Hot Bodies Boxed Set: The Complete Vital Signs Erotic Romance Trilogy (51 page)

Nineteen

Maryam sat in her office, signing off on a pile of Supply requisitions. She hated her Supply duties with a passion. There used to be an entire department devoted to tracking and ordering medical supplies for the hospital, but thanks to the recession, most of those jobs had been cut, leaving only two minimum-wage storeroom clerks and one loading-dock worker. The task of ordering, monitoring, and managing supply requisitions was left to department heads. As the head nurse administrator for the whole hospital, nursing supplies fell to Maryam.

She hated her Supply duties so much, she’d let them pile up, procrastinating until the last possible moment before she had to slog through the hundreds of pages of request forms, matching up the products with product numbers and prices in the medical supply catalog. The pile of requisition forms on her desk was at least six inches thick and represented a three-month backlog. She was getting complaints from nurses all over the hospital that they were running out of key supplies. No more procrastinating for her.

“Damn it all, I hate this part of the job,” Maryam muttered to herself. “I’m a nurse, not a goddamn quartermaster.”

She completed and signed off on the last of the requisitions and dumped them into her outbox for the mailroom guy to pick up. No sooner did she look up from her desk did a strange sight send her heart into a lurch.

Two big, beefy uniformed police officers crowded her office doorway. One of them dangled a set of handcuffs. “Maryam Malone?” one of them said, his hand on his service revolver.

“Yes?”

“You’ll need to come with us, ma’am.” He rattled the handcuffs. “If you come quietly, we won’t need to use these.”

“Wha?” Maryam stammered. She was at a complete loss. What could she have possibly done that the police had to show up at her office door dangling handcuffs?

She glanced down at the pile of overdue supply requisitions, and suddenly understood.

“Oh, dear God,” she murmured. “I should have retired last year when I had the chance.”

Starla Berring watched with glee as two uniformed officers led Maryam Malone away. Well, she wouldn’t have to worry about getting revenge on the crotchety old broad now. Fate had already taken care of that for her. It had taken care of Billy Hartzell and Dana Johnson, too. The playing field in Statesville was wide open again, and Starla was at the top of the food chain.

Now if only she could find someone she hadn’t already slept with. She seemed to have run through all the available men in Statesville.

It was high time she moved on to a bigger town.

****

Peter Landall unfastened the lid of his old-style leather briefcase, and retrieved a stack of files, which he placed on the table across from Dana and Billy. They were meeting him together in the dark, drafty counselors’ room in the Statesville police headquarters. Now semi-retired from his regular law practice, Landall took the occasional public-defense case on contract from the state. When he got the call that a pair of star-crossed lovers needed defense against some likely trumped-up manslaughter and assault charges, he jumped at the chance to help.

“This here’s a copy of the brief I just filed with the DA,” Landall drawled, fingering the leather fob to his watch chain. “If all goes well, you two should be outa here on your own recognizance by noontime.”

“Recognizance? What does that mean?” Billy asked.

The white-haired old lawyer laughed. “It basically means they’ll drop all charges and let you go, son, as long as you promise not to get into any trouble again.”

“But I don’t think I was in any trouble in the first place,” Billy protested. “Not legally, anyhow.”

Landall grinned. “True. But I advise you to play along. The cases they’ve got against you both are flimsier than a castle made of toilet paper, but that don’t mean they won’t try to make ‘em stick just outa spite. The folks out at Covington Community Hospital ain’t exactly had a good year where the law is concerned, and they’d rather not admit it publicly if they can avoid it.”

Dana took her file and thumbed through it, not at all understanding its contents. “What about me? Can they actually bring charges against me for something I did in self-defense?”

“Oh, they’ll try anything nowadays,” Landall replied. He pulled his gold pocket watch out of his old-fashioned waistcoat, checked the time, and put it back. “But when I threatened the DA with a class-action discrimination lawsuit on behalf of you both, he was kind enough to agree to drop the charges.” He paused, patted Dana on the head like a little lost puppy. “On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“That you testify against Dr. Marx, the crazy psychiatrist who had you participate in that experiment. Seems he’s in trouble with the law for falsifying information on federal grant applications. My, my, my, Covington Community Hospital has become a den of depravity and dishonest dealings, hasn’t it? I’ve drummed up more business this year from your employer than I think I ever have in my entire career. Place is a regular soap opera, if you ask me.”

