He was describing a new therapy he hoped to try on a patient of his, a six-year-old with asthma. Every now and then, he’d glance at Susannah and say, “You don’t really want to hear this, do you?” and she would insist she did. She wanted to hear every word of it—not because she was a polite guest or because she longed to increase her knowledge about what doctors did beyond what little she’d learned from the TV show, but because when Toby talked about the promise of a new asthma drug, his eyes glowed brighter than the candles, fiery with passion.
Would he be as passionate in bed as he was when he talked about helping a six-year-old to breathe more easily?
Stupid question. Stupid thought. He was a neighbor, for crying out loud, a little girl’s daddy.
“So,” he asked, “what brings you to Arlington?”
“I was looking for a change of pace,” she said vaguely.
“You’re leaving Mercy Hospital, aren’t you,” Lindsey said.
Susannah turned to the girl. She’d liked Lindsey when they’d met in the front yard that afternoon. She liked anyone MacKenzie approved of, since MacKenzie tended to be quite selective in bestowing his approval. The moment Lindsey had caught Mac and scooped him off the ground, the cat had sighed and snuggled into her arms, melting into a purring ball of fuzz—his signal to Susannah that the kid was okay.
The kid was a little less okay right now. She’d brought up the one subject Susannah really didn’t want to talk about: her acting career.
She was going to have to talk about it. Sooner or later, people were going to recognize her. She could introduce herself as Sue Dawson—or Mary Smith or Sally Jones or Hazel Berrybush, for that matter—but anyone who watched TV or read showbiz magazines was going to realize she was Susannah Dawson, the onetime star of the top-rated TV show Mercy Hospital.
Lindsey was staring at her, her eyes wide and glistening with curiosity, or maybe awe. Susannah had to say something. “I’ve already left the show,” she murmured, infusing her voice with a note of finality.
“See?” Lindsey swung toward her father. “I told you she was a famous actress! I told you! I can’t believe she’s living right next door to us! This is so exciting!” She turned back to Susannah, who felt her appetite slipping away. “I love that show! It’s the best show on TV. I thought you were great in it. I read you were leaving the show, and Dr. Lee Davis was going to be written out during the May sweeps. I don’t know why you left, except that now you’re here and that’s so incredibly cool.”
“Well…” She wished Toby would bail her out, steer his daughter in another direction, talk some more about the appalling increase in pediatric asthma cases over the past decade. But why would he? He was probably just as fascinated by her career as Lindsey was. People always thought working on a television series was more exciting than it actually was, more glamorous, more stimulating. He was probably just as curious as Lindsey to learn why Susannah Dawson had abandoned the show and transported herself all the way across the country in an effort to get as far from that whole scene as she could. She couldn’t expect him to stifle his daughter.
“I was looking for a change,” she said again.
“But it’s the most popular show on TV,” Lindsey said. “And I bet you made gazillions of dollars, and people all over the world watched you every week. Plus, you got to kiss Lucien Roche—”
And an unfortunate experience that was, Susannah thought bitterly, although she didn’t say so. She hadn’t fled from Mercy Hospital with the intention of badmouthing everyone else connected to the show. The producers still wanted her writing scripts for them, which was generous of them and a wonderful opportunity for her. As for the actors…they were doing their jobs, and she’d made the choice to do that job for many, many years. She took responsibility for her life, the way she’d lived it then and the way she hoped to live it now. She wasn’t going to put down anyone else.
“I’d die if I could be a TV star,” Lindsey gushed.
“I bet it’s so much fun, having all those people fussing all over you all the time, and making all that money just by pretending to be someone else.”
“Obviously, Ms. Dawson decided she’d rather do something else,” Toby interrupted, gently but firmly. He had rescued Susannah from his daughter’s inquisitiveness after all.
She sent him a grateful look. His smile was enigmatic but reassuring. She wondered if he used that smile in his medical practice, if by smiling at his patients he was able to ease their symptoms and make their medications work more effectively.
