fountains, swing on swings, wear frilly tutus or even take a breath on the outside. And some days, like today, he was unsure if he’d ever get past the pain.
Thursday midmorning, Keela was escorting her last patient before lunch to the reception room at the exact moment Daniel came bolting through the door, his smile broad enough to take flight. She glanced at his feet to make sure they weren’t levitating.
He made eye contact and shot his fist in the air. “I did it!” he said through gritted teeth. “They hired me. Our clinic, I should say. Beginning next month, you’ll have to give group physical therapy sessions, since we’re going to be so busy with the City College jocks.”
Keela clapped her hands. “That’s fantastic!”
“I know! Let’s celebrate. Abby, Keela, what do you say? Lunch at The Chinese Dragon, my treat.”
An hour later, having overindulged on the delicious array of dishes Daniel had ordered, Keela finished her green tea and read her fortune cookie. She thought about her patient Joan Haverhill and the quick lesson she’d given on how to read them. “A smile is your passport into the hearts of others...” In bed, she added, then laughed inwardly, but it must have carried to her eyes.
“What?” Daniel said, nursing the last of his beer.
She crinkled her nose and shook her head. “Nothing.” Think fast and change the subject. “Isn’t it exciting that your pitch landed the deal?”
“I’m still in shock.” He finished the celebratory longneck beer, looking a little absentminded. Obviously the guy wasn’t used to drinking at lunch. He broke open his fortune cookie after paying the bill. “Well, would you look at this—‘A dream you have will come true.’ Who says fortune cookies are just a bunch of fluff?”
For a moment Keela gazed at Daniel, who didn’t look away. She got the distinct impression he was seeing her differently, maybe for the first time? Neither blinked during the staring contest, until her heart thumped a quick run when an unwanted thought about his fortune slipped into her mind. In bed. Blink!
Abby opened her cookie, then grimaced.
Grateful for a reason to pull away from Daniel’s deep green and enchanting eyes, Keela watched the fortysomething Abby—with her carefully quaffed and weaved blond hair and meticulously made-up eyes—read her fortune.
“‘Land is always on the mind of a flying bird’? What does that even mean?”
They shared a group laugh, bellies full and spirits flying high, with a little something extra revving up on Keela’s side of the table. Then they all got up as Daniel left an impressive tip for the waitstaff, and headed back to the clinic for the afternoon appointments.
* * *
An hour later, Daniel Delaney sat at his desk and pretended he hadn’t noticed a single one of Keela O’Mara’s attributes. Huge blue eyes? Nah, not his thing. Light brown, shoulder-length hair with gold spun through it? Nope. Never even registered. And that smile, where the sweetest and cheeriest disposition shone bright? Well, he did appreciate that—attributed it to her Irishness—but only because it made working with her as easy as the afternoon breeze off Sandpiper Beach. He laughed gently. Who said he couldn’t be poetic? Besides, he’d need her dependability, since the quiet little clinic was about to get busy. Hallelujah.
He caught himself staring, elbow on his desk, leaning into his fist, practically drooling while daydreaming about Keela and the future of his clinic, then sat straight. Good thing he’d had a beer at lunch and could blame the shift in attitude toward Keela on that. The last thing he needed was to let his thoughts get out of control. The clinic was all that mattered.
Remember Kathryn, how she left you. If that didn’t sober him up, nothing could. Relationships were a sticky process, and he wasn’t the only one with a gut-wrenching history.
He totally understood that by their age, his being thirty-three and Keela’s thirty, everyone, unless they were monks, seemed to have relationship track records, and those histories usually weren’t good. Keela had taken back her maiden name, O’Mara, and her experience slanted toward disaster. As in love, marriage, betrayal and divorce. Yeah, he’d heard most of the story, because the walls were thin in his clinic and Keela was friendly with her clients, many of whom were women. If they dared to ask if she was married, she’d spout her well-rehearsed ten-second reply. Met a man online, traveled all the way to America to meet ’im, fell in love, got married and had a kid all within a year. Now I’m happily divorced, thanks for asking.
Or “tanks for askin’” as it sounded coming from those sweet lips. Nope, nope, nope, not supposed to notice those, either.
But that was the truth Daniel had to live with: a fellow American—thanks a lot, buddy—had soured the lovely Ms. O’Mara’s view on men in general, and most especially American men, of which he was a card-carrying member. Never again! She’d often said that after getting off the phone chasing down yet another late child-support payment. The guy seemed like a total jerk and Daniel wondered what she’d ever seen in him.
He could totally relate to the never again part, thanks to Kathryn before she’d walked away...and he’d begged her to stay, to work things out. In fact, he and Keela could bond on their failed relationships. But he’d never dare discuss what had happened in his personal life with an employee. Only his family knew the whole story.
Ah, geez, all this thinking and overthinking had begun to make the room spin. Why had he had that beer with lunch? To celebrate, that was why, and he deserved it. He clicked on a patient file on his computer for distraction but had to wait while it loaded.
Was he looking? For another relationship? It had been almost two years since Emma had died and Kathryn had left. He dug his fingertips into his hair and gave a quick massage to ease the sudden tension sprouting at his temples and traveling upward, hoping it would help shake him out of this line of thinking. Instead of that happening, his personal stats popped up—thirty-three, still living at the family hotel, rooming with his brothers, Mark and Conor, in a detached three-bedroom suite to save money—but costing his parents good cash, since they couldn’t rent it out. Not exactly a prize, was he? He rationalized he’d be there only until his business was out of the infancy stage. Who knew how hard it would be to take a private practice and make it work? But he’d made great progress today. Soon his bookkeeping would go from red to black and he’d be able to move out of the hotel.
The patient file didn’t have the specific information he was looking for, so he clicked on the medical history.
And while he scrolled through the abundant reports, he went back to thinking about women in general, to get his mind off Keela. He’d had many girlfriends, but he’d never been in a relationship that lasted more than two months. Until Kathryn. Even though being with her had struck the wrath of the universe on him. Kathryn had grabbed his attention the first time they’d met. The more he got to know her, the sexier she got, and they’d fallen into bed early on. She liked that he was a doctor, and he liked that she was not only a successful businesswoman, but personally independent. As it turned out, to a fault. An independent woman who wanted nothing to do with getting married, even after she’d accidentally gotten pregnant. Getting involved with a levelheaded woman might still be an aspiration one day, but only after he figured out the past. He’d loved Kathryn far more than she’d loved him. Turns out, after a man had his heart removed with surgical precision, it took
