“Nope. Just for my bride here. She doesn’t think I can ride a mechanical bull standing up.”
The man shook his head. “You have no idea what this man can do. He’s pretty darn incredible!” Then he looked back at Slade. “I should have known you’d marry a pretty lady!”
Slade smiled. “The prettiest lady in all the land, you mean.”
“Sure, man, sure. The prettiest lady in all the land. Whatever.” He shook his head when Slade pulled out his wallet. “Never a charge for you.”
Slade led Heidi to a small table near the mechanical bull, which no one was using. He promptly took off his boots and walked toward the machine. Another man who Slade tried to give his money to held up both hands, and refused it. “No way. You make this thing look like a toy. No money from you.”
Slade carefully mounted the bull. He hadn’t tried this in a few years, but he knew it would all come back. He’d done it so often that he couldn’t imagine not being able to.
The band’s song ended, and Slade heard the owner of the bar’s voice, and he couldn’t help but grin. “Ladies and cowboys, you are in for a real treat tonight. My friend, Slade Henderson, is taking a break from being a bigwig doctor and returning to his roots. Please gather round the bull because I can promise you, you have never seen anything like what you’re about to see from this man.”
He pulled on the cord from the microphone ‘til it barely reached into the padded area where the bull was. “I have to know what brought you back here, Slade.”
Slade smiled, his face dimpling. “I got married last weekend, and when I talked to my bride about my bull riding skills, she told me that not only could I not ride a bull on my feet, but that no one could. Now, I don’t like to prove the pretty lady wrong, but I think I sure might move up a notch in her beautiful green eyes if I show her what I can do. So, I’m going to show her how a real man rides a bull!”
The owner took the microphone back, a huge grin on his face. “Fair enough. Get your phones out, people. You’re going to want video of this!”
Heidi stood at the edge of the small arena with her heart in her throat. She didn’t want him to get hurt, and she knew he was doing it just for her. She opened her mouth to shout to him that she believed him just as they started the bull.
To her amazement, he went from sitting on the bull’s saddle correctly to standing in a second flat. And then the owner nodded to the band and they played Boot Scootin' Boogie. While the song played, he did a dance to it, his thumbs mostly tucked in his belt, but occasionally, he’d raise a hand to wave his hat in the air. Heidi was thankful the bull never went faster than the slow speed they started it out at, because she was certain she’d have had a heart attack!
At the final words of the song, the bull drifted to a stop, and Slade did a no-handed flip right off the end of the bull to land at Heidi’s feet. He took both her hands in his, a bit out of breath from his dance. “Well, sweetheart? Do you believe me now?”
Heidi wasn’t sure if she wanted to beat him with her hat for being so stupid or if she wanted to cheer that he’d done so well! So she did neither. She flew at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him for all she was worth. “I was sure you were going to fall and break your fool neck!”
“Nah. I fell a couple of times practicing, but never since I learned what I was doing.”
She shook her head at him. “You don’t do that often, do you?”
“It’s been a few years.”
“Please don’t ever do it again!”
He laughed. “But there’s another song I do! I can’t just do one and not the other!”
“Yes, you can.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him far from the bull. “I thought you were going to dance with me!”
“All right. Let me get my boots back on.” He walked to the table and pulled his boots back on before taking her hand and leading her to the dance floor.
It was an old, slow Garth Brooks song and a favorite of hers, If Tomorrow Never Comes. While they danced, he sang it to her softly, and she stared at him. “You can sing?”
He threw back his head and laughed. “There’s so much you don’t know about me yet, Heidi. We’ll get there.”
After the dance, the owner came to him, hat in hand. “Thanks for the show. You always get so much business for the bull. How ‘bout a song? Just one while the singer gets a drink. His throat’s been bugging him today.”
Slade thought about it for a moment. “Would you mind?” he asked Heidi.
She shook her head. “I would love it. Not nearly as dangerous as the bull!”
“I’ll do Austin by Blake Shelton.” Slade winked at Heidi before he got to his feet and walked over to join the band. The singer patted him on the back and wandered off while he told the others what song he’d sing.
As Heidi watched, he climbed on the stage and took the microphone. He waited a moment as the band started the song, and then he sang. His voice—his pure baritone voice—had Heidi’s knees turning to mush. How many doctors sang to their wives in bars on Friday nights?
When he finished the final words of the song, the applause was thunderous. Heidi was on her feet with everyone else, clapping wildly. When Slade returned to the table, her eyes were wide. “You’re not just any doctor. You’re super doctor!”
He laughed. “I’m more than you think I am. I’m just going to leave it at that. Don’t paint me with the same brush you use on all the other doctors you’ve known, Heidi. Buy me my own.”
“I’m starting to really believe that.”
“All I ask is you keep an open mind as you watch me, and not some freak who did a friend wrong or treated nurses like idiots. I’m not them.”
“I’m doing my best.” Heidi couldn’t completely shake her preconceived notions about doctors, but she was trying. For him. She was starting to think she’d do anything for him. He already held her heart in the palm of his hand—she only wished she could trust him with it.
They danced several more dances, and she found he was as good at fast dancing as he was slow dancing. “You must have led a crazy wild life in college!”
