Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author Marie Ferrarella

“Ferrarella delivers a fabulous couple. Wonderful storytelling expertly delivers both lighthearted and tragic story details.”

—RT Book Reviews on Her Red-Carpet Romance

“An easy-read modern romance with a creditable and self-possessed heroine to steal your heart.”

—Fresh Fiction on Mendoza’s Secret Fortune

“She has a genuine knack for keeping the reader interested and involved in the characters and their emotional feelings.”

—Fresh Fiction on His Forever Valentine

“Expert storytelling moves the book along at a steady pace. A solidly crafted plot makes it quite entertaining.”

—RT Book Reviews on Cavanaugh Fortune

“Master storyteller Ferrarella has a magical way of spinning feel-good romances that readers can lose themselves in, and her latest is no exception.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Cowboy and the Lady

Dr. Forget-Me-Not

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred and fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

To

Nancy Parodi Neubert,

And

Friendships

That go back to the

3rd Grade

Contents

Cover

Praise

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

“You haven’t finally decided to sell that beautiful house of yours and downsize to something a little smaller and more modern, now have you?”

It wasn’t really a question. Maizie Connors, sitting opposite the attractive woman in Jack’s Hideaway, Bedford’s newest trendy restaurant, knew better than to think that Charlotte, a woman she had known for close to forty years, would ever sell the house she loved so much. When she’d taken the unexpected call from her old friend that morning, Maizie had suspected something was up, but she’d instinctively known it had nothing to do with Charlotte making use of Maizie’s successful real estate business.

“What?” Charlotte asked. Sitting ramrod straight, doing her best to appear cheerful, Charlotte Stewart was caught off guard by the question. She also felt somewhat embarrassed, not just because of the deception she’d allowed to continue, but because of the real reason for her getting in contact with Maizie in the first place. She cleared her throat and stalled for time. Trying to get her thoughts together in order to find the right words. So far, they had frustratingly managed to elude her. “Oh, no, I haven’t,” she confessed, then added in a sincere moment of truth, “I don’t think I’ll ever sell that house. It’s where all the good memories are.”

Maizie smiled, nodding her head knowingly. Unlike Charlotte, who had gone stylishly gray, Maizie’s short bob was a light golden blond, the same color it had been when she’d first met her late husband all those years ago.

“I didn’t think so. So, Charlotte,” she asked, getting comfortable, “what’s this lunch really about?”

To be honest, Maizie was fairly certain she knew the answer to her question. As a successful Realtor, she had started her agency after her husband passed away years ago. It did a brisk business; but these days, she was just as accustomed to getting calls from people who sought her services for the business that she ran on the side as she was from people who wanted to either buy or sell houses.

Maizie, along with her two lifelong best friends, had an aptitude for making matches.

Lasting matches.

When Charlotte called, asking to see her over lunch, the woman had murmured something about needing advice and alluded to it being about selling her house. Surprised—since Maizie knew how attached her friend was to the only place she had ever called home once Charlotte’s late husband had slipped a ring on her finger, Maizie had played along until after appetizers had been ordered.

When Charlotte now made no reply to her question, Maizie leaned forward over the small table and placed her hand over her friend’s.

“We’ve been friends for almost forty years, Charlotte, you can tell me. No matter what it is, at my age, I’ve heard it before.”

Charlotte continued to look uncomfortable. “I don’t know where to start.”

Maizie’s smile was warm, encouraging. “Just jump right in and I’ll try to keep up.”

“It’s Mitchell,” Charlotte finally blurted out, referring to her only child.

Again, Maizie was fairly certain she knew what was coming, but she approached the subject slowly, not wanting to make her friend nervous enough to abruptly change her mind and table the subject.

Guessing at the true reason for this impromptu meeting, Maizie was well aware that the subject the other woman was attempting to broach was not an easy one for some mothers. Although genuinely concerned, mothers like Charlotte didn’t want to be seen as meddling, which was only a cut above words like controlling, calculating and interfering. No true mother wanted that label.

“Ah, how is Dr. Mitch these days?” Maizie asked, her blue eyes sparkling with humor.

The word escaped Charlotte’s lips before she could think to prevent it. “Lonely.”

“Is he?” Maizie asked with keen interest. She loved matching up people with their dream homes. She loved matching people up with their dream soul mates even more. The former came with a commission, the latter was priceless to her, even if the service itself was free.

“Except he doesn’t know it yet,” Charlotte hurriedly qualified.

Maizie was nothing if not patience personified. “Explain,” she requested.

“He’d really be annoyed if he knew I was saying this,” Charlotte interjected hesitantly.

“Then we won’t tell him,” Maizie assured her pleasantly. None of the protagonists in the matches she and her friends had undertaken ever knew that their “meetings” had been orchestrated. Things worked out far more naturally that way. “But you’re going to have to give me a little more to work with here.”

Charlotte took a deep breath and forged ahead, knowing that if she lost her nerve, if she told Maizie “never mind” and just left, the problem would only continue. And most likely get worse. She loved her son far too much to let that happen. He deserved to have a full life.

“Mitchell is a fantastic surgeon,” she said by way of an introduction to the crux of the matter.

Maizie nodded. “Like his father.” She was rewarded with a grateful smile from her friend.

“But he lacks Matthew’s gift for getting along with people.” Charlotte hesitated for a moment, knowing that wasn’t specific enough. She tried again. “He just doesn’t connect.”

“With his patients?” Maizie asked, quietly urging her friend on. She vaguely remembered Charlotte’s son as a quiet, intense young man.

“With anybody.” Charlotte sighed as she leaned forward over the table toward Maizie. “He’s brilliant, handsome and you couldn’t ask for a better surgeon—or a better son,” she tacked on.

“But...?” Maizie asked, fully aware that the word was waiting in the wings.

“But I’m never going to have any grandchildren.” Charlotte appeared distressed at the words she had just blurted out. “I know it sounds trivial—”

Maizie quickly cut her off. “Trust me, I understand perfectly. I was in your shoes once. So were some of my friends. Sometimes, you can’t just sit back and wait for the planets to align themselves. Sometimes, you have to drag those planets into place yourself,” Maizie told her with a wink. And then Maizie got down to business. “As far as you know, has Mitchell ever been seriously involved with anyone?”

“I do know.” Charlotte prided herself on the fact that she had the kind of relationship with Mitch where her son actually talked to her. “And he hasn’t. I once watched a young woman all but throw herself at him at a party—it was a fund raiser for his hospital,” she interjected. “Anyway, Mitchell had absolutely no idea that she was doing it.” Charlotte pressed her lips together as she shook her head, recalling the incident. “I’m beginning to think things are hopeless.”

Maizie was always at her best when faced with a challenge. A string of successes had only bolstered her confidence in her knack—as well as Celia’s and Theresa’s—for bringing the right people together.

“Never hopeless,” Maizie assured her. “Let me ask around and see what I can do.” She patted Charlotte’s hand and repeated, “Never hopeless.” And then she grinned. “Now we can order,” she declared since her agenda had come into focus. “I don’t know about you, Charlotte, but I’m suddenly starved.”

Chapter One

She was doing her best to get lost in other people’s lives.

Melanie McAdams knew she should be grateful for the fact that she was in a position to help them—which was what she was doing here at the Bedford Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter where single mothers could come with their children and remain as long as needed. The women were encouraged to attempt to stitch together a better life for themselves and their children. Melanie had been volunteering here for almost three years now—and when, nine months ago, her own life had suddenly fallen apart, she’d taken a leave from her job and volunteered at the shelter full-time.

