The M.D. Courts His Nurse (14 page)

T
he work week, it seemed to Rebecca, passed with agonizing slowness. The hours after work, most of which she spent apartment hunting, fairly flew by, for they kept her thoughts elsewhere. But time spent at the medical suite dragged by like rainy days. Constant proximity to John was unavoidable, and the contrast between now and the times they'd briefly gotten along made her heart ache over the broken promise of their love.

Recovering from his initial disappointment that she was quitting, John began searching for her replacement with a seeming vengeance. He called the county's only employment office, and by Thursday he'd already interviewed the first two applicants. One of whom looked like a professional beauty-contest winner.

No surprise, Rebecca fumed silently, that the attractive, leggy one received a much longer interview.

“Am I glad the office is closed tomorrow,” she told Lois
near the end of Thursday afternoon. “Three whole days away from hi—from this place. The sooner I get another job, the happier I'll be. The only thing I'm gonna miss around here is you, Lo.”

“So I'm a ‘thing' now?”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Lois responded, “I know
who
you mean, sure.”

Rebecca could have sworn a knowing smile flickered in her friend's eyes for a moment. “What?” she demanded. For several days now Lois had been acting as if she knew a secret and had no plans to share it. “Why that smug tone?”

“Oh, stop being so paranoid,” Lo rebuked her. “It's just you two, you and John—if it wasn't such a shame what you're doing, it would be comical.”

Their employer was back in his office with Doug Ott, the day's last patient, for a consultation. Rebecca bridled at her friend's comment. “What are you babbling about?” she demanded. “
What's
a shame?”

“Yeah, right, like you don't know. I'm not babbling, I have eyes to see, ears to hear. All week long it's been ‘Dr. Saville, this' and ‘Miss O'Reilly, that,' you two all stilted and formal. Each of you like cocked weapons with hair triggers, close to exploding. When in truth both of you would rather channel all that energy in bed with each other.”

Rebecca's nostrils flared in sudden anger. “I realize there's a long, long list of women praying for that privilege,” she returned sarcastically. “But my name's not on it.”

She deeply regretted that last sentence when Lois suddenly laughed and said, “Anymore.”

Rebecca flushed and turned back to her computer, but Lois wasn't fooled for a moment. Keeping her voice down,
she chanted a little jump-rope rhyme to the tune of “Reuben, Reuben, I've Been Thinking”:

 

“Sy and I went to the cir-cus,

Sy got hit with a rolling pin;

We got even with the cir-cus,

We bought tickets but we didn't go in!”

 

“That's you and John,” Lois explained. “You both got hurt a little. Now you think you can get even by denying what you both really want most. All you're doing is punishing yourselves. Like two little kids mad at the circus.”

Despite her anger, Rebecca was shaken up by Lois's quiet, thoughtful insight.

Lois read those feelings in her face and smiled. “I'm pulling rank on you, babe, that's all. Believe me, when you make twenty years of marriage actually work, it teaches you some psychology.”

Before Rebecca could say anything, however, John and Doug emerged from his office, still quietly talking, and came up front to the reception area.

While Doug and Lois settled his account, John stopped at Rebecca's desk. “Miss O'Reilly, before you leave today would you kindly pull the Conroy X-rays from the files and leave them on my door? I requested them this morning.”

His indignant tone seemed far more resentful than the trivial matter justified.

“The X-rays have been on your door for hours, Doctor,” she replied with icy precision. “Go check the envelope.”

“Oh, well…” He looked a little nonplussed. But his tone remained resentful. “Anyone can make a simple mistake.”

He hesitated, then decided to add one more thing.

Suddenly Rebecca understood the real reason for his ticked-off tone.

“And by the way, it was rude and unprofessional of you
to decline a meeting with Shannon when she interviewed. She asked about your duties, and I hoped you would fill her in. You said you wanted to help with the transition.”

Oh, it's ‘Shannon' already, she thought. Did he actually interview her, or did he just stare at her body and dispense the laid-back, sexy charm he reserved for women in fox stoles and luxury cars?

