The Doctor's Meant-To-Be Marriage

“It’s my job to help you take care of your health. That means your mental and emotional health as well as your physical.”

“I’m not sick,” Hannah insisted. “I just want to go on the Pill so I won’t get pregnant.”

“Even if you go on the Pill, you still need to make your boyfriend wear a condom. The only way to protect yourself from sexually transmitted diseases is to abstain or have your partner wear a condom.”

“Or to have sex with a virgin,” Hannah added with a touch of irritation. “I know all this already. We went over this stuff during health class when I was in junior high school.” She eyed Chelsea suspiciously. “You’re going to tell my mom, aren’t you?”

“No, but I recommend you tell her.”

“Me tell her? You have got to be kidding me.” The girl snorted, her expression dramatic. “I thought you said your job was to look out for my health, not to get me killed.”

“Your mom wouldn’t kill you.”

“Maybe not,” Hannah admitted. “But she wouldn’t let me see Brett anymore, and that’s worse than dying.”

Having fallen hard for Jared at only a year older than Hannah, Chelsea wouldn’t judge the girl. Neither would she point out that her entire life was ahead of her, whether Brett remained in her life or not.

“Whether or not you tell your mother is your choice. My job is to give you the best information I can so you can make wise health-care decisions. In this case, having an open discussion with your mother is what I believe to be best.”

Ha, like she’d ever had an open discussion with her own mother. These days, she and Iva only saw each other a couple of times a year. Thank God, as she didn’t think she could survive more. Only through Will did Chelsea find contact with her parents tolerable. Sometimes she wondered if they would even include her in family activities if not for her brother.

What right did she have to advise Hannah to tell her mother? What if Hannah’s mother made Iva look warm and cuddly?

“It’s your call,” she said softly. “But I want you to at least consider talking with her.”

“Sure.” Sarcasm never dripped as thickly as it did off Hannah’s flippant tongue.

Chelsea took a deep breath. She didn’t seem to be getting through to the teenager.

“OK, let’s move on. We’ll discuss the different birth-control options you have.”

Hannah’s gaze narrowed. “What kind of options?”

“Pill, patch, shot, cervical cap, intra-uterine device, all of which require a pelvic examination first.”

The girl cringed. “You have to see me down there?”

“To do the thin prep test that checks your cervical and vaginal cells, I have to physically examine you.”

The girl’s face fell. “I don’t think I can do that.”

“Have a pelvic exam?” Chelsea clarified, wanting to make sure she understood what Hannah was saying.

The girl nodded. “Just the thought embarrasses me and makes my skin feel hot and sweaty.”

“You have to have the test before I will write you any type of prescription birth control.”

Hannah let out a long sigh. “Why?”

“Some tumors grow at an accelerated rate when hormones are added.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “I don’t need hormones. I just want the Pill so I don’t get pregnant.”

“Many types of birth control are hormones, including the Pill.”

“Oh.” The girl sat quietly, digesting what Chelsea had told her.

“Another thing you should consider having is the HPV vaccine.”

The girl crossed her arms and gave Chelsea a smug look. “I’ve had all my vaccines.”

“That’s wonderful, and perhaps you have had HPV, too, but it isn’t a required vaccine so not everyone has. The vaccine is recommended for girls aged nine through twenty-six. HPV, or human papillomavirus, is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States and causes most cases of cervical cancer.”

Hannah’s eyes became round. “There’s an STD that causes cancer?”

“Yes.” Chelsea was glad to see she’d caught the girl’s interest. “There are around fifty strands of the virus. The vaccine protects against the strands causing cervical cancer.”

“If this HDP is so common, why haven’t I ever heard of it?”

“HPV, and you probably have heard of the disease without knowing it. Genital warts are also caused by human papillomavirus,” she explained.

Hannah’s nose curled in disgust, and she nodded. “I do remember studying those during health class. Nasty business.”

“Let me give you some information to read.” Feeling pleased she’d made a connection with the girl, Chelsea stood. “I’ll come back in a few minutes, and you can decide what you’d like to do regarding your pelvic examination and the vaccine.”

