Cindy Kirk - The Doctor's Not-So-Little Secret

“We’d better get going.” Joel rested a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t want to keep Dr. Rallis waiting.”

Chloe made a face, making it clear she wouldn’t mind skipping the appointment.

Kate resisted the urge to tell the little girl that she’d had braces for six months when she’d been her age and that it hadn’t been all that bad. In fact, she could give Chloe some pointers to make the experience better. Then Kate remembered that wasn’t her place.

She was Chloe’s doctor. Nothing more.

As Kate watched the father and daughter walk away, a melancholy sadness, at odds with the sunny June afternoon, settled around her shoulders.

“I’ve got a patient waiting,” she said to Mitzi. “If I don’t get back to the office soon, Lydia will track me down and beat me with my own stethoscope.”

“I definitely see the resemblance,” Mitzi said.

An image of the office assistant flashed before Kate. Gray hair. Round face. Glasses. Without thinking, Kate grimaced. “You really think Lydia and I look alike?”

Mitzi shook her head, sending her hair swinging from side to side. “Chloe.”

An icy chill filled Kate’s veins. “What about her?”

“Your daughter, Chloe. She looks just like you.”

Even though Kate couldn’t stop a rush of pleasure at the words, she had to put a stop to Mitzi’s assumption.

“She.is.not.my.little.girl.” Kate spoke slowly and deliberately so there could be no misunderstanding. “She is Joel’s little girl.”

To Mitzi it might seem like a small distinction, but for Kate it was huge. And it was something she needed to continually keep in mind herself. When she’d signed those papers nine years ago, her child had become Joel and Amy Dennes’s daughter. She could not, would not, let herself think of Chloe as hers.

Mitzi didn’t respond until they were back in the office and the exterior door had fallen closed behind them. “I saw how you looked at her, Kate.”

Kate pulled her brows together. “And how was that?”

“With motherly love.” A sudden look of tenderness crossed Mitzi’s face. “You might tell yourself she’s Joel’s daughter. You might have even convinced yourself. But in your heart she’s yours. And you love her.”

Of course Kate loved Chloe. She’d carried her for nine months. She’d given birth to her. When the attorney had walked from the room with the signed relinquishment papers and her baby—her sweet girl—in his arms, she’d cried and cried.

Her love hadn’t disappeared simply because the child was now someone else’s daughter. Still, Kate thought she’d done a better job of hiding those feelings. A shiver of fear skittered up her spine. “Do you think Joel noticed?”

“Nah.” Mitzi shook her head. “He was too busy drooling over you.”

“Yeah, right.” Kate’s laughter was tinged with relief.

Even if Joel was interested in her, nothing would come of it. Kate couldn’t imagine anything with more of a potential for disaster than becoming involved with the adoptive father of her biological daughter.

“We can talk more about this later.” Kate glanced at the clock on the wall. Emilie had been waiting for almost fifteen minutes. “Right now I have a patient to see.”

“Just one?”

Kate nodded.

“How about I wait?” Mitzi leaned over and brushed a piece of lint from her obviously new boots. “We could go for a walk after you’re finished, then grab some dinner. I saw an elk refuge on my way into town that I’d like to explore.”

“It’ll be like old times.” Kate had fond memories of all the walking and talking she and Mitzi had done in medical school. She’d shared so much about her life during those walks.

Mitzi cast a pointed glance at Kate’s dress and heels. “What about—”

“Gym bag is in the car.”

“Excellent.”

On her way out the door, Kate waved a careless hand in the direction of a coffee table littered with professional journals, the light reflecting off the red fire opal on her right ring finger. “They’re recent issues. Help yourself.”

“ Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine? Journal of Medical Genetics? Uh, no, thank you.” Mitzi’s voice followed Kate out into the hall. “Do you happen to have People or Entertainment Weekly? ”

The elk refuge on the outskirts of Jackson had been a good choice, Kate decided. The sun shone warm against her face and a light breeze caressed her cheek. She and Mitzi’s only company was a herd of bison far in the distance.

Mitzi slanted a sideways glance, studying her for several seconds. “Biker shorts, UCLA T-shirt and a ponytail. I’m proud to be your friend.”

“People in cowboy boots shouldn’t throw stones,” Kate retorted and Mitzi laughed.

On the way to the wildlife refuge, Mitzi had done most of the talking. Kate had been distracted, unable to forget the despair she’d seen in Emilie Hyland’s eyes. Even though the teen confided she’d known for months that she was pregnant, her mother had been stunned by the news. They’d both cried and when Kate thought of the difficult decision the sixteen-year-old would soon face, she’d wanted to cry with them.

“I was thinking back to the day you emailed me that you’d hired a detective to locate your daughter,” Mitzi said.

“I worried something had happened to her.” Kate hadn’t been looking to interfere in the adoptive parents’ lives; she’d simply wanted confirmation Chloe was alive and well.

Sympathy filled Mitzi’s blue eyes. “I’d have been frantic, too, when her birthday passed with no pictures or updates.”

“First time in nine years.” Kate had only known Chloe’s adoptive parents as Joel and Amy, not where they lived or how to contact them directly. They’d had less information about her. Not even her first name. The correspondence was one way, filtered through the attorney. “Communication simply stopped.”

“Joel should have notified you that Amy had passed away,” Mitzi said, a hint of censure in her tone. The investigator Kate hired had obtained the death certificate. Complications from diabetes had been listed as the cause of death. “Even if his wife had been the one who’d sent updates in the past, he should have taken over that task. After all, in a semi-open adoption, that’s part of the deal.”

“Unfortunately there’s no recourse if the adoptive parents don’t follow through.” Kate expelled a sigh, the past a heavy weight on her shoulders. “You know, sometimes I wonder if I’d have made the same decision if my grandmother had been alive. Or if I hadn’t been so exhausted from the pressures of—”

“You did the right thing,” Mitzi insisted. “You’d just completed your first year of medical school. You’d worked so hard. Keeping her would have cost you everything.”

Although Kate had wanted to be a doctor since she’d put a stethoscope over Raggedy Ann’s candy heart, the price she’d paid had been steep. “When I look at Chloe and think of all I’ve missed, it feels as if I did lose everything.”

“Don’t second-guess yourself.” Mitzi stopped in the middle of the dirt path to face Kate. “You agonized over that decision.”

“I did.” Lots of sleepless nights. Lots of prayers.

“Now a miracle has happened. You’ve been given another chance to be part of your daughter’s life.”

It took several erratic heartbeats for Kate to find her voice. “I gave up that right nine years ago, Mitzi. And after being here for so long, it would be too confusing to Chloe to break my silence now.”

“I’m not saying to tell them who you are. I simply think both Joel and Chloe could use a friend like you.”