A Home for the M.D.

“We won, kid. By one goal. Scored by your uncle, I might add,” Mitch boasted.

“Really? That’s cool. Sorry I didn’t see it. I was talking to some other kids.”

“Good thing I have a healthy ego,” Mitch murmured, looking only slightly deflated that neither of them had seen him make the goal.

“I was going to go play miniature golf with some new friends, but Jacqui said no.”

Jacqui cocked an eyebrow. “I said I’d be happy to accompany you and drive you home afterward. The only thing I said no to was riding home with a teenage boy.”

“You know Milo, Uncle Mitch,” Alice said in an ingratiating tone. “His brother is one of your best friends.”

“His brother is a friend,” Mitch agreed. “I wouldn’t say one of my best, but that’s just semantics. And by the way, I agree a hundred percent with Jacqui. I wouldn’t let you go riding around with Milo, either. Sounds like Jacqui made a nice offer to sit around here for another hour or so while you play mini-golf, by the way. She would probably rather go home.”

Something in her uncle’s tone made Alice stand a little straighter and carefully erase some of the discontent from her expression. “Thanks for offering, Jacqui, but I guess I’d rather go home, too,” she said a bit hastily. “I need to take Waldo for a walk anyway.”

Mitch nodded slightly in approval. “So I’ll see you ladies in a little while.”

“Will you be eating out, or are you joining us for dinner?” Jacqui asked him, using what she thought of as her “housekeeper voice” so he wouldn’t think she was being nosey.

Wiping his face on a corner of the towel, Mitch replied, “If you’re cooking, I’ll join you. But don’t go to any special trouble for me.”

“Alice and I have to eat. I’ll have something ready shortly after I get there.”

“Sounds good. See you at home.”

It wasn’t home, Jacqui thought, walking to her car beside an atypically subdued Alice. Not for Mitch, and not for her. Neither of them needed to get too cozy with this setup. He’d be moving out soon—maybe even moving away, if he gave in to the restlessness she had sensed in him. She would do well to keep that eventuality in mind.

Chapter Four

Though she tried to convince him it wasn’t necessary, Mitch helped Jacqui clear away the dinner dishes later that evening. Alice had gone to her room to take her almost-daily phone call from her mother in Hong Kong.

“Think she’s telling her mother how unreasonable you and I were today not to let her hang out with a bunch of kids we don’t know and ride in a car with an older boy?” Mitch asked.

Because Alice had been quiet during dinner and was still obviously irked that her spontaneous plans had been thwarted, Jacqui wasn’t able to work up a smile in response to Mitch’s half-teasing tone. “I hope not. But if she is, I hope her mother agrees with us.”

“From what I’ve heard of her, she would. She’s a long-distance parent, but Meagan said she’s made it a point to back up Seth in whatever decisions he makes on Alice’s behalf. At least in front of Alice. Seth and Colleen discuss her in private calls so they can present a united front to her.”

Jacqui was already aware of that, of course, being a household insider, but she merely nodded. “I only met Colleen once, when she was in the state for a brief visit with Alice and her parents at Christmas, but it was obvious she loves Alice very much. She was very pleasant to me when she picked up Alice to take her to Heber Springs, where Colleen’s parents live.”

Colleen was tall, strikingly attractive, expensively fashionable. Although she had grown up in Arkansas, no traces of the South remained in her speech patterns— Jacqui would bet that had been a deliberate effort on Colleen’s behalf. Rather than the slight drawl Jacqui had grown accustomed to hearing during the two years she’d lived in Little Rock, Colleen spoke rapidly, enunciating each syllable clearly. Her manner was courteous but somewhat brusque, hinting that her time was too valuable to waste on trivialities.

Jacqui supposed some people would be intimidated by the attorney, although she hadn’t been. To her credit, Colleen hadn’t been dismissive of her ex-husband’s housekeeper, but instead had thanked her nicely for doing such a good job watching out for Alice when the other adults were occupied with their careers.

Seth’s second wife was also a successful career woman, but other than that Meagan and Colleen cou

ldn’t be more different. Whereas Colleen was obsessed with career, Meagan’s priority was family. The family she’d made with Seth and Alice, and the one in which she’d grown up, including her widowed mother and two younger siblings. Often she referred to Jacqui as a part of the family, a generous gesture that Jacqui appreciated even as she continually reminded herself that she was merely the housekeeper. If she were to fall and injure herself so that she was no longer able to fill the position, as had happened to the older woman who worked for Seth previously, they would hire someone to replace her, just as Jacqui had replaced Nina.

“Jacqui? Where have you drifted off to?”

She blinked up at Mitch, who was standing by the dishwasher and looking at her quizzically. Hastily placing the dish in her hand on the rack, she shook her head. “Sorry. I was just thinking about that little tiff with Alice. I’ve been lucky until this point, I guess. She’s been absolutely no trouble at all every time I’ve watched her.”

He shrugged. “If one quarrel and a chilly dinner are the worst you encounter, then you’re lucky. I remember some of Madison’s teen dramas. My folks were ready to lock her in the cellar a few times, I think. Guess it’s a good thing we didn’t actually have a cellar.”

She smiled perfunctorily. “I guess every teen, no matter how generally well-behaved, hates hearing the word ‘no.’”

He chuckled. “Oh, yeah. Didn’t you have your share of teen rebellion when you were that age?”

Jacqui had rebelled every time her father had uprooted the family and drifted to another town where she and Olivia would be enrolled in yet another new school. Not that it had done her any good. Every time they’d moved, her parents had promised it would be the last time. They’d advised her to make the best of the life they led, to make new friends and experience new things—and to take care of her little sister while Mom and Dad were out doing odd jobs to support them.