He shrugged. “I was never a drinker, but my friends all liked to drink, so I’d go with them to bars, and I’d drive them home. I learned a lot of dances. I learned to watch people and understand them. I almost went into psychiatry.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t see you as a shrink.”
“I’d have been a good one!”
“No doubt. You seem to be good at everything you do.” She reached out and took his hand while they waited for another refill on their soft drinks. “This is a fun place.” The bar wasn’t huge, but it was hopping. It was just right for Heidi’s tastes.
After they’d finished their drinks, they paid, and Slade stood up. “Let’s get you home.”
The owner came over and shook Slade’s hand, thanking him for coming in. “You know we’d hire you in a heartbeat if you ever got sick of being a doctor.”
Slade laughed. “Yeah, I could sing from the back of a moving mechanical bull while dancing. Maybe I could tell jokes!” His eyes lit up. “I was just telling Heidi that I’d make a great comedian.”
The owner shook his head. “Don’t quit your day job.” He winked at Heidi, who laughed.
“It was really nice meeting you,” Heidi said, leaning into Slade as he put his arm around her. “This place showed me a whole new side of my husband.”
“You take care of my friend. He’s a good man.”
Heidi nodded. “He is. I think I’m going to keep him.”
The owner threw back his head and laughed, patting Heidi’s shoulder. As soon as they were outside, Slade said, “Too bad he didn’t realize you were serious.”
“I’m sorry I judged you based on every other doctor I’ve known.” She still wasn’t sure that she trusted him completely, but that day had opened her eyes to a different man than she’d thought she knew.
“Have you ever dated a doctor?”
; Heidi sighed, nodding. “Fresh out of college, starting my career, I worked as a nurse in a local hospital. I’m not going to say which one, because it really doesn’t matter at this point. One of the residents started following me around on his breaks, telling me everything I did was perfect. He’d compliment me on so many different things.”
“And?”
“And I finally agreed to go out with him. I believed that he saw me as a woman and not just a nurse to boss around.” She sighed. “We’d been dating for about three weeks when he messed up. He hadn’t had enough sleep, and he wrote an order wrong. I caught it. I very quietly showed him his error, so he wouldn’t be embarrassed. He insisted he was right.”
“What happened?”
Heidi sighed. “I refused to give the medication to the patient as he’d written it. I couldn’t kill her!”
“Of course not!”
“I went to the charge nurse and told her what happened, and he got reprimanded. And he screamed at me in front of everyone that I wasn’t worth anything anyway, and we never went out again.”
Slade shook his head. “I wish doctors could just skip right over the ‘full of themselves’ years and right on to knowing what they’re doing. If I knew half what I thought I knew when I was an intern, I’d be the best doctor alive.”
Heidi nodded, surprised he was agreeing with her. “So if I pointed out your medication error, what would you do?”
“I’d recheck my calculations. If you were right, I’d thank you profusely for bringing it to my attention. If you were wrong, I’d thank you for thinking of the patient first.”
“You would not!” She’d never seen a doctor react that way. She knew better.
“I would. Because it would mean to me that you are caring more about the life of a patient than how you’re going to be treated by a doctor with his head up his butt. I know how nurses are treated. I’ve worked in hospitals for a long time. And my mother is still a nurse.”
She frowned. “I forgot your mom is a nurse. Would she ever come home with stories about doctors?”
“Oh yeah. When I first said I was going to be a doctor, I think she was upset, but as time went by, she just talked to me about always doing the right thing for the patient and about making sure I treated everyone as my equals. She said there’s a hierarchy in hospitals, but there shouldn’t be.”
Heidi looked at him. “And you believe it?”
He shrugged. “I probably came out of medical school with an ego bigger than I should have, but not as bad as some of my classmates. I tried not to be an egomaniac.”
They’d reached the car and got in. “I really had a lot of fun tonight. It was interesting to see another side of you.”
“Which side was better? The bull-dancing side or the singing side?”
“I liked the singing side better, because I wasn’t worried you’d fall and break your fool neck. I have to admit you looked really hot on that bull, though. I was very impressed.”
“Hot, huh? So I turned you on?”
She shook her head. “Slade Henderson, you turn me on every time you look at me. Yes, your bull riding turned me on, but so did dancing and singing.”
“So now that you’re so turned on, we’re going straight home, and you’re going to show me, right?”
She laughed. “Sometimes I think you’re this almost superhuman man, who can do anything. And then you say something like that, and I realize that deep down—you’re just a hormonal teenager trying to get laid like every other man in the country.”
“Well, yeah! What did you really expect?”
“I have no idea…”
Chapter Seven
Heidi and Slade met the movers at her old apartment the following weekend. While Heidi was checking on Miss Molly, Slade was upstairs directing the movers. Not that he’d ever been there before to do much directing.
Heidi knocked on the door. “Hi, Miss Molly! How are you doing?”
“It’s been days since you came to see me!”
“I’m so sorry. I know it’s been a while, but I just got married and I don’t live upstairs anymore.” Heidi felt guilty for not seeing her more, but she truly didn’t have time to drive out of her way to stop in every day.