But today, nothing seemed to be working. Today, trying to make a difference in these people’s lives wasn’t enough to keep the dark thoughts from the past from infiltrating her mind and haunting her.

Because today was nine months to the day when the somber black car had come down her street and stopped in front of her house—the house she and Jeremy had planned to share. Nine months to the day when she’d opened her front door to find a chaplain and army lieutenant John Walters standing on her doorstep, coming to solemnly tell her that her whole world had just been blown up.

Coming to tell her that Jeremy Williams, her high school sweetheart, her fiancé, her world, wasn’t coming back to her.

Ever.

No matter how good she was, no matter how hard she prayed, he wasn’t coming back.

Except in a coffin.

Melanie gave up trying to stack the children’s books on the side table in one of the shelter’s two common rooms. They just kept sliding and falling on the floor.

When did it stop? Melanie silently demanded. When did it stop hurting like this? When did the pain fade into the background instead of being the first thing she was aware of every morning and the last thing that she was aware of every night? When did it stop chewing bits and pieces out of her every day?

Four days, she thought now. Four days, that was how long Jeremy had had left. Four days and he would have been out of harm’s way once and for all. His tour of duty would have been over.

Four days and he would have been back in her arms, back in her life, taking vows and marrying her. But it might as well have been four hundred years. It hadn’t happened.

Wasn’t going to happen.

Because Jeremy was now in a cold grave instead of her warm bed.

“Are you okay, Miss Melody?” the small, high-pitched voice asked.

Trying to collect herself as best she could, Melanie turned around to look down into the face of the little girl who had asked the question. The small, concerned face and older-than-her-years green eyes belonged to April O’Neill, a beautiful, bright five-year-old who, along with her seven-year-old brother, Jimmy, and her mother, Brenda, had been here at the shelter for a little over a month. Prior to that, they had been living on the streets in a nearby city for longer than their mother had been willing to admit.

Initially, when April had first made the mistake and called her Melody, Melanie had made an attempt to correct her. But after three more attempts, all without success, she’d given up.

She’d grown to like the name April called her and had more than a little affection for the small family who had been through so much through no real fault of their own. It was an all too familiar story. A widow, Brenda had lost her job and, after failing to pay the rent for two months, she and her children had been evicted.

With no husband in the picture and no family anywhere to speak of, the street became their home until a police officer took pity on them, loaded them into the back of his squad car and drove them over to the shelter.

Melanie told herself to focus on their problems and the problems of the other homeless women and single mothers who were under the shelter’s roof. Their situations were fixable, hers was not.

Melanie forced herself to smile at April. “I’m fine, honey.”

April appeared unconvinced. Her small face puckered up, as if she was trying to reconcile two different thoughts. “But your eye is leaking, like Mama’s does sometimes when she’s thinking sad thoughts, or about Daddy.”

“Dust,” Melanie told her, saying the first thing that occurred to her. “There’s dust in the air and I’ve got allergies. It makes my eyes...leak sometimes,” she said, using April’s word for it and hoping that would be enough for the little girl.

April was sharper than she’d been at her age, Melanie discovered.

“Oh. You can take a pill,” the little girl advised her. “The lady on TV says you can take a pill to make your all-er-gee go away,” she concluded solemnly, carefully pronouncing the all-important word.

April made her smile despite the heaviness she felt on her chest. Melanie slipped her arm around the very small shoulders, giving the little girl a quick hug.

“I’ll have to try that,” she promised. “Now, why did you come looking for me?” she asked, diverting the conversation away from her and back to April.

April’s expression became even more solemn as she stated the reason for her search. “Mama says that Jimmy’s sick again.”

Melanie did a quick calculation in her head. That made three times in the past six weeks. There was no doubt about it. Jimmy O’Neill was a sickly boy. His time on the street had done nothing to improve that.

“Same thing?” she asked April.

The blond head bobbed up and down with alacrity. “He’s coughing and sneezing and Mama says he shouldn’t be around other kids or they’ll get sick, too.”

“Smart lady,” Melanie agreed.

As she started to walk to the communal quarters that the women and their children all shared, April slipped her hand through hers. The small fingers tightened around hers as if she was silently taking on the role of guide despite the fact that she and her family had only been at the shelter a short time.

“I think Jimmy needs a doctor,” April confided, her eyes meeting Melanie’s.

“Even smarter lady,” Melanie commented under her breath.

The comment might have been quiet, but April had heard her and went on talking as if they were two equals, having a conversation. “But we don’t have any money and Jimmy feels too sick to go to the hospital place. Besides, Mama doesn’t like asking for free stuff,” April confided solemnly.

Melanie nodded. “Your mama’s got pride,” she told the little girl. “But sometimes, people have to forget about their pride if it means trying to help someone they love.”

April eyed her knowingly. “You mean like Jimmy?”

“Exactly like Jimmy.”

Turning a corner, she pushed open the oversize door that led into one of the three large communal rooms that accommodated as many families as could be fit into it without violating any of the fire department’s safety regulations. Polly, the woman who ran the shelter, referred to the rooms as dorms, attempting to create a more positive image for the women who found themselves staying here.

The room that April had brought her to was largely empty except for the very worried-looking, small, dark-haired woman sitting on the bed all the way over in the corner. The object of her concern was the rather fragile-looking red-haired little boy sitting up and leaning against her.

The boy was coughing. It was the kind of cough that fed on itself, growing a little worse with each pass and giving no sign of letting up unless some kind of action was taken. Sometimes, it took something as minor as a drink of water to alleviate the cough, other times, prescription cough medicine was called for.

Melanie gave the simplest remedy a try first.

Looking down at the little girl who was still holding her hand, she said, “April, why don’t you go to the kitchen and ask Miss Theresa to give you a glass of water for your brother?”

April, eager to help, uncoupled herself from Melanie’s hand and immediately ran off to the kitchen.

As April took off, Melanie turned her attention to Jimmy’s mother. “He really should see a doctor,” she gently suggested.

Worn and tired way beyond her years, Brenda O’Neill raised her head proudly and replied, “We’ll manage, thank you. It’s not the first time he’s had this cough and it won’t be the last,” she said with assurance. “It comes and goes. Some children are like that.”

“True,” Melanie agreed. She wasn’t here to argue, just to comfort. “But it would be better if it went—permanently.” She knew the woman was proud, but she’d meant what she’d said to April. Sometimes pride needed to take a backseat to doing what was best for someone you loved. “Look, I know that money’s a problem, Brenda.” She thought of the newly erected, state-of-the-art hospital that was less than seven miles away from the shelter. “I’ll pay for the visit.”

The expression on Jimmy’s mother’s face was defiant and Melanie could see the woman withdrawing and closing herself off.

“He’ll be all right,” Brenda insisted. “Kids get sick all the time.”

Melanie sighed. She couldn’t exactly kidnap the boy and whisk him off to the ER, not without his mother’s express consent. “Can’t argue with that,” Melanie agreed.

“I brought water,” April announced, returning. “And Miss Theresa, too.” She glanced over her shoulder as if to make sure that the woman was still behind her. “She was afraid I’d spill it, but I wouldn’t,” she told Melanie in what the little girl thought passed for a whisper. It didn’t.

Theresa Manetti gave the glass of water to Jimmy. “There you go. Maybe this’ll help.” She smiled at the boy. “And if it doesn’t, I might have something else that will.”

Brenda looked at the older woman and she squared her shoulders. “I’ve already had this discussion with that lady,” she waved her hand at Melanie. “We can’t afford a doctor. Jimmy’ll be fine in a couple of days,” she insisted, perhaps just a little too strongly, as if trying to convince herself as well as the women she was talking to.