“But—everybody wants to be a star, and Susannah Dawson is a star.” Lindsey returned her adoring gaze to Susannah. “There are so many people in the world who would give anything to live that kind of life.”
“Those people don’t know any better,” Susannah retorted. “If they did, they’d run screaming in the opposite direction. Stardom is a lot nicer to dream about than to live through.”
Lindsey seemed to deflate, and Susannah regretted her harsh words. She wondered if there was a way to apologize without making the girl feel worse.
“Sometimes what seems like one thing when we view it turns out to be quite different when we live it,” Toby gently explained to his daughter. “Lots of people want to be doctors, but they don’t realize how much hard work and stress come with the job. You know because you live with me. But other people might not see that. They might think being a doctor is more like—like what you see on TV medical dramas.” He sent a smile Susannah’s way.
Lindsey said nothing. Her eyes downcast, she pushed back from the table. “Can I be excused?” she asked.
“Would you like some dessert? Ms. Dawson brought those brownies,” he reminded her, gesturing toward the foil-wrapped plate.
“Maybe later.” Lindsey stood, gathered her empty plates and stomped out of the room.
Susannah turned to Toby for an explanation of what terrible thing she’d done. Perhaps she’d spoken sharply, but had she really been curt enough to send Lindsey fleeing from the room?
“Forget about it,” he said, as if sensing her dismay.
“You never know what’s going to set her off.”
“I guess she was a little starstruck, and I didn’t live up to her expectations.” Susannah sighed. She’d spent far too much of her life trying to live up to people’s expectations—and she couldn’t even live up to a ten-year-old girl’s.
“Storming away from the dinner table is one of her favorite activities. She likes to be dramatic. Maybe she’s got a bit of showbiz in her.” He lifted the wine bottle. “Would you like some more?”
She appreciated his effort to make her feel better. “Thanks, yes,” she said, lifting her empty glass toward him.
He filled it, then added more wine to his goblet. “She’s disappointed in me because I didn’t even know who you were,” he said with a self-deprecating grin. “Yesterday you told me your name was Sue, so I thought maybe she was confusing you with someone else.”
“She wasn’t,” Susannah admitted. “I…” She didn’t know Toby enough to confide in him—and one thing she’d come to Connecticut for was privacy. But she still felt bad about his daughter, and about her foolish attempt to deny who she was. “My name is Susannah. I just had this crazy idea that if I left Los Angeles, people might not recognize me.”
“People like me won’t,” he said, his smile growing.
“I watch the eleven-o’clock news, basketball and a little football on TV, and that’s it. Mercy Hospital wasn’t on my radar screen until Lindsey started jabbering about it yesterday.” He sipped some wine, his eyes clear and piercing as he studied her. “Susannah’s a lovely name, but I kind of like Sue, too.”
“I like Tobias,” she admitted, recalling the name printed on the business card he’d given her. “But I gather you prefer to be called Toby?”
“You can call me anything you want, as long as it’s clean.” He grinned and sipped a little more wine.
“Anything but Dr. Dad. That’s Lindsey�
�s special nickname for me.”
“She’s a wonderful girl,” Susannah said, wishing she could bring Lindsey back into the dining room and make things right with her.
“When she’s not being a pain in the butt.” He lowered his glass. “Would you like a brownie?”
“They’re not that good,” she confessed, then laughed. “I made them from a mix. I’m a terrible cook.”
“Lindsey will love them. She’ll probably pig out on them later tonight.”
He trailed his index finger around the rim of his glass. His wrists were bony, his hands large yet surprisingly elegant. She imagined him patting the shoulder of his young patient with asthma and soothing that child. She imagined him wiping a tear from his daughter’s cheek or writing her a note, signing it “Dr. Dad” in a smooth, sleek script. She’d seen him loosen his tie, and she imagined his nimble fingers tugging the tie completely free of his collar, moving down the front of his shirt to undo the buttons, gliding over a woman’s skin, lifting her hair from the nape of her neck so he could plant a kiss there….
