mother frequently told her that she had the makings of a wonderful mother. This observation was always accompanied by a plaintive lament that it was such a shame that she hadn’t started a family yet.
Maybe someday. And if her “clock” ran out as she waited for “someday” to come, adoption for single mothers was getting easier.
Oh, what the hell? What did she have to lose by volunteering? Kennon made up her mind.
“Me,” she said.
There was confusion in his deep blue eyes. “You what?”
“The capable person you’re looking for,” Kennon told him. “I can be her. I mean, I am her.” What was it about this man that made her talk as if she had a speech impediment? Kennon blew out a breath and started from the top again. “I can take your girls to school if you tell me which school they’re attending, and then I can come back and stay with your housekeeper until you get back.” The doctor didn’t appear to be won over by her proposal. “If you’re worried about Mrs. O’Malley being alone while I take the girls, I can call my assistant. Nathan will stay with her until I get back.”
“Why?” Simon asked, not attempting to hide the fact that he was scrutinizing her as he asked. He might have gotten along well with her father. Too bad her dad hadn’t stayed in touch after her parents divorced.
Kennon wasn’t sure exactly what Simon was asking. She had volunteered a lot of information just now. “Excuse me?”
“Why would you do that?” he asked her. “Take my daughters to school and have your assistant babysit Edna?” Where he came from, people kept to themselves, they didn’t volunteer to help, especially not essential strangers.
He certainly was the uptight, suspicious type. She was really beginning to feel sorry for his daughters. “Because you just said—”
He waved his hand at her explanation, dismissing it. “I know what I just said, but we’re strangers.”
Was that it? She laughed. “Not for long if I’m going to decorate your house.” She’d already told him that she needed to get to know him in order to do her job—or hadn’t he been paying attention at all? “I can’t think of a better way to get to know you, Dr. Sheffield, than jumping feet first into your life.”
The image obviously captivated the younger of his two daughters. Meghan started giggling. “Can I watch you jump?” she asked.
Kennon couldn’t resist running her hand along the little girl’s soft cheek. Meghan was nothing if not adorably squeezable, but she refrained, knowing from firsthand experience and her mother’s annoying great-aunt, that children didn’t like being squeezed.
“It’s just an expression, honey,” Kennon told her with a laugh. Then she looked at Simon, still waiting for his response. “Offer’s still open.”
He was not in a position to be picky and he supposed that if this overly friendly decorator came with the real-estate woman’s recommendation—Maizie Sommers had reminded him of his own late mother—at least that was better than finding someone in the classified section and taking his chances.
Resigned—his back was up against the wall—he nodded and took out his house key. He held it out to the decorator—he’d forgotten her name again. “Thanks. I appreciate this. By the way, there’s no need to call in your assistant.”
He almost sounded as if he meant what he said about thanking her, she thought. Of course, it might have helped if he’d smiled when he said it, but she had a feeling that Simon Sheffield didn’t do much smiling. Pocketing the key, she asked an all-important question. “And the name of their school?” she asked him.
“Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton,” Edna murmured weakly.
“Edna, you are alive!” Madelyn cried, overjoyed. She threw her arms around the woman, giving her a fierce hug. Meghan piled on top of her.
“Let her breathe, girls,” Simon warned sternly. The next moment he moved his daughters back, away from their nanny. “How are you feeling?” he asked the woman. He took her pulse again. It was still rapid, but not as reedy as it’d been. The beat was stronger now.
“Embarrassed,” Edna replied in a voice that still had very little strength behind it.
“Nothing to be embarrassed about,” he dismissed crisply. “I want you to rest here for at least a few hours—until I get back.”
Edna looked dismayed. She tried to sit up, but was too weak for the moment to follow through. “But the girls—” she began to protest.
“Are being taken care of,” Simon assured the nanny. He turned to the woman who seemed to be a godsend—if he actually believed in things like that. “The girls’ school is on—”
Kennon held up her hand to stop him. “I grew up here,” she told him. “I know where Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton School is.” She began to usher the girls toward the front door. “By the way, the hospital you’re going to, you said that it was Blair Memorial—”
“Yes,” he cut in suspiciously. “Why?”
Definitely not the most trusting of men, she thought. Did the distrust come naturally to him, or had something caused it, she wondered.
“Nothing. I just wanted to say that Blair has a great reputation. My cousin is a pediatrician and she’s affiliated with Blair. Dr. Nicole Connors,” she supplied. She saw him raise a brow at the surname. “As it happens, she’s your real-estate agent’s daughter.” The moment she filled him in, she could guess at his next thought. “Yes, it really is a small world around here.” She turned her attention back to her temporary charges. “Okay, girls, we need to hustle if we’re going to get you to the school before lunch.”
“Lunch?” Madelyn cried, clearly dismayed. “Are we that late?”
Okay, she was going to have to tone down her humor, Kennon thought.
“Just another figure of speech,” she explained. With a hand once more on each girl’s shoulder, she ushered Madelyn and Meghan out the door. And then she looked over her shoulder at the doctor before hurrying off to her vehicle. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she promised in case he thought she was going to dawdle before returning to the nanny.
Simon nodded. “So will I,” he replied.
As the woman with the rapid-fire mouth left, closing the door behind her, Simon had the unshakable impression that he had just been in the company of a grade-five hurricane.
But at least he was still standing, he told himself, and that had to be worth something.
Blair Memorial Hospital was absolutely everything he’d been led to believe it was when he had first gotten in contact with Dr. Edward Hale. First-rate in all fields, it was state-of-the-art when it came to cardiac surgery. The hospital even boasted of having a Gamma Knife available. A Gamma Knife afforded surgeons a virtually unobtrusive method of operating that their brethren of the last century could have only dreamed about. For the most part, it had been regarded as science fiction—until it crossed over and became real.
At one point not that long ago, Simon would have gotten very excited about the possibilities that