Theresa nodded. A mother of two herself, she fully sympathized with what Jimmy’s mother was going through. But she didn’t volunteer her time, her crew and the meals she personally prepared before coming here just to stand idly by if there was something she could do. Luckily, after her conversation with Maizie yesterday, there was. It was also, hopefully, killing two birds with one stone—or, as she preferred thinking of it, spreading as much good as possible.

“Good to know, dear,” she said to Brenda, patting the woman’s shoulder. “But maybe you might want to have Dr. Mitch take a look at him anyway.”

“Dr. Mitch?” Melanie asked. This was the first reference she’d heard to that name. Was the volunteer chef referring to a personal physician she intended to call?

“Sorry, that’s what my friend calls him,” Theresa apologized. “His full name is Dr. Mitchell Stewart and he’s a general surgeon associated with Bedford Memorial Hospital—right down the road,” she added for Brenda’s benefit. “He’s been doing rather well these past couple of years and according to mutual sources, he wants to give a little back to the community. When I told Polly about it,” she said, referring to Polly French, the director of the shelter, “she immediately placed a call to his office and asked him to volunteer a few hours here whenever he could.” She moved aside the hair that was hanging in April’s eyes, fondly remembering when she used to do the same thing with her own daughter. “He’ll be here tomorrow. I’m spreading the word.”

Brenda still looked somewhat suspicious of the whole thing. “We don’t need any charity.”

“Seems to me that it’ll be you being charitable to him,” Theresa pointed out diplomatically. “If the man wants to do something good, I say let him.” Theresa turned her attention to Jimmy who had mercifully stopped coughing, at least for now. “What about you, Jimmy? What d’you say?”

Jimmy looked up at her with hesitant, watery eyes. “He won’t stick me with a needle, will he?”

“I don’t think he’s planning on that,” Theresa replied honestly. “He just wants to do what’s best for you.”

“Then okay,” the boy replied, then qualified one more time, “as long as he doesn’t stick me.”

Theresa smiled at Brenda. “Born negotiator, that one. Sounds a lot like my son did at that age. He’s a lawyer now,” Theresa added proudly. “Who knows, yours might become one, too.”

The hopeless look on Brenda’s face said she didn’t agree, but wasn’t up to arguing the point.

Theresa gently squeezed the woman’s shoulder. “It’ll get better, dear. Even when you feel like you’ve hit bottom and there’s no way back up to the surface, it’ll get better,” Theresa promised.

For her part, Theresa was remembering how she’d felt when her husband had died suddenly of a heart attack. At first, she had been convinced that she couldn’t even go on breathing—but she had. She not only went on breathing, but she’d gone on to form and run a successful catering business. Life was nothing if not full of possibilities—as long as you left yourself open to them, Theresa thought.

The last part of her sentence was directed more toward Melanie than to the young mother she was initially addressing.

“I’d better get back to getting dinner set up,” Theresa said, beginning to walk away.

Melanie followed in her wake. “Are you really getting a doctor to come to the shelter?” she asked.

It was hard for her to believe and harder for her to contain her excitement. This was just what some of the children—not to mention some of the women—needed, to be examined by a real doctor.

“Not me, personally,” she told Melanie, “but I have a friend who has a friend—the upshot is, yes, there is a doctor coming here tomorrow.”

“Photo op?” Melanie guessed. This was the Golden State and a lot of things were done here for more than a straightforward reason. It seemed like everyone thrived on publicity for one reason or another. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said quickly, “some of these people really need to be seen by a doctor, but if this is just some kind of publicity stunt so that some doctor can drum up goodwill and get people to come to his state-of-the-art new clinic, or buy his new skin cream, or whatever, I don’t want to see Brenda and her son being used.”

Sympathy flooded Theresa’s eyes. She had to restrain herself to keep from hugging Melanie. “Oh honey, what happened to you to make you so suspicious and defensive?”

She was not about to talk about Jeremy, or any other part of her life. Besides, that had nothing to do with this.

“This isn’t about me,” Melanie retorted, then caught hold of her temper. This wasn’t like her. She was going to have watch that. “This is about them.” She waved her hand toward where they had left Brenda and her children. “I don’t want them being used.”

“They won’t be,” Theresa assured her kindly. “This doctor really does see the need to give back a little to the community.” That was the story Maizie and the doctor’s mother, Charlotte, had told her they’d agreed upon. “He’s a very decent sort,” she added.

Melanie looked at her, confused. “I thought you said you didn’t know him.”

“I don’t,” Theresa readily admitted. “But I know the woman who knows his mother and Maizie would never recommend anyone—even a doctor—who was just out for himself.” Theresa paused for a moment as little things began to fall into place in her mind. She had the perfect approach, she thought suddenly, pleased with herself.

“Dr. Mitch is a little...stiff, I hear, for lack of a better word. I hate to ask, but maybe you can stick around a little longer, act as a guide his first day here. Show him the ropes.”

Melanie would have thought that Polly, the director who was bringing him on board, would be much better suited for the job than she was. “I don’t know anything about medicine.”

“No, but you know people,” Theresa was quick to point out, playing up Melanie’s strengths, “and the ones around here seem to trust you a lot.”

Melanie shrugged. She didn’t know if that was exactly accurate. She was just a familiar face for them. “They’re just desperate...” she allowed, not wanting to take any undue credit.

Theresa laughed, nodding. “Aren’t we all, one way or another?” This was the perfect point to just retreat, before Melanie could think of any further objections to her interacting with Mitch on a one-to-one basis. So Theresa did. “I really do need to get back to the kitchen to get things set up and ready or dinner is going to be late,” she told Melanie.

About to leave, Theresa hesitated. It wasn’t just small sad faces that got to her. She’d been infinitely aware of the sadness in Melanie’s eyes from the first moment she’d been introduced to the volunteer.

Coming closer to Melanie, she lowered her voice so that only Melanie could hear her. “But I just wanted to tell you that should you ever need to talk—or maybe just need a friendly ear—I’m here at the shelter every other week.” She knew she was telling Melanie something that she already knew. “And when I’m not—”

Digging into the pocket of her apron, Theresa extracted one of her business cards. Taking a pen out of the other pocket, she quickly wrote something on the back of the card, then held the same card out to Melanie.

“Here.”

Melanie glanced at the front of the card. “Thank you, but I don’t think I’m going to be having any parties that’ll need catering any time soon.”

Theresa didn’t bother wasting time telling the young woman that she wasn’t offering her catering service, but her services as a sympathetic listener. “That’s my private number on the back. If I’m not home, leave a message.”

Melanie didn’t believe in pouring out her heart and burdening people, especially if they were all but strangers. “But we don’t really know each other,” she protested, looking at the card.

“That’s what phone calls are for,” Theresa told her. “To change that.” She paused for a moment, as if debating whether or not to say something further. “I know what it feels like to lose someone you love.”

Melanie stared at her, stunned. She’d exchanged a few words with the other woman and found Theresa Manetti to be a very sweet person, but she’d never shared anything remotely personal with her, and certainly not the fact that her fiancé had been killed. Why was the woman saying this to her?

As if reading her mind, Theresa told her, “The director told me about your young man. I am very, very sorry.”

Melanie stiffened slightly. “Yes, well, I am, too,” she replied, virtually shutting down.

But Theresa wasn’t put off so quickly. “I think it’s a very good thing, your being here. The best way to work through what you’re feeling right now is to keep busy, very, very busy. You have to stay ahead of the pain until you can handle it and it won’t just mow you down.”

“I am never going to be able to handle it,” Melanie told her with finality.

