Dr. Dad (13 page)

She'd come to Arlington to get away from relationships, obligations, placing everyone else's needs before her own. And no matter what Toby wanted with her, he had to put his daughter's needs first. He was too good a father not to.

“I should be going,” she mumbled, her voice nowhere near as steady as his. She stepped back and lowered her arms, feeling the weights tug down on her elbows. A draft enveloped her as Toby released her. She wanted to tell him that while she had enjoyed the kiss—more than enjoyed it, she'd savored it, adored it, been utterly caught up in it—she didn't think she could handle having a relationship with a man who could use the phrases “sex life” and “ten-year-old daughter” in the same sentence.

But she couldn't bring herself to say that, so she only twisted the knob on the screen door and slipped outside, into the cold night.

 

A
PILE OF PAPERWORK
sat on the desk in the study, awaiting his attention, but he ignored it. Armed with
another beer, he slumped into the easy chair in the den, pressed the remote control and stared at the television screen. To watch a show at ten o'clock, when he ought to be working, seemed an extreme indulgence, but he didn't care.

He couldn't have concentrated on his work anyway. Not after the evening he'd had with Lindsey, the class he'd taken at the Daddy School and Susannah. Especially Susannah.

Maybe it was masochistic to tune in to her TV show after she'd walked away from him. She regretted the kiss—he knew that. But he didn't. He'd loved every minute of it, and he wanted to kiss her again. He wanted a hell of a lot more than just a kiss.

But she didn't. She hadn't had to spell it out; he could tell. She'd enjoyed the kiss, but it had made her uneasy. Fair enough. There were plenty of good reasons for him to steer clear of an involvement with her, and only one good reason not to: he wanted her.

So he'd have her on the television, a small, two-dimensional view of her. The VCR clicked on as the an announcer's voice said, “Previously on
Mercy Hospital,
” and a series of disjointed snippets flashed across the screen. He wondered if he would be unable to follow tonight's episode, not having seen those previous episodes, but he decided it didn't matter. He wasn't watching the show to follow the dramatic narrative. He was watching it because Susannah was in it.

There she was in the opening credits, a glimpse of her darting down an E.R. corridor in a white coat and an improbably short skirt as her name appeared at the bottom of the screen in white block letters. Doctors would never wear miniskirts to work, especially not in an E.R. They'd wear comfortable, machine-washable
slacks for E.R. work, and maybe longer skirts if they were making rounds. Patients didn't place their trust in doctors who dressed like flirts.

Her hair was loose, too—another implausible choice. A doctor with long hair would want it out of her face. If she spent a day observing Toby to get a feel for genuine medical practice, he would explain these things to her.

But her hair looked good flowing past her shoulders, and her legs were gorgeous below the hem of her abbreviated skirt. And when she turned to the camera, he remembered how beautiful she'd looked standing before him in the front hall, her eyes so blue he could feel their color as much as see it, her lips so sweet he tasted them still.

He hadn't exaggerated when he'd said it was hard to conduct a sex life when you were the single father of a sensitive daughter. He'd dated over the years, but with extreme caution and more tension than he'd liked. He'd seen one woman for close to a year, but he'd told Lindsey she was only a friend because he hadn't wanted Lindsey to become attached to her before he knew how deeply he felt about her—and she'd resented his telling Lindsey she was only a friend. She'd wanted to be much more, and she'd pushed it, and he'd reacted by ending the relationship.

In the show, Susannah's character found herself cornered in an empty patient room by a polished young man, also in a physician's white coat, a stethoscope looped around his neck. She snapped angrily at him, referring to something that must have happened on an earlier show, and he disputed her, and abruptly they were kissing. Toby should have been thinking how absurd it was for two doctors to have the time to be
kissing like that during a tour of duty in the E.R., and how much more absurd it was to find an empty room in a bustling hospital—but his attention was riveted by the kiss. It was a television kiss, openmouthed and juicy and curiously fake looking. Watching Susannah kiss someone else didn't turn him on.

