under her breath while he got into his car, then had the audacity to wave goodbye before pulling out of her driveway. Blasted man.
McKenzie’s dreams weren’t sweet.
They were filled with hot, sweaty, passionate kisses.
So much so that when she woke, glanced at her phone and saw that it was only a little after midnight, she wanted to scream in protest. She’d been asleep for less than an hour. Ugh.
She should text him to tell him to get out of her dreams and to stay out. She didn’t want him there.
Wouldn’t he get a kick out of that?
Instead, she closed her eyes and prayed.
Please go back to sleep.
Please don’t dream of Lance.
Please no more visions of Lance kissing me and me begging for so much more instead of watching him drive away.
Please don’t let me beg a man for anything. I don’t want to be like my mother.
I won’t be like my mother.
EDITH WINTERS CAME into the clinic at least once a month, always with a new chief complaint. Although she had all the usual aging complaints that were all too real, most of the time McKenzie thought the eighty-year-old was lonely and came in to be around other humans who cared about her.
The woman lived alone, had no local family, and her only relative as far as McKenzie knew was a son who lived in Florida and rarely came home to visit.
“How long have these symptoms been bothering you, Mrs. Winters?”
“Since last week.”
Last week. Because when you had severe abdominal pain and no bowel movements for four days it was normal to wait a week to seek care. Not.
“I didn’t want to bother anyone.”
“Any time a symptom is severe and persistent, you need to be checked further.”
“I would have come sooner if I’d gotten worse.”
Seriously, she’d seen Edith less than a month ago and it had only been two weeks prior to that she’d been in the clinic for medication refills. Severe abdominal pain and no bowel movement was a lot more than what usually prompted her to come to the clinic. “What made you decide you needed to be seen?”
The woman had called and, although McKenzie’s schedule had been full, she’d agreed for the woman to be checked. She’d grown quite fond of the little lady and figured she’d be prescribing a hug and reassurance that everything was fine.
“There was blood when I spit up this morning.”
McKenzie’s gaze lifted from her laptop. “What do you mean, when you spat up?”
Her nurse had said nothing about spitting up blood.
“It wasn’t really a throw-up, but I heaved and there was bright red blood mixed in with the stuff that came up.”
Bright red blood. Abdominal pain the woman described as severe.
“Have you ever had an ulcer?”
Edith shook her head. “Not that I know of, but my memory isn’t what it used to be.”
“I’m going to get some labs on you and will decide from there what our next best step is. I may need to admit you, at least overnight, to see what’s up with that bright red blood.”
Speaking of labs, she needed to log in and see if her labs from the other night were available online. George had told her they should show up on Monday. She should be notified of the mayor’s results today, too.
Although there would still be some risks involved, once she had the mayor’s negative ones, she’d breathe much easier. Assuming the mayor’s results were negative.
She prayed they would be.
She hadn’t allowed herself much downtime to consider the ramifications of her actions. How could she when she’d been so distracted by a certain doctor’s kiss? But this morning when she’d run she’d not been able to keep the pending results out of her head. She’d run and run and hadn’t wanted to stop when she’d had to turn back or she’d have been late into work.
McKenzie examined the frail little woman in her examination room, then filled out the lab slip. “I’ll see you back after your blood is drawn.”
She left the room, gave the order to her nurse, then went into the examination room.
An hour later, she was heading toward her office when her cell phone rang. She glanced at the screen and recognized the hospital’s number. She stopped walking.
“Dr. Sanders,” she answered.
“Hi, Dr. Sanders. This is Melissa from the lab. The ER doc looked over your results and wanted to let you know that all of your labs came back negative, as did those of the subject whose blood you were exposed to. He thought you’d want to know ASAP.”
Almost leaning against the clinic hallway wall, she let out a sigh of relief. “He’s right and that’s great news.”
“You know the drill, that you and the person you were exposed to will both need to have routine repeat labs per protocol?”
She knew. She finished the call then clicked off the phone, barely suppressing the urge to jump up and yell, “Yes!”
“Your labs were good?”
She jumped at Lance’s voice. She hadn’t heard him come up behind her in the hallway.
“Don’t do that,” she ordered, frowning. Mostly she frowned to keep her face preoccupied because instantly, on looking at him, she had a flashback to the last time she’d seen him.
On her front porch when he’d kissed her and completely rewired her circuitry.
That had to be it because she didn’t fantasize about men or kisses or things way beyond kisses, yet that’s exactly what she’d done more often than she’d like to admit since Friday night.
“Sorry.” He studied her a little too closely for her liking. “I didn’t realize I’d startle you or I would have made some noise when walking up.”
She stepped into her office and he followed, stomping his feet with each step.
She rolled her eyes.
“So your tests are all negative?”
She nodded without looking at him because looking at him did funny things to her insides.
“Thank goodness.” He sounded as relieved as she’d
