An Engagement for Two

by Marie Ferrarella

  Pausing to take his wallet out of his back pocket, he fished through it. Nestled between the various business cards, he found what he was looking for—the card he’d picked up when he’d initially brought his mother to the doctor’s office.

  The woman’s name was written in bold script. Michelle McKenna, MD.

  The corners of his mouth curved as he stood looking down at the card.

  Maybe.

  * * *

  Well, she’d survived, Mikki thought. She had gone to Jeff’s restaurant, had dinner with the man and, if pressed, she was even willing to say that it had been a rather pleasant experience.

  However, it had been a onetime experience and there was no reason to dwell on it, no reason to start daydreaming and fashioning castles in the sky, she silently insisted.

  Most of all, she wasn’t her mother, Mikki reminded herself. Her mother, who turned every minor encounter with a man into the greatest get-together since Scarlett and Rhett first met in Gone With the Wind.

  Or maybe, she reevaluated, for her mother, every encounter she had actually was that sort of a get-together, because everyone knew how that particular love story ended. The same way all her mother’s so-called love stories did: in total disaster.

  “Your problem, Mother,” Mikki said aloud to the thought of the woman who was undoubtedly letting her hair down at some party or other at this very moment, looking for her next ex-husband-to-be, “is that you never quit while you were ahead. Never called it a night, picked up your chips and went home. You weren’t happy until you were on some man’s arm—and eventually you weren’t happy there, either,” she murmured, parking her car in her driveway.

  “My way is better. Lonelier, maybe,” Mikki allowed. “But better.”

  Besides, she thought, letting herself into her house, her mother’s liaisons never lasted and Veronica wound up alone anyway. Her own way was better. No false hopes, no brutal letdowns.

  No one at all.

  She had just enough time to kick off her shoes before her phone rang. Mikki approached the landline warily, like a lion tamer checking out his lion’s mood before proceeding into the arena.

  The caller ID told her that it was Nikki calling, undoubtedly to find out how everything had gone. Picking up the receiver, Mikki flopped down on the sofa, the way she had as a teenager.

  “How did you know I just got in?” she asked without bothering to utter any cursory greeting first.

  She heard her friend laugh. “Because I’m psychic, because you and I are spiritually connected—and because I’ve been calling every ten minutes and this is the first time that you’ve picked up,” Nikki told her. “So, how was it?”

  Pretty good, really. Really good. Out loud she answered guardedly, “It was okay.”

  “Just okay?”

  Mikki heard the disappointment in her friend’s voice. For some reason, seeing her go out with someone seemed to mean a lot to Nikki. And because it obviously did, she stopped behaving as if having dinner with Jeff Sabatino was no different than a quick, detached visit to the local hardware store.

  “Maybe better than okay,” Mikki allowed quietly after a beat.

  But that wasn’t enough for Nikki. “How much better?”

  Mikki sighed. She might as well find out exactly what she was up against. “Just what are you trying to get me to say, Dr. Sommers?”

  “I just want you to tell me the truth, Mikki,” her friend answered. “That’s all. Just the truth.”

  “All right,” Mikki said. “The truth is that the dinner was fantastic, the restaurant was fabulous. And Jeff was very attentive. We talked all through the meal without realizing that time was just melting away and I want you to be the first to know that I’m having his baby.”

  “You’re what?” Nikki cried, momentarily taken aback. And then she obviously realized that the other woman was putting her on. “Oh, right. Very funny, Mikki.” She sighed, disappointed. “So I take it that you didn’t have a good time.”

  Well, there was no point in lying. Their friendship was based on the truth and mutual respect.

  “No, actually, if you must know, I did. Jeff was...” Mikki hunted for the right word, but in a moment of self-preservation, she finally decided to settle on, “Nice.”

  “Nice?” Nikki echoed incredulously. “Bacon and eggs are nice. Was that man just plain old bacon and eggs, Mikki, or was he more like caviar?”

  “Neither,” Mikki answered, then because Nikki was her best friend and had always been there for her through some very rough times with her mother, she found herself sighing before reluctantly admitting, “He was prime rib.”

  Nikki knew how her friend felt about prime rib. It constituted her very favorite meal in the whole world. A feeling of triumph flooded through her. Her mother had come through. “Even better,” she declared, pleased.

  “Can we drop this, please?” Mikki requested, uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going. “I have surgery first thing tomorrow morning and I’d like to get some sleep so I’m not bleary-eyed when I’m cutting into Mr. Miller.”

  “You’re doing it again,” Nikki told her. “You’re coming up with excuses so you don’t have to take a long, hard look at your feelings.”

  “My feelings are tired now, which means I might wind up saying things I shouldn’t,” Mikki warned her.

  “Okay, I’ll let you go for now. But we’ll talk again later,” Nikki told her.

  Mikki groaned before hanging up. Loudly.

  Chapter Twelve

  The operation went without a hitch, despite the fact that her patient was nearly a hundred pounds overweight and that made removing his gallstones particularly challenging.

