Dr. Forget-Me-Not

“Truthfully,” she told him, “I think your reputation scared her.”

“My reputation,” he repeated slowly. “You mean the fact that I’m an above-average surgeon?”

No failure of ego to thrive here, she silently noted. “Not that reputation,” she said out loud. “The other one” was all Melanie told him before she left the dining hall to track down the shelter’s director.

Polly French, in her opinion, was one of the nicest people ever to walk the earth. Polly possessed a heart that was as big as she was tall and at six-one that was saying a great deal. But despite the shadow she cast, Polly was also one of the most mild-mannered people ever created. Melanie sincerely doubted if the woman even knew how to yell. She was certain that Polly’s vocal chords weren’t constructed that way.

Taking a chance that the woman was actually in her office, Melanie headed there first. She found that the door was open, but even so, Melanie stopped in front of it and knocked.

Polly, her gray hair neatly pulled back into a tight ponytail at the nape of her neck, looked up. Apprehension immediately entered the brown eyes when she saw who had knocked.

“Is something wrong, Melanie? Didn’t the doctor get here yet?” she asked, rising from behind the desk, as if she was better prepared to take bad news standing up.

“He got here and there’s nothing wrong,” Melanie quickly assured her, then explained the reason she’d sought her out, “but I was wondering if we could borrow your office.”

“Of course.” Polly, ever accommodating, began to remove things from her desktop. “Isn’t there enough room in the dining hall?”

“It’s crammed, but so far, everyone can fit in there—but that’s just the problem. The doctor thought that privacy was in order during the actual exam,” she told the shelter’s director. All in all, that seemed rather sensitive of him—something she did find surprising about the man.

“Oh.” Caught aback, Polly rolled the thought over in her mind. “Well, that’s a good sign,” she commented, a small smile curving her mouth. The smile grew as she added, “He cares about their feelings.”

“So it would appear,” Melanie tentatively agreed, although he certainly hadn’t sounded as if that was the case.

Polly picked up on her tone. “But you’re reserving judgment,” the woman guessed as she closed her laptop and tucked it under her arm.

“I’ve found it’s safer that way,” Melanie replied, her tone indicating that she wasn’t about to elaborate on the subject in any fashion.

Polly flashed her a sympathetic smile, not unlike the one that Theresa had aimed her way the other day. She accompanied it with the same sentiment Theresa had expressed. “You know that I’m here if you need to talk, Melanie.”

“I know you are,” Melanie replied, definitely wanting to bring the subject to a close. She appreciated the effort, but she really wanted everyone to stop offering her shoulders and ears and various other body parts to lean on or make use of. Right now, she just wanted to get immersed in work and more work. So much work that she didn’t have time to draw two breaths together, much less let herself grieve. “Can I tell the doctor he has his private room?”

“Yes, of course.” She looked down at the desktop. “I’ll get one of the fresh sheets out of the linen closet. That should help make this look more like an exam room,” she said, thinking out loud. Then, just as Melanie began to leave the room, she asked. “Oh, did the doctor bring a nurse with him?”

“Not unless she’s very, very small and fits into his pocket,” Melanie replied.

“In that case, I’m going to need you to stay very close to the doctor when he’s in here with a patient,” Polly said.

Melanie looked at the woman uncertainly. “Come again?”

“Legally, even though he is a doctor, he can’t perform an in-depth examination on any female patient without another female being present,” Polly told her, looking very uncomfortable about her position. “Under normal circumstances, that would be a nurse, of course. However—”

The director definitely seemed agonized over what she was saying. Taking pity on the woman, Melanie stopped her.

“Got it. Okay,” she agreed. “Don’t worry, I’ll stick to him like glue.”

Polly headed to the linen closet while Melanie made her way back to the dining hall to inform the doctor that he had his private exam room.

The moment she walked into the hall, April lit up and gravitated to her side as if she were being propelled by a giant magnet.

Melanie barely had time to pat the little girl’s head before she found herself looking into the doctor’s dark blue, accusing eyes.

“I thought maybe you decided to clock out.” There was no missing the touch of sarcasm in the man’s voice.

Theresa wasn’t kidding when she said the man was lacking in bedside manner—his would have seemed harsh when compared to Ivan the Terrible, she thought.

Out loud she told him, “Things don’t happen here in a New York minute. It takes a little time to arrange things. But the director’s office is ready for you to use now. So if you’re ready to examine your first patient, I’ll show you where it is.”

He didn’t answer her one way or another. Instead, he gave her an order. Orders seemed to come easily to him.

“Lead the way.”

For a split second, a comeback hovered on her lips. After all, she wasn’t some lackey waiting to be issued marching orders. But then she decided that the man just might get it into his head to walk out on them and while personally she didn’t care, she did care about all these women and children at the shelter and they did need to see a doctor.

So, for now, she kept any observation to herself, much as it pained her to keep silent.

With that in mind, she turned on her heel and led the way down the hall, preceding the doctor and the woman who was to be his first patient, Jane Caldwell. Like Jimmy, Jane had a hacking cough and Melanie suspected that was possibly how Jimmy had contracted his cough in the first place.

“It’s right in here,” Melanie told the doctor. Pushing the door open farther, she waited for Dr. Stewart and then his patient to walk in before she followed them inside.

“There’s no exam table,” Mitch immediately observed, disapproval echoing in his voice.

“No.” Melanie indicated the desk. “But Polly thought that you might be able to use the desktop in place of one. It’s not exactly what you’re used to, but it’s flat and it’s big,” she pointed out.

He found her cheerfulness irritating. “So’s your parking lot, but I’m not about to examine this woman on it.”

“I’ll see what I can come up with for your next visit,” Melanie told him.

