He almost dropped it again without making contact. But then he sighed. He was here, he might as well see just how bad this was. Maybe he’d overthought it.
The moment his finger touched the doorbell, Mitch heard the chimes go off, approximating the first ten notes of a song that he found vaguely familiar, one that teased his brain, then slipped away into the mist the moment the front door was opened.
A young woman with hair the color of ripened wheat stood in the doorway, making no secret of the fact that she was sizing him up. It surprised him when he caught himself wondering what conclusion she’d reached.
“Dr. Stewart,” she said by way of a greeting.
A greeting he found to be rather odd. “I know who I am, who are you?” he asked.
For such a good-looking man—and she could easily see all the little girls at the shelter giggling behind their hands over this one—he came across as entirely humorless. Too bad, Melanie thought. She’d take a sense of humor over good looks any day.
A sense of humor, in her eyes, testified to a person’s humanity as well as his or her ability to identify with another person. Good looks just meant a person got lucky in the gene pool.
“Melanie McAdams,” she told him, identifying herself as she stepped back and opened the door wider for him.
Mitch noticed there was a little girl hanging on to the bottom of the young woman’s blouse. The girl had curly blond hair and very animated green eyes. He assumed she was the woman’s daughter.
“You run this place, or live here?” he asked her bluntly.
“Neither.”
Melanie’s answer was short, clipped and definitely not customary for her.
She wasn’t sure if she liked this man.
One thing was for certain, though. Theresa was right. He was definitely going to need someone to guide him through the ins and outs of dealing with the residents here. Especially the little residents.
She could tell by the expression on his face that he felt, justifiably or not, that he was a cut above the people who lived here. Obviously not a man who subscribed to the “There but for the grace of God go I” theory of life, Melanie thought.
It jibed with what she’d found out.
Once she’d been told the doctor’s name yesterday, she’d done her homework and looked him up on the internet. The list of awards and commendations after his name went on and on, but the few photographs she could find of the doctor—and there were very few—showed a man who looked stiff and out of place each and every time. It seemed as if he were wishing himself somewhere else.
She supposed, in his defense, fund raisers—because those were all she’d found—could be seen as draining.
But she had a nagging feeling that the good doctor reacted that way to most people he was around. He probably felt they were all beneath him because, after all, it took a certain amount of intelligence and tenacity to study medicine and pass all those tests.
Or maybe the man was just good at memorizing things, she thought now, looking at him face-to-face. The true test of someone’s ability and intelligence was putting their knowledge into action.
Hopefully, the only thing this doctor was going to be putting into action would be his stethoscope and his prescription pad when it came to writing prescriptions for antibiotics.
Once word got out that a doctor was coming to the shelter, suddenly their “sick” population had mushroomed.
Mitch raised a quizzical eyebrow, as if waiting for more information.
“I’m your guide,” Melanie told him, explaining her current function.
She thought her word for it was a far more tactful label than telling the doctor that she was going to be his go-between, acting as a buffer between him and the patients he would be seeing because his reputation had preceded him—both his good reputation and the one that was not so good.
“I hope you brought your patience with you,” Melanie said cheerfully. “No pun intended,” she added quickly, realizing the play on words she’d just unintentionally uttered. “When word spread that you were coming, people couldn’t put their names down on the sign-in sheet fast enough.”
He looked at her, slightly mystified. “They know who I am?” he questioned.
Mitch didn’t see how that was possible. He didn’t move in the same circles as anyone who would find herself to be homeless.
He didn’t move in circles at all, which was another source of distress to his mother. He preferred to spend his downtime learning new techniques, studying medical journals and observing new methodologies.
“They know that you’re a doctor,” she clarified. “And some of them haven’t been to see one in a very long time,” she said tactfully.
So saying, Melanie took hold of his elbow and gently directed him toward the left.
“That way,” she said when the doctor spared her a warning look.
She couldn’t help wondering if there was some sort of a penalty exacted by him for deigning to touch the man. He didn’t look the least bit friendly or approachable.
But then, his competence was what was important here, not how wide his smile was. Smiles didn’t cure people. Medicine, competently utilized, did—and that was all that mattered.
But a smile wouldn’t have killed the man.
“We’ve taken the liberty of clearing the dining room for you,” she informed him, still doing her best to sound cheerful.
It wasn’t for his benefit, it was for April’s. The little girl had literally become her shadow, hanging on to her and matching her step for step. She was observing this doctor, looking at him as if he were some sort of rarefied deity who had come to earth to make her older brother well.
“The dining hall?” he repeated as if she’d just told him that he had a complimentary pass to a brothel.
Melanie nodded, wondering what the problem was now. There was no disguising his disdain.
“It’s the only room big enough to hold all the people who signed up,” she explained.
Not waiting for him to say anything further, Melanie opened the dining room’s double doors.
There were women and children seated at the long cafeteria-styled tables. Every seat, every space beyond that, seemed to be filled as a sea of faces all turned in his direction.
Mitch stared at the gathering, then looked at her beside him. “I was planning on staying about an hour,” he told her.
“You might want to revise your plans,” Melanie tactfully advised. “Some of these people have been sitting here, waiting since last night when they first heard that a doctor was coming. They didn’t want to risk being at the end of the line and having you leave before they got to see you.”
That was not the face of a man within whom compassion had just been stirred. For two cents, she’d tell him off—
More bees with honey than with vinegar, Melanie silently counseled herself.
Putting on her best supplicant expression, she decided to attempt to appeal to the man who seemed rooted to the threshold as he scanned the room.
“Is there any way you could possibly revamp your schedule and give up a little more time today?” Melanie asked him.
Like maybe three more hours?
She knew saying aloud what she was thinking wouldn’t go over very well, but then, what had this doctor been thinking? He had to have known this was a homeless shelter which, by definition, meant it went literally