She’d followed the ambulance in his car and had remained at the hospital with April until he’d driven her home in his car. She hadn’t seen her own vehicle in all that time.
“As far as I know, my car is still parked there.” Melanie saw him glancing at his watch and realized that time, as it had been with April, was of tantamount importance. “Or I can always call a cab to bring me to the shelter.”
He waved away her offer. “No, it’s just a little out of the way,” Mitch told her, doing a quick calculation. “As long as you’re ready.”
“So completely ready,” she declared, grabbing her purse.
“Okay,” he responded.
The thing was he really didn’t know if he was. Ready for her, that was. She was taking him to a brand-new place, one he liked but one that also made him wary.
It could be a matter of something being too good to be true. And yet, all he could think about was getting back here, back to her. Back to making love with her.
What the hell was going on here?
He didn’t know, couldn’t explain. All he could do, with luck, was ride the wave.
* * *
Getting from the shelter to the hospital proved a little trickier for Melanie than getting from point A to point B. That was strictly because point A came with a large amount of people who had questions for her.
The moment she was spotted in the shelter’s parking lot, about to get into her vehicle, she was seen by several of the children who were playing in the designated playground area. The latter consisted of little more than a couple of swings and an old-fashioned sandbox, but the area was well populated and the moment the children saw Melanie, they came running out to shower her with questions. Everyone wanted to know how April was doing.
Their raised voices and the volley of nonstop questions attracted some of the mothers residing at the shelter and soon Melanie found herself answering questions coming from adults instead of children.
She was aware that the director had come to the hospital to look in on April herself—she’d seen the woman in April’s room—but as for the other women, though concerned, they were relying on the reports of others to satisfy their questions.
Melanie didn’t want to seem rude, so consequently it took her a bit of time before she could get away. The upshot was that it took Melanie far longer to get to the hospital than she was happy about.
Coming into the little girl’s room, she found that April was sound asleep. Whether she was still asleep from when she had initially left her or had woken up and then fallen back to sleep, Melanie had no way of knowing—but she intended to find out.
The nurse that Mitch had left in the room was not there, which really concerned her.
Going to the nurse’s station on that floor, Melanie was about to ask after the nurse’s whereabouts. At that moment, her cell phone vibrated.
Taking it out, she experienced an eerie moment of uneasiness, as if in anticipation of something major. Melanie glanced down to see that the call was coming from within the hospital. Which was odd.
“Hello?” she asked uncertainly.
“Hello, Ms. McAdams?” a rather young female voice asked.
Melanie had no idea why her stomach instantly tightened the way it did. “Yes?”
“This is Jennifer Donnelly,” the caller told her, identifying herself. “The nurse involved in this matter said I should give you a call. I’m from Social Services and this is about April O’Neill. You’re familiar with that name?”
Melanie could feel her heart all but constricting within her chest. This was what she’d supposedly been waiting for. But rather than having a case of nerves, the way she’d anticipated, she could feel her temper surging in her chest.
“Yes,” she replied evenly. “Of course I know April O’Neill—”
“We were informed that her mother was killed two days ago by a hit-and-run driver. With no father in the picture, she automatically becomes our responsibility. However, the nurse insisted that before we begin any paperwork to take custody, I call you. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure why.”
Melanie’s hand tightened on her cell phone. “Well, that’s really very simple, Ms. Donnelly,” she heard herself saying. “She told you that because I’m April O’Neill’s next of kin.”
Good luck in pulling this off, Melanie thought to herself.
Chapter Fifteen
There was a momentary silence on the other end of the cell phone.
Melanie knew she’d hit the woman with something she hadn’t been expecting, even though, if the social worker had looked at the hospital forms that she had filled out for April, Donnelly would have realized that April was not the orphan that she was perceived to be.
“Well, that certainly is a reason to call you,” Donnelly agreed, the woman’s voice sounding a bit too chipper to her for her peace of mind. “When can we get together?”
Melanie would have loved to have had a few hours to get her act together. Certainly she could have used at least that much time to make herself look presentable instead of probably something a self-respecting cat might hesitate to drag in.
But apparently she wasn’t about to have that luxury. Melanie had this very uneasy feeling that if she put this so-called meeting off she would wind up regretting it.
“Now is fine.”
It was obviously the right answer because it met with Donnelly’s approval.
“All right. Now it is,” the woman told Melanie. “We can meet in the chapel. I’m told it’s empty at the moment. I can be there in ten minutes.”
“So can I,” Melanie said, her stomach sinking to new depths.
* * *
Melanie arrived at the chapel before the other woman. Her nerves barely had time to settle down before Jennifer Donnelly entered the small, welcoming nondenominational chapel.
The social worker looked to be a little older than she was, Melanie observed. She also looked as if she was the epitome of efficiency, to the possible exclusion of actual sympathy. That worried Melanie.
But she wasn’t about to walk out of this chapel until she was granted some sort of custody of April no matter how long it took, that much she knew.
