by Ruby Cruz
Contents
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
PART TWO
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
PART THREE
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BONUS EXCERPT
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
A Modern Retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
Book One of the Meryton Medical Romances
Ruby Cruz
First Impressions
Copyright© 2014 Ruby A. Cruz
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author. Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.
All characters in this novel are fictitious and are the product of the author’s (or Jane Austen’s) imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The use of any real company, institution, landmark and/or product names is for literary effect only. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.
Edited by Rick Gualtieri
http://www.rickgualtieri.com
Cover by Lou Harper
http://www.louharper.com
For Lola, who taught me how to dream and to believe in happy endings
Special thanks to Rose, Vivian and Susan, who gave me their feedback and encouragement in the early incarnations of this book. A special shout-out to Rick, for giving me the initial kick in the ass to get this whole thing started, for his invaluable advice on self-publishing, and for inadvertently taking on the task of editing. Thanks to Danielle for being patient with me in coming up with the awesome book cover – you rock!
And thanks to my wonderful husband and daughters, who put up with a sleep-deprived wife/mom, half-cooked dinners, and messy house so that mommy could “play on her computer.”
Finally, to Jane Austen, for writing the first incarnation of one of the greatest love stories ever written – I could never do it justice, but I’m glad I took the journey.
PART ONE
MERYTON
CHAPTER ONE
The Unexpected Guest
My day started with the cry of the baby. Chloe was a cranky waker. While she often took after my sister’s good nature by being a relatively affable, sweet child, in the morning my niece was much more like me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t ply her with coffee to get her going, so I tolerated the half hour of crabbiness as I changed us out of our pajamas so we could go for our routine jog down to the coffee shop.
I shook off the residual cobwebs during the jog and willed my mind to clear itself of the events from the day before. No matter how much I assured myself I’d done everything right, that I’d followed all the required protocols and had cared for the patient to the best of my ability, I couldn’t help but feel guilty when a patient passed away. After a lengthy hospitalization and minimal response to treatment, Mr. Mathison and his family had agreed they were done with all the medications, tests, and treatments. After all, he was eighty-eight years old and had lived a full life. So I’d informed the attending physician of their wishes, at which point Dr. Bryant had a meeting with the patient and the family, a meeting which I had not been invited to.
I stopped at The Hot Spot and exited the store with my latte. Chloe happily munched on some dry Cheerios as I pushed the stroller towards the park. My insides still seethed at the memories of the day before.
Dr. Bryant had convinced the patient and his family that there was still hope and there were some treatment options still left unexplored. And after the meeting, during which Mr. Mathison had agreed to rescind his Do Not Resuscitate decision, he began to decompensate and died within four hours. My stomach roiled at the memory of performing chest compressions on the man, and I cringed at the knowledge that we had denied the loving father of three, grandfather of seven, and great-grandfather of nine a dignified death, all because one doctor thought he could defy nature.
Chloe finished her Cheerios, chased it with a bottle of milk, and proceeded to point to the swings. Obligingly, I lifted her from the stroller and placed her in the toddler swing. I pushed her higher and higher, her sweet giggles filling the air and lightening my heart.
The Mathison children had personally thanked me for helping to take care of their father, but I still couldn’t help but feel a modicum of guilt for allowing Dr. Bryant to strong-arm them into making a poor decision. I didn’t tell that to them, of course. Instead, I let them hug me and cry on my shoulder all while thinking that Dr. Bryant belonged in a special kind of hell in which the occupants were intubated and restrained with no sedation. His retirement next week couldn’t come quickly enough - one less doctor in the world attempting to play God.
Chloe eventually tired of the swings so I led her to the toddler slide. At eighteen months old, she could finally climb the shallow little steps without falling and wasn’t too scared of sliding down without me holding her hand. I caught her at the bottom and she pushed away to climb the steps again. Up and down, at least a dozen times, each swoosh down the slide eliciting giggles and smiles. The playground began to fill up and we waved to some children and moms we knew from the toddler play group my sister Jane frequented. I checked my watch, noted that Jane would be home from work by now and probably sleeping, and headed to the library for story time.
When story time was finished and Chloe had finished playing with the puzzles and puppets available at the library, she was hungry again so I brought her home for lunch. I scrounged the kitchen for food I knew she wouldn’t throw at me or spit out defiantly, and settled on some yogurt, strawberries, and goldfish crackers. With my latte and half a bottle of water having been my only sustenance so far, I shared the yogurt and strawberries with her and added a granola bar.
