A Daddy for Her Daughter (5 page)

She shook her head. “No. But I will be. I have to be.”

“Do you want me to drive you home?”

“No. I have my car.”

His glance brushed over her face. “You're sure?”

“I am. Thank you again.” She hesitated. “If you hadn't locked that door when you had...”

She could be dead. Matthew hadn't come to the hospital just to talk to her. Not with a gun. If Kaleb hadn't secured the door, he could have charged right into the room and shot her. And then what would have happened to Chloe?

“It worked out.” He followed her into her office and glanced at the items that had fallen onto the floor when he'd sailed across her desk to get to her. “I'm sorry about your phone and laptop.” The screen had detached from the keyboard and was lying next to the wall. He picked up the pieces and put them on the desk, along with her ruined cell phone.

“It's nothing.” And really it wasn't, compared to everything that could have happened.

Then she picked up the framed picture of Chloe. Just a little while ago she'd been trying to hide it from Kaleb for reasons that weren't entirely clear to her. Even when she was on the phone with Roxy, she hadn't mentioned Chloe's name. Why? Was she trying to protect her daughter? Or herself in the face of a handsome man?

Kaleb nodded at the frame, a frown between his brows. “Your sister?”

Sister? Oh, Patricia.

It would be so easy to say yes, that it was a picture of her late sister as a child. But she wouldn't. Because none of it mattered anymore.

“No. It's not my sister. It's Chloe.” There was a long pause. “My daughter.”

CHAPTER THREE

M
ADDY
HAD
A
DAUGHTER
?

Four days later, on his way to see a patient, Kaleb was still dumbfounded. He'd wondered what kinds of other things she had hidden beneath that cool exterior. Well, now he knew. She had a child.

It should make it even easier to keep his distance, but it didn't. It made it harder. Especially when the news media kept replaying the story over and over. The hospital had hired additional security guards and were installing more cameras at the entrances.

He had an ex who had done some pretty terrible things, but he certainly couldn't picture Janice coming to the hospital in hopes of killing him.

And Maddy had been terrified for her child. He remembered her trying to get to her phone when he'd pinned her under the desk. How she'd been desperate to make a call. She'd been frantic that she might have lost her daughter that day.

Kaleb knew the exact moment he'd lost his daughter. It hadn't been to a crazed gunman, but it had been to a killer nonetheless. No, he'd lost his sweet little girl to an aggressive cancer, the disease yanking the life from her body almost before he'd got to know her.

Only Kaleb had no pictures of her scattered around his apartment. They were all hidden deep in a closet. He couldn't bear to look at them. And maybe that was the reason Janice hadn't been able to look at him. But she'd sure been able to look at someone else.

Forget about it.
Dwelling on things he couldn't change did no one any good.

He strode into the hotel and stopped at the desk. “Which room?”

“One thirty. Marian Jennings. She thinks she's having a reaction to some pain meds she received after surgery.”

One of the things that places like the Seattle Consortium were good at was keeping their guests' private lives private. That included helping sequester them after surgeries and procedures. Patients were now going to fancy hotels that had spa-like atmospheres to recover. With room service and someone at their beck and call twenty-four hours a day, it was the perfect setup. Especially with concierge medicine to help ease the way.

Kaleb went up in the elevator, doing his best to forget what had happened at the hospital, but it wasn't easy. Maddy's face kept coming to mind, the terror he'd seen in it. Then there was the crazed look of her ex-husband as he'd stared at them through that window. The man had wanted to kill her. It had been there in his eyes. If Kaleb hadn't been there, would Maddy still be alive?

Something else he needed to stop dwelling on.

Kaleb found the room and knocked on the door.

“Yes?”

“Dr. McBride here to see Marian Jennings.”

A man opened the door. Tall and thin with a nervous twitch beneath one eye, he ushered Kaleb into the room. “It's my wife. She's breaking out in hives. We think it might be from one of her medications.”

Propped up in a huge bed, the petite woman had a bandage wrapped over her head and under her chin. Both of her eyes were black and swollen.

Plastic surgery. He'd seen it many times here. Some of them were done at West Seattle and some at other hospitals, but it didn't matter. He moved toward her, shifting his bag from one hand to the other in order to shake hers. “I'm Kaleb McBride, Ms. Jennings. Nice to meet you.”

The woman nodded. “I'm sorry to call you but...” She held out one of her arms, and, sure enough, a rash had spread across the surface. “My husband was worried.”

