Knocking at Her Heart (Conover Circle #1) (8 page)

“She said she’s leaving him. I
think she’s coming here so that he’ll have to follow her and beg for
forgiveness.”

“How long will that take?”

“I hope not very long,” Maddie
said, shaking her head.

Carol smiled. “What’s she going
to think about Sam?”

Maddie looked out into the back
yard. Sam had his back to her. He was kneeling on the ground. Jenifer and
Mindy, both eight years old, stood next to him, watching intently as he used a
pocketknife to cut windows and doors into the side of their cardboard house. “I
don’t know.”

Carol gave her a weak smile.
“Maddie, if she finds out he’s a doctor, she’s going to start planning the
wedding.”

“I know. We’re going to have to
make sure that doesn’t happen.” Maddie opened the back door and stepped out
into her yard. Last week’s rains had turned the grass green, and daffodils and
early tulips danced in the wind. She walked across the soft grass carpet, glad
that she hadn’t put shoes on. When Sam saw her, he smiled.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said, studying him.
She didn’t see any grape juice or chalk, but the knees of his blue jeans were
grass stained and he had mud on his elbows. His nose was slightly pink from
being outside in the warm spring sun. He didn’t look harried or exhausted. He
looked like he was having the time of his life.

“Boxes?” she asked, waving her
arm around the yard.

He looked a little sheepish. “Don’t
worry. Cleanup is a breeze. It all goes back in the dumpster at the hospital.”

“I’m not worried. I just never
thought about boxes.”

“Boxes are magic,” he said.

A minute ago he’d looked as if he
didn’t have a care in the world. Now his eyes were shadowed. “What do you
mean?”

“With a box, you can pretend to
be anything,” he said. “You can pretend to be anywhere.”

She nodded. “I guess you can.”

“I know you can,” he said.

He sounded so serious. She wanted
to know why. “Sam,” she said, not sure where to start.  “You seem—”

“Hey, be careful,” Sam yelled,
reaching in front of Maddie to swat down a volleyball just before it bounced
off her head.

“Sorry.” Bryce, a fourth grader,
yelled back, looking contrite. He stood on the far side of the yard. Across the
net that stretched between two big trees, his partner, ten-year-old Aidan,
rolled on the ground, laughing. 

“This is what prompted Darwin’s
theory,” Sam said under his breath.

“What?”

“Survival of the fittest,” he
said, giving her a wide smile. “I’m going to give Bryce a quick lesson in
serving, before you lose any windows.” 

Maddie watched him walk away,
twirling the ball on the tip of his finger. The shadows had left his eyes. But
what had put them there in the first place?

That, she decided, as she walked
back to the house, was none of her business. What was she thinking? She didn’t
want to get inside Sam’s head. His issues were not her issues. He was temporary
help. Nothing more. Nothing less. 

Maddie opened the screen door and
walked in. Carol stood at the window, rocking a half-awake two-year-old in her
arms. “He’s something, isn’t he?” Carol said.

Maddie ignored the comment. She
needed to stop thinking about Sam. Talking about him wouldn’t help her do that.
She walked past Carol and reached out and patted little Missy’s back. “Hi
sweetheart.  Did you just wake up?”

The little blonde nodded. “I want
to color,” she said.

Maddie opened the cupboard where
the art supplies were kept. “Bring her over here,” she said to Carol, motioning
to the table.

Carol shook her head. “Sam said
you’re not supposed to be working.”

“Carol, it’s a crayon. It weighs
less than an ounce. I don’t think I’m going to rip out any stitches lifting
it.”

Carol frowned at her.

“Please,” Maddie begged. “I’m
going to go crazy if I can’t do something.”

“Okay,” Carol said, depositing a
now-smiling Missy onto a chair. “But if Sam thinks it’s too much, then art
period is over.”

Sam was taking over. Her
thoughts, her business, her home. Maddie drew a thick red line across her
paper, pressing so hard that the crayon broke. Missy looked at her in surprise.
“Sorry honey,” Maddie said, handing the child a different color. 