“I think you’re underestimating yourself,” she told Melanie. “You’re already thinking of others. Trying to talk that young mother into taking her son to see a doctor is definitely thinking of others.”

Melanie’s mouth dropped open. She stared at the older woman. “How did you know?” She’d had that conversation with Brenda before Theresa had come on the scene.

Theresa merely smiled, approximating, she knew, the look that sometimes crossed Maizie’s face. She swore that she and Celia were becoming more like Maizie every day. “I have my ways, dear,” she told Melanie just before leaving. “I have my ways.”

Chapter Two

He was having second thoughts.

Serious second thoughts.

Anyone who was vaguely acquainted with Dr. Mitchell Stewart knew him to be focused, dedicated, exceedingly good at everything he set out to do and definitely not someone who could even remotely be conceived of as being impetuous. The latter meant that having second thoughts was not part of his makeup.

Ever.

However, in this one singular instance, Mitch was beginning to have doubts about the wisdom of what he had agreed to undertake.

It didn’t mean that he wasn’t up to it because he lacked the medical savvy. What he would be doing amounted to practicing random medicine, something he hadn’t really done since his intern days. These days he was an exceptionally skilled general surgeon who garnered the admiration and praise of his colleagues as well as the head of his department and several members of his hospital’s board of directors.

Mitch could truthfully say that he had never been challenged by any procedure he’d had to perform. In the arena of the operating world, it was a given that he shined—each and every time. He made sure of it, and was dedicated to continuing to make that an ongoing fact of his life.

But just as he knew his strengths, Mitch was aware of the area where he did not shine. While he was deemed to be a poetic virtuoso with a scalpel, when it came to words, to expressing his thoughts and explaining what he was going to do to any layman, he was sadly lacking in the proper skills and he was aware of that.

However, that was not enough for him to attempt to change anything that he did, or even to attempt to learn how to communicate better than he did. He didn’t have time for that.

Mitch truly felt that successfully operating on an at-risk patient far outweighed making said patient feel better verbally about what was about to happen. His awareness of his shortcoming was, however, just enough for him to acknowledge that this was an area in which he was sorely lacking.

Hence, the second thoughts.

As he drove to the Bedford Rescue Mission now, Mitch readily admitted to himself that he’d agreed to volunteer his services at the local homeless shelter in a moment of general weakness. His mother had ambushed him unexpectedly, showing up on his doorstep last Sunday to remind him that it was his birthday and that she was taking him out to lunch whether he liked it or not.

She had assumed that as with everything else that didn’t involve his operating skills, he had forgotten about his birthday.

He had.

But, in his defense, he’d pointed out to her patiently, he’d stopped thinking of birthdays as something to celebrate around the time he’d turned eighteen. That was the year that his father had died and immediately after that, he’d had to hustle, utilizing every spare moment he had to earn money in order to pay his way through medical school.

Oh, there had been scholarships, but they didn’t cover everything at the school he had elected to attend and he was not about to emerge out of medical school with a degree and owing enough money, thanks to student loans, to feed and clothe the people of a small developing nation for a decade. If emerging debt free meant neglecting everything but his work and his studies, so be it.

Somewhere along the line, holidays and birthdays had fallen by the wayside, as well. His life had been stripped down to the bare minimum.

But he couldn’t strip away his mother that easily. He loved her a great deal even if he didn’t say as much. The trouble was his mother was dogged about certain things, insisting that he at least spend time with her on these few occasions, if not more frequently.

And, once he was finally finished with his studies, with his internship and his residency, it was his mother who was behind his attending social functions that had to do with the hospital where he worked. She had argued that it was advantageous for him to be seen, although for the life of him, he had no idea how that could possibly benefit him. He had no patience with the behind-the-scenes politics that went on at the hospital. As far as he was concerned, glad-handing and smiling would never take the place of being a good surgeon.

In his book, the former didn’t matter, the latter was all that did.

And that was where his mother had finally gotten him. On the doctor front. She had, quite artfully, pointed out that because of new guidelines and the changing medical field, getting doctors to volunteer their services and their time was becoming more and more of a difficult endeavor.

He never saw it coming.

He’d agreed with her, thinking they were having a theoretical conversation—and then that was when his mother had hit him with specifics. She’d told him about this shelter that took in single women who had nowhere else to turn. Single women with children. She reminded him how, when his father was alive, this was the sort of thing he had done on a regular basis, rendered free medical services to those in need.

Before he was able to comment—or change the subject—his mother had hit him with her request, asking him to be the one to volunteer until another doctor could be found to fill that position at the shelter. In effect, she was asking him to temporarily fill in.

Or so she said.

He knew his mother, and the woman was nothing if not clever. But he was going to hold her to her word. He planned to fill in at the shelter only on a temporary basis. A very temporary basis.

Mitch knew his way around surgical instruments like a pro. Managing around people, however, was a completely different story. That had always been a mystery to him.

People, one of the doctors he’d interned with had insisted, wanted good bedside manner, they wanted their hands held while being told that everything was going to turn out all right.

Well, he wasn’t any good at that. He didn’t hold hands or spend time talking. He healed wounds. In the long run, he felt that his patients were much better served by his choice.

This was just going to be temporary, Mitch silently promised himself, pulling up into the small parking lot before the two-story rectangular building. He’d give this place an hour, maybe ninety minutes at most, then leave. The only thing he wanted to do today was get a feel for whatever might be the physical complaints that the residents of this shelter had and then he’d be on his way home.

It was doable, he told himself. No reason to believe that it wasn’t.

Getting out of his serviceable, secondhand Toyota—he’d never been one for ostentatious symbols of success—Mitch took a long look at the building he was about to enter.

It didn’t look the way he imagined a homeless shelter would look. There was a fresh coat of paint on the building and an even fresher-looking sign in front of it, proclaiming it to be the Bedford Rescue Mission. A handful of daisies—white and yellow—pushed their way up and clustered around both ends of the sign. Surprisingly, he noted almost as an afterthought, there were no weeds seeking to choke out the daisies.

As he approached the front door, Mitch was vaguely aware of several pairs of eyes watching him from the windows. From the way the blinds were slanted, the watchful eyes belonged to extremely petite people—children most likely around kindergarten age, he estimated.

He sincerely hoped their mothers were around to keep them in line.

Those uncustomary, nagging second thoughts crept out again as he raised his hand to ring the doorbell.

He almost dropped it again without making contact. But then he sighed. He was here, he might as well see just how bad this was. Maybe he’d overthought it.

The moment his finger touched the doorbell, Mitch heard the chimes go off, approximating the first ten notes of a song that he found vaguely familiar, one that teased his brain, then slipped away into the mist the moment the front door was opened.

A young woman with hair the color of ripened wheat stood in the doorway, making no secret of the fact that she was sizing him up. It surprised him when he caught himself wondering what conclusion she’d reached.

“Dr. Stewart,” she said by way of a greeting.

A greeting he found to be rather odd. “I know who I am, who are you?” he asked.

For such a good-looking man—and she could easily see all the little girls at the shelter giggling behind their hands over this one—he came across as entirely humorless. Too bad, Melanie thought. She’d take a sense of humor over good looks any day.

A sense of humor, in her eyes, testified to a person’s humanity as well as his or her ability to identify with another person. Good looks just meant a person got lucky in the gene pool.

“Melanie McAdams,” she told him, identifying herself as she stepped back and opened the door wider for him.

Mitch noticed there was a little girl hanging on to the bottom of the young woman’s blouse. The girl had curly blond hair and very animated green eyes. He assumed she was the woman’s daughter.

“You run this place, or live here?” he asked her bluntly.

“Neither.”

Melanie’s answer was short, clipped and definitely not customary for her.