“Is this everywhere?”

“Yes, it's also on my stomach and my legs.”

Kaleb frowned. “Any trouble swallowing?”

“No. None.”

He took down the name of her surgeon and checked the medication the woman was on. The amoxicillin caught his attention. A common antibiotic, it could sometimes cause a rash. “Have you ever had an allergic reaction to any kind of penicillin?”

“Not that I know of.”

Taking her arm, he examined the spots. “Any itchiness at all? Tingling anywhere?”

“No.”

He nodded. “I don't think it's anything serious. Sometimes antibiotics, especially amoxicillin, can cause a harmless rash.”

Her husband came over and placed a hand on his wife's shoulder. “So it's nothing to worry about?”

“Not at this point. We normally see itching or tingling in a true allergic reaction. I'll contact Dr. Porter's office just in case and let him know what's going on. I'll have him call you if he wants to make a change in your medication. If you see anything else, though, please don't hesitate to call me or the hospital.”

The hotel's location made it convenient to do just that. It was another of the reasons they'd chosen to have the fund-raiser at the hotel. Where he'd come across Maddy in the middle of her asthma attack.

Who would have guessed that days later she'd be the target of a crazed ex-husband?

Shake it off, Kaleb.

He made the call to Dr. Porter's office while he was in the room with his patient and marked down his own findings on his tablet, including the room number for billing purposes. Then he excused himself after handing them his business card and reminding them to call him if they had any other problems.

He checked with the front desk to make sure there were no other calls right now and headed back across the street to the hospital. A police car out front made his muscles tense for a second, but the officer inside the vehicle didn't seem worried. It was another of the precautions the city had taken—upping the police presence in the area.

As he made his way inside, a little girl with a doll clutched under her arm rushed past him, followed by a slender woman with long blond hair. “Chloe, slow down. You need to wait for me.”

Chloe?

He looked a little harder, and, sure enough, the girl had red hair and pink cheeks as she turned and grinned at the woman following her. High heels made it hard for the blonde to keep up with the child, but it didn't look as if the girl was being deliberately naughty. She was just on a mission.

“Please hurry, Aunt Roxy. I want to show her to Mommy.”

Kaleb lengthened his stride, pulling alongside the pair. “I'm sorry, but are you looking for Dr. Grimes? Madeleine Grimes?”

The woman caught up with the little girl and pulled her to a halt, using an arm around her shoulders to keep her close. She then turned and looked at Kaleb. Maybe
looked
wasn't the right word. Glared was more like it. “And who are you?”

She was worried. Not angry. And Kaleb could certainly understand why after what had happened. “I work here. I'm Kaleb McBride.”

She looked closer. “You're the man who helped Maddy, during...” She glanced down at her charge and then took two steps forward until she and Chloe were directly in front of him. “She told me what you did. I owe you. Big-time. It's like you were meant to be there.”

“Well, I don't know about that.”

“Oh. I do.” She looked at him with new eyes. “Would you mind taking me to Maddy's office? This hospital is so huge, I always end up getting lost, and we're supposed to have lunch together.” She gave him a meaningful look. “She's been worried. Ever since. And she feels guilty, even though she tries to hide it.”

Kaleb didn't like the idea of Maddy living in fear and guilt. But he knew from experience that trauma could last long after the event was over. Maybe she should talk to the counselor the hospital had hired.

“I'll be happy to.”

The little girl, who'd been silent up to this point, evidently decided he wasn't a threat. “Hi. I'm Chloe.” She held up a naked doll that was half her size. “And this is Patsy.”

Roxy rolled her eyes. “I tried to talk her into putting clothes on her, but—”

“Mommy has to choose her lunch outfit.”

The woman lifted a large shopping bag emblazoned with the name of a doll company and gave an amused smile. “Yes, and we have Patsy's entire wardrobe with us, right down to six pairs of shoes. And a cat costume.”

Kaleb smiled. “Maddy told me you were a costume designer.”

“She did, did she?” Roxy glanced at him again, brows up.

“I saw her at the convention.”

Those arched brows went even higher. “
You
were at the masquerade party?”

“Not exactly.” Evidently Maddy hadn't told her sister what had happened with the costume. “I was there for the hospital fund-raiser on the fifteenth floor.”

“So how did you see her at the convention? She wasn't out of costume, was she? That's a big no-no.”

“We...left together.”

There. That was the best he could do without spilling the beans.