She stepped into the hallway and didn’t see Betty anywhere. Scanning the nurses’ station, she wondered where brochures and handouts might be kept but didn’t see anywhere obvious.

“Problems?” a deep voice asked from behind her. A voice belonging to the man she’d had to force off her mind all morning. Her spirits lifted just at knowing he was near, that he still felt the connection between them and had sought an excuse to search her out, to share a conversation. Perhaps he was a man confident enough to overlook her imperfections and care for her just as she was. Hey, a girl could dream.

She turned, but her heart stalled.

Jared’s eyes would have formed glaciers on the sun. Ouch. Why was he looking at her like that? With something akin to…Chelsea sought the right word and could only come up with loathing.

But he couldn’t loathe her. All she’d done had been to ineptly flirt with him ten years ago. OK, she’d kissed him, too, but he’d kissed her back, so surely he didn’t blame that completely on her?

Jared had left the next day and, despite initially trying to contact him, she’d not seen him since.

Not knowing how she’d clung to his words, Will had updated her from time to time. Jared wasn’t married and, other than the longtime girlfriend she hadn’t known about when they’d first met, there hadn’t been anyone special in his life. Laura. She’d suffered at the name, mourned at the existence of the woman who had held Jared’s heart, but she’d never wished the girl’s fate on her. Later that same year Laura had been killed in a car accident.

Jared was Will’s best friend. He wouldn’t hold a grudge for ten years over something as simple as her foolishly throwing herself at him. Would he?

Wishing she didn’t feel like she carried the bubonic plague, she gave a slight smile. “I was looking for a handout on the HPV vaccine and hoping we had one that explains pelvic examinations.”

Without any softening of his features he pointed to the small lab where basic phlebotomy tests were performed. “In those two filing cabinets.”

She nodded, expecting him to walk away, but instead he opened a drawer and pulled out a sheet on the vaccination.

“We keep folders here with all immunization information in them. I don’t recall seeing a handout explaining what to expect during a pelvic examination, but if there is one, it would be in here.” He flipped through another drawer.

Chelsea stared at the back of his dark head, wishing she could read his thoughts.

“Nothing,” he said, closing the drawer and facing her. “You can probably pull something up online when you get time and mail it to your patient.”

Good idea, except she didn’t think Hannah would be receptive to getting mail at home regarding the reasons for her office visit. Although she’d verbally gone over what would take place, she wanted Hannah to have something concrete that explained exactly what would happen during the exam.

“Or I have a patient-education program on my computer. It might have something.”

“Really?”

“We could check…” He hesitated and she wondered if he regretted his words even before they’d completely left his lips.

“If it wouldn’t be a bother.”

He didn’t meet her eyes. “No bother.”

Chelsea followed him to his office, surprised he’d offered when he seemed so antagonistic toward her. Perhaps he was afraid she was going to throw herself at him like she’d done all those years ago. She wouldn’t, of course. Sure, being near him gave her those same throw-caution-to-the-wind urges, but she’d matured, gained some experience with the opposite sex. She wouldn’t make a fool of herself again.

Jared stood beside his desk and clicked his computer mouse, bringing up the home screen. Chelsea used the moment to glance around his office.

Plain, uncomplicated, and to the point. No personal items other than the award and acknowledgment certificates framed on the wall. Already her office had more of her than this room reflected of its owner.

Then again, maybe he liked keeping things simple and the minimalist look worked for him.

“I’ve got a couple of different programs, but if we can’t find what you need, the Internet is sure to have something.”

Chelsea’s gaze returned to him, going over the lean lines of his body. Time had been good to Jared. Too good. If possible, she thought he was even more handsome now than he’d been ten years ago, but there was something different, something missing from his eyes. The happy twinkle she’d grown to love that spring break. Instead, Jared’s eyes only shone with a deep inner sadness that she suspected many failed to see.

“I appreciate this,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat. She had to stop thinking of Jared as a martyr or as a pinup poster. Just because he looked like a brooding pinup model, it didn’t give her the right to keep mentally ogling him. Wasn’t that what women were known to complain about happening to them? Personally, Chelsea could go for a little visual ogling from time to time, just to boost her battered ego, but she digressed.

