Mom Over Miami - By Annie Jones Page 0,33
could I have been such a fool?”
“Fool? You?” Him? Not her? The very suggestion set her pulse skipping. “Payt, what are you talking about?”
“Politics.”
“Local or federal?”
“Office.”
“Oh.” She winced. She’d worked a lot of years in offices to pay the rent and put food on the table while Payt pursued his studies. “Office politics—the trickiest kind of all.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” He crooked his finger. “Walk with me.”
She put her hand on his back and kept pace with him step for step.
“Raymond’s office.” He moved swiftly past the closed door with the brass plaque proclaiming Dr. Briggs.
She wished she could have poked her head inside and learned a little more about this man who had her husband hopping whenever he said, “Jump.” But Payt had moved on already.
“Dottie.” He pointed into an office that made his look like a broom closet. “Office manager and bookkeeper. Been with Dr. Briggs through three pediatric partners, two wives and at least one total office meltdown.”
“Oooh.” Hannah peered in, noting the photos of grown children and presumably grandchildren gracing the bookcase. Then her eyes fell on a painting that as an old Kentucky girl she recognized as a prized thoroughbred. She smiled. “What do you call her? The warhorse?”
“She’s earned the title.” Payt laughed and strode on, swinging his arm out to point into the next room. “Kaye. Nurse Practitioner. If Dottie is our warhorse, then Kaye is the big dog.”
Hannah sized up the cheery room lined with painted children’s chairs, an overstuffed sofa and a zillion stuffed animals filling every nook and cranny. “Just guessing, but looks like the big dog’s bark might be worse than her bite.”
“Guess again.” He raised his eyebrows, then snaked his arm around Hannah’s shoulders to motivate her to get moving again.
“What’s this?”
“Break room.” He pointed with the papers in his hand. “Also serves as Meg’s quasi-office on the days she’s here.”
“Meg?”
“Part-timer. Nurse. Comes in for shot clinics and…whatever.”
“Whatever? Okay. So if Dottie’s the warhorse and Kaye’s the big dog, what’s Meg?”
“Cash cow.”
“Payt!”
“She knows that’s her function here. And she’s too young and too cute to be offended by it.” He shrugged. “Her husband runs a clearinghouse of services for children in need—he sends us a ton of referrals.”
“Okay, so far I can see why you’re not ordering anyone here to empty trash. But what about the receptionist?”
“Heather?” He twisted his head to stare in the direction of the closed-off area in the waiting room and sighed. “The scapegoat.”
“What are you running here, a pediatric office or a petting zoo?”
“Sometimes I wonder myself.” He laughed a careworn laugh and shook his head. “It all boils down to Dr. Briggs decreeing that no one but Heather should have to clean up.”
“Let me take it from there.” She held her hand up. “When Heather does clean up, the other women blame her for everything they can’t find, or find in the wrong place or just plain don’t like around the office.”
“The scapegoat.” He nodded. “How’d you know?”
“Did you forget that I worked in doctors’ offices for years?”
“I didn’t forget. That’s why I called you to pitch in and take the heat off Heather. It’s hard enough trying to establish myself in a practice that has spit out two other doctors in the past five years. So I decided to play peacemaker.”
Peacemaker at the office. But what about in the home? He’d taken into account every woman’s reactions to the job at hand except Hannah’s.
If he’d only asked her opinion on all this. If he’d only asked her anything instead of just telling her to meet him and getting her hopes up.
“You didn’t mention a word of this when you called me today.”
“Didn’t I?” He scratched his jaw with the back of his hand, the stubble making a quiet scraping sound in the still hallway. “Hmm. Sorry about that.”
“You didn’t even tell me that you wanted me to come in to do housekeeping chores.”
“Well, again, sorry.” He leaned over and kissed her temple.
He lingered there a moment, probably dead tired on his feet.
She closed her eyes and savored his closeness just the same. She loved this man. She loved the way he stood just enough taller than her to make her feel secure but not overpowered. That at the end of the day he smelled of antibacterial soap and lollipops. That he felt warm and soft and rugged and strong all at once, and that she could feel all those things standing here next to him.
For all the things