Patt Marr - Promise Of Forever

“Looks like a good spot.”

She watched him, impressed with the easy way he moved and the conscientiousness with which he placed the flowers, turning them to show them off to best advantage. Some guys would have plunked them down any which way. Either he had an artistic flair or he liked things done right.

“Is that okay?” He gestured toward the flowers.

“It’s perfect, but…”

“What?” Instant concern covered his face.

The look on his face seemed so familiar. She had to have seen it before. “I just wondered if you could drop the formality and just call me Beth.”

“The first name is important to you, isn’t it?” he said with a quick smile that deepened faint laugh lines around his eyes.

He hadn’t always been the serious guy Keith Crabtree had described. “I do like first names,” she said. “They seem more…friendly.”

“And you want to be friends?” he said, his eyes narrowed as if he didn’t quite believe it.

“Well, sure. And a friend would sit down for a minute.” She tapped her desktop. “Keith had our morning patients rescheduled. We aren’t seeing anyone until after lunch.”

He sat on the edge of her desktop, balancing himself with one hand, not crowding her space, but close enough that she noticed his tanned muscular arm. And the rest of him, too. Blue scrubs had never looked better on anybody, and she’d seen a lot of blue scrubs.

“Not all doctors are friendly with staff,” he said.

She couldn’t argue that. The older generation of physicians had their hierarchy of propriety, which some of her peer group still valued, but not her. “I think of us as a team—you, Mona, Vanessa and me.”

“Mona? Not Ms. Fitz?”

She bent her head, not wanting him to see her pleasure in winning one tiny battle. “She’s Mona…for now.”

“For the record,” he said, “that’s the first time I’ve seen anyone shut Mona down.”

“Really? I’m not usually known for my great assertiveness, but you’ve been around doctors. You know how we can pull out the sharp comment to get what we want, stat.”

He laughed, showing off those laugh lines again. “You just showed who was the boss. Mona’s not used to that.”

“I don’t really want to be ‘the boss.’ Like I said, we’re a team, and we’ll find a way to get along. Mona’s a fixture here, and she’s a first-rate nurse, or Keith Crabtree wouldn’t have kept her on all these years.”

Noah’s eyes drifted, exactly as a person’s might if he knew something more than he planned to share.

“Noah?” She wouldn’t let him get away with that. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He spoke slowly, as if he were choosing his words carefully. “Keith Crabtree was a very private person. I worked with him for two years and didn’t know what he did in his spare time…other than fish. I didn’t know what his wife was like, how long they’d been married before she died or anything about their baby.”

“What baby?”

“Exactly. On the credenza behind you, there was a picture of a baby who died from SIDS. I caught Mona holding the picture once, and I could tell the child was special to her—maybe because she was the baby’s godmother, or because she felt so bad for Keith. They worked together a long time.”

“I just knew Keith as my pediatrician and Mona as his nurse,” Beth said. “I don’t remember that he, his wife or Mona ever came to our family’s New Year’s Eve parties, though I’m sure they were invited. Everyone at the clinic is. I missed the party last year, being in New York, but I was there the year before. I don’t remember seeing you. Did I miss meeting you then?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“Not a party person?”

“My wife was the party person, not me,” he said quietly. “She died the preceding October.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. That was two years ago. My daughter and I are doing fine.” But his eyes said he remembered the pain.

She’d seen him look that way.

It all came back to her—things she remembered and the one thing she hadn’t. “I just remembered when we met.”

He looked at her, his eyes as intense as they’d been that terrible day.

“Isn’t the mind amazing? I remembered how proud Grandpa was, introducing me as the seventh Brennan to join the clinic. I’ve relived Mom’s mental meltdown many, many times. But I forgot you.”

“That’s understandable,” he said solemnly.

“But I felt so grateful when you came to my rescue. I was too upset to tell you that or what a comfort you were.”

“You had a lot going on that day.”

“The worst day of my life.” Tears weren’t far away. They hadn’t been that day either.

“Are you okay?” he asked, as he had that day.

She remembered. It was in the hallway after Grandpa told her he didn’t want her around for a while. “You asked the same thing then.”

“And you said you were, but I knew you weren’t.”

“You could tell?”

He nodded, a rueful smile on his lips. “For months after Merrilee died, I told people I was okay when I wasn’t. Sometimes we can’t talk about what hurts.”

“Does it still hurt, Noah?”

“Well, I’m talking about it, so it must be better,” he said with a smile that lifted one corner of his mouth. “When Kendi seemed to miss her mother less, that helped me.”

“Does your family help with your daughter?”

“Neither Merrilee or I had family.”

“None?”

Noah dreaded the full-blown sympathy that was sure to come if Beth asked many questions about his background. He would try the short version first and hope it would be enough for today.

“No family,” he confirmed. “It’s just my daughter and me. Kendi’s babysitter, Harlene, lives next door, and she’s like family.”

For a second, Beth studied him as if she were trying to diagnose a major disease. She was an intelligent woman or she wouldn’t have an M.D. As any bright person would, she would figure the odds of both of Kendi’s parents having no family and wonder about it.

“Noah…”

Here it came. A question he wouldn’t want to answer.

“Would you care to adopt Trey?”

He laughed, just a little, then a lot. The unexpected offer, delivered so seriously, was great. He was going to love working with Beth. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Let me know if you change your mind. But if you take him, you’ve got to keep him.”

What a cool sense of humor. He was still smiling. “Who are your flowers from?”

She took the card from the vase of orchids and palm foliage. “This one is from my brother Ry.”

She handed the card to him and he read out loud, “‘Be strong. Be courageous. Don’t be afraid of them for the Lord your God will be with you.’ Afraid of who? The patients…or Mona?”

She grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. “Mona did scare all of us kids, but Ry’s scripture probably includes the BMC staff. I’ve known a lot of these people since I was a kid, and I’ve even babysat for some of their kids. Don’t be surprised if you hear somebody call me Bethie.”

“Will you mind?”

“Not unless it’s Mona.”

That made him smile. He was already having more fun than he’d ever had working for Keith.

He watched her read the card from the arrangement of yellow roses. It must have been more sentimental because she dabbed a tear from her eye.

“This one is from Ry’s wife. Meg was my best friend all the years we were growing up. Her family was closer to Ry and me than our own. The people we choose to love often mean more to us than the family we’re born into, especially the people who share our faith.”

So, Beth Brennan was a religious person. That would make Vanessa happy. She went to church all the time.