BWWM Interracial Romance 2: Open Heart Read Free

of the most efficient women that Ashley knew in the hospital. If Rosalie was working, Ashley knew that everything would be absolutely in order—and would take place as quickly as possible. Ashley stepped up behind her colleague, trying to understand what was going on. The man standing on the other side of the desk was taller than she was, lean and muscled; she could see the movements of his body through the tailored suit he was wearing. His blond hair was cut short, his blue eyes were reddened, and she thought he looked as though he’d had a rough night. If she could have guessed what he was there for, she would have thought it would be coming down off of drugs, or too drunk to function, but instead he was speaking clearly—though in a raised voice—about his niece.
    “How long does it take to be seen in this dump?” he was asking in a near-shout. “I mean, what is this? It’s supposed to be an Emergency Room, right? So when someone has an E-mer-gen-cy,” he stressed each syllable, scowling, “like a little girl desperately sick, then shouldn’t there be some sense of—oh, I don’t know— urgency ?” Ashley was annoyed on Rosalie’s behalf, as well as her own, although it occurred to her that if she hadn’t gone snooping, she wouldn’t be hearing his abusive tone.
    “Sir, have you filled out your niece’s paperwork?” she asked him sharply, cutting through his diatribe. The man looked at her, and something flickered through his bright eyes before he resumed his scowl.
    “Yes, I gave it to this woman twenty minutes ago.” Ashley glanced at Rosalie and held out her hand for the paperwork. This man was an uncle—he was here with his niece, not his daughter. She looked over the symptoms listed. She resisted the urge to shake her head.
    “This is not an emergency situation right now, sir,” she said, looking at him coldly. “I can understand that you are concerned for your niece, however, I just left the room of a woman who had a six inch cut in her stomach that had severed an artery.” She held his gaze levelly. “As for why there’s such a wait, we are still working on multiple patients who were involved in a four-car pileup early this morning, which has thrown off the schedule. I apologize if you find the wait time unpleasant, but I believe that the patients I just mentioned have a right to quick attention. If you continue to abuse the staff, I will make sure that you are escorted out of the hospital.” The man sputtered that she couldn’t do that to him, and Ashley shook her head, turned on her heel, and left.

Pediatrics
     
    Ashley managed to gain some perspective on the situation while she sat in the break area eating her salad and sandwich. She was even able to shake her head and laugh at the fact that she had threatened to have the man thrown out. Normally, she was able to keep her composure even with the most annoying, whining patients—and since she rotated responsibilities as a family practice and a trauma doctor, dealing with pediatrics cases as well as ER and a few general cases, she had heard the gamut of annoying and whiny. But there had been something about the man standing there, chewing Rosalie out over something that wasn’t her colleague’s fault. Something about his demeanor; a kind of swaggering, bully-like air, as if the man expected everyone in the hospital to just kowtow to him. She half-expected him to pull out the old and tired, “Do you know who I am?” routine—and maybe he had before her arrival. Something about it had just set her off. She had worked with the woman she mentioned to him in her set-down; the woman’s cut had been so deep that Ashley was concerned that her ovaries, her bladder, or her intestines might have been nicked. The woman had gone to surgery—not Ashley’s specialty—but Ashley continued to worry for her, especially seeing the demeanor of the man who had come in with her—a kind of quiet brutality. He had blood on his shirt that she was