A Match for the Doctor (12 page)

“Where's Edna?” she asked Madelyn abruptly. “I thought that maybe she'd come along with you after all.”

“She wanted to come but she got a phone call,” Meghan volunteered.

Kennon looked at Simon over the tops of his daughters' heads. “Nothing bad, I hope.”

That, he thought, was a matter of opinion. His was that it
was
bad, but not for the reason that someone might initially think. It was bad because it left him high and dry—and in need of a nanny.

“Her nephew's wife just gave birth to their first baby and she's come down with an extreme case of the jitters,” he told Kennon. “Edna asked if she could take a few days off to help out. She sends her regrets,” he added.

Meghan tugged on his jacket sleeve. “Is it catching?” she asked when he finally gave her his attention.

“No, it's not something one person can give to another,” Simon answered. Meghan seemed relieved when she smiled her thanks.

She didn't know about that, Kennon thought. If what Simon maintained was true, then he wouldn't have made her feel so terribly jittery inside.

“When's she coming back?” she asked him for conversation's sake.

“She said Thursday—with any luck,” Simon added. “In the meantime, I'm going to have to call the cardiovascular group tomorrow morning and have them move around my appointments,” he said more to himself than to the woman he was talking to.

Kennon didn't quite follow him. “Why?”

He smiled indulgently. He'd discovered that the more he smiled, the more he was inclined to smile. Another revelation that Kennon was responsible for.

“Because as of yet I haven't found a way to be in two places at once, no matter how hard I try. I can't very well see patients and pick up the girls from school at the same time.” It was June and ordinarily school would either be over or winding down for the summer. But he'd enrolled the girls in a year-round school, thinking it would be good for them.

Kennon could see how attempting to be in two places at once might be a problem for him. But the solution was easy enough.

“I'll pick them up for you,” Kennon volunteered cheerfully. She liked the look of surprise that entered his eyes. Liked, too, the way it made her feel that she had put it there. “I already know where the school is
and it's not like I have to put in eight hours behind a desk every day. I'm my own boss so I can arrange my schedule accordingly. I can also be there to pick them up from school.”

Grateful though he was, that wasn't the end of the complications.

“I also need someone to stay with them until I get home. Do you know anyone who would be available for that?” he asked.

Actually, she did. Her mother. Her mother would be thrilled to babysit, but if Kennon made that suggestion to the woman, it would be tantamount to opening up a Pandora's box. She knew from past experiences that her mother was the type of person who, if you gave her an inch, she not only took a mile, but constructed a building on it and gave the property a fancy new name.

In the long run, Kennon felt that she would be better off just offering to pitch in herself. After all, it wasn't going to be an ongoing thing. It was just for a few days, and her decorating business wasn't exactly drowning in work at the moment.

The belt-tightening conditions of the present economy had been hard on everyone. Nathan was perfectly capable of running the shop for the next couple of days.

“Yes, I know someone. Me.”

Simon looked at her skeptically, even as his daughters let out a gleeful cheer and lost no time in surrounding her.

“I can't ask you to do that,” he protested.

“You didn't ask,” Kennon pointed out. “I volunteered. Not the same thing,” she assured him with a smile. “Besides, it's only for a couple of days, right? It'll give me
more time to concentrate on your house and the different ways I can make it pop.”

He had the distinct impression that she already could achieve that result, and not just with his house, but he said nothing and just nodded his head. It was, in the final analysis, a whole lot safer that way.

T
he thing about Southern California rain was, when it actually did rain, it usually poured.

Kennon rushed the girls from the car into their house. The cloudburst had hit less than ten minutes ago with a fierceness that she'd seldom seen.

Like most Californians, when she heard the weatherman predicting rain at this time of year, she listened with only half an ear.

Rain had its time and place in Southern California, occupying a spate of time referred to as “the rainy season.” It stretched from November to March. This, however, being summer, did not fall into that time frame. Consequently, forecasts involving various degrees of precipitation were generally ignored because, like the monsters that lived beneath a young child's bed, they rarely, if ever, actually materialized.

Chalk one up for the weatherman.
Even though she
and the girls had dashed all of about ten feet from car door to house door, all three of them were pretty well drenched.

It was a card-carrying storm, all right, Kennon thought, pushing her wet hair out of her eyes.

“You girls stay here,” Kennon instructed. She slipped out of her wet shoes, not wanting to leave a trail of puddles to mark her path. Her wet jacket suffered the same fate, hitting the tile beside her shoes. “I'll get you towels and some dry clothes,” she promised.

Barefoot, Kennon ran up the stairs quickly, hurrying into their bedrooms to collect the items she'd just mentioned. She was back in less than two minutes, handing out towels and placing dry clothes on the stairs for the girls to pick up and change into.

Madelyn and Meghan lost no time in stripping off their wet clothing and putting on the shirts and jeans that she'd brought down. Dressed and feeling a little better, they took the towels and began rubbing the moisture from their hair.

In Meghan's case, Kennon offered to help. Meghan beamed at her, tilting her head toward her for easier access.

It was an extremely maternal rooted moment.