That wasn't Susannah, he reminded himself as he swallowed some beer. That was a character—Lee Something—and the way she was kissing the actor was nothing like the way Susannah had kissed Toby. Their kiss had been hot but not greedy, the desire intensely personal, not played for an audience. What he'd felt during that kiss was deep and profoundly pleasurable, a sip from a magic potion that slaked his thirst while simultaneously making him thirstier.

He wanted another sip. A long, quenching drink. He wanted that potion to flood his body, to drench every cell.

Instead, he was drinking a beer and watching the woman he desired on a television show.

Maybe this was the most he could hope for right now. Lindsey was asleep upstairs, loathing him. Somehow he would raise her. She would grow up, God willing, and forgive him for everything he'd ever done wrong, and she would get on with her own life, liberating him to live his. And then—if he could wait that long—he would be able to pursue a woman freely, without hesitation, without a child shouting down the stairs and slamming doors.

For now, he would have to settle for a television show.

“D
OES SHE EVER
look out her windows?” Amanda asked. She was kneeling on Lindsey's bed, using Lindsey's
Jurassic Park
binoculars to scrutinize the house next door.

Lindsey had gotten permission from her father for this meeting of the Susannah Dawson Admiration Society. She'd asked him last night, and he'd said that Lindsey could invite two friends over after school, as long as they were Amanda and Meredith and no one else. He'd lectured that he was placing his trust in her, and if she didn't live up to it he would have a hard time trusting her ever again, so he really hoped she and her friends would behave well and not abuse the privilege.

Like anything was going to screw up with Meredith and Amanda visiting. They'd taken Lindsey's bus home from school with her, prepared a bag of popcorn in the microwave, and were now holding their club meeting in Lindsey's bedroom, which offered the best view of Susannah's house. Meredith and Lindsey were eating the popcorn, but Amanda was more interested in viewing Susannah's house through the binoculars than eating.

Not that there was much worth viewing. “I've seen her in Cathy's room sometimes, especially at night,” Lindsey told her.

“Which one's Cathy's room?”

“The one with the windows facing ours. She's got her office in there now.”

“Her office?” Meredith asked. “Why does she need an office?”

Lindsey shrugged. “She's got a computer in there, and a desk and stuff. I think she's writing something.”

“Her memoirs,” Meredith guessed. “A book about all her Hollywood affairs.”

“I don't think so,” Lindsey argued, mostly because she was annoyed that Meredith had come up with such a good theory. “She doesn't like talking about
Mercy Hospital.
I don't see why she'd want to write about it.”

“Maybe she doesn't like to talk about it because she is writing about it,” Meredith suggested. “You know, like, she doesn't talk about it because she wants you to go out and buy her book.”

Amanda swiveled on her knees until she had her back to the window. “She's been in more than just
Mercy Hospital,
you know. It said in
People
—or maybe it was
Entertainment Weekly
or the
Enquirer,
I don't remember, one of those…Anyway, last summer, there was this article about her. It said that she started making commercials when she was thirteen. That's not much older than us.”

“What commercials?” Meredith asked.

“I'm trying to remember. My sister reads all those magazines. I woulda stole the magazine from her room if I knew Susannah Dawson was going to move into town and we were going to have a club and everything.” She crossed her legs, rested her elbows on her knees and propped her chin in her hands. Then she screwed her face into a frown that Lindsey took to
mean she was thinking hard. “McDonald's, maybe. Or Burger King.”

“We need to know which one,” Lindsey said. “Because I think, as the Susannah Dawson Admiration Society, we need to honor Susannah by eating only at the one she made the commercial for. If she was in a McDonald's commercial, I for one don't want to be buying my fries at Burger King.”

“Good point,” Meredith said, and Lindsey instantly stopped being annoyed with her. “We have an obligation as club members.”

“If my sister didn't throw out that magazine, I'll get it,” Amanda promised, plucking a single piece of popcorn from the bowl on the edge of the bed and chewing it thoughtfully. “Susannah Dawson did guest roles in some shows, too. And then, before she got the part of Dr. Lee Davis, she had parts in some made-for-TV movies. She was in one where she played this rapist's innocent sister who keeps sticking up for him even though he's way bad, and then she ends up getting killed.”