Jared was her colleague, her coworker, and her brother’s best friend. For her to embarrass them both by throwing herself at him again would just be wrong. Plus, her attraction to him would make their professional relationship strained. She’d worked too hard to get her degree, to have the career she dreamed of, to let misplaced hormones rob her future.

“Ah.” He glanced over his shoulder to indicate she should check out what he’d pulled up on his computer monitor. “This what you’re looking for?”

Chelsea skimmed the form. “Perfect.”

He clicked the mouse again, and the page shot out of his printer. “Here. If you run across something else you need and can’t find it, let me know. Patient education is important.”

“Yes.” She took the offered printout and glanced at it without really seeing the diagrams and words. “Thank you, Jared.”

“You’re welcome.” An awkward moment passed where they stared at each other, not speaking, just locking gazes. He looked away, swiped his palms over his pants, then closed the computer program. “Got to get back to my patients.”

“Right.”

They both stepped out into the hallway.

“Oh, there you are!” Leslie, a bubbly nurse practitioner who worked in the clinic, saw Chelsea and bounded up to give her a quick hug. “Sorry I missed you this morning.” Her gaze swerved for a second. “I got a late start, but no matter. I’ve been hoping to catch sight of you all morning.” She flashed a smile at Jared. “You, too, actually.”

Jared’s brow rose, but he didn’t comment.

“Will, Jennifer and I want the entire office to go out tonight for dinner to celebrate Chelsea’s first day.”

Chelsea opened her mouth to say she’d love to, but was frozen in place by Jared’s arctic attitude. She inwardly sighed.

“I’m busy,” he said.

Fighting frostbite, Chelsea tried not to let his words hurt her. It wasn’t as if she’d really expected him to want to have a relationship with her. Sure, she’d dreamed, but in reality even her dreams had only been private fantasies. Even to have a fling with Jared meant baring her soul, her back. Letting someone as beautiful as Jared see her marred flesh was not going to happen.

“Busy?” Leslie’s gaze narrowed as she eyed him curiously. “Jennifer is on call for the hospital, but amazingly the rest of us have the evening off. We won’t get a better opportunity than this evening for us all to get together, and you know it.”

Chelsea could almost see Jared’s brain whirling, trying to get out of the dinner. Did he plan to avoid her as much as possible?

He’d managed quite well over the past ten years and hadn’t been there on any of the occasions when she’d visited her brother. He’d even gone out of the country for six weeks during the time she had been officially hired.

“Come on, Jared,” Leslie coaxed. “No flavor of the month is more important than business.”

Flavor of the month? Heat rushed into Chelsea’s cheeks and her fingers gripped the printout she held so tightly the edges crinkled.

The coolness of his gaze covered her skin in goose bumps.

She didn’t understand his strange reaction, but refused to slump into negativity or pity. She didn’t do either. Hadn’t for a long, long time.

He crossed his arms and glared. “Go without me. I’ll swing by when I can. Just let me know what restaurant you decide on.”

Chelsea didn’t believe him. And not just because he talked through gritted teeth. What was his problem?

“Hey, Jare,” Will said, rounding the corner with a chart in hand and his nurse closely on his tail. “Leslie fill you in on tonight’s plans? We’ve got to officially celebrate my little sis’s induction to the paying workforce.”

Leslie’s gaze cut to Will and a pretty pink tinted her cheeks, making Chelsea wonder which of the men caused her blush. “I was just telling him, but Jared says he has other plans.”

“Cancel.” Will shrugged nonchalantly at his friend. “You’re going with us tonight.”

Chelsea had had enough of feeling like the scraggy puppy in the pet-shop window.

“I’m fine with whatever you decide, but I need to get back to my patient.” She waved the printout as if that explained everything and walked away before she went into total embarrassed meltdown. Later, when alone with her thoughts, she’d try to figure out why Jared had acted so oddly. If it was because he thought she was going to make his work environment unpleasant by mooning over him, she’d set him straight.

She’d gotten quite good at keeping her emotions hidden.

Chelsea gave the printout to Hannah for her to look over while she saw another patient. When she’d finished, she returned to Hannah’s exam room, but the girl was gone.