When Sam did come in an hour
later, Maddie had three children at the table with her. Boxes of crayons,
markers, and big sheets of white paper covered the table. She looked up, as if
daring him to say anything. But he just smiled at her and walked on through to
the kitchen, followed by a group of adoring kids.

She felt a little disappointed.
She’d been rehearsing her speech. She had it all down. She was a grown
woman—she knew her own body. If she wanted to sit, stand or run the mile, it
was her choice. She didn’t need anyone telling her what to do.

She wanted to tell somebody. She
looked at the sweet faces of the children next to her. They were not her target
audience. She swallowed back her indignation and concentrated on staying within
the lines.

Over the course of the next hour,
parents arrived for their children. Everyone stopped to say hello, many leaving
small get-well gifts or cards behind. By the time the last parent had left, it
took effort for Maddie to continue to sit up straight. She really wanted to lie
down. She pushed her chair back, intending to go upstairs. She stopped when she
saw Sam standing in the doorway.

“Nice people,” he said, looking
at the pile of cards and flowers and chocolates.

“Very,” Maddie agreed. 

“Good kids, too,” Sam said.

“Great kids,” Maddie corrected.

“Easy for you to say,” Sam said,
picking a wet leaf out of his hair. “You didn’t have to crawl under the porch,
looking for Barbie shoes that fell through the cracks.”

“True. Where’s Kelsie?” 

“Getting the mud off her shoes.
She stepped—”

The doorbell rang and Sam
stopped. “Expecting someone?” he asked.

Carol looked at Maddie, and
Maddie looked at the floor. The bell rang again.

The bell rang a third time.
Neither Maddie nor Carol moved.

“You want me to get the door?”
Sam asked.

“No!” Maddie slid off her chair. When
she opened the front door, her mother, wearing her favorite gray suit, stood on
the steps.

“Hi,” Maddie said and leaned
forward for an awkward hug. “How was the trip?”

“First class was sold out. I hate
flying coach.”

She pulled her mother inside.
“Well, it’s over now, thank goodness. Have you had dinner?”

“Madelyn, I was on an airplane.
And then I had an absolutely horrible drive here. I got lost twice. I never
liked this God-forsaken town. I do not know what Aunt Jayne saw in it. It is in
the middle of—”

“Hi, Mrs. Sinclair.” Carol stood
up and extended her hand. “We met a couple years ago,” she prompted.

Frances Sinclair tapped her lip.
“Of course. Cassandra? Clara? Carol?”

“I knew you’d get it,” Carol
said, stepping back.

Frances turned toward Sam. “And
you are?”

Maddie moved quickly. “Sam. 
He was just leaving. Say goodnight Sam.”

“Goodnight, Sam,” he repeated,
like some kind of idiot.        

Carol snorted and turned red. Her
mother put one hand on a hip. Sam winked at Maddie and stuck his hand out. “Hi.
I’m Sam Jordonson. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Her mother returned the shake.
She turned to Maddie, her gaze assessing. 

“Sam helps out here
occasionally,” Maddie said, before her mother could ask any questions.

“So what brings you to Conover,
Mrs. Sinclair?” Sam asked.

Her mother fiddled with her
necklace, and it dawned on Maddie exactly what it was that had been bothering
her since the moment she’d set eyes on her mother.  When her mother wore
her gray suit, she always wore her pearl necklace with the matching
earrings.  Tonight, her mother had on some kind of gold chain and
heaven-forbid, only one pearl earring.  Her right earlobe was
frighteningly bare.

“I just wanted to spend some time
with my only daughter. Catch up, you know. ”

“Good reason for a trip,” Sam
said.

“Well, that and my husband is
having an affair.”

There was absolute silence in the
room. Sam looked at the front door, as if he was calculating how fast he could
reach it. Carol shifted from foot to foot. Maddie could see the indecision on
her face. She wanted to hear the story first hand but she knew the right thing
to do was to give the Sinclair women some privacy.

“I’m going to take off,” Sam
said, already moving for the door. He looked pale.

“Ah…me, too,” Carol said.

“Don’t leave on my account,”
Frances said. “I’m not the one who needs to be embarrassed.” She looked at
Maddie. “It’s been five days and your father hasn’t even called.”