“Wow,” Meredith murmured.

Lindsey was pretty impressed, too. When she grew up and left Arlington, she had every intention of playing lots of exciting roles like that in movies. She bet that if she got to play the innocent sister of an evil rapist, she could die just as dramatically as Susannah.

“What else did this article say about her?” Meredith asked, devouring a handful of popcorn and then snatching the binoculars from Amanda. She crawled across the bed to the window and peered out. “Did it say she was planning to move to Connecticut?”

“I don't remember everything,” Amanda admitted.

“It said she was personally involved with Stephen
Yates, the actor who plays Lucien Roche on
Mercy Hospital.
”

“Really?” Lindsey climbed onto the bed, as well.

“Susannah is actually Stephen Yates's girlfriend?”

“There was a picture of them together.”

“Oh, wow,” Meredith sighed.

“He is so cute,” Lindsey added.

“I've gotta find that magazine. I think it was
Entertainment Weekly.
Or maybe the
Star.
”

“Yes,” Lindsey demanded. “You've got to find that magazine. This stuff is important.” Very important, she added. If Susannah was Stephen Yates's girlfriend, was Dr. Dad going to get in trouble for being friendly to her? That was the way he was—friendly and helpful, Mr. Nice Guy. Lindsey had known he would hang Susannah's mirror for her, because that was the way he was. He did stuff for people.

Sometimes Lindsey wished he did less stuff for her. Like visiting her teacher or fussing over her grades. But Susannah, far from home, far from the majorly gorgeous Stephen Yates, needed someone like Lindsey's father to lend her a hand and make her feel at home in the new neighborhood.

That was one of the things Lindsey liked about Susannah—she distracted Dr. Dad from Lindsey a little, so he wasn't spending every waking minute worrying about whether she was working up to her potential in math.

“Omigod. I saw her,” Meredith whispered.

“Where?” Amanda squealed, elbowing Meredith to one side of the window so she could look.

“Don't be so obvious,” Lindsey warned them, joining them on the bed and pushing down on their shoulders so they weren't as visible through the window.

“She's in the office,” Meredith said. “In Cathy's old room.”

“I don't believe it!” Amanda's voice rose another octave. “Oh, God, she's so pretty!”

From their vantage point, they could hardly see Susannah's face. Her long blond hair was visible, and her profile, but she was far enough away that even with the binoculars, Meredith would only catch a hint of how beautiful Susannah was. And Amanda would only be able to imagine.

“She really is beautiful,” Lindsey confirmed, trying not to sound too superior about the fact that she'd spent so much time with Susannah and Amanda and Meredith had never even seen her in person.

“We need to do something,” Meredith decided, relinquishing the binoculars reluctantly when Amanda grabbed for them. “Like take pictures of her or something.”

“You'd need one of those big lenses to get a picture of her,” Lindsey pointed out. “A tele-something lens.”

“Telephoto,” Meredith said.

“Maybe we could lure her outside,” Amanda suggested. “Like, maybe you could phone her and say her house is on fire or something.”

Meredith and Lindsey both gave her contemptuous looks. “Like she'd ever forgive me for doing that,” Lindsey muttered.

“Well, you've met her. What could you say to get her to come outside?”

I could tell her my dad's here,
Lindsey almost blurted out. Susannah would come over if her father asked her to. She'd come over the other night in those stretchy exercise pants and her wristbands and all, just
because Dr. Dad had invited her. They'd gone out to the porch and talked. Lindsey had wanted so badly to join them, but her father had treated her like a baby. “Go to bed,” he'd ordered her. He probably wanted Susannah to think of her as a baby, too.

She wasn't a baby. Susannah never treated her like one, especially when her father wasn't around. She treated Lindsey like a pal.

And as her pal, Lindsey understood she shouldn't pester Susannah or trick her into coming outside. Susannah was kind of a private person, not like you'd expect of a showbiz type. She kept a low profile. Out of respect for her, Lindsey shouldn't do anything to lure her out of her house.