Someday…

“What about you?” Meghan asked, twisting around so that she could get a better look at her father's friend.

Kennon waved away the little girl's concern. “I'm fine,” she assured her easily.

Madelyn frowned. “No, you're not,” she protested. “You're all wet.” It was an observation filled with compassion. “Don't you want to put on some dry clothes, too?”

She really did, but there was a basic problem with that. “I don't have any dry clothes I can change into here.”

Madelyn quickly pointed out, “Dad's got clothes. He wouldn't mind you putting them on,” the girl vouched, sliding the towel from her hair.

Kennon didn't know about that. She doubted the man would be thrilled to come home and find her wearing something of his. “Your dad's clothes are too big for me.”

Madelyn wouldn't be put off. “He's got sweatpants and a sweatshirt. You can wear those,” she said stubbornly. “Dad told me they were supposed to be bigger.”

“Yeah,” Meghan chimed in. “On purpose.” Not to be outdone by her sister, the younger of the Sheffield girls volunteered, “I'll go get them for you!” just before she dashed out of the room.

“No, really, I didn't get that wet,” Kennon protested.

Futilely, it turned out, because Meghan was back with her booty almost immediately, the arms of her father's dark blue sweatshirt dragging behind her on the tiled floor.

“Here!” Meghan declared triumphantly, thrusting the sweat clothes at her.

Kennon really didn't think it was a good idea to wear Simon's clothes. There was just something far too intimate about that.

“That's all right, Meghan. I don't need to change,” she told her pint-size benefactress, making another attempt to beg off.

The next moment, she felt Madelyn tugging on the bottom of her skirt, wringing out the corner. Several
drops fell to the floor. Kennon had a sneaking suspicion that Simon's daughters were as tenacious as pit bulls when it came to getting their way. Stubborn to the nth degree.

She could relate to that, and they were trying to do a good deed. So, for now, Kennon gave in. She'd have plenty of time to change back into her own clothes before Simon came home.

“Point taken,” Kennon quipped. “Okay, I'll be right back.”

Carrying the sweat suit into the master bathroom upstairs, she had just finished stripping off her clothes and climbing into the sweats when she heard the loud, ominous crack of thunder.

The next second, the overhead bathroom light went out. Less than a minute later, the door burst open.

Meghan, wide-eyed and frightened, barreled into the newly redecorated room.

Kennon scooped the six-year-old into her arms and held the little girl close. Meghan was trembling.

“It's just a storm, honey,” she said soothingly, stroking the girl's silky hair.

“The lights are gone. Everything's dark and quiet,” she cried, frightened.

“Where's…?”

Kennon didn't get a chance to finish her question, but she didn't need to. Walking out of the bathroom, she saw the subject of her aborted inquiry shifting nervously from foot to foot in the hall right outside the bathroom door.

Madelyn was doing her best not to look as frightened as her sister, but it was easy to see that she was.
“The 'lectricity's gone,” the little girl told her, clearly agitated.

“It'll be back soon,” Kennon promised. She walked downstairs again and to the living room, still holding Meghan. Madelyn trailed behind her, closer than a shadow.

Madelyn looked around uncertainly. The storm had stolen away the sun and everything appeared oppressively dark and gloomy. “You sure?”

“Very sure. It's always come back before,” Kennon added. She set Meghan gently back down on the floor. “I tell you what, why don't we have a campout?”

Madelyn's delicate eyebrows scrunched together over her nose in confusion. “But it's raining outside,” she protested.

“A
pretend
campout,” Kennon amended. “C'mon,” she beckoned.

She led the way to the kitchen. Because of its orientation, the kitchen normally required artificial light by three o'clock. The storm had forced the entire room to be thrown into semidarkness, although there was still just enough light available to make out general shapes.

She would have to fish her flashlight out of her purse, Kennon told herself. Otherwise, the next time she came into the kitchen, she'd have to resort to the Braille system.

Moving quickly about the room, Kennon gathered up all the food and beverages that she could. When it got to be too much for her to hold, she pulled out the bottom of the sweatshirt, forming a kind of catchall apron. She deposited the soda cans and food into it.

Kennon was more than aware that she had two very persistent short people following her every move.
Knowing that they were both too frightened to remain alone in the living room, she wasn't about to send either one of them back to wait for her. Instead, she decided to make them feel useful by putting them to work. She handed each of the sisters some utensils and paper plates to carry back with them.

When she was finished collecting items, she did a quick survey to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything. Just as she finished her inventory, there was another crash of thunder. Both girls jumped, then huddled closer to her. She felt like a mother hen protectively gathering her chicks to her.

“Okay, I think that's everything. Back to the living room, ladies,” she instructed. She led the way by only a fraction of an inch. Each girl was all but hermetically sealed either to her left or her right side.

Just before they reached the living room, there was yet another loud crack of thunder. This time it came just on the heels of the flash of lightning. Meghan stopping dead, her eyes open so wide they looked as if they could actually fall out. Game or not, she seemed on the verge of crying.

