Джина Уилкинс - The M.D. Next Door

Accepting a program printed on a folded sheet of red paper, she entered the auditorium. Rows of fold-down wooden seats arranged on a sloping concrete floor faced an elevated stage draped in black and burgundy velvet. Most of the seats were filled. The noise level was quite high, with people talking and laughing, children chattering, a few toddlers shrieking, almost drowning out the generic recorded music playing from surrounding speakers. She was glad she’d decided not to dress too formally; her green knit top and casual khaki pants fit in very nicely with the other attendees.

She had deliberated for quite a while before she’d decided to attend this event. Alice had mentioned at lunch Saturday that she would be singing in a choir concert this evening. She’d said she would have to wear her required choir dress but she would wear her new shoes with it. Rather wistfully, she had added that her father wouldn’t be able to attend this end-of-the-year concert.

“He’s only missed a couple of my school programs before,” she said quickly, in case Meagan or Madison formed a poor opinion of her beloved father. “He hates having to miss them, but he said he’ll be in a big meeting in Hot Springs Tuesday and he doesn’t think he’ll be back in time for the concert. They always start at six because the teachers want to get home early. Sometimes my grandparents from Heber Springs come to my concerts and things, but they can’t come this time. But Nina’s going to be there. She said she loves to hear me sing.”

Meagan had told herself there was no need for her to attend the concert. Alice would probably be perfectly happy with Nina there to appreciate her performance; she seemed very fond of the housekeeper who’d been employed by Seth for several years. Would it really mean much to the girl to have her neighbor — a woman she’d known for only a week — applauding in the audience?

But somehow Meagan had found herself in her car that evening, headed for the school. As hard as Alice had tried to hide it, she was obviously disappointed that her dad wouldn’t be there. Meagan doubted that she made a suitable replacement, but maybe Alice would appreciate having another friend in the audience, anyway. Besides, it was another excuse to get out of the house for an evening. And how bored was she getting that a junior high choir concert sounded more interesting than another night of reading and TV?

She really needed to get back to work soon.

Thinking she might sit with the housekeeper during the concert, Meagan had looked for Nina when she’d arrived, but couldn’t find her in the crowd. She assumed Nina had taken a seat close to the front.

Because she hadn’t wanted to wander up and down the aisles searching for Nina, she chose a seat closer to the door instead. She thought she’d be able to see well from there, though a child a few rows ahead of her kept standing up in his seat. Other than the empty seat next to her, the section was full. People around her laughed and talked and waved at acquaintances across the auditorium. Feeling a bit like an imposter among all the friends and family members waiting for the concert to begin, Meagan smiled and nodded to the older woman sitting beside her, who murmured a greeting in return then turned away to chat with her companions.

“Excuse me, ma’am, is this seat taken?”

In response to the polite question only minutes before the concert was to begin, she glanced up automatically from the program she’d been studying to assure the speaker that the seat was free. The words died when she saw who stood in the aisle, smiling down at her.

Seth’s hair was a little tousled, she noticed, and he looked just a bit disheveled, as if he’d rushed to get there. He wore a beautifully tailored gray suit, more formal than most of the more casually garbed audience, but he’d loosened the blue-and-silver tie at the collar.

Definitely cute, she thought, remembering the teasing conversation with her sister. And when he took her up on her gestured invitation and dropped into the seat beside her, he was close enough that their arms brushed when he shifted his weight.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Meagan and Seth said at almost exactly the same time.

They laughed, then she said, “Alice said you had to work late tonight.”

“I was able to get away a little earlier than I expected. I might have driven a little too fast to make it here on time. I saw you when I walked in just now and I had to look twice to make sure it really was you.”

“Alice told me about the concert during our outing Saturday. She invited me to come and it sounded like fun.”

“Youmust be getting cabin fever if this sounded like fun.”

The unwitting repetition of her own earlier thoughts made her laugh again. “You could be right.”

He wasn’t smiling now. “Or maybe you were being nice. You didn’t think I’d be here, so you wanted to make sure Alice had more than our housekeeper supporting her in the audience.”

She didn’t want him to think Alice had said anything at all critical of him, or had deliberately played on Meagan’s sympathies. “Alice made it very clear you wanted to be here, Seth. She said you almost never miss any of her programs or performances. I didn’t come because I felt sorry for her or anything like that.”

His lips quirked a little, as though he were almost amused by her reassurances. “I appreciate that. I can’t help feeling guilty when work threatens to interfere with Alice’s plans.”

“I’m sure every working parent, married or single, struggles with that guilt.” Which was why she wasn’t entirely sure she should ever take on that responsibility, she mused as the overhead lights blinked to notify the noisy audience that the program was about to begin. Had she been back at work, it would have been very difficult for her to attend a six o’clock school program — not without reshuffling her usual work schedule, anyway.

The velvet curtains parted on stage and an expectant hush fell over the audience — except for one toddler who wanted to “go pee pee rightnow!” A few giggles broke out in response to the vocal demand, but most eyes were focused on the stage when the performers filed out from the wings to encouraging applause. The boys wore white shirts, black pants and black vests, and the girls were in long black dresses with three-quarter sleeves and white satin waist sashes. They all looked very much alike, Meagan thought with a frown, but then she smiled when she saw Alice on the second row.

Squirming a little in the not-particularly-comfortable auditorium seat, Seth propped his elbow on the wooden armrest between them just as Meagan leaned a bit that way. Their shoulders bumped, hands brushing on the armrest. Both straightened quickly, murmuring apologies and looking intently toward the stage. Meagan moistened her lips, a little shaken by that momentary contact. It had been a long time since a man’s fleeting touch had made her pulse rate trip. She had to admit it was a nice feeling — even though she wasn’t at all sure she should be reacting that way to this particular man. Didn’t she have enough complications in her busy life?

She focused intently on the reason she was there, rather than the imagined warmth emanating from the man sitting so close to her. It was an interesting concert. The choir performed a mix of classical pieces, oldies and more recent pop numbers — whatever the director had been able to afford to license for performance, Meagan figured in amusement. The kids were pretty good overall, though occasionally a note escaped that should not have been made by human vocal cords. The doting parents and grandparents in attendance didn’t seem to mind; they clapped as enthusiastically for the bad notes as the good.