But Meredith and Amanda were her pals, also. Now that Cathy was gone, they were as close to best friends as anyone she had. If she didn't do something to get Susannah outside, they might not like her as much. They'd think maybe she'd exaggerated about spending an afternoon inside Susannah's house and talking to her and having dinner with her and stuff.

She needed Amanda and Meredith to believe her. If she could get Susannah outside—or better yet, get her to come over and maybe even meet them—they would be her devoted friends for life.

She was sure she could come up with a way to lure Susannah out of her house. Maybe she could buy a present for MacKenzie, a cat toy or something, and ask if Susannah could bring MacKenzie outside so she could give it to him, and Amanda and Meredith could watch through the window. Or Lindsey could pretend there was a problem in the house—a funny smell, a leaky toilet—and ask Susannah if she could come over and solve the problem.

“I'll think of something,” she promised, deciding she wouldn't really be tricking Susannah. She'd just be getting her to show her face for a minute or two.

“I'll try to come up with a plan by the time we have our next meeting.”

“That would be cool,” Meredith said, her eyes glowing with esteem for Lindsey.

“And I'll get hold of that magazine,” Amanda promised. Bringing over a magazine with details of Susannah's love life with Stephen Yates would be great. But not as great as Lindsey's getting Susannah to come outside while the society was in session.

Lindsey would do it for the sake of the club. She'd do it because she wanted Amanda and Meredith to recognize how cool she was. Meredith seemed to sort of understand, but Lindsey wanted people to realize how important it was that Susannah Dawson liked her. No matter how her father treated her, Susannah didn't think she was a baby. She talked to Lindsey like an equal.

They were friends. Amanda and Meredith would never be more than Susannah's fans, but Lindsey was truly Susannah's friend, and you couldn't get much cooler than that.

 

“H
EY
, A
NDY
, how are you doing?” Toby asked, peering into Andy Lowenthal's room.

The boy was pale and drawn, his eyes nestled deep into pockets of shadow, and his hair was beginning to thin from his chemotherapy. But when he lifted his gaze from the Game Boy he was playing, he greeted Toby with a huge grin. “Hey, Dr. Cole,” he said.

Toby entered the room and smiled at Andy's mother, who sat in a chair near the window with a magazine
spread open on her lap. Then he turned back to Andy. “Here's something you might like,” he said, presenting the boy with the New York Yankees cap he'd brought. Andy had told him he was a Yankees fan.

“Oh, wow. Cool.” Andy sat the hat carefully on his scalp. “Dr. Weiss says I can go home this weekend.”

“Really?” Toby glanced at Andy's mother, who confirmed with a nod. “That's great!”

“She says I have to come back for more treatments, but I can at least go home for a while, and see my friends.”

“Did she tell you to be very careful with friends who might have a cold or a cough?”

“Yeah, or chicken pox. She said my something was low. What was it, Mommy?”

“Your resistance,” his mother supplied.

“Yeah, that was it.” He settled back on the pillows. He looked thin, his pajamas swimming on him.

“How's your appetite?” Toby asked.

“I don't like the food here. My mom brought me cookies.”

“That's fine. Is your mouth okay? Any sores?”

“Nope.”

“Even better.” Toby gave Andy's shoulder a squeeze. “You're doing great, Andy. Dr. Weiss is terrific. She really knows how to lick this disease. It looks like the chemo's doing what it has to do.”

“If I go home, my mom says I'm going to have to do homework.”

“Well, you don't want to fall too far behind the rest of your class. If you continue to do this well, you might be able to return to school before the end of the term.”

“You know what?” Andy tipped his head toward Toby, as if to reveal a deep secret. “I miss school.”

“I see your class misses you, too,” Toby said, waving toward the poster hanging on the wall across from his bed. Andy: Get Well Soon! it said, with classmates' personal messages scribbled all across it in a hodgepodge of third-grade penmanship. “Well, I've got to go check on some other patients. I just wanted to say hi and give you the hat.”