“That's just the angels bowling,” Kennon told her. It was an old legend that she remembered her father telling her when she was about Meghan's age. Back then she was afraid of the loud noise coming from what she'd taken to be God's domain. The idea of angels playing a loud game had helped dissipate her fears.

“Angels bowl?” Madelyn asked, mystified.

“They absolutely do,” Kennon answered solemnly. “Angels have hobbies, too, just like we do.”

Meghan looked at her, confused. “What's bowling?” she asked.

Crossing to the coffee table and depositing her loot, Kennon laughed. It hadn't occurred to her that the girls might not know what she was referring to. Bowling wasn't exactly all that common in this day and age of video games.

“I'll have to show you sometime,” she promised.

Meghan seemed somewhat placated. “Okay.” Surveying the loot on the table, she brightened. “Are we going to eat this stuff?” she asked hopefully.

“You bet. And you're both going to help me cook it.”

The girls looked at her as if she was about to pull off a magic trick.

 

The electricity went out at the hospital right in the middle of the surgery he was performing. Thank God for the emergency generator, Simon thought. It kicked in almost immediately, allowing him to complete the surgery.

Still, the diminished power gave the procedure an eeriness he wasn't comfortable with.

“Power's out all over Newport Beach and Bedford,” one of the surgical nurses complained to an orderly as the latter wheeled the patient toward the double-doored recovery room.

Simon thought of his daughters. Both Meghan and Madelyn slept with night-lights on because they were afraid of the dark. Madelyn had outgrown her fears, but had regressed after her mother died. The girls had to be scared to death.

The moment he felt that his patient was stable and recovering well from the bypass surgery, despite the unfortunate glitch in power, Simon quickly changed out
of his scrubs. Five minutes later, he was hurrying into the parking structure to retrieve his car.

The trip back to his development turned out to be an ordeal. Since he was in a hurry, he found his patience strained to the limit. With the power failure still very much in effect, every single traffic light had gone out and the principle of stop signs had to be invoked in order to prevent a slew of accidents from taking place. That meant incredible tie-ups. It also meant stopping at each intersection leading up to the freeway.

He found the same situation in effect when he got off the freeway. Consequently, the trip home took more than three times as long as it ordinarily did.

By the time he reached his house, he felt as if he could literally snap off the steering wheel with his bare hands.

His concern for his daughters all but overwhelmed him.

Simon dropped his house key twice trying to get it into the lock. Biting off a curse, he finally succeeded. He threw open the door, was about to race in, calling out to his daughters, when he heard something that stopped him dead in his tracks.

It took a moment for the sound to register properly in his head.

Singing.

No, he hadn't imagined it. He heard voices raised in song, singing what sounded like—

“Twenty-seven bottles of soda on the wall?” he questioned, confused as he took in the scene.

Kennon and the girls were sitting on a blanket in front of the fireplace. The latter was the only source
of illumination in the room, thanks to the fire that had been lit.

Obviously the logs were not just for show.

The moment they heard him, the singing stopped. Madelyn and Meghan scrambled up to their feet and launched themselves at their father, forming a tangle of arms and legs, embraces and kisses. They all but brought him down to the floor in their enthusiasm.

“Daddy, you made it!” Meghan cried happily. “You came home!”

“I told Meggie you would,” Madelyn informed him in the best grown-up voice she could manage. He noticed, though, that his older daughter sniffled slightly as she said it.

His arms around both girls, Simon looked over toward the woman rising to her feet in the background. Remnants of what had to have been a meal were on the blanket she had spread out on the rug before the hearth. The warmth of the scene got to him before he fully realized it.

“I guess I shouldn't have bothered worrying,” he said, relieved and oddly stirred at the same time.

His eyes narrowed a little. What was the woman wearing?

“The girls came through like troupers,” Kennon informed him proudly.

That was only because she was here, he thought. He doubted that even Edna would have been able to keep them not just calm, but from the looks of it, happily engaged while thunder roared overhead.

“How did you get them to forget about the storm?” he asked.

“I know a lot of Girl Scout songs,” she quipped with
an infectious grin. “We've been singing—and eating—for a while now.”

She saw the curious way Simon looked at her. And then she realized why. He was probably wondering about the sweat suit she was wearing.

How could she have forgotten to change back into her own clothes? She'd known he'd be back. The trouble was, she'd gotten caught up in entertaining Madelyn and Meghan. Changing had completely slipped her mind.

“Can we camp out, Daddy?” Meghan piped up, her small face lit up with hope.

She was kidding, right? “Honey, it's kind of wet outside,” Simon tactfully pointed out.

“No.” Meghan shook her head. “I mean in here. Can we camp out in here?”

Madelyn added her voice to the verbal assault. “Kennon said we had to ask you, but if you say yes, she said she can put up sheets to make the tents and stuff. Please, Daddy?” his daughter begged.

“Yeah, please, Daddy?” Meghan echoed, tugging on the bottom of his jacket to add emphasis to her pleas. “Say yes.”

The days of childhood long behind him, he had a very limited imagination. It wouldn't have occurred to him to set up a pseudo-camp in the living room, or to use bedsheets in place of the real thing. He had to hand it to the woman, Kennon was creative.