The Royal Doctor's Bride

CHAPTER THREE

EVERYONE froze. Most appeared resigned, as if they were already bracing themselves for a coming storm. Determined to protect her staff, Gina immediately began her defense. “Don’t blame them for not instantly following your orders. You could have been a medical student for all they knew.”

Anyone with two eyes and an ounce of common sense would never believe he was a mere med student—he was far too confident and authoritative, not to mention distinguished. From the wry expression on his face, he recognized the feeble excuse for what it was.

“I’m well aware we didn’t get a chance to observe the formalities, Dr Sutton,” he stated as he met her gaze. “So we’ll put this incident behind us. However, I am the new emergency director and I can assure every one of you I am fully qualified to handle the position.”

Gina’s face warmed at his rebuke. Clearly, he’d known she had sent Lucy to monitor him. Her embarrassment grew as he shared his experiences in other emergency departments and during the course of his medical relief efforts. At first, she felt guilty for having thought he was only a figurehead—a royal prince who didn’t do more than lend his name in support of a cause—but how was she to have known otherwise? She hadn’t even known his name before he’d waltzed in and took over. No, if anything, he should feel remorse for sneaking into Belmont like a burglar.

“I don’t plan to change your routine overnight,” he continued, “but I will be looking at your operations closely and fine-tuning those processes that need it. No matter how well a department functions, there’s always room for improvement. Rest assured, I will not tolerate slipshod performances. I expect one hundred and ten percent from each of you, and intend to put forth the same effort.”

Gazes met and shoulders squared as everyone seemed willing to meet his demands. It was almost surprising to see the staff cooperateso wholeheartedly this soon, but he had proved himself with his first case. Clearly, they were eager to impress him as well.

“What’s the possibility of budgeting for more staff?” someone asked.

“If the numbers justify it, I’ll do what I can to get them,” he promised.

Those who had still appeared suspicious now nodded as if satisfied with Ruark’s response. Slowly, skepticism and stoicism faded as he shared his vision for the department as well as a few personal facts. By the end of his impromptu meeting, not only was everyone smiling and joking with him, but they’d also learned he liked all flavors of coffee as long as they were strong, loved fresh pastries and any dessert containing apples. No doubt there would be donuts and apple pie tomorrow.

“I’m certain you’ll have more questions as time goes on, but if you have a problem, my door is always open,” he added in conclusion.“Meanwhile, you can return to work.”

Gina accompanied him from the room while the rest of the staff headed off to deal with their respective tasks. “You had them eating out of your hand,” she remarked.

His wide grin only enhanced his handsome features. “People usually produce in accordance with the level of expectation. If they know I expect a lot, they’ll deliver. If not…” He shrugged.

Determined to clear the air, she squared her shoulders and met his gaze. “For the record, I’m not sorry I’d asked Lucy to report any problems you had to me. Having never seen you in action, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

“Under similar circumstances, I would have done the same, as would any physician who cares about his patients. I trust I’ve satisfied your curiosity and relieved your doubts?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’ll put this behind us, too.”

“Why didn’t you tell them you were a prince?”

“They need to see I’m a physician first and a prince second,” he said simply, “otherwise they won’t look past the issues of royalty and we can’t form the cohesive unit we need to be.”

He was obviously speaking from experience. “You told me who you are.”

“Given our backgrounds, I made an exception for you.”

Lucky her, she thought glumly. “I thought you prided yourself on honesty.”

“I do, but do you want reporters swarming all over the place, digging into your past? Believe me, it only takes one curious reporter for all of your secrets to become tomorrow’s headlines. Are you ready for that, Countess?”

She gritted her teeth. “I told you before, I consider that title purely academic. I prefer to use the one I earned, and I’d appreciate it you did, too.”

“I stand corrected. In any case, my personal background is irrelevant.”

She scoffed. “Do you really believe that? The staff aren’t blind. People will notice your bodyguards and ask questions.”