Maddie rubbed her forehead. Sam
had his hand on the doorknob. He turned to look at her. What was that look in
his eyes?

She should say something. She
should. “Mother, you know that I’m happy that you can visit for a couple days.”

Frances smiled and pushed her
hair behind her ears. “This can be a nice long stay. Maybe even a couple weeks.
I’m just not sure yet.”

Maddie felt her face get hot. And
a pain spread across her chest. Her mother could not really intend to stay with
her for
weeks
. “I just had surgery,” Maddie said the first thing that
came to her mind.

“What?” Her mother frowned at her.

“Yes. Just two days ago. Had my
appendix out. I’m still not back to full strength.”

“Darling.” Frances Sinclair said,
sounding very concerned. It made Maddie feel bad that she’d deliberately
shocked her. And when her mother awkwardly patted her on the back, Maddie felt
even worse. But she’d had to say something. Her mother needed to understand
that now wasn’t the time for uninvited guests.

“That settles it, then,” her
mother said.

Good. She
understood.   

“Don’t worry about a thing. Your
mother’s here now. I’ll take care of everything.”

Maddie woke up reluctantly when
bright spring sunshine slipped into her room. She lay perfectly still, hoping
for some sign that the reality show her life had suddenly become had somehow
been canceled. That the producers had taken a hiatus because they’d somehow
gotten bored messing with her head.

A week ago things had been just
fine. Then she’d cut her hand and things had gone to hell. Now, it didn’t look
like anything would ever be fine again. She turned over to see the clock.
Twenty minutes past eight. The daycare had been open for almost two-hours. The
school age kids would be on the bus. 

She wasn’t going to get
everything back under control if she wallowed away the day, lingering in bed.
She needed to get back to full strength, start running her business again, and
find some way to fix whatever had gone wrong between her mother and
father. 

She and her mom had ordered in food
from The Blue Moon. Dante had delivered it himself, telling her he had needed
to see for sure that she was okay. He’d been polite to her mother and the woman
had lapped up the attention from him, just like every other woman over the age
of sixteen.

Dinner had mostly consisted of
conversations about her time at Pierre’s. Maddie had tried to dig a little
deeper but her mother had waved the questions aside, saying that she was tired.
I don’t want to talk about your father and that woman.

Maddie had let it go. She didn’t
really want to have the conversation either. But it could not be put off
indefinitely.

She sat up and swung her legs
over the bed. When she stood up, her incisions seemed a little less tight, a
little less sore. She looked at her hand. She’d taken the bandage off the night
before. The stitches were starting to disappear like promised. She’d call her
doctor’s office today and make an appointment for a recheck.

She’d be back to her old self
again soon. She walked past the guest bedroom and saw the empty bed. When she
got to the kitchen, she noticed the empty coffeepot first and the note her
mother had left on the table second. 

Went shopping. Really, darling,
you need to get some decent shampoo. Love, Mother.

She crumpled up the paper and
tossed it toward the garbage can. She hoped her mother didn’t expect chocolates
on her pillows or nightly turn-down service. Maddie walked over to her front
door and opened it. From downstairs she could hear the chatter of young voices.
She listened a minute longer and felt the fine hair on her arms start to rise.
Sam’s low, sexy, laugh floated up the stairs. She felt it settle over her, like
a warm blanket on a cold night.

Sam was gorgeous,
sexy-as-could-be, nice to little children, and he’d been polite enough not to
laugh out loud at her mother the night before. She’d have to be dead not to be
tempted.

But succumbing wouldn’t be right.
It could only be a short-term fling. And that’s not what she was interested in.

Maybe she needed to go on one of
the Internet dating sites. Now that she’d made the decision to end it with
Jeff, she was free to move on. She needed to focus on finding a man she could
build a future with, a man she could count on.

Not necessarily one that bored
the hell out of her like Jeff but certainly one that would put her first,
before his career. Not one who put his professional oath before his personal
promise to love and honor.

She got dressed and walked
downstairs. She saw that Carol had several of the children in the play area.
They were making puppets out of felt material. Maddie waved at her and went
into the kitchen to get coffee.  She stopped short when she saw Sam,
sitting at the head of her kitchen table, surrounded by several children,
frosting cookies.

