The M.D. Next Door

by Gina Wilkins

“Uh—let’s just concentrate on our work, okay?”

  “Whatever you say, Doc.”

  Calling on her years of training and practice to push extraneous thoughts to the back of her mind, Meagan turned her attention on her patient. She couldn’t think about Alice’s distress now. She could only say a quick prayer that Seth would bring his daughter’s pet safely home.

  Almost two hours had passed by the time Meagan made it to Seth’s front door. She’d finished the procedure successfully, and then had had her secretary cancel all her appointments for the remainder of the afternoon. Fortunately there had been nothing too pressing; she would have to scramble a bit tomorrow to make up for her abrupt departure but she could manage.

  She felt the muggy early August heat envelop her as she pressed the doorbell. It was a miserably hot afternoon, almost a hundred in the shade. She hoped Waldo was somewhere safe and cool and that he had access to water. She couldn’t bear the thought of the silly mutt suffering in this heat.

  Alice answered the bell. Her face was red and splotchy, her eyes swollen from crying. She burrowed into Meagan’s arms. “I just talked to Dad on the phone. They still haven’t found Waldo. He’s gone, Meagan. I just know he’s hurt or…or…”

  Resting her head on the girl’s tumbled curls, Meagan hugged her tightly. “Don’t imagine the worst, honey. Waldo’s probably fine. Maybe someone found him and took him to the animal shelter.”

  “Jacqui’s checked all the shelters already. She’s going to all the closest veterinary clinics now. Daddy’s driving up and down streets looking for any sign of Waldo. He’s been looking for almost three hours.”

  Alice must have called Meagan not long after her father had started the search. “How long has Waldo been missing?”

  The girl sniffled and wiped her damp face with her sleeve. “About four hours, I think. Jacqui and I walked all over the neighborhood looking for him before I called Dad. I thought maybe he’d gone to your house again, but he wasn’t there. It took Dad about half an hour to take care of things at work so he could come help. And then I called you because—”

  She sniffed again. “Because I’d been sitting here by myself thinking of all the terrible things that could have happened to Waldo and I thought—I don’t know, you just helped so much when Nina was hurt.”

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here. What can I do to help now?”

  “I don’t know, I—” Falling silent, Alice cocked her head. “Is that Dad’s car?”

  She threw open the door. “It is. He’s here, do you think—is that Waldo with him?”

  Looking over Alice’s head, Meagan laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Yes. I see him, in the backseat.”

  “He found him!” Turning to hug Meagan again, Alice repeated happily, “He found him. Daddy found Waldo.”

  They both hurried to welcome the errant dog home.

  Had it not been for Alice’s stress and her own deep relief, Meagan might have been amused by the sight Seth made when he climbed out of his car. Though he had discarded his jacket and tie, he still wore a dress shirt and suit pants. Both were caked with mud, as were his once-nice leather shoes. There was mud in his hair, on his hands and on his face, along with a deep scratch down one cheek that had oozed blood into the caked-on dirt. Sweat had trickled down his cheeks, leaving tracks in the grimy splotches.

  He didn’t see her immediately. He was dragging the equally-muddy dog out of his car and muttering steadily beneath his breath, probably words he would just as soon his daughter didn’t hear. Meagan had never seen him looking so bedraggled or frazzled. There was no telling how he’d gotten in that condition, but she knew there was nothing he would not have done to bring his daughter’s beloved pet home to her.

  Her chest clenched once, and then slowly relaxed as her heart beat with a peaceful new rhythm. A new purpose.

  “Heel, Waldo,” Seth said, and his tone had the dog falling immediately into position at the end of his leash, ears drooping and tail tucked.

  “Waldo.” Alice fell onto her pet, oblivious of the mess as she hugged him and searched him frantically for injuries. Keeping a wary eye on Seth, the dog greeted Alice with tail wags and licks.

  Only then did Seth spot Meagan, who’d held back a little so as not to interfere with the reunion. His eyes widened in surprise at seeing her there at only four in the afternoon. “Meagan? What are you—”

  “I called her, Dad,” Alice said, just a hint of defiance in her still-husky voice. “I just wanted her to know.”

  Meagan had her eyes on Seth’s injured face, which Alice hadn’t even seemed to notice yet. “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “Stupid dog had wandered down to the construction site on Candle Street. No one was working there today, probably because of all the mud from yesterday. He wiggled through an opening in a chain-link fence and got his collar caught on a piece of metal. I don’t know how long he’d been there when I found him. Don’t even know what made me look there, exactly, it was just the only place I hadn’t looked within several miles of here. I had a heck of a time getting him free. Had to lie down in the mud with him to reach his collar and he kept squirming, and then he jumped up when I freed him and knocked me facefirst into the broken part of the fence.”