She wasn’t sure if she liked this man.

One thing was for certain, though. Theresa was right. He was definitely going to need someone to guide him through the ins and outs of dealing with the residents here. Especially the little residents.

She could tell by the expression on his face that he felt, justifiably or not, that he was a cut above the people who lived here. Obviously not a man who subscribed to the “There but for the grace of God go I” theory of life, Melanie thought.

It jibed with what she’d found out.

Once she’d been told the doctor’s name yesterday, she’d done her homework and looked him up on the internet. The list of awards and commendations after his name went on and on, but the few photographs she could find of the doctor—and there were very few—showed a man who looked stiff and out of place each and every time. It seemed as if he were wishing himself somewhere else.

She supposed, in his defense, fund raisers—because those were all she’d found—could be seen as draining.

But she had a nagging feeling that the good doctor reacted that way to most people he was around. He probably felt they were all beneath him because, after all, it took a certain amount of intelligence and tenacity to study medicine and pass all those tests.

Or maybe the man was just good at memorizing things, she thought now, looking at him face-to-face. The true test of someone’s ability and intelligence was putting their knowledge into action.

Hopefully, the only thing this doctor was going to be putting into action would be his stethoscope and his prescription pad when it came to writing prescriptions for antibiotics.

Once word got out that a doctor was coming to the shelter, suddenly their “sick” population had mushroomed.

Mitch raised a quizzical eyebrow, as if waiting for more information.

“I’m your guide,” Melanie told him, explaining her current function.

She thought her word for it was a far more tactful label than telling the doctor that she was going to be his go-between, acting as a buffer between him and the patients he would be seeing because his reputation had preceded him—both his good reputation and the one that was not so good.

“I hope you brought your patience with you,” Melanie said cheerfully. “No pun intended,” she added quickly, realizing the play on words she’d just unintentionally uttered. “When word spread that you were coming, people couldn’t put their names down on the sign-in sheet fast enough.”

He looked at her, slightly mystified. “They know who I am?” he questioned.

Mitch didn’t see how that was possible. He didn’t move in the same circles as anyone who would find herself to be homeless.

He didn’t move in circles at all, which was another source of distress to his mother. He preferred to spend his downtime learning new techniques, studying medical journals and observing new methodologies.

“They know that you’re a doctor,” she clarified. “And some of them haven’t been to see one in a very long time,” she said tactfully.

So saying, Melanie took hold of his elbow and gently directed him toward the left.

“That way,” she said when the doctor spared her a warning look.

She couldn’t help wondering if there was some sort of a penalty exacted by him for deigning to touch the man. He didn’t look the least bit friendly or approachable.

But then, his competence was what was important here, not how wide his smile was. Smiles didn’t cure people. Medicine, competently utilized, did—and that was all that mattered.

But a smile wouldn’t have killed the man.

“We’ve taken the liberty of clearing the dining room for you,” she informed him, still doing her best to sound cheerful.

It wasn’t for his benefit, it was for April’s. The little girl had literally become her shadow, hanging on to her and matching her step for step. She was observing this doctor, looking at him as if he were some sort of rarefied deity who had come to earth to make her older brother well.

“The dining hall?” he repeated as if she’d just told him that he had a complimentary pass to a brothel.

Melanie nodded, wondering what the problem was now. There was no disguising his disdain.

“It’s the only room big enough to hold all the people who signed up,” she explained.

Not waiting for him to say anything further, Melanie opened the dining room’s double doors.

There were women and children seated at the long cafeteria-styled tables. Every seat, every space beyond that, seemed to be filled as a sea of faces all turned in his direction.

Mitch stared at the gathering, then looked at her beside him. “I was planning on staying about an hour,” he told her.

“You might want to revise your plans,” Melanie tactfully advised. “Some of these people have been sitting here, waiting since last night when they first heard that a doctor was coming. They didn’t want to risk being at the end of the line and having you leave before they got to see you.”

That was not the face of a man within whom compassion had just been stirred. For two cents, she’d tell him off—

More bees with honey than with vinegar, Melanie silently counseled herself.

Putting on her best supplicant expression, she decided to attempt to appeal to the man who seemed rooted to the threshold as he scanned the room.

“Is there any way you could possibly revamp your schedule and give up a little more time today?” Melanie asked him.

Like maybe three more hours?

She knew saying aloud what she was thinking wouldn’t go over very well, but then, what had this doctor been thinking? He had to have known this was a homeless shelter which, by definition, meant it went literally begging for help of every kind—and that obviously included medical aid.

Medical aid was not dispensed in the same manner as drive-through fast food was.

“I know that everyone here would be very grateful if you could,” Melanie said as tactfully and diplomatically as she could.

Just as she finished, another voice was added to hers.

“Please?”

The high-pitched plea came from the little girl who had been hanging on to the hem of her blouse off and on since she’d opened the front door.

April was currently aiming her 100-watt, brilliant green eyes at him.

In Melanie’s estimation, Dr. Mitchell Stewart should have been a goner.

Chapter Three

To Melanie’s disappointment—and growing concern—the doctor wasn’t a goner. He did not melt beneath the pleading look in April’s wide eyes.

But at least Dr. Stewart appeared to be wavering just the slightest bit, which was something.

Okay, so the man apparently didn’t come with a marshmallow center beneath that tough exterior, but at least his heart wasn’t made of hard rock, either, which meant that there was hope. And—except on a very personal level, where she had learned better—when it came to dealing with things at the shelter, Melanie found that she could do a lot of things and go a long way on just a smattering of hope.

Hope was like dough. It could be stretched and plumped with the right kind of preparation, not to mention the right wrist action.

She heard the doctor clear his throat. It wasn’t exactly a sympathetic sound, but it wasn’t entirely dismissive, either.

And then the next second she heard him say, “I’ll see what I can do.”

And we have lift off! Melanie thought. The man was conceding—at least a little.

She watched as Dr. Stewart looked around the dining hall, frowning at his surroundings. At first, Melanie thought he was frowning at the occupants in the room, but when he spoke, addressing his words to her, she realized that something else was bothering him.

“Don’t you have anyplace more private? I’m not practicing war zone medicine,” he informed her. “I don’t think these women would appreciate being examined while everyone looks on, as if they were some items brought in for show-and-tell.”

“Not exactly diplomatically put, but you do have a point,” Melanie agreed.

When he looked at her sharply, she realized that she’d said the first part of that sentence out loud instead of just in her head. She would have to do a better job of censoring herself around this man.

Rather than apologize, she flashed him a quick smile and said, “Stay here. I’ll see if I can get Polly to give up her office.”

“Polly,” he repeated as if he was trying to make a connection. “That would be the woman who runs this place?”

Melanie nodded. “That would be she.”

“Why wasn’t she out here to meet me?” he asked.

The question was blunt, but she was beginning to expect that from him. She wondered if his ego had been bruised by the unintentional slight.

Melanie paused for a moment, weighing her options. She could lie to him and say they’d suddenly had an emergency on their hands that required Polly’s presence, but she had a feeling that the man valued the truth above diplomacy. She also had the uneasy feeling that he could spot a lie a mile away. That cut down on her viable choices.

“Truthfully,” she told him, “I think your reputation scared her.”

“My reputation,” he repeated slowly. “You mean the fact that I’m an above-average surgeon?”

No failure of ego to thrive here, she silently noted. “Not that reputation,” she said out loud. “The other one” was all Melanie told him before she left the dining hall to track down the shelter’s director.

