The Doctor's Bride

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“Then use my motto. Keep it simple, keep it honest, and pray before you act…or in your case, try to act.”

“What is it with you and prayer?” Carmen asked, exasperated. She turned on the ignition of her car and backed out of her drive very fast. “I pray for the Lord to guide my hands in surgery. I pray for Him to do what medicine can’t. But I’m not going to bother God with prayers about things I should handle myself!”

“Okay, but the Bible says you’re supposed to.” She’d prayed for openings like this. “The Word says we’re to pray about everything…all the time!”

Carmen shook her head.” I don’t know. Every day I see situations where God is a person’s only hope. It just doesn’t seem right for me to take God’s time with whiny prayers about the little stuff.”

“There is no ‘little stuff’ with God,” Chloe said, unwilling to argue past that. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll pray that Bonnie will relax and not worry about her son. I’ll pray that God gives you the words you need for tonight, and I’ll pray that Zack—” What should she pray for him? “I’ll pray he’ll enjoy his mother’s vacation as much as she does. How’s that?”

Carmen shrugged her shoulders as if it didn’t matter.

Lord, You gave me an opening to talk about You, and I think I blew it. If You give me another chance, I’ll try to do better.

“Chloe, if you’re really going to do all that praying could you throw in something about Dad’s reaction when he realizes Zack and I aren’t seeing each other?”

“He doesn’t know that?” Chloe didn’t want to be around when he found out. “Why haven’t you told him? Having second thoughts?”

“No! I’ve tried to tell Dad, but he’s just obsessed with Zack becoming part of our family. He’s never gotten angry with me before, but I’ve seen how he gets with you. You can take it, but I don’t have your courage.”

Courage? It was more like she’d had no choice. Dad could lose his temper with her any time, any place, and she’d never known when it was coming.

“Carmen, I can pray that Dad takes the news calmly, but that’s a very big prayer. I’ll need your help with that one.”

The corners of Carmen’s mouth twitched. “You’re probably right. Tell me what to say.”

Chloe laughed out loud. “To begin with, you don’t need a script. When I talked to the Lord while I was getting dressed—“

“You did that?” Carmen sounded shocked.

Chloe nodded. “I asked the Lord to keep my head straight tonight. Since neither you nor Cate fell for Zack, there’s no reason to think I will, but he was all I could think about this afternoon.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“Everything. Nothing. It just makes me nervous to be this interested in a guy.”

Carmen grinned knowingly. “You could always try praying that away.”

Chapter Five

Z ack pulled up to The Hilltop and watched his mom’s face light up. High on a hill as the name suggested, the view from the restaurant was one of the best in Los Angeles. They would catch the tail end of a spectacular sunset and, later, watch the city’s twinkling lights.

It was the kind of restaurant Zack’s dad would have despised. He’d have griped about turning the car over to a parking valet and complained about waiting to be seated by the ma?tre d’. When he saw the fancy menu, prices and manners of the waitstaff, he might have walked out.

Zack remembered how self-conscious he’d felt the first time he’d dined here. When the waiter had plucked the white linen napkin from the goblet and flipped it onto his lap, Zack had felt exactly like who he was—a country boy from Illinois. Tonight he took the waiter’s flourish for granted and smiled when it surprised his mom.

He’d made sure she was seated at an angle so she could see the fabulous view or scan the room and perhaps see a celebrity she recognized. He’d taken the seat beside her so he could watch for Carmen and Chloe.

But Mom saw them first. “There’s Chloe! Oh, my. The girls are lovely!”

Carmen looked fabulous as usual, but it was Chloe, in a terrific red dress, who made his heart rate pick up.

He stood when they approached the table. Carmen gave him a wink that said she was ready for his matchmaking mom. Chloe headed straight to Mom, gave her a warm embrace and said, “I’ve brought you a big birthday present, Bonnie. Here she is, my sister, Carmen. She’s a surgeon like Zack, but she’s ready to settle down.”

Had Carmen coached her to say that? It was perfect.

Chloe stepped aside so Carmen could give Mom a pair of Hollywood air kisses and a little hug. “I have a present for you, too,” Carmen said, producing an elegantly wrapped gift.

