His Bidding (The Best Medicine #1) (3 page)

“So, Mr. Lindstrom,” she said, nudging the door closed with one hip before taking his chart out of its resting place in a slot on the wall, “before the doctor sees you, I’d like to get a list of any medications you’re currently on, take your present weight, and discuss a couple of things with you that I’m sure will be helpful to have in your records. How does that sound?”

“That sounds like I may as well take the day off.” The voice that answered her sounded amused, and she froze in place. She’d had her eyes down, first focusing on her stupid pen, then looking for the first blank sheet in the patient’s chart. It hadn’t occurred to her that anyone other than Mr. Lindstrom would be in here...and it certainly hadn’t seemed possible that the other “someone” would be her big shot boss.

B
rynn’s gaze lifted slowly, reluctantly, as she felt her face growing hotter by the second. She swallowed. “Dr. Hitchens,” she said, her voice sounding tremulous, and she hated herself for it. “I’m so sorry – I didn’t realize you were already –“

“Not at all.” Samuel Hitchens stood from the stool he’d pulled up next to the patient’s chair, grinning at her, his hazel eyes alight. Unlike his hospital uniform, generally made up of scrubs and a lab coat when he wanted to be hands-on, which was most of the time, he always dressed impeccably on his Clinic days. His lab coat was still present, but beneath it she could clearly see his very expensive suit and tie. Her stomach flip-flopped as she momentarily flashed back to her fantasy about that necktie, and she had to actually shake her head to get back to the here and now.

She moved to gingerly replace the chart in its slot, realizing Dr. Hitchens had probably already started the patient history in the tablet he was holding. He was walking towards her now, veering at the last second to reach over her head into a cupboard for something. She had to concentrate on breathing while he was so near. He smelled faintly of shaving cream and toothpaste, and the associated images nearly made her swoon like a corset-wearing Victorian woman. She could only hope she wasn’t embarrassing herself as much as she feared.

Whatever supplies he sought in the cabinet above her weren’t there, and he sighed. “My apologies, Hugh,” he said to Mr. Lindstrom. “Would you please excuse me for just a moment? Seems I’m running low on stock here. When I get back we can get started.”

“No problem, doc,” the man said, irritating Brynn ever so slightly, as it was so typical of patients to be as sweet as sugar to the doctors after giving the office and nursing staff a hard time. But she couldn’t stay annoyed for long, as she felt Dr. Hitchens take her gently by the arm and steer her from the exam room into his private office. Her heart fluttered as he shut the door behind them for privacy. As he walked to take a seat behind his enormous mahogany desk, she could still feel warmth where his fingers had touched the sleeve of her scrubs top.

“I really am sorry,” she repeated, wishing she could make herself sound less formal, as they usually were with each other – she’d worked here with him for six months now, after all, and he wasn’t exactly a tyrant of a boss – but her earlier preoccupations had left her feeling guilty and vulnerable. Formality was the only place she could find steady footing right now. “I thought you were booked in for the new rotation of interns at the hospital today, and I didn’t realize the on-call doctor was here yet, so I just thought I’d get a jump on...” She paused, flustered and hating her word choice. “I didn’t think to ask Maureen if she’d checked your cabinets, which I realize I should’ve done before I brought the patients in –“

Dr. Hitchens chuckled, templing his hands beneath his chin and giving her a long look that she found completely irresistible. “Brynn, it’s fine. You’ve done nothing wrong. You never do anything wrong, as far as I’m concerned.” Now he leaned back in his leather chair, his eyes staying level with hers. “I was going to thank you for being so thorough, actually. The partners have mentioned how much they look forward to working shifts when you’re here because you have such good instincts about what they and the patients need.”

She blushed, not from shame this time but out of genuine embarrassed humility. Dr. Hitchens was hardly spare with his praise when it was warranted, but it still filled her with a warm glow to hear him extolling her virtues. “Well...I appreciate that, Dr. Hitchens.”

“That’s another thing I meant to bring up with you,” he said, a smile still in his eyes. She was puzzled for a moment, before he continued. “Isn’t it about time you started calling me Sam? This whole ‘Dr. Hitchens’ thing makes me feel like I must scare the wits out of my colleagues.”

