Patt Marr - The Doctor's Bride

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To my three “adopted” daughters,

Pam Dokolas, Cathy Ebalo and Teresa Soliz,

and to my daughter, J Marr,

for the laughter and faith that we share.

Acknowledgments

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

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Love and appreciation go to my daughter, J Marr, for her endless encouragement and editing skills; to my cousin, Paul Lawrence, for his faithful critique; to my husband, Dave Marr, for learning to cook and to Dr. LeRoy Yates for creating the heroine’s medical history.

Beverly Hills, California

C hloe Kilgannon pushed her red clown nose firmly in place and practiced walking in her oversize shoes. When had she last worn them? As a teenager, she’d performed often, but that was a long time ago, and she hadn’t clowned since the last time she’d been home.

Home—that was a place not easily defined. If home was where the heart is, it would be wherever there were children who needed the assurance they weren’t alone. If she’d still had the job she’d done the last eight years, she could have been heading for a new home today. In India there’d been a horrific mudslide. In Australia, a tornado had touched down. In the aftermath of devastation, there were always newly homeless children separated from their families. Organizing their care and assuring them they were still loved had been her job, a job she’d thought she’d always have.

“Hey, Chloe, are you about ready!”

Nurse Sandy Beechum popped into the hospital’s first-floor restroom where Chloe had made her metamorphosis. The two had known each other since Chloe’s teenage clowning days.

“Who do you think you are, and what happened to my friend Chloe Kilgannon?” Sandy said, looking her up and down.

Chloe pointed to the painted flower on her cheek and did one of her trademark jiggle-wiggle moves that she’d borrowed from an excited puppy. The ringlets on her purple wig shimmied, and the bells on her collar jingled.

“Well, if it isn’t Flower the Clown!” Sandy exclaimed, breaking into laughter. “You funny girl, you haven’t changed.”

Chloe struck a pose that made her friend laugh, but she was glad that Flower had a painted-on happy face and wasn’t expected to talk. If she did, she might break down and tell Sandy how much she had changed. Her future would be far different than the one she’d dreamed of.

“All the kids who were able to leave their beds are assembled upstairs in the Sun Room. Is it showtime?”

Chloe made her eyes go wide with anticipation and clapped her gloved hands wildly. She was officially in character, and it was a relief to be somebody else, even for a little while. Flower the Clown could act on any outrageous impulse if it got a laugh.

Dr. Zack Hemingway waited for the elevator, wondering if there was a way to carry a daisy-bedecked basket of sock puppets that wouldn’t make people snicker at the sight of him. He’d tried carrying it like a gym bag, but he couldn’t get a good grip with springy, fresh flowers decorating the handle. Holding the basket with both hands as if it were a pizza came the most naturally.

The elevator door opened, and Zack did a double take. One of the occupants was a red-nosed clown, who gave him a shy little wave, and the other was Sandy Beechum, a nurse with a whole lot of seniority and even more sass.

“Well, there’s something you don’t see every day,” Sandy said dryly. “Young Dr. Hemingway with a pretty basket. What’s in your basket, Doctor?”

“Sock puppets,” he said, stepping inside and checking to see if the button for the pediatric floor was lit. It was. He should have guessed that peds was the clown’s destination. “I was in the E.R. for a consult when the paramedics brought in a woman who was so frantic about getting this basket to peds that the staff couldn’t treat her. Since I was heading there anyway, I volunteered to be the delivery guy.”

Sandy chuckled. “I’d have loved to see the staff’s reaction to that.”

How had Sandy known they’d acted like it was a big deal? Granted, he might not show his softer, more personable side very often—okay, almost never—but his life was all about surgery. He lived it, breathed it, loved it.

“You must be heading for the party,” Sandy said. “We have the main attraction with us right now. Flower the Clown, have you met Dr. Zack Hemingway?”

The clown shook her head with an emphatic no, and the bells on her collar jingled. She stuck out her gloved hand for a shake, noticed that he had both hands occupied and shook hands with herself. He had to smile.

“It’s nice to meet you, Flower. When I tell my mom I met a real live clown, she’s going to wish she’d been here, too. She loves clowns! Would you like to meet her?”

Sandy rolled her eyes, and no wonder. He’d sounded as if he were talking to a little kid instead of a clown, though Flower didn’t seem to mind. She clapped her gloved hands gleefully, then tucked her hand in his arm. Looking up at him, she nodded as if to say she was ready to go meet his mom.

“Looks like you’ve got a date, Dr. Hemingway,” Sandy said with a chortle.

A really cute date at that. “Flower, I’m sorry, but my mom lives in Illinois.”

Flower’s head drooped in disappointment.

She was such a good actress that he actually felt bad for her. “But she’s coming out here for a visit! It’s her birthday!”

Flower perked up in a flash. It was amazing how well she communicated using no words.

“If you give me your phone number, I could set up a meeting.” He couldn’t believe he was making a date with a clown, but this year he was going all out to make his mother’s birthday perfect. One-on-one time with a real clown would make his clown-collecting mom happier than anything he’d planned and he’d made big plans.

The elevator door opened onto the peds floor, and Flower stepped out with him, her hand still tucked in the crook of his elbow, clinging to him like a vine. He didn’t have the heart to disengage.

“You two look good together, “Sandy said, trailing after them. “And I happen to know that neither of you are seeing anyone.”

People were always trying to set him up with their friends, but setting him up with a clown? This was a first. He checked her out, wondering what she looked like under all that makeup. She was fairly tall. He was six foot three, but in her big clown shoes, the top of her puffy purple wig came to his nose.

“What do you think, Flower? Am I your type?”

She looked him over, head to toe, and shrugged as if to say maybe, maybe not. After all that clinging, her indifference made him laugh. A guy had to love a clown who played hard to get.