Leaving Enchantment

Heat flooded her cheeks. “No, I don’t think so. I’m not what you’d call a people person.”

She saw him fight back a smile and clenched her pen tightly. Damn him for laughing at her. Did he think she cared what he thought of her?

McKinnon had taken a seat without an invitation. Now he leaned over his knees and regarded her intently. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No. I grew up in Denver.”

“How long have you been in Enchantment?”

“Almost a year.”

“But I haven’t run into you anywhere.”

“I’m not one for socializing.” Her glasses sat perfectly on her nose, but she pushed a finger against the bridge. “Um, I assume you wanted to talk about this invoice?”

The little spark in his eyes disappeared.

She carried on. “It really is more than ninety days delinquent. Our policy is to start charging interest after the third month an invoice is unpaid.”

“I see. But surely in special circumstances you’ll make an exception? You see, Steve quit his full-time job about six months ago and started his own business. He signed with a new insurance company, but since Mary was already pregnant at the time…”

Kim sat impassively. Over the months she’d worked here, she’d heard all sorts of stories. But here was the bottom line—someone had to pay. If the Davidsons didn’t have insurance, then the money would have to come from their estate. And she could not let them get off paying months and months late without an interest penalty.

Eventually Nolan clued in to the fact that she wasn’t being swayed.

“Never mind the details. All I’m asking for is a two-month extension with no interest.”

She leaned forward slightly. “I’m sorry about your sister, Mr. McKinnon, but we gave her the best care possible.”

“Yes. I didn’t mean to imply that you hadn’t. Believe me, I checked into the full circumstances of her death.”

She bet he had. He was a reporter after all. He’d have made certain his sister had received top-notch care, both here, and then, later, at the hospital. She wasn’t surprised he hadn’t found anything amiss. If it had been humanly possible to save Mary Davidson and her baby, Lydia would have done so.

“The thing is—” Nolan adjusted the invoice on her desk a few inches “—the majority of Mary and Steve’s assets are frozen until their wills pass probate. And I still haven’t been able to sort through their health insurance papers…”

Nolan let his sentence trail off. Damn, but this was embarrassing. He’d pay the bill himself, but he’d just sunk everything he’d saved for the past year into his annual principal payment to Charley.

He’d been forced to take a loan to pay for the three funerals, and how much of those costs would eventually be covered by insurance was anyone’s guess.

Now he had a niece to somehow provide for, including the expense of before-and after-school care.

He did not need Mary and Steve’s old bills to worry about, too.

“I don’t want to sound heartless, Mr. McKinnon. But since my arrival, I’ve instigated a new policy. All patients are billed in installments, with the final payment due by the thirty-sixth week of pregnancy. I understand the Davidsons’ assets are in probate. But I cannot suspend our interest charges.

“We have salaries to cover here. Overhead. When our patients are late paying their bills it costs us money. Of course, in cases of financial difficulty we make exceptions. Your sister and her husband, however, did not seem to be in that category.”

He knew what she referred to. Mary’s expensive clothing, the pricey vehicle they’d driven, the area in which they’d lived. No, Mary and Steve had not wanted for much.

“But—”

“One of my policies, Mr. McKinnon—” she removed her glasses and stowed them carefully in a leather container “—is that I make no exceptions.”

Did she know she sounded like a ninety-year-old British schoolmarm? Which, given her delicate beauty, was pretty damn incongruous. Kim Sherman looked like one tiny mouse would send her screaming. In actual fact she could probably stare down the entire Internal Revenue Service.

He would be damned, though, before he saw his niece’s estate further eroded through additional interest charges. “I’ll put the bill on my Visa, then.” He pulled his wallet from his back pocket, then slipped out the gold card. The accountant frowned.

“We only accept cash or personal check.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” He slapped his wallet against her desk.

“I’m sorry, Mr. McKinnon, but that’s our—”

“I know, I know. That’s your policy.”

Kim Sherman spoke quietly. “The reception area isn’t far away. Your niece might well be listening as you yell at me. Perhaps you could keep your voice down?”

And perhaps you could try being human for five minutes. He bit back the comment. Losing his temper here wasn’t going to solve anything. He peeled a blank check away from his last twenty. He’d cover this later, with a cash advance from his Visa. What did Ms. Sherman care that he’d be the one stuck with an outrageous interest charge as a result?

Kim took a stamp from her desk. Once he’d handed her the check, she pressed a red-inked “Paid” across the face of the invoice and passed it back to him.

He stuffed the invoice into his pocket, feeling exhaustion down to his bones. What he needed was a good nap, but no chance of that now that he had a six-year-old on his hands full-time.

He pushed out of his chair. “Well, I guess I’d better leave you to get back to your policies.” Kim Sherman sure was a piece of work. He wondered if anyone ever got the best of this woman.

As he turned to leave, Sammy opened the door and peeked inside.

“I finished my picture.”

The grim expression on Ms. Sherman’s face vanished. “Can I see?”

Nolan waited impatiently while his niece shyly presented her work to the accountant. When Kim expressed an inordinate amount of pleasure in the picture, Sammy offered it to her.

Kim tacked the stick drawings and doodles onto a small corkboard that held a list of computer codes, as well as other work-related items. Nolan figured she’d crush it into a ball and toss it into the trash once they left.

“Okay, Sam. We’d better get going.”

His niece gave him a reluctant look, then turned back to Kim. “Uncle Nolan is looking for a baby-sitter for me. Do you baby-sit?”

Oh, God! Nolan felt like whacking himself in the head. His day couldn’t get any worse. Surely he could count on the frigid Ms. Sherman to say no?

“Sometimes I do. In fact, I used to spend a lot of time with children when I was younger.”

