seems very nice,” he said. Though not what he’d expected. “Belly dancer” conjured an image in his mind of someone dark and exotic; Darcy O’Connor was blond and blue-eyed with the kind of curves that would make any man take a second look. Even as concerned as he was for Taylor, Mike had had a hard time not staring.
“She’s so beautiful.” Taylor ran both hands through her dark curls. “I wish I had hair like hers.”
The idea of Taylor with blond curls like Darcy O’Connor almost made Mike smile. “Your hair is beautiful just the way it is,” he said.
“You only say that because you’re my dad.”
Mike felt a pang of regret. Not so long ago his compliments had meant the most simply because he was her dad. Now, apparently, they didn’t count for as much.
“I really like the other girls, too,” Taylor said. “A couple of them I recognized from school.”
“Are any of your friends in it?” he asked. Taylor didn’t talk much about her classmates. This hadn’t worried Mike before. Yes, all her hospitalizations had put her behind some of her classmates academically. Maybe that had hindered her socially, as well.
“Keisha and Monica are the only girls I really hang out with much at school,” Taylor said. “And neither of them is in the class. I think dancing might help me make more friends.”
The note of wistfulness in her voice tugged at his heart, and he felt the tightness in his chest from the old anger he could never completely bury. Why had his daughter been singled out for such cruelty? Why did she have to suffer so much? “I’m sure you’ll make friends,” he said.
“I think so.” She sat back in the seat. “It’s kind of special, you know? Being part of the dance group, I mean. I’ll bet a lot of girls wish they could be in it.”
Mike forced himself to loosen his grip on the steering wheel and reminded himself that in spite of everything, Taylor had been very lucky. She was alive, and likely to live a long, happy life, if she was careful. He turned onto Sycamore Street. “Did you remember to take your medicine?” he asked.
“Yes. I took it before class.”
“Good.” She’d been so excited about the dance class he’d been afraid she’d forget. It needed to be taken on a strict schedule. “I want you to be honest with me—you didn’t overdo it today, did you? The class wasn’t too strenuous?”
“No. It was fun. Darcy’s a really good dancer.”
Darcy again. Taylor was clearly captivated by her attractive teacher. “I imagine she’s been practicing for quite a few years.” Though how long could that be, really? Maybe her petite size made her look young for her age, but she hadn’t seemed a day over twenty-five to Mike. At thirty-six, he felt positively ancient next to her.
“If I start now, I could be that good by the time I graduate high school.”
“I thought you wanted to be a doctor.” He tried to keep his voice neutral.
“I do. But I could belly dance on the side. As a hobby.”
A belly dancing doctor. “That would certainly give your patients something to talk about.”
“Dad, please!” Taylor’s voice drifted toward an unpleasant whine. “You’re always telling people how important it is to exercise. Dancing will be good for me.”
It probably would. And she was bored with spending so much time at his office after school, where he worried she might come down with an opportunistic infection despite all his precautions. But he hadn’t found a sitter he trusted and he couldn’t leave Taylor at home alone.
Even two years out from her transplant surgery, she was still so vulnerable. How could he trust her with a woman he barely knew? “Like it or not, you’re always going to be more vulnerable than other people to illness,” he said. “What if something happened while you were in dance class? What if you have a reaction to one of your medications?”
“Dad, that only happened one time! And it was months ago.”
“But what if it happened? I don’t know if Darcy is prepared to handle that.”
“She would do the same thing they would do at school—she’d call nine-one-one.”
Taylor had to go to school, but Mike tried to keep her away from large groups of people otherwise. Maybe he was being overly cautious, or even silly, but he couldn’t help himself. The knowledge of everything that could go wrong, and the memory of how close he’d come to losing the most precious person to him, haunted him. “I’d be happier if you’d wait a little longer,” he said. The past two years had been a nightmare of hospital rooms and surgeries, antirejection drugs, infections and the constant fear that something as simple as a cold virus could undo all her progress.
“I just want to do something a normal kid would do.”
The plaintive words cut through him. Wasn’t that all he wanted, too—for his little girl to be happy and healthy, and to live a full, normal life? And she was doing better. She’d started growing, and it had been four months since she’d been sick a single day.
“I know,” he said. “And dance class will probably be fine. But if you have any problems at all …”
“I’ll have to quit. But I’ll be fine, I promise. Thank you, Daddy. I love you.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.” All that love made making the right decisions for her even harder sometimes.
They pulled up to their townhome and Mike pressed the button to open the garage. He and Melissa had purchased the home shortly after their wedding. When they’d divorced they’d both agreed it would be better for Taylor to remain in the only home she’d ever known, and Melissa had moved into an apartment near the airport, convenient to her work. If not for Taylor, Mike would have moved, too. The house was one more reminder of dreams that hadn’t come true. He and Melissa had planned to raise a family in this home.
Taylor was out of the car as soon as Mike released the child locks. “I’m gonna call Mom and tell her about the class,” she called over her shoulder as she raced to the door.
Mike hoped Melissa would be able to answer Taylor’s call. If she was in the middle of a flight that wasn’t possible. Taylor could leave a message, but Melissa wasn’t always good about returning her calls right away.
He followed Taylor inside, stopping to hang his coat on the rack in the foyer, opposite the portrait of the three of them as a family. Melissa smiled straight into the camera; a younger Mike focused on the toddler in Melissa’s lap. Taylor, in a lacy white dress, had been barely two then. She was laughing up at Mike—the happiest baby in the world.
And he’d been the happiest man, just beginning his practice, starting a family. How naive he’d been.
Taylor’s illness had changed all that. Mike didn’t know if he’d ever trust happiness again. He’d always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. He’d emerged from more than two years in hell with his daughter safe, for now, but the perfect family was gone. The messiness—both emotional and physical—of dealing with a chronically ill child had ended a marriage already strained by Mike’s long hours at work and Melissa’s erratic schedule.
The failure to save his marriage still stung. Mike’s parents had been married more than forty years now, while his grandparents had lived to celebrate seventy-five years together. His two sisters both enjoyed long marriages. Only Mike had failed.
He didn’t blame Melissa. Mike had deserted her when she needed him most. He’d been too focused on Taylor and on keeping his practice going to have much left over for his wife.
He found Taylor in the living room, curled on one end of the sofa, the phone still in her lap. “Did you talk to your mom?” he asked.
“I had to leave a message.” Her shoulders