  For the most part, Mikki preferred the surgical procedures that she undertook to be straightforward. She ordinarily liked her challenges to come in the form of difficult crossword puzzles.

  However, she was grateful for anything that kept her mind occupied and off other things. Specifically off a strikingly handsome restaurateur.

  The moment her gallstone patient was wheeled off to the recovery room, Mikki hurried to the locker room so she could change out of her scrubs.

  Because of the patient’s extra weight, the surgery had run long. What that meant was that she had exactly fifteen minutes to change and get over to her office before her office hours started.

  She made it with approximately a minute and a half to spare. “Wow, just in time,” Molly said, only moderately startled by Mikki’s appearance. “So, how did Mr. Miller’s operation go?”

  Taking off her jacket, Mikki put on her lab coat. “It ran long, but I’m happy to report that both patient and doctor survived the ordeal,” she answered.

  “Well, I’m glad that you survived, because you’ve got a waiting room full of patients,” Virginia told her, coming out of the third exam room. “By the way,” she asked, dropping her voice, “how did dinner go last night?”

  Mikki didn’t bother asking her head nurse how she knew about the dinner. Somehow, Virginia always managed to ferret things out long before they ever became public knowledge.

  Instead, Mikki merely answered, “Appetizing.”

  Virginia grinned wickedly. “Are you talking about the meal or the man?”

  Mikki decided that it was best not to answer that question, or even acknowledge it. She focused on her patients.

  “Who’s first?” she asked her receptionist.

  “That would be Mrs. Watters,” Angela answered. “She’s in exam room one.”

  “Got it,” Mikki said, picking up the top file. And she was off.

  The pace from that moment on was nonstop without a letup, partially because there had been two unscheduled patients wedged in, in addition to all the other patients already in her waiting room. Each of the two had called the office, pleading to be fit in. However, her day was jam-pack
ed, predominantly because Mikki never moved on to the next patient until the one she was with was completely satisfied that all of his or her questions had been answered. Anything less was unthinkable to Mikki.

  She didn’t stop going until well after three o’clock, at which point she ate half a salad before resuming her examinations again.

  * * *

  By six thirty that evening, Mikki felt drained, but at least all of her patients had been seen to. Her office patients.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. The finish line was in sight.

  All that was left to do was to check in on her patient from that morning’s surgery. If he was doing well, she’d be free to go home. No one had called from the hospital to inform her that there was any sort of a problem with Mr. Miller, but while hopeful, Mikki never took anything for granted.

  “How do you do it?” Molly marveled just as she was about to leave the office herself.

  “It’s the glamour,” Mikki deadpanned. “It keeps me going.”

  And then, telling her staff “Good night,” she hurried off to see her last patient of the day. Mr. Miller, the nurse on duty on his floor told her, was doing very well. Quickly reviewing the man’s chart to verify the verbal report, Mikki went into her patient’s room and found him sleeping comfortably.

  Satisfied, Mikki finally called it a day.

  By the time she arrived home, parked her car and got out, she felt so exhausted she could barely put one foot in front of the other.

  Closing the door behind her, she was halfway to her kitchen when she remembered that she had never gotten around to going to the supermarket that week. The only thing in her refrigerator besides a third of a loaf of bread and a bottle of rosé, thanks to her mother’s visit a couple of months ago, was a small basket of strawberries. The basket was half-full. Unfortunately for her, the strawberries had turned and were well on their way to becoming inedible.

  Mikki tried to be philosophical about it. “I need to lose a few pounds, anyway,” she murmured.

  Besides, she needed sleep more than she needed food. She had just crossed the living room and was on her way to the stairs and her bedroom upstairs when her cell phone rang.

  Muttering a fragment of a prayer, she sincerely hoped it wasn’t her mother or someone calling because they had what they felt constituted an emergency. Hungry and tired, she was definitely not at her diplomatic peak right now.

  She didn’t recognize the number on her phone, and the only clue she had were the words out of area over the phone number.

  Taking a chance, she picked up the receiver anyway. “This is Dr. McKenna.”

  “Did I get you at a bad time?”

  The voice was deep, rich and she thought she knew who it belonged to, but just in case, she said, “I’m sorry, who’s this?”

  “Oh, I thought my name showed up on your screen. Sorry. This is Jeff Sabatino.”

  “Is something wrong with your mother?” she asked, immediately concerned. She struggled not to allow her heart to leap around wildly the way it had begun to do and forced her mind to focus on the practical reason for his call.

  She had discharged Sophia from the hospital two days ago. It would have been sooner, but she had kept his mother in an extra day because of her age. She wanted to make sure the woman had fully recovered enough to go home safely.

  Ideally, Sophia wasn’t due for a recheck for another week, but Mikki knew that things didn’t always go according to plan. Mentally, she crossed her fingers as she waited for Jeff’s answer.

  “No, nothing like that,” Jeff quickly assured her. “Mom’s staying at my sister Tina’s house for a couple of weeks until she gets her strength back, but she’s doing fine thanks to you. I’m calling because I was just wondering if perhaps you’d like to stop by the restaurant on Saturday for another meal, since apparently there were no ill effects from the last one.”

