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“I heard.”
“Just because it was the right thing to do.”
“I heard.”
“Because she’s a kind, decent human being.”
“I heard, dammit.”
Seth leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms with much satisfaction, grinning triumphantly. “Can you imagine?”
Reed ground his teeth hard. “According to our waitress, she’s also pregnant,” he pointed out. “It was probably just some kind of maternal instinct or hormonal reaction kicking in.”
Seth chuckled. “Yeah, you wish.”
There was no way Reed was going to get out of this one, he thought. Seth had gotten lucky tonight. He’d taken a chance that they’d encounter some bleeding heart like himself, and for once in his life, the guy’s gamble had played out. Which meant no golfing vacation in Scotland. No bottle of thirty-sixyear-old, single-malt scotch. But worse than all that, now Reed was going to have to do something…nice…for somebody.
In a word, ew.
“All right, you win,” he conceded. “I’ll perform a good deed. Can I just write a check to the Salvation Army?”
Seth smiled. “Of course you can. But don’t think for a moment that doing so will settle our wager.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“You have to perform a good deed,” his friend reminded him. “A physical act of niceness and goodwill. Check writing is too impersonal. But by all means, you can include a check to some deserving organization as part of your payment for your debt.”
“Fine.”
“But you know who could probably really use a helping hand right about now?” Seth added.
Reed narrowed his eyes. He could tell by the other man’s tone of voice that he wasn’t going to like the suggestion that would inevitably follow.
“Mindy, that’s who.”
Yep, Reed had known he wasn’t going to like his friend’s suggestion at all.
“I mean, think about it,” Seth continued. “She’s pregnant, she’s about to be evicted. And just three weeks before Christmas, too. Evicted, do you believe that? What kind of scumbag landlord does such a thing?”
Reed frowned at him. “Uh, yeah, I do believe that, Seth. I’m the one who expects the worst from everybody, remember?”
Seth gave that some thought. “Oh, yeah. Well, there you have it. Sometimes you’re right. Not usually,” he quickly interjected when Reed opened his mouth to pounce on the concession. “But sometimes. Anyway, getting back to Mindy.”
“I’d rather not.”
“I think she’d be a likely recipient for your goodwill,” Seth went on, ignoring, as always, Reed’s objection.
“Fine. Then I’ll write her a check.”
Seth shook his head. Vehemently. “No, no, no, no, no. You’re missing the whole point. You have to do something nice for her. A good deed.”
“Hey, writing a check is doing something. It involves a physical activity.”
Seth made a face at him. “You know what I mean.” Then, before Reed could utter another word, his friend lifted a hand and called out, “Oh, Mindy! Excuse me, Mindy?”
Reed squeezed his eyes shut tight. He could not believe what was happening. He felt as if he was in seventh grade again and his best buddy, Bobby Weatherly, was about to reveal the crush Reed had had on Susan Middleton. Man, that had been humiliating. To this day, Reed simply could not speak to any woman named Susan without feeling embarrassed. Now it looked as if he was going to have the same problem with all future Mindys.
The little blond waitress appeared to be understandably confused as she approached their table but she didn’t seem at all anxious. As she drew nearer, though, Reed saw that she looked even more fragile and exhausted than she had from a distance. Her eyes were smudged by faint purple crescents, her cheeks were overly pink, as if she’d exerted herself far too much this evening. Her face had a thin, pinched look to it, as if her pregnancy so far had left her drained.
As a doctor, even if he was a cardiologist instead of an obstetrician, he knew pregnancy hit different women different ways. Some women continued on with their lives as if there were nothing out of the ordinary going on with their bodies. Some women had more energy than ever. And some, like Mindy, were left looking almost ghostlike, thanks to the extra work their bodies were forced to perform in order to generate life.
She wrapped her sweater more tightly around herself as she paused by their table. Her gaze lit first on Seth, and then on Reed, then quickly ricocheted back to Seth, as if she’d been troubled by something in Reed’s expression.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Her voice, too, was thin and fragile, soft, but warm. She looked to be in her midtwenties, Reed thought, even if she did carry herself like an old woman. The other waitress’s words came back to him, almost as if he hadn’t heard them clearly the first time. She said Mindy’s husband had “gotten himself killed,” thereby leaving this young woman a widow. She’d suffered a very significant*md;and very recent, seeing as how her pregnancy was barely showing—tragedy, and now she was about to suffer another in being evicted from her home.
