A Match for the Doctor (9 page)

She smiled, a flash of sympathy in her eyes. The good doctor was not unlike a lot of men when it came to shopping, but since this was so important to his girls—and helpful to her—she wasn't about to willingly let him off the hook. In her heart, she knew he couldn't mind
that
much. If he minded, he wouldn't be coming along. Simon Sheffield didn't strike her as the kind of man who did
anything
he didn't want to do.

“There's not all that much more of the house to do,” she promised him, then added, “once you find a bedroom set you like.” The words
like
and
dislike
really had no meaning or importance to him when they were applied to something like furniture. Disinterested, Simon still knew better than to tell her to pick for him. She'd only send the ball back into his court, along with a lengthy lecture about building memories or something like that. Better to just give in and go.

Finally finishing the serving of pancakes that Edna had placed before him—predominantly with no memory of the actual act of eating—Simon got off the stool.

He sighed, resigned. “All right, let's get this over with.”

“Your displeasure would sound a lot more believable if you weren't smiling,” Kennon whispered to him as she passed by, herding the girls out before her.

“I'm not smiling,” he protested, raising his voice so that it would carry out to her.

“'Fraid you are, sir,” Edna confirmed quietly as she approached and collected the plates from the counter. She gave him an amused look just as he walked out of the kitchen.

Simon caught his reflection in the foyer mirror.

Damn, Kennon was right. He was smiling and he wasn't even aware of it. It
was
getting so that he couldn't depend on anyone, he thought darkly.

Not even himself.

 

A long, contented sigh escaped Kennon's lips.

She was exhausted, but happy. The day had turned out to be extralong, but it was definitely worth it. She felt exhilarated, because she felt she'd accomplished a great deal today.

She was not as confident as she pretended to be about getting him to put a stamp of approval on a complete bedroom set and actually mean it. But the shop she had brought Simon and the girls to had so many different selections that if they hadn't found something there, she would have been tempted to finally throw in the towel and admit that they would never find his furniture.

But there was no need for surrender. Simon had
found
something he actually liked.

As it turned out, Dr. Sheffield had been won over by a bedroom suite reminiscent of early California furniture. Massive and powerful looking, the set, surprisingly, was not all dark wood and oppression. While not light, the hue of the wood was somewhere in between the two extremes. A compromise of light and dark.

Seeing it, and Simon's reaction to it—his interest was actually piqued—led Kennon to believe that the bedroom suite was a great deal like Simon himself.
The man had a dark exterior, but underneath—when he would allow someone to experience that side of him—something within was lighter, more sensitive than first met the eye.

She just had to keep scratching at his dark surface to bring it out—for the girls' sake, she silently emphasized, since ultimately it was his daughters who had to live with the man. After this assignment was over, in all likelihood she would never see Simon Sheffield again. So whether or not he learned how to unwind, how to allow his softer, kinder side to come through, made no difference to her.

The hell it doesn't,
a small voice whispered in her head as Kennon automatically glanced in a mirror that was mounted on the dining room wall.

She'd never cared for lies. Why was she lying to herself now?

The answer was simple. It was a matter of self-preservation. Because she was really attracted to Simon and she knew it wouldn't lead anywhere. He had his work and his daughters. And his heart belonged to his late wife. There was absolutely no room in his life for anything else. If she entertained even so much as a glimmer of a hope, she was an even bigger idiot than she'd been when Pete had walked out on her, leaving her with a bruised ego and a bleeding heart.

It was time to go home, she told herself. Her work was definitely done for the day. But as she prepared to leave, Edna gave her a sympathetic once-over.

“You look tired, Miss Cassidy. Why don't you stay awhile, catch your second wind? Stay for dinner. Have a nice cup of tea while you wait—you can put your feet
up on that new hassock you and the doctor picked out,” Edna added.

The hassock. The woman made it sound as if shopping had been a mutual experience. But it hadn't been. If ever there was a reluctant shopper, it was Simon Sheffield. And it was her job to get him to pick things out. She was getting paid, in effect, to pressure him.

“I think I'll have to pass.” She glanced in Simon's direction. He was on the sofa, his eyes shut. Apparently she and the girls had completely tired him out. “I'm sure that Dr. Sheffield would like nothing better than to get me out of his hair for the evening,” Kennon said with a small, disparaging laugh.

