The M.D. Courts His Nurse Read Free Page B

eyes met as they passed in the hallway.
    Rebecca paused a moment. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
    Lois nodded.
    Rebecca didn’t have to explain where she was headed— Lois had overheard Dr. Saville’s strained request.
    â€œTemper, temper,” she reminded Rebecca quietly. “That vein is pulsing in your left temple.”
    â€œI’m fine,” she insisted. “You’re right, we just need to play it cool and break him in right. I’m not going to lose it around him.”
    Lois, however, had worked with Rebecca going on six years now and trusted that pulsing vein the way weather-men trusted Doppler radar.
    â€œIf you’re fine, then put this on,” Lois dared, picking up the blood pressure cuff and separating the Velcro tabs.
    â€œTake your own pressure and let’s see.”
    Rebecca stepped inside, but only so she could speak privately. “Never mind that. I confess his tone rubbed me the wrong way,” she admitted. “Like fingernails scratching a blackboard, actually. But I mean it, I’m not giving him the pleasure of getting to me. Maybe I’ll even drop a curtsy as I go in.”
    â€œOh, cripes,” Lois fretted. “Everybody buckle up, we’re going to get some turbulence.”
    â€œYou’ll see—I mean it. Cool and professional.”
    However, her resolve was under assault from the first moment she stepped into the doctor’s private office.
    Usually he prefaced his little lectures with attempts at polite small talk. This morning, however, he waded right in without even testing the water.
    â€œMiss O’Reilly, last Friday I noticed you being extremely rude, in my opinion, with the sales rep from Med-Tech Supplies.”
    â€œI doubt if it left him a broken man,” she countered, surprising herself at the sarcasm in her tone.
    John Saville stared at her for a moment, not sure whether he or the salesman was the target of her scornful tone.
    Both of us, he decided, and he felt his angry pulse thrum in his palms.
    She’s got a hell of a mouth on her, he fumed. But when he glanced at the defiant pout of her lips, he suddenly wondered what it would be like to kiss that angry mouth, kiss it hard until the anger turned to something very different….
    Fat chance he had of ever finding out. That was obvious in the way she always looked at him as if she’d love to slap him.
    â€œYes?” she asked, cutting impatiently into his reverie, trying to get him back on track. “You saw me being rude, as you call it, with the Med-Tech guy?”
    Her bossy tone irritated him anew. “Yeah, and now this morning,” he forged on, “I learn that you’ve switched our account to Rocky Mountain Medical Supplies.”
    So that’s what’s got him all bent out of shape, she thought, noticing how his features seemed etched in anger.
    â€œI didn’t attempt to conceal the change from anyone,” she countered, her face coolly indifferent to his obvious irritation. “Is there a problem?”
    â€œNone that I was aware of. That’s precisely my point in asking. Why fix what isn’t broken?”
    â€œRocky Mountain Medical is a dependable supplier. I switched for a good reason.”
    Those deep, intensely blue eyes cut into her like diamond drill bits. “That reason being…?”
    The salesman was a married man hitting on me, that’s why, she wanted to toss in his face. But she feared he would use it as proof of more “unprofessional behavior” on her part. Her resolve to rise above any fray crumbled completely. She suddenly flushed, more angry than embarrassed. “My reasons are personal.”
    â€œYes,” he said, smug with triumph, “I figured as much from your behavior last Friday. I could tell there was…something between the two of you.”
    â€œYou can’t possibly conclude—”
    She caught herself in the nick of