She wanted to correct him and say that she was less a colleague than his subordinate, but her tongue was tied by the invitation to call him Sam. Oh, God. She felt a hand reach up and begin to twist and untwist her stethoscope, hopelessly tangling her pen now. He noticed as much and stood once again, circling his desk until he was right in front of her. Without hesitation he set about untangling the knot she’d made, focusing as intently as he might during surgery while he did so.

“The real reason I pulled you out of there,” he murmured, his fingers deftly working near her bosom, all the while being careful not to touch her, “was because I saw that Mrs. Whittaker is second up today, and I’ll definitely need your help with that one.” He didn’t look up at her, but he smiled. “Mr. Lindstrom is probably going to take a while – he always does – and I don’t know if I can handle that woman grouching at me this early in the morning. If you wouldn’t mind doing a few extras with her – writing up lab work that I need her to get done, for example, and going over a few contraindications I found in her meds when I reviewed her chart – I think that would keep her waiting quite happily longer than she would otherwise.”

“Of course,” Brynn replied, hoping he couldn’t hear her heart pounding as he stood so close. “I gave her something to read when I first took her in, but I don’t think that’s going to kill much time.”

She felt a slight tug at the back of her neck as her stethoscope and pen came free of each other. “Aha!” Sam exclaimed, clearly pleased with himself. “Now that I’ve sorted you out, you can go and start the three-ring circus it’ll take to keep Mrs. Whittaker occupied.” His gaze met hers again, and he grinned. “Thank you, Brynn.”

“No, thank you,” she said lamely, pointing at her perfectly straightened pen. “I guess doctors are good with their hands inside and outside of the O.R., huh?”

He raised an eyebrow at her, and Brynn couldn’t believe what she’d just said. His smile changed subtly, but as he always did – in direct conflict with the reputation he had for being a perpetual lady-killer with coworkers – he remained decent and professional, while still managing to be friendly and informal.

“I suppose it’s our dexterity that makes us think we’d be good at being surgeons in the first place,” he replied with a chuckle. She felt overwhelmed with relief that he hadn’t called her out on such a blatantly, if unintentionally, sexual remark. It was unintentional as far as her conscious mind was concerned, anyway, she thought, fighting the urge to slap a hand over her mouth to prevent any further slip-ups.

“Well...” She swallowed again, this time with much difficulty. “Thank you for that. I was wondering how I would get myself out of that knot.” The double entendre was not lost on her, nor had it escaped him if his ever-changing smile was any indication, but again he took the high road.

“Glad I could help. It’s in my best interest to keep your pen free, anyway,” he responded with that charming grin of his. “Good luck with Mrs. Whittaker. I’ll check in with you at, say, lunchtime to go over the afternoon?”

“Of course,” she said with a nod. She was still blushing but there was nothing she could do about it. “I’ll bring the list and messages back here while Maureen is off on her break.”

He nodded in return. “Sounds good to me. Back to the grindstone we go.”

She managed a smile before leaving his office through the main door into the corridor, not wanting to run across Mr. Lindstrom again, especially while she was in such a state. She felt like a fourteen-year-old girl who’d just run into the boy with whom she desperately wanted to go to prom.

By the time she’d walked into exam room two and had engaged Mrs. Whittaker in medical talk that would buy Dr. Hitchens – Sam, she reminded herself – Brynn had more or less collected herself. She could only hope that would get her through the rest of the day.

N
oon came more quickly than Brynn anticipated, the “difficult” patients of their morning having been reasonably easy to deal with. Once the hitch in the schedule with the first two had been unsnarled, everything else had run smoothly, and Maureen was able to leave for lunch with an empty waiting room in front of her. That was clearly a relief for both of them.

“Ya done good, kid,” Brynn joked as the girl put on her jacket to escape for an hour. Maureen beamed proudly.

“Did I? I was hoping I kept things going on time. Well, as much as I could.”

“You were great,” Brynn reassured her. “I didn’t come out here once without finding exactly the charts and labs I needed ready for me. You have no idea how much that helps.”

Maureen looked ready to burst with happiness. It was sweet to see, and again served as a reminder of how much a little praise did to help Brynn through her early days in such a high-stress environment. She wondered idly if Maureen had a bit of a crush on Dr. Hitchens as well, which would explain in part why she worked as hard as she did on her days at the Clinic. It made sense. The man was kind, and funny, and incredibly handsome, and looked even younger than his relatively youthful age of 44. It was easy to imagine that a teenage girl would be as drawn to him as a hopeless twenty-five year old was. She’d never seen much interaction between them, but Brynn made a mental note to pay attention next time she did. Just out of curiosity.