She blinked to rid herself of the vision. “I should probably be going,” she said, externally calm, giving no hint of what she’d been thinking, or how those thoughts had made her feel. She was warm inside, tense, restless in a disturbing way. Tobias Cole was an easy man to like, but she didn’t want to like him.
He glanced at her refilled wineglass, then lifted his gaze to meet hers. His smile faded and he nodded. Apparently, he recognized that she needed to leave. She only hoped he didn’t understand why.
“I really enjoyed dinner,” she added.
“Maybe we’ll do it again sometime.” He stood as she did, and his smile seemed slightly rueful. She wanted to assure him that yes, they definitely would do it again sometime. Lots of times, if he wished. She would love to have dinner with him—and his daughter, too. She’d love just to observe a normal family, the affection between a father and his daughter, the simple rhythms of ordinary life.
She wanted him to know she was sorry she had to go—but she couldn’t stay if merely glancing at his hands filled her with erotic ideas.
But she had to stop feeling sorry about everything she did. Smiling, she let him usher her through the kitchen to the hall that led to his front door. “Thanks for coming,” he said, opening the heavy oak door and letting the cool evening spill in.
So formal, so stilted. Straight from the book of etiquette. But his gaze wasn’t formal. It wasn’t even polite. It was dark and bold, reaching inside her, searching, touching places she’d thought she’d sealed up tight, places that had been wounded and not yet healed. He was a doctor. Did he know how to heal her? Could those profoundly dark eyes of his perform a miracle cure?
She didn’t want to know. But when she returned his steady, probing gaze, she couldn’t help wondering.
CHAPTER THREE
FROM HER BEDROOM window, Lindsey had a view of the whole side of Susannah Dawson’s house. Susannah hadn’t hung any curtains yet, and glaring light filled most of the windows. Perched on her bed, Lindsey could see inside the living room—a couch, a few chairs, a colorful area rug on the hardwood floor—and the dining room—a circular table and matching chairs, the light a little less bright in there. On the second floor she could see into the bedroom that used to be Cathy’s.
She and Cathy used to communicate between their windows at night, after their parents had sent them to bed. They’d worked out their own secret system using flashlights. They’d tried Morse Code, but that was too complicated, so they’d invented a code of their own: moving the beam up and down meant yes, moving it from side to side meant no, swinging it in a circle meant “call me tomorrow” and zigzagging meant “I don’t know.” Sometimes they’d prop up their dolls in the windows and pretend the dolls were playing with each other. Sometimes they’d draw pictures and display them for each other, although it was really hard to see drawings when the light was coming from behind them.
Mostly, though, it hadn’t mattered whether they were communicating clearly. Just being connected to each other had been enough.
Lindsey wondered whether Cathy knew that a famous TV star was living in her old house. Had Cathy’s parents told her they’d sold the house to Susannah Dawson? Did they even know who Susannah Dawson was, or were they as out of it as Dad?
Every now and then Lindsey spotted movement in the house next door. Susannah walked through the living room, her shadow following her. She paused at the dining-room table, then moved away. MacKenzie the cat sat on a windowsill in the living room, staring out at the night, flicking his tail back and forth. He was such a beautiful cat, almost as beautiful as Susannah.
The living-room light in Susannah’s house went off. Lindsey sighed and flopped across her bed. It was ten o’clock, which was past her bedtime, but there was no school tomorrow so staying up late didn’t matter.
Restless, she padded barefoot out of her room and down the stairs. Through the open doorway of the study she heard her father’s voice. She knew from the droning sound of it that he was leaving a voice-mail message for one of his partners. They all took turns working on the weekends, and her father liked to leave information about his patients for whoever was on call. He’d sit and yak into the phone as if he was talking to an actual person. It was kind of weird, but Lindsey was used to it.
She slipped past the study and entered the kitchen. The pots from dinner were turned upside down on the drying rack, shining in the light above the sink. The forks and knives lay glistening on a towel next to the rack. The china was stacked on a counter, waiting to be returned to the breakfront in the dining room. Her father’s jacket and the stack of mail were gone from the table, although Lindsey’s backpack was still there.
