by Janice Lynn
“Dr. Fielding, perhaps you should take a look at Mrs. Cline’s latest vital signs,” she suggested. “She seems to be doing okay, but her pulse oximetry has dropped a couple of points since her transfer.”
Karen excused herself and Madison went to leave the patient room too but Levi stopped her. “Stick around in case I need your help.”
Madison met Karen’s eyes. Her charge nurse-slash-best friend just nodded her approval and, smiling, left the room.
“I glanced over your arterial blood gases prior to coming in here. You’re still hypercapneic. Not as bad as you were at time of admission, thank God, but you’re still retaining too much carbon dioxide,” Levi explained to the woman. “The ventilator was helping you to breathe more efficiently and to get rid of the excessive carbon dioxide, but since you’ve been off the vent, your levels are slowly rising again.”
Panic in her eyes, the woman’s hands went to her throat. “Does that mean I’m going to have to be put back on the ventilator?”
No one liked having a tube down one’s throat and having a machine breathe for them. Waking up to that had to be one of the scariest things Madison could imagine.
“No.” Levi shook his head and patted the woman’s arm. “I’m hoping not, but I do want to start you on a BiPAP machine.”
“BiPAP?” The woman glanced at him in confusion. “Isn’t that what you prescribed for my husband’s snoring?”
Levi grinned. “Very good. Actually, it is what’s prescribed for Mr. Cline’s sleep apnea. However, BiPAP is also used in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease cases where hypercapneic respiratory failure is an issue. Your arterial blood gas levels and overnight oximetry results qualify you for use of a BiPAP to make your breathing more efficient and hopefully prevent the need for going back on the vent.”
The woman just stared at Levi, her breathing more ragged than prior to when he’d come into the hospital room. “Will I just be using this while in the hospital or even after I go home?”
Each word came out a breathy rasp.
“You’ll need to use the BiPAP every night, even after you’ve gone home. The machine provides positive airway pressure, which will help you to breathe properly, help to prevent atelectasis, that’s when the tiny airways collapse, will help keep your oxygen saturation elevated and your carbon dioxide level down.”
Sighing, Mrs. Cline asked, “Sort of like what the ventilator did?”
“Exactly.” Levi placed his hand over hers, patting her in a comforting gesture. “Nurse Swanson will get you set up for BiPAP use for the remainder of your hospital stay and at discharge a durable medical equipment company will be contacted about providing one for home use. I’m going to want you to continue using the machine every night to help keep you from ending up back in the hospital.”
The woman nodded her assent. “Just so long as it helps me breathe and keeps me off that ventilator, I’m willing to do whatever is necessary.”
“Helping you breathe is the idea.” Levi gently squeezed the woman’s hand.
Just to keep herself busy, Madison scribbled a note on the small pad of paper she kept in her scrub top pocket. Checking to make sure Mrs. Cline was comfortable first, she followed Levi out of the room.
“Why did you want me to stay?” She hadn’t really done anything except scribble notes on a small pad she kept in her scrub top pocket and watch Levi with his patient.
“So you could get her BiPAP order set up for me.” He stopped walking, standing just inside the inset door leading into Mrs. Cline’s room, giving them a minute amount of privacy.
“You could have just told me you were ordering BiPAP and at what pressures and I could have entered it into the computer.”
“I could have,” he agreed, grinning, staring straight into her eyes and making her belly do somersaults. “But then I wouldn’t have gotten to spend time with you.”
Forget somersaults. Now her stomach had taken up skydiving. Whee! She arched a brow and barely contained the happiness threatening to ooze out of every pore of her. “That counts as time spent with me?”
He laughed. “It counts, but I agree that it isn’t enough. You want to have dinner tonight?”
Oh, yeah. But she just arched her brow a notch higher. “Are you going to cancel on me?”
“Not by text message if I do,” he assured her, looking appropriately sheepish. “I really am sorry I had to cancel on you that night.”
Should she tell him about how Simon had canceled on her time and again via text message? That she’d gotten to the point she’d hated to hear the buzzing sound of her phone signaling a new text message?
“You never did tell me why you had to cancel.” In Simon’s case, she’d later learned he’d canceled when a “better offer” had come along. Why hadn’t she caught onto the fact he’d been cheating on her? Then again, one only saw what one wanted to see and she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that Simon was a no-good, lying, cheating son of a gun.
“You never asked.”
Right. She hadn’t. Because she hadn’t been sure if she’d had the right to ask or not. But that was the old Madison coming through, the doormat one. The new Madison would demand to know. She opened her mouth to make demands, but before she could speak, he continued.
“But for the record,” Levi continued, leaning closer, she was sure he was closer than he had been only moments before, “my father showed up in town unexpectedly and had made plans that included me. I spent most of my time off last week jumping through his hoops.” He sighed, glanced at his watch. “Actually, dinner tonight will have to be a late dinner, thanks to him.” His gaze lifted, met hers, and regarded her curiously. “Unless you’d be willing to help me jump.”
