Page 10 of The Seal's Promise

Dalton laughed and set down the tray. “Is Dr. Tommy in today?”

Before Nora could respond, Brooke appeared with her arms full of tablets.

“Found them,” she said in a huff, but then stopped in her tracks when she spotted Dalton.

He moved to take the load from her, and a jolt of awareness spread up his arm from the contact.

“Where do these go?” he asked, carrying the stack.

“Over here,” Nora said, opening up a cupboard with multiple charging stands. “Why does that man think he needs a new one for every patient?” She huffed and began taking each tablet out of Dalton’s stack and placing them on the chargers.

“I don’t think he knows how to start a new file, so he just grabs a new tablet,” Brooke whispered. “Oh, coffee, thanks, Nora.”

“Don’t thank me. Dr. Dalton is our coffee delivery boy today,” Nora said and winked at him.

“Oh.” Dalton thought she was going to put the coffee back but then she squinted her eyes at him. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I was hoping to chat with Dr. Tommy about my gran. I can teach him how to use the medic tablets while I’m at it,” he teased.

Brooke’s mouth pursed, but she didn’t let the smile he knew was hiding behind it out. “Tommy is off today, and we can’t speak to you about your grandmother’s medical condition unless she signs a waiver.”

“Technically Dr. Dalton is her next of kin, doctor, and she did sign that waiver. I witnessed it myself.” Nora winked at him. “Just in case.”

“Thanks, Nora,” Dalton said.

Brooke sighed. “Well, you can wait until Dr. Jones is finished with his current patient to talk about your gran, but if I was you I’d wait for Tommy to be back tomorrow.”

“That bad?”

“They just have different styles and Tommy was the one to do the assessment on your gran, so he’d be the best one to speak with,” Brooke said, sipping her coffee.

“You saw her too, so maybe we could talk,” Dalton said.

“Great idea, take him over to the surgical suite, there’s more privacy,” Nora said just as another patient arrived.

“Please?” Dalton said.

Brooke grabbed a fresh tablet. “Fine, follow me.”

He had no problem following that request. When he’d left town, Brooke Garcia had been a skinny, shy, demure girl with thick reddish-brown hair, freckles under her glasses, and was always carrying too many books in her beat-up backpack. Now she was a curvy, confident woman, with her thick hair pulled back into a ponytail he wanted to tug.

“Have a seat,” she said, holding a stainless-steel door open that led into a cold, bare room with a huge light, hospital surgery table, and several chairs set up like a lounge in one corner.

“Not doing too many surgeries in Sandy Point?” he asked.

“Any cases that require more than a few stitches get sent to Savannah; we’re not insured to handle anything more. We don’t have the staff either.”

“So about my gran, I get the feeling there’s a lot more going on, but I was hoping the tests would help me narrow it down so I can start making some informed appointments with specialists for her.”

Brooke nodded as she looked down at the tablet and ran her finger over the screen to see the tests that had been done and if any notes were left behind.

“Her bloodwork and tests came back within a healthy range. But as you know, cognitive impairments can take years to fully manifest, or be just simple blips of aging.”

“Right. How was her blood pressure reading? Obviously it was high when she fell, but Dr. Tommy took it several times.”

“Yep, everything was in the range of good health. How has she seemed to you? Is she forgetful, disoriented, any nightmares?”

“Well, this is day four and I haven’t noticed anything like that, but I’ll be staying with her and keeping a close eye on her for a while.”

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