She felt guilty for having not helped her father clean up after dinner. She really ought to help more. She always meant to help, but then other things got in the way—like a TV show was on, or one of her friends phoned, or she was angry with Dr. Dad.
She’d been angry tonight, not with her father so much as Susannah. Didn’t the woman appreciate that she’d had the chance to live everybody’s fantasy? To be a star…It made you more real somehow, more alive. If everyone knew who you were, even when you died they’d remember you, and that was almost like not dying.
Lindsey didn’t want to die. If she became a star, maybe it would be like never dying.
She spotted the foil-wrapped dish of brownies on a counter near the refrigerator. She hadn’t had any dessert earlier. Just seeing the plate convinced her she was starving.
She crossed to the counter to get the brownies, thinking she’d bring them up to her room and maybe eat a few while she flipped through a magazine or something. Tiptoeing so as not to alert her father that she was prowling around the house this late, she headed out of the kitchen.
Her father must have finished lecturing into the phone. A rectangle of golden light spilled into the hall through the study doorway, but she didn’t hear his voice. She didn’t hear anything at all.
She crept down the hall and peeked into the study. Her father was standing in front of the window seat, staring out at the house next door. He had his hands in his pockets. His slacks were just baggy enough not to look dorky, and his shirt was wrinkled. He needed a haircut. But she kind of liked when he looked sloppy.
Right now he looked more than sloppy. Something in the hunch of his shoulders and the angle of his head, something in his utter silence and stillness, made him seem terribly alone to her. “Daddy?” she whispered.
He spun around, startled. Then he relaxed and smiled. “What are you doing up, Hot Stuff?”
“I was hungry.” She padded into the room. The oversized T-shirt she slept in fluttered around her thighs, and her hair felt heavy on her neck. She was so ready for summer. She wanted to wear T-shirts all the time, and shorts, and go barefoot.
She peeled back the aluminum foil on the plate. “Want a brownie?”
“Thanks.” He helped himself. She took one, as w
ell, and put the plate on the window seat.
“Were you leaving messages on the phone?” she asked, taking a bite of her brownie. It was dry.
His mouth full, he only nodded. Once he swallowed, he said, “I was thinking, before I go to the supermarket tomorrow I’d like to stop by Arlington Memorial to visit a patient of mine.”
“Who? How come?”
“He’s a very sick little boy. He was diagnosed this morning with leukemia. Do you know what that is?”
“It’s a kind of cancer, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.” He popped the rest of the brownie into his mouth. “He’s under a specialist’s care now, but I’d still like to see him, just to cheer him on. He’s got a rough stretch ahead of him.”
“Chemo?” Lindsey asked. She knew more about medicine than any of her friends, mostly because of her dad, but a little bit because of her mother, too. And maybe a little bit from watching Mercy Hospital.
“Chemo and radiation both. Not much fun, huh?”
“Poor kid.” She took another bite of her brownie and sat on the window seat, bending her knees to her chest and pulling her T-shirt over them so it covered her to her ankles. “Is he going to be all right?”
“I promised him he would be, so I guess he’d better.”
Lindsey chewed thoughtfully. “Maybe you should bring him some brownies.”
Her father smiled, but he still seemed sad to her. “I don’t think he’ll have much appetite. But you’re a sweetheart to suggest it.”
“Actually, these brownies aren’t very good,” she said as she reached for another.
She got a laugh out of him. “Sue warned me they weren’t. Susannah,” he corrected himself, then took a second brownie, too.
“Did she tell you to call her Sue?”
“Originally. I think she was trying to hide her identity from me. Little did she know I’d never heard of Susannah Dawson.” He joined Lindsey on the window seat, the plate of brownies between them. He’d taken off his shoes, she noticed. He had on dark socks, but with the desk lamp providing the only light in the room, she couldn’t make out the color.
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