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smile and then told her, “Please take a seat in the waiting room. Someone will be with you very shortly.”

      The “someone” turned out to be the physician’s assistant who was currently juggling patients for both Dr. Dolan and Dr. Barrett.

      Young and undoubtedly vibrant, Rachel Mathews fairly burst through the double doors that led to the back offices.

      After a brief word with the receptionist, the beleaguered physician’s assistant made eye contact with her and immediately broke out in a huge relieved smile. Rather than standing and waiting by the door to the back rooms, Rachel swiftly came up to her and put her hand out as she asked hopefully, “You’re the one here about the opening for a physician’s assistant?”

      “Yes, that’s—”

      Rachel wouldn’t even let her finish her sentence. Judging by the young woman’s expression, Kayley had the feeling that Rachel was fighting the urge to throw her arms around her.

      As it was, Rachel cried, “Thank God! I don’t think I could have taken one more week of doing double duty.” She shook her hand vigorously. Again, the woman seemed as if she was on the verge of embracing her.

      Had she already landed the position? Kayley asked herself. Granted, she was very proud of her medical skills and what she had learned during the last round of courses she had taken to improve upon her degree, but there was no way that this Rachel person could know that. For all she knew, Kayley could have fabricated everything on her résumé.

      “Come with me,” Rachel told her. “I’ll take you to the back and you can tell me about yourself.”

      “It’s all there, in my résumé,” Kayley told the back of Rachel’s head as the PA led the way through a maze that eventually brought them to a room in the extreme rear.

      “It’s always good to get the feel of a person,” Rachel said. “Looking into a person’s eyes tells me more than the words on any résumé.”

      Taking her into what was clearly an exam room, complete with a monitor that highlighted X-ray films, Rachel gestured for her to take a seat.

      “You can sit on either the chair or the exam table, whatever makes you feel the most comfortable.” It was obvious by her mechanical tone that she recited those words to anyone she brought into either of the two doctors’ exam rooms.

      “I’ll take the chair,” Kayley told her. Sitting on the table would make her feel too vulnerable. As it was, she could feel her fingertips getting cold again.

      She handed the woman a copy of the résumé she’d sent the doctor by email and then braced herself for a shower of questions.

      The shower didn’t come.

      Instead, Rachel just began to talk to her. “Dr. Dolan is a really nice man. But the poor man’s sad. Very sad. He’s going through a rough patch. You shouldn’t take that as any kind of reflection on you,” Rachel warned.

      After having given up a rather lucrative, promising position for a prominent doctor to come back home and nurse her mother, she couldn’t afford to be overly picky. Her mother had left her a little bit of money in her will, so there was no need to sell her soul—not until the end of next month, at any rate.

      “Is there a reason why he’s so sad?” Kayley asked, wondering if there was something that she should know ahead of time. She didn’t want to inadvertently make a tactless remark.

      “An excellent reason,” Rachel told her. “The doctor’s wife was in a car accident and died. His four-year-old daughter was in the car at the time, too, although she’s all right now—at least that’s what I’ve heard,” Rachel said in a lowered voice. “If you ask me,” she continued in an even lower voice, “the doctor blames himself for not being there when it happened.”

      “There probably wasn’t anything he could have done at the time, anyway,” Kayley said, thinking of her mother and how hard she’d tried to find a way to get that awful disease to go into remission.

      “You’re probably right,” Rachel agreed. “But word has it that’s not the way he feels, which is all that counts. Anyway—” the physician’s assistant shifted her focus and skimmed over the copy of the résumé that Kayley had just handed her “—everything looks in order and I, for one, would love to have you on board,” she said with a great deal of enthusiastic sincerity. “But you understand, the doctor has to have the final say.”

      “Of course,” Kayley concurred. She expected nothing less. “To be honest, I thought he’d be the one conducting the interview.”

      “He’s still with his patient, but he’ll be here,” Rachel promised. “He’ll probably ask you a couple of things,” the young woman told her. “And, just so that you know, for some reason he turned down the other five applicants.”

      That didn’t sound promising, Kayley thought, her uneasiness growing, although she managed to keep it from Rachel.

      “Was there a reason?” she asked, wanting to know what she was up against. If she knew, she might be able to be more in line with what the surgeon was seeking.

      But Rachel shook her head. She seemed really disappointed that she couldn’t offer anything helpful. “Not that he said. He just shook his head after each of the people he interviewed had left and murmured, ‘Not the one.’ I thought for sure he clicked with Albert,” Rachel told her, and then sighed, “but I was wrong.”

      “Albert?” she asked.

      At least the doctor had no preconceived notions about the person he was looking for to fill the position. If he had, he wouldn’t have interviewed a man for it—or if he had set notions, he might have only interviewed men for the job.

      Rachel nodded. “Albert was the last PA who applied.”

      This was not shaping up to be particularly encouraging. But then, if this didn’t work out, she would be no worse off than she was right now. Besides, she had a ton of her mother’s things to go through and if worse came to worse, that would take up a good amount of her time. At least she would stay busy until she was able to find a job.

      “Wait right here,” Rachel said, about to leave the room. “Dr. Dolan will be with you as soon as he finishes up with his patient,” she assured her.

      The moment she said the words, Rachel suddenly turned rather pale. “Omigod, I forgot he asked me to bring the last X-rays for Mr. Mulroney.” She began to rush out of the room, pausing only to toss a few last words over her shoulder. “I really hope you get this job.”

      The corners of Kayley’s mouth curved ever so slightly as she watched the other woman dash out. “Me too, Rachel,” she said, knowing that the PA was no longer in earshot. “Me too.”

      Kayley sat back in her chair and waited.

      And waited.

      After twenty minutes, she started to grow rather restless. She also started to think that very possibly, she had gotten lost in the shuffle. When she’d come in, she had noticed that there were probably more than two dozen people sitting outside in the waiting room. And although there appeared to be about ten or eleven physicians presently in the building, she could see how she might have just gotten overlooked or even fallen through the cracks.

      For the next five minutes, Kayley debated between waiting in the room quietly and going out to see if perhaps her theory was right and she had been forgotten about.

      Since she wasn’t the type to simply sit on her hands, choice number two won.

      Picking up her shoulder bag, Kayley got up and went to the door. She pulled it open with the intention of heading back to the reception desk to find out what was going on.

      It all happened so fast her brain almost went numb.

      She got as far as taking one step out of the exam room when she walked straight into a tall athletic man in a white lab coat.

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