Dr. Dad

by Judith Arnold

  Plucking off her eyeglasses, she hurried down the hall to the kitchen and answered the phone. “Susannah?” Toby’s voice came through the line. “It’s Toby.”

  “Oh.” All right, she wouldn’t get rid of the sexy pediatrician. She groped for the paper towels, tore off a sheet and mopped the perspiration from her face. “Hi.”

  “Are you okay? You sound out of breath.”

  “I just got in from an aerobic walk,” she told him, wondering if he’d been watching for her to return home before he called.

  “We just got home a few minutes ago ourselves,” he told her, chatting affably as if Saturday night had never happened. “I took Lindsey to Paganini’s. It’s an ice-cream place.”

  She sighed again, fighting off another twinge of envy. Perhaps if she’d kept kissing Toby last night, if she’d let the kissing lead to lovemaking, she could have accompanied him and his daughter to Paganini’s tonight. She could have been a part of their loving little family.

  Which was exactly why she hadn’t let the kissing lead anywhere. She didn’t want to be part of a family, not even his.

  “The reason I called,” she said, no longer out of breath from her walk, “is that I was wondering if you’d mind my observing you at work. You said it would be okay, but that was before…” She bit her lip, not wanting to revive unpleasant memories of last night for him.

  “Before what?” he asked. His tone was benign, but she sensed that he was goading her.

  She inhaled and straightened her shoulders, pretending she had more spine than she did. “Before last night,” she said bravely.

  He didn’t speak for a moment. He was letting her stew in her words, she realized, letting her remember how badly last night had ended. Just as his silence threatened to make her crazy, he said, “If you want to observe me at work, you’re going to be bored to tears. But it’s okay with me.”

  She hadn’t realized how anxious she was until she digested his answer. Slowly her body unwound, her hands unfisted around the receiver and her breath came evenly. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure you’ll be bored to tears, yes.”

  She smiled and felt a few tears fill her eyes—not from boredom but from a fresh flood of guilt. She didn’t deserve his generosity. “Would tomorrow be all right?” she asked.

  “Sure. I’ll be starting my rounds at Arlington Memorial Hospital at nine. Do you want to meet me there or drive in with me?”

  She didn’t want to impose even more on him, but she also didn’t want to have to wend her way through a hospital, asking directions of people who might recognize her and make a fuss. “If you wouldn’t mind giving me a lift—”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” he said. “Be ready at eight-thirty.”

  “Okay.”

  “See you tomorrow.” She heard a click as he hung up.

  Not the warmest of farewells, but she couldn’t expect warm from him. She’d extinguished his warmth quite effectively last night.

  But she had his friendship. His neighborliness. His willingness to let her accompany him tomorrow. She should be grateful for that—and even more grateful that he wasn’t trying to give her anything more.

  Because she honestly wanted nothing more than that, she swore to herself, even though a rebellious voice inside her denied it. She swore that all she wanted from Toby Cole was the kind of relationship that ended with a “see you tomorrow” and a click.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HE COULD HANDLE THIS, he thought as she emerged from her house Monday morning just seconds after he pulled into her driveway. She must have been watching for him.

  He was secretly relieved that he hadn’t had to walk up to her front door and ring her bell. He wasn’t sure how he’d feel about standing on her porch. The last time he’d stood there, he’d had her in his arms. He’d had her mouth beneath his, and he’d been hard and hungry—and hopeful. More than hopeful. He’d been positive she’d wanted him. He’d honestly believed they were on the same wavelength, feeling the same feelings, desiring each other equally.

  What an idiot he was. She was a showbiz star, a glamorous icon. They might share the same street, but they didn’t really share the same universe.

  That was the message Lindsey had more or less imparted to him over pizza and ice cream last night. When he’d picked her up from her friend Amanda’s house, she’d been subdued, thoughtful, neither bubbly nor snide. “What did you girls do?” he’d asked, trying to strike up a conversation.