Why did life do that to some people? he wondered. Why did it just keep hitting them and hitting them and hitting them, then kicking them again for good measure when. they were down? Why were some people singled out from others to receive the lion’s share of misfortune? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. People like this pale, fragile woman surely deserved better than that.
“My friend and I couldn’t help but overhear that rousing rendition of ‘Happy Birthday,”‘ Seth said, scattering Reed’s thoughts. “Nor could we help but notice that you seemed to be leading the choir.”
Mindy smiled. “Yeah, it was great, wasn’t it? Well, not the singing necessarily,” she quickly qualified with an even brighter smile. “I know I have a long way to go before I could be a Supreme. I meant it’s great that Mr. McCoy has reached his eightieth birthday. Eighty! Isn’t that amazing?” she asked, her voice growing more animated. “I mean, think about it. He’s lived through the Roaring Twenties, the Depression, World War II, the Race for Space, the Cold War, Vietnam.”
“And he survived leisure suits and the disco era, too,” Seth added. “No mean feat, that.”
Mindy nodded. “Exactly. The world has changed so much in his lifetime. And he can remember all of it. It’s incredible.”
Reed looked over at Seth and found his friend hanging on Mindy’s every word, as if she were revealing the secrets of the universe to him. “Incredible,” he echoed in a voice that Reed had heard before, the one Seth used when he was fast falling for a woman he shouldn’t be falling for, fast or otherwise.
Of course, Seth fell fast for a new woman nearly every hour, which meant that Reed should put a stop to his descent right now. That way he could spare the innocent Mindy the ugly aftermath of his friend’s wandering ways.
“Miss, uh…” Reed began.
The waitress turned to him, but where she’d had a sunny smile in place for Seth, her features quickly schooled into a polite, if bland, expression for him. “Mindy is fine,” she told him.
Yes, Mindy is indeed fine, Reed thought before he could stop himself.
That thought was immediately followed by another, one that essentially went, Holy cow! Where did that come from? Immediately, he pushed both thoughts away. She was pregnant, for God’s sake, he reminded himself. No way did she deserve to be ogled like a.like a.like a beautiful woman, he finished lamely. Even if that was precisely what she was. She was a beautiful woman. One who was waif thin and delicate looking.
She was in no way the kind of woman he normally ogled, anyway, pregnant or otherwise. He preferred women his own age, professional women in his own income bracket, women who’d shared some of the same life experiences he’d had himself. Strong women. Women who didn’t look so damned exhausted and.well, fragile.
“Mindy,” he said. “You’ll have to excuse my friend here. He’s easily impressed.”
She nodded, but somehow he knew she had no idea what he was talking about. “Well, enjoy your dinner,” she said hastily, turning away.
“Wait,” Seth exclaimed, halting her progress, “don’t go.”
She spun around again, but this time her expression was unmistakably wary. “Was there something else? I’ll be happy to go get Donna for you.”
“No, no,” Seth told her. “It’s what we can do for you. Or rather, what my friend and colleague can do for you. Because, Mindy, sweetheart, Dr. Atchison here is about to make you an offer you can’t refuse.” Seth turned his attention pointedly on Reed and asked, “Aren’t you, old buddy, old pal?”
Mindy eyed first the blond man in the booth before her, and then the black-haired one…and felt the hairs on the back of her neck leap to attention. The two men were like color negatives of each other: one handsome, fair and blue-eyed, the other handsome, dark and brown-eyed. Their dispositions, too, seemed to be utterly opposite each other. Where the blonde put Mindy immediately at ease and seemed pleasant enough, the dark-haired man sent every sense on alert and made her entire body hum with electricity.
Not that he seemed scary by any stretch of the imagination. Not in a dangerous way, at any rate. He did, however, inspire a kind of caution, the kind a woman felt when faced with a man who had the potential to break her heart. Strange, that, she thought, seeing as how she’d only known him for about thirty seconds now.
Although both men were certainly attractive, the blonde was a bit too boyish in his looks, a bit too adorable in his presentation, for Mindy to find him anything other than kind of cute. The dark-haired man, however.
