I did,” he declared flatly.
“I see.” She checked his pulse with her fingers. He lay still and quiet as she counted the beats and marked time on her wristwatch. As she retrieved his chart to make the proper notation on it, he lifted his head from the pillow to watch.
“You aren’t going to scold me?”
She didn’t look up from the chart. “Would it help?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. But after a moment he asked bluntly, “How old are you?”
The clipboard bearing his chart fell to her side. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you have to be older than you look.”
She squared her shoulders beneath the crisp white lab coat, trying to conceal how sensitive the subject was. “I’m twenty-six.”
“Holy cow! I’d have guessed eighteen, twenty, younger before I got to know you.”
Chagrined, Merrily snapped, “What makes you think you know me?”
He shrugged his left shoulder and fell back on the pillow. “I know you’re the only one around here with an ounce of compassion. First they tell me to rest, then they keep me up all night with tests. What kind of sense does that make?”
“Fiscal,” Merrily answered succinctly. “The hospital labs are so busy with outpatient procedures during the day that they have little choice but to conduct inpatient tests at night. Hospitalized patients, after all, aren’t going anywhere.”
“Tell me about it,” he mumbled. Then suddenly he announced, “I’m hungry.”
Merrily folded her arms. She’d noticed the “no intake” sign on his doorside clip. “What time is your surgery scheduled for?”
He looked at the ceiling. “Three.”
“Tell me what you want for dinner, and I’ll make sure it’s here when you get back.” She didn’t have to tell him that it was the best she could do.
Sighing richly he seemed to consider, then his eyes narrowed and he said, “Pizza with chicken and shrimp, pesto sauce, black olives, pineapple and mozzarella.” He lifted his head to see how she’d taken that.
Smiling because she knew he thought he’d stumped her, she said, “Number six, Riccotini’s. There’s one around the corner. I’m having the salmon and sun-dried tomatoes myself.”
“Number nine,” he said, tussling with a grin.
“Anything else I can get you? Orange iced tea, maybe?”
“Mmm. About a gallon ought to do it.”
“A number six with a large orange iced tea.”
“And turtle cheesecake.”
“And turtle cheesecake,” she echoed. Chuckling, she headed for the door.
“Wait.” He waved her back toward the bed and indicated the bedside table with a nod of his head. “In the drawer.”
She opened the drawer to find his wallet. “Oh, don’t worry about that.” Ignoring that, he groped the drawer blindly with his left hand until he found the wallet. Flipping it open, he laid it in his lap and extracted a twenty-dollar bill.
“Dinner’s on me,” he said, thrusting the money toward her.
“Oh, no, that’s all right. I was planning on going out, anyway.”
A grin spread across his face. “So? What’s your name? Given name, I mean.”
“Merrily.”
The grin spread wider. “Well, Merrily, I insist on buying your dinner, since you volunteered to pick up mine. No arguments, now. It’s the least I can do.”
Suddenly he stuffed the bill into the breast pocket of her lab coat. Electricity flashed through her, so strong that she stumbled backward a step—and into the corner of the bedside table, rocking it enough to send the telephone sliding toward the floor. She grabbed for it at the same time he did, and while they managed to keep the phone from falling, their arms became entwined. Her gaze collided with his and stuck.
For a moment the world and everything in it stopped. The second hand on the clock of time froze as they stared into each other’s eyes. Then, slowly, he blinked and carefully extracted his arm from the loop of hers. Sinking back onto the pillow, he cleared his throat. Merrily settled the phone.
“What, uh, what time do you think I might get to enjoy that dinner?” he asked, his voice thick.
She tried to keep her tone level, normal. “Best guess, around eight.”
He grimaced and covered his eyes with his hand. “I trust you’ll still be on duty then.”
“Until ten,” she confirmed.
He said, “Good.”
Good. She tried very hard not to let that please her in any personal fashion.
“I’ll, um, be in later to perform the preop.”
He let his hand fall to his side. “Sure. Better you than Nurse Disjointer.”
Merrily ducked her head to hide her smile as she fled the room.
Katherine Lawler lifted her patrician chin and sniffed, silver hair swinging against her nape. “All I said is that it’s a pity he can’t sue himself.”
“That’s what’s wrong with this country!” Marvin, her husband and Royce’s father, proclaimed. “Everyone’s sue happy. Let the blasted insurance pay for it. That’s what it’s for. Not that it isn’t his own fault. He built the damned stairs.”
Royce groaned, wondering desperately where Merrily was with that pizza. He hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of her since he’d returned to his room nearly an hour ago. The piteous sound elicited not a glimmer from his parents.
“You sued your own partners,” Katherine pointed out.
“That was different! I had to get an accurate accounting, didn’t I?”
“You already had an accurate accounting.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
The door opened, and to Royce’s immense relief, his angel swept into the room, carrying two small pizza boxes and a brown paper sack.
“Finally!” he exclaimed on a long sigh, relaxing at last.
Her soft, muted-green gaze skidded right past him. Smiling at his parents, she left the pizza and sack on the bedside table. Briskly, she lifted the head of his bed and moved to the sink to moisten a cloth with antibacterial solution so he could clean his hand, saying, “Your postop exam was fine, so you get to eat now.”
“It’s about time,” he said,
