Marie Ferrarella - A Second Chance For The Single Dad

Her fingers had gone slack and the receiver almost slipped out of her hand. Getting a better grip on it, Kayley fumbled with an apology. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else—”

There was just the slightest hint of a laugh. Or maybe it qualified as only a dismissive chuckle.

“Obviously,” the deep voice said.

Her heart was fluttering like a hummingbird.

“Who is this?” she asked uncertainly, although a part of her thought she already knew who it was—but that was probably just wishful thinking on her part.

Nobody called back this fast—unless it was to put her out of her misery by delivering the bad news quickly and cleanly.

Was he calling to do that?

“I’m sorry—let’s start over,” the man on the other end of the line said. “This is Dr. Dolan. I’m calling to speak to a Ms. Kayley Quartermain. Is this a number where I can reach her? I’ve already tried the cell phone number on her résumé, but I can’t get through to leave a message on her voice mail.”

Kayley closed her eyes.

Idiot!

She had to remember to recharge her phone. The battery kept draining and this had to be the third time this week that this had happened, she thought, flustered that she’d committed such a birdbrained oversight.

“Oh, Dr. Dolan, I’m so sorry. This is Kayley Quartermain. My cell phone’s old and it has trouble holding a charge for more than a couple of hours. It probably died, which is why you couldn’t get through.”

To her relief, the surgeon took the information in stride. “If that’s the case, you might want to look into getting a new cell phone.”

“I will,” she quickly agreed. “But I’ve been kind of busy with other things.” When he didn’t say anything to that, she asked, “Um, is there anything I can help you with?”

He’d probably thought of another question he wanted to ask her. There was no reason for her to get her hopes up. If they were up, they only had that much farther to fall.

Even so, she caught herself crossing her fingers as she waited for the doctor to say something.

“As a matter of fact, there is. How soon can you come in?”

“For another interview?” she asked, not knowing what to make of this.

“You’re not being vetted to run for president, Ms. Quartermain,” he informed her. “I don’t need to conduct another interview. I made a call and talked to the last doctor you worked with. He told me he was very pleased with your work and he wanted to know if there was any way you’d consider coming back.” And then he caught her completely by surprise by asking, “Is there?”

“No,” Kayley answered, trying to be diplomatic. “I enjoyed my time there and Dr. Andrews was great to work with, but as I told you, Bedford is home and right now I need to feel like I’m home.” She paused for a moment. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. You still haven’t answered my first question,” he told her. “How soon can you come in? And I mean to work.”

The hummingbirds began to crash into one another in her chest. “Is now too soon?”

“We’re closed now,” he said.

“Tomorrow, then.” She saw no point in attempting to hide her eagerness.

“Tomorrow,” he agreed. “Come in at eight. We’ll go over the rules and there’s paperwork to fill out.” And with that, he hung up.

“Yay!” With a laugh, Kayley threw out what was now incredibly soupy rum raisin, then went to call Maizie with the good news.

Chapter Four

Since returning to the Orthopedic Medical Group, Luke had taken to being the first one in each morning.

Although no specific arrangements had been made regarding this practice, he became the one who usually unlocked the office doors. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to get a jump start on the day as he was there to avoid being at home with Lily.

Not that he didn’t love his daughter. He loved her a great deal. But he had no idea how to talk to her or how to relate to someone who came up to his belt buckle and with whom he had nothing in common except for the blood that ran through their veins.

He used work as his excuse for getting away. Work was also his excuse for not dealing with the terrible hollow emptiness he felt because Jill was no longer there to act as his go-between.

In addition, being the first in and opening up the office at that time guaranteed Luke at least twenty, possibly thirty, minutes alone. Because his field of expertise ran in a different direction, when he came in, he couldn’t get the coffee machine up and running to provide that vital first cup of coffee in the morning. But there was a coffee shop half a block from the medical building and he stopped there first for his daily strong shot of caffeine.

After walking in through the electronic doors, he took the elevator up the single floor and got out. He wasn’t prepared to find anyone standing by the locked double doors, waiting.

But there she was, bright eyed and smiling, the woman he had hired the day before. The woman he wasn’t 100 percent certain he should have hired the day before. But he’d been without a physician’s assistant of his own since he’d rejoined the medical group, and while he had a tendency to be oblivious to certain kinds of day-to-day details, even he noticed that Rachel, the physician’s assistant he was presently sharing with one of his colleagues, looked a little worn around the edges.

As a rule, Luke valued punctuality, but turning up at this hour went far beyond that.

He nodded at his new PA in acknowledgment. “You’re here early,” he commented as he took out his keys and unlocked the main office doors. “I thought we agreed that you’d be here at eight.”

Holding the doors open, he waited for her to walk in first.

“We did,” Kayley replied, entering the office. The large reception area was almost eerily quiet. “But I didn’t want to take a chance on the morning traffic being heavy and making me late for my first day.”

Well, he supposed that was admirable. “What time did you get here?” he asked.

She thought of saying that she wasn’t sure, but that would be lying. So she told him the truth, even though it would probably make her seem neurotic in his eyes. “Seven.”

Luke glanced at his watch, although he more or less knew what time it was. Seven thirty. So much for his half hour of solitude, he thought, switching the lights on for the entire floor.

“You’re going to have to wait for the office manager to get in,” he told her. “She’s the one who knows which papers you need to fill out.”

“That’s fine—I understand,” she said cheerfully. “I can wait. Is there anything you’d like me to do while I’m waiting?”

Luke hadn’t a clue what she was implying, but his mind had a propensity to suggest the worst-case scenario. “Like what?”

She thought of her old office. First thing in the morning, life had been clustered around the coffee machine.

“If you have a coffee machine, I can get the coffee going, if you’d like,” she offered.

Luke looked down at the container he had gotten at the coffee shop. “I brought my own,” he told her. “But I usually drink more than one cup. And I’m sure everyone else would appreciate starting their day with some hot coffee.”

She smiled at him in response. Despite his natural inclination to keep barriers between himself and anyone he interacted with, Luke couldn’t help noticing that she had the same kind of smile his daughter had. It was the kind that seemed to light up everything around her.

“Sounds good,” Kayley said. “Point me to the coffeemaker.”

He paused right outside his own office, which was still closed. “Go straight down that hallway, then turn right at the first opening. The coffeemaker is in the break room. By the time you finish with it, Delia should be in.”