“Well, I know, but I thought you’d still come see me!”
Heidi smiled. “I will. And if there’s anything you need from me, all you have to do is call.”
“I need something.”
Heidi wasn’t surprised. “What do you need today?”
“I need to go to the grocery store. That young lady who’s supposed to do those things for me has disappeared.”
Heidi frowned at that. “Well, let me call my husband real quick and tell him we’re going to the grocery store.” She pulled her phone out and called Slade. “Miss Molly needs to go to the grocery store. I’m going to drive her.”
“I thought you said she had someone who was paid to take care of little things like that?”
“She disappeared. I’ll check into it, but first, I’m going to get her grocery shopping done.”
“Call me when you get back, and I’ll carry the groceries in.”
“You’re such a gentleman.”
“I try.”
Heidi smiled at Miss Molly. “All right. Are you ready?”
The old woman shuffled to the door, grabbing her walker from beside it. “I’m not feeling as spry as usual today, Heidi. Do you mind if I use the motorized cart?”
Heidi knew the woman’s driving would make her the terror of the entire store, and she was already dreading it. “Of course not. Just make sure not to run over my feet this time.”
“You run over someone’s feet a few times…”
“Sixteen, Miss Molly. You’ve run over them sixteen times.”
“Are you counting?”
“When your feet get crushed by a motorized cart, you tend to remember it. No counting necessary.” Heidi closed and locked the older woman’s apartment. She’d have to call her daughter again.
Once they were in Heidi’s car, she drove the mile up the road to the grocery store Miss Molly preferred. “Did you make a list?” Heidi asked, hoping against hope they wouldn’t be going up and down every single aisle on a Saturday.
“No, I thought we’d just look around. I haven’t been out in over a week!”
Heidi smiled at her, knowing she couldn’t begrudge the woman her only time out of the apartment. “Let me drive one of the carts over, so you can use it. Open your car door so it’s not too hot for you.” She jogged up to the building and sat down in one of the carts. She’d always hated driving them, but she’d do anything for her sweet neighbor.
Miss Molly waited until Heidi got out of the cart, then she climbed in. “I wish we could find someone to race with!”
“Now, Miss Molly, you remember what happened the last time you tried to race someone in the grocery store. There must have been seventy-five broken jars of pickles, and they said you weren’t allowed to come back to their store again. That’s why we had to start shopping here.”
“One little incident…”
“That was not a little incident. That was a big incident. No racing!”
“Just a little racing? Grocery shopping should be fun, Heidi!”
“No, it shouldn’t. If you challenge other people to a race, I’ll have to take your cart away and push you in one of the old-fashioned wheelchairs, and we both know how much you hate those.”
“You wouldn’t do that to me!”
“If you can’t behave, I’ll have to! Don’t make me play the mean guy. I don’t like it, but I’ll do it if I have to.”
Miss Molly just frowned. “So tell me about this new husband of yours. Is he sexy?”
Heidi nodded, laughing. “He’s a real hottie. I have a picture!” She had taken a picture of him on the stage the night before, and they’d done several selfies. “Wanna see?”
“Of course I do. I love to drool over a good hunk as much as the next woman. I may be old, but I�
�m not dead!”
Heidi pulled out her phone and pulled up a picture of her and Slade together on their wedding day. “I’m still waiting on the photographer’s pictures, but this is one I took.”
“He is a hunk! And look at you in your wedding dress. I don’t think you’ve ever looked prettier!”
Heidi took her phone back and shoved it into her purse. She took a sale ad from the stack and handed it to her friend, knowing she loved to peruse the sales, even though she’d never buy anything from it.
They went up and down every single aisle in the store, some of them two or three times. Miss Molly greeted several people by name. She truly loved her trips to the grocery store. Heidi wished she had time to take the woman shopping every week, because even though it wasn’t her favorite thing to do, she knew it was a big deal to Miss Molly.
“I’m going to text my husband and let him know we’re on our way back. He’ll meet us at your place to carry the groceries in.”
“I get to meet him today? Can I call him hunk?”
Heidi laughed. “I’m not sure how he’d react to that. His name is Slade Henderson. He’s a doctor.”
“A doctor? Well, look at you, marrying a doctor! Is he as fun to kiss as he looks? Those eyes of his make me think that he’s got some mischief in him!”
“There’s a lot hidden in those brown eyes!”
Heidi pulled up in front of the apartment building and smiled when she saw Slade waiting for them. She got out and hurried around to open the door for Miss Molly, while pushing the button to pop the trunk. “If you’ll put the groceries on her counter, I’ll put them away.”
Slade nodded. “They’re almost done packing up your apartment. They’re going to break for lunch, then we’ll meet at the house.”
“Sounds good.” Heidi gripped Miss Molly’s arm and carefully helped her out of the car. She handed her the walker and hurried over to unlock the apartment door. “You sit down, and we’ll get the groceries taken care of, then I’ll fix you a nice lunch. What are you hungry for?”
Miss Molly made a face. “There’s never anything good to eat in my apartment.”
Nursing in Northlake (At the Altar Book 9) Page 7