“After what happened today with Bill Nevins, no one will give two extra guards a second thought. Besides, my men are professionals. They’re experts at blending in. But if someone does ask questions, I’ll tell them the truth. They’ll find out soon enough, anyway.”

His ready reply caught her off guard. “You have all the answers, don’t you?” she asked waspishly, lumping in their earlier, more private discussion with this one.

“What sort of leader would I be if I didn’t?” he countered. “You see, Gina, I don’t like surprises.”

After today, neither did she.

Ruark spent what remained of the morning observing the work flow of the department. Fortunately, no other traumas arrived, which left him free to talk individually with the staff regarding everything from scheduling to ordering supplies. He would have preferred Gina acting as his guide, but she often disappeared in other directions—“to take care of patients,” she’d said.

It was only an excuse. The whiteboard indicating room assignments and diagnoses plainly showed nothing that the physician’s assistant couldn’t handle. However, he was willing to cut her some slack today. She clearly wanted space to digest the information he’d given her, although little did she know he’d barely scratched the surface. The rest would come this evening, when he outlined their families’ proposed plan in complete detail.

When his father had first approached him and he’d read the dossier on Gina that had been compiled by the palace security team, he’d been resigned to fulfilling his obligations. After meeting her, talking to her, watching the way she handled a difficult situation, he’d become more…hopeful? about the long-term success of the scheme they had devised. Doing his duty to restore his family’s honor wouldn’t pose a hardship at all.

In fact, if he’d come to Belmont without any ulterior motive or agenda, if he’d only arrived as a physician who merely intended to use his medical skills until the next career move presented itself, Gina still would have captured his attention. Her elfin features, willowy frame, tawny-colored hair and special smile charmed him more than he’d imagined possible. After he’d touched her soft skin, seen the damage done by the shard of china and her blood staining his white handkerchief, he’d wanted Bill Nevins’s head. For a man who prided himself on his control, his reaction amazed him.

He was almost tempted to pull rank and follow as she went about her business, to compare what he learned about her firsthand with what he’d gathered from her file, but he had to be patient. If she felt threatened and he couldn’t win her over tonight, then the next few weeks wouldn’t pass by pleasantly.

To his surprise and delight, he’d learned more interesting things about Gina and Belmont’s emergency department from Gina’s colleagues than he would have learned from her. More often than not, he heard what had fast become a familiar refrain.

“Dr Sutton takes care of that.”

“Dr Sutton completes those reports.”

“Dr Sutton always talks the supply department into giving us what we need.”

“Dr Sutton is a stickler for continuing education,” one nurse said proudly. “We’re the only department in the hospital where all staff certifications are current.”

At first, he’d wondered how it could be possible for one woman to accomplish so much in a given day, until he stood at the nurses’ station and merely watched her go from one task to another. She might deny her heritage, but she still possessed the innate grace and regal bearing of her ancestors.

“If you’re waiting until she has a free minute to talk to her, you’ll be waiting a long time,” Lucy warned.

He pulled his attention away from Gina and his thoughts at the sound of the nurse’s voice. “Excuse me?”

“If you ever want to catch Dr Sutton, you have to do like the rest of us and just interrupt,” Lucy commented. “She’s in constant motion. The only time she sits down is when she’s at her desk or at lunch, which she takes on a hit-and-miss basis. Sometimes just thinking about everything she does makes me tired. I don’t know how she has the energy to run at full speed all day, but she does.”

“I assume she stays past her shift,” he said before he caught a glimpse of Gina slipping out of one exam room and into another.

“All the time,” Lucy told him bluntly. “The woman doesn’t have a life. She’s here at 6:00 a.m. and stays until eight or nine at night, five days a week. I keep telling her she’s going to burn out, but she only laughs. If you ask me, Bill Nevins took advantage of her good nature.”

Ruark suspected as much.

