Page 6 of The Doctor's No-Strings Deal

The patient laid back and grumbled before Dr. Ralter shushed him in order to better hear his heart. “Kayla,” Dr. Ralter said, his tone bordering on irritation now. “An IV catheter, please.” Kayla took her time putting the catheter together, and Dr. Ralter got on her case again. “Today, if you don’t mind.”

“Y-yes, of course,” Kayla stammered. “I’m almost done.”

Seeing the way the patient watched Kayla, a thought occurred to Megan. However inappropriate it might have been, she decided to cheat a little, shifting the mood in Kayla’s favor.

“Don’t flirt with this one now, Kayla,” Megan said, winking at the patient and nudging Kayla with the toe of her tennis shoe. “She’s always getting a little too cozy with the patients, aren’t you, Kayla? Making the rest of us look bad. She says it’s just a good bedside manner, but we know better, don’t we Charlie?”

Charlie frowned, predictably, and for a moment, Kayla looked mortified.

Then the patient piped up. “Oh, we wouldn’t want the rest of your friends to look too bad, would we, honey? Don’t let them push you around, though. I can tell you’re a sweet girl, and you’re going to make a great doctor. Don’t you listen to the rest of them.”

Kayla’s face turned the color of strawberries, and of course, the patient misinterpreted it. But because he saw her as a person — a cutie-pie to be precise — doing her best, Megan was sure he would now be far more tolerant of any mistakes or hesitation.

No matter how long Kayla took feeling for a vein, the man didn’t seem to mind. He kept chatting with her, asking her questions about her age and why she decided to go into medicine. She blushed and apologized, and he just told her, “That’s okay, honey. You take all the time you need.” Megan would have bet her whole paycheck the man actually enjoyed his IV placement, regardless of whether Kayla missed the vein the first time.

Kayla smiled bashfully. “Well, thank you so much for being so understanding, sir. I’ll get you set up so we can run some tests and have you out of here as soon as possible.”

“You sure you don’t want to keep me overnight?” the patient joked.

“Oh, well, hopefully not, but if we do, we’ll spoil you rotten. You can be sure of that.”

When they finally left the exam room, Dr. Ralter pulled Megan aside and gave her a stern look. “That was deeply inappropriate. You know that, right?”

Megan bowed her head. “Yes, Dr. Ralter.”

“Good. Just let everyone know I told you to never do it again.” He glanced around to make sure no one was close before adding, “But between us, you did well in there, kid. Good improvisation. Mr. Barry always gives us grief, but I believe this was the least grief we’ve ever gotten from him. I was planning to hold your peer’s feet to the fire to get her out of her timidness, but I think your plan was better.”

Megan beamed up at her attending. “Thank you so much, Dr. Ralter. My mother always said I was good with people. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to go into medicine.”

“Well, way to play to your strengths,” he said, then his look got stern again. “And like I said, don’t ever let me catch you doing that again.”

Charlie passed by just then. Megan hadn’t seen him coming, but when he was gone again, Dr. Ralter winked one more time before patting Megan on the shoulder and walking her to the next patient.

CHAPTER 4

CHARLIE

It was only lunchtime, and Charlie was already exhausted. But it wasn’t the patients, quizzes, or work causing his exhaustion. It wasn’t his first day of residency that made him want to go home and crash in his bed. It was the group he’d been made to work with. How could he take his own residency seriously when no one else around him was doing so? He felt like he was a babysitter for this group rather than their peer.

Amy had a mouth that could ridicule the pope without shame. She had all the best jabs in her pocket, and she wasn’t afraid to use them to get a laugh out of the rest of the group. Keith just went along with whatever everyone else thought. He was a follower through and through. And Kayla was so timid that Charlie was surprised she didn’t hesitate to breathe for fear it might offend someone.

Then there was Megan. For some unfathomable reason, she irked him most of all. She just never stopped smiling, even when he knew she should. Charlie got the impression Megan would smile while giving a patient the worst news they’d ever received in their life. She just talked and talked and talked, on and onand on. And he couldn’t stop watching her mouth as she did. It was distracting him, her mouth, and it wasn’t the only thing about her that made it difficult for him to concentrate on his job. She was beautiful, of course — probably one of those girls who knew it, too. Every time she fidgeted with her glasses, he caught himself staring at her eyes. Doe eyes, some would have called them, but there was a sharpness there along with the naïveté.

Charlie was having a hell of a time not thinking about her while he ate his lunch. It didn’t help that she was sitting kitty-corner across the way from him. His eyes kept finding her for no good reason. She was always smiling, and he found himself smiling back on the inside, which was the worst thing that could happen if he wanted to stay serious. Being nonchalant, treating his residency like a game or summer camp, was not going to bring him closer to his goals. It wasn’t going to win him the approval of his father and grandfather.

He had so much weight on his shoulders, and this Megan person seemed determined to make him shrug it off and let down his guard. Whether it was intentional or not, he couldn’t tell. Regardless, he wasn’t about to fall for it.

“What about you?” Megan leaned across the table toward Charlie, pointing a half-eaten carrot at him. “Who’s your favorite patient so far?”

Why she would even begin to assume he’d been paying attention to their conversation so far was not a mystery Charlie was interested in solving. “I don’t have favorites,” he said before taking a bite of the yakisoba he’d ordered for lunch. A full mouth meant he couldn’t elaborate, so it made sense to just keep eating.

Megan didn’t seem to care. “No, I mean who are you going to remember? We were talking about how there’s always onepatient from your first day that you remember for the rest of your life. Someone who gives you the feeling that you’ve made the right choice in being here. Surely someone is a candidate so far.”

She was beaming for some reason, but Charlie managed to hold his scowl. “The question is ridiculous,” he said. “Choosing a favorite patient will not help you to become a better doctor. And choosing a favorite patient may encourage you to neglect the others.”

Megan stuck out her tongue and poured more of her soup from her sunflower-themed thermos into her yellow cup. “Buzzkill,” she muttered. “Just because someone touches your life in a positive way doesn’t mean you’ll never think about anyone else. That idea is what’s ridiculous if you ask me.”

“I prefer to treat everyone equally,” he said with a shrug, although the gesture did not accurately portray how he was feeling about the conversation. It infuriated him, irritated the hell out of him, and for some reason, he never wanted it to end.

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