Polly French, in her opinion, was one of the nicest people ever to walk the earth. Polly possessed a heart that was as big as she was tall and at six-one that was saying a great deal. But despite the shadow she cast, Polly was also one of the most mild-mannered people ever created. Melanie sincerely doubted if the woman even knew how to yell. She was certain that Polly’s vocal chords weren’t constructed that way.

Taking a chance that the woman was actually in her office, Melanie headed there first. She found that the door was open, but even so, Melanie stopped in front of it and knocked.

Polly, her gray hair neatly pulled back into a tight ponytail at the nape of her neck, looked up. Apprehension immediately entered the brown eyes when she saw who had knocked.

“Is something wrong, Melanie? Didn’t the doctor get here yet?” she asked, rising from behind the desk, as if she was better prepared to take bad news standing up.

“He got here and there’s nothing wrong,” Melanie quickly assured her, then explained the reason she’d sought her out, “but I was wondering if we could borrow your office.”

“Of course.” Polly, ever accommodating, began to remove things from her desktop. “Isn’t there enough room in the dining hall?”

“It’s crammed, but so far, everyone can fit in there—but that’s just the problem. The doctor thought that privacy was in order during the actual exam,” she told the shelter’s director. All in all, that seemed rather sensitive of him—something she did find surprising about the man.

“Oh.” Caught aback, Polly rolled the thought over in her mind. “Well, that’s a good sign,” she commented, a small smile curving her mouth. The smile grew as she added, “He cares about their feelings.”

“So it would appear,” Melanie tentatively agreed, although he certainly hadn’t sounded as if that was the case.

Polly picked up on her tone. “But you’re reserving judgment,” the woman guessed as she closed her laptop and tucked it under her arm.

“I’ve found it’s safer that way,” Melanie replied, her tone indicating that she wasn’t about to elaborate on the subject in any fashion.

Polly flashed her a sympathetic smile, not unlike the one that Theresa had aimed her way the other day. She accompanied it with the same sentiment Theresa had expressed. “You know that I’m here if you need to talk, Melanie.”

“I know you are,” Melanie replied, definitely wanting to bring the subject to a close. She appreciated the effort, but she really wanted everyone to stop offering her shoulders and ears and various other body parts to lean on or make use of. Right now, she just wanted to get immersed in work and more work. So much work that she didn’t have time to draw two breaths together, much less let herself grieve. “Can I tell the doctor he has his private room?”

“Yes, of course.” She looked down at the desktop. “I’ll get one of the fresh sheets out of the linen closet. That should help make this look more like an exam room,” she said, thinking out loud. Then, just as Melanie began to leave the room, she asked. “Oh, did the doctor bring a nurse with him?”

“Not unless she’s very, very small and fits into his pocket,” Melanie replied.

“In that case, I’m going to need you to stay very close to the doctor when he’s in here with a patient,” Polly said.

Melanie looked at the woman uncertainly. “Come again?”

“Legally, even though he is a doctor, he can’t perform an in-depth examination on any female patient without another female being present,” Polly told her, looking very uncomfortable about her position. “Under normal circumstances, that would be a nurse, of course. However—”

The director definitely seemed agonized over what she was saying. Taking pity on the woman, Melanie stopped her.

“Got it. Okay,” she agreed. “Don’t worry, I’ll stick to him like glue.”

Polly headed to the linen closet while Melanie made her way back to the dining hall to inform the doctor that he had his private exam room.

The moment she walked into the hall, April lit up and gravitated to her side as if she were being propelled by a giant magnet.

Melanie barely had time to pat the little girl’s head before she found herself looking into the doctor’s dark blue, accusing eyes.

“I thought maybe you decided to clock out.” There was no missing the touch of sarcasm in the man’s voice.

Theresa wasn’t kidding when she said the man was lacking in bedside manner—his would have seemed harsh when compared to Ivan the Terrible, she thought.

Out loud she told him, “Things don’t happen here in a New York minute. It takes a little time to arrange things. But the director’s office is ready for you to use now. So if you’re ready to examine your first patient, I’ll show you where it is.”

He didn’t answer her one way or another. Instead, he gave her an order. Orders seemed to come easily to him.

“Lead the way.”

For a split second, a comeback hovered on her lips. After all, she wasn’t some lackey waiting to be issued marching orders. But then she decided that the man just might get it into his head to walk out on them and while personally she didn’t care, she did care about all these women and children at the shelter and they did need to see a doctor.

So, for now, she kept any observation to herself, much as it pained her to keep silent.

With that in mind, she turned on her heel and led the way down the hall, preceding the doctor and the woman who was to be his first patient, Jane Caldwell. Like Jimmy, Jane had a hacking cough and Melanie suspected that was possibly how Jimmy had contracted his cough in the first place.

“It’s right in here,” Melanie told the doctor. Pushing the door open farther, she waited for Dr. Stewart and then his patient to walk in before she followed them inside.

“There’s no exam table,” Mitch immediately observed, disapproval echoing in his voice.

“No.” Melanie indicated the desk. “But Polly thought that you might be able to use the desktop in place of one. It’s not exactly what you’re used to, but it’s flat and it’s big,” she pointed out.

He found her cheerfulness irritating. “So’s your parking lot, but I’m not about to examine this woman on it.”

“I’ll see what I can come up with for your next visit,” Melanie told him.

By the expression she saw pass over the man’s face, Melanie had a feeling that the good doctor wasn’t about to think that far ahead—or commit to it, either. Hopefully, once he saw how desperately a doctor’s services were needed here, the man would change his mind by the end of his visit.

Melanie mentally crossed her fingers.

Still trying to convince the doctor to make do with the conditions facing him, she pointed out, “The director does have a fresh bed sheet spread over the desk. Couldn’t you use that for the time being?”

“I guess I’ll have to make do,” he murmured under his breath, more to himself than to her. Then he said a bit louder, “All right, thanks.”

His tone was dismissive.

He turned his attention to the woman who was to be his first patient here. “If you sit down on top of the desk, I can get started,” he told Jane.

Mitch had already taken his stethoscope out of his medical bag and he was about to raise it in order to listen to the woman’s lungs. A noise behind him made him realize that his so-called “guide” was still in the room, standing before the closed door.

Looking at her over his shoulder, he repeated what had been his parting word, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Melanie replied, thinking that perhaps the doctor was waiting for some kind of formal acknowledgment of his thanks.

Mitch stifled an exasperated sigh.

“You can go now,” he told her.

Melanie smiled patiently in response as she told him, “No, I can’t.”

He lowered the stethoscope. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Melanie proceeded to take his sentence apart. “Well, no is pretty self-explanatory. I refers to me and can’t goes back to the first word, no,” she told him glibly. “What part of those three words are you having trouble with?”

“The part that involves you.” He spelled out his question for her. “Why are you still in the room?”

“Because you don’t have a pocket-sized nurse with you,” she answered, following her words with another glib smile.

Did this woman have some sort of brain damage? Why was she here? Why wasn’t she committed somewhere? “What?” he demanded.

“You can’t examine any female without another female being present. You usually have a nurse present when you conduct your exams in the hospital, right?”

Mitch frowned. He wasn’t about to argue with her because she was right, but having to concede to this woman irritated him nonetheless.

Taking a second to collect himself, Mitch barked out his first order. “Make yourself useful, then.”

He expected an argument from her. Instead, the woman surprised him by asking, “And how would you like me to do that?”

The first thing that flashed through his mind was not something he could repeat and that surprised Mitch even more. So much so that for a second, he was speechless. He was stunned that he’d had that sort of a thought to begin with under these conditions—and that he’d had it about her, well, that stunned him even more.

“Take notes,” he said, composing himself.

“Do you want me to use anything in particular in taking these notes?” she asked.

