by Roxie Ray
Focusing on the job, I tried my damndest to pretend the love of my life wasn’t sitting in front of me, her shiny brown hair still full of red highlights. If I breathed deep, I would’ve been able to smell her. I had no idea what that would do to my blazing arm.
Focusing on work was easy, but ignoring my arm wasn’t. I rubbed it self-consciously as I introduced myself. “Hello, everyone. I’m really looking forward to being back home and working in the town I grew up in. I can’t wait to get to know all of you.” I smiled encouragingly, meeting everyone’s gaze—except Skye’s. Her, I glanced over. If I looked again, I was liable to ask her to excuse herself and come talk to me in the hall. After all these years, seeing her again was like a ray of sunshine warming my face…and burning my arm.
Sucking in a deep breath against the pain, I continued introducing myself. “As I said, I grew up here and went to Bluewater High until my junior year. Then, I was accepted to the Regents’ School for the Gifted in London, where I finished my junior and senior years. After that, I attended Harvard University, then Harvard Medical School. I accepted a position at Boston General until a family matter brought me back here.”
I hadn’t said it to impress anyone, though if I managed to impress Skye in the process, I wouldn’t have been upset. I’d dated a few shifter women over the years, but my dragon and I had known what we were missing. Though the pain on the mark had faded the farther away I got from Skye, nothing was ever the same after kissing her. “So, that’s me. I hope to get to know all of you very soon.”
The hospital CEO, Dr. Smith, beamed at the table. “Why don’t you all tell Dr. Mason your names and specialties, at least, before we go face the day?” He looked at his wristwatch. “We just have enough time.”
Looking to his right, he pointed at the woman who had walked in with Skye. I tried to pay attention to her, but my gaze kept slipping to her left, to Skye.
“I’m Camilla. Just Cam.” I forced myself to listen and look at her. I was overwhelmed with being in the same room as my mate again, but that didn’t mean I could ignore these other people. I’d be working with them day in and day out. “I’m the primary care office manager, and the only full-time receptionist, though we have several part-timers.”
I nodded at her and smiled, then counted to three before looking at Skye. She narrowed her eyes at me.
What was I supposed to say? Anything? I hadn’t said anything to Cam. Panic scratched at my throat.
When I was about to open my mouth and say her name, Skye spoke. “My name is Skylar Wills, APRN, CPNP-PC, FAANP, FAAN. I’m the only nurse practitioner in primary care, so I float out of peds frequently.” She arched one eyebrow, challenging me. I ducked my head and smiled. She’d get no challenge from me. I was impressed by her credentials.
As I continued down the table, missing everyone’s names and references completely, I thought about what she’d said. By the letters she’d rattled off after her name, I knew she was a nurse practitioner with the pediatric specialty and likely had a master’s degree in nursing. She was a fellow of the prestigious American Association of Nurse Practitioners as well as a fellow of the American Association of Nurses.
Most everyone else just rattled off if they were a nurse or LPN, and so on. Only Skye went so far as to list everything. She knew exactly who I was and wanted me to know that she saw me. I couldn’t help but wonder if in all that time, all that schooling had kept her too distracted to find a long-term boyfriend. Or even worse, husband. I didn’t see a ring.
Damn it, she was so hot. She’d always been intelligent, but I’d never known she wanted to go into nursing. I’d stalked her on social media nearly every day since I joined and friended her on there, but she rarely posted. I didn’t know much more about her from her social media than I’d gotten via hearsay from my family and clanmates that had lived in the town this whole time.
My tattoo kept burning, distracting me not only from the people around the table but it even flared hard enough to distract me from Skye herself.
Dr. Smith dismissed the room, but I didn’t move. It was probably rude of me, but all I could do was stare at Skylar.
And she stared back. And she didn’t move. We kept our gazes on one another until the room emptied. I finally looked away to see her friend, Cam, give her and me a strange look before backing slowly out of the room and closing the door behind her. “Okay, then,” she whispered in the hall right before the door closed.