“Hi,” she said, thinking it must
have been the steps that made her breathless. “What are you all doing?”

“Cooking,” said five-year-old
Matthew.

“Baking,” corrected Kelsie. She
reached over and moved the dish of frosting closer to her.

“No,” Matthew argued, clearly
irritated to be corrected by someone younger. He pulled the dish away from
Kelsie. “They’re called cookies. So you cook them. We don’t call them bakies.”

Sam reached his long arm out, put
the dish of frosting squarely between Mathew and Kelsie and said, “We’re
decorating. You’ve got ten minutes. Get going.”

“Sam did my hair,” Kelsie stated
proudly.

Maddie looked closer at Kelsie.
“Is that three pigtails?”

“Yes. Sam said if God had wanted
us to have two pigtails, he would have only given us hair on the sides of our
head, not in the back.”

“I suppose,” Maddie said. She
walked past Sam and rinsed her hands under the faucet.  On her return
trip, she said, just loud enough for him to hear, “I hope you’re better with a
scalpel than you are a hairbrush.”

He turned so that his back faced
the children. “I’ll have you know that my patients lie still. They do not
squirm, dance, or jump.  How do you feel this morning?”

“Better.  I can’t believe I
slept so late. How did you get in?”

“Carol beat me by a good ten
minutes. The coffee was already made.”

“I wish someone had woken me up.”

“We figured you and your mom
would be catching up. You…ah…didn’t seem too worried about what she said. You
know, about your father.”

“My mother and father have a
mutually-beneficial arrangement.”

He considered that. “I thought
they were married,” he said carefully.

She could feel the heat spread
across her face. “Not everyone marries for love. Don’t be naïve.” 

“What’s nigh-eve, Uncle Sam?”
Kelsie asked, looking up from her cookie.

“Never mind,” Sam answered, pulling
one of her pigtails.  “Keep decorating. Matthew’s getting ahead of you.”

Maddie didn’t think she’d ever
seen a four-year-old roll her eyes in exactly that manner.  But the little
girl went back to work. “Who decided to bake cookies?” Maddie asked.

“I did. It seemed like something
that could keep these guys busy for an hour or so.”

“I love sugar cookies,” Maddie
said.

Sam reached across the table,
snagged a cookie, broke of a corner, and held it up to her lips. The casual
intimacy of the simple gesture stunned her. Her tongue, having suddenly
developed a mind of its own, sneaked out of her mouth and traced her upper
lip.  Sam’s hand, his steady surgeon hand, flinched. Then, with his eyes
focused on her face, he lowered his arm. 

He reached for her hand and
gently deposited the cookie piece in her palm. “Have a cookie, Maddie,” he
said.    

She nodded and folded her hand
around the piece.  Oh, baby.  If only he was a Snickerdoodle, life
would be so much simpler.  She could sample, enjoy, and remember with
fondness. 

But he wasn’t. So if she sampled,
she’d undoubtedly enjoy, and then be forced to kick her own butt for being
stupid. “What’s next?” she asked, grateful that her voice held steady.

“Art projects.”

“Take my advice,” she said, as
she escaped the kitchen. “Wear a smock.”

She found Carol minutes later.
The woman sat in the middle of the play area, watching as six children, paired
off in three groups of two, played nicely. Maddie knew it wouldn’t last. 

“I was glad that you slept in,”
Carol said.

“I didn’t get much sleep last
night,” Maddie replied. “Guess I was very conscious of my mother sleeping in
the guest room.”

“What are you going to do about
your parents?” Carol asked.

“I’m not sure. I thought my
father would have called by now. I guess I’m going to have to call him. Tell
him to call my mother.”

At that moment, the front door
slammed and there was Frances Sinclair. Maddie knew, without a doubt, that she
was unlikely to forget this particular entrance. Ever. “Mother?” she said.

The woman whirled around. “Do you
like it?” she asked, patting her hair.

Gone was Frances Sinclair’s
carefully coifed, absolutely appropriate, brown bob. Her hair was fire-engine
red, two inches long, and mostly sticking straight up from her head. 

“Like it?” Maddie repeated. What
was to like?

