The M.D. Next Door. Gina Wilkins

her performance; she seemed very fond of the housekeeper who’d been employed by Seth for several years. Would it really mean much to the girl to have her neighbor—a woman she’d known for only a week—applauding in the audience?

      But somehow Meagan had found herself in her car that evening, headed for the school. As hard as Alice had tried to hide it, she was obviously disappointed that her dad wouldn’t be there. Meagan doubted that she made a suitable replacement, but maybe Alice would appreciate having another friend in the audience, anyway. Besides, it was another excuse to get out of the house for an evening. And how bored was she getting that a junior high choir concert sounded more interesting than another night of reading and TV?

      She really needed to get back to work soon.

      Thinking she might sit with the housekeeper during the concert, Meagan had looked for Nina when she’d arrived, but couldn’t find her in the crowd. She assumed Nina had taken a seat close to the front.

      Because she hadn’t wanted to wander up and down the aisles searching for Nina, she chose a seat closer to the door instead. She thought she’d be able to see well from there, though a child a few rows ahead of her kept standing up in his seat. Other than the empty seat next to her, the section was full. People around her laughed and talked and waved at acquaintances across the auditorium. Feeling a bit like an imposter among all the friends and family members waiting for the concert to begin, Meagan smiled and nodded to the older woman sitting beside her, who murmured a greeting in return then turned away to chat with her companions.

      “Excuse me, ma’am, is this seat taken?”

      In response to the polite question only minutes before the concert was to begin, she glanced up automatically from the program she’d been studying to assure the speaker that the seat was free. The words died when she saw who stood in the aisle, smiling down at her.

      Seth’s hair was a little tousled, she noticed, and he looked just a bit disheveled, as if he’d rushed to get there. He wore a beautifully tailored gray suit, more formal than most of the more casually garbed audience, but he’d loosened the blue-and-silver tie at the collar.

      Definitely cute, she thought, remembering the teasing conversation with her sister. And when he took her up on her gestured invitation and dropped into the seat beside her, he was close enough that their arms brushed when he shifted his weight.

      The concert had just gotten even more interesting.