style="font-size:15px;"> Both Connor and James looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“What?”
“You’re blaming those last few months of conflict on Haley?” James asked skeptically.
“Well, maybe not all of it.” Ron took a sip of his beer to avoid meeting his friends’ eyes. “Maybe I teased her a couple of times when she wasn’t in the mood for joking.”
“And maybe you made a few cutting remarks about her boyfriend,” Connor murmured into his own glass.
“Ex-boyfriend,” Ron corrected with a scowl. “The guy was a doormat. Followed Haley around like a puppy. No personality of his own at all. I don’t know what she ever saw in him in the first place.”
The other two men exchanged an amused glance, and Ron figured they were thinking of Kris’s dimples or muscles or some of the other superficial attributes that had probably attracted Haley to the guy. Feeling his good mood begin to disintegrate, he quickly changed the subject, sharing a funny story from the wards. He was both pleased and relieved when his friends laughed and contributed a couple of amusing stories from their own experiences during the past couple of weeks, all being careful to follow privacy rules and not mention names or specifics about their patients.
Medical anecdotes he could handle. Talking about Haley and her good-looking ex-boyfriend—not so much.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better today, Ms. McMillan.” Haley smiled at the former Air Force nurse who sat in a recliner in a private room, snugly wrapped in a hospital blanket. She was still on supplemental oxygen as well as the antibiotics dripping into the IV tubing connected to her left arm, but her condition had improved considerably during the night. “It’s good that you feel well enough to sit up for a while.”
“Feels good to get out of that bed,” Georgia McMillan agreed with a firm nod of her gray head, followed by a rattling cough. Catching her breath, she eyed Haley narrowly. “Don’t smoke, do you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Good. Don’t start.” She coughed more forcefully while Haley studied her chart.
“I won’t. Are you okay?”
Catching her breath, the patient waved off Haley’s question with one thin hand. “I’m as okay as I ever am these days. Feel a whole lot better than I did when I was admitted, anyway.”
“That’s good to hear.” Haley jotted a couple of notes on the back of Ms. McMillan’s H & P, then folded the paper and stuck it into her coat pocket.
“You look like you got some rest last night.”
A little surprised by the comment, Haley glanced up from the patient chart. “Yes, I slept very well, thank you.”
“I remember my medical training. Ain’t easy, is it?”
Chuckling, she pulled her stethoscope from another pocket. “No, ma’am, it isn’t.”
“Just hope you never have to practice in a tent with shells exploding around you.”
“I can’t imagine working under those conditions.”
Georgia enjoyed talking about her experiences in a war zone and Haley usually liked listening to the stories. Unfortunately, she was running a little behind this morning because of complications with one of her other two patients, and she was beginning to worry she wouldn’t have her notes completed in time for rounds. She mentally crossed her fingers that Dr. Cudahy wouldn’t choose today to show up early.
She was just preparing to leave the room when Georgia startled her yet again. “Has that boy asked you out yet?”
Haley paused in midstep toward the door. “Which boy is that, Ms. McMillan?”
“That cute blondish student with the sexy smile. The one who’s always grinning at you.”
Haley laughed self-consciously. “You mean Ron? He’s a friend. A classmate. We aren’t—”
“You might not be, but he is,” Georgia cut in with a wicked smile that showed a hint of the saucy young woman she’d once been.
Smiling wryly, Haley shook her head. “You don’t see the way he acts when we’re not on rounds. He goes to great lengths to tease and torment me.”
Her patient nodded as if Haley had just confirmed her theory. “Men are still just big boys at heart. That’s his way of letting you know he’s got a crush on you.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“I watch him while you’re giving your presentations on rounds. He can’t take his eyes from you.”
Haley was growing accustomed to odd and sometimes inappropriate comments from her patients, but for some reason, this conversation flustered her. “He’s just paying attention, Ms. McMillan. That’s the whole point of our rounds, so we’ll learn about the various conditions of the patients we’re seeing.”
“Hmm. The other student pays attention, too, but not the same way that boy does. You mark my words, he’s got it bad for you. Don’t you be surprised when he makes his move. And if I were you, I’d take him up on it. Nice-looking young doctor with a sense of humor and kind eyes—a girl could do a whole lot worse, let me tell you. As someone who’s been married three times, I know a bit about winners and losers,” she added with a phlegmy cackle.
“Well, I, um—” Haley gave her patient a strained smile. “I’ve got to run, Ms. McMillan. I’ll see you again in a little while during rounds.”
The woman nodded, looking tired when her impish smile faded. “Send my nurse in here, will you? Think I’m ready to get back in that bed, after all.”
“I will.”
Haley made her escape, letting out a whoosh of breath when the door closed behind her. She had to find a nurse, locate an available computer, type her notes and be ready for rounds in just under twenty minutes.
She had a feeling she would have to make a massive effort not to be distracted by Georgia McMillan’s outrageous comments while she tried to concentrate on her work. The woman had to be mistaken that she’d seen anything meaningful in the way Ron looked at her. Probably just entertaining herself with some romantic imagining. Because it couldn’t possibly be true that Ron had feelings for her—could it?
Swallowing hard, Haley pushed that unsettling question to the back of her mind and hurried to find Ms. McMillan’s nurse.
Chapter Two
Late Thursday afternoon, after a long day of morning rounds and an afternoon spent being a resident’s minion, Haley gathered her things in preparation for heading home. She didn’t have to report in that weekend, and she planned to spend the next two days doing laundry, catching up on housework and preparing for next week’s lectures. That would be her last week on wards; after that, she would move to internal medicine outpatient clinic for four weeks before beginning her pediatrics rotation.
But before starting pediatrics,
