The Doctor's Fake Nanny(3)

I took a deep breath and shut my eyes briefly before answering him. This  was it. It was time for everything to start, for better or for worse.





Chapter Two


Kayla



"Hey, girl."



"Hey."



"Wait. Why are you whispering? What's wrong, you in some kind of trouble?"



Yvonne, always the skeptic and very much a mamma bear with her friends,  sounded like she was on red alert. She was such a good friend to me and I  felt terrible that something I was doing was making things harder on  her. I just didn't see any other way. Especially not when I had already  gotten the ball rolling.



"No, no, nothing like that. I just don't want to be overheard."



"Who would you be overheard by? Where are you?"



Her voice was suspicious and it made me laugh. It felt good, that  laughter. It was the first genuine laughter I had experienced since  first seeing little Sophie and her fabulously fashion forward outfit.



"I don't want to be overheard by one David Wyatt, M.D. I'm currently living in his guest house."



"So you got the job."



I wanted her to be excited for me, but instead her voice was dull,  almost disappointed. I knew it was hard for her. I had quit the job  where we had met and become fast friends and now my crackpot plan had  led me to move into the home of the enemy. It was oddly exciting for me,  made me feel like a spy in some kind of crazy suspense movie, but to  Yvonne it just spelled bad news.                       
       
           



       



"Yes, Yvonne, I got the job. Try not to worry about me so much. I really  will be okay. I'm a big girl. I know how to take care of myself."



God, I hoped that was true. I had a history of being stubborn when I got  an idea in my head and sometimes it clouded my judgement. I sincerely  hoped that this was not one of those times.



"Well, just make sure he keeps his hands off of you."



"What? Come on, girl, now you're just being crazy."



"Am I? Does he have a wife in that big old house of his?"



"No, but that doesn't mean he's going to go after me. I don't think I'm his type anyway."



"Oh, what?" Yvonne said with a scoff of disbelief. "Beautiful isn't his  type? Come on, Kayla. I don't think there is a man alive who wouldn't be  attracted to you."



I didn't know what to say and so I laughed, just like I always did when I  was uncomfortable. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate the compliment,  because I did. I just didn't know how to take it. I had always struggled  a little bit with how to handle my looks.



Objectively speaking, I guess she was right. I had never had a problem  getting the attention of men. I was five foot eight inches by the time I  was fourteen, and the rest of my body quickly caught up to my height. I  was always lucky with my figure. I had natural curves but never had to  worry about my weight. I guess you could say I was blessed in that way.



My skin was exactly the color Sophie had described, a light milky brown.  My dad had been dark but my mom had been fair skinned with green eyes,  eyes I had inherited from her. I think that's what got people. It was  the color of my eyes combined with the color of my skin. I guess it  stood out or something. It didn't really matter all that much to me. I  never felt like I had much of anything to do with the way I looked.



"Well, that's very sweet of you to say, but I really don't think I need  to worry about things here. Besides, I'm not even living in his house.  I'm living in his guest house. He has an entire apartment over his  garage. It's like, fifty times nicer than where I live."



"Ugh. Of course he does. But that's better than living under the same  roof as him. I guess. Just be careful, okay? I mean, what if he  recognizes you? Do you think he does? Do you think he will?"



I felt my pulse speed up and the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I  felt shaky and the saliva started to build up in the back of my throat.  That was a difficult question to answer. Difficult for many, many  reasons.



It wasn't natural for a girl to have to watch her younger sister die. I  felt like it was almost as difficult as a parent having to see their own  child perish. Nikki was only five years younger than me, but she had  always felt like she was somehow my child as well as my mother's.



She felt like she belonged to me and I would have been happy to give her  my entire life. I really would have, would have laid down my life for  her own without ever having given it a second thought.



Nikki had always been so much more delicate than me, so frail. She was  sickly from almost the moment she was born and my parents struggled for  years to understand why. We hadn't grown up with whole heaps of money  and that made it a lot harder to get the answers they needed. Having  money just made everything easier, as far as I could tell.



Finally, finally, when she was eighteen years old they told us that it  was her heart. Her heart wasn't working the way it should and it never  had. That's when my parents took out a second mortgage on their home so  that they could go and get her a real, reputable doctor. That doctor  just happened to be one David Wyatt.



Dr. Wyatt had been the next big "it" thing, the hotshot up and comer  everyone said they would stake their life on. The problem was, my sister  actually did, but instead of getting better she just got worse. It got  to where I pretty much lived in that hospital with her. I made my own  little version of home right there beside that hospital bed. And we  talked.



We talked about the things she most wanted in life, the things she  wanted to do once she was all fixed up and able to finally live a normal  life. She wanted to go camping because she loved the outdoors but she  had never been able to because her health wasn't up to it.





I had never known that about her. I brought in a little tent and  electric hurricane lamps with as many wildflowers as I thought they  would let me carry in just so that she could have a preview of what our  camping trip would be like once she finally got the cure she needed.



When Dr. Wyatt told my parents that he had a new medication that he  expected to be just that, we were all so happy. Our family was going to  be really and truly home, for the first time. I kissed her on the  forehead that last night with a head full of all of the things we were  going to do, all of the things we were going to be able to show each  other.                       
       
           



       



It never occurred to me that it would be the last time. It never even  crossed my mind that my twenty-one-year-old sister would have a heart  attack and die in one of the best cardiac wings in the country. I still  had that little tent sitting in my living room. I couldn't quite bring  myself to put it away. I swallowed with some difficulty, my throat  feeling just a little too tight for comfort.



"No. He doesn't recognize me at all."



I had thought he might, right there at the beginning. I almost hoped  that he would. It would have made it seem like my family had mattered to  him, like my sister wasn't someone he could just file away and forget  about the moment she passed away. He didn't, though. I told him we  hadn't ever met and he believed me without a second thought. He believed  me with the arrogance of a man who only valued himself.



"Well, be careful anyway. Promise?"



"Promise. I'll call you later."



I hung up the phone, suddenly feeling very, very tired. I just wanted to  sleep for once. I hadn't slept well since Nikki died. First it was due  solely to grief, then to my confusion over what should be done about it.  Now that I had finally begun the process of making that happen I just  wanted to get one good night's rest. I couldn't, though. Not yet. I had  one more thing I had to do before my job for the day was technically  done and it had nothing at all to do with the little girl I had been  hired to take care of.



I looked at my phone and sighed, dialing the number that always filled  me with a strange dread. I didn't even like to talk on the phone at the  best of times, let alone when it was for things like this.



"Yes?"



"It's me."



"Ah."



"What do you mean, ‘ah'? Weren't you expecting me to call?"



"Yes, yes indeed I was. Earlier. I was expecting you to call much, much  earlier. What is it, Ms. Evans? Are you experiencing some doubts? Having  a change of heart, perhaps?"



"No! No, nothing like that. What did you want me to do, just blow him  off and go directly to my room? Don't you think I might want to wait a  little bit before I start acting like a crazy person?"