“To be honest…” Lucy cast a sidelong glance at him “…we’d hoped that when Bill decided to retire, Gina, er, Dr Sutton would take over.”

“Did you?” he replied mildly.

Lucy raised her chin. “She’s done a lot for us. The staff are intensely loyal to her.”

Ruark locked his gaze on hers, but she held her ground. “Is this a warning?”

“Not unless it needs to be.”

He grinned at her tart tone. “Dr Sutton’s place remains secure,” he assured her. “Although I would appreciate it if, when Dr Sutton is relieved of some of her duties, the staff will understand it isn’t because she hasn’t done an excellent job. As head of Belmont’s emergency department, I don’t intend to follow in Bill Nevins’s footsteps and shirk my own responsibilities.”

“They’ll understand,” she promised, a smile returning to her face. “I’ll see to it myself.”

Certain he’d gained the head nurse’s co-operation, which meant everyone else’s would follow, he pointed to the schedule taped to the counter’s backsplash. “Other than Gina, I rarely see the same doctor’s name twice in a week.”

“Because it doesn’t take long for most doctors to get fed up with being overworked and underpaid, so they leave. When Gina assigns the shifts, she relies heavily on locums, friends, or previous on-staff physicians who just can’t say no.”

She sighed. “Then again, none of us seem to be able to say no to her. It’s impossible to refuse someone who works harder and more hours than you do. She takes up a lot of the slack herself.”

He thought about Frank Horton. “What about residents? Shouldn’t a surgeon be available all the time?”

“Belmont only has a few residents,” Lucy mentioned. “An OB-GYN who spends most of her time on the maternity floor and a neurology fellow who’s usually in ICU or Rehab.”

“And Frank?”

“Oh, don’t let him hear you call him anything but a board-certified physician,” she warned. “He’s hired as a hospitalist and is assigned to our department, but he only drops by when we call him.”

“He’s allowed to do that?”

She shrugged. “Who’s going to stop him? Gina’s tried, but without having the authority she didn’t get very far.”

“Why didn’t Nevins stand behind her?”

“As long as Frank responded in a ‘timely’manner…” she emphasized the word with quotes in the air “…Bill wasn’t going to force the issue.” She glanced at him slyly. “If you’re looking for quality improvement ideas, you should start with that one.”

After dealing with cases she could have handled blindfolded, Gina had silently begged the fates to send a patient with something more complicated than shingles or an ingrown toenail. After suffering two major personal surprises today, with the arrival of both Prince Ruark and a letter from a grandmother she’d never met, she suspected the upcoming evening would have more surprises in store. Already her imagination was running rampant with possibilities of what a famous radio commentator liked to refer to as “the rest of the story”. Rather than waste her time worrying or second-guessing what Ruark would tell her, she needed a case that required her full attention.

Fortunately for her, twenty-one-year-old Janice Myers arrived, complaining of abdominal pain.

Gina flipped through the latest lab and radiology reports. In spite of all the tests she’d run, she still couldn’t pinpoint the woman’s problem.

She wasn’t going to give up, though.

“Your beta HCG is negative, so we can rule out an ectopic pregnancy,” Gina informed Janice and her fiancé Kyle Burnham.

“I told you I wasn’t pregnant,” Janice said weakly as she lay on the gurney, clutching Kyle’s hand in a white-knuckled grip.

“I know, but I had to check as a precaution,” Gina told her kindly. “You’d be surprised how many women claim they aren’t expecting and the test turns up positive.”

“Then what’s wrong with her, Doctor?” Kyle demanded. Tall, lanky, and wearing a mechanic’s uniform, his worry was as obvious as the grease stains on his clothing. “She’s been like this since last night.”

“Abdominal pain, fever and your slightly elevated white blood count suggest appendicitis,” Gina admitted, “although those symptoms could be due to a number of other things as well.”

“Like what?”