And probably for longer than that,
she added silently.

A deep voice rose from his side of the room. “No hurry.”

Startled, Kennon all but did a double take. The man made her jumpy, she realized. For oh, so many reasons. “I thought you were asleep,” she told him.

“Apparently I'm not,” he contradicted. Sitting up, he rotated his shoulders, shrugging off the tension that harnessed them. “Why don't you take Edna up on her offer of tea? And dinner,” he added. “Unless, of course, you have plans.”

He was actually asking her to hang out with them? Or had they somehow slipped into an alternate universe? “No,” she managed to murmur. “No plans.”

“All right, then it's settled,” he told her. “Dinner and tea, not necessarily in that order.”

Even the smallest feather would have succeeded in knocking her over with absolutely no effort at all.

“H
ere, dear, the tea as promised.” Edna placed an oversize mug in Kennon's hands. “It's chai tea,” she told the young woman. “Helps relax you,” she added with a smile.

“What will relax me,” Kennon said, already getting up off the stool where she had been planted only minutes ago, “is to help out with dinner.”

“Me, too,” Meghan chimed in, mimicking Kennon's tone.

“I want to help, too,” Madelyn immediately pro tested.

Edna laughed quietly. “I am reminded of that old saying about too many cooks spoiling the soup,” she said, her glance taking in all three of them.

“But it doesn't apply here,” Kennon was quick to assure her.

“I was just about to say that,” Edna agreed, an amused smile curving her lips.

It wasn't long before Edna was ushered off to a chair, to sit on the sidelines as an observer in her own domain. “I feel like a bump on a log, sitting here,” she complained to Kennon.

“A much loved, honored bump,” Kennon assured her. Since she was here, she wanted to feel useful, and that meant taking some of the burden off the older woman. “You do double duty as their nanny and the housekeeper, as well as the chief cook. You deserve a little time off. Besides, I like cooking and the girls like helping me, right, girls?” She glanced to the duo for backup.

“Right.” Meghan nodded her head with vigor.

“Right,” Madelyn agreed, bobbing her own head up and down.

“See?” Kennon said to the nanny. In her opinion, she'd just won her argument. “So you just sit back and relax. We'll do all the heavy lifting.”

“What are we lifting?” Meghan asked, looking around the kitchen.

By now, Madelyn had caught on to Kennon-speak. “That's just another figure of speech, stu— Meggie,” Madelyn abruptly switched gears, refraining from calling her sister stupid when Kennon gave her a warning look. “Right, Kennon?”

“Right,” Kennon agreed, taking a large pot from the cabinet. Her own pots were back home again. This set of cast-iron, green pans were all brand-new, waiting to be broken in, one by one.

Meghan pouted for a moment, then tossed her head, her curls bouncing along her back as she declared, “I knew that.”

Kennon smiled warmly at her smaller assistant. “Of
course you did. All right, troops, let's get this show on the road.”

“I know, another ‘figger of speech,'” Meghan announced knowingly with a smirk directed at her sister. She was more than eager to be pressed into service.

After a beat, Edna rose from the chair and crossed over to where her employer was sitting, still rifling through the paper.

“Warms your heart, doesn't it, sir?” she asked him in a lower voice.

Simon looked up from a rather sobering article on the current fate of lending institutions. Given her comment, he doubted the woman had been looking over his shoulder.

But just in case he'd misunderstood her, he asked, “What does?”

“The way Meghan and Madelyn have taken to her. Those girls light up like fireflies whenever they're around Miss Kennon. When she first came, I half expected them to be sullen and reject her, but they didn't. The poor lambs are hungry for a woman's touch.”

They're not the only ones.

Where the hell had that come from, he wondered, startled by the stray thought that had just shot through his mind, triggered by Edna's comment.

Clearing his throat as he pulled himself together, Simon stated the obvious. “They have you.”

“They've always had me, sir,” Edna pointed out. “I've been part of their background ever since they were born. Just like you, sir,” she said, looking at him significantly.