Well, she’d always been partial to black hair. And brown eyes. And craggy, blunt good looks. Which made her choice of husband odd, now that she thought more about it, because Sam Harmon had been a sandy-haired, blue-eyed, surfer-dude wannabe. Therefore, this man was nothing at all like Sam. And therefore, she told herself, she shouldn’t feel intimidated by him the way she had felt around Sam there toward the end.
And really, intimidated was the last thing she felt at the moment. As standoffish as the dark-haired man’s demeanor seemed to be, Mindy immediately sensed something within him—way deep down within him—that was almost…personable? Warm? Good-hearted? Kind? Oh, no, surely not, she corrected herself. Not with a frown like that. Not with a glare like that.
Still…
“He really is going to make you an offer you can’t refuse,” the blond man said, shaking off the odd sensation winding its way through Mindy’s soul. “Just watch. Reed?” he said further. “Tell our studio audience what Mindy here has won.”
She eyed the dark-haired man—the one called Reed—in confusion, then turned back to the blonde. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But you guys seem to have me at a loss. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She waited for the blond man to offer an explanation—or even the dark man, for that matter. She wasn’t particular, so long as she received some kind of explanation—and when none was forthcoming, she arched her eyebrows in silent query.
Finally taking the hint, the blond man dipped his head toward his companion. “My friend here,” he said, “is Dr. Reed Atchison, resident heart surgeon over at Seton General Hospital. I,” he added hastily, seeming genuinely surprised to realize that he had neglected to introduce himself as well, “am Dr. Seth Mahoney. And Reed and I have been having an interesting difference of opinion lately. You, my dear Miss…uh, Mindy.have just solved the dilemma for us.”
Mindy eyed him warily. “Um, thanks. I guess.”
“No, no, thank you,” he immediately—and very enthusiastically—replied. “This has been a most enlightening meal, and we haven’t even received our food yet.”
“We haven’t received our coffee yet, either,” the dark-haired man—Reed…Dr. Atchison—mumbled.
“Oh, I’ll go get Donna and remind her,” Mindy offered quickly, snatching the opportunity to excuse herself from what was promising to become a puzzling—if not outright bizarre—situation.
“Not yet,” the blonde—Seth…Dr. Mahoney…whoever—halted her.
She sighed fitfully. “I’m really sorry,” she said again, “but I don’t know what you guys are talking about, and I have a lot of work to do right now, so if you’ll just excuse me…”
The blond M.D. nodded. “I understand,” he said. Gosh, that made one of them, Mindy thought dryly. Before she could comment, however, he added, “We can continue our conversation after your shift has ended.”
Mindy shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think that would be—”
“It’s no problem,” the man assured her. Then he turned to his friend. “Right, Reed?”
Dr. Atchison grumbled something under his breath that she was fairly certain wasn’t an agreement.
“What was that?” Dr. Mahoney asked.
“I said, ‘Fine,’“ the other man snapped.
Funny, Mindy thought, but it sure hadn’t sounded as if he’d said, Fine.
“Um, really,” she continued hastily, “I don’t think I—”
“Of course you do,” Dr. Mahoney assured her.
Mindy decided not to dwell on that. “I’m probably going to be working late,” she said instead, “and you doubtless have other things to—”
“Not a thing in the world,” the blond doctor assured her. “In fact, we’ve been looking forward to a nice, leisurely meal, haven’t we, Reed?”
“Mmm.”
Dr. Mahoney smiled at Mindy winningly. “And there you have it.”
She opened her mouth to say something else that might excuse her from any further association with these two enigmatic—albeit very attractive and not a little intriguing—men, but Donna returned with their coffee, elbowing Mindy gently out of the way.
“You go sit,” the other waitress said. “Get off your feet for a little while. I’ll keep an eye on your tables. The dinner rush is about over, anyway. And you gotta take care of that little bun in your oven.”
Mindy felt herself color at the other waitress’s comment. She wrapped her sweater even more tightly around herself, crossing her arms over her lower abdomen as if she might protect the life growing there, even though there was really no threat to that life at all—not at the moment, anyway.