“Should I open it now?” Mom asked, already tearing the paper off.

Zack recognized the designer gift box before Mom pulled out the tiny crystal bottle of perfume.

“If you don’t care for it, we can exchange it for a scent you might prefer more,” Carmen said.

“Oh, no! The fragrance is lovely!” his mother exclaimed. “And it will make me think of you, Carmen.”

“That’s a nice gift,” Chloe said, producing a small colorful bag, “but you’re going to like mine better.” Mom dug under the bright tissue and pulled out a red clown nose with an attached tag that read, “IOU one clown lesson and all of my ‘how-to-clown’ books.”

His mom squealed with delight. Carmen sat beside him, and they brought her up to speed about Bonnie’s clown obsession. The waiter took their drink orders, and Zack leaned back in his chair.

His mother had a birthday glow that made his heart swell with gratitude. The joy and contentment on her face was worth more than money could buy. Carmen flirted with him as planned, to throw his mother off track about his interest in Chloe.

He knew Mom had noticed him and Carmen. She’d given him a bunch of assessing looks, as if she were trying to determine if he and Carmen had more going for them than he’d claimed. Exactly what he’d hoped for.

Was he only imagining it, or was Chloe flirting with him, too? Her brown eyes sparkled with fun, and she was just so pretty he could hardly take his eyes off her. With Mom concentrating on Carmen, he didn’t have to be as careful.

He noticed her sweet consideration of his mom, her quick glance of gratitude toward the waiter who filled her water glass, the way she graciously accepted her menu and her pleased expression as she looked at the menu offerings.

He hadn’t thought about it, but being unimpressed with fine dining was part of the code of conduct among the rich. He’d probably adopted that attitude as well, but not Chloe. Enthusiastically, she described her favorite dishes to Mom and said this was her favorite restaurant in Los Angeles.

He’d never been this interested in a woman. He was sure of it. When his foot accidentally touched hers, his heart actually raced. Did she have any idea of how pretty she looked in that red dress? She didn’t seem to, and that made him like her even more.

Chloe gripped her menu, the better to steady her nerves. What was the matter with her? She’d dined at the Hilltop so often it should feel like a second home, but she’d almost tipped over her water goblet and her salad fork had just skittered off the table and landed noisily on the hardwood floor.

It wasn’t the end of the world, and Flower the Clown wouldn’t have been embarrassed, but Chloe was…until Zack’s dinner knife clattered to the floor, too.

With all eyes on him, he merely shrugged, smiled and said to their food server, “We seem to have flying silverware.”

Had Zack copied her clumsiness to make her feel less like a klutz? Bonnie beamed at him as if she thought he had.

“You aren’t worried about your reputation, Doctor?” Carmen teased. “Who’s going to trust a surgeon who can’t keep his silverware on the table?”

“I may have to consider a new career and enroll in Chloe’s clown class,” he said. “Any chance I can get Mom’s rate?”

Chloe smiled to herself. She’d give him lessons for free.

They placed their orders and made small talk until their waiter served their appetizers. Bonnie looked at Zack, and without missing a beat, he said, “I’ll say grace.” He offered one hand to Bonnie and the other to Carmen, who looked a little startled, but quickly followed suit. They might be the only diners holding hands while they prayed, but Chloe loved it.

Zack bowed his head and spoke in a normal conversational tone. “Lord, we praise Your name, especially on Mom’s birthday, and we thank You for Your many blessings. Thank You for giving me a wonderful mother. May this next decade be the best in her long, healthy life. Bless the food, Lord, and thank You for letting us share this special occasion as family and friends.”

Zack looked up to see his mom blinking back tears. He hadn’t done anything that special. Maybe she was glad he still knew how to pray.

“That was a beautiful prayer, son,” his mother said. “The best gift a mother can receive is knowing her child has a relationship with God.”

Temporarily flushed by his mother’s praise, Zack cleared the lump in his throat and said, “When I planned this dinner for you, Mom, I had no idea that your favorite conference speaker would turn out to be our new friend, Chloe, or that Chloe’s sister would be my old friend, Carmen.”

“‘Old?’” Carmen protested playfully. “Watch it!”

“Sorry,” he said with a grin. “It’s great that such a cool coincidence brought us together.”

