Dr. Forget-Me-Not

He looked at her, slightly mystified. “They know who I am?” he questioned.

Mitch didn’t see how that was possible. He didn’t move in the same circles as anyone who would find herself to be homeless.

He didn’t move in circles at all, which was another source of distress to his mother. He preferred to spend his downtime learning new techniques, studying medical journals and observing new methodologies.

“They know that you’re a doctor,” she clarified. “And some of them haven’t been to see one in a very long time,” she said tactfully.

So saying, Melanie took hold of his elbow and gently directed him toward the left.

“That way,” she said when the doctor spared her a warning look.

She couldn’t help wondering if there was some sort of a penalty exacted by him for deigning to touch the man. He didn’t look the least bit friendly or approachable.

But then, his competence was what was important here, not how wide his smile was. Smiles didn’t cure people. Medicine, competently utilized, did—and that was all that mattered.

But a smile wouldn’t have killed the man.

“We’ve taken the liberty of clearing the dining room for you,” she informed him, still doing her best to sound cheerful.

It wasn’t for his benefit, it was for April’s. The little girl had literally become her shadow, hanging on to her and matching her step for step. She was observing this doctor, looking at him as if he were some sort of rarefied deity who had come to earth to make her older brother well.

“The dining hall?” he repeated as if she’d just told him that he had a complimentary pass to a brothel.

Melanie nodded, wondering what the problem was now. There was no disguising his disdain.

“It’s the only room big enough to hold all the people who signed up,” she explained.

Not waiting for him to say anything further, Melanie opened the dining room’s double doors.

There were women and children seated at the long cafeteria-styled tables. Every seat, every space beyond that, seemed to be filled as a sea of faces all turned in his direction.

Mitch stared at the gathering, then looked at her beside him. “I was planning on staying about an hour,” he told her.

“You might want to revise your plans,” Melanie tactfully advised. “Some of these people have been sitting here, waiting since last night when they first heard that a doctor was coming. They didn’t want to risk being at the end of the line and having you leave before they got to see you.”

That was not the face of a man within whom compassion had just been stirred. For two cents, she’d tell him off—

More bees with honey than with vinegar, Melanie silently counseled herself.

Putting on her best supplicant expression, she decided to attempt to appeal to the man who seemed rooted to the threshold as he scanned the room.

“Is there any way you could possibly revamp your schedule and give up a little more time today?” Melanie asked him.

Like maybe three more hours?

She knew saying aloud what she was thinking wouldn’t go over very well, but then, what had this doctor been thinking? He had to have known this was a homeless shelter which, by definition, meant it went literally begging for help of every kind—and that obviously included medical aid.

Medical aid was not dispensed in the same manner as drive-through fast food was.

“I know that everyone here would be very grateful if you could,” Melanie said as tactfully and diplomatically as she could.

Just as she finished, another voice was added to hers.

“Please?”

The high-pitched plea came from the little girl who had been hanging on to the hem of her blouse off and on since she’d opened the front door.

April was currently aiming her 100-watt, brilliant green eyes at him.

In Melanie’s estimation, Dr. Mitchell Stewart should have been a goner.

Chapter Three (#ulink_fd1e5ec6-4426-5006-90e5-40309eb99594)

To Melanie’s disappointment—and growing concern—the doctor wasn’t a goner. He did not melt beneath the pleading look in April’s wide eyes.

But at least Dr. Stewart appeared to be wavering just the slightest bit, which was something.

Okay, so the man apparently didn’t come with a marshmallow center beneath that tough exterior, but at least his heart wasn’t made of hard rock, either, which meant that there was hope. And—except on a very personal level, where she had learned better—when it came to dealing with things at the shelter, Melanie found that she could do a lot of things and go a long way on just a smattering of hope.

Hope was like dough. It could be stretched and plumped with the right kind of preparation, not to mention the right wrist action.

She heard the doctor clear his throat. It wasn’t exactly a sympathetic sound, but it wasn’t entirely dismissive, either.

And then the next second she heard him say, “I’ll see what I can do.”

And we have lift off! Melanie thought. The man was conceding—at least a little.

She watched as Dr. Stewart looked around the dining hall, frowning at his surroundings. At first, Melanie thought he was frowning at the occupants in the room, but when he spoke, addressing his words to her, she realized that something else was bothering him.

“Don’t you have anyplace more private? I’m not practicing war zone medicine,” he informed her. “I don’t think these women would appreciate being examined while everyone looks on, as if they were some items brought in for show-and-tell.”

“Not exactly diplomatically put, but you do have a point,” Melanie agreed.

When he looked at her sharply, she realized that she’d said the first part of that sentence out loud instead of just in her head. She would have to do a better job of censoring herself around this man.

Rather than apologize, she flashed him a quick smile and said, “Stay here. I’ll see if I can get Polly to give up her office.”

“Polly,” he repeated as if he was trying to make a connection. “That would be the woman who runs this place?”

Melanie nodded. “That would be she.”

“Why wasn’t she out here to meet me?” he asked.

The question was blunt, but she was beginning to expect that from him. She wondered if his ego had been bruised by the unintentional slight.

Melanie paused for a moment, weighing her options. She could lie to him and say they’d suddenly had an emergency on their hands that required Polly’s presence, but she had a feeling that the man valued the truth above diplomacy. She also had the uneasy feeling that he could spot a lie a mile away. That cut down on her viable choices.

“Truthfully,” she told him, “I think your reputation scared her.”