“What kind of jumping?” she asked cautiously, while relief flooded her. He’d been helping his dad. Not canceling because he’d had a better offer. Not canceling because she hadn’t been good enough to want to spend time with. Still, he should have called.
“That’s why I like you, Madison. You’re smart like that.” He grinned. “Actually, this time my father’s hoops aren’t too bad.” He winced as if reconsidering his comment. “Well, at least they’re for a good cause. He partnered with the hospital to open a new facility for domestic violence.”
“I heard something about that the other day, but didn’t know your father was involved. The Margaret House, right?”
“Margaret was my mother.”
“Oh.” Madison let the implications of those four little words sink in. A domestic violence center was being named after his mother. Had she been the victim? Madison stared at Levi, wondering at what his past held. “Is the house for women who’ve been abused?”
“Actually, it’s a treatment facility providing counseling for victims, the abuser, and any children involved, in both individual and group settings. There are plans to set up a safe house for abuse victims, but that’s still in the pipeline.”
“What exactly do you need me to do?”
“My father has put me in charge of the grand opening gala. It’s to be a big to-do, lots of press and bigwigs to raise awareness within the community. The biggest challenge is that, like everything else in his life, my father expects everything to happen pronto. The grand opening is in four weeks.”
“Four weeks?”
“Yep.” Levi laughed with a hint of irony. “The man has an idea and thinks if he throws enough money around it’ll come to fruition.”
“And he expects you to make this grand opening happen?”
“Yes, he does.”
“Does he do this kind of thing often?”
“Thank God, no.” Levi sighed. “He knows that in general I refuse to kowtow to his whims.”
“So what’s different about this one?” But even as she asked she realized. “Because he’s doing it in your mother’s memory?”
His lips twisting sardonically, he nodded. “The man does know how to push my buttons.”
Wanting to erase the tension lines furrowing into his for
ehead, Madison leaned close. “I’d like to push your buttons.”
As she’d hoped, his expression lightened and she found herself wondering about his father, his mother, his childhood. She knew so little about him. She barely knew anything except that he liked to fish and was an amazing doctor. Oh, and that he was the world record-holder for “best kisser” category. Wowzars, but the man could kiss.
He rubbed his knuckles across her cheek in a caress so brief she wondered if she’d imagined his touch. “That could be arranged. Pick you up for dinner a little after seven?”
“Dinner would be great.” Learning everything there was to know about the man standing next to her would be pretty darned great too.
He grinned. “You want fish, right?”
She curled her nose up. “Depends.”
“On?”
Had he leaned closer? “Whether or not you’re trying to impress me.”
His smile was lethal. “Tonight’s all about impressing you.”
“Then there won’t be anything fishy.” She flashed a lethal smile of her own, then spun to go check on her next patient, feeling happier than anyone had a right to feel.
CHAPTER NINE
LEVI couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt so light inside. Light because he couldn’t think of another way to describe the feelings inside him. He felt young.
What he should be feeling was ridiculous.
Why had he left the office early and then rushed around, getting together what he wanted to do for Madison? Why hadn’t he just planned to take her to some posh restaurant and be done with it? That would have been a lot simpler than what he’d planned.
But he did want to impress Madison.
Which was why he’d gone to the trouble he had. The smile on her face was worth it.
She was smiling, and they hadn’t even gotten to the fun part.
He’d picked her up from the hospital. They’d met with the Margaret House committee—thank God, his father hadn’t bothered to show tonight as he’d dreaded the introduction between Jonathan and Madison. But he had introduced her to the committee members and they’d immediately put her to work. Before they’d gotten away, she’d been assigned to several subcommittees and had made promises to meet with two subcommittee heads on her next day off work.
“This looks suspiciously like the way we drove when we went fishing,” she mused from the passenger side of his SUV.
A grin spread across his face and his insides. “You think?”
“I know.” She sighed, shaking her head in mock disappointment. “You aren’t taking me fishing again, are you? Because I might not be a happy camper if you tell me I have to catch my dinner.”
Camper. The thought of spending the night with Madison underneath the stars, stripping off her uniform and seeing her body bathed in moonlight, had him suppressing a groan. And gripping the steering-wheel a whole lot tighter. So tight his knuckles had blanched white.
“No fishing tonight.”
She twisted in her seat to stare at him. “But we are going to the lake?”
“You’ll see.”
“I wish I’d had time to go home and change,” she mused, glancing down at her uniform. “I felt out of place at the meeting tonight.”
“You were wonderful. They all adored you and couldn’t get you involved fast enough. Besides, you look fine.”
“But you changed.”
“Into jeans and a T-shirt, Madison. It’s not as if I dressed up.”
She didn’t appear appeased. “You look nice, except I wish you’d worn shorts because I like your legs.”
Gripping the steering-wheel even tighter, Levi forgot to look at the road. Instead, he stared at Madison. “You what?”
“Drive.” She gestured to the road a bit wildly and he returned his attention to driving.
“I like your legs.”
