Promise Of Forever. Patt Marr
looked as impersonal as every other waiting area in the clinic. The only way a person would have known it was a pediatrician’s office was the presence of a little table-and-chair set and some kiddy magazines.
This morning, sunshine poured in on a child-friendly play area with pairs of elephants, tigers and zebras as chairs for the kids. Bright-colored fish darted about in a big aquarium, and on the wall was a really cute mural of Noah’s ark and a big rainbow.
Okay, he got it, and he owed the doc an apology for jumping to the wrong conclusion. Grinning, he said, “I take it I’m to play the part of Noah.”
“For the record,” she said, looking anxious, “the decorator had placed custom orders before I realized I had a Noah on my staff. I hope you don’t mind.”
Her earnest explanation said a lot. Only a really good person would care about such a little thing. “How can I mind? It’s not like I had to build the ark. How did you get all this done so fast?”
“Obviously, I had a lot of help. Do you like it?”
She shouldn’t have had to ask. “Of course I like it! It’s great!” Kendi would love it, especially that rainbow.
“There’s more,” Beth said, her face happy with anticipation as she unlocked the door to the office.
Noah braced himself for disaster. If she’d changed Mona’s kingdom as much as she’d changed the lobby, Mona would have a fit.
But the front office was exactly as they’d left it. He almost sighed in relief.
Her soft laugh said she’d caught that. “I thought I’d better leave the front office alone.”
“Good call.” That was twice that she’d shown she cared about how others felt. How could Mona find fault with that?
“There are other changes, though.” Beth set the flowers on the counter. He set the bags there, too, and followed her down the hall.
Opening the doors of the three exam rooms, she flipped on the lights for him to see that each room had received a quick facelift. Caricatures of a pair of happy monkeys covered the back wall of Exam Room One. Room Two hosted a pair of silly zebras, and Three had a pair of giraffes with such goofy expressions he had to laugh.
“Good! You’re laughing,” she said, sounding relieved.
“This is just…great!” He couldn’t help being impressed. Beth Brennan had known what she wanted in her new practice and wasted no time putting it into motion.
She walked over to a brand-new stand-alone cabinet and opened it, the better for him to see inside.
The shelves were stocked with an assortment of the silliest hats and headgear he’d ever seen. They looked adult size. “Are these for Mona and me to wear?” he asked, knowing Mona Fitz would burn the place down before she learned how to have fun.
“Actually, the hats are for me, but I might share. I got the idea from our family’s New Year’s Eve parties where everyone wears a crazy hat.”
He’d heard about those hats, and he’d been invited to the Brennans’ New Year’s Eve party the last two years. If Merrilee had been alive, they would have gone.
Beth chose a shiny red beret with a coiled wire toy attached to the top. “What do you think?” she asked, moving her head so the toy sprang wildly from side to side. “Do you think this will distract a little kid?”
It would certainly distract him, and she wouldn’t even have to wear the hat. Man, the doc was cute. She didn’t seem to be wearing any makeup, but she was so naturally pretty with those caramel-colored eyes, straight little nose and truly terrific smile, that makeup sure wasn’t necessary.
“You know how difficult it is to examine kids when they’re frightened,” she said. “If we’re having fun, I’ll get to do my job and they won’t dread coming here. At least that’s the plan.”
“It ought to work.” If anyone could pull that off, she would be the one, and if Beth knew medicine as well as she knew kids, she was going to be great.
She took the hat off and ran her hand through her sun-streaked hair as if it didn’t particularly matter how it fell. He couldn’t imagine many women—or men—risking a hair style that casual, but on her, it looked great.
“What did you want to be when you were a little boy?” she asked. “Choose a hat, and you’re halfway there.”
He was halfway there already, at least when it came to feeling at ease with his new boss. He’d assumed that she would be intelligent, kind, caring, as most peds docs were, but it was her joy of life that drew him in. He’d felt like smiling from the moment they met.
He picked up a diamond tiara with a plume of feathers attached. “My daughter would love this.”
“Is she one of our patients?”
“Not yet.” But she would be. Kendi needed this doc’s sense of fun as badly as he did himself.
“Anytime she comes in, she can wear it, but she might surprise you. We girls don’t always want to be royalty. I would have picked this one when I was little.” She chose a football helmet and plunked it on her head.
“You liked to play football?” he asked, thinking how different that was from his little girl.
“Not as much as other sports, but I wanted my mother to think I was as headstrong and out of control as my brother, who did play.”
“Trey Brennan, out of control?” That was an image impossible to conceive.
Laughter burst from her. “Not Trey! He would never do anything my mother disapproved of! Golf and tennis were his games. It was my brother Ry who played football.”
Noah had forgotten that she had another brother. Ry Brennan, the family rebel, had been introduced at Beth’s reception nearly two years ago.
“I take it that you know Trey,” she said dryly.
Noah couldn’t stand the guy, but he probably ought to keep his opinion of her brother to himself. “When Dr. Crabtree needed a neurological consult, he used a doctor more familiar with peds patients.”
“Good! Our kids deserve somebody who’s nice.”
That was calling it like it was.
“Do you know my uncles?”
“Not well.” Why be candid when it could only hurt her feelings? Her womanizing uncle, Dr. Charles Brennan, was an excellent cardiologist, but the female staff had no respect for him. Her uncle Al was a brilliant orthopedic surgeon, but a patronizing, sarcastic know-it-all, as unlikable as her brother Trey.
“How about my grandfather? Do you know him?”
He knew the senior Brennan better than he was supposed to admit, so he said, “Everyone knows the chief! Your grandfather’s amazing. He makes a point of knowing all of the staff. He asks about their kids and their grandkids. You can tell he suffers a lot with his arthritis, but he makes it to the office every day. He’s the best.”
That brought a glow to Beth’s face. “He’s a hard man to say no to. He can talk me into anything.”
She wasn’t the only one. When the chief called last week and asked Noah to keep an eye on Mona, it hadn’t felt right, going behind Beth’s back even if her grandfather did have her best interest at heart, and there was genuine cause for concern.
“How about my dad? Do you know him?”
“Only because I was an ER nurse at Cedar Hills Hospital before I came here. The general consensus is that your dad can do no wrong. He’s very dedicated to his patients.”
“He is, isn’t he? Poor Trey—as James Thomas Brennan III, he’s had a lot to live up to.”
That could be part of Trey’s problem, but it had to