“Betty?” She went in search of the nurse. Spotting the pretty, slightly overweight forty-year-old, she asked, “Is Hannah in the restroom?”

Blowing a stray short, dyed-platinum strand of hair out of her eye, Betty gave Chelsea a confused look. “She left.”

“Left?”

Betty nodded. “Right after you came out of the exam room, she took off. I thought you’d finished.”

Glancing into the room, Chelsea saw the counter and trash bin were both empty. Well, at least Hannah had taken the brochures.

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT had he agreed to?

Nothing. He hadn’t agreed, and no way was he going to dinner with Chelsea. Not even with his partners there as buffers. He’d been right to avoid her and should stick with that plan as much as current circumstances allowed.

But for the rest of the day Jared’s mind kept drifting back to how his skin had tingled when they’d touched, how her smile gave glimpses of lightheartedness, how his body perked up at her nearness.

But he shouldn’t do anything to encourage thoughts that there could ever be anything between them. There couldn’t. Attraction between him and Chelsea was the last thing he needed. His life in Madison was good, exactly what he wanted. It had taken him a long time to find happiness after Laura’s death and he wouldn’t risk losing that hard-won inner peace.

Not peace, really, he had too much guilt for that, would always have too much guilt over what had happened to Laura, but he’d come to terms of a sort with what had happened.

He’d done the right thing, focused on his relationship with Laura when she’d told him she was pregnant the week after she’d returned from Greece. The week after he’d met Chelsea.

Laura had known something had changed, that he hadn’t been the same after spring break. She’d pushed, she’d prodded, she’d begged him to tell her if he wanted her to have an abortion. He hadn’t, but neither had he been able to admit that he’d fallen for a seventeen-year-old girl. He’d pushed thoughts of Chelsea aside, had asked Laura to marry him, and had committed himself to being a good husband and father.

She’d been ecstatic, until she’d overheard a conversation not meant for her ears. A conversation when his buddies Larry and Tom had ragged him about Chelsea and the way she hero-worshipped him. Jared had snapped, telling them to shut up, but it had been too late. Laura had seen the truth on his face, and they’d argued.

Although not in the way she’d wanted, he had loved Laura and would have done everything in his power to make her happy, would have been a good husband and father.

He’d never gotten the opportunity.

That night, she’d swerved off the rode, hit a tree, and lost their baby and her life.

Guilt had held him captive ever since.

Guilt that said he didn’t deserve happiness, particularly not with Chelsea.

“Dr Jared?” interrupted his nurse, Kayla Welker. He’d hired Kayla the month he’d started at the clinic and he’d never had cause to regret his decision.

He blinked, clearing the past from his mind. For the moment, at least. “Yes?”

“Sorry to bother you, but I just put Anthony Rogle in room two. He’s wheezing. Do you want me to give him a breathing treatment, or would you like to check him first?”

“I’ll see Tony first. Go ahead and set up the nebulizer, though. No doubt, he’ll need it.” Jared followed Kayla to the exam room where the pale twenty-one-year-old struggled to catch his breath, wheezing audibly. A beautiful girl sat next to him, holding his hand and whispering assurances.

“Thank goodness, Dr Jared.” The young woman sighed her relief. “Tony is having another attack.”

“Hey, Emily.” Jared motioned for Kayla to start the machine as soon as she got the apparatus set up. He listened to Tony’s heaving chest. “Any triggering factors this time?”

Emily shook her head. “We were at work, and his chest started heaving. He used his inhaler, but his breathing didn’t get better so I drove him here. Doc, why has he started having these attacks? They scare the devil out of me!”

“Quit…talking…about me…like I’m not here,” the thin, pale young man ordered, giving his girlfriend an irritated look as he panted for air.

Kayla handed Tony the breathing apparatus, and he began inhaling the albuterol solution via the nebulizer. The noise of the machine droned through the otherwise silent room. When Tony gave the thumbs-up sign that his wheezing was starting to ease, Jared turned to Emily and Kayla.

“Keep an eye on him. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Two months ago Tony had suffered his first asthma attack. He’d had no prior history of problems. His episodes occurred mostly at work, but he’d had a few at home and one at his girlfriend’s family home.

