to be honest, I think he’s a big flirt. He said all sorts of…suggestive things to me. Like how he wished I’d chosen to work under him rather than Dr. Kelsey.”
Geraldine laughed again. “What’s wrong with that? I’m sure the man has heard you’re good at your job.”
Nicolette’s lips pursed with disapproval. “Yes, but it was the way he said it that rubbed me all wrong. He had this gleam in his eyes that made me feel like an idiot.”
Geraldine placed a gentle hand on her daughter’s arm. “Don’t you mean it made you feel like a woman?”
Her mother’s suggestion left Nicolette so uncomfortable she quickly jumped to her feet and snatched up the briefcase she’d propped against the legs of her chair.
“I’m going to go take a shower and have a little supper,” she told her mother. “It’s getting late and I’ve got to be at the clinic very early in the morning.”
Chapter Two
A few minutes later, after showering and dressing in a robe, Nicolette was almost too tired to eat the plate of food Cook set in front of her. But eventually she managed to swallow down half of the broiled salmon and rice before she headed to her bedroom.
She’d brought home several journal articles about new medications soon to be released, but as soon as she crawled into bed and picked up the first one, her eyelids began to droop.
Two hours later she was sound asleep with the lamp on the nightstand still burning, when the telephone jangled loudly near her head. Since she had a private line she couldn’t rely on Cook or her mother to answer.
Trying to shake away her grogginess, she reached for the phone and shoved her hair back from her face.
“Hello.”
“Is that you Ms. Saddler? Nicolette, isn’t it?”
The voice sounded vaguely familiar but she couldn’t quite put a name to it. “Yes. Who is this?”
“Dr. Garroway—Ridge—remember?”
In spite of her numbing exhaustion, Nicolette shot straight up in the bed and gripped the receiver. “Doctor. Uh, why are you calling? It’s—” Twisting her head around toward the digital clock on the nightstand, she was shocked to see it was twenty minutes past midnight. “It’s very late. And—”
“I’m sorry to wake you like this, Nicolette, but I’m having a little problem here at the hospital and—”
His use of her first name distracted her even more and she blurted out with surprise, “You’re at the hospital?”
“Uh, yes. I am a doctor,” he reminded dryly.
She felt desperately stupid as she tried to wake herself up and gather her scattered senses. “Sorry. I’m not—I was sound asleep. You say you’re having a problem? What does that have to do with me?”
There was a moment’s pause and then he said, “My patient is demanding to see you. Seems you’re his favorite doctor and he won’t trust me to treat him unless you’re here. I tried to explain—”
“Who’s the patient?” Nicolette interrupted him again.
“Dan Nelson. He’s—”
Dan Nelson was ninety-one years old and had worked as a wrangler for the Sandbur until he was in his mideighties. He was a prickly pear of an old man, but she adored him. “Yes, yes, I know the man. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Wait, Nicolette. Driving to the hospital might not be necessary. Talking to him over the phone might work,” Ridge told her.
“He’s more important to me than that,” she said curtly.
There was another short pause and then he said, “All right, I appreciate your help. And by the way, I’m at the county hospital.”
“I’ll find you.”
Nicolette dropped the phone on its hook and scurried from the bed.
As she hastily grabbed clothes from the closet, she groaned out loud. Meeting Ridge Garroway in the middle of the night was the last thing she wanted to do. But Dan needed her and she was a medical provider first, a woman second.
As long as she could keep that fact in the back of her mind, she could meet the new doctor head-on and never suffer the slightest heart murmur.
Twenty minutes later Nicolette wheeled her car into the hospital parking lot and hurried inside. At the double elevators, she smashed the up button, and as she waited for a door to open, she hurriedly jerked a white lab coat over her shirt and jeans and fastened the buttons.
Once she reached the third floor, where most of the internal medicine patients were located, she hurried toward the nurses’ station, where several women were clustered behind a tall counter.
Bess, an older nurse sitting at a computer located directly behind the counter, looked up at Nicolette with faint surprise. “P.A. Saddler, is that you?”
Nicolette unconsciously lifted a hand to her long hair. She’d not taken the time to fasten it with a barrette or even a rubber band and now it was flying around her shoulders. Her face was bare of makeup and she realized she must look very pale and very unprofessional, but her appearance was the last thing she was worried about at the moment.
“It’s me, Bess, I’m looking for Dr. Garroway. Is he on the floor?”
Bess nodded. “Last I saw he was down at room 301 with a Mr.—” she glanced at a clipboard with a list of patients’ names “—Mr. Nelson.”
“Thanks.”
From the nurses’ station Nicolette made a quick turn to the left, which would take her down an east wing. She was almost to the private room when Dr. Garroway suddenly stepped out in the corridor.
He smiled and waved. Nicolette swallowed hard and hurried toward him.
“How is he?” she asked before he had a chance to say a word.
The apprehension on her face caused the doctor’s brows to lift. “Are you close to Mr. Nelson?”
“I’ve known him since I was a very small girl. He worked for my family for more than fifty years. Of course I’m close to him. I love him.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder. Nicolette had not been asking for any comfort from the man, but she realized the strength of his touch was very steadying and, at the moment, very welcome.
“Relax. I think Mr. Nelson is going to be fine. That is, if he’ll allow me to treat him. He needs a shot of diuretics to reduce the fluid in his lungs, but he won’t agree to let me or the nurse give it to him.”
A sigh of relief rushed past Nicolette’s lips. “I know his heart isn’t the best in the world. I was afraid he’d suffered an attack.”
“No. Nothing like that. Right now this is mainly a pulmonary problem.”
Nodding that she understood, Nicolette grimaced. “Years of unfiltered cigarettes,” she explained, then added, “I’ll see what I can do. He’s usually good for me.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Ridge said, then gestured toward the closed door.
Nicolette knocked lightly and stepped into the small room. One fluorescent light burned over the head of Dan’s bed, illuminating the older man’s wrinkled face. At the moment, his faded blue eyes were closed, but when she spoke they flew wide open.
“Dan? It’s me, Nicci,” she said softly. “How are you feeling?”
He held his hand out to her and motioned her to his side. Nicci hurried to him and clasped the bony hand between hers.
“Nicci, honey, I thought you’d never get here.”