Page 26 of Auctioned to Dr. Daddy

“There you are.” She slides me a stack of manila folders. “Make sure that you check on Mr. Albright first. He came in about three hours ago, and he’s a whiner.”

“And that would be room…” I flick through the stack of folders, looking for the right name.

“Room seven twenty,” supplies Becca. She catches sight of Demi. “And you must be the new resident. Don’t let the old coots that we have in here right now scare you off, alright? Our patients can be ornery, but they aren’t all bad.”

“I won’t,” promises Demi. “Trust me, I’m here to stay.”

Becca glances between the two of us, looking amused. The woman has a sixth sense for when people have been messing around with each other. “I’m sure that you are.”

I lead the way down the hall, toward room seven twenty. “She’s right. Most of our patients right now are above the age of sixty, but that’s a rarity. But three years into a residency, I’m sure that you know that already. Just like you probably know what the most common cause of sudden cardiac death in young people is?”

It’s a test, just to see if she’s really as on her game as Tyler seemed to imply.

Demi’s eyes flash, clearly enjoying the challenge and the chance to flex what she knows. Her confidence in the hospital is tenfold what it had been at the auction. “Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It’s a genetic condition that causes thickened heart muscle. Are you going to quiz me through our whole set of rounds?”

“I was thinking about it,” I say, with a laugh. We get to Mr. Albright’s room, and I knock once before letting us in.

He’s an older man, sixty-seven and fully white-haired, with a square face and a thick, white mustache. “Are you the doctor?”

“I’m the doctor,” I tell him, then I use the files to gesture at Demi. “And this is Dr. Winters, a resident here at Mercy General. She’s going to help me look you over today.”

Mr. Albright has high blood pressure and has suffered a minor heart attack. I start him on reteplase to dilute any clots that have formed and quinapril—an ACE inhibitor that will help reduce the stress on his heart.

He’s mostly quiet, though he wrinkles his nose any time Demi contributes to the conversation. Older patients either coo over the residents or get prickly that someone other than a doctor might be telling them what to do.

There’s no outright complaint over it, so the man is just left to be quietly prickly.

When we step out of his room, I slide his folder into the container on the wall next to his door, the updated information within.

“Not a bad job,” I tell her. “I’ve had some residents that lose their cool with the patients.”

“He’s allowed to be a grump,” says Demi. “He’s the one in the hospital, after all. Not me.”

“A nice way to view it.”

Our rounds don’t take too long.

Most of the patients have been in for a while and are just being monitored. I’m hoping that it stays that way for a bit, but not hopeful about it.

After rounds, I give her a quick tour of Mercy General, eventually getting us sidetracked into the ever-popular doctors’ lounge.

It’s empty at the moment, no one stretched out on the large couch at the far side of the room. Recently, a foosball table has been added and shoved into the left corner of the space. No coffee is on, so I go to start a pot.

“How do you like it?” I ask.

“Strong,” says Demi. “And smoky. Kind of like you.”

Oh, she is a flirt. I lean toward her, rocking my weight onto my right foot, my elbow pressing against her side. “Is that so?”

A hand presses to my hip, and then fingers slip into the pocket on the side of my doctor’s coat. I can feel the inciting heat of it, even through the fabric.

Demi tilts her face up. Her pink glossy lips are almost brushing against my cheek. “That’s so.”

And then she seems to remember that we’re at work, because she suddenly jerks back, her hand sliding away.

Demi turns on one foot and hurries over to the couch, like she has to put physical distance between us, or she won’t be able to help herself.

I completely understand. I feel the same way when I look at her.

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