Just Right: The Bradfords, Book 1

by Erin Nicholas

  But since she’d seen him at the bar last night, that had been missing. It was as if he was any other average guy on the street with no clue how to resect or repair any given internal organ.

  She rode beside him to downtown Omaha without paying attention to where they were going, still pondering the change in him. Maybe it was because of his suspension. There wasn’t any chance work would page him so he didn’t have his usual I’m-ready-for-anything edge. Maybe when the suspension was over he’d get back to normal.

  Ten minutes later, they pulled up in front of a coffee house that occupied the middle of a series of shops. The shops lined the north side of one of the old brick streets in the part of downtown known as The Old Market. The area had once been the distribution center for goods shipped out of Omaha on the Union Pacific Railroad. The multi-block area was made up of restored warehouses that were now shops and restaurants on brick streets with a variety of street performers, vendors and horse-drawn carriages.

  The coffee shop was adorable. Jessica loved the restored wood floors, and the twelve-foot ceiling in front of windows nearly as tall. Multiple round tables with two to four chairs each were clustered throughout the middle of the huge room along with couches, easy chairs and loveseats gathered in cozy sitting groups around the outer perimeter. A long counter ran along the wall at the back of the shop and doorways behind the counter led to what Jessica assumed to be the kitchen area. A large chalkboard hung on the wall between the two doorways and had the menu printed on it in multicolored chalk.

  The shop served breakfast and simple lunches and was open six a.m. to ten p.m. in order to cater to local college students who might find it a pleasant study or meeting spot.

  The woman behind the counter lit up when Ben came in.

  “Benjamin Torres! I missed you two mornings in a row.”

  “Sorry, Dolly.” Ben gave her a sheepish grin. “I’ve had some stuff going on.”

  Jessica almost rolled his eyes at the understatement.

  “Dolly, this is Jessica Bradford.” Ben looped an arm around Jessica’s shoulders. “Dolly owns Cup O’ Joe.”

  “Hi, Jessica.”

  Dolly was probably sixty-ish and reminded Jessica of what Santa’s wife should look like, complete with apple red cheeks, white curls and a quick, warm smile.

  “Hi, Dolly. It’s nice to meet you.” It was also nice to have Ben’s arm around her.

  “You too. ’Specially if you’re the ‘stuff’ that Ben’s had going on.”

  Jessica felt her cheeks heat and tried to correct the older woman, but Ben laughed and hugged her against his side.

  “And if she isn’t then you just got me into big trouble,” he said. “You ever think of that?”

  “Yeah, I did think of that,” Dolly said, swatting at Ben with the end of her dishtowel. “And if you’re bringin’ her in here, it’s at your own risk, Mr. Doctor-man.”

  Ben and Dolly laughed and Jessica smiled, feeling bemused by the interaction between Ben and the coffee shop owner. They seemed to know each other well enough to have already established the kind of friendship that would stand up under good-natured ribbing.

  They placed their orders and Jess handed Ben a ten-dollar bill to pay for hers, then went to find a table, leaving Ben to talk to Dolly about whatever had brought him down here rather than eat her cooking.

  She picked a table near the window. There were four other occupied tables. Three tables away two women were engaged in the intimate type conversation that happens between best friends. A table in the corner was surrounded by three twenty-somethings and held two open books and three more stacked to one side. The other two tables were of only one each. An older woman sat sipping idly from her cup, staring out the window, obviously lost in thought. A man in a suit, who had the biggest cup of coffee Jessica had ever seen, was tapping away at a laptop between sips.

  Jessica smiled at Ben as he joined her, setting her cup of coffee in front of her. “This place is nice.”

  He looked around. “I think so.” He tossed Jessica’s ten-dollar bill down in front of her as he took the chair beside her.

  She frowned at the money but decided not to pursue who was paying for what. “You come here a lot, I take it.”

  “Nearly every morning. Besides great coffee, Dolly has great advice.”

  Jess laughed as she stirred her coffee. “Most guys get advice from bartenders, don’t they?”

  “Most bartenders don’t know how to get lipstick out of carpet or how to make lemon meringue pie from scratch.”

  She did not want to know why Ben needed to get lipstick out of carpet.

  “Sounds like you need a…”

  Jess stopped and felt her cheeks burn.

  “A mother?” Ben asked.

  Jess couldn’t believe she’d almost said that. How insensitive. She knew Ben’s mom had died from liver failure a week before Ben had come back to Omaha. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I know what it’s like to have those kind of questions and no one to ask,” she said, honestly. She had no idea how to get lipstick out of carpet even now. “My mom left when I was ten.”

  “And your dad died when you were a teenager, right?”

  So Sam had talked to Ben about their parents. He’d at least mentioned his dad to his friend. That told her a lot about how much Sam liked and trusted Ben right there. Her brother only talked about their father by accident when words like “Remember when…” or “Dad…” slipped out before he thought better of it. But evidently he hadn’t told Ben how their dad died. Or that it was her fault.

  Jessica sipped from her cup to soothe her suddenly tight throat. “I was twenty,” she said after she swallowed. Not exactly a teenager. But certainly not an adult.