“Why are you here?” Her voice was flat and the furthest thing from welcoming I could’ve imagined. “Or am I hallucinating?”
I shook my head. “I’m here. And I was telling the truth. My mom and dad asked me to move back home.”
Different emotions passed over her face until she squashed them all down and settled on anger. I couldn’t blame her for the insincerity in her voice as she stood. “Well, so nice to have you back. I look forward to working with you.” She didn’t mean it. “It’s good to know you’re alive and breathing and I can see it in person instead of stalking you occasionally on social media.” That she meant.
At least I wasn’t the only one doing the stalking, but damn. I felt like shit, if a little smug that I wasn’t the only one creeping social media. I knew my reasons for staying away, and a part of me had hoped she’d missed me as much as I’d missed her. But the bigger part had hoped she’d forget me. I wanted to know she wasn’t hurt because of me.
“If that’s all, Dr. Mason?”
My hopes fell through the floor. She hated me. I nodded and watched her walk out of the conference room. Dr. Smith came in the moment she left. “One moment, Ms. Wills.”
She stalked back into the room, but Dr. Smith was totally oblivious. “I’ll leave it to Ms. Wills here to show you the ropes. I know you were happy with the schedule Dr. White left, yes?”
I didn’t remember discussing that whatsoever. It must’ve been one of the things I missed during the staff meeting, so I just smiled and nodded.
“Good, good.” He looked at Skye. “You’ll show him around and baby him a bit until he’s broken in?”
She gritted her teeth but nodded. Dr. Smith didn’t notice a thing. “Good, good. Good. I’ll leave you to it!”
With a sigh, Skye watched him walk out. “Come on,” she said sullenly. “We’ve already got patients.”
“I know how important routine is,” I said and hurried around the table to join her. “I’ll do my best to keep to it. I don’t want to throw anyone off.”
“What’s your deal with surgeries?” she asked over her shoulder as she hurried down the hallway. I wanted to talk more, but it looked like we were going to get right to work. She led me to a nurses’ station. This clinic was set up much like a hospital floor, which I wasn’t used to.
Well, I was used to working in a hospital, not a primary care clinic. But the position that had opened up had been for primary care in peds, not surgery. “I’m a pediatric surgeon,” I said. “But I’ll only be doing surgeries as my schedule allows, hopefully, enough to keep me from getting rusty. As of right now, I’m a primary care doctor.”
She gave me a glowering look. “I see.” Reaching over the counter, she pulled out a small tablet. “Here is our chart. It’s all digital now. You need to plug them in between each patient, or you run the risk of them going dead. If we have a power failure, we’ve got only the batteries on these tablets and the backup generator in the server room to print off what records we need to go back to analog.”
I nodded. Many hospitals were moving to similar systems with the speed technology had been advancing just since I got out of medical school. It was digitize or get left behind.
“May I?” I asked.
Skye handed the tablet over without a word.
I was relieved to see a program I was familiar with. “We used this at Harvard, during medical school, to run simulations.”
She gave me a tight, angry smile, her green eyes flashing. “I’m sorry we’re not as advanced as the hospital you worked for in
Boston.”
“No, you misunderstand me.” I opened the file for the first patient on the schedule. A six-year-old boy complaining of a sore throat. After skimming his history and other intake questions, I gave the tablet back to Skye. “Boston was the one that was behind. For them to be as advanced as they are, cutting edge, really, they desperately need to upgrade their basic record-keeping systems. Harvard was always using the latest and greatest to try to train the doctors in the newest methods, including the newest software.” I rattled on, desperate for her to not think I was insulting little Bluewater Memorial. “I love this hospital. I meant that.”
I’d wanted to move home from the moment I completed my residency and had even looked into doing my residency here at Bluewater. I figured I’d commute in so I wouldn’t actually live in the county, and not disobey my alpha. It would’ve been on a technicality, but still.
She sighed. “Come on. The RN should be ready for you to go in.”
