His Bidding (The Best Medicine #1) Read Free Page B

too. “So what should I call you when we’re being totally informal?” Brynn added, not missing the opportunity to brush up.
    The girl shrugged and smiled, cementing her adorably innocent image. “Maureen is fine, but my friends sometimes call me Mo for short.”
    “Well, once I’ve taken some of these patients out of your hair and earned myself a place in the friend ranks, I’ll give that some thought.” They exchanged another grin before it was down to business. Brynn was turning to call out the first two patients’ names, which always made everyone who was waiting loosen up a bit – it felt like things were moving more quickly than they were, even if the doctor on call hadn’t even arrived yet, which was what Brynn suspected – but Maureen cleared her throat, as though trying to catch the nurse’s attention. Brynn’s head swiveled to meet the girl’s gaze, and Maureen opened her mouth as if to speak, but they were interrupted.
    “I’ve been here for half an hour,” a male patient’s voice complained. He had risen from his seat when he saw Brynn with charts in hand, a not-uncommon thing to happen with the most impatient patients she’d ever dealt with. She forgave them, usually, because getting in to see Dr. Hitchens – the best of the best – and his associates always took a long time if you weren’t someone with strings to pull, and nobody came to see his team if there wasn’t something of major medical concern happening. Even so, this man’s physical proximity to her was irksome, and Brynn forgot about Maureen as she tried to respond in a calm and measured way.
    “You must be Mr. Lindstrom?” When the man nodded, his face set in a grim frown, Brynn held up his chart. “I was just about to call you in. And...Mrs. Whittaker?” A heavyset woman who’d been sitting on the edge of her seat in the corner rose as well. “If you’d both like to follow me...?”
    Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Maureen still trying to catch her attention, but now that these two patients had been temporarily placated and the others felt closer to getting their turn, Brynn wasn’t about to interrupt the progress toward a less stressful day for the entire office. She led both patients down a long, dark wood-paneled corridor, the antithesis of “clinical” despite the building’s purposes, and ushered Mr. Lindstrom into exam room number one, which was attached to Dr. Hitchens’s private office. She spared herself only a split second to eye the closed door with longing before directing Mrs. Whittaker a few feet farther down the hall into a similar exam room. Both were gleaming white examples of cleanliness and the most expensive technology and design one could hope for, which she imagined was the intention of the decorators when they’d revamped the building a few years back at Dr. Hitchens’s behest. It was warm and homey in the public areas, sterile but comfortable in the exam and procedure rooms, and not a single thing showed anything less than the highest quality and attention to detail.
    “The doctor will be with you as soon as possible,” Brynn fibbed to Mrs. Whittaker, offering a magazine which the lady took quite placidly. Fib successful, Brynn thought. It was never a good sign when one of the Clinic’s three partners didn’t meet her in the front office to do a quick rundown of the day ahead upon her arrival, so heaven only knew who was on today for consults, or how long it would be before the doctor in question showed up.
    Dutifully Brynn returned to room one, tugging at the pen around her neck and trying not to entangle her stethoscope as she prepared to distract Mr. Lindstrom – and make the on-call doctor’s job easier – by taking a full patient history while the man waited. Her pen wasn’t making anything easier on her, and she was lucky she knew the layout of the rooms so well. She’d have bumped into something as she fiddled with the string otherwise.
    “So, Mr. Lindstrom,”