Finding Love

by Natalie Ann

  Both girls burst out laughing. What was he missing now?

  “I’m self-employed, Dr. McMann. My job isn’t stressful in the least.”

  He lifted an eyebrow at her. “I’d say the fact you are sitting in the ER might suggest something else.”

  “Well, see what those tests say first,” Sheldon said. “But in this case, my career choice doesn’t have a lot to do with it, I’m positive.”

  “And your career is?” He hadn’t seen it on her chart.

  “I write romance novels. Love and happy ever after. Not a lot of stress in that.”

  He wasn’t expecting her to say that. Not that he knew what a romance writer looked like, but it wasn’t her. Her chart said she was twenty-seven, but she looked younger.

  Maybe he expected sophistication with a writer and not someone in jean shorts, flip flops on the floor next to the bed, a tiny T-shirt and her hair in a ponytail. Her friend didn’t look much different.

  He was going to dispute her claim about stress, but figured for the moment it wasn’t his concern. He was just going to run his tests and get the results he was expecting to find.

  “Well then. The nurse will show you where to go for the tests and I’ll put a rush on the results. We’ll get you as good as new so that you can get back to writing those love stories,” he added, smiling, then winking.

  When he walked beyond the curtain he heard them laughing again. Did he really just say that? And wink at her?

  What was wrong with him?

  Entertainment Factor

  “Did Dr. McHotty just wink at you?” Melissa asked.

  “He had something in his eye,” Sheldon said. That was what she was telling herself. Not that the very sexy doctor that looked like he belonged on TV was flirting with her.

  No way. She was in pain.

  She was his patient.

  She was immune to those things.

  Then why did her stomach flare up when he did it? Pain. That’s what it was. Not butterflies.

  And the heat filling her face wasn’t a blush. Nope, it was a reaction to the acid. Yep, that’s what it was.

  What did Melissa say earlier? That Sheldon lied. That’s not what she was doing right now either!

  “Follow me this way, Ms. Case,” the nurse said, moving behind the curtain.

  “What’s an upper GI?” Sheldon asked, following the nurse down the hallway.

  “Nothing painful. Just drink barium, which is a white liquid. It’s kind of like chalk, but not completely horrible. Then we’ll take a bunch of X-rays.”

  “Lovely. I was hungry, but chalk wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  The nurse smiled politely and ushered her behind the curtain. “Do you have any metal in your bra?”

  Sheldon had to think about what she was wearing. “No.” It was a good day to have a sports bra on. Then again, when was the last time she changed clothes? Oh man, she hoped she didn’t stink.

  “Good, then you can leave it on under your shirt for the X-rays. Otherwise, this is relatively painless. I’m just going to draw your blood quick.”

  “What are they testing my blood for?” she asked, preparing herself for the needle. She wouldn’t pass out or anything, but she couldn’t watch it being done.

  Sheldon sat down and looked at the wall on the other side of the room, wishing Melissa was in here to keep her company. But Melissa was in the waiting room down the hall.

  The nurse tied a blue band around her upper arm and then started to tap some veins. Not that Sheldon was watching, because she sure the heck wasn’t. But she could feel...unfortunately.

  “We’re testing for bacteria. If you do have an ulcer and it’s caused by bacteria, then we can treat it more effectively. Dr. McMann is also ordering a full panel of your CBC and a bunch of other things I can explain if you’d like. Are you ready?”

  “Yeah. And no, I don’t need the explanation,” Sheldon said, feeling the needle pierce through her skin and fighting not to flinch. She breathed in and out of her mouth, then just started talking to take her mind off of it. “I trust he knows what he’s doing.”

  “Dr. McMann?” the nurse asked. “Yeah. He may be young, but he knows what he’s doing. Really smart and on the ball.”

  Sheldon wasn’t a good judge of a man’s age. “How old is he?” She wasn’t really curious. She just wanted to be distracted from what seemed like the hundredth vial being drawn from her arm. Did she have this much blood in her?

  “Early thirties. Not sure exactly. He’s been here a few years.”

  Finally, the band was released from her arm. What was the nurse saying, early thirties? Something like that. Didn’t matter. The needle was out. “Do I have enough blood left in me to function?” Sheldon asked.

  The nurse laughed. “It was only four vials. I’m sure it felt like more, but plenty of blood is left in your body.” The nurse opened a cabinet, then set a bottle next to her. White chalk, in liquid form. “Just drink this and then you can go wait with your friend. We’ll call you in when it’s time for the X-ray. It takes a bit for the barium to coat everything for the X-rays.”

  Sheldon opened the bottle and took a swig. The blood work was more pleasant than this. All because she hadn’t eaten in a few days. She wouldn’t forget again.

  “So how did it taste?” Melissa asked when Sheldon sat next to her in a smaller waiting room. It was just the two of them and the TV playing the news.

  “Like shit.”

  “I didn’t realize you were aware of what shit tasted like.”

  Sheldon laughed, glad Melissa was with her. Melissa was always good for the entertainment factor. “If I was to imagine what white shit tastes like, it’d be that stuff.”

