A Doctor's Vow. Christine Rimmer

as he closed and locked the door behind them. Ronni flipped her collar down and brushed at her wet hair. Through the darkness, she could see tall pantry doors on one wall and the big, square shapes of a washer and dryer. A small light shone on a panel of buttons right next to the door: the alarm system.

      Drew saw where she was looking. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I turned it off when I went out.”

      She whispered back, “You can work that thing yourself?”

      He gave a small snort. “Ronni. I’m nine years old.” He seemed to think that explained everything. And maybe it did. For “the oldest” in the family, a bright, too-responsible boy who had lost his mother—when? About two years ago, Ronni thought Marty Heber had said.

      Sympathy moved through Ronni, bittersweet and tender. She did understand this boy. She had spent most of her childhood feeling like a miniature adult, herself.

      “Okay.” Drew’s whisper had turned bleak. “What are we gonna do now?”

      Good question, Ronni thought as they stood there dripping water on the service porch floor. Whatever they did would be awkward at best. She probably should have led Drew around to the front door. Ringing the doorbell and giving the dignified Mr. Malone a chance to throw on a robe and come down to answer would be marginally less awkward than having to seek him out in his bed.

      But they were already inside and it was pouring out there. Her hair was drenched and poor Drew’s house shoes were soaked through. Neither of them needed to get any wetter.

      “Well?” Drew demanded, his whisper edged with impatience now. Clearly he thought that if she wanted to run things, she ought to know what she planned to do next.

      An idea came to her. “Show me to the front door.”

      “What for?”

      She sent him a put-upon glance as she turned on her flashlight. “Drew. Please. I’m doing the best I can, all right?”

      He looked at her sideways for a moment. “Why are we whispering?”

      And why did kids always ask so many questions? “I don’t know. We can stop.”

      He thought about that. “No. We can whisper, it’s okay. And I guess if we turn on the lights, it will only scare everyone.”

      “That’s pretty much what I was thinking.”

      “Actually, Ronni, you could just go on back to the little house now, if you wanted, and I could—”

      She gave him a look similar to the one she’d given him when he’d suggested coming back here alone.

      He stared at her stubbornly for a moment, then complained, “But if we have to wake them up, anyway, why can’t we just…” He must have read her expression correctly, because he let the sentence fade away unfinished. He decided to try bargaining. “At least give me the flashlight, since I have to go first.”

      Oh, right, she thought. Great idea. Give a flashlight to a nine-year-old. He’d be shining it everywhere but in front of them.

      Still, he did have to take the lead. She handed it over.

      Drew’s slippers made soft squishing sounds as he led her through a huge kitchen and a dining room with a big cherry table and a gleaming parquet floor, into an expansive living room with Oriental rugs on the floors and artfully draped curtains framing the windows. The whole way, Drew never once sent the flashlight’s beam anywhere it didn’t need to be. Again, Ronni found herself feeling tenderly toward him—so young to be so grown-up.

      Finally, they reached the spacious front foyer, where a curving staircase led up to the second floor. The front porch light glowed softly through the beveled glass windows on either side of the big door.

      “Okay, we’re here.” Drew turned the flashlight on her, shining it right in her face, proving himself to be a bona fide nine-year-old, after all. “What do we do now?”

      “Give me that.” She took the thing from him and turned it off.

      “Well? What do we do now?”

      “Just wait.”

      “For what?”

      “Until I can see again. You blinded me.”

      “Oh. Sorry.”

      “Right.” By then, her eyes had adjusted somewhat. She tiptoed to the door, where she disengaged the dead bolt and pulled the door open.

      The bell, tucked into the door frame, had a little light inside it. She pushed it. A melodic, startlingly loud series of chimes rang out. Both Ronni and Drew winced at the sound. When the chimes faded, Ronni rang once more for good measure, then shut and locked the door and went back to stand beside Drew.

      “He’s not gonna like this,” Drew warned, still whispering. “He works really hard and he needs his sleep.”

      “You should have thought of that a little earlier.”

      Drew was silent for a moment. Then he muttered, “Well, you weren’t supposed to wake up.”

      She muttered right back, “That’s no excuse for sneaking into a person’s house in the middle of the night—and I think you know it, too.”

      “I said I was sorry.” Now he actually did sound contrite. “And I meant what I said, Ronni. I’ll never do it again.”

      “I’m glad to hear that. And I’m sure your father will be, too.”

      Right then, a light burst on at the top of the stairs. Ronni and Drew gasped in unison and looked up.

      Ryan Malone stood on the landing above, his hand on the light switch, wearing a robe very similar to his son’s. His thick dark hair was mussed and his eyes drooped a little, still heavy with sleep. But even startled from his bed in the middle of the night, he looked terribly commanding. A man who took charge, a man to be reckoned with, even in his pajamas.

      He started down the stairs.

      Chapter Two

      At the foot of the stairs, Ryan Malone paused.

      He had no idea yet what was going on here, but he could see it had something to do with Andrew—who, it appeared, had been out wandering around in a rainstorm after midnight.

      The little redheaded pediatrician, who was using his guest house for the next month or so, smiled at Ryan gamely. “Drew decided to come over and check me out.”

      The woman clutched a flashlight in her left hand. Her trench coat was rain-dark on the shoulders. Flowered pajama bottoms showed beneath the coat, tucked into a pair of calf-high rain boots. Beads of water gleamed in her hair—that hard-to-tame Raggedy Ann kind of hair. She had it tied into a single braid down her back, but little bits of it had burst free, to curl in a damp halo of corkscrews around a face that belonged on a pixie—or maybe an elf.

      She was too cute. Too cute by half. It hardly seemed possible that a woman who looked like that could have made it through the grueling grind of medical school, internship and residency.

      But then again, there were her eyes. Wise eyes, with humor in them and faint blue smudges marring the tender skin beneath.

      Ryan turned his gaze to his son. Andrew wore some kind of light pull-on jacket, obviously borrowed from the woman. The jacket was wet and Andrew’s head was down. He stared at his water-logged slippers and chewed his upper lip.

      “Ryan, what is it?” Lily, his mother-in-law, had appeared at the top of the stairs. Ryan felt a degree of relief. Lily would deal with this. “Oh, my!” Lily’s hand flew to her throat. “Andrew, you are drenched.”

      Ryan stepped aside as Lily rushed down the stairs, headed straight for his son. “Oh, just look at you. What have you been up to?”

      Ryan said, “Evidently, he paid Dr. Powers a visit.”

      “A