Because she was so small, and because this was her first time being pregnant, she still wasn’t showing that much, even though she was five months along. She had hoped the average observer wouldn’t notice her condition yet but she supposed she was kidding herself in that. Not that she hadn’t told her co-workers at Evie’s about it—hey, they deserved to know she’d be incapacitated for a few weeks come April, after all. But she didn’t want anyone else, especially total strangers, to know the particulars of her private life.
“Donna,” she muttered. “You don’t have to broadcast my…condition…to the whole world, you know.”
But Donna only shrugged as she dumped a handful of creamers onto the table. “It’s okay, Min,” she said. “These guys know all about it.”
Mindy closed her eyes and felt her cheeks flame brighter. “Donna…” she said again. Because these two men probably hadn’t noticed her condition before now. The reason they knew about her pregnancy was more than likely because someone—someone like, oh, say Donna—had told them about it. And seeing as how once you got Donna started, it was really hard to turn her off, Mindy could only imagine what else the other waitress had let slip.
“Oh, come on,” Donna said. “It’s no big deal, being knocked up and homeless. It happens to a lot of women.”
Mindy raised a hand to cup it over her eyes and closed them tight. “I was not knocked up,” she said. “Sam and I made a conscious decision to have a baby. Can I help it if he…” She sighed heavily, dropped her hand back to her side and strove for a bright smile that she was certain fell short. “Never mind. Just…try not to spread around the particulars, okay? Please?”
Donna shrugged again. “Sure thing, Min.” Then she turned to the two men seated at the booth. “Forget I said anything about Mindy’s…you know…situation, okay, gents? And please do point out to her that I never told you about what a big drunk her husband was, did I? Or how he slept around on her the whole time they were married? Or how, in my opinion, she’s better off without him anyway?”
“It’s true,” Dr. Mahoney agreed. “She never did tell us about that.”
Donna nodded, smugly, Mindy thought. “See? That was private, so I kept that part to myself.” She turned back to her two customers. “Your sandwiches should only take a few more minutes.”
And with that, Donna spun around and headed back toward the kitchen, leaving Mindy to fend for herself.
“Oooh…” she said, lifting her hand to her forehead again. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Here, sit down.”
She felt two strong hands cup her shoulders and softly urge her forward and was surprised, upon opening her eyes, to see that it was the dark-haired doctor who was doing the gentle cajoling. It seemed like a gesture that would have been more appropriate coming from the man who’d identified himself as Dr. Mahoney. Or perhaps not, she thought further as she let Dr. Atchison sit her down at his place in the booth. He remained standing, hooking his hands on his hips, but he glowered at his friend.
“Now look what you’ve done,” he said.
“What I’ve done?” the other doctor exclaimed. “I didn’t do anything. What are you talking about?”
“You’ve embarrassed her,” Dr. Atchison said. “How could you embarrass her like that?”
Dr. Mahoney gaped at him. “I didn’t do that. Donna did that.”
“But you’re the one who started this whole thing, so you’re responsible.”
“Yeah, but—”
“You should be ashamed of yourself. Taking advantage of a pregnant woman. Just where do you get off?”
“Reed, what the hell has gotten into you? I never—”
“She obviously wants to be left alone, so we ought to just leave her alone.”
“But, Reed, she’s—”
“A nice girl. You said so yourself. So we should both definitely—”
“Excuse me!”
Mindy had to raise her voice when she interrupted, so animated—and loud—had the two men become in their argument. An argument that she seemed to be at the heart of, an argument she didn’t for one moment understand, an argument that everyone in Evie’s Diner seemed really, really interested in hearing. Thankfully, though, both men ceased at her outburst. Unfortunately, they both turned to stare at her in openmouthed surprise, as if she’d just jumped up onto the table to dance the. cha-cha with a rose stuck between her teeth.
She pushed her way out of the booth and stood next to Dr. Atchison, trying not to feel overwhelmed by the fact that he towered over her by at least a foot, and probably weighed twice as much as she did. “If you’ll both excuse me,” she said, “I have work to do.”
“We’ll talk later,” Dr. Mahoney told her as she turned to go.
“No, we won’t,” she assured him.
But without missing a beat, he assured her right back, “Oh, yes, Miss…Mindy…we will.”