“Oooooh!” Roxy expanded that single syllable until he thought she was going to pass out from lack of oxygen.

Chloe tipped her doll, cradling it in her arms like a baby. “I can't wait to see Mommy. Is her office far?”

Kaleb's attention came back to the little girl with a bump as he tried not to think about how much he missed these kinds of conversations, back when life was normal and good. He'd better just take the pair to Maddy's office, so he could be on his way. “No, not too far. If you'll follow me, I'll show you where she is.”

The whole way up the elevator, Chloe kept up a running commentary on what she wanted to have for lunch. Probably three or four years old, with huge shining eyes and a quick smile, she was certainly a charmer. And a talker. His own Grace had been quiet and reserved. But she'd been the love of his life.

He clenched his jaw and tried not to do what he did every day. Attempt to draw up the memory of his daughter's face only to have his brain glitch and fumble the pieces until they were impossible to fit together. Which was probably why he should have a few snapshots on his mantel at home. But it just hurt too much to see her healthy and alive, when at the end she'd been so very ill.

It was also hard to listen to another little girl having the conversations that Grace should have been able to have. If she'd lived past the age of two.

They arrived on Maddy's floor, and he started down the hallway, only to feel a small hand grab his. The tension in his body ramped up to an all-time high. He glanced over at Maddy's sister to find Roxy fixing him with a speculative gleam that was even more pointed. And ridiculous. He and Maddy were not hooking up.

Although he had to admit the thought had crossed his mind more than once the first time he'd seen her emerge from the head of that costume. But she'd just lived through a horrifying experience. The last thing she wanted or needed was a superficial one-night stand.

And she had a young daughter. Another big strike against the idea. Not just because it wasn't easy to find alone time with a child in tow, but because Kaleb's insides were twisted in knots from just this short encounter with Chloe.

If he were smart, he would just point the pair in the direction of Maddy's office and send them on their way, but that would mean he would have to shake off the little girl's grip, and he didn't want to do that. But once she let go of him to hug her mother, he could simply withdraw and leave them to it.

Before he could knock on the door, though, it opened, and a woman stepped into the hallway, followed by Maddy. She stopped whatever she'd been saying midsentence to look at him.

“Hi, Mommy!”

Chloe's excited greeting caused her glance to slide down Kaleb's arm until it collided with her daughter. Then her eyes jumped back to his before returning to her patient. Confusion changed to a darker emotion.

She placed a protective hand on the little girl's head, her voice calm and collected as she finished giving her instructions to the woman, but there'd been a moment of horror in her gaze when she'd realized he was holding Chloe's hand. Because of what had happened with Matthew almost a week ago?

Kaleb opened his hand to try to release the girl's, but the little girl's fingers stubbornly squeezed tighter. Roxy was practically crowing with delight on the other side of him, despite her sister's obvious discomfort. He ignored her.

After walking a few more steps with her patient, Maddy reminded the woman to call if she had any questions or concerns. And then all her attention swiveled back to them. She squatted on her haunches and held out her arms. Right on cue, Chloe thrust the still-naked doll into Kaleb's hands and leaped into her mother's embrace. “You have to help me dress Patsy. I couldn't find anything for her to wear.”

His lips curved despite himself.

“Really?” Maddy murmured, her expression clearing. “What about that shopping trip you and Aunt Roxy went on? Surely you found something for her.”

“Yes. But I want her to be pretty when I fly my kite.”

“Kite?”

Roxy shifted. “I may have mentioned the kite festival the hospital puts on every year. Surely you heard about it.”

“Yes, but after what happened I didn't expect to...”

Maddy's sister frowned. “Of course we're going. All of us. It's a family event. And God knows you need something to take your mind off things. I go every year, and since you live here now—and since you work at the hospital that hosts it—we have to take part in it. It'll be great.”

“Who did you go with before?”

“That's something I'd rather not talk about.” Roxy set the bag of doll clothes on the ground, then bent down and scooped Chloe up with a comical roar, sending the girl into hysterical giggles.

Kaleb wanted to hand over the doll and get the hell out of there before things got deeper than they already were. But it looked as if there was no escape. Especially when Maddy stood up, putting her directly in front of him. She didn't quite meet his eyes, though. The same curl that had escaped the headband she'd had when wearing that costume spiraled down the side of her face. His finger itched to touch it again. He curled the digits into his palm instead. This woman had almost as much baggage as he did.