“Never mind,” her father said, cutting her off briskly. He had no desire to have his personal life spread out before a total stranger. Turning from the sofa, he looked at the decorator his Realtor had sent. She seemed at ease, standing between his daughters like that, he noted. Something he hadn’t quite been able to manage yet. “Miss—” He stopped short, realizing that he was missing a crucial piece of information. “What did you say your name was?”
“Cassidy. Kennon,” she added, supplying her first name without being asked. She smiled at the girls. “I know it’s not the easiest name to remember.”
The doctor frowned slightly, or was that his normal expression, Kennon wondered. If it was, it was a shame, because he was too good-looking a man to detract from his features by perpetually frowning.
“Ease is not always of tantamount importance,” the doctor told her. “But manners are.”
He was a disciplinarian, Kennon guessed. She wondered if he realized how hard that could be on his daughters.
Her own father had been a Marine colonel who lived and breathed the service long after he retired from it. He was quite possibly the most distant man she’d ever known. Growing up with him had been like growing up with a disapproving stranger. Maybe it was her need for acceptance and affection that had made her pick the wrong man to love in the first place.
She heard Simon sigh in obvious exasperation.
Kennon’s attention was immediately drawn to the woman on the sofa. “Is something wrong?”
Simon’s frown deepened. “You mean other than the fact that I need to be at a meeting at the hospital with the chief of surgery in less than half an hour, my girls are due in school and my housekeeper is ill and presently unconscious?” he asked with barely suppressed sarcasm. “No, nothing’s wrong.”
Well, that tongue of his wasn’t about to melt butter anytime soon, Kennon thought. Still, with all that on his plate, she supposed she couldn’t really fault his less than sunny disposition. A lot of men were lost without their wives and he was one of them. She found that oddly appealing.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find a capable young woman to take my daughters to school and then come back to keep an eye on my housekeeper until I can come home, would you?” His tone indicated that he wasn’t actually expecting an answer. He was just blowing off a little steam as he searched for a solution to his overwhelming dilemma.
Kennon paused for a moment. She had cleared her entire morning to give Dr. Sheffield the proper amount of time for a first decorator-client meeting. She wasn’t due anywhere, which meant that she was free to ride to his rescue. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t hesitate, but this situation was a little different.
Kennon couldn’t quite make up her mind whether she thought of Simon Sheffield as exceedingly businesslike or a martinet just this side of stuffy and rude. But she’d always had a soft spot when it came to children, and his daughters were adorable. The man was obviously in need of help. If she came to his aid, maybe the man would feel obligated to engage her services and hire her to decorate his house.
No, she reconsidered, he didn’t strike her as the type who felt obligated or believed in the eye-for-an-eye theory. Not unless it involved pistols at ten paces.
Still, he did need help, she did have the time and she had an affinity for children. She’d always had a weakness for the short set, Kennon thought fondly. And it was obvious to everyone. An only child, she’d started babysitting at a young age and had loved kids as far back as she could remember.
Her mother frequently told her that she had the makings of a wonderful mother. This observation was always accompanied by a plaintive lament that it was such a shame that she hadn’t started a family yet.
Maybe someday. And if her “clock” ran out as she waited for “someday” to come, adoption for single mothers was getting easier.
Oh, what the hell? What did she have to lose by volunteering? Kennon made up her mind.
“Me,” she said.
There was confusion in his deep blue eyes. “You what?”
“The capable person you’re looking for,” Kennon told him. “I can be her. I mean, I am her.” What was it about this man that made her talk as if she had a speech impediment? Kennon blew out a breath and started from the top again. “I can take your girls to school if you tell me which school they’re attending, and then I can come back and stay with your housekeeper until you get back.” The doctor didn’t appear to be won over by her proposal. “If you’re worried about Mrs. O’Malley being alone while I take the girls, I can call my assistant. Nathan will stay with her until I get back.”
“Why?” Simon asked, not attempting to hide the fact that he was scrutinizing her as he asked. He might have gotten along well with her father. Too bad her dad hadn’t stayed in touch after her parents divorced.
Kennon wasn’t sure exactly what Simon was asking. She had volunteered a lot of information just now. “Excuse me?”
“Why would you do that?” he asked her. “Take my daughters to school and have your assistant babysit Edna?” Where he came from, people kept to themselves, they didn’t volunteer to help, especially not essential strangers.
He certainly was the uptight, suspicious type. She was really beginning to feel sorry for his daughters. “Because you just said—”
He waved his hand at her explanation, dismissing it. “I know what I just said, but we’re strangers.”
Was that it? She laughed. “Not for long if I’m going to decorate your house.” She’d already told him that she needed to get to know him in order to do her job—or hadn’t he been paying attention at all? “I can’t think of a better way to get to know you, Dr. Sheffield, than jumping feet first into your life.”
The image obviously captivated the younger of his two daughters. Meghan started giggling. “Can I watch you jump?” she asked.
Kennon couldn’t resist running her hand along the little girl’s soft cheek. Meghan was nothing if not adorably squeezable, but she refrained, knowing from firsthand experience and her mother’s annoying great-aunt, that children didn’t like being squeezed.
“It’s just an expression, honey,” Kennon told her with a laugh. Then she looked at Simon, still waiting for his response. “Offer’s still open.”
He was not in a position to be picky and he supposed that if this overly friendly decorator came with the real-estate woman’s recommendation—Maizie Sommers had reminded him of his own late mother—at least that was better than finding someone in the classified section and taking his chances.
Resigned—his back was up against the wall—he nodded and took out his house key. He held it out to the decorator—he’d forgotten her name again. “Thanks. I appreciate this. By the way, there’s no need to call in your assistant.”
He almost sounded as if he meant what he said about thanking her, she thought. Of course, it might have helped if he’d smiled when he said it, but she had a feeling that Simon Sheffield didn’t do much smiling. Pocketing the key, she asked an all-important question. “And the name of their school?” she asked him.
“Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton,” Edna murmured weakly.
“Edna, you are alive!” Madelyn cried, overjoyed. She threw her arms around the woman, giving her a fierce hug. Meghan piled on top of her.
“Let her breathe, girls,” Simon warned sternly. The next moment he moved his daughters back, away from their nanny. “How are you feeling?” he asked the woman. He took her pulse again. It was still rapid, but not as reedy as it’d been. The beat was stronger now.
“Embarrassed,” Edna replied in a voice that still had very little strength behind it.
“Nothing to be