  “Nothing,” she’d answered with a shrug. But over pizza—just plain cheese, the only way she would eat it—she’d suddenly embarked on a lecture about Susannah. “I know you took her out last night, Daddy, but it doesn’t mean a thing,” she’d said. “You hardly know her, and what you know doesn’t really count, because as long as she’s living next door to us she’s, like, different from her usual self. Her usual self is an actress in Hollywood, not a lady in Arlington.”

  “I think she’s trying to change from the Hollywood actress to the Arlington lady,” Toby had pointed out.

  “Don’t let her fool you, Dr. Dad. She’s lived a whole other life. She’s dated famous, gorgeous actors. I mean, nothing personal, but she’s not like you and me.”

  Lindsey had been so earnest he’d accepted her assertion without argument. He’d actually been touched that she cared enough to advise him on his social life, such as it was. She’d never commented on the other women he’d dated.

  But then, the other women he’d dated hadn’t been Susannah. Not that he was bewitched by her alleged fame—a fame she seemed determined to escape, no matter what Lindsey thought—but she was unique. She projected strength, yet he sensed a genuine vulnerability inside her. Her kindness toward Lindsey, her lack of pretense, her refusal to pull rank or put on airs…and that vulnerability, that bruised soul in desperate need of healing…

  He wanted to heal her. Like the doctor he was, he wanted to make her all better. Even if they never wound up having sex, he wanted to make her well.

  It was a remarkably arrogant attitude, he thought as she strolled across the lawn to the driveway. She looked perfectly healthy, not at all in need of medical—or any other—rescue. Lindsey might be wrong about Susannah’s protecting her other life in Los Angeles, but she was right that he and Susannah were barely one step removed from strangers. For all he knew, she didn’t like sex. Or maybe she didn’t like sex with single fathers who lived next door.

  She got into the car and smiled hesitantly at him. She was wearing her phony eyeglasses, and she carried a leather handbag the size of a grocery sack. Her hair was pulled straight back from her face in a severe braid, and her outfit—a cream-colored cotton sweater and a long paisley skirt—was simple and unobtrusive. She probably wanted to look bland enough to go unnoticed, and he supposed she’d achieved that effect. But even if people didn’t recognize her, they would still be taken by her striking beauty. Even if she were as anonymous as he was, she’d attract attention.

  “I really appreciate your letting me do this,” she said as he backed down the driveway.

  “You won’t bother me,” he assured her, wondering whether that was the complete truth. Her nearness would distract him if he let it. Every time he glimpsed her he would think of how spectacularly he’d struck out with her Saturday night, how mercilessly she’d shut him down. But he would try his best to ignore her and remain focused on his work. “If my patients complain, though, I’ll have to ask you to respect their wishes and wait outside the examining room.”

  “I understand.”

  He swore silently. They were talking like strangers, two professionals establishing a working relationship. He wondered what she’d do if he reminded her of the fact that not too long ago, they’d come quite close to embarking on a very different kind of relationship.

  She’d probably flee from him and find some other pediatrician to observe.

  “My routine is to do my hospital rounds first thing, then head over to my office to see patients,” he e
xplained to her. “Again, if any of the patients has an objection to your being in the room with us, you’ll have to make yourself scarce.”

  “Of course,” she said. Her voice was as silky as her hair had been when he’d sifted it through his fingers Saturday night.

  Another curse teased his tongue. He didn’t want to talk about his workday. He wanted to talk about what had gone wrong the last time they’d been together, how he’d managed to misread her completely, why the mere hint of her fragrance—something light and spicy—made his hands fist on the steering wheel in frustration.

  But perhaps Lindsey was right. Perhaps he and Susannah were so far apart in so many ways there was no point in talking about anything personal.

  He pulled into the staff parking lot of the hospital, took a deep breath to stifle that frustration and shaped a smile for Susannah. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Ready.” The smile she sent back to him was both warm and shy, and it did nothing to silence his powerful attraction to her.