After all, though a knockout, Shannon wasn't wealthy.

“I didn't exactly refuse,” she fibbed. “I had a patient on the phone when you called me. By the time I got off, she was leaving.”

“You deliberately
kept
that patient on the line until Shannon left,” he challenged.

“Yeah? Well, too bad for Miss Perky,” she retorted.

“I've got the feeling she's already hired, anyway, I must be a psychic or something.”

“Something,” he agreed grimly just before slamming his door.

“Oh, my, my,” Lois said, the last patient gone now. She shook her neat blond head in amazement. “Gonna punish that old circus,” she teased.

“Circus schmircus,” Rebecca snapped, still miffed. As if all that mattered were Shannon's injured sensibilities. “The man's not only arrogant and conceited, he's shallow. And he talks about rude? ‘I requested them this morning.' Well he can just bully someone else, because soon he won't have me to push around. I just hope he doesn't turn on you, Lois.”

“God forbid,” Lois agreed, barely keeping a straight face.

Despite her brave and determined words, Rebecca gave vent to her turbulent emotions during the drive back to her apartment. As hot tears spilled over her lashes, she berated herself again for the moment of sexual surrender with John.

It had been so wonderful while they made love—a plea
sure and oneness she'd never in her life experienced. It could not have been better. But the pain and anger she'd felt since then, the humiliation at the way he treated her, as if she were trying to guilt-trip him or somehow sink her hooks into him.

And this jealousy she felt—this nagging worry about Louise or whoever was sharing his mystery weekends with him. She hated all of it, and she
must
endure the pain of leaving his life for good. Otherwise it would just get worse.

She cheered herself up somewhat with the reminder that tomorrow she might select her new place. She'd found a cedar town house in Lambertville that was in her price range, and she had an appointment to see it this very evening. If she landed a job at Lutheran Hospital, which seemed a done deal already, she'd be only five minutes drive from work—and would rarely ever see John, who did most of his surgery at Valley General.

She took a quick shower, then changed into black leather pumps and a plum V-neck dress with a wide, flowing skirt. She was still combing out her wet hair when the telephone chirred.

Caller ID showed it was Hazel's number, so she picked up. “Hi, Hazel.”

“Hey, hon. Got big plans for this weekend?”

“Don't I wish,” Rebecca muttered, though she was instantly wary of Hazel's tricks. “Why—what's up?”

“Mainly I'm just wondering if you'd agree to spend the weekend with me at the Lazy M?”

The request was oddly worded, and Rebecca wasn't sure where it was headed. “Wait a minute, Hazel. Is this another setup for a date?”

“Actually, I'm not quite up to that stuff,” Hazel assured her. “The thing is, I'm a mite off my feed, Becky. I feel tired and a little achy.”

“Has Donna taken your temperature?”

“Yes, and it's just a little high. Almost a hundred.”

Not serious, Rebecca thought, but often a slight elevation signaled that the body's immune system was kicking in.

“Could be you're fighting off a bug,” she suggested lightly.

Although she kept her voice calm, Rebecca felt a little prickle of alarm. It wasn't Hazel's temperature that worried her—it was her weary tone. It didn't signal an emergency, perhaps, but given Hazel's lifelong energy and her “keep up the strut” McCallum confidence, this defeated, vulnerable tone was worrisome.

Without a second thought, she decided to call and reschedule her appointment to see the town house.

“It would be fun to spend the weekend,” she told Hazel, eager to help the woman who had done so much for her.

“How 'bout I toss a few things into a bag and come right on over?”

“I do appreciate it, sweet love. Donna's making her delicious chicken Kiev, we'll have a nice dinner. Maybe you could do some riding while you're here. That three-year-old ginger you like so much needs to shake out the kinks.”

 

“Well your temperature is perfect,” John told Hazel, reading a digital thermometer in the soft light of a bedside lamp. “Ninety-eight point six precisely. And your blood pressure and pulse are normal, too.”

He took a small penlight from his kit and examined each of her eyes.