That was what he thought she’d said. A grin played on his lips as he turned onto the private road that led to the lake. He’d taken the road to the place where they’d fished rather than the fork that led to his grandfather’s old lake house, but there was no way for her to know that the likelihood of them meeting another car was next to nil. Keeping his eyes on the road, he asked, “As in?”
From the corner of his eye, he saw her shrug.
“As in you have nice legs.”
Nice. Ugh. But he didn’t let the nasty “nice” word affect his fun. “You a legs woman, Madison?”
“Since meeting you.” When he briefly turned to look at her she once again gestured in front of him. “I seem to like everything about you, except maybe your driving habits.”
He laughed. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
A wry look on her face, she glanced down again, her gaze raking over her uniform-clad body. “I’m too short, too flat-chested, too—”
“Too wrong.” He reached across the division between their seats, took her hand into his and gave a reassuring squeeze. All without moving his gaze off the road. “You’re a very sexy woman, Madison.”
She didn’t pull her hand free of his, but he felt the hesitation in her grasp. “Who you didn’t notice until you literally had your arms around me.”
“Not true,” he quickly denied. “I noticed you the day we met, remember?”
He didn’t have to look at her to feel the heat coming off her cheeks. Then there was how her hand trembled in his and he clasped it more securely, wondering why it bothered him that she might pull away.
“That’s right. Me and my Woodstock scrub top.” She glanced down again, studying the brightly colored shirt she wore. “This one, actually.”
“I noticed.” He noticed everything about Madison. Had from the beginning even if he hadn’t acknowledged that to himself until recently. “Was that intentional?”
“I didn’t know you were going to ask me out to dinner when I dressed at the crack of dawn this morning,” she reminded him, a bit of her usual spunk in her tone.
“True.” He grinned, taking the turn-off. He’d like to take her to the small lake-house, but if he did that he had this feeling they’d never get around to eating because he’d also like to show her his bedroom. His bed. Between his sheets. He cleared his throat. “Did you go for a run this morning?”
“I did.” She didn’t elaborate. Just stared straight out the window as if the passing scenery fascinated her.
“I’ve been looking for you in the mornings, hoping we could run together.”
“I didn’t alter my run time.” She continued to stare into the thick woodlands.
“Even though you knew you’d bump into me if you did?” Why was he pressing her like this?
Because he wanted to know.
He wanted to know everything about Madison and what motivated her.
“Especially because I knew I’d bump into you if I did.”
Ouch. That bluntness of hers hurt when it wasn’t saying what he wanted to hear. “You didn’t want to see me?”
“I always want to see you, Levi.” She sighed, slipping her fingers free of his and placing both underneath her thighs. “That isn’t the problem.”
Which meant there was a problem. Hadn’t they already gone through this? Hadn’t he already agreed not to see other women? Not to break dates with text messages? What more did she want?
“Then what is the problem?”
She didn’t answer him at first and he thought maybe she didn’t plan to, but then that bluntness kicked in again.
“The direction my thoughts take after I see you.”
Had his jeans just grown tighter?
“I think I’d like to hear more about that direction.”
She snorted. “I’m sure you would.”
He laughed, shifting in the driver’s seat. Yep, his jeans had definitely shrunk a size or two…or twenty. “But I’m not going to?”
She shook her head. “Not tonight.”
But he would. Eventually. He wouldn’t push her. He wanted to make love to her, but he’d continue to
pace himself, to savor each moment in her company, to prove he was a better man than Jonathan Fielding.
Levi pulled his sports utility vehicle up onto the grassy area where he’d parked the previous day while they’d fished. An area where he had spent many an hour during his childhood. “You’re a hard woman, Madison,” he teased.
She made no move to get out of the truck and neither did he.
“Not really,” she denied softly. “I’ve been trying to be tough, but the truth is that most of my life I’ve been too soft and paid the price.”
Levi sat with his hands on the steering-wheel, sat studying the rigid lines to Madison’s vulnerable face.
“You’re referring to men?” He didn’t really want to know, but he did. He wanted to know everything about Madison. Inside and out and all in between.
“Mostly.”
Mostly. Levi let that digest. “Was there someone special?”
“Once upon a time. Unfortunately, he turned out not to be so special. It just took me a lot longer to realize that than it should have.”
“His loss,” Levi said, and meant it.
Any man who’d had Madison’s attention and lost it had to have been a fool, an idiot, a man who hadn’t known or appreciated what he’d had.
Levi ran his palms over the smooth leather cover of the steering-wheel, absorbing his thoughts. So he believed any man who’d had Madison and let her go was a fool? What exactly did that mean?
Madison stared out the passenger window but didn’t really register anything other than the blur of the lake beyond where they’d parked.
She didn’t want to discuss Simon a moment longer. How had they gotten onto the topic to begin with?
Neither did she want to discuss how she’d tried to be tough, tried to be a player, only to end up having to admit to herself that she was no player and never would be. She had too much heart for that apparently. So much heart that she gave it to the wrong men time and again.
She snuck a glance at Levi.
Was he the wrong man?
He felt so right.
Like Mr. Right.
Like the most right thing she’d ever experienced.