His hand-held inhalers helped on occasion, but more and more Tony’s attacks weren’t eased without a trip into the office or the emergency room. More often than not, getting his attack under control required a steroid injection along with the nebulizer treatment. Jared tried to avoid the steroid shot if possible because of the potential side effects. Hopefully as Tony could already feel some relief, using the nebulizer, no injection would be needed today.

What was causing the young man’s attacks?

Developing asthma at twenty-one wasn’t a common phenomenon. They’d gone through Tony’s risk factors, and although he worked in the paint shop of a boat factory he always wore proper ventilation masks. There had been no new products or changes in the home and he didn’t have a pet. There were no recent illnesses and once the attack passed, Tony felt fine except for being tired, a frequent symptom following an asthma attack.

Jared saw his next patient, a schoolteacher needing a refill on her anxiety medication. When he’d finished, he knocked on Tony’s door. The nebulizer no longer hummed, meaning the treatment had finished.

“How’s the breathing?”

“Much better, Doc,” Tony answered, talking without sounding winded. Emily still sat, squeezing his hand and watching him nervously, like she expected his chest to heave again any moment. All that Jared had expected to see. What he hadn’t expected to see was Chelsea smiling at his patients, chatting with them while she packed up the nebulizer. What was she doing and where was Kayla?

Chelsea’s golden brown gaze met his and for a moment he felt as if she searched his soul, seeking answers to questions he couldn’t acknowledge. But then she slid on a professional façade, picked up the machine, and gave a tight smile.

“Kayla had some business to take care of, and I was between patients,” she said by way of explanation. Without glancing his way again, she pushed past him in the small room. Her shoulder brushed against his, making his nerve endings pulse to life. Her scent filled his nostrils, making him feel as if he was struggling for his next breath every bit as much as Tony had prior to his treatment.

When she closed the door behind her, he sucked in air, hoping to ease his oxygen-deprived brain cells, or whatever was making him feel so dizzy.

He turned to Tony and Emily. “What happened?”

“I was on break and all of a sudden I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest.” Tony placed his hand over his sternum. “Like I needed to rip my rib cage open so air could get into my lungs.”

How he’d just felt with Chelsea near.

He winced at the thought and focused on his patient. “You used your inhaler?”

Tony nodded. “I even took more puffs than I’m supposed to, but I just couldn’t catch my breath. I should probably take my nebulizer with me to work.”

“Are you using your nebulizer often?”

“I’ve used it some,” the young man admitted. “But since you started me on that asthma tablet I’ve only had to use the machine twice.”

“You’re using the inhaled steroid, too?”

“Just like you told me.”

“You haven’t thought of anything that’s changed within the past two months?”

“Same house, same car, same job, same girlfriend.” Tony shot Emily a teasing glance. “I could replace her and see if she’s the problem.”

She slapped his arm. “Then you really wouldn’t be able to breathe because I’d strangle you.”

The tender kiss she placed on his cheek and the worried way she watched each breath he took told another story.

Tony winked. “See what kind of abuse I have to put up with, Doc?”

“I see.” Jared smiled at the couple, wondering if he’d ever been that young. He had, of course. He’d foolishly thought he’d been in love and had destroyed much of his life. Destroyed Laura’s life. “I’m going to keep you here a while longer just to make sure you’re over the attack. I’ll have Kayla check on you in a few and if things are OK, we’ll let you go home. I’m going to go ahead and set you up to see a pulmonologist, though. That’s a lung specialist. Maybe he can figure out what’s causing these attacks.”

Jared planned to do more research that night to see if he could unravel any clues about why Tony had suddenly started having his attacks.

Although, recalling his dinner plans, his research might be later than he intended.

Darn Will and Leslie for putting him on the spot like that. There’d been no way for him to continue to refuse without raising their suspicions. He didn’t want to deal with questions about why he didn’t want to go, why he didn’t want to be around Chelsea.

He’d call and cancel because being near Chelsea definitely caused him breathing problems.

Chelsea brushed her hand over the clean lines of her cherry-wood desk. She glanced approvingly at the gleaming surface, smiling at how her first day had gone.