She really was exasperating. “Anything that’s handy,” he answered curtly, turning his attention back to the patient—or trying to.

Melanie opened the center drawer and took out a yellow legal pad and pen. Stepping back and standing a couple of feet to his left, holding the pad in one hand, she poised the pen over it and announced, “Ready when you are, Doctor.”

Mitch spared her one dark glare before he began his first exam.

Like a robot on automatic pilot, Mitch saw one patient after another, spending only as much time with each one as was necessary.

Most of what he encountered over the course of the next three hours fell under the heading of routine. Some patients’ complaints, however, turned out to be more complicated, and those called for lab tests before any sort of comprehensive diagnosis could be reached. The latter was necessary before any sort of medication could be dispensed.

Those Melanie marked down as needing more extensive exams.

Three hours later, feeling as if he had just been on a nonstop marathon, Mitch discovered that he had barely seen half the people who had initially lined up to be examined.

This really was like war-zone medicine, he couldn’t help thinking.

“Do you have to go?” Melanie asked him as he sent another patient on her way. Granted she’d done an awful lot of writing in the past three hours, but she was keenly aware of the patients who were still waiting. The patients who were going to have to accept a rain check.

Mitch hadn’t said anything about leaving, although he was ready to pack it in. He looked at the woman beside him in surprise. At this point, he was ready to believe she was half witch.

Maybe all witch.

“How did you know?” he asked her.

“Well, you said you were going to give us an hour and you’ve already gone two hours past that. The math isn’t that challenging,” she told him matter-of-factly.

Mitch frowned. They were alone in the so-called “exam room” and part of him was dealing with the very real urge of wanting to throttle her. The other part was having other thoughts that seemed to be totally unrelated to the situation—and yet weren’t.

“Anyone ever tell you that you have a smart mouth on you?” he asked.

He didn’t pull punches, she thought. A lot of people kept treating her with kid gloves and maybe his way was more like what she really needed—to get into a fighting mode.

“It goes with the rest of me,” she answered flippantly, then got down to business. What was important here were the children and their mothers, not anything that had to do with her. “When can you come back?” she asked him.

Caught off guard, Mitch paused. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

In all honesty, the only thing that had been on his mind was getting through this session. As far as he was concerned, he’d fulfilled his obligation. He’d agreed to come here, as his mother had asked him to, and here he was—staying longer than he’d either intended to or wanted to. But apparently, that didn’t seem to be enough.

“Maybe you should,” Melanie was telling him. And then she added with a smile that appeared outwardly cheerful—but didn’t fool him for a minute. “We’re available anytime you are.”

Mitch sighed. “I’ll check my calendar.”

“Why don’t you do it now?” she suggested, pushing the issue. “This way, I can tell the director and your new fans out there,” she nodded toward the door and the people who were beyond that, “when to expect you.”

“Definitely a smart mouth,” Mitch muttered as he took out his phone and checked the calendar app that was on it. His frown deepened when he found what he was looking for. “I can possibly spare a few hours Friday morning,” he told her grudgingly.

She met his frown with nothing short of enthusiasm. “Friday works for us,” she assured him. “I’ll get the word out.”

His tone was nothing if not dour when he said in response, “Why don’t we wait and see how things gel?” he suggested, then qualified, “Things have a way of cropping up.”

Her eyes met his and there was a defiance in them he found both irritating beyond words—and at the same time, oddly intriguing.

He supposed that maybe his mother had a point. He could stand to get out more. Then people like this annoying woman would hold no interest for him.

“Why don’t you write the shelter into your schedule anyway?” she said. “Having a commitment might make you more inclined to honor it.”

“Are you lecturing me?” he asked point-blank.

“I’d rather think of it as making a tactful suggestion,” she replied.

She could call it whatever she wanted to, Mitch thought. But no matter what label she put on it, they both knew what she meant.

Chapter Four

Melanie looked at her watch. It was the old-fashioned, analog kind which required her brain to figure out the exact time.

Right now, the second hand seemed to be taunting her. As it moved along the dial, hitting each number one at a time, she could almost hear it rhythmically beating out: I told you so. I told you so.

A deep sigh escaped her.

It was Friday. The doctor should have been here by now.

She supposed, giving the man the benefit of the doubt, he could have been held up in traffic, but it would have had to have been a monumental traffic jam for Dr. Stewart to be this late. After all, it wasn’t like this was Los Angeles. If anything, Bedford was considered a distant suburb of Los Angeles, located in the southern region of the considerably more laidback Orange County area.

Granted, traffic jams did have a nasty habit of popping up in Orange County, but when they did, they had the decency of doing so between the hours of six and nine in the morning or four and seven in the evening, otherwise whimsically referred to by the term “rush hour,” which was a misnomer if ever she heard one.

“Isn’t he coming, Melody?” April asked her, the small voice echoing with the same concern that she herself felt. The five-year-old had decided to keep vigil with her today, unofficially appointing herself Dr. Stewart’s keeper.

Melanie came away from the window. Staring out into the parking lot wasn’t going to make the man appear any faster—if at all.

“I don’t know, honey,” she answered.

“But he said he would,” April said plaintively.

It was obvious that the little girl had taken the doctor’s word to be as good as a promise. But then, Melanie reminded herself, according to what she’d said, the little girl still believed in Santa Claus. Apparently the doctor’s word fell into the same category as the legendary elf did.

“Yes, he did,” Melanie agreed, searching for a way to let the little girl down gently. “Maybe he called Miss Polly to say he was running late.”

“How can he do that?” April asked, her face scrunching up as she tried to wrap her little mind around the phrase. “If he’s running, how can he be late?” she asked, confused.

“I’m afraid it’s something grown-ups do all the time, sweetie,” Melanie said evasively. “Tell you what. You stay here and keep on watching for him,” she instructed, turning April back toward the large window facing the parking lot. She felt having her here, standing watch, was better than having April listen in on the conversation she was going to have with the director. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay!” April agreed, squaring her small shoulders as she stared out the window, as intent as any soldier standing guard. “He’ll be here, I know he will,” were the words that followed Melanie out of the room.

“If he’s not,” Melanie murmured under her breath, “I’ll kill him.” It would be justifiable payback for breaking April’s heart.

Melanie turned the corner just as the director was walking out of her office. A near collision was barely avoided and only because Melanie’s reflexes were sharp enough for her to take a quick step back before it was too late.

Her hand flying to her chest, the tall, thin woman dragged in a quick, loud breath.

“I was just coming to look for you,” Polly declared breathlessly.

“Well, here I am,” Melanie announced, spreading her hands wide like a performer who had executed a particularly clever dance step.

She was stalling and she knew it, Melanie thought, dropping her hands to her sides. Stalling because she didn’t want to hear what she knew was coming.

Raising her head, she looked the director in the eye. “He called, didn’t he?” she asked. “Dr. Stewart,” she added in case her question sounded too ambiguous.

Just because she was thinking of the doctor didn’t mean that Polly was. The woman did handle all facets of the shelter, from taking in donations to finding extra beds when the shelter was already past its quota of homeless occupants. In between was everything else, including making sure there was enough food on hand as well as all the other bare necessities that running the shelter entailed.

The look in Polly’s eyes was a mixture of distress and sympathy. “Just now. He said that something had come up and he couldn’t make it.”

Since it was already almost an hour past the time that Dr. Stewart should have been here, Melanie murmured, “Better late than never, I suppose. So when is he coming?” she asked. She wanted to be able to give April and the others a new date.

Polly shook her head. “He didn’t say anything about that.”

Melanie looked at her in surprise. The question came out before she could think to stop it. “You didn’t ask him?”