  “Then let’s do it.” He got out of the car, started around to her side to help her out, then reversed himself when she got out on her own. He doffed his blazer, donned the white coat he’d left in the back seat, lifted his bag from the floor and led the way into the hospital, determined to pretend he didn’t care about the woman spending the day with him.

  SHE HADN’T REALIZED how gentle he was.

  She should have, of course. Toby Cole had a more tender heart than anyone she’d ever met before. She should have assumed his kindness would color everything he did, including his work.

  He had only two patients in the hospital’s pediatrics wing. One was a forty-hour-old baby about to be discharged, along with his bleary but ecstatic mother. Toby introduced Susannah to the mother as Sue Dawson and explained that she was observing him work. The mother voiced no objections.

  She questioned Toby about her baby’s belly button—Toby assured her it was healing just fine—and about whether it was normal for the baby to soil his diaper six times in one day—Toby informed her it was indeed quite normal. As he answered her questions he examined the baby, warming his stethoscope with his palm before he touched the metal disk to the baby’s chest, sliding his pinkie against the baby’s tiny palms to test his reflexes, talking to the baby in a soft, soothing patter. “This one’s a keeper,” he announced, handing the baby back to his mother. “How are you feeling?”

  “Tired. A little sore.”

  “Did the midwife talk to you about postpartum depression?”

  As the mother discussed her tumultuous emotions, Susannah stood quietly in a corner of the room, taking it all in. Toby was the boy’s doctor, yet he treated the mother as if she was his patient, too, listening to her concerns and offering suggestions. “Remember, you can call anytime with any questions. If it’s after office hours, your call will be transferred over to the hospital emergency line. There are nurses here who can answer your questions, and if it’s essential that you talk to me, they’ll contact me and I’ll call you right back. Okay?”

  “I wouldn’t want to bother you at home.”

  “What would bother me is if little Matthew has a problem and you don’t know how to solve it. He’s your first child, and you and he are going to do a lot of on-the-job training. But you’re not all alone in this. You’ve got the midwife, the nurses here and me. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “So you’re all set to go home today. You have a crib or a cradle for him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And a baby seat in the car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. I want to see Matthew in my office in two weeks. I’ll have my nurse call you tomorrow to set up an appointment.”

  “Okay.”

  “Relax. And trust me, as exhausted as you are, you’re going to be fine. I can tell Matthew is crazy about you.”

  “I’m crazy about him, too,” the mother said, tears filling her eyes.

  Susannah felt the sting of tears in her own eyes. Seeing the mother cradle little Matthew in her arms forced Susannah to think about the baby she’d lost. If fate had spun in another direction, she might have found herself four months ago in a hospital bed like the one across the room from her, with her own baby nestled into the curve of her arm, peering up at her with curiosity and trust.

  But fate was what it was, and Susannah was only a witness to another woman’s bliss. As they left the room, she had to resist the urge to run back in and plead with the woman for a chance merely to hold her newborn son. “He’s so small,” she murmured, allowing herself one glance backward.

  “Actually, he’s kind of big,” Toby disputed her, pulling a clipboard from a plastic bracket fastened to the wall by the door. He skimmed the papers fastened to the clipboard, then extracted a pen from the chest pocket of his white coat. “He tipped the scales at eight pounds, two ounces at birth. That’s bigger than average.” He jotted a note on one of the sheets of paper, then tucked the clipboard back into its bracket. “I’ve got one more patient here,” he told her, striding down the hall at a brisk gait.

  He was all business, and she ought to have been glad. But she felt a twinge of disappointment over his crisp professional demeanor that mingled with the disappointment she felt about her own baby, amplifying it until fresh tears sprang to her eyes.

  She hastily blinked them away. She hadn’t imposed on Toby to wallow in all her defeats. She’d done it to get a sense of a real-life pediatrician’s workday.

