A Match for the Doctor Read Free Page B

voice said the words that ended the world as he knew it.
    â€œOur Nancy was swept out to sea by a tsunami, Doctor.”
    He’d stared at her in disbelief, then felt as if he’d been repeatedly stabbed in the gut with a rusted serrated knife.
    Thirteen months later, he still hadn’t healed. He knew that if he had a prayer of moving forward and providing for their girls, he needed to start somewhere fresh and lock away all the memories until such time as it wouldn’t hurt so much to be confronted by them.
    Because of her ties to Nancy, he’d almost left Edna back in San Francisco, as well. But he needed someone to look after the girls while he was away at the hospital, someone he trusted. As a cardiovascular surgeon he couldn’t lay claim to an average nine-to-five existence, and he needed someone to be there to fill in the gaps. Finding a new nanny was much too time-consuming.
    Besides, Edna needed something to keep her going, as well, a reason for waking up in the morning. Simon was well aware that in her own way, Edna had loved Nancy as much as he did, as much as a mother did. And she loved the girls, as well. To lose all three of them in thirteen months would have destroyed the woman, and God knew he didn’t want someone else on his conscience.
    Simon felt he already had more than enough guilt to deal with.
    He had to get moving, Simon upbraided himself. Itwas late. Getting out of bed in the morning was still unbelievably difficult for him. Especially when, for just a glimmer of a moment, when he first opened his eyes in the morning, he didn’t remember.
    And then he did.
    The full weight of remembering oppressed him to the point that he had trouble breathing. But it was slowly getting easier. Not easy, but just easier, and that, he knew, was all he could logically hope for.
    If he was going to be of any use to his patients and the hospital where he would be working, Simon knew he needed to get back to the business of living.
    Which was why being late for his first meeting with Dr. Edward Hale, the chief of surgery at Blair Memorial, was not a very good idea.
    When the doorbell rang with its odd, teeth-jarring chimes, it was just one more thing for him to be annoyed about.
    Now what? he wondered impatiently as he shrugged into his jacket. The obligatory necktie was stuffed into his pocket, knotted and ready to be pressed into service should he need it. As a rule, he hated ties and saw them as an unnecessary evil.
    A sneeze in the distance told him that Edna was making her way to the front door. The last couple of days, she seemed to be coming down with a bad cold despite her protests that she was fine.
    When it rained…
    â€œI’ll get it, Edna,” he called out. Edna already had more than her hands full, Simon thought, just getting Madelyn, eight, and Meghan, six, ready for school.
    But even though he’d just told her that he would openthe front door on his way out, he knew Edna was too stubborn to retreat.
    Sure enough, there she was, hurrying to the door. Dedicated right down to the soles of her excessively sensible shoes, Edna O’Malley appeared a bit older than her sixty-seven years and was, to the undiscerning eye, the epitome of the comfortable, capable British nanny of decades past. Not exactly plump, but far from thin, at five foot ten Edna cast a considerable shadow.
    â€œI’m not dead yet, Doctor,” Edna told him firmly, refusing to tolerate being coddled in any manner. She struggled to stifle the deep cough that insisted on rumbling inside her chest.
    Simon shook his head. “You will be if you don’t take it easy,” he warned her.
    Edna spared him a reproving glance. “If that’s the kind of medical advice you’re dispensing, Doctor, it’s a surprise to me there’s no wolf at our door. But wait, perhaps that’s him now,” Edna amended glibly as she opened the massive door. Lights danced in through the beveled