down, Jacquelyn. It’s your first day to work with him. This is just a misunderstanding; he’s on some macho kick or trying to prove something. This showdown isn’t worth risking your job….
Like a drowning swimmer, she mentally kicked toward the surface dispute and took a deep breath of reality. “I suppose I’m just not used to your approach,” she finally said, sheathing her anger. She looked up to face his scrutiny. “I’ve been working in the oncology department for five years, and you’ve only just arrived. Dr. Kastner and Dr. Winston are objective professionals, more detached with the patients—”
“I know hundreds of doctors like Winston and Kastner, and I respect them,” Dr. Martin said, shifting his weight as he raised his hands in a gesture of assurance. “But their attitude is impartial. They are like judges. They see the patient and the cancer standing before them as equals. They are happy if the patient wins, but they are not particularly on one side or the other.
“On the other hand, Nurse Wilkes—” his eyes darkened with emotion “—I am a defense attorney. The tougher the case, the bigger my challenge. I will fight for my client. I will not be intimidated by an aggressive cancer, but will fight it with all the vigor, skills and techniques that I can muster. A happy, confident patient is a stronger client, and a strong client increases our chances of winning the case.” The eyes he turned toward her smoldered now. Taking a step forward, he rested his hands on his hips and inclined his head toward her. “Can you understand that?”
Jacquelyn had to resist the urge to step away, so unnerved was she by the staggering challenge of his nearness. His burning eyes held her motionless, and she felt herself slowly nodding. “I can try,” she answered, suddenly anxious to be away. The pull of those blue eyes was hard to resist when he chose to be sincere—no wonder his desperate patients adored him!
“Good.” He hesitated for a moment, then quirked his eyebrow in a question. “I’m assuming you’ll want to continue working for me? I haven’t proven myself too much of an ogre?”
“Not too much,” she answered, amused by the almost vulnerable look on his face. For the briefest instant she thought she had somehow disarmed him, but then the chilly mask of professionalism fell over his features again.
“Good. I want you to know I was joking about the Baldovinos and the victory dinner. I fully expect to attend, but I wouldn’t think of pressuring you to join us. I’m sure you have a full and satisfying personal life of your own.”
The chilly nature of the man reveals itself again.
“Now that I understand you,” she said, deliberately injecting a light note into her voice, “please be assured that I wouldn’t think of accepting any invitation you might ever extend.” She moved toward her car door, calling to him over her shoulder. “I realize now that your theatrics are performed solely for the sake of your patients.”
“I’m sorry if I offended you,” he answered, his face as implacable as stone as he watched her open the door. “You’re a good nurse. Today I saw you pull organization out of turmoil and instill calm in chaos. You might even manage to keep me on schedule. Nurses with that kind of ability are hard to find.”
“Thanks.” She rested her arms on the open car door, then gave him a tight smile. “And I wish you the best with Mrs. Baldovino. I hope you are able to have that lasagna dinner.”
He nodded formally, then turned and moved toward his car.
Jacquelyn felt her smile fade as she slid into the driver’s seat. Given Mrs. Baldovino’s current condition, she wasn’t likely to be making those dinner reservations any time soon.
If Jonah Martin could overturn the death sentence looming over Mrs. Baldovino’s chart, perhaps he was a miracle worker.
“Of course, I understand, Craig,” Jacquelyn mumbled. With one hand she held the phone to her ear, the other hand lay imprisoned beneath Bailey’s massive head. “State legislators don’t come around every day.”
Craig droned on about the lucrative deal he was about to sign, and Jacquelyn yawned. Stretching out on her wide antique bed for a nap had seemed like a good alternative to wasting the evening in front of the television, so she and Bailey had fallen asleep waiting for Craig to come by. Her day with Dr. Baked Alaska had totally worn her out.
“Call me tomorrow and let me know how things turned out,” she murmured, slowly sliding her hand from under Bailey’s velvety jowls. “Yeah, I know you’re sorry. But you can make it up to me Friday night. Dinner out or something.”
“Where do you want to go?” Craig seemed sincerely apologetic.
“I don’t know.” Jacquelyn tried to smother another yawn. “Italian maybe. I’ve got a sudden yen for lasagna.”
Craig laughed and said goodbye, and Jacquelyn rolled onto her stomach to replace the telephone receiver. As she reached for the bedside table, she felt an unexpected twinge in her chest.
“Oh, brother,” she groaned, flipping onto her back. Bailey’s eyes opened and blinked, then the dog lifted his huge head and looked at Jacquelyn with a curious expression. “No big deal, sweetie,” she said, pillowing her head on her left hand. She slipped her right hand beneath the T-shirt she wore and slowly probed her left breast. There. On the side, at about two o’clock. A small lump, probably a cyst, nothing serious. The twinge was pain, and that usually meant there was nothing to worry about.
“Nurse, heal thyself,” she murmured, rolling onto her side. “No caffeine for a long time, and vitamin E at breakfast. The doctor’s recipe to counter fibrocystic disease.”
As her drowsiness thickened, she curled around a pillow and fell asleep to the sound of Bailey’s gentle snoring.
Chapter Three
Jacquelyn was delighted when Labor Day dawned in a glorious burst of blue. Craig had suggested they spend the traditional last day of summer by the lake. “I’d love a picnic,” she had told him when he called Saturday to tell her he wouldn’t be over because he was entertaining a prospective client. “I can’t think of a better way to spend a day away from the clinic.”
She’d now put in an exhausting two and a half months with Dr. Jonah Martin. Though they had managed to be civil toward one another, she had to continually bite her tongue in his presence. With the patients he was unlike any doctor she’d ever met—boundlessly optimistic, encouraging, patient and attentive to every complaint. And yet with the nurses he was aloof, distant and rigidly controlled. In one moment he would be laughing with a patient in the exam room, in the next he would be impatiently thrusting a chart toward Jacquelyn with a mocking, exasperated look in his eye. The buzz around the nurses’ station was that Dr. Martin held a special contempt for nurses, orderlies and office workers. And for the first time in Jacquelyn’s memory, Stacy didn’t rise to defend a handsome man.
“He’s an angel,” Jacquelyn heard one patient gush enthusiastically. “With those blue eyes and that golden hair—just like a halo!”
“A fallen angel, maybe,” Jacqueline muttered as she cleared her breakfast dishes off the iron table in her backyard and headed into the kitchen with Bailey padding along behind.
Dr. Martin was difficult to work with, and yet part of Jacquelyn was glad that he had joined the clinic staff. He lightened the workload considerably, even accepting several of Dr. Kastner’s difficult terminal cases. In the course