I struggled to put her down for her nap and considered taking one myself. I sighed as my sense of responsibility won. I loaded the dishwasher, sorted some laundry, and tidied the toys Chloe had left strewn across the living room. Jane and I were trying to teach her to put them away after she finished playing with them, but I had to admit, her aunt was having a difficult time remembering to enforce that rule. When the phone rang, I rushed to pick it up and bit back my annoyed response when I realized my mother was on the other end.
“Lizzy, I have the most wonderful news!”
“Mom, you know that Chloe and Jane are asleep right now. Couldn’t this wait until later?”
“I know they’re asleep but I wanted to let you know…” she said dismissively, with no diminish to her bright tone. “Someone’s leased the Netherfield mansion.”
My mind struggled to comprehend why this
was such wonderful news. “So?”
“So? The Netherfield mansion! I was talking with Ethel Richardson at church last week and she said her neighbor was contracted to do the landscaping on the property.”
I still didn’t see why this was such a big deal. “Okay…?”
“So, I was at the doctor again this morning. I’ve been having more palpitations lately, so I decided to have that checked out.” Palpitations were a common occurrence with my mother and were usually related to self-induced anxiety rather than an actual cardiac condition.
“Is everything okay?” I asked unconcernedly.
“Fine, fine. They did an EKG which was fine and scheduled me for one of those 24-hour cardiac monitoring studies. Then they just did some blood work, which was normal, and he made a slight change to my Xanax dosage, but that’s not important.”
“What?” The tone in her voice immediately raised my suspicion.
“Well...there was a new doctor there shadowing Dr. Price. His name was Dr. Bingley. Dr. Charles Bingley. He was the most polite young man, handsome, too. We just got to talking. He told me he would be starting his residency at your hospital this week. Family practice, just like Dr. Price. I always thought that medicine is such a noble profession. Dr. Bingley asked me about my family and I just happened to show him a picture of my beautiful granddaughter and daughter. A grandmother is allowed to brag, after all.”
“Oh, Mom, you didn’t.” A part of me died inside. I knew exactly the picture my mother had shown him. It was one I'd taken of Jane and Chloe during our trip to the beach two weeks ago and had the bad judgment to forward to our mother. They had posed next to the waves wearing matching polka-dot tankinis. I'd thought they'd looked so cute at the time; now my mom was using the picture to lure unsuspecting bachelors to her home. Jane would be horrified if she knew.
My mother ignored my admonition to finish triumphantly, “Anyway, Dr. Bingley is the one leasing the Netherfield mansion.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “Isn’t that place on the market for nearly two million dollars? The rent must be pretty steep on a resident’s salary.”
“Yes, I was thinking the same thing, so I asked him how he’d be able to afford such an expensive lease and he said that his father didn’t approve of the residents’ quarters so he’s helping him out a bit by renting that house.” Leave it to my mother to suss out details like income from a perfect stranger.
“Bingley.” The name sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. “Is his father in the medical profession?”
“He didn’t say, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he were. He held his father in very high regard.”
The name Bingley nagged at me. I had a suspicion he was associated somehow with the hospital. “Well, I hope his son defies the odds and isn’t another asshole physician.”
“Lizzy, you haven’t even met the man!”
“I’m just saying, the last thing that hospital needs is another pompous, know-it-all doctor to torture the nurses.”
“Well, Dr. Charles Bingley was a perfectly nice and well-mannered young man. In fact, when I mentioned to him that I had daughters who were nurses at the hospital, he was excited at the prospect of meeting you both. So, with him being new in town, I suggested you and Jane might like to show him around.”
I sighed. “Please don’t tell me you were whoring us out again.”
“Elizabeth Ann Bennett, I can’t believe you’re talking to me this way.”
“Mom, the last time you met a ‘handsome young man’ and invited him over to meet us, he turned out to be living out of his parents’ basement and sending alimony to his two ex-wives. And the guy before that was incarcerated for drug possession. And don’t forget Loser Bob. Honestly, I think Jane and I can do without your help in finding decent men to date.”
“Honey, the moment I stop trying to find you husbands is when I see a ring on the fourth finger of your left hand. Until then, there’s no harm in shopping around. By the way, I invited Dr. Bingley over for dinner tomorrow night.”
I nearly dropped the phone. “You what?!”
“That is why I called, so you and Jane can make sure you look and act your best. Jane, I have no doubts, she always looks presentable, but you…” I could just picture her waggling her finger at me, “You make sure you wear something nicer than those ratty jeans you insist on wearing.”
“Well, maybe this Dr. Bingley likes low-maintenance women.”
She sighed. “Don’t you start, Lizzy Bennett. The least you and your sister could do is make your professions as nurses of some good use and attract a rich and handsome doctor to marry. I have to go and start preparing dinner, but make sure you tell your sister when she wakes up.” Mom hung up before I could argue with her more.
