His Bidding (The Best Medicine #1)

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B
rynn was just readying herself for her shift, pulling her hair back into its usual blonde ponytail, when the door to the on-call room burst open, blinding her with the fluorescent light from the hallway.

“Girl!” she heard a familiar voice whisper excitedly. “You need to go check the staff bulletin board, stat.”

Smoothing her scrubs, Brynn laughed and shook her head. “Okay, ‘girl’!” she replied, groping around for her stethoscope on the cot she’d all too recently vacated. “Why? What’s the big news? Or are you seriously going to make me trek down three floors to find out?”

Lisa elbowed her friend gently in the ribs. “It’s something you’ll wanna see with your own eyes. And, selfishly, I’d like to see you seeing it.”

Brynn heaved a mock sigh, squinting at her watch. She didn’t really have much time to spare before her shift started, but she figured she could indulge her mentor if only for the sake of waking up a bit more. “Lead the way, Obi-Wan.”

With no further encouragement needed, Lisa grabbed Brynn’s elbow and practically dragged her to the stairwell, skipping down steps as though she were a teenage girl, Brynn following just behind. Within moments they were facing the giant board of announcements next to the nurses’ station, where Lisa had been assigned for the overnight. “This was the first thing I saw when I got in,” she stage-whispered to Brynn, practically bouncing with excitement. “I was so glad to see you on the schedule. Otherwise I’d have had to call and wake you up.”

Brynn blinked a few times, looking at the bright and colorful scraps of paper pinned this way and that on the corkboard, most of them safety bulletins and news about upcoming conferences. But then her eyes landed on an especially festive red and green flyer, featuring a few photos rather prominently...one of which caught her attention more than the others. Her jaw dropped open.

“Oh...my God...” She blinked twice more, wanting to be sure she wasn’t hazily deluding herself. Nope. His photo was still there once her vision had cleared.

Lisa giggled, still in the throes of adolescent glee. “I told you! Now, would that have had the same impact if I’d just blathered about it?”

No, it wouldn’t have, Brynn thought, her heart doing a weird little hopscotch routine within her ribs. Nothing would have been quite as surprising as her seeing that Dr. Samuel Hitchens, the Chief of Staff at their hospital and her direct supervisor on the occasions she worked at his private practice, was among the staff who were offering themselves up in a “bachelor auction” for their annual Christmas charity ball. Nobody aside from Lisa knew about Brynn’s crush – if so mild a word could be used for the way she felt whenever she looked at him could be used – on the hot shot M.D., but if she stood staring at the bulletin board much longer it was bound to become obvious to the other nurses just wandering in for their shifts.

“Maybe you should ask him for a raise, and when he wants to know why, you can tell him it’s so you can afford to buy him,” Lisa teased, and Brynn hushed her, glancing around nervously. While it was a given that practically every female nurse, doctor and administrator here had the hots for Dr. Hitchens, she didn’t want to be singled out as the one who was lining up for the next opening in his bed. Everybody knew said opening was a coveted one – and, if rumor was to be believed, that it was filled by the prettiest of the med students on his rotation more often than not.

Her stomach twisted slightly at that thought. It was stupid to feel jealousy over a man who’d never been hers to begin with, but she found it seeping in every so often nonetheless.

Lisa’s next whisper broke her reverie. “So? Are you gonna do it?”

“Do what?” Brynn felt her cheeks turning as pink as her scrubs.

“Bid on him, obviously!” Lisa quite conspicuously pointed at the line on the flyer that showed the date on which the silent auction would begin, and – if the previous year’s bash had been any indication – those silent bids would determine the starting amount on the night of the ball itself. Brynn could only imagine how high the baseline would be. It would certainly be more than her second-year nurses’ pay would allow.

She shook her head at Lisa, a rueful smile on her lips. “Not likely,” she said with a real sigh this time. “For one thing, I have rent to pay. And for another, you know damn well who’ll be one-upping everyone all night anyway. She’s got it in the bag.”

“Ugh.” Lisa wrinkled her nose. Brynn loved that she had such a close friendship with her, eschewing the whole seniority thing since the third day of her orientation. Lisa was just too much fun to bother with rank. “If you mean Felicia – oh, sorry, Doctor Mills,” she continued, emphasizing the word “doctor” with a snarky drawl, “that woman is too horrible to wish upon Hitch for a night. Bottled-red hair and a legacy degree decidedly do not an interesting date make.” Lisa nodded decisively, as though hers was the last word on the subject.

“I’ve gotta get back upstairs,” Brynn said, giving her friend a quick pat on the arm. “Thanks for the eye candy, anyway.”

“Aw, come on!” Lisa called after her as she headed back toward the stairwell. “Aren’t you a December baby? I bet if a bunch of us went in on a nameless ‘gift’ for you... We’ll find a way to get you a...” When Brynn spun around and shot a forbidding glare behind her, Lisa pressed her lips together and made a zipping motion by way of apology. A couple of the nearby nurses were now paying attention to their exchange, so it was a good thing Lisa had shut up when she did. That was all Brynn needed. Her job was hard enough without being the main grist for the rumor mill. She gave another faux glare, then a slight grin and a wave, before leaving Lisa to start her night, just as Brynn was gearing up to enter the second half of her own. She took two steps at a time on the way up the stairs and made it to her floor’s nursing station with one minute to spare.

