It didn’t sound as if he intended to change his mind. For some reason, Seth was pulling back, and he wasn’t being particularly subtle about it. “All right. Good night, Seth.”
“Good night. Thanks for calling.”
“Good night, Seth.” But he’d already hung up.
So much for Madison’s determined matchmaking, Meagan thought as she tossed the phone aside and rose to prepare for bed. There would be no future for her and Seth. It had taken only one week of her back at work for Seth to reach the same conclusion as Gary, apparently. She worked too much, was too involved in her career, wasn’t available enough for him—or maybe Seth was more worried that she wasn’t available enough for Alice. A very legitimate concern, she had to admit, and the reason she’d said all along that she shouldn’t get involved with a single dad.
At least she could say she’d given it a shot. She’d been open to the idea of a relationship for the first time in quite a while. She’d been prepared to make some changes, to work out some compromises that would allow her more free time without sacrificing her commitment to her patients. So Seth had just been the wrong man at the right time. All she needed now was to find the right one, as her mother had said.
Unfortunately, it had felt so very right when she’d been in Seth’s arms. She couldn’t imagine finding that feeling again anytime soon with anyone else.
Chapter Nine
Because he didn’t want Alice to catch him peering out the window, Seth was deliberately immersed in work in his home office when she returned from Meagan’s house at the agreed-upon time Thursday evening. He’d heard the front door open, heard Alice calling out goodbyes to Meagan, who had either watched to make sure she had arrived safely or walked her home. He’d heard the door slam and the locks click and Alice’s quick steps in the hallway, though he tried to look as though he hadn’t been craning his ears toward all those sounds when she popped up in the doorway.
He glanced away from his computer, pushing aside a thick folder of reports. “Oh. You’re home. Did you have a good time?”
“Yes. And you would have had a good time, too, if you hadn’t been such a stick in the mud and refused to go.”
So she was still pouting about that. He’d thought she’d appreciate having a couple of hours alone with her friend, but she’d tried her best to talk him into joining her and Meagan for dessert.
“I told you, I had work to do.”
“It could have waited.”
He couldn’t honestly dispute that. The work could have waited. And he hadn’t been all that noble in allowing Alice one-on-one time with Meagan. Truth was, his resistance had been more self-serving. He had suspected it would be too difficult for him to spend even a couple of hours that close to Meagan without wanting to touch her. To kiss her again. Knowing the odds were slim he would ever do either again.
It would have been almost as hard to watch Alice chatting so happily with her friend, gazing at Meagan with her usual adoring admiration. He worried still that Alice would be hurt by this unconventional friendship. Meagan herself had admitted that it had begun under unusual circumstances, that her true life bore little resemblance to the weeks in which Alice and Seth had gotten to know her.
But Alice had Jacqui to befriend now, he reminded himself. The two had gotten along great during Alice’s first week off from school, with Jacqui starting the knitting lessons and chauffeuring Alice to swim classes and taking her shopping for a few things for the upcoming trip. The trip itself should be another way of distancing Alice from Meagan. Alice would love spending that time with her mother, whom she had missed so much during the past six months. She wouldn’t need a substitute then.
As for himself…well, he’d stay very busy while Alice was gone. Maybe he’d even take advantage of being a single adult again and go out some. He could always call Susan.
He tried not to remember Alice sticking a finger down her throat at the mention of Susan’s name.
“What did Meagan serve you for dessert?”
“The yummiest chocolate meringue cake. Oh my gosh, it was so good! It was filled with something she called ganache, and it was the best stuff ever. We had hot tea with it, decaf with milk and sugar in mine.”
He could almost feel his mouth watering for a slice of the cake his daughter had just described. He had a particular weakness for chocolate cake. “Sounds great.”
; “It was. Meagan didn’t make it herself, she picked it up at a bakery on the way home because she said she didn’t really have time to make anything, but that didn’t matter. I know she’s busy. We both loved it and we had a great time talking and laughing.”
Alice had probably enjoyed the bakery dessert as much as she would have liked something home cooked, Seth conceded. The conversation and attention from Meagan had meant much more to her.
Seth stood and stretched, speaking in what he hoped was a casual tone. “So what did you girls talk about?”
“I asked her a lot of questions about being a surgeon. She said she didn’t mind me asking. She told me a lot of funny stories about things that happen in the O.R.—that’s what they call the operating rooms—and some of her funny patients, though she said she couldn’t use any names because of HIPAA laws. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes, I’m familiar with patient privacy laws.” He resisted the impulse to remind her that he was an attorney, after all.
“Oh, well, anyway, she taught me a lot. Do you know what ERCP stands for?”
“Uh, no, I can’t say I do.”
“Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography.” She recited the words carefully and a bit smugly, that she had known something he hadn’t. “Meagan told me about it. It’s a diagnostic procedure that uses a scope and X-rays to find problems in the liver, gallbladder, pancreas and…um, something else. Oh, yeah, the bile ducts.”