  “My dad was killed in a plane crash when I was eighteen,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  Finally, Ben shifted on his chair and pulled a piece of paper folded lengthwise from his back pocket.

  “Do you have a pen I could borrow?”

  “Sure.” Relieved to have something to do, she opened the front zipper of her purse and withdrew two. “Blue or black?” she asked holding them up for him.

  He shook his head and selected the black. “Always prepared for anything?” he commented.

  She couldn’t deny it so said nothing.

  Ben began filling in blanks on the paper.

  “What’s that?” She sipped the delicious blend of coffee, caramel and cream.

  “Job application.” He continued writing.

  She swallowed, sure she’d heard wrong. “For you?” she asked, though the answer was obvious on the first line of the application labeled Name.

  “Yes.”

  “You have a job,” she pointed out. “Once your suspension is over I know they will welcome you back with open arms.”

  But she didn’t think doctors filled out written applications picked up at the front desk, anyway.

  “Yeah. Probably.” Ben kept his head bent over the application. “I just don’t want it anymore.”

  That got her attention. “What?”

  “Yeah. The doctor thing’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, staring at the top of his head.

  “What’s the point?”

  “What’s the point?” she repeated. “The point of what?”

  Now he looked up. “The point of what I do.”

  “How about saving lives and healing the sick, and little things like that?” she asked, deprecatingly.

  He frowned at her. “Except that saving lives and healing the sick doesn’t always happen.”

  She couldn’t think of a thing to say to that. How could he not want to be a doctor anymore? It was a calling. He made the world a better place through what he did. She decided to try that approach.

  “Ben, all doctors lose patients sometimes. You can�
�t heal them all. But what if all doctors felt the way you do? Where would we be then?”

  His frown was still firmly in place. “That’s not my problem. Besides,” he pushed his chair back and handed back her pen. “The money’s too good. There will always be doctors.”

  She watched him go to the counter and hand his application to Dolly.

  Jess felt like she was the butt of some stupid joke. She wavered between disbelief and anger at Ben. He had a God-given talent for healing. He was not taking that seriously enough. He was overreacting to the suspension. And the ego—did he think his suspension was unfair or undeserved? He’d broken a patient’s nose, for heaven’s sake! She was agitated by the time he returned to the table.

  “How are you qualified to make coffee?” she asked as he took his seat. “You don’t even have a coffeepot in your apartment.”

  “I make the coffee at work sometimes.”

  “There you go,” she said, trying not to sound panicked or hysterical. “That coffee is terrible.”

  “Not when I make it,” Ben said, resting his forearms on the table and daring to look amused. He seemed so calm about giving up everything he’d worked and trained for, abandoning the patients who would need him in the future.

  “That’s not the point,” she told him crossly. “You probably won’t get the job anyway.” Which was a stupid thing to say. Why wouldn’t he get the job? He and Dolly were obviously friends and how hard could the coffee thing be, anyway? The man could repair lacerated spleens, for God’s sake.

  “I already have the job. The application was a formality. For audits and stuff like that.”

  “How long have you been planning to quit?” she asked.

  “About a week.”

  She took a deep breath. “Ben,” she tried for a sweet, cajoling tone of voice. “Why do you want to work in a coffee shop? You have ten years of higher education, you’re a Board certified physician, you’re the best surgeon in a four-state area. People need you.”

  He looked thoughtful as he answered. “Because it’s simple here,” he said. “People come in for coffee, I make it, they give me the money, I give them the cup. Everyone’s happy. I’ve met their need and nobody dies.”

  “Nobody dies?” she repeated, dumbfounded. “That is your criteria for choosing a profession?”

  “I’m not going back to the hospital.”

  She opened her mouth to reply but the sound of a pager suddenly split the air.

  She looked at him questioningly as she reached for her purse. He held up his hands.

  “I’m on suspension, remember?” He looked happy to make the announcement.

  It was her cell phone. She had a text message.

  Call me immediately. Dr. Edwards.

  “Oh, sh…great,” she muttered, catching herself short of swearing, which she was sure would have delighted Ben. As it was, he was grinning when she looked up.

  “I need to return this call,” she said.

  Russ Edwards was the Chief of Emergency Medicine at St. Anthony’s. He was Ben’s boss. He wasn’t directly over Jessica or the rest of the nursing staff, but he had a lot of pull and was certainly higher up the proverbial food chain than she was. Which made it very weird that he was calling her. It couldn’t be about anything good.

  “Russ Edwards,” he answered on the first ring.

  “Hi. It’s Jessica.” She tried not to sound hesitant or worried.

  Ben looked at her questioningly and she smiled, knowing instinctively that Ben should not hear the conversation she was about to have and that he couldn’t know she was talking to his boss.

  “Is Ben with you?”

  Obviously he expected her to know exactly who he was talking about. She had to be careful about how she answered Russ’s questions so that Ben didn’t pick up the fact they were talking about him.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s been with you all night?”

  “Not…like that. I…um…”

  Jessica had a hard time defending herself adequately without saying his or him or Ben’s name.