“I didn’t get a chance,” Polly confessed. “I’m afraid he hung up right after saying he was sorry.”

“Right,” Melanie muttered under her breath. “I just bet he was.”

Polly had been in charge of the shelter for a dozen years and had become accustomed to dealing with other people’s disappointments as well as her own. She apparently survived by always looking at the positive side.

“We were lucky that he came when he did,” she told Melanie.

But Melanie was angry. Angry at the doctor for breaking his promise to the shelter, but most of all, angry that he had in effect broken his promise to April because the little girl had taken him at his word when he’d said he was returning Friday—which was today.

“We’d be luckier if he honored his word and came back,” Melanie bit off.

“A volunteer is under no legal obligation to put in any specified amount of time here,” Polly pointed out. “Just because he came once doesn’t mean that he has to come again.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Melanie agreed. “But most people with a conscience would come back, especially if they said they would.” Turning on her heel, she started back down the hall.

“Melanie, where are you going?” Polly called after her nervously.

“Out,” Melanie answered, never breaking stride or turning around. “To cool off.”

And she knew exactly how to cool off.

She slowed down only long enough to tell April that she was going to go talk to Dr. Stewart.

“Why can’t you talk to him here?” April asked, following her to the front door.

There were times when April was just too inquisitive, she thought. “Because he isn’t here yet and if I wait for him to get here, I might forget what I want to say to him.”

“Maybe you should write it down,” April piped up helpfully. “That way you won’t forget.”

Melanie paused at the front door and kissed the top of her unofficial shadow’s head. This was the little girl she was never going to have. The kind of little girl she and Jeremy would have loved to have had as they started a family.

Tears smarted at the corners of her eyes and she blinked hard to keep them at bay. “This way is faster, trust me,” she told April.

With that, she was out the door and heading to her car.

In all fairness, she knew what Polly had said was absolutely true. Mitchell Stewart had no legal obligation to show up at the shelter ever again if he didn’t want to, even though he’d said he would. He’d signed no contract, was paid no stipend.

But how could a man just turn his back on people he knew were waiting for him? Didn’t he have a conscience? Didn’t the idea of a moral obligation mean anything to the man?

She gunned her car as she pulled out onto the street.

Maybe it didn’t mean anything to him, but in that case, he had to find out that there were consequences for being so damn coldhearted. If nothing else, calling him out and telling him what she thought of him would make her feel better.

As sometimes happened, the traffic gods were on the side of the angels. Melanie made every light that was between the shelter and Bedford Memorial Hospital. Which in turn meant that she got from point A to point B in record time.

After pulling onto the hospital compound, Melanie drove the serpentine route around the main building to the small parking area in the rear reserved strictly for emergency room patients and the people who’d brought them.

Once she threw the car into Park and pulled up the emergency brake, Melanie jumped out of her vehicle and hurried in through the double electronic doors. They hadn’t even opened up fully before she zipped through them and into the building.

The lone receptionist at the outpatient desk glanced up when he saw her hurrying toward him. Dressed in blue scrubs and looking as if he desperately needed a nap, the young man asked her, “What are you here for?” His fingers were poised over the keyboard as he waited for an answer to input.

“Dr. Stewart’s head,” she shot over her shoulder as she hurried past him and over to the door which allowed admittance into the actual ER salon.

Ordinarily locked, it had just opened to allow a heavyset patient to walk out, presumably on his way home. Melanie wiggled by the man and managed to get into the ER just before the doors shut again.

Safe for now, she buttonholed the first hospital employee she saw—an orderly—and said, “I’m looking for Dr. Stewart.” When she’d called the hospital on her way over, she’d been told he was still on the premises, working in the ER. “Can you tell me where he is?”

The orderly pointed to the rear of the salon. “I just saw him going to bed 6.”

“Thank you.”

Melanie lost no time finding just where bed 6 was located.

The curtain around the bed was pulled closed, no doubt for privacy. She was angry at Stewart, not whoever was in bed 6, so she forced herself to be patient and waited outside the curtain until the doctor was finished.

As she stood there, listening, she found that Dr. Stewart was no more talkative with the hospital patients than he was with the women and children he’d examined at the shelter.

It occurred to her that if he was like this all the time, Dr. Stewart had to be one very lonely, unhappy man. Obviously he was living proof that no matter how bad someone felt they had it, there was always someone who had it worse.

In her opinion, Dr. Mitch Stewart was that someone.

* * *

Mitch had been at this all morning. Rod Wilson, who had the ER shift right after his, had called in sick. Most likely, Wilson was hung over. The man tended to like to party. But that didn’t change the fact that he wasn’t coming in and that left the hospital temporarily short one ER doctor. Which was why he’d agreed to take Wilson’s place after his own shift was over.

As far as he was concerned, this unexpected event was actually an omen. He wasn’t meant to go back to the shelter, this just gave him the excuse he needed.

He’d felt out of his element there anyway, more so than usual. Here at least he was familiar with his surroundings and had professional people at his disposal in case he needed help with one of the patients.

That wasn’t the case at the shelter and even though he knew his strengths and abilities, he didn’t care for having to wing it on his own. Too many things could go wrong.

Finished—he’d closed up a small laceration on the patient’s forearm caused by a wayward shard from a broken wine glass—Mitch told the patient a nurse would be by with written instructions for him regarding the proper care of his sutures.

With that, he pulled back the curtain and walked out.

Or tried to.

What he wound up doing was walking right into the annoying woman from the homeless shelter.

His eyes narrowed as recognition instantly set in. “You.”

He said the single word as if it were an accusation.

“Me,” she responded glibly.

Since he’d started walking, she fell into place beside him. She wasn’t about to let him get away, at least not until she gave him a piece of her mind—or a chance to redeem himself, whichever he chose first.

Mitch scowled at her as he pulled off the disposable gloves from his hands. “You realize that this is bordering on stalking, don’t you?”

Her eyes narrowed into slits. “You’re not at the shelter.”

“Mind like a steel trap,” he marveled sarcastically. He paused to drop his gloves into a covered garbage container. “Tell me, what gave you your first clue?”

There were things she wanted to say to him, retorts aimed straight at his black heart, but she had to make sure first that there wasn’t the slimmest possibility that he could be convinced to come back with her.

She gave him one last chance. “There’s a room full of people waiting for you.”

Mitch frowned. “Didn’t your director give you the message? I called,” he told her.

“After the fact,” she pointed out since he had called almost an hour after he should have been at the shelter.

“Better than not at all,” Mitch said sharply, wondering why he was even bothering to have this discussion with this annoying woman. He didn’t owe her any explanations.

“Better if you came back with me,” she countered, going toe-to-toe with him.

Her display of gall completely astounded him.

“Better than what?” he asked. And then his eyes widened. “Are you by any chance actually threatening me?”

She would have loved to, but she was neither bigger than Dr. Stewart was nor did she have anything on the doctor to use as leverage, so she resorted to the only tactic she could.

“I’m appealing to you,” she retorted.

“Not really,” Mitch shot back.

The moment the words were out of his mouth—and he was glad he’d had the presence of mind to say them—he realized that they actually weren’t true. Because, strangely enough, she did appeal to him. What made it worse was that he hadn’t a clue as to why.

If he’d had a type, which he’d long since not had, it wouldn’t have been a mouthy little blonde who didn’t know when to stop talking. He liked tall, sleek brunettes with tanned complexions, dark, smoldering eyes and long legs that didn’t quit. Women who kept their own counsel rather than making him want to wrap his hands around their throats to stop the endless flow of words coming out of their mouths.

So why the contradiction in his head?