  Over an hour later, the tests were all done and Sheldon was wondering if she was free to leave. No one had said a word to her. But the good news was, her stomach didn’t seem to hurt as much. Maybe chalk was good for an upset stomach, but it wasn’t something she wanted to add to her diet.

  “Can we go?” Melissa asked.

  “No clue. I guess I’ll see if I can find the nurse and ask.”

  There was no need because Dr. McHunky walked into the waiting room at that moment. Hunky was better than hot in her mind. And why was her mind even going there?

  ***

  “Ms. Case. I just finished reviewing your test results. Looks like a peptic ulcer. I’m going to give you a prescription for a round of antibiotics to take care of the bacteria that we discovered is most likely the culprit. I’ll also give you a script for cytoprotective agents to help with the symptoms.”

  “Great, bacteria. Just what every woman wants to hear is swimming around in her body.”

  He smiled at her. Her friend was silently laughing, he could see. The two of them provided him some amusement on an otherwise dull night. He still had hours to go before his shift ended too.

  “I also suggest you lay off the caffeine and spicy foods for a few weeks.”

  “Darn, I was going to make you jalapeno poppers when we got back,” Melissa said.

  “Fried foods should be added to that list,” he said, “of things to stay away from.”

  Was he supposed to notice how cute Sheldon was? That was the best word for her. She could probably be attractive, but right now, the way she was dressed, cute was doing it for him.

  If he was honest with himself, cute carried more weight with him than attractive. He’d had the attractive hot wife, and it didn’t work out. Cute was more down to earth. More wholesome. And more his style.

  “Thanks for everything,” Sheldon said.

  He nodded. “I sent them to the pharmacy you had on file. They should be ready before closing if you head over there now. You should make a follow-up appointment with your primary doctor in a few weeks too.”

  “I can handle that.”

  “Drink a lot of water tonight,” he added. “It will help flush the barium out of your system faster.”

  She looked like she was going to gag when he said that. Her
friend started to snicker. “How much water do I need to drink to get it out now?”

  He laughed. “Not enough. That’s not how you’ll flush it out. It will take a day or so to work through your stomach and colon.”

  This time Melissa burst out laughing. What’s the best way to turn a woman off? Talk about bowel movements. Yep, that was always a good one.

  “Awesome. No coffee. No jalapeno poppers and tons of water. Got it.”

  He smiled at her—he had no choice with her smiling back at him. “How’s the pain?”

  “Nonexistent. Guess chalk will do that to you.”

  “A plus side to everything.” He’d always been that way, and was happy to see her so just now. She was taking everything in stride.

  “Well, thanks again,” she said, looking like she really didn’t want to leave, but he had other patients to see and couldn’t be standing around here.

  He reached his hand out and shook hers, felt the spark he’d been missing in his life and pushed it off. “Take care,” he said, then walked away. He still heard Melissa say to Sheldon, “Definitely flirting with you. You idiot, why didn’t you get his number?”

  Maybe he should have stayed and talked some more. Only he was working and she was a patient, and he wasn’t going to push his luck.

  Future Consideration

  Three days later Sheldon was running errands in town. Town being Stevensville, population of just under seven thousand. Which was about three thousand more than Chester, the other “big” town on Kent Island, that she lived in. The rest of the island’s population was made up of small narrows and such. But Sheldon loved the historic little island that was considered a suburb of Baltimore, just an hour’s drive away.

  She got to experience the beauty and calm of nature here, knowing that the city life wasn’t all that far away if she wanted it, which she never really did.

  It was hot and humid, more than normal, so she ran into a doughnut shop looking for a drink, a snack and some air conditioning.

  Once she was seated at a table, she pulled her laptop out and started to jot down notes like she always did. She loved watching the tourists and locals alike. Wondering about their backgrounds, or building stories in her mind. Some got used, others got stored away for future consideration.

  She was just glancing up when she spotted a familiar face. “Well now,” she said. “That’s a bit hypocritical.”

  “I told you to lay off the caffeine. I’m not the one with an ulcer,” Dr. McMann said, eying her large iced-tea, humor in his gaze.

  “Decaf,” she said. He was even handsomer outside of the ER, wearing shorts and a T-shirt rather than scrubs and a lab coat. Matter of fact, he didn’t look much like a doctor at all right now.

  He was as tall as she remembered, maybe an inch or so over six foot. Brown hair a little messy, but not bad, more like windblown. Dark eyes that were assessing her in a way that was warming up the body temperature she’d just cooled down.

  Damn Melissa for pointing out that the hot doctor was flirting with her. She’d been in too much pain to believe it, but looking back, she was thinking Melissa was right. She normally hated when Melissa was right. This wasn’t one of those times.

  Still, she wasn’t looking to date anyone. Well, maybe date and have some fun. But that’s it. That was all she’d ever do. Happy ever after didn’t exist anywhere other than what was in her books. But she’d never been opposed to having fun, and if having it with someone as sweet on the eyes as him was a possibility, then why not?

  “And your snack?” he asked, looking at the empty wrapper on the table.

  “Are you asking from a medical perspective or just being nosy?” she asked, grinning at him, noticing the Boston cream doughnut in his hand with his coffee.

  He laughed. “A little bit of both.”