“It’s not our employer anymore,” Dana said. “I quit over what happened on Dr. Marx’s ward. And Billy was fired.”

Landall’s eyes twinkled. “Well, if you keep reading the brief through to the end, you’ll see that I demand you both get your jobs back as a part of the cooperation agreement. Assuming you both
want
them back, that is.”

Billy and Dana exchanged looks. They smiled at each other, and held hands. “Oh, I think we want them back, all right,” Billy offered. “Though I’d give my right arm for a permanent position instead of a crummy contract job.”

“I might be able to swing that,” Landall said. “’Specially now that they’ve hauled Maryam Malone in on the manslaughter charge they were plannin’ to lob at you, Billy.”

Dana gasped. “Maryam Malone? That sweet old lady?”

Landall laughed. “Well, she’s an old lady, all right. But I ain’t so sure that she’s all that sweet.”

Twenty

Billy Hartzell carried the last of his belongings—what few there were, anyway—into Dana Johnson’s ramshackle bungalow in downtown Statesville. The police had let them both go around noon, just as the indefatigable Peter Landall had promised. Dana had tried to pay the dapper old lawyer for his efficient services, but the white-haired old Southern gentleman had flatly refused. “The state pays me for public cases, hon,” he’d said. “Plus I’ve been in business in this great state of North Carolina long enough to earn a pretty decent penny on my own.”

True to his word, Landall had gotten the both of them released from lockup, all charges dropped, and their jobs reinstated. Neither was exactly sure how the old lawyer had managed to do it, but they were just happy the whole mess was over. “Well, I know who to call if we ever need a lawyer,” Dana mused, taking Billy’s hand in hers.

“Here’s hoping we never do,” he replied, kissing her lightly on the forehead.

And they probably never would. They had jobs, they had a place to live and share their lives together in peace. Billy and Dana had everything in the world, and nobody could take that away from them.

Joanna stood in the surgical anteroom, cataloging freshly autoclaved surgical implements. It was a task she did almost every day as she helped prepare for the day’s surgeries, but today it was different, special. Today was the first time she’d ever cataloged scalpels and retractors knowing that she had a little one on the way.

She softly patted her middle and smiled to herself. “I’ll be extra careful, little one, don’t worry,” she whispered.

“You better be,” said a gruff male voice just over her shoulder. “I don’t want anything bothering my son before he’s ready to come out of there.”

“
Or
your daughter,” Joanna chirped, leaning back into Harlan as he wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed the side of her neck. Joanna could feel his desire pressing hard against the small of her back. “You better let me go, Harlan. We’re on the clock.”

He chuckled. “That’s never stopped us before.” He planted a kiss full and hard on her mouth, and they almost lost control of themselves right then and there.

Almost.

“
Ahem!
.” Harlan and Joanna spun around at the grating sound. A heavyset, middle-aged black woman with her hair in cornrows and a set of immaculate acrylic nails stared back at them with narrowed eyes.

“Dr. Harlan Wilkinson and his wife Joanna, I presume?” They both nodded. “You two lovebirds better take a raincheck. I don’t put up with that kinda nonsense in my OR.”

Harlan’s eyes widened. “Your OR? Excuse me, ma’am, but I’ll have you know that—“

The indomitable woman cut him off. “No, excuse
me
. I’m Gloria Halliwell, new head nurse administrator. I don’t know what kind of crap my predecessor Maryam Malone put up with from you two, but I’m here to tell you it’s all over and done with. There’s gonna be some big changes around here. Starting right now.”

Harland and Joanna exchanged looks. Yeah, there were gonna be some big changes, all right. Plenty of them. If she only knew.

“Congratulations on your new job, Gloria,” Joanna offered as graciously as possible. “And good luck.” She cut her eyes at her husband, who grinned. “God knows you’re gonna need it.”