  This real-life pediatrician’s workday brought them to a semiprivate room in which a thin girl of about six sat propped up in a bed, a plastic mask covering her nose and mouth and connected by a tube to a machine on the wall. Toby pulled up the chair next to the girl, who was reading a Dr. Seuss book. Once again he was soft-spoken and comforting, asking the girl how her breathing was, how she’d slept last night, where her mommy was.

  “Getting coffee,” the girl told him. “When can I go home?”

  “Soon,” Toby promised. “I’m thinking maybe tomorrow. How does that sound?”

  “Okay.”

  He listened to her heart and her lungs, asked her if she was still swimming on a regular basis and told her he was going to try her on a different inhalator that would probably work better than the one she was using now.

  “She has asthma,” he told Susannah once they’d left the room. “She was admitted last night. There’s been a huge increase in pediatric asthma over the past decade. It’s really troubling.”

  “What do you think is causing it?” Susannah asked.

  Jotting notes on the clipboard outside the girl’s room, Toby didn’t answer right away. Once he’d slid the clipboard back into place and pocketed his pen, he said, “My guess would be pollution. What do you think?”

  She shrugged. She’d never thought about it at all. “I’m not a doctor,” she reminded him.

  “But they got pretty technical on your television show. I figured you actors would have had to learn a little about what you were talking about.”

  “You’ve seen Mercy Hospital?” She was surprised. He hadn’t known who she was when they’d met. If he’d seen the show, he would have to have recognized her.

  He smiled sheepishly. “After you moved in next door, I watched an episode.”

  “Did we get it right?” she asked, strolling down the hall with him. “The medical stuff, I mean.”

  “The technical jargon, yes. The actual job of doctoring?” He considered his reply. “Not quite.”

  She grinned. “What did we get wrong?”

  “For one thing, there’s a lot more paperwork in real doctoring.” He paused at the nurses’ station and signed a few more papers. “Hey, Allison,” he greeted one of the nurses behind the counter, a tall, pretty woman with curly red hair tumbling down her back.

  “Hey, yourself,” she responded, then turned her friendly smile to Susannah.

  “Allison, this is my neighbor, Sue Dawson. Sue, this is Allison Winslow, the woman who steered
me in the direction of the Daddy School.”

  “Hi.” Susannah smiled impassively. Allison was studying her, as if she recognized her. Susannah braced herself.

  “You’re Toby’s new neighbor?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Allison scrutinized her for a moment longer, then nodded. “Welcome to Arlington,” she said, her grin taking on a teasing quality as she turned back to Toby.

  He nudged the papers he’d been writing on across the counter to her. “No,” he said.

  “Hmm,” Allison grunted skeptically.

  Intrigued, Susannah waited until they were on the elevator, traveling down to the lobby, before she questioned him about the cryptic exchange. “Why did you say no?” she asked. “I wouldn’t have minded if she’d identified me.”

  “You wouldn’t?” He gazed at her. The elevator was large, with green walls and glaring light. Although Toby was a doctor, he looked out of place in such stark surroundings. He was too warm, too alive.

  “It wasn’t like there was a huge crowd of people there,” she pointed out. “And she’s a friend of yours.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think she was thinking about your TV show,” he said.

  “Then why did you say no?”

  “She can get a little personal with me sometimes. I wasn’t in the mood for it this morning, so I stopped her before she could start.”

  His answer intrigued her even more, but his tone implied that he didn’t wish to discuss it further. She wondered whether he’d been more than friends with Allison—but his laconic reply didn’t translate that way. A man wouldn’t describe a former lover as getting a little personal with him sometimes.

  Yet she wondered. Why was Toby still single? How had a man as good-natured and sexy as he was remained unclaimed all this time? Years had passed since his wife’s death. Surely Lindsey wasn’t enough to scare off potential girlfriends.

  Susannah wished she could ask him. But they’d lost their ability to talk about such personal things when she’d sent him home Saturday night. It was her fault, too. She was the one refusing to open up to him. She couldn’t expect him to open up to her.