Indicating a pew, Donnelly sat down after she took a seat. The cool, dark eyes made no secret that the social worker was sizing her up.
Her voice was distant, reserved when she finally spoke. “I just want you to understand that I am doing this out of a sense of decency since there is no requirement for anyone in the department to notify perfect strangers as to our intentions regarding a child who comes to our attention. As soon as April is back on her feet, Social Services will be taking custody of her since she has no next of kin as far as we can see,” Donnelly informed her with finality, underscoring the last six words.
“You can’t do that,” Melanie cried.
The more agitated Melanie sounded, the more reserved the other woman became. “And why not?”
“Because she and I have built up a rapport since she first got to the shelter.” Her mind scrambling, Melanie remembered the form she’d filled out when April was admitted and what she’d told the woman to bring this meeting about. Why was Donnelly “conveniently” forgetting about that? “And like I told you, I’m April’s next of kin.”
The social worker’s small mouth twisted into a sneer. “Oh, really? Well, we have no record of you.” It was clear by her tone that she expected there to be some sort of record since in this day and age, there was a great deal of information available in cyberspace to back up a claim one way or another.
Desperate, Melanie was making it up as she went along. “This only came up recently. Her mother—Brenda—and I lost track of one another for a long time. She was my cousin. Her mother, I mean.”
“I see.” It was obvious by her expression that Donnelly didn’t believe any of it.
The way she was tapping a file in her hand, Melanie had a feeling that the woman had already done some extensive research into April’s background. Or as e
xtensive as was possible, given the situation, Melanie thought, mentally crossing her fingers.
Was there something in that file about her, as well? That she worked at the shelter and nothing more? Melanie anxiously searched her brain for something to work with. She couldn’t allow April to be taken into the system or she would never see the little girl again. She couldn’t bear losing April, losing someone else. That just couldn’t happen to her twice. She wouldn’t let it.
“So, which is it?” Donnelly asked sarcastically. “You’ve built up this rapport with April or you’re her long-lost cousin, twice removed?”
Melanie raised her chin. Chapel or not, she wasn’t about to take this quietly. “I don’t think I like your tone.”
Donnelly’s eyes narrowed with contempt. “Doesn’t matter what you like, Ms. McAdams. I represent the best interests of the child.”
The hell she did. “So, taking her from the only environment she is familiar with and has learned to trust and throwing her in with a bunch of strangers where she’ll be frightened is in her best interests?” Melanie demanded heatedly.
Donnelly drew herself up indignantly. “Ms. McAdams, you have no idea how many people out there pose as one thing and are something else entirely. All they want to do is get their hands on an innocent child and, best-case scenario, they want to use that child for a meal ticket in order to get extra money.” The woman paused for half a second. “Worst case, well, I don’t even want to get into that.”
“My point entirely,” Melanie stressed. “My first, my only concern, is April.”
The expression on the social worker’s face said she highly doubted that. “Then let the professionals do their job.”
At a loss, Melanie tried another approach to attempt to gain custody of the little girl. “So, you have a home waiting for her right now?”
Annoyance furrowed the almost perfect brow. “No, but—”
“Well, I do,” Melanie said, cutting in. “A good, clean, loving home.”
The look Donnelly gave her could have easily cut a lesser woman dead in her tracks. “I was about to say that not yet, but by the time April is released from the hospital, arrangements will be made.”
Yeah, she’d bet. She’d heard enough horror stories from some of the single mothers at the shelter about the battles they had to wage in order to regain custody of their own children. Some of them were still fighting the court.
“No disrespect as to your ‘arrangements,’” Melanie told the woman, “but April won’t know any of these people you’re thinking of placing her with.”
Thin shoulders shrugged indifferently. “An unfortunate situation, I admit, but—”
“She knows me,” Melanie insisted. “She feels safe with me.” Melanie continued, praying some of this was sinking into the woman’s hard heart. “I stayed in her hospital room from the time they found her in the street until she woke up. Run any background check on me you want,” she challenged. “I have a spotless record and I love her.”
Donnelly pressed impatient lips together. It was clear she didn’t like wasting time this way. Her next words indicated that some checking into her background had already been done, most likely because of what she’d filled in on the hospital forms. The woman came prepared, Melanie thought in despair.
“You have no source of income, Ms. McAdams. How do you intend to help pay for this child—or are you banking on Social Services to take care of that little detail for you?” she asked contemptuously. “For that matter, if we granted you temporary foster-care custody, how would we even know that the money intended for April would go to April?”
It was obvious from the way she spoke that Donnelly was all too familiar with that aspect of cheating within the system.
The woman was talking down to her. Melanie struggled to hold on to her temper as she tried to clear up the numerous misunderstandings. “Number one, I am on a leave of absence—”
“According to our records,” Donnelly said, cutting her off, “you quit.”
“Your records don’t go deep enough,” Melanie countered. “I tried to quit, but my principal wouldn’t let me. She talked me into taking a leave of absence instead and told me my job would be waiting for me when I was ready to come back.”