“It was awfully sweet of you to come over like this, John,” Hazel assured him as he peered into each cornea. “It just came on so suddenly, I—well, maybe I sort of overreacted.”

“Nonsense,” he assured her. “I'm happy to come check on any neighbor, but especially you. Stick out your tongue and say ahh…that's it, good.”

He switched off his light, dropped the used tongue depressor into a nearby waste can, and announced, “Hazel, if you were any fitter, I'd put you on the Olympic team.”

Although still respectful, there was suspicion in his tone. She aimed a covert glance at the clock on the nightstand. If Rebecca arrived when she'd promised to, the timing should be just right.

“Now, now, Doctor, you know how it is with us seasoned citizens—better safe than sorry.”

“Hmm…what, exactly, did you say you felt?”

“It was sort of like a twitching sensation in my chest.”

“A twitching?”

She shook her head. “No, maybe it was more like a fluttering.”

John grinned briefly. “Perhaps we should consult the dictionary to see which you felt?”

“I'll go with fluttering,” Hazel decided as if picking an entrée.

“Any dizziness in the past few days?”

“Possibly,” Hazel said, hedging, and John's eyes narrowed.

“Possibly?” he repeated. “You're not sure?”

“Well, the thing of it is, I haven't fainted,” she clarified, her face focused as if trying to remember. “But there
may
have been a brief dizzy spell.”

John definitely didn't trust her. She was acting a little too innocent, a little too confused and hesitant. That was nothing like the Hazel McCallum he knew.

“Have you had a recurrence of your angina pains?” he asked next.

Hazel was about to respond when a two-tone chime out in the living room announced the arrival of a visitor.

“Donna will get it,” she remarked.

He aimed a stern, yet curious, glance at her. “Hazel, you're faking this illness, aren't you?”

While she was a gifted actress, when the cause of love required it, Hazel had never been a very good liar when directly confronted. Now, hearing voices approach the bedroom, she quickly resorted to another tack.

“Yes, I'm faking,” she admitted. The ailing tone was gone. “You thick-skulled, high-strung youngsters have forced me to it. And now you're going to play along.”

“Hazel, I can't—”

“Shush it! She's almost here. Do you want Becky or not?”

“Becky? But how does she—”

He never finished the question, for at that very moment the lady in question appeared in the bedroom door, carrying a nylon overnight bag and a leather jumpkit similar to John's.

“Hazel, what—” She paused in midsentence when she saw him standing beside the bed. For a few moments her face closed in anger against him. But then she saw his open bag and the stethoscope around his neck. Worry suddenly replaced her anger.

“I called John right after I talked to you, hon,” Hazel explained, the under-the-weather tone back in her voice. “I felt a little twinge. John thinks it might be my angina kicking up.”

“Oh.” Rebecca looked uncertainly from one to the other. John seemed on the verge of saying something. But his eyes took in all of Rebecca, from her well-turned ankles to those lovely arching eyebrows, and the faintest of smiles lifted one corner of his mouth. He remained silent.

“Have you taken your nitro?” she asked Hazel.

“I was just telling John,” the matriarch spoke up quickly, “that Donna has looked all over the goldang house for them. I seem to've misplaced them.”

“If John writes a prescription,” Rebecca offered, “I can run into town quick and—”

“Oh, I know where I left them,” Hazel cut in suddenly. “I've been working on the old foreman's quarters out in the barn. I had them out there with me and must have left them there.”

“Where? I'll run out and get them,” Rebecca volunteered.

Hazel's weather-seamed face tightened in a show of concentration. “Let me see…did I leave them on the kitchen counter? Or maybe it was on the stand beside the sofa…oh, botheration, I can't recall.”

“I'll go out there and look,” Rebecca said, starting to turn away. “You go through the tack room, right?”

“That's right, Becky, the door should be unlocked.”

John was still standing beside the bed, gazing at Rebecca. Hazel quickly reached out and gave him a little punch on the arm to goad him into action.

“A backbone,” she whispered as the younger woman left the bedroom, “not a wishbone, remember?”