  “Ouch. Come inside and I’ll clean it and look at it.”

  A small, slightly battered car pulled into the driveway and Jacqui jumped out. “Thanks for calling to let me know you’d found him, Seth. Oh, would you look at this mess. You go on inside and get cleaned up, Seth. Alice and I will turn a hose on Waldo and then see what we can do about cleaning the inside of your car, won’t we, Alice?”

  Alice’s glance at her father showed she didn’t dare object, even had she wanted to.

  Leaving the mess in Jacqui’s capable hands, Seth and Meagan went through the garage so he wouldn’t track mud anywhere but the kitchen. He shed his ruined shoes before entering the house. Meagan led him straight to the sink, where she moistened a paper towel and dabbed carefully at his face, keeping her focus on the scratch.

  “It doesn’t look too bad. You don’t need stitches, though you’ll have a bruise and some puffiness for a few days. Are you current on your tetanus boosters?”

  “Had one a couple of years ago when I cut my hand on a piece of metal during a fishing trip with a friend.”

  She nodded. “That’s current enough. You’ll be fine.”

  “Thanks.” He caught her hand and lowered it from his face. “I’ll clean up in the shower. Did you rush straight over here when Alice called you?”

  She couldn’t quite meet his eyes when she turned to toss the dirty towel in the trash. “I was just starting surgery, so it took me a couple of hours to get away. I’d only been here a few minutes when you got here with Waldo.”

  “Alice shouldn’t have called you at work. I don’t know what she was thinking.”

  “She was upset and here by herself and she wanted to hear a friend’s voice,” Meagan answered with a slight shrug. “I didn’t mind.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll tell her not to disturb you at work again.”

  “You’ll do no such thing.” She stepped directly in front of him to hold his gaze with her own. “Any time Alice needs me, she can call me. I can’t promise that I’ll always be able to drop everything and run to her, but I can guarantee I’ll get to her as quickly as I can. I think she understands that’s the best I can do. Of the three of us, she seems to be the most sensible about certain subjects.”

  “I don’t know what you mean by that.”

  She smiled, laying a hand against his dirty cheek. “I’ll have her explain a few things to you later.”

  He caught her hand in his, lowering it but not releasing it. His eyes drilled into hers. “What are you telling me, Meagan?”

  “Your marriage didn’t end because you both had careers. It ended because you were wrong for each other.”

  He shook his head in bemusement. “That’s what I told you.”

 
; “I know. It just took me a little while to hear it. And to believe it,” she admitted. “I said I was protecting Alice—but I’ve come to realize that I was protecting myself. I was the one who got scared this time. Scared of hurting her. Of hurting you. Of being hurt, myself. And for the first time in my life, I let fear keep me from pursuing something I wanted very badly. To be a part of your life. Yours and Alice’s.”

  He lifted her hand to his mouth, dropping a kiss in her palm. “We both want very much for you to be a part of our lives.”

  “I’ve missed you, Seth.”

  “I’ve missed you, too. So much I ached.”

  A lump formed in her throat in response to his candor. She swallowed and whispered, “So the invitation still stands?”

  “It was always open,” he replied simply. “We both know it won’t be easy, but I think we just might have a good chance of making this work between us.”

  She smiled up at him. “As my mom always says, nothing worth having comes easily.”

  “I think I’m going to like your mom.”

  He lowered his head to kiss her, but drew back at the last moment. “I’m filthy.”

  She laughed and caught his muddy, scratched face in her hands. “I don’t care.”

  Rising on tiptoe, she pressed her mouth to his.

  “Hey, Dad, do you know where the— Oh.” Alice giggled and backed rapidly out the kitchen door again. “Never mind.”

  She closed the door with a thud.

  Seth grimaced. “She’s going to take full credit for this, you know. We’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “That’s okay,” Meagan assured him, tugging him back down to her. “I’d rather give Alice the credit than Waldo.”

  His laughter was smothered in their happy kiss.

  Epilogue

  Outside the windows of Seth’s cozy den, a bitterly cold wind whipped through the bare branches of the surrounding trees. Early darkness had settled, plunging the neighborhood into deep shadows brightened by the white and multicolored Christmas lights decorating almost every house on the street.

  Inside the den, a jumble of opened boxes and discarded paper and ribbon littered the floor beneath the gaily decorated tree in one corner. Snuggled next to Seth on the couch, Meagan surveyed the mess lazily. She’d get around to picking up in a little while, she thought contentedly.