Nodding, I followed her to the first room. The layout of the offices was a little labyrinth-like, but I knew I’d get the hang of it soon enough. Skye stopped at a door. “This one is yours; I’ll take the next one down. If I go in with you on each patient, we’ll get hopelessly behind.”
Nodding, I took the tablet again. “I’ve done this a time or two. I gotcha.”
After examining the patient, I asked the RN to order a strep test and went out to the hall to the little alcove set up for doctors to put their notes in before going to the next room. It helped us be able to see more patients each day without getting way behind on our notes.
As soon as I put in the info I needed, I checked the schedule, then looked at the intake notes, and I noticed some problems. The nurses weren’t filling the notes out completely and hadn’t updated each section.
That was a problem. I’d actually had cases before where the most obscure fact about the family history or patient symptoms had helped diagnose. If they didn’t fill it in completely every time, something might get missed.
In most parts of my life, I wasn’t a stickler about much of anything. Except charting. I had to be a dick about it, whether I wanted to be or not.
Skye walked out of the room beside the one I’d seen my first patient in. “Hey,” I said. “Can I ask you something?”
She nodded as she tapped at her tablet. “What’s up, doctor?”
“First, please, call me Anthony. Or Tony.”
Skylar sighed and looked up from her tablet as if I’d asked her to do me some huge favor. “I think it’s best if we keep things professional, Dr. Mason.”
Fine. I’d play along for now. “Well, what would you recommend for getting the nurses to chart a little more thoroughly?”
She narrowed her eyes. “What’s wrong with the way we chart?” She’d lumped herself in with the rest of the nurses, though she was more doctor than a nurse, despite not having an MD or PhD.
“It needs to be more thorough. I’ll play along and work whatever schedule, and I will be as flexible as I can. Easier for me to blend in here than for the entire staff to adapt to my way of doing things. But one thing I can’t bend on is charting.”
Her nostrils flared. “We’re thorough. But I’ll make sure the staff knows to dot every I and cross every T. Will that be sufficient?”
I sighed, but what could I do? “Thank you, Ms. Wills.”
“You’ll have no problems with us.” She looked at her tablet again. “If you’ll excuse me, we both have more patients. They’ll all be in these rooms along these halls, and the patient portal on your tablet will tell you if they’re ready for you to go in and in what order.”
I nodded but didn’t remind her I was familiar with the program. She knew. Skylar walked down the hall and into one of the rooms. I tracked her with my hearing and an innate sense that I’d never had with anyone else. I was pretty sure as long as my arm was burning, I’d be able to find her anywhere in the hospital.
“How do you know Dr. Mason?” a female voice asked her. I was fairly sure it was Cam, from the meeting.
“I don’t know him. Not anymore.” Her words hurt. But she wasn’t wrong. She didn’t know me. We hadn’t seen each other in eighteen years or so. But I had every damn intention of fixing it. I’d had to wait until I became alpha, but that was happening at the next full moon.
The day wore on and every time Skylar and I passed one another in the halls, nothing got better. She was just this side of openly hostile with me.
When she talked to the patients or the other staff, it was with a kind, gentle voice. With me, it was the utmost of professionalism.
My old NP back in Boston called it professional bitch, but heaven help me, I never would’ve said that to Skye’s face. Or her back. Or ever uttered the words out loud.
By the end of the day, I knew I had my work cut out for me. The tension between Skye and me was thick enough to cut. I had to fight against my parents for this relationship, and now I was going to have to fight Skylar, for, well…for herself. It was time for me to stop this farce and claim my mate.
3
Skylar
Finally, it was Friday. TGIF. I used to watch special shows on TV on Fridays, and ever since, it was ingrained in me to look forward to the weekend. Every week, though, it never failed, I got behind on paperwork. I had to stay behind and catch up because going in on a Monday and facing paperwork from the week before was never a good thing. I’d learned that very early on. Always finish it on Friday.
I finally finished and headed for the front. As soon as I came out of the back hallway, I saw Cam, still at the desk, working on paperwork of her own. Half the time she was there later than me, updating billing records and the like. Since we’d put her on salary, she just did it, no matter how often I tried to get her to hire someone part-time. “It’s not in the budget,” was her rote answer.