Jacket on and keys in hand – Brynn was mildly surprised by the idea that this girl was old enough to drive, but of course she’d have to be, braids aside – Maureen asked, “Are you taking lunch, too? I can drive us someplace to grab a sandwich or something.”

Shaking her head at the kind offer, Brynn smiled. “Thank you, and normally I’d say yes, but I committed to sticking around here to go over some stuff for the afternoon with...” She paused, still turning over in her mind the change in his request for address earlier. “With Dr. Hitchens.”

“Oh, yeah – I tried to tell you he was in earlier, but you were a bit busy. So...now you don’t get a lunch break. That’s too bad.” Maureen looked disappointed for a moment, but then a twinkle appeared in her eyes. “Or is it?”

“What...what do you mean?” Brynn was genuinely confused for all of two seconds before realizing the implication. Good lord, she thought. This kid had only seen her working alongside Sam three or four times. Was the crush that obvious? Even to a teenager?

Maureen smiled, the sort usually reserved for best friends exchanging a knowing smile at their high school lockers. It was something Brynn could picture on Lisa’s face. “Nothing,” she said with a lilt in her voice. Her smile was coy. “I’ll see you in an hour. Oh, and I left all the phone messages for...Dr. Hitchens...on my desk, along with the afternoon charts and a copy of the schedule.”

“Oh. Okay. Thank you. That’s great.” Brynn narrowed her eyes as Maureen verily skipped out of the main office and through the front entrance. What was up with the hesitation in calling Sam “Dr. Hitchens”? Had he given the girl a similar “we’re all friends here” speech? The thought deflated Brynn’s ego a bit, but there was more to ponder about whatever her exchange with Maureen had meant than that.

A glance at her watch told her now wasn’t the time for pondering. She picked up the neat stack of charts and pages Maureen had set aside for her and wended her way through the hallways to Sam’s door. Before she could knock, she was surprised when the door swung open, Sam standing directly in front of her. He’d shed his lab coat and now looked more like a Ford model than a doctor in his three-piece suit and Italian leather shoes. 

“Oh!” they both said simultaneously, and then each laughed. Sam apologized. “I didn’t mean to scare you. And nearly knock you over. Here, let me take that for you.” He carefully reached to relieve her of the heavy burden that was the pile of charts, and as his hand brushed against her arm, she shivered. Nothing seemed to escape his notice.

“Chilly?” he asked. “I can turn the heat up a bit, if you like.”

“Oh, no, I’m okay, thank you.” She found it quite warm all of a sudden, in fact. “I...guess it’s just that I was out by the front door when Maureen opened it to leave.”

Sam set the charts down on his desk and took a seat, looking at her much the way he had first thing this morning. “Good kid, isn’t she?”

This time it was Brynn’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Yeah. She is. She’s a huge help, and she’s always in a good mood, even when patients have been hassling her.” Brynn wondered again what was going on there, but she held her tongue. Sam gave no further hints, instead reaching for his phone.

“Do you like Chinese food?” he asked. “I forgot to bring lunch, so I thought we could order in. There’s a place nearby that’s incredibly fast with their delivery.”

Brynn hesitated. Lunch. With Dr. Hitchens. Sam. Heaven only knew if she could get through an entire hour without saying something ridiculous and incriminating. But in spite of herself, she said, “Dim sum is my favorite food on earth.”

He smiled and motioned for her to have a seat across the desk from him. “Dim sum it is.”

Mere minutes later, Brynn learned that he wasn’t overstating the speed and efficiency of the restaurant. Sam instructed her to stay put, and stay warm – oh, if he only knew, she thought – while he met the driver at the side entrance. It gave her an idea of how often he must do this, staying in his office over lunches or into the evenings, ordering takeout, and she found her mind wandering. When was the last time he’d had a home-cooked meal? And was there someone else who usually stayed here with him after hours? Maybe more than one “someone else”? She sighed inwardly at the idea, and at the fact that she was letting herself think about his personal life again.