  Should she push him along, or chat him up? It’s not like she was in a hurry and he seemed to be lingering for an invitation if she was guessing correctly. “Have a seat if you’ve got time,” she said, nodding to the chair across from her. “I had a veggie egg white flatbread. I was instructed to clean up my diet. I follow directions...when I want to.”

  He sat down and took a sip of his coffee and a bite of his doughnut. Was he rubbing in the sugary concoction that she wasn’t allowed to indulge in? She hoped not because that wouldn’t be very nice and so far he’d been exceedingly nice. “Most patients don’t, then they end back up in the ER having more tests and being prescribed more meds.”

  “I’ve had enough blood drawn to last a few years. I don’t need to ingest any more white chalk either. I can be a good little soldier when need be.”

  Especially since she was feeling much better. She was hoping all those good thoughts she was filling her head with were helping too. Positive little snippets like “green is good for you, eat more and you’ll feel like a million bucks.” Then she’d shovel in her salad wishing it were a burger and fries.

  “Maybe I need more patients like you,” he said, eating more of his doughnut, then licking the cream off a finger. This was torture. The cream on his finger that she was denying herself, not thoughts of his tongue elsewhere. Yeah, that was it, sugary cream she wasn’t eating.

  Who was she kidding? She hadn’t been with a man in way too long, then wrote some pretty steamy scenes and now it was all catching up with her. What a sucky predicament.

  She needed to remind herself he saw pictures of her organs. Of the inside of her body. That was a real big turn off, she was guessing.

  “Not working today?” she asked, putting down the top on her laptop.

  “I’ll go in later.”

  “Can’t be the night shift, unless you don’t sleep.” She tended to ask a lot of questions. How else was she going to be able to write about a sexy ER doctor at some point? She loved her life and how storylines just popped up when least expected.

  “More like a second shift thing, I guess. I go in early afternoons until midnight or so. When it calms down enough.”

  She nodded. “Do you live on the island?”

  “I do. Not far from here.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me if I do?” she said, flirting with him a little.

  He smiled and finished the last bite of his doughnut. “I’ve seen your file. I know you do. Besides, you’re not a tourist, so you wouldn’t have any other reason to be here right now unless you were a resident.”

  “True.” She was surprised he remembered where she lived. Then again, the population of Queen Ann County wasn’t much more than fifty thousand, and not too many actual towns or cities to live in, Stevensville being the largest populated town of the whole county.

  “Are you working? You said your deadline was over,” he asked, nodding at her laptop.

  “I’m always working. When I finish one book, I just move onto the next. If I’m not writing, I’m editing or taking notes and figuring out what my next book or series will be about.”

  “And you say that isn’t stressful?” he asked.

  “Not at all. It’s like playing make believe nonstop. It can’t be stressful if I’m making it up in my head.”

  “So says the woman who ended up in my ER with an ulcer.”

  ***

  She pursed her lips adorably. He was right—cute. And a great personality to go with it. Funny, quirky and outgoing.

  “I told you it was a deadline thing. I almost never get that close to a deadline. Ever.”

  “So what happened this time?” He’d tried to do a search of her name and found nothing, and assumed she had a pen name.

  “I was almost done. Just getting ready to do a final edit before I sent it to my editor. When I was reading it over I just wasn’t happy with the hero of the story. He didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Not his personality. I decided to change it and ended up rewriting almost three-fourths of the book.”

  He nodded, not really knowing what writing a book entailed. All he ever wrote were papers in school and he hated every minute of it. He’d much rat
her be doing than reading or writing.

  “So why romance novels?” he asked. She still looked more like a college student or kindergarten teacher to him than a romance writer. Though her light hair wasn’t in a ponytail today but rather falling loosely around her shoulders, she still had on a cotton shirt and he was guessing shorts. He couldn’t see under the table.

  “Why not?”

  She was still sporting a grin and he had no response to that. “Is this what you always wanted to do?”

  “I always wanted to write. I was a literature major in college. Thought I was going to write the next great American novel. The chances of that are few and far between. But I had to write a short story for a project. We were assigned to pick a genre to challenge ourselves and I picked romance. I found out it wasn’t much of a challenge at all.”

  He thought it was odd romance was a challenge to begin with, but shrugged it off. “So it just fell into your lap that way?”

  “Pretty much. What about you? I’m guessing you always wanted to be a doctor.”

  “Had to carry on the family name.”

  “Your father is a doctor?”

  “Both of my parents. My father is a general surgeon. My mother a pediatrician.”

  “Why emergency medicine?” she asked.

  “Why not?” he said back, causing her to laugh.

  “Good point. Well, I probably should get on my way. I’ve got a few more errands to run before I head home and get to work on laundry.”

  She stood up and he decided he couldn’t risk having her disappear again. Although chances were good he’d run into her again on the island at some point. “How about dinner sometime?”

  “Can you do that?” she asked, smirking at him.

  “Do what? Eat?”

  She laughed again. “No. I’m your patient. Is there a law or something about that?”

  “No law. And you were my patient. You aren’t any longer. But you can say no and it won’t hurt my feelings in the least. Even if I heard your friend say you should have gotten my number.”