“How on earth did that come up in your conversation?”
“I was asking some of the ways surgeons find out what’s wrong with people so they’ll know what to operate on and that was one of the tests she said they use a lot. She said I could impress my friends by knowing what the letters stand for.”
He smiled wryly. “I’m sure you will.”
“If I can remember it.” She repeated the words beneath her breath, committing them more firmly to her memory.
“Changing your mind about becoming a surgeon?”
“I still think I want to be an orthodontist. But I’m not ruling anything out,” Alice quipped.
“That’s good. Keep your options open.”
She gazed up at him, and her expression was suddenly so mature it took him aback. She’d been wearing contacts for the past three days, and combined with her new hair-style, she looked older than the little girl he still thought her. “Why didn’t you want to go tonight, Dad? Why did Meagan look funny when we talked about you? Actually, she wouldn’t talk about you much at all. She kept changing the subject. Did the two of you have an argument or something?”
“No, of course not. I told you, Alice, I had work to do.”
She frowned in disapproval at the prevarication. “It could have waited,” she said again.
He tugged at one of her curls, as he’d done when she was little and a simple, “Because Daddy said so,” was enough to satisfy her. “Just enjoy your friendship with Meagan, okay, sweetheart? That’s enough for now, isn’t it?”
“You seemed to really like her.”
“I do like her. But I also warned you against matchmaking. This just isn’t the time for that—not that any time is right for you to try to fix me up,” he added. “You’re going to have to leave that sort of thing to me.”
“If I leave it up to you, you’ll be an old man with a walker next time you get a date,” she muttered.
He couldn’t help laughing. “Hey! That’s not quite true.”
“Oh, right. Susan.”
Alice raised a hand, obviously intended to do her gagging routine again, but Seth caught her arm to forestall her. “I’m through working for tonight. I think I’ll have a cup of tea or something before bed.”
Even that random comment reminded him of Meagan, but he pushed the thought away. He would focus on his daughter—his little girl, despite her maturing appearance—for what was left of the evening. He had so little time left with her in the next few weeks—not to mention the rest of her life, he thought with philosophical wistfulness.
She wrapped both her arms around his right arm. “Maybe you’d like a little something to go with that cup of tea?”
“Yeah?” Walking with her toward the hallway, he turned off the office light behind them. “Like what?”
“Like the big slice of chocolate meringue cake—with yummy ganache—I brought you from Meagan’s house.”
His mouth started tingling again. “You brought me cake?”
Alice laughed. “Meagan insisted I bring you some. It was her idea. I left it on the hall table. But of course, if it’s too much of a commitment for you to eat a slice of her cake…”
“Brat.”
Alice giggled again and hugged his arm.
This, he thought in satisfaction, was enough. He had his daughter, his work—and a big slice of chocolate cake waiting for him. He was a very lucky man. Why should it feel as though there was still something missing in his life?
Two weeks after her visit with Alice, Meagan turned her car onto her street at just before seven o’clock. It was nice to be home a little earlier than usual. It was still quite light on this second week in June. Maybe she’d have dinner by the pool, maybe have a swim afterward.
The thought of her pool almost made her sigh. It would seem very quiet in her backyard by herself. She would almost welcome Waldo’s company.
Thirty minutes later, she sat at her patio table with a salad made of mixed greens topped with rotisserie chicken and mandarin oranges and drizzled with balsamic dressing. She had a glass of iced tea and a handful of whole-grain crackers to accompany the salad, and frozen yogurt bars for dessert later. She had changed out of her work clothes and into a sleek bathing suit topped with a short, sleeveless black cover-up with white piping. Flirty black flip-flops studded with faux jewels protected her bare feet from the sun-warmed, tinted concrete that made up the patio. Perhaps there was no one around to admire her appearance, but she’d dressed to please herself, thinking the sporty outfit would help lighten her inexplicably melancholy mood.
She wasn’t sad, she assured herself. Nor angry, nor particularly unhappy. She was just a little blue, and that happened to everyone at times, right? She was sure this lovely salad, followed by a leisurely evening swim, would be just the pick-me-up she needed.