Was that a criticism of his failure to successfully connect with his daughters? When his wife first died, he'd
withdrawn into himself, into a self-imposed exile of the soul until such time as he could breathe normally again, because, initially, he just couldn't. Couldn't breathe, couldn't cope, couldn't see himself living in a world without Nancy. But as one day fed into another and then another, and he was still standing, still drawing breath, he picked himself up and picked up the mantle of his responsibilities, as well. It wasn't easy, but he forced himself to return, to walk and talk, and dwell among the living. To dwell with his daughters, who needed him.

But connecting with them, well, that was something else again. That took time, patience and a know-how that he didn't naturally possess.

Reflecting on it now, Simon realized that he hadn't made as much headway in thirteen months as he had in these last four weeks. The difference being, he supposed he had to admit, that Kennon and her child-friendly manner had entered his life. He was more than willing to concede that the woman was special.

She would have had to be, he mused, since she had managed to somehow make shopping less than odious for him. Not an easy feat, he would be the first to admit.

He looked at Edna now, as the sound of his daughters' laughter drifted in from the kitchen. “I'm doing the best I can.”

“I know that, sir, of course you are,” Edna said soothingly. “But isn't it funny how Miss Cassidy makes that best better?” It was a statement rather than a question. “She's got a way about her, that one does.” Edna smiled broadly. “I'm glad you found her.”

“I didn't,” he contradicted. “She found us. Or rather, she was sent to us.”

Edna nodded solemnly, pleased that the doctor understood. “You feel that way, too, Doctor?”

He knew that Edna was thinking that the incredibly bubbly interior decorator's path crossed theirs by some sort of divine design, but the actual explanation was a great deal simpler.

“She was ‘sent' by the woman who sold me the house, Edna,” he clarified. Since Edna had been very ill at the time, he didn't really expect her to remember exactly how Kennon had initially burst into their lives and where she'd come from.

From the head of Zeus,
he couldn't help thinking, being reminded of a story he'd read in a high school English class eons ago, back when life was far less complicated and happiness was not an elusive entity that came with a dark underbelly.

“You mean Maizie Sommers?” Edna asked. He was surprised that she remembered the Realtor's name. When he nodded, Edna said, “I must remember to send the woman a thank-you note for that referral. I doubt if anyone else than Miss Cassidy could have served up this miracle.”

“And what miracle would that be?” he asked, completely clueless.

“Why, getting you to take the girls on a shopping trip these last few Saturdays,” she said, surprised that the doctor didn't immediately realize what she was talking about.

“I didn't take the girls, the girls took me,” Simon corrected.

And that had been because the woman who was now chopping celery and carrots with abandonment and relish had taken his daughters along with her. He
wasn't familiar with the process, but he had a feeling that most decorators operated autonomously, at times sending their clients to stores on their own, or perhaps bringing things to them for their stamp of approval. A
rubber
stamp of approval.

He sincerely doubted that the decorating process that most people went through was as—for lack of a better word—
intimate
as the one he and the girls were experiencing.

“Even better,” Edna was saying in response to his description.

He supposed it was better in a way. On his own he would have continued the way he'd been, making minor attempts to interact with his daughters, but for the most part, abdicating that position to Edna, who after all was far better at it than he was. Edna wouldn't have tried to get him to interact more with Madelyn and Meghan. She might have wanted to, but Edna was not the pushy type. Definitely not the way this woman with the sexy smile was.

As all these thoughts went through his mind and struck him with a numbing clarity for the first time, he felt like a man who had just experienced an epiphany.

Maybe the word
miracle
wasn't too strong after all.

 

Simon Sheffield had been looking at her all through dinner. Staring at her, really, Kennon silently amended, and she felt a little uneasy about it. Not to mention incredibly warm.

Why was he staring?

What was he thinking?

Since he wasn't a man who could be easily read, she
couldn't help wondering if perhaps the doctor was trying to tell her that her services were no longer required.

No, that wasn't it. If he wanted to terminate her, he'd come right out and say it instead of playing cat-and-mouse games with her.

But he wouldn't just let her go while his daughters were at the table. Anyone with even an abbreviated attention span could tell that they had all but adopted her as one of their own. If Dr. Sheffield told her she didn't need to come back anymore while the girls were within earshot, they'd put up a heart-wrenching fuss, God love 'em. And although he wasn't exactly a candidate for father of the year, Simon Sheffield did love his daughters. She'd picked up on that almost from the very beginning. He just didn't know how to express it properly.