“Your quitting only proves how unstable you are,” Donnelly pointed out with almost relish. “April needs a stable environment—”
She should have known this wouldn’t have been the end of it. The social worker wouldn’t be satisfied until she wound up cutting her up into little pieces.
“My fiancé was killed overseas by a suicide bomber four days before he was scheduled to come home to me for our wedding. Tell me, Ms. Donnelly, how would you have held up under that?” Melanie challenged angrily. “And I didn’t just run off, I came to the homeless shelter to volunteer full-time so that I could feel that at least I was being useful to someone.”
The woman was momentarily at a loss as to how to answer. Then, taking a breath, to Melanie’s surprise Donnelly said in a somewhat kinder tone, “Be that as it may, there is still the matter of your financial situation—”
Melanie cut her off. “Look, I don’t want to be April’s foster mother and have you people paying me for taking care of her. I want to take her in so I can adopt her,” she emphasized. Why couldn’t the woman get that through her head?
Donnelly closed her eyes, as if searching for patience. “Yes, because you’re this long-lost relative—”
“Because I love her,” Melanie stressed, banking down her anger.
“And if we did this extensive background check you said you wanted and found that you’re not related to April’s mother at all?” Donnelly challenged. The look on her face said what she knew the outcome of that check would be.
Melanie rose to her feet, ready to just walk out before she really lost her temper and exploded.
“Aren’t you listening?” Melanie cried. “I want to adopt her. Most people who adopt children aren’t related to them. Most of the time, they haven’t even had time to develop a relationship with the child before they adopt them. April and I have—”
“—bonded, yes, so you said,” Donnelly said in a singsong voice. “Still—”
“Is there a problem here?”
Melanie could have sobbed when she heard Mitch’s voice coming from behind her. She swung around immediately and had to struggle not to throw her arms around his neck out of pure relief.
Finally someone to back her up.
She had no idea what he could say that she hadn’t, but the very fact that he was a surgeon here at the hospital and not just any surgeon, but one with a rather well-known reputation, meant that this woman from hell had to listen to him.
Didn’t she?
Donnelly rose to her feet instantly. “No problem here, Doctor,” the woman said crisply, but with an obvious respect that had been missing from her voice when she spoke to Melanie. “Ms. McAdams here is taking exception to the Department of Social Services taking custody of one of the patients here.”
Mitch’s somber expression was almost intimidating, Melanie thought and for once, she was extremely glad of that.
“April O’Neill, yes I know,” he replied.
Donnelly’s dark, probing eyes took complete measure of the man in front of her before she spoke. “Then you are familiar with the little girl?”
“I should be,” Mitch informed the woman. “I operated on her. Prior to that, I treated her and Jimmy, her late brother, at the Bedford Rescue Mission.”
“I see. Very kind of you—” Donnelly began, about to use the throwaway line as a transition to get to the heart of her subject. It was obvious that she felt flattery was the way to get on his good side.
The social worker had a thing or two to learn about the man, Melanie thought.
“Kindness had nothing to do with it, Ms. Donnelly.” The nurse who had alerted him about the social worker meeting with Melanie at the chapel had given him the woman’s name. “Especially in the beginning.�
�� He glanced at Melanie. “That, I think you should know, was all Ms. McAdams’s doing. I’d initially volunteered for what I thought would be a single visit to the shelter. It was Ms. McAdams who came to the hospital, found me and literally dragged me back over to the shelter to impress upon me just how necessary it was for a physician to make regular visits there so that the women and children residing at the shelter could receive proper care and proper follow-up care.”
At the time Melanie’s presumption had irritated the hell out of him, but now that he looked back at it, that had been the beginning of his own transformation.
“We have programs—” the woman began rather indignantly, apparently taking what he was saying as an attack on her department’s services.
Unable to hold her tongue any longer, Melanie interjected, “Which their pride keeps them from utilizing.”
“Oh, and bringing a doctor to them is different?” Donnelly asked sarcastically, directing the question at her.
“Yes, it is,” Melanie retorted. “If he’s right there, they can’t very well avoid him. And more importantly, Dr. Stewart doesn’t make them feel like they’re charity cases. That’s often the problem when they go to some authorized clinic on the other side of town to see doctors who would rather be somewhere else, getting paid what they felt they were actually worth. It makes them feel as if they’re worthless inconveniences instead of normal human beings who just happen to have fallen on hard times—sometimes through no fault of their own,” Melanie pointed out with feeling.
“A volunteer who comes to them wants to see them and the whole atmosphere between doctor and patient is different. The patients trust the doctor which in turn helps him treat them effectively,” Melanie concluded.
Donnelly blew out a skeptical breath. “And this is your story,” the woman asked Mitch.
Mitch never wavered. Instead, he met her gaze head on. “Quite honestly, it wasn’t before, but it is now. Ms. McAdams has made me remember the real reason why I became a doctor in the first place.”
Dr. Forget-Me-Not (Matchmaking Mamas) Page 15