Somehow Nolan couldn’t picture her with children. She wore no rings. And there weren’t any photos of family in her office. It appeared she had no strings at all.

But then again, two weeks ago neither had he.

“But your uncle probably has another sitter in mind.”

Sammy looked at him expectantly.

“Actually, I don’t,” he grudgingly admitted. “Sam’s grandmother, Irene, is too emotionally distraught. I’ve thought about advertising.”

“I don’t want a stranger,” Sam said, conveniently forgetting that half an hour ago Kim Sherman had been exactly that. “Please let Kim be my baby-sitter.”

So far his niece hadn’t asked him for anything. Not so much as a chocolate-chip cookie.

“Sammy, your uncle doesn’t really know me.”

“No, I don’t. But Sammy seems to like you.” Was he crazy to be considering her offer? She had a responsible job. Harming six-year-olds probably wasn’t one of her policies.

“I have various volunteer and work activities on week nights. What I need is someone to come by the house on Tuesday and Thursday after dinner. Just for a few hours.”

Kim Sherman nodded. “That sounds fine to me. Since today is Thursday, I guess I’ll see you later? I presume you want me to come to the address on your check.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Sammy clapped her hands, then willingly went to Nolan when he held out his hand. Seeing his niece’s happy face, Nolan felt some of the pressure he’d been feeling the past two weeks ease off a little.

Kim Sherman was right. She wasn’t a people person. But she seemed to be a Sammy person. He hoped that would turn out to be enough.

CHAPTER FIVE

KIM COULDN’T SHUT her office door fast enough. She leaned against the wooden barrier and closed her eyes, torn between equally strong desires. To never see Nolan McKinnon again. And to comfort his poor niece. It was so obvious the man didn’t have a clue about children.

Sammy’s plight triggered emotions Kim couldn’t afford to feel. When she’d moved to Enchantment she’d promised herself two things. She would only stay one year at most, less would be better. And she wouldn’t get involved with anyone who lived in Enchantment.

So why had she agreed to baby-sit Sammy? What could she really do to help the little girl? Sure she empathized with losing a mother, losing the only family you’d ever known. But Sammy was Nolan’s niece. It was up to him to help the little girl deal with this tragedy.

If only the guy wasn’t so hopeless with kids.

Surprising really. So many of his editorials were about helping teenagers. That drop-in center was just one example. Was it only younger children he couldn’t relate to then? Because he obviously wasn’t relating to his niece.

Kim smoothed her hair, straightened her skirt. She’d committed to the baby-sitting, so no sense fretting over the situation. Maybe she could give Nolan a few pointers on relating to Sammy. Also, she could suggest grief counseling. Celia Brice, a local psychologist who worked part-time at the center, was supposed to be amazing with children. The key was helping Sammy without getting personally involved.

Kim returned to her desk and fished out her glasses, trying not to think about her motives for removing them in the first place. She did not care what Nolan McKinnon thought of her looks.

Anxious to put the recent episode behind her, Kim pulled out the binder she’d started for the Mother and Child Reunion. She needed to verify the addresses on her guest list. Some were fifty years old. She hoped she’d be able to trace at least a few of the birth center’s original patients. Lydia would like that.

She tried to draw a line under the name next on her list, but the pen wavered so much she had to stop.

When would the shaking stop?

Some herbal tea might help, but she didn’t want to face anyone yet. Not Trish, or Parker, or Lydia. One glance at her face and they’d see something was wrong.

Work, her usual solace, would have to pull her through.

She set aside the guest list and began crunching numbers to figure out if the per plate estimate from a local bistro would be better value than the fixed price deal she’d been given from a caterer in Taos.

But all she could see was the pain emanating from Sammy Davidson’s big eyes.

Something in a child’s heart died when a parent was lost. In one moment you weren’t a child anymore, but you weren’t an adult, either. You became…

Nothing.

Kim made fists of her hands and pressed them into her eyes.

Who could love a child the way a mother did? The simple truth was—no one. Not a new foster mother, that was for sure.

And probably not an uncle, either.

WHILE MAKING NOTES on a chart in the room behind the reception counter, Lydia noticed Mary’s brother, Nolan, enter the birth center. His niece, Sammy, followed behind him.

What were they doing here?

She heard him ask Trish if he could speak to Kim Sherman.

Some sort of accounting matter, then. If Lydia had her way, they would erase any debt the Davidsons owed to The Birth Place. She’d already spoken to Kim about it, but the accountant was adamant that businesses couldn’t be run that way. Unfortunate outcomes did occur now and then: babies born with Down’s syndrome, spina bifida, other less severe genetic deformities that were no fault of the birth center.

Lydia had been forced to accept that the Davidsons’ bill had to be paid. But she still didn’t like it. She hated worrying about profit and loss and the bottom line. All she wanted, all she’d ever wanted, was to provide top-notch care to mothers and babies. And she wasn’t above bending the rules to do so, when the situation called for it. As she had for Hope Tanner’s baby.

She’d acted in the best interest of the birth center and the baby that time. And look where that had gotten her—estranged from her beloved granddaughter. Oh, how Lydia missed Devon. She was such a special woman, so caring and intelligent…and stubborn.

Fifteen minutes later, noises out in the hall regained Lydia’s attention. She peered out the glass window. Nolan McKinnon was about to leave. His body language screamed frustration, maybe even anger, but he was gentle enough with the child.

Common courtesy required that Lydia step out into the hall and ask how they were doing. She hadn’t spoken to either one since the funerals.

But she couldn’t.

Not an hour of the day went by that she didn’t think of Mary. She couldn’t help but imagine how the baby would be growing if he had survived. At two weeks he’d be gaining weight and beginning to settle into a schedule.

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