From Housecalls To Husband by Christine Flynn

Author:Christine Flynn
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-03-28T04:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Seven

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"You're Randy Sheppard's daughter?" Dr. Aniston posed the question over a forkful of Chicken Oscar, his attention momentarily diverted from the conversation taking place to his right. "I've known Randy for years. He was our children's pediatrician. You and I have met before, haven't we?"

Dr. Aniston's beady little eyes narrowed. Had she been in scrubs and standing by the nurses' station at the hospital, Katie was sure he'd have had no trouble placing her at all.

"At Memorial," she politely replied. Seated between him and Mike at the table of eight, she rearranged her asparagus, pretending to look as if she, too, was enjoying what was probably a delicious dinner. "I'm on the cardiac floor."

"I knew you looked familiar." Chewing thoughtfully on chicken, crab and béarnaise, he stabbed the air with his empty fork. "I remember. You work day shift. Right?"

"Right."

"Of course, I'm right," he insisted, going for the crab again. "I know exactly who you are now. You're one of the efficient ones.

"Murleen," he mumbled, oblivious to Katie's surprise at the compliment as he nudged the woman seated to his left. "Did you know Randy Sheppard's daughter works at Memorial? She takes care of some of my patients."

Mrs. Aniston, a matronly woman in billowing black taffeta, turned her attention from Dr. MacAllister. "I know, dear. Dr. Brennan mentioned it when she was introduced. Maggie, Gwen and I had a delightful conversation with her while you men were discussing arterial plaque.

"Speaking of which…" Her voice trailed off meaningfully as she frowned at his plate. "Stay away from the crab and the sauce and eat your vegetables. You're a cardiologist, Clark. How do you expect your patients to watch their cholesterol when you won't watch yours?"

Mrs. Aniston cast a beneficent smile at Katie and returned her attention to the discussion her husband had just joined. Gwen Chapman, the forty-something wife of Dr. Samuel Chapman, and Dr. Chapman himself, a pleasant, wiry fellow with a receding hairline and silver-rimmed glasses, were laughing at something Dr. MacAllister had said to Mike. Finally turning his own attention back to his chief of staff, Dr. Aniston dutifully traded another bite of crab for a baby carrot.

If there was anything redeeming about the evening, it was seeing the usually overbearing Dr. Aniston with his wife. The woman easily matched his five-foot-eight-inch height, but she had to outweigh him by thirty pounds, a difference that might have seemed less disproportionate had she not been wearing huge, puffed sleeves. He deferred to the woman as if she were either adored or feared, something Katie would have found as amusing as she did interesting, had she been in a mood to feel amused at all.

The topic under discussion was the large number of doctors and nurses at Memorial who were natives of Honey-grove. It had been Maggie MacAllister's observation about Katie being a native—and who her parents were—that had elicited Dr. Aniston's question to Katie moments ago.

The man didn't seem willing to let the subject of her father go, either.

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