  It was late on Christmas day and the holidays had passed in a blur of frantic activity. Parties and school activities for Alice. Work and social obligations for Seth and Meagan. Family holiday gatherings. A brief visit from Seth’s father, a trip to Heber Springs so Alice could spend some time with her mother’s family, and Christmas Day luncheon with Meagan’s mother and siblings.

  Her grandmother had passed away in early November. Seth and Alice had been there for Meagan, comforting her in her sadness. Meagan’s mom was getting past the worst of her own grief now so that she’d been able to enjoy Christmas with her family.

  This was the first chance in several days that Meagan and Seth had been able to simply relax and be still, nothing pressing on them to do at the moment. During the past four months, they had learned to mesh their schedules for the most part to include time with each other and with Alice—though they had all gotten used to having the occasional plan disrupted by the buzz of a cell phone, either Meagan’s or Seth’s. As they had expected, it hadn’t been easy. There had been some stress, a few arguments, plenty of compromises. But it had so been worth it all, Meagan thought with a smile, nuzzling her cheek against Seth’s shoulder.

  Alice had just bundled up and gone outside into the backyard with its strongly reinforced fencing. She’d said she was going to feed her dog and then see how he looked in the fancy new leather-and-brass-stud collar Meagan had bought the dog impulsively for Christmas. Alice had been delighted with the gesture, and said she was sure Waldo would love it. She’d just left the room when Seth spoke.

  “Feels good just to sit still for a few minutes, doesn’t it?” he asked, unwittingly echoing her thoughts.

  Meagan released a happy sigh. “It does. But I should be heading home soon before that predicted sleet starts falling later.”

  “Stay here tonight.”

  She gave him a chiding look. “We’ve talked about this.”

  Convinced it set a bad example for Alice, Meagan had refused to sleep over with Seth when Alice was at home. He spent nights at her place during Alice’s weekend visits with her grandparents or sleepovers with friends and he and Meagan had “date night” once a week when their schedules allowed, after which Seth returned home at a respectable hour.

  Meagan doubted that Alice was entirely naive about the extent of her father’s relationship with Meagan, but she still thought it best to be discreet. Seth agreed, reluctantly, which made it rather a surprise that he’d suggested she stay tonight.

  “You can bunk in the guest room and we’ll all have breakfast together tomorrow,” he said.

  “Oh. I suppose I could do that. Since the weather’s so nasty.” It wasn’t something she’d done before, both because she lived so close and because she wasn’t entirely sure she trusted either Seth or herself not to sneak down the hall in the middle of the night.

  “There’s still one more gift I want to give you,” Seth said, twisting on the couch to face her more fully.

  She lifted her eyebrows. “You’ve already given me several nice gifts.”

  Nodding, he reached into his pocket. “This one’s a little different.”

  Her heart thudded in her chest when he drew out a small velvet box. Holding her gaze with his, he opened it to reveal the glittering ring inside. “I don’t like watching you go to your house across the street every night. I think it would be a lot easier for all of us if we combine our households into one.”

  She swallowed hard. “You’re asking me to marry you because it makes it easier to arrange our schedules?” she asked, amused by the tack he had taken.

  “I’m asking you to marry me because I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” he replied evenly. “Easier scheduling is simply a side benefit.”

  They hadn’t rushed into this, she thought, lowering her misty gaze to the beautiful ring he had chosen for her. They had taken every precaution to protect Alice and themselves from disappointment. There were still details they had to work out between them, still complications that could arise—but there came a point when they simply had to take a chance. To trust that the love they shared would be strong enough to smooth the inevitable difficulties.

  Drawing a deep breath, she took that leap of faith. “I love you, too, Seth. And yes, I will marry you.”

  His face lightened with one of his beautiful smiles—surely he hadn’t been in any doubt of what her answer would be? He drew her into his arms for a kiss of celebration.

  Neither of them heard the excited giggle from the open doorway to the room. Peeking around the corner at the couple entwined on the couch, Alice pumped her fist and then gazed down smugly at the yellow dog grinning back up at her. His new collar gleamed smartly around his neck.

  “We’ll show them how you look in your new collar later, Waldo,” Alice whispered, tugging him toward the kitchen. “They’re very busy right now.”

  Her steps bouncing with satisfaction at a job well done, she led her pet away.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-7941-8

  THE M.D. NEXT DOOR

  Copyright © 2011 by Gina Wilkins

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and an
y resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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