Page 29 of Doctor Daddy Dilemma

My chest squeezed again, the strange way my heart seemed to leap into my throat alarming me, but not surprising me. It’d been happening for weeks now, though never quite so painfully. I grimaced and signed the work orders for some painting that needed to be done in the office. My new secretary—fourth one this month—tapped her toe and waited. She was by far the most patient of the few I’d gone through, but I didn’t give her long either.

“There,” I said grumpily as I pushed the papers back across my desk. “Let’s just use the prescription stamp for these things from now on.”

“Sir, that’s not what that’s supposed to be used for.” Ella was a bit older than the last three assistants I’d hired, a fair bit. I’d have preferred a younger feel for my office staff given the clientele we served, but I was afraid the talent pool was exhausted already. Ella came to me with fourteen years of experience working for another doctor in this field and a whole heap of patience the other women hadn’t possessed. One of them left after just two days.

“Just do what I tell you, please.” I turned my swivel chair toward the window and stared out at the cresting wave. The ocean, like my temperament, was stormy. Southerly winds always blew across the island this time of year, when the earth was on its upswing, heading back into spring. It made for choppy waters on most days, but I hadn’t been to my yacht since the night Charlie left six months ago—almost to the day.

“Dr. Hartman, I understand you’ve had a personal tragedy, though you won’t speak about it. And I understand that you’ve gone through quite a few secretaries. I’m willing to be patient to a point, but I won’t be unethical.” Ella was already on my last nerve. I didn’t need a nosy biddy putting in her two cents and telling me what to do. I had a mind to fire her on the spot but there were no more applicants and no one to put more job postings on the job boards. Even the nursing staff was shying away from me at every turn.

I turned back to look at her and scowled. Maybe Ella was a godsend, exactly what I needed to snap me out of my funk and force me back to my normal routine. Or maybe she was the glue holding this place together while I grieved for a while longer. As it was, I’d cut my patient load by 75 percent, passed off all surgeries to other firms for the foreseeable future, and picked up a nasty drinking habit which had me perpetually in need of a shot to steady my shaking hands.

“This is my practice, Ella. Let me remind you—” My chest squeezed again and I winced, pressing the heel of my right hand into my sternum and wheezing.

“Are you okay, sir?” Ella set the papers down and rounded the end of my desk, immediately taking my wrist and pressing her two thumbs to it. She wasn’t a trained nurse, but she did have medical experience, and while I was annoyed by how she mothered me, she was just trying to help.

“Oh dear, you have quite the palpitation going on. I’m no doctor, but this doesn’t feel right.”

Pulling my wrist away from her I coughed hard and reached for my water bottle, but this time the squeezing didn’t let up. Not even when I took a deep swig of my water and continued to cough. Pain in my left side shot into my jaw and down my arm, and I closed my eyes and pressed my hand onto the surface of my desk to steady myself. My temper had been such over the past several months that I had these sorts of fits regularly.

“I’m concerned, Dr. Hartman. I know you’re a smart man, but I think you’ve been putting yourself at risk. I think you need to go get checked out. This isn’t normal.” Ella backed away but she lingered by my desk, hovering like a news helicopter.

After several deep breaths and a bit more coughing, I felt myself getting angry again. I didn’t need a mother. I’d had one of those and she’d failed me. And Ella wasn’t my partner either, though a widow at the age of forty-seven, she wasn’t even on my radar—no one was. No one would ever be again. Charlie ruined me. I had no intention of ever dating another woman in my life.

“Please leave,” I growled, but as I did my heart flipped in my chest again. This time the resulting jolt of pain almost made me pass out. I got lightheaded and it was hard to breathe but I heard her mumble something.

“I think I should call an ambulance, Alex.”

Great, my first name. She thought we were on a first-name basis, or maybe it was because I was clearly struggling, because I was. I tried to swallow, but my throat constricted and I closed my eyes.

“No ambulance, but call the car. I’ll go…” If Ella was right, this wasn’t good and I did need a doctor. As much as I hated to admit it, I had to go. I’d done nothing but neglect my health and poured booze into my gut round the clock for months, eating very little, and sleeping even less.

In less than fifteen minutes an ambulance was downstairs waiting on me and I let Ella escort me down in the elevator rather than being ushered out on a gurney. She stayed by my side faithfully until they loaded me up in the back for the trip to the hospital. Ella promised she’d clear my schedule and lock up. I wasn’t too proud to thank her and tell her to take a few paid days off while I figured out what was going on.

The ride was a flurry of activity. They took my pulse and blood pressure, hooked me up to leads that would be used to measure my heart activity. I passed out once, so dizzy I couldn’t hold my head up, and when they rushed me into the emergency department, I was genuinely concerned I was having a heart attack.

Nurse after nurse, doctor after doctor filtered through my room, and I lay there with my eyes shut trying to doze lightly. My hands shook, my heart pounding at an awful rate, and I felt so weak. But when I woke up a few hours later to the sound of someone clearing their throat, I felt a little bit better. My eyes traced up the IV line to a bag of fluids hanging over my head, then I met the gaze of a beautiful young woman wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope around her neck.

“Welcome back, Mr. Hartman.”

“Doctor…” I corrected and she smiled.

“Dr. Hartman.” Her smile was kind, as were her eyes, and she didn’t look stressed at all, though it didn’t feel comfortable having such a young doctor for such a scary, serious thing. “How do you feel?” she asked as she checked my IV and looked up at the monitors mounted on the wall behind me.

“Like someone stomped on my chest.” I licked my lips which were bone dry and in need of water desperately.

“Yes, well you gave us a scare. The good news is it wasn’t a heart attack.” Her eyes focused on my face. “But your potassium was so low you almost had one. Your body is severely dehydrated and by the looks of it, has been for a while. Your kidney function is low, liver enzymes high. You’re a drinker?” The doctor whose name I couldn’t read due to my vision being blurry, held her fingers to my pulse and watched the clock on the wall.

“Yeah… About a bottle every other day.” I knew she’d lecture me for that but being honest was all I could be. If they didn’t know my true history, I was only punishing myself.

“I don’t think I have to tell you how bad that is, right?” She eyed me and clicked her tongue then to my surprise she shifted the conversation. “You need to take a break. Whatever stress you’re under, you need to get some rest from it. I suggest a few days off work while you focus on hydrating really well and I’m going to prescribe some potassium tablets for you. It’s important that you take them exactly as recommended. Too much and you’ll stop your heart. Too little and it will stop on its own.”

I closed my eyes and let my head loll to the side. It wasn’t a lecture, but it was more of what I already knew but couldn’t very well do for myself. To take time off work meant I’d be staring at the walls with nothing to do but obsess over my broken heart and Charlie’s absence.

Oh, I’d looked her up. That woman at the Register was right. She wasn’t around anymore—got fired from the paper and moved to El Paso to live with her parents. I stopped digging the instant I found that out and terminated the contract with the private investigator. I didn’t need to know what scam she was cooking up next, or what man she was luring into her web to dig up dirt on. She sure had a good strategy though. She fooled me so well I never saw it coming. I took her bait; hook, line, and sinker.

“Yeah, alright,” I grumbled, but I didn’t even open my eyes to look at her.

The doctor finished her exam and I hoped it meant I’d get some more rest and be discharged soon to go home, but someone else knocked on the door.

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