Page 4 of The Doctor's Simple Life

My mind spins with the fear of what might be about to come. Am I getting fired? Am I getting my promotion taken away?

Giselle closes the door behind me and gestures for me to sit. I do, and my heart leaps into my mouth.

“Look, hon,” she says, then blinks, looking at me again. “Okay, you can wipe that terrified look off your face. You’re not in trouble.”

“Oh, thank God,” I breathe, the knot of anxiety in my chest releasing a little.

Giselle chuckles, shaking her head as she sits next to me. “I’ve asked you here because I need someone I can trust on this, and there’s nobody I trust more than you.”

“Okay…” I say dubiously. My heart is still pounding with leftover adrenaline. “Hit me. What do you want?”

Giselle grins awkwardly at me, and my heart sinks again. This is too much to handle first thing in the morning. “I got a call from the hospital owner last night.”

Oh, no, the big boss,I think, but I don’t say anything, waiting for her to continue.

“Starting tomorrow, there’s a doctor coming to us from the big city?—”

“From Miami?”

She nods gravely. “Yes, one of the big-name plastic surgeons there. He’s coming to spend a month out here for God knows what reason. But he’ll be arriving later today and starting work tomorrow, and I need someone I can trust to show him the ropes.”

“Okay,” I say. Then I say, “Oh… okay,” as exactly what I’m being asked to do sinks in.

On the one hand, it’s great that she trusts me enough with this task, but on the other, I have so many better things I could be doing than babysitting some hotshot guy from the city who thinks he’s better than all of us country folk. I know exactly what kind of man this is going to be.

This is the kind of guy who hates small towns because he thinks we’re all idiots.

And much as I’d love to have the time to prove him wrong, I have my own job to do.

“So, you’ll do it?” Giselle grins at me, and I sigh.

“Yeah, okay, fine. I’ll do it.”

“Great! He’ll be getting here later on this afternoon. I’ll give you the address, and it would be fabulous if you could get over there and make him feel welcome to our town.”

I call Gramma on the way to Dr. Westbrook’s house.

“I don’t want to do this,” I tell her.

“Come on, sweetie pie,” she says, and I can practically see her smile on the other side of the phone. “They all know you’re good at your job. That’s why you’ve been chosen. They know that if anyone’s going to be able to keep some good-for-nothing doctor from the big city in line, then it’s going to be my baby girl.”

“I know I can do it. I just don’t want to. I don’t feel like being treated like an idiot by some rich guy who thinks he’s so much better than me just because his job’s more important or better paid than mine or whatever.”

“Sweetie, you and I both know exactly what you’re capable of. The Lord sends his trials, and we do our best to weather them. That’s all you can do, honey, just weather it. It’s only a month, you said?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then he’ll be gone before you know it. You show him who’s boss, and he’ll quickly come around to thinking that Silverbell isn’t just some little town filled with little people. He’ll see. Don’t let him grind you down. I have faith in you.”

We chat for a little longer, every word my grandmother says filling me with the confidence and strength I’ve been lacking. But as I pull up to the house he’ll be calling home for the next few weeks, it’s not enough to soothe my trepidation. I turn the engine off, tell Gramma I love her, and hang up the phone.

I take a breath to myself, just for a second, then step out of the car.

My confidence might have been restored, but I’m still nervous. I have no idea what or who I’m going to find on the other side of this door.

I knock hard on the door, and a few seconds later, a handsome young man answers. I say young. He must be at least my age, probably mid-thirties. His hair is spiky and bleach blond, his eyes piercingly blue. And when he smiles, it’s dazzling, drawing all my attention to his high cheekbones and his strong jaw.

He’s not at all what I was expecting.

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