by a driver texting to her boyfriend. Jill and Lily were rushed to the hospital. Luke flew home immediately, praying all the way. But Jill died before he could reach her bedside.
Lily had sustained cuts and bruises and was shaken up by the accident, but apart from being very confused and frightened, she was all right.
“Lost?” Luke repeated, glancing at the woman whose services Jill had engaged the week that they had moved into their house as a husband and wife.
Sitting in his living room, Luke struggled not to allow the sadness that had become his constant companion to overwhelm him.
Yes, he was lost, Luke thought. Lost because his high school sweetheart, the woman he had come to rely on for absolutely everything, was gone. Jill had generously freed him up so that he could concentrate on being the best surgeon he could be.
And now she’d been ripped out of his life without warning, leaving him not just to cope with all those details she had been so good at attending to, not just to cope with the emptiness that her absence had created, but also to cope with the prospect of being a single father to a little girl he hardly knew.
Sometimes it was almost too much for him to bear.
Lily was two when his reserve platoon had been called up and sent overseas. She was four when he came back into her life.
Now she was five, and things were somewhat better between them. But, like a blind man, Luke was still trying to find his way around in a world that was totally unknown to him.
He forced himself to smile at Cilia, knowing that the older woman was only trying to be kind. But as far as her question went, he couldn’t open up to her any more than he could open up to his mother-in-law. Barbara Baxter had moved in to help bridge the gap for Lily after her only daughter had died. Barbara was still there, taking care of Lily since he’d gone back to work.
Because Cilia appeared to be waiting for more of a response from him, he grasped at the first thing that came to mind.
“I’m just a little stressed out, I guess,” he told her. “I went back to my old orthopedic medical group recently and so far, I’ve been sharing the services of a physician’s assistant with another one of the surgeons. But I can see it’s exhausting for her, trying to be accommodating to my patients as well as his. I’ve been looking into hiring a physician’s assistant of my own, but finding the right person has turned out to be more challenging than I thought.”
“Really?” Cilia said sympathetically. “Well, I have the occasion to interact with a lot of people in my line of work, not to mention that my two closest friends have their own businesses, as well, and they come in contact with an even larger variety of people than I do. I’ll tell them to keep an eye out for a possible candidate for you to interview. I’m sure that between the three of us, we’ll have you set up with someone more than suitable for your needs in no time,” Cilia promised with a warm, motherly smile.
“I’m looking for a physician’s assistant,” Luke emphasized, wanting to be absolutely clear that she understood what he needed.
Cilia’s smile widened. “But of course—I understand completely,” she told him. “I’ll let you know the moment one of my friends or I find one,” she promised. “Always a pleasure talking to you, Doctor.”
She nodded at Luke’s mother-in-law as she passed the woman on her way out.
Barbara had filled her in on her son-in-law’s story, sharing with her that she was worried about Luke. He was like a fish out of water without Jill in his life, she’d told Cilia. It was obvious that Barbara grieved for the loss of her daughter, but Cilia could tell that the woman also grieved for Luke and for Lily. She and Barbara were in agreement that Luke needed a wife and Lily needed a mother, and Barbara was unselfish enough to realize that.
Aware of what she and her two friends did on the side, Barbara had called and spoken to Cilia earlier today, appealing to her as a mother—and a grandmother. Quite blatantly, Barbara had asked Cilia for her help.
It was what had prompted Cilia’s visit today, since Barbara had told her that her son-in-law had taken the day off.
Cilia had wanted to feel Luke out for herself. Looking into the handsome thirty-eight-year-old’s eyes and exchanging a minimum of words, Cilia had decided that the young doctor was definitely someone she and her friends could help.
Indeed, they needed to help the man who had suffered such a terrible loss while he’d been nobly serving his country.
Leaving the doctor’s house, Cilia couldn’t wait to talk to her friends. She called Maizie and Theresa from her car before she even started it, suggesting they get together that evening to play cards, which had become their euphemism for undertaking the very challenging task of matchmaking.
* * *
“I’ve got a candidate for us!” Cilia declared as she crossed the threshold later that evening, walking into Maizie’s living room.
“We’re in here,” Theresa called out to her from the family room.
The moment Cilia entered the family room, where all their card games took place, Maizie told her, “Cilia, you took the words right out of my mouth.”
Slightly puzzled, Cilia looked at her friend. “I was the one who called for a meeting,” she reminded Maizie.
“Only because I haven’t had a chance to,” Maizie answered. “I was busy meeting with our next matchmaking candidate.”
Cilia was accustomed to Maizie being the unofficial leader of their group. She always had been. But this one time, she decided to dig in her heels. “I think my candidate needs our attention first.”
Maizie wasn’t used to arguing, but she stuck to her guns—because this was personal. “Mine’s my goddaughter.”
One of the reasons they had remained such close friends over the decades, weathering good times and bad, was that none of them pulled rank or disregarded the other two. Because it sounded as if this match Maizie had brought up was so important to her, Cilia inclined her head in agreement.
Sitting down at the card table where they did all their best brainstorming, Cilia said, “All right, it’s your house, Maizie. You go first.”
As she began to tell Theresa and Cilia about what had inspired her to take on this match, she wondered if her friends were going to think she had gone over the deep end.
She looked from Theresa to Cilia. “You two remember my friend Karen Quartermain, don’t you?”
Theresa’s response was an animated “Of course.”
Cilia looked momentarily saddened as she told Maizie, “Karen was much too young when she died.”
Maizie nodded. “Agreed. Karen always said that if she died first and ever needed to get me to do something, she’d find a way to drop a penny in my path so I’d know she was trying to communicate with me.”
She gazed at the two women she’d been friends with since the third grade. She was fairly certain that they would understand what she was about to say next, but she wasn’t 100 percent convinced. Mentally crossing her fingers, she continued.
“I dreamed
