“You did the right thing. How high is her fever?”
Lily told him and Cullen gave her instructions and said he would be home as soon as he could.
“I’m so sorry to ruin your night. You really don’t have to come home now. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“It’s okay. We were just wrapping things up anyway.”
He took care of the check before he returned to the table, wanting to avoid an awkward struggle over Brenda’s insistence on splitting the bill.
Once he got back to the table, he said, “I’m so sorry to do this, but I have to go. That was Lily, and one of the girls is sick. I really should go and check in on her.”
Something flashed in Brenda’s eyes.
“Since we’ll virtually pass your house on the way to my hotel, why don’t I go with you and look in on the child? After all, I am a pediatrician. Usually I don’t make house calls, but for you I’ll make an exception.”
Chapter Eleven
Lily was surprised that Cullen had been so eager to come home. She had warred with herself over whether to call but finally gave in to good sense.
This was about Bridget, not about them. Her concern was for the girl. If he wanted to take it upon himself to come home, that was his decision.
As she sat in the chair next to Bridget’s bed, she refused to let herself be nervous about seeing him. She also refused to let her mind wander over the reasons that he might have been willing to cut this date short. Sure, she had told him she needed to leave by ten o’clock, but she hadn’t expected him to sound eager to be home early.
When she heard footsteps in the hallway she decided to stay seated.
Bridget was dozing, the ibuprofen finally kicking in, and the children were in the family room watching television. George and Hannah hadn’t balked when Lily put Megan in charge. Of course, the big bowl of popcorn and the movie of their choice put them in a cooperative mood, but they’d also been subdued by the fact that their sister was under the weather.
After they’d lost their parents, it had to be scary when anything was wrong with one of the four of them. How Lily wished she could promise them with 100 percent certainty that everything from this point out would be okay. But she couldn’t read the future. It broke her heart, but she had no idea where the sweet kids would end up after the first of the year. The only thing she could do now was to be there for them and give them the best Christmas they could hope for.
When Cullen entered the room, Lily was ready to apologize again for taking him away from his dinner, but then she realized he wasn’t alone.
Her heart plummeted when she saw the beautiful woman at his side. She knew it was Brenda before the woman introduced yourself.
“You must be Lily. I’ve heard so much about you.”
Maybe Lily was imagining it, but Brenda’s smile didn’t seem completely sincere. It made Lily wonder—had they been talking about her?
Reruns of yesterday’s conversation with Cullen played through her head. While she didn’t think he was the type to talk badly about someone, she couldn’t help worrying about what he might have told Brenda. Still, since she didn’t have any control over that, she couldn’t let herself focus on it.
If she tallied up all of her inadequacies—because Josh had given her a laundry list of every single one of her shortcomings when he broke up with her and they were still very fresh in her mind—she could very well let them get the best of her.
She wasn’t going to do that. So what if Brenda was intimidatingly beautiful and a doctor to boot? Lily was who she was and she wasn’t going to make any apologies for that.
“You must be Brenda.” Lily mustered her most genuine smile. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Brenda is a pediatrician,” Cullen said. “She’s going to look in on Bridget.”
“That’s wonderful of you,” she said. Although, she hated for her to wake up Bridget. There was no telling how long it would take the girl to get back to sleep. But Brenda was the pediatrician. She knew what was best. With a heavy heart for the sick girl and, yes, she had to admit, a little for herself, too, Lily knew it would be best to say good-night.