So was he just biding his time, waiting for the girls to go off and play?

Or was something else on his mind? Some other reason why he was looking at her like that, as if he was trying to find the hidden entrance to a building.

Had she committed some minor offense that had somehow snowballed in his mind? Or—?

Or what?

What was wrong with her? Why was all this tension, this anxiety wound up around this one man? It wasn't as if her livelihood depended on this one assignment. She wasn't exactly going to be penniless and on the street when this job was over. And it would be over, if not now, then in a few weeks. Everything ended sooner or later.

But that was the nature of the beast. She came, she saw, she decorated. And then she left. She always left. It was the one constant, the one thing that never changed, even when all the other variables did.

So why did she feel this resistance to having things end? Now or later, it shouldn't matter.

And yet, it did.

All the reasoning in the world didn't help her wrestle this anxious feeling that insisted on weaving itself through her, anchoring her to the ground. It just kept threatening to overwhelm her.

She didn't want this time with Simon and his daughters to end, she realized. She didn't want it to be over. But she couldn't stretch it out indefinitely. The whole point of it was to get it finished quickly. That's what Simon wanted. To have his house decorated and to be as little involved in the process as humanly possible.

Too late for that wish to be granted.

The problem was that in getting him involved she'd managed, quite unintentionally, to get herself involved, as well.

The moment dinner was over, Kennon was on her feet, ready to clear the dishes so that she could also clear the air and finally ask Simon why he kept looking at her like that. It had kept her from eating—and from tasting any of the little bit that she
had
put in her mouth.

But even as she began gathering up the plates, Edna reached over and took them from her, saying, “You cooked, we'll clean.” She looked down at the pint-size cheering squad that flanked her. “Won't we, girls?”

This time, there was a display of reluctance on the part of the junior league helpers.

Meghan put it into words first. “Can't we stay with Kennon?”

“Miss Cassidy,” Edna said, deliberately being formal in hopes that the girls would follow suit, “has earned the right to sit this out, girls. You, however, are both still
filled with energy. Energy I can put to very good use,” Edna told them.

Meghan's lower lip stuck out a full inch beyond her upper one as she pouted to show her disappointment and frustration.

“Tell you what, you listen to Edna,” Kennon coaxed, wanting to avoid any flare-ups, “and next Saturday, we'll take a little break from shopping.”

Madelyn was quick to put two and two together. She didn't appear to much like four. “Take a break?” she asked, her tone distressed. “Does that mean you won't come over?”

“No.” Kennon was quick to put the older girl's mind at ease. “That means that I'm going to take you two to an amusement park right here in Orange County—” She glanced over toward Simon. “As long as your dad says it's all right,” she added.

“Can we, Dad?” Meghan immediately began begging. “Can we go?”

“Please, Dad? We haven't been to one yet and Mom always promised that if we were ever down here, we could go.”

Rather than answer his daughters' pleas, he glanced at Kennon, a hint of surprise in his eyes. “You don't want me to go with you?” This was certainly a change, Simon thought. Instead of feeling like he had just gotten off the hook, he felt oddly disappointed.

Kennon had to admit that the question completely stunned her. If she'd been a betting woman, she would have wagered that Simon would be relieved that she wasn't pushing for him to come along. Not the reverse.

“Well, yes, of course.” Brightening, she was honest
with him. “But I thought that might be too much to hope for.” Obviously not. She took a deep breath. “So, do you want to come with us?”

Playing hard-to-get at this point would be ridiculous. That ship had come and gone. “Sure, why not?”

“Why not, indeed,” Edna chimed in from the kitchen doorway, looking incredibly pleased with this twist of events.

“Oh, yes, you, too, Edna,” Kennon called out, belatedly realizing that she had neglected to include the woman, as well. Even nannies needed to kick back and relax once in a while. “You're invited, too. My treat,” she added. Turning back to Simon, she clasped her hands together. “Okay, so it's settled—” About to fling herself into the next part of this dialogue, she was thrown off base when Simon interrupted.