but something about Noah McKnight stirred her senses. She gestured toward the credenza behind her. “How about there?”

  “Looks like a good spot.”

  She watched him, impressed with the easy way he moved and the conscientiousness with which he placed the flowers, turning them to show them off to best advantage. Some guys would have plunked them down any which way. Either he had an artistic flair or he liked things done right.

  “Is that okay?” He gestured toward the flowers.

  “It’s perfect, but…”

  “What?” Instant concern covered his face.

  The look on his face seemed so familiar. She had to have seen it before. “I just wondered if you could drop the formality and just call me Beth.”

  “The first name is important to you, isn’t it?” he said with a quick smile that deepened faint laugh lines around his eyes.

  He hadn’t always been the serious guy Keith Crabtree had described. “I do like first names,” she said. “They seem more…friendly.”

  “And you want to be friends?” he said, his eyes narrowed as if he didn’t quite believe it.

  “Well, sure. And a friend would sit down for a minute.” She tapped her desktop. “Keith had our morning patients rescheduled. We aren’t seeing anyone until after lunch.”

  He sat on the edge of her desktop, balancing himself with one hand, not crowding her space, but close enough that she noticed his tanned muscular arm. And the rest of him, too. Blue scrubs had never looked better on anybody, and she’d seen a lot of blue scrubs.

  “Not all doctors are friendly with staff,” he said.

  She couldn’t argue that. The older generation of physicians had their hierarchy of propriety, which some of her peer group still valued, but not her. “I think of us as a team—you, Mona, Vanessa and me.”

  “Mona? Not Ms. Fitz?”

  She bent her head, not wanting him to see her pleasure in winning one tiny battle. “She’s Mona…for now.”

  “For the record,” he said, “that’s the first time I’ve seen anyone shut Mona down.”

  “Really? I’m not usually known for my great assertiveness, but you’ve been around doctors. You know how we can pull out the sharp comment to get what we want, stat.”

  He laughed, showing off those laugh lines again. “You just showed who was the boss. Mona’s not used to that.”

  “I don’t really want to be ‘the boss.’ Like I said, we’re a team, and we’ll find a way to get along. Mona’s a fixture here, and she’s a first-rate nurse, or Keith Crabtree wouldn’t have kept her on all these years.”

  Noah’s eyes drifted, exactly as a person’s might if he knew something more than he planned to share.

  “Noah?” She wouldn’t let him get away with that. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He spoke slowly, as if he were choosing his words carefully. “Keith Crabtree was a very private person. I worked with him for two years and didn’t know what he did in his spare time…other than fish. I didn’t know what his wife was like, how long they’d been married before she died or anything about their baby.”

  “What baby?”

  “Exactly. On the credenza behind you, there was a picture of a baby who died from SIDS. I caught Mona holding the picture once, and I could tell the child was special to her—maybe because she was the baby’s godmother, or because she felt so bad for Keith. They worked together a long time.”

  “I just knew Keith as my pediatrician and Mona as his nurse,” Beth said. “I don’t remember that he, his wife or Mona ever came to our family’s New Year’s Eve parties, though I’m sure they were invited. Everyone at the clinic is. I missed the party last year, being in New York, but I was there the year before. I don’t remember seeing you. Did I miss meeting you then?”

  “I wasn’t there.”

  “Not a party person?”

  “My wife was the party person, not me,” he said quietly. “She died the preceding October.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay. That was two years ago. My daughter and I are doing fine.” But his eyes said he remembered the pain.

  She’d seen him look that way.

  It all came back to her—things she remembered and the one thing she hadn’t. “I just remembered when we met.”

  He looked at her, his eyes as intense as they’d been that terrible day.

  “Isn’t the mind amazing? I remembered how proud Grandpa was, introducing me as the seventh Brennan to join the clinic. I’ve relived Mom’s mental meltdown many, many times. But I forgot you.”

  “That’s understandable,” he said solemnly.

  “But I felt so grateful when you came to my rescue. I was too upset to tell you that or what a comfort you were.”

  “You had a lot going on that day.”

  “The worst day of my life.” Tears weren’t far away. They hadn’t been that day either.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, as he had that day.

  She remembered. It was in the hallway after Grandpa told her he didn’t want her around for a while. “You asked the same thing then.”

  “And you said you were, but I knew you weren’t.”

  “You could tell?”

  He nodded, a rueful smile on his lips. “For months after Merrilee died, I told people I was okay when I wasn’t. Sometimes we can’t talk about what hurts.”

  “Does it still hurt, Noah?”

  “Well, I’m talking about it, so it must be better,” he said with a smile that lifted one corner of his mouth. “When Kendi seemed to miss her mother less, that helped me.”

  “Does your family help with your daughter?”

  “Neither Merrilee or I had family.”

  “None?”

  Noah dreaded the full-blown sympathy that was sure to come if Beth asked many questions about his background. He would try the short version first and hope it would be enough for today.

  “No family,” he confirmed. “It’s just my daughter and me. Kendi’s babysitter, Harlene, lives next door, and she’s like family.”

  For a second, Beth studied him as if she were trying to diagnose a major disease. She was an intelligent woman or she wouldn’t have an M.D. As any bright person would, she would figure the odds of both of Kendi’s parents having no family and wonder about it.

  “Noah…”

  Here it came. A question he wouldn’t want to answer.

  “Would you care to adopt Trey?”

  He laughed, just a little, then a lot. The unexpected offer, delivered so seriously, was great. He was going to love working with Beth. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Let me know if you change your mind. But if you take him, you’ve got to keep him.”

  What a cool sense of humor. He was still smiling. “Who are your flowers from?”

  She took the card from the vase of orchids and palm foliage. �
�This one is from my brother Ry.”

  She handed the card to him and he read out loud, “‘Be strong. Be courageous. Don’t be afraid of them for the Lord your God will be with you.’ Afraid of who? The patients…or Mona?”

  She grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. “Mona did scare all of us kids, but Ry’s scripture probably includes the BMC staff. I’ve known a lot of these people since I was a kid, and I’ve even babysat for some of their kids. Don’t be surprised if you hear somebody call me Bethie.”

  “Will you mind?”

  “Not unless it’s Mona.”

  That made him smile. He was already having more fun than he’d ever had working for Keith.

  He watched her read the card from the arrangement of yellow roses. It must have been more sentimental because she dabbed a tear from her eye.

  “This one is from Ry’s wife. Meg was my best friend all the years we were growing up. Her family was closer to Ry and me than our own. The people we choose to love often mean more to us than the family we’re born into, especially the people who share our faith.”

  So, Beth Brennan was a religious person. That would make Vanessa happy. She went to church all the time.

  “I’ve only been a Christian a couple of years, but I know there’s power in prayer,” she said with conviction.

  Faith? Prayer? This would be a good time to go back up front. He slid off the desk.

  “Noah, do you believe in prayer?”

  He’d stayed too long.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” she said quickly. “I shouldn’t have asked, not in a place of business.”

  “No, it’s okay.” It wasn’t in him to discourage another’s faith, even if he no longer shared it.

  “I’m praying for a way to be friends with Mona.”

  “Knee pads,” he said without thinking.

  “What?” She looked startled.

  “You’re gonna need ’em if you’re praying for that.”

  The corners of Beth’s mouth tilted upward in the cutest smile. “You’re probably right. It could take a while.”

  He hadn’t noticed that particular smile before. The patients were going to love that smile.

  She opened her closet and retrieved one of several crisp white lab coats embroidered with Beth Brennan, M.D. Slipping into one, she hooked her stethoscope around her neck and eyed the flowers from her brother and his wife.