“I bought some new clothes, too,”
her mother said, holding up a bag from Natalie’s Necessities, one of the
trendier boutiques on the main street.

“That go with your old hair or
your new hair?” Carol asked, sounding as stunned as Maddie felt.

“For the new me.” Her mother
whirled around again and almost hit Sam, who had come from the kitchen, with
her bags. He took a step back and Maddie could see him check his grin.

“Nice hair, Mrs. Sinclair,” he
said, sounding sincere.

She beamed at him and once again,
Maddie found herself feeling ridiculously sorry for her mother. It was obvious
that the woman’s self-esteem had taken a beating. She was just about to offer a
compliment when her mother dropped the next bombshell.

“I want to look good for the
auction this weekend.”

“What auction?” Maddie asked,
already knowing the answer.

“Why the Bid on a Bachelor
Auction. I saw the poster in the drug store. I was picking up a few other things
I’ll need.” Her mother reached into her sack and pulled out a box of condoms.

Carol started coughing into her
hand, and Sam, well, he’d make a hell of a poker player because she had no idea
what he was thinking. Maddie groped for words, but there just weren’t any that
seemed right.

“You are planning to attend?” her
mother asked, looking straight at her.

“I hadn’t given it much thought,”
Maddie lied.
Condoms.
Her mother had bought condoms.  

“How about you, Carol?” her
mother asked.

Carol nodded and wiped away
tears. “My husband Travis is on the planning committee.”

“See, darling,” Frances said.
“Everyone’s going.”

“I’ll be there, too” Sam said.

Maddie whirled toward him.
“What?”

“I’m one of the bachelors.”

Her mother clapped her hands.
“Excellent. At least we’ll know someone there. That always makes these events
more fun. And who knows,” she said, her nose in the air as she walked over to
the stairs, “I may even bid on you myself.”

*

“So how’s it going with Maddie
Sinclair?” Tom asked. He had settled into the chair in front of Sam’s
over-burdened desk, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. 

“Fine,” Sam said. Once he’d made
the offer to assist at Kids Are It, he’d been compelled to tell his partner why
he wouldn’t be in the office.

Tom had been overjoyed, called
Sam a sly son-of-a-bitch, and had said it was just the break they’d been
looking for. It would give Sam a chance to figure out what kind of offer would
interest Maddie.

Sam had nodded, murmured
something appropriate in response about that being the plan, and changed the
subject as quickly as possible.

Now he flipped through a stack of
pink message slips. Even though he’d cleared his schedule for a few days, there
were always patient calls to attend to. Each night after finishing at the daycare,
he stopped at the office. He hated disturbing his patients during dinner, but
it did keep him from playing telephone-tag indefinitely.

Tom leaned forward and played
with the extra pencils on Sam’s desk. “Just fine? Not good?”

“Don’t worry, Tom,” Sam said,
without looking up.  He wished he’d never agreed to try to find out what
offer Maddie might listen to.

Tom tapped his finger on Sam’s
desk. “We should all be worried. Time is running out. I just heard the
cardiologists are lobbying for a cardiac center. There’s no space left in the
hospital.  If somebody gets the bright idea to expand to the east, we’re
screwed. They’ll make Maddie an offer she can’t refuse, and County General is
going to be known for hearts.”

“Is that so horrible?”

“Yeah. When it’s either them or
us, it’s pretty damn horrible.”

“Give me two weeks,” Sam said.

Tom nodded. “Okay. By the way, my
nurses were talking about you today.”

Sam didn’t like the sound of
that. He preferred to keep a low profile. “I don’t know what they’d be talking about.”

Tom stood up, put his hands in
his pockets, and rocked back and forth on his shiny wingtips. “There is a
certain drug rep who is very interested in the Bid on a Bachelor auction. Rumor
has it she’s not opposed to dipping into her retirement account if that’s what
it takes.”

Sam shrugged and tried to look
bored. Chantel Anderson had been assigned to his account less than three months
ago. She was a platinum blond with big breasts and big teeth, and she did
absolutely nothing for him. However, if she was the high bidder, he was hers
for a special evening. Those were the rules of the auction. He’d have to go
along.