“It is wonderful that we’re together!” Bonnie agreed. “But I would say it was more God’s direction than coincidence. When I look back over my life, I see how often I thought God wasn’t hearing my prayers, but He was. Often the bad times were preparation for the good things God had ahead for me.”

Zack bit his tongue as he always did when she talked about this. He loved her too much to mention she’d chosen to stay with his dad and go through those bad times. He’d finally gotten away after high school, but not without guilt because he’d left Mom to serve her sentence. That was how he thought of her life with Dad.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have faith that God has my best interest at heart,” Mom said, her sweet face fervent with her belief.

Carmen nodded her head in understanding. “Since Chloe’s been back home, I have to confess, some of her faith is rubbing off on me.” Carmen gave Chloe a sisterly squeeze on her arm.

Zack tried not to show his surprise. What was Carmen talking about? She’d always had faith—the same kind he had. It might be faith on a more generic level than his mother or Chloe seemed to have, but he believed in a Higher Power. Sometimes his patients lived when his skills hadn’t been enough.

“Hey, everybody.” Collin Brennan stopped by their table.

Zack stood to shake Collin’s hand and whispered in his ear, “Don’t mention our surgery this morning.”

Collin gave him a questioning look, but blinked agreement.

“Mom,” he said with a hand on her shoulder, “This is Collin Brennan, grandson of the founder of Brennan Medical Clinic where I have my office. Collin has an office there, too, and we both do our surgeries at Cedar Hills Hospital.”

Color drained from her face—alarmingly so.

“I understand it’s your birthday, Mrs. Hemingway, and I want to add my good wishes,” Collin said with his usual charm, but he looked at Zack, silently inquiring about her sudden paleness.

“Thank you, Collin.” Mom stared at Collin as if she couldn’t look away.

What was wrong with Mom?

Carmen and Chloe greeted Collin like the old friends they were. Chloe leaned toward his mother and said, “Our father and Collin’s uncle Albert were roommates at Stanford in their undergrad days. We’ve grown up together.”

“Collin’s an anesthesiologist, Bonnie,” Carmen added. “In fact he worked with Zack this morning on their celebrity patient.”

Collin gave Zack a look as if to say he hadn’t blabbed.

“Did anyone catch Zack on TV?” Carmen asked.

“You were on TV?” his mother asked.

“When our patients are celebrities,” Zack explained, “the media always wants details. Meeting with them is the worst part of my job. The cameras, the mikes in your face—I feel like a deer caught in headlights.”

“And get this,” Collin said, leaning down and dropping his voice, “Zack suggested that your dad, as chief of surgery, do the interview, but…our new PR guy shut your dad down.”

“He didn’t!” Carmen’s dark eyes were wide with awe.

“Oh, but he did. The guy said, ‘Dr. Kilgannon, the public needs a bright, young doctor like Dr. Hemingway to put a face to the excellence that is Cedar Hills Hospital.’”

“How did Dad take it?” Carmen asked.

Collin rolled his eyes. “If it had been anyone but Zack to take the spotlight, your dad would have stroked out, but Zack’s his boy.”

Zack didn’t know what he’d done to gain Sterling Kilgannon’s favor, but he’d had it from the moment he’d taken an office at Brennan Medical Clinic.

“Since Zack was running late, I offered to do the media interview. I was the anesthesiologist, and I’m a ‘bright, young doctor,’ but your dad said I looked too much like a soap-opera actor for the public to take seriously.” Collin flashed a brilliant, TV-worthy smile. “Can you believe it?”

“Yes!” the sisters said in chorus.

“Collin, do you take after your father or your mother?” Zack’s mom asked.

“I can answer that,” Chloe chimed in. “Collin is blond, blue-eyed and good-looking like his dad, but he has his mother’s good sense.”

That was a nice way of putting it. Collin’s dad was a notorious womanizer and not a man Zack could admire.

“Since it’s already been on the news,” Chloe said, “your patient’s identity isn’t confidential. May we ask who it was?”

Collin looked at Zack, clearly leaving that answer up to him.

“Madison Haines,” Zack said.

“Madison Haines!” His mom almost came out of her chair. “What happened?”