An Engagement For Two

He’d waited way too long to strong-arm his mother. He just hoped it wasn’t too late.

“Hang in there, Mom, we’re almost there.” He did his best to sound encouraging.

Clutching the armrest on her right and her son’s arm on her left, Sophia waited for the pain either to pass or totally consume her. Her breathing was growing more labored.

“Do you think your father’ll recognize me? It’s been a long time and I’m not the young woman I was when we lost him,” she said hoarsely in between panting.

“He won’t have to recognize you, because you’re not dying, Mom.”

Parking in the closest spot available, which because of the hour was right up in front of the medical building, Jeff got out and quickly hurried over to the passenger side. Opening the door, he slowly eased his mother out and to her feet.

She looked rather unstable.

“Do you want me to carry you?” he offered.

“No.” Sophia pushed his hands away. “I’m going to walk into this charlatan’s office on my own two feet,” she announced with far more bravado than she was actually feeling.

He knew it was an act, but for once he encouraged it. “That’s my girl.”

She looked at him accusingly. “If you really cared about me, you would have let me stay home and—” Her eyes widened as a sudden new onslaught of pain seized her, causing her to clutch at her abdomen. “Oh, Jeff, it hurts. It really, really hurts,” she cried, all but sagging to her knees.

Jeff was torn between putting his mother back in the car and driving over to the hospital’s emergency entrance and taking her upstairs to see the doctor who was waiting for her. The doctor who Theresa Manetti had assured him would be able to calm his mother down and find out what was wrong with her.

Jeff quickly weighed the options. He knew his mother. She’d balk at the emergency room, but he had managed to half talk her into seeing this doctor.

He went with door number two.

“What...what...are you doing?” Sophia gasped as he closed his arms around her. “I’m too heavy...for...you,” she protested.

Jeff had lifted his mother up into his arms and proceeded to carry her into the medical building. “I’ve carried bags of rice heavier than you,” he informed her, heading over to the elevator bank.

Because it was so early, there was an elevator car standing on the ground floor with its doors wide-open. It was empty.

He walked right in.

“Can you press three, Mom?” he asked, taking nothing for granted.

He could see more perspiration forming on her brow. She had to be in pain, he thought.

“This...is...a waste of...time,” Sophia told him, trying hard not to gasp between each word. With visible effort as well as a show of reluctance, she weakly raised her hand and pressed the number three.

The doors barely closed before they opened again on the third floor.

Getting out, Jeff glanced at the signs on the wall, saw the arrow, then went right. Reading the numbers, he looked for suite 310.

Arriving in front of the door, he tried to angle the door latch with his elbow to push it down. When it didn’t give, he tried again.

When the latch still didn’t move, he used his elbow to bang on the door, hoping there was someone inside who would hear him and let them in.

* * *

Mikki had arrived at her office even earlier than she normally did. She’d let herself in through the back door because Angela, her receptionist, and the two nurses who worked for her, Virginia and Molly, weren’t due in until regular hours, which officially began at nine.

Just because she was doing a favor for Maizie Sommers didn’t mean that her staff had to be inconvenienced and come in earlier than usual, as well, Mikki thought. They worked hard enough as it was.

Mikki had just slipped on her white lab coat over a simple gray pencil skirt and blue-gray blouse when she heard a loud thud against the front office door.

Actually three thuds, she amended. Someone with a very heavy hand was either knocking on the door or trying to break it down.

Since she didn’t keep a weapon in the office, she slipped her cell phone into her lab coat pocket after first pressing nine and one. All she had to do was press one more digit and the police would be on their way, she thought confidently. Bedford had next to no crime to speak of, and the well-trained police force, from what she’d heard, were eager to exercise their muscles.

Hopefully they wouldn’t have to, she thought as she carefully approached her front office door.

“Who’s there?” she called out.

“Dr. McKenna?” a deep male voice asked. “I’m Jeff Sabatino. I’ve brought my mother in to see you.”

Relieved, Mikki quickly unlocked the main door—she hadn’t had a chance to entirely open up the office yet.

She was about to say as much when she saw that the man she was speaking to was carrying an older woman in his arms.

“What happened?” Mikki asked, immediately opening the door wider and stepping aside to allow him to walk in.

“My mother started complaining of this stabbing pain on our way over here, and then when she got out of the car, her legs suddenly seemed to give way and she collapsed.”

“I didn’t collapse,” Sophia protested indignantly. “I had a twinge of weakness. But I’m all right now,” his mother declared with determination. “My son exaggerates things. I just want to go home and get into bed.” She said the latter as if she was issuing an order to her son.

“Soon, Mrs. Sabatino,” Mikki promised. “But I’d like to examine you first, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind,” Sophia retorted stubbornly.

“She’s very grateful,” Jeff corrected. His mother still in his arms, he looked around the general area. “Do you have an exam room?” he asked, then mentally upbraided himself. He hadn’t meant to ask her that, he’d meant to ask where her exam room was.

Mikki smiled. “Actually, I do. I find they come in very handy in my line of work. Right this way,” she told Jeff, leading him to the back of the office.

There were three exam rooms located in the back, one right next to the other. She opened the door to the first room and gestured for him to bring his mother into it.

“If you just have her lie down on the exam table,” Mikki instructed, “I can get started.”

Jeff did as she asked, placing his mother gently on the paper-covered examination table. Mikki couldn’t help noticing that he had a very sensitive manner about him. It seemed almost in direct contradiction to the masculinity the tall, dark-haired man exuded.

“I’ve got her insurance cards and her driver’s license,” Jeff said, reaching for his mother’s purse in order to produce the items.

But Mikki shook her head. “Don’t worry about that right now. My receptionist isn’t in yet. She handles all that. Right now, I’m more interested in why your mother had to be carried in—other than the fact that she didn’t want to come to see me. Mrs. Sommers told me that you don’t have any confidence in doctors,” Mikki said, turning to her patient.

“I don’t trust them,” Sophia all but growled, keeping her hand firmly pressed against her lower right abdomen and grimacing.

“Mom!” Jeff admonished. He knew his mother had a take-charge attitude and she had no problem with making her opinion known, but he’d never seen her acting rude before, and it surprised him. It also wasn’t any way to behave toward a woman who had gone out of her way to come in early and see her before office hours.