Three
“Okay, let me get this straight,” Mindy said an hour later as she enjoyed dessert with the two doctors who had suddenly become the center of her universe. She still couldn’t quite figure out how she’d been talked into joining them for dessert and coffee—or in her case, dessert and warm milk—after they’d finished their dinner and she’d concluded her shift. Seth—and when had she gotten past referring to them as “Dr.”?—had just been so convincing. So charming. So sweet. She hadn’t been able to resist him.
Actually, she thought, that wasn’t quite true. The one she hadn’t been able to resist was Reed. Because in keeping with their utter opposite-ness, as charming and sweet as Seth had been, Reed had seemed—and still did seem—so quiet and withdrawn. Not in a negative way, just…in a thoughtful way. In a resigned way. As if he were contemplating some matter of great importance. Seth, on the other hand, seemed to find the matter—whatever it was—kind of amusing. But it was Reed’s utter concern for something that had drawn Mindy into whatever mystery the two men had created.
But now that mystery was solved, and in solving it, Mindy’s confusion was only compounded. So she reiterated what they’d told her in an effort to make some sense of it.
“So, you two made a bet at work earlier that you’d see someone perform a gesture of goodwill this evening,” she went on. “Is that right?”
“That’s right,” Seth confirmed.
“You,” she went on, pointing an index finger at him, “thought that the two of you would witness a person performing a gesture of goodwill toward another person. Am I following right?”
“You’re following right,” Seth agreed.
“And you,” she said, pointing now at Reed, “thought there was no way you two would see something like that.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Reed grumbled.
Mindy shook her head at him. “Boy, you sure do have a low opinion of the human race.”
He gazed down into his coffee cup. “So I’ve been told. On a number of occasions.”
He was glowering again, she noted, but somehow the action seemed insincere. She fought back a smile. She’d never seen someone try so hard to be a malcontent, when it was obvious that malcontentedness was the last thing present inside him. Still, there was no point in puzzling over that quandary, she thought. Not when she had a perfectly good other quandary commanding her attention at the moment.
“So then you guys saw me buy dinner for Mr. McCoy,” she said, “and that was the gesture of goodwill that sealed the wager.”
“You got it,” Seth told her.
“So Reed lost and now he has to pay up by performing a good deed himself.”
“Yepper,” Seth said enthusiastically.
Mindy switched her attention from one man to the other and back again. “I don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what?” Seth asked. “You just described the situation perfectly.”
“But where do I fit in? I mean, aside from having done something nice for someone else, thereby making you the winner of the bet.” She shrugged, then repeated, “Where do I fit in?”
“Well, the least we could do is make sure you’re rewarded for your good deed,” Seth told her.
“Oh, that’s not necessary,” she assured him. “I mean, I didn’t do it for a reward.”
“I know!” Seth exclaimed. “That’s what’s so great about all this.”
“But—”
“You did it because you’re such a genuinely good person, and because you felt like it was the right thing to do. And for that, you deserve a reward.”
“But—”
“And Reed here is going to reward you.”
“But—”
“Just wait till you hear what he’s going to do for you,” Seth interjected—again—before she had a chance to object—again. “He and I discussed it all through dinner, and you’re gonna love this idea. I promise you.”
He turned to his companion, who was seated next to Mindy—and no matter how hard she tried to scrunch herself up into the corner of the booth, Reed was still way too close to her—then smiled that game-show-emcee smile again.
And in that voice reminiscent of Bob Barker, he added, “Reed? What’s Mindy earned for her good deed?”
Reed sighed heavily, appearing none too happy about the good deed that he was obligated, out of a gambling loss, to perform. When he turned to look at Mindy, his expression punctuated his distaste for the whole thing—she didn’t think she’d ever seen a man look more grim. Or, rather, he would have looked grim. If it hadn’t been for that telltale glimmer of warmth, and something else akin to hopefulness, that she saw shimmering in his dark eyes.
What an extremely interesting combination of contradictions the man was, she thought. Mindy found herself wishing that she had a chance to investigate him further, wishing that there was some way she might get to know him better. She wished she could find out why he tried so hard to hide what kind of person he really was, why he adopted such a gruff exterior to mask what was obviously a soft center. She wished—