“I’m sorry, dear, but the doctors have all gone,” she said. I stepped forward and peered around the corner to see a tired-looking mom and the top of a blonde-headed child’s head on the other side of the counter.
With an internal sigh, I walked closer until I could see the child. Strep was going around severely, and the ER was probably a cluster right now.
The mom spotted me. “Can you see us?” she asked pitifully. “She’s running a fever, and now I’m not feeling so great.”
“I could see you,” I said. “But hospital policy requires there be a doctor and a nurse present. I could be either in this situation, but I’m the only one here.” I hated to tell her that, knowing something nonemergent like this would take ages at the ER.
“I’m here.” Damn it. Anthony’s voice was the last one I wanted to hear. Why couldn’t it have been one of my nurses? It’d been a trying week. Working in close proximity with Anthony after not being around him for so long was beyond strange. It was like I didn’t know how to act around him anymore. He was a different person. The guy I’d known and loved was a young boy, but Dr. Mason was a grown-ass man. His voice was deeper. He’d grown even taller and though I tried so hard to ignore it, he was a lot more handsome. He’d outgrown every bit of gawky teen that my best friend had been back then.
On top of that, it was odd seeing him in his element. He was obviously a good doctor and loved his chosen career. The kids all loved him, too.
Not to mention the moms. It hadn’t escaped my notice that suddenly there were fewer dads bringing their kids in for their checkups. How those mothers had gotten the word in one week, I had no idea.
Another thing that I hadn’t missed was the fact that we both chose careers in the medical field and we both chose to work with children. Again, I ignored it because it didn’t matter or mean anything. Not at all. Not even a little. Who cared what field he’d gone into? Not me.
“Great,” I chirped. “Come on, you guys. Cam will get you checked in.” I shot her a grateful look before turning around and going back toward the exam rooms. I waited there for Cam to finish, staunchly ignoring Dr. Mason, who waited beside me, then
the mom and daughter walked into the back waiting area. “Come on, you get no-wait service.”
The mom beamed at me. “I’m Briana. And I can’t thank you enough.”
Waving her off, I grabbed a tablet and started the questions.
Dr. Mason had requested that the information be filled in completely, so as we walked to the closest exam room, I made sure to be thorough, not skipping the least little question, no matter that I knew damn well this child had strep and all we needed to do was the test, which was easy as pie. They even made strep tests that could be done at home. No medical degree required, though most adults didn’t realize they could get them.
Fifteen minutes later, after I went through every possible question and family history section, I swabbed the sweet girl’s throat. “Okay, Hayden, this will be uncomfortable for a second.”
Dr. Mason stood in the background, basically useless. But I hadn’t needed his help, anyway, just the stupid policy that there had to be two of us here. “Now, we just wait for this to react in the fluid, and we’ll get you out of here.”
“Thank you again, so much.” Briana shot Dr. Mason a look, half interested and half curious why he was even there. I hadn’t let him get a word in edgewise.
Sure enough, it was strep. I calculated the dosage for the antibiotic and wrote out a prescription for Hayden. “Here you go. There’s a twenty-four-hour pharmacy across the street.” Then, I looked up the ibuprofen dosage for Hayden’s age and weight and wrote it down for her mother. It was super important to be careful with how much ibuprofen they got at that young age. “If she gets any worse, call us and come back in.”
“I will. I just can’t thank you enough. I’m a teacher, and my mom keeps Hayden after school. She’d told me she was feeling rough, but I didn’t know how sick she was until far too late in the day when I picked her up.”
“Hey, I get it. I’m glad we were still here.”
“You and me both,” Briana said. “Thanks again.” She hesitated, and I waited a second. I’d been about to get up. “I hate to ask, but we’re new in the area. Could you recommend anywhere a mom could, I don’t know, unwind? My parents moved with us, so I have them constantly begging to babysit, but then I find myself at home alone and bored.”
