From Neighbors...to Newlyweds?. Brenda Harlen

inanely.

      “Things are a little chaotic in the E.R. right now, so Dr. Layton asked me to take a look at Shane’s X-ray.”

      Quinn sat up. “Are you a doctor, too?”

      Matt nodded.

      “You don’t look like a doctor,” he said accusingly.

      “Quinn,” his mother admonished.

      But Matt was intrigued. “How does a doctor look?”

      The little boy studied him for a minute. “Older,” he decided. “With gray hair and glasses.”

      “I’m older than you,” Matt pointed out.

      “You still don’t look like a doctor.”

      “Actually, I’m an orthopedist,” he explained.

      “See?” Quinn said triumphantly to his mother.

      “An orthopedist is a doctor,” she told him.

      The boy looked to Matt for confirmation.

      He nodded. “An orthopedist is a doctor who specializes in fixing broken bones.”

      “Is Shane—” Quinn swallowed “—broken?”

      He managed to hold back a smile. “No, your brother isn’t broken, but a bone in his arm is.”

      “I falled out of your tree house,” Shane said quietly.

      Matt winced. “All the way from the top?”

      The little boy shook his head. “I missed a step on the ladder.”

      “And reached out with his arms to break his fall,” Georgia finished.

      He noted that she’d shifted Pippa to nurse from her other breast, and he quickly refocused his gaze on his patient. “And broke your arm, too,” Matt told Shane. “Do you want to see the picture of your arm that shows the break?”

      Shane sniffled, nodded.

      Matt sat down in front of a laptop on the counter and tapped a few keys.

      “This here is your radius—” he pointed with the tip of a pencil to the picture on the screen “—and this is your ulna.”

      Though the occasional tear slid down the boy’s cheeks, his gaze tracked the movement of the pencil and he nodded his understanding.

      “Do you see anything different about the two bones?”

      “I do,” Quinn immediately replied, as Shane nodded again.

      “Well, since it’s Shane’s arm, I think we should let Shane tell us what’s different,” Matt said.

      Quinn pouted but remained silent.

      “What do you see, Shane?”

      “The ra-di—” he faltered.

      “Radius?” Matt prompted.

      “It has a line in it.”

      “That line is the break, called a distal radius fracture.”

      “It hurts,” Shane said, in a soft voice that was somehow both wounded and brave.

      “I know it does,” Matt agreed.

      “Can you fix it?” Quinn asked. “You said you can fix broken bones.”

      He nodded. “Yes, I can, and I will.”

      Georgia tried to concentrate on what Matt was saying, but her mind was still reeling from the realization that her new neighbor wasn’t just gorgeous and charming but a doctor, too. She couldn’t have said why the information surprised her so much or what she’d expected.

      While he was occupied with Shane, she took a closer look at him, her gaze skimming from his neatly combed hair to the polished loafers on his feet. This man certainly didn’t bear any resemblance to the sexy gardener who had tended to her overgrown yard. If she’d taken a guess as to his occupation that day, she probably would have said that he was employed in some kind of physically demanding field, like construction work or firefighting. She certainly wouldn’t have guessed that he was an M.D.

      Maybe the Mercedes in his driveway should have been her first clue, though she’d never met a doctor who hadn’t managed to reveal his profession within the first five minutes of an introduction. And she’d been living next door to the man for more than three weeks without him giving even a hint of his occupation. But as she watched Dr. Garrett now, she could see that he was completely in his element here.

      As he explained the process of casting a broken bone, he used simple words that the boys could understand. Despite his careful explanation, though, Quinn remained wary.

      “Is Shane going to die?” he asked, obviously terrified about his brother’s potential fate.

      Though Georgia instinctively flinched at the question, the doctor didn’t even bat an eye.

      “Not from a broken arm,” he assured him.

      Shane looked up, his dark eyes somber. “Do you promise?”

      She felt her own eyes fill with tears when she realized that the question wasn’t directed to her but to Matt. Which made perfect sense, since he was the doctor. But it was the first time since Phillip had died that either of the twins had sought reassurance from anyone but their mother, and emotionally, it cut her to the quick.

      “I absolutely promise,” he said.

      And Shane’s hesitant nod confirmed that he’d accepted the man’s word.

      “Can I ask you a question now?” Matt asked.

      Shane nodded again.

      “What’s your favorite color?”

      “Blue.”

      “Then we’ll put a blue cast on your arm,” the doctor announced, and earned a small smile from his patient.

      He left the room for a few minutes, then came back with Brittney and an older woman. The gray-haired nurse helped lift and maneuver Shane’s arm while the doctor applied the cast and Brittney looked on, observing and providing a running commentary of the process to entertain the twins. When it was done, Matt tied a sling over Shane’s shoulder and explained that it would help keep the arm comfortable and in place.

      “Do you use your right hand or your left hand when you eat?” Brittney asked Shane.

      “This one,” he said, lifting his uninjured hand.

      “Do you think you could handle an ice cream sundae?”

      Shane nodded shyly, then looked to his mother for permission.

      “They would love ice cream,” she admitted to Brittney, reaching for her purse.

      The girl waved a hand. “It’s on Dr. Garrett—part of the service.”

      Matt passed her a twenty-dollar bill without protest.

      “Does my wheelchair driver still have his license?”

      Quinn pulled the paper out of his pocket.

      “Then let’s go get ice cream.”

      “Thanks, Britt,” said Matt with a smile.

      Georgia had mixed feelings as she watched her boys head out with the young nurse. They were growing up so fast, but they would always be her babies as much as the little one still in her arms.

      “She’s been wonderful,” she said to Matt now. “I don’t know that I would have survived this ordeal without screaming if she hadn’t been able to engage the boys.”

      “It can’t be easy, juggling three kids on your own on even a normal day.”

      “What is a normal day?”

      He