~
From before I could even remember, Sunday night dinners were a tradition for my family. Due to Mom’s revolving door of boyfriends/husbands/significant others, her male counterpart at the dinner table had often changed from week to week, but there had always been Mom, Jane and me at the table laden with her latest culinary efforts. Even though Mom was a mediocre cook at best, she would attempt to prepare something fancy like pot roast or leg of lamb with mint jelly or pork tenderloin medallions. She loved watching cooking shows and often tried to replicate the elaborate meals the professional chefs prepared on television. While edible, her meals were never the gourmet fare that she boasted. The meats were either overcooked or underdone, the vegetables mushy and under-seasoned, the starches dry and bland. Even after Jane and I grew into adulthood and were more than capable of helping her prepare the Sunday meal, she would shoo us out of the kitchen so she could take all the credit for the food preparation.
“Don’t you worry about helping me in the kitchen,” she would say to us. “All I want you to focus on is finding yourself a rich, sexy husband to marry.” That would prompt me to quip the grocery store was all out of rich, sexy husbands and I needed to see if I could acquire one through mail order.
Despite Mom’s assertions that Jane and I look our best for the evening’s handsome and prestigiously employed guest, I arrived in my usual ensemble of jeans and fitted tee. I figured a competition between Jane and me in the looks department wasn’t a fair one anyway, as there was actual truth to Mom’s statement that Jane always looked good. In fact, Jane was absolutely gorgeous. I say that with absolutely no jealousy because it was the truth. She had inherited Mom’s wavy blond hair, deep blue eyes, and her petite build, but biology had somehow improved upon Mom’s genetics so, instead of Jane just being Mom’s attractive younger clone, she had a refined, ethereal beauty which could probably grace catwalks if she were so inclined. Jane could wear a cardboard box and still look a hundred times more beautiful than the average woman. Her beauty was only enhanced by the fact she was modest and unassuming - even shy.
Before leaving for Mom’s house, I pulled my chestnut hair into its usual ponytail, pinned back any annoying flyaways, and applied the clear lip gloss which usually comprised the whole of my makeup regimen. After a second latte following Chloe’s nap, I decided my hazel eyes didn’t look too tired and I could forego adding eye makeup. My T-shirt was clean so I considered that a win also. Mom always lamented the fact I was not a great beauty like Jane and, with my low-maintenance lifestyle, I was never destined to be more than above-average in looks. My friend Luke was always railing at me to make a slightly bigger effort on my wardrobe and makeup choices. “You are just as attractive as Jane, just in a different way,” he’d tell me whenever he was witness to one of my mother’s frequent rants about my lacking appearance.
When Jane, Chloe and I arrived at my mother’s house, Mom was marinating steaks for the grill and mixing a chipotle salsa to accompany it. Hal, my latest stepdad, was tinkering with a toy vacuum cleaner he’d found lying in someone’s trash pile and was hoping he could coax it back to life for Chloe to use.
For once, Mom actually allowed me in the kitchen so I could help
her tear romaine lettuce for the salad. Just as I was becoming grateful this meal didn’t seem headed for the trash bin, Mom checked the clock, “Oh, goodness, I lost track of the time. Dr. Bingley will be here any minute. Lizzy, finish with that salad quickly. I need you to put together the shrimp cocktail.”
“Are you serious? This random guy is actually showing up at our family dinner tonight?” A part of me had hoped she’d been joking about asking him to dinner.
“He’s not a random guy. He’s a doctor and a good one if judging by his pedigree and the excellent examination he gave me.”
“Ugh, Mom, that’s disgusting.”
“He was very professional, I assure you. Come now, we must hurry if we’re to make the table presentable before he arrives.”
I hastily finished assembling the salad and shrimp cocktail before I cornered Hal. “Please don’t tell me you had anything to do with this fiasco.”
Hal finished screwing the battery compartment door back onto the vacuum cleaner and turned it on. The living room filled with children’s music. He sighed. “You know your mother. It was done before I even knew it.”
“Did you meet him at least?”
He shrugged. “Caught a glimpse of the back of his head as we were leaving the office.”
Frustrated by my stepfather’s lack of response, I took the toy and flopped onto the floor with Chloe who eagerly grabbed it from my hands and began pushing it around the room. Jane joined me on the floor. “Lizzy, you know Mom just wants us to be happy.”
“Need I remind you she was the one who introduced you to Loser Bob?”
“Please don’t call him that in front of Chloe. He is her father.”
“Just because they share DNA doesn’t make him her father.”
She didn’t immediately respond which was her way of acquiescing. “Well, if Mom hadn’t introduced me to Bob, I wouldn’t have Chloe, would I? It’s hard for me to imagine not having her now.”