She stuck to the more minor conditions on the list of possibilities. Suggesting Crohn’s disease or cancer at this stage was premature. “Pelvic inflammatory disease,” she said, thinking of how Janice only noted tenderness during her pelvic exam. “A hernia or diverticulitis, to name a few.”

“What about food poisoning?” Janice asked.

“Food-borne illnesses usually manifest themselves rather abruptly. You mentioned your pain actually started two days ago and gradually grew stronger, which doesn’t fit the picture.”

“So what do we do now?” Kyle asked, his gaze focused on Janice. “Wait and see if the pain goes away on its own?”

Gina tucked the metal chart under one arm. “Absolutely not. I’m going to ask for a surgical consult.”

“Surgery?”

Noting the horrified look the couple exchanged, Gina explained, “Your ultrasound didn’t show anything unusual, so he may decide it would be best to take a peek inside you with a laparoscope. But we’ll let him decide.” She patted Janice’s shoulder. “Try to relax. Dr Horton should be in shortly.”

She strode toward the nurses’ station and plunked the chart on the counter, conscious of Ruark and Lucy at the opposite end. “Call Horton for a stat consult,” she told Ruby. “Possible appendicitis in room three.”

“He won’t be happy,” Ruby warned, her kohl-lined eyes matching her short black-out-of-a-bottle hair. “He only left a little while ago.”

“I don’t care if he walked out the door and has to turn around and come back—it can’t be helped. My patient needs a surgery consult. If he won’t come, he should send someone else.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

“Please do.”

“When you’re free, Dr Sutton,” Ruark interrupted as Ruby picked up the phone, “I’d like a few minutes.”

She couldn’t refuse, although she wanted to. At times she’d been able to pretend the events of that morning had all been a bad dream. At others the throbbing in her cheek and the occasional whiff of his expensively masculine cologne as she stepped out of a patient’s cubicle reminded her otherwise. Now, with hope borne of desperation, she glanced at the whiteboard room grid.

To her regret, other than Janice’s name written in room three’s square, someone had wiped the board clean. “OK,” she said.

If he heard her reluctance, he didn’t comment. Instead, he politely followed her into his office.

She immediately noted the room’s appearance as she gingerly took the chair he offered. “You’ve been busy.”

He propped one hip on the edge of his desk. “It wasn’t as bad as it looked,” he admitted. “Most of the papers didn’t stray too far from their folders, so it was a matter of slipping them back inside. Until I figure out the filing system, I thought it best to enlist help and Ruby obliged. According to her, you might know where these belong.” He handed her a thin stack.

She quickly scanned them. “Contracts are kept in the accounting department. We certainly don’t deal with real estate down here.” She turned another page. “Selling equipment? We didn’t sell anything…” The list of items caught her attention.

“Why, that rotten…scoundrel,” she muttered under her breath.

“From your reaction, I assume you weren’t aware he was selling the department’s medical equipment?”

“Not at all.” She shook her head before one entry caught her eye and she pointed to it. “I recognize this ophthalmology scope. We had a patient with a scratched cornea and I couldn’t find it. Bill said he’d sent it out for repairs and we had to scrounge an ancient model out of storage.”

“No wonder he reacted so strongly when I wouldn’t give him time to clear out his desk,” he mused.

“He didn’t have time to hide the evidence,” she agreed, handing the papers back to Ruark. “Lucky for us he threw that coffee-cup.”

His gaze moved to her scratch and a muscle tensed in his jaw. “I don’t happen to agree. How’re you feeling?”

She gingerly touched the adhesive strip. “I’m fine. Other than an occasional throb, I hardly know it happened.”

Amusement flitted into his eyes, as if he knew she wasn’t being completely truthful, and she quickly changed the subject.

“Did you find anything else of interest in Bill’s files?”

He folded his arms across his chest, which only emphasized the broad shoulders she found so appealing. How odd for her to be attracted to him, of all people. He was a man who represented everything her father had given up, from his responsibilities to his extended family, so how could she possibly entertain any fantasies about him?