W
hile the first half of her shift had seemed to drag on, full of problem patients and inept trainees getting in her way, the second half passed as though in a complete haze. Brynn’s attention was still fully on her job – she’d have been upset with herself otherwise – but it would have been a blatant lie had she told herself she wasn’t thinking about the charity ball and, more specifically, one of its more remarkable take-home prizes. She caught herself doing the math, calculating how much overtime she’d have to work before the middle of December in order to even crack the ceiling of the opening bid, and then she laughed aloud, surprising the patient whose room she’d been stocking when the thought occurred to her.

“Sorry, Mr. Elgin,” she said with a smile. The elderly man smiled in return from his bed and shook his head.

“I like to see young people happy,” he replied. “Are you in love?”

Brynn laughed again, though this time with a tinge of embarrassment. Mr. Elgin had been on her floor for nearly a month now, and she liked him a lot. He was exactly the sort of patient every nurse loved to have – easygoing, funny, grandfatherly in some ways but also able to flirt in that harmless way older gentlemen often have – and as much as she was looking forward to his full recovery from surgery, she didn’t doubt she’d miss him every night.

“You are!” he exclaimed, giving her a broad grin and pointing a robed arm at her. “I’ve seen that look many a time in my days, dear girl.”

“Oh, I see,” she said with a chuckle, moving to prop up the pillows behind him, into which he gratefully settled. “Because so many ladies fell madly in love with you, I don’t doubt.”

“Such a flatterer. But you’re just trying to change the subject.”

He was sharp. She allowed herself a slight giveaway of a smile in his direction, but followed up by saying, “It’s a crush. That’s all.”

“One of the doctors in this place, eh?” He put a finger to his lips, which he’d pursed in thought. “Hmm. Is it that young fellow who just started? The tall one with the reddish hair? He’s certainly got eyes for you, missy.”

“Does he, now?” Brynn queried in amusement. She knew who he meant. One of the student doctors who’d just started rotations on the surgical recovery floor – she was pretty sure his name was Jacob – had indeed been trying to catch her attention the past couple of times he’d come through as their shifts overlapped. But before she could confirm or deny, neither of which she’d actually planned to do in response to Mr. Elgin’s persistent curiosity, a much more surprising guess was put forth.

“No, I’m wrong,” Mr. Elgin said. “It’s the boss-man who comes in with the young fellows.”

Brynn nearly dropped the tray of instruments she was holding. Dr. Hitchens had been in charge of this latest batch of grads, a pet project of his regardless of a jam-packed schedule, and he’d been the one present on at least two visits to her wing this past week. Considering how many young, good-looking new guys there were in that handpicked group, she would have expected it to take forever for Mr. Elgin to give the slightly older “boss-man” so much as a passing thought.

He picked up on her wobble, too, as the instruments clanged together and made a racket. She was even more grateful now that he had a private room than she had been moments earlier. His voice wasn’t loud, but the content of their conversation was not something she’d want anyone to hear, not even Lisa on a good day.

“I’m right.” He made it a statement, not a question, and Brynn turned slowly to give him a long look. Whatever he saw in her eyes, it made his smile fade. “Oh, my dear girl. I’ve misspoken. I’m sorry. I was just teasing.”

She shook her head, not wanting him to feel bad. “No, no, you just...caught me off guard, that’s all.”

As she set the tray down on the counter next to his bedside table, he reached out an arm and patted her gently.

“I shan’t ask again. I promise.” He smiled again, which lightened Brynn’s spirit immediately. “And I won’t tell on you, either.”

She laughed and gave his hand a pat in return. “Thanks for that, Mr. Elgin. It’ll have to stay our secret.”

He made a similar zipping-of-the-lips motion to that which Lisa had given her earlier, which made her laugh again, and she made a pass to fill up her favorite patient’s pitcher of water before glancing at her watch.

“Oh, wow,” she said, her eyebrows rising.

“Get outta here, young lady,” Mr. Elgin ordered with an exaggerated finger-wag. “You’ve worked long enough for one evening! Go home and sleep! I know I’ll be able to rest with you out of my hair for the day.”

She laughed. “Yes, sir. I’m in again on Wednesday, so rest up before then, okay?”

They said their goodbyes and Brynn felt her tiredness hit her all at once as she left his room.

“You look like you just hit the wall,” one of her fellow nurses, a cheerful woman named Julie, greeted her as they crossed paths at the station. Brynn offered a tired smile.

“Yeah, and just in time for you to relieve me.” She handed Julie her notes from the night, gave her a quick catch-up on what had been done and anything out of the ordinary to expect during the day shift, then waved and made a beeline for the on-call room. She couldn’t wait to get her belongings out of her locker and head to her apartment, where she could sleep for a solid twelve hours without interruption. She had a couple of days away from this place, though one of those was her scheduled shift at the Clinic. She never minded working at his private practice, of course, even on days when she was attending with one of the other partners and not the man himself. Holding the nursing position there was a job that was almost as coveted as a place at “boss-man’s” side in a different capacity.

Even as she got into her car and left the hospital in her rear view window, she had to wonder if she’d be dreaming of Dr. Samuel Hitchens in a tuxedo once her head hit her pillow. She suspected she would.

W
aking up many hours later, one sleepy hand flailing about before finally hitting her snooze button, Brynn groaned and wished she could go back to sleep. She was so glad she’d fed her cat and snuggled with him enough before passing out, for out of gratitude her beloved cat had let her stay asleep until she couldn’t any longer. That was a nice change. She peered over and saw Chester curled up contentedly in her favorite armchair, sound asleep, and she smiled and yawned.