  “Saturday?” Mikki repeated to make sure she’d heard him correctly. When he didn’t contradict her, she said, “I’m sorry. I’d love to, but I can’t. Saturday’s my day at the free clinic.”

  “The free clinic. You volunteer there?” Jeff asked. She hadn’t mentioned that before, but it didn’t surprise him. The more he knew about her, the more selfless this woman seemed.

  “It’s something I got into when I was in medical school,” Mikki explained. “And I guess that I just never stopped going—except that now I’m a licensed doctor instead of just a medical student and they let me do doctor stuff,” she added wryly. She heard him chuckle softly. The sound pleased her—more than it should have. Red flags went up. She needed to be wary, she told herself. “I’m sorry. Maybe some other time.”

  And then, unable to stop herself, Mikki yawned. Audibly. Embarrassed, she quickly told him, “Oh, Lord, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yawn. That wasn’t because of you. It’s just that it’s been a very, very long day.,” she assured him.

  “Well, then I won’t keep you,” Jeff told her. “I just wanted you to know that I was serious about that open invitation.”

  “I appreciate it,” she told him. Then, because she didn’t want Jeff to think that she was just trying to get rid of him, she said, “I don’t know if I told you yesterday evening, but I think that you have a very nice restaurant.”

  “Thanks.” And then he asked, “Can I quote you on that?”

  He’d caught her off guard again. Was the man talking about getting her to give him an endorsement for his establishment? “Excuse me?”

  He heard the nervous uncertainty in her voice. “I’m just kidding, Doc. Go to bed,” he told her. And then he added, “Good night, Doc,” just before he terminated the call.

  She was a grown woman with medical degrees in several fields. There was no reason for her to feel this odd, giddy, fluttery feeling just because she’d gotten an unexpected call from a man she barely knew.

  A nice man, she qualified, but still one she barely knew.

  She went up the stairs smiling.

  * * *

  Over the course of the next week, Mikki found herself thinking about Jeff’s call a number of times. More than once she caught herself wishing that her Saturdays weren’t spoken for.

  But they were, and she knew what she did was vital. She was performing a much-needed service because for some of the people she saw at the clinic, she was their only contact with the medical world.

  As luck would have it, this particular Saturday the clinic was severely understaffed. Except for one retired nurse, Frieda Halpert, Mikki was the only medical person on duty at the clinic. The other doctor and the two other nurses who were usually there had called at the last minute to say they wouldn’t be in. All of them had family matters to deal with. When it rained, it poured, Mikki couldn’t help thinking.

  As usual, the waiting room was filled to capacity when she walked in that Saturday morning. Appointments weren’t necessary at the clinic. The usual procedure was that people came in when they needed to.

  Mikki felt like the last woman standing two minutes after she’d walked in. Rolling up her sleeves, she declared, “Let’s get started,” to Frieda and she dived in.

  Two hours into her day, she felt as if she had barely made a dent. For every patient she saw, it seemed like two more came in.

  At this rate, she would be here into the wee hours of the night. And the noise from the waiting room, despite Frieda’s efforts, just kept getting louder. One of the children had been crying nonstop for what seemed like an hour, growing progressively louder.

  And then, abruptly, the noise stopped.

  Completely.

  Finished with the patient she’d just examined, Mikki looked quizzically at the veteran nurse. “Did they all leave?” she asked.

  “We wouldn’t be that lucky.” Holding up her finger, Frieda went out into the waiting room to check. When she returned, there was a bemused expressio
n on her well-lined face.

  “No, nobody left,” Frieda reported. “They’re just being fed.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Frieda jerked a thumb toward the front of the clinic. “There’s a guy out in the waiting area and he’s handing out a boatload of food.”

  “We’re done here, Mr. Willis,” Mikki told the older man whose bandage she had just changed. “That gives you any trouble—” she indicated his arm “—I’ll see you here next week. Come in sooner if you need to.”

  “You gonna be here all week?” the older man asked.

  “No, I’ll be here on Saturday,” she told him. “Same as always.”

  He nodded his shaky gray head. “Then I’ll come back Saturday.”

  She accepted the compliment. “I’ll see you then.” And then, unable to hold back any longer, she hurried out to the waiting room to find out just what was going on.

  When she walked out into the waiting area to look around, Mikki was convinced that her imagination had just run away with her. There was no other explanation for why Jeff was there, handing out a ton of boxed lunches he had apparently brought in using a large dolly.

  “Jeff?” she asked uncertainly, coming closer.

  He turned his head in her direction and flashed that unmistakable sexy grin at her. No doubt about it, the man was too good-looking for her own good. “Hi.”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. Realizing that her question sounded almost hostile, she did her best to amend her tone. “I mean, not that it’s not nice to see you, but—what are you doing here?” she asked again, totally confused.

  A pint-size girl with curly blond hair ran up to Mikki and tugged on her lab coat to get her attention. When Mikki looked down at the girl—whom she recognized, because her mother had brought her in several times—Eva unabashedly asked, “Is he your boyfriend, Dr. Mikki?”