  Ben appeared interested in her sudden verbal stumbling. She looked at the huge coffee mug in front of her rather than the subject of her conversation.

  Russ seemed to take pity on her. “You know where he was all night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he get into any trouble?”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Sam told me he had a scuffle at a bar, but that it was with a friend. No police or anything involved.”

  “Right.”

  “Was there anything else?”

  Ben had drunk too much, attempted to seduce her, and had tried to do CPR on a patient while under the influence. However, he’d not done anything illegal and hadn’t even been hungover.

  “No. Nothing else.” She took a sip of coffee, keeping up the pretense of a casual phone conversation with a friend Ben didn’t know.

  “Great,” Russ said with relief.

  Jessica smiled at Ben and rolled her eyes, trying to be convincing about the rambling girlfriend that was supposed to be on the other end of the phone.

  “I’m depending on you,” Russ said. “Keep him with you and out of trouble.”

  “What?”

  Ben raised an eyebrow at her exclamation. She looked away.

  “We’ve got the lawyers working on this thing with Ted Blake, the patient from the ER. But in the meantime Ben can’t get so much as a speeding ticket. He’s got to keep clean. You’re the girl to ensure that happens.”

  She gritted her teeth over Russ’s condescending girl. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  Her eyes flew to Ben as her imagination celebrated Russ’s choice of words.

  “You can’t… There isn’t…” This keeping the conversation as one-sided as possible was challenging. “Why me?” she finally asked.

  She picked up her mug and sipped again. She was drinking coffee, chatting with a friend on the phone, no big deal, nothing for Ben to be interested in.

  “Sam said you were very influential with Ben last night.”

  Hot coffee down the wrong pipe.

  Jessica coughed and tried to breathe at the same time, basically unsuccessful with both things. She coughed hard twice and sucked air in through her nose deeply.

  She had a pretty good idea how Sam had explained the situation to Russ.

  “I can’t believe he said that!”

  She didn’t need two siblings. A sister was enough. She couldn’t kill Sam, but she could probably disown him. And change all of her phone numbers. And move.

  With Ben sitting right there, she couldn’t get into a true argument with Russ.

  “Sam informed me that you are the perfect person to keep an eye on Ben. And I tend to agree. You always go above and beyond…with extremely admirable results,” Russ said smoothly.

  Uh-huh. She wondered if Russ realized how far above and beyond she was willing to go with Ben.

  “Flattery isn’t going to work,” she muttered.

  “But endorsements will,” Russ said. “I’d think a recommendation from the head of the ER would go a long way in helping you get the job you applied for last month.”

  Jessica sat up straighter. Russ evidently knew about her application for the position of ER Department Director. The promotion would put her in charge of the entire ER staff and day-to-day operations. It was a position she deserved. It was a huge responsibility, requiring tremendous organization skills, unwavering confidence, the ability to mega-multi-task, and the gumption to order lots of people around all at once… Hell, she’d practically been made for the job.

  A recommendation from Russ would guarantee she got the job. The jerk.

  “And this is how I’m going to get it?” she asked.

  “Exactly.”

  She supposed she had to respect the fact that he didn’t sugar-coat things or make her guess.

  “I see.”

  Russ obviousl
y heard the coolness in her tone.

  “Ben has to stay out of trouble. The Board of Directors is still pissed about what happened with Dr. Thomas last summer. Now I have another ER physician in trouble. I have to control this or it’s going to look like I’m not handling my staff. My job is on the line here. I don’t like that and I’ll do whatever I have to so that this isn’t a problem.”

  She knew that Dr. Thomas had been investigated after a family filed a lawsuit against him. They alleged he’d given their father the wrong medication and caused severe kidney damage. The suit hadn’t held up and Dr. Thomas was still practicing, but the Board didn’t like bad publicity, interviews with attorneys or writing press releases for damage control. Understandably.

  “Hitting a patient is bad enough, but we can handle that if this guy doesn’t press charges. Ben can not get into any more trouble and this is all so out of character I don’t know what to expect. No scandal, nothing illegal, nothing unethical. I don’t want him doing anything risky.”

  Jessica understood that the whole situation was hugely problematic for Russ and potentially the whole hospital, so she should cut him some slack. But the only thing saving Russ from her ire was that she wanted to do it.

  She wanted to spend time with Ben and this seemed like a more moral reason than because kissing him was like every erotic fantasy she’d ever had rolled into one.

  Russ was correct to believe that Ben needed someone looking after him. It was clear Russ would assign someone else to the task if she didn’t agree to do it. And she really didn’t like the idea of someone else, no matter who it was, doing it instead of her.

  “Fine,” she said to Russ.

  “Jessica.” Russ’s voice had lost its edge a bit. “Take care of him.”

  And once again she was reminded of the biggest problem with the plan. She didn’t know how the hell she was going to do this.

  “What are you doing the rest of the day?” Ben asked as she disconnected.

  “I was going to…visit my sister,” she said. Russ clearly felt that she was going to need to keep an eye on Ben for at least a few days. That meant there would be time to tell him about how she spent most of her free time outside of work. Later.