By the expression she saw pass over the man’s face, Melanie had a feeling that the good doctor wasn’t about to think that far ahead—or commit to it, either. Hopefully, once he saw how desperately a doctor’s services were needed here, the man would change his mind by the end of his visit.

Melanie mentally crossed her fingers.

Still trying to convince the doctor to make do with the conditions facing him, she pointed out, “The director does have a fresh bed sheet spread over the desk. Couldn’t you use that for the time being?”

“I guess I’ll have to make do,” he murmured under his breath, more to himself than to her. Then he said a bit louder, “All right, thanks.”

His tone was dismissive.

He turned his attention to the woman who was to be his first patient here. “If you sit down on top of the desk, I can get started,” he told Jane.

Mitch had already taken his stethoscope out of his medical bag and he was about to raise it in order to listen to the woman’s lungs. A noise behind him made him realize that his so-called “guide” was still in the room, standing before the closed door.

Looking at her over his shoulder, he repeated what had been his parting word, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Melanie replied, thinking that perhaps the doctor was waiting for some kind of formal acknowledgment of his thanks.

Mitch stifled an exasperated sigh.

“You can go now,” he told her.

Melanie smiled patiently in response as she told him, “No, I can’t.”

He lowered the stethoscope. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Melanie proceeded to take his sentence apart. “Well, no is pretty self-explanatory. I refers to me and can’t goes back to the first word, no,” she told him glibly. “What part of those three words are you having trouble with?”

“The part that involves you.” He spelled out his question for her. “Why are you still in the room?”

“Because you don’t have a pocket-sized nurse with you,” she answered, following her words with another glib smile.

Did this woman have some sort of brain damage? Why was she here? Why wasn’t she committed somewhere? “What?” he demanded.

“You can’t examine any female without another female being present. You usually have a nurse present when you conduct your exams in the hospital, right?”

Mitch frowned. He wasn’t about to argue with her because she was right, but having to concede to this woman irritated him nonetheless.

Taking a second to collect himself, Mitch barked out his first order. “Make yourself useful, then.”

He expected an argument from her. Instead, the woman surprised him by asking, “And how would you like me to do that?”

The first thing that flashed through his mind was not something he could repeat and that surprised Mitch even more. So much so that for a second, he was speechless. He was stunned that he’d had that sort of a thought to begin with under these conditions—and that he’d had it about her, well, that stunned him even more.

“Take notes,” he said, composing himself.

“Do you want me to use anything in particular in taking these notes?” she asked.

She really was exasperating. “Anything that’s handy,” he answered curtly, turning his attention back to the patient—or trying to.

Melanie opened the center drawer and took out a yellow legal pad and pen. Stepping back and standing a couple of feet to his left, holding the pad in one hand, she poised the pen over it and announced, “Ready when you are, Doctor.”

Mitch spared her one dark glare before he began his first exam.

Like a robot on automatic pilot, Mitch saw one patient after another, spending only as much time with each one as was necessary.

Most of what he encountered over the course of the next three hours fell under the heading of routine. Some patients’ complaints, however, turned out to be more complicated, and those called for lab tests before any sort of comprehensive diagnosis could be reached. The latter was necessary before any sort of medication could be dispensed.

Those Melanie marked down as needing more extensive exams.

Three hours later, feeling as if he had just been on a nonstop marathon, Mitch discovered that he had barely seen half the people who had initially lined up to be examined.

This really was like war-zone medicine, he couldn’t help thinking.

“Do you have to go?” Melanie asked him as he sent another patient on her way. Granted she’d done an awful lot of writing in the past three hours, but she was keenly aware of the patients who were still waiting. The patients who were going to have to accept a rain check.

Mitch hadn’t said anything about leaving, although he was ready to pack it in. He looked at the woman beside him in surprise. At this point, he was ready to believe she was half witch.

Maybe all witch.

“How did you know?” he asked her.

“Well, you said you were going to give us an hour and you’ve already gone two hours past that. The math isn’t that challenging,” she told him matter-of-factly.

Mitch frowned. They were alone in the so-called “exam room” and part of him was dealing with the very real urge of wanting to throttle her. The other part was having other thoughts that seemed to be totally unrelated to the situation—and yet weren’t.

“Anyone ever tell you that you have a smart mouth on you?” he asked.

He didn’t pull punches, she thought. A lot of people kept treating her with kid gloves and maybe his way was more like what she really needed—to get into a fighting mode.

“It goes with the rest of me,” she answered flippantly, then got down to business. What was important here were the children and their mothers, not anything that had to do with her. “When can you come back?” she asked him.

Caught off guard, Mitch paused. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

In all honesty, the only thing that had been on his mind was getting through this session. As far as he was concerned, he’d fulfilled his obligation. He’d agreed to come here, as his mother had asked him to, and here he was—staying longer than he’d either intended to or wanted to. But apparently, that didn’t seem to be enough.

“Maybe you should,” Melanie was telling him. And then she added with a smile that appeared outwardly cheerful—but didn’t fool him for a minute. “We’re available anytime you are.”

Mitch sighed. “I’ll check my calendar.”

“Why don’t you do it now?” she suggested, pushing the issue. “This way, I can tell the director and your new fans out there,” she nodded toward the door and the people who were beyond that, “when to expect you.”

“Definitely a smart mouth,” Mitch muttered as he took out his phone and checked the calendar app that was on it. His frown deepened when he found what he was looking for. “I can possibly spare a few hours Friday morning,” he told her grudgingly.

She met his frown with nothing short of enthusiasm. “Friday works for us,” she assured him. “I’ll get the word out.”

His tone was nothing if not dour when he said in response, “Why don’t we wait and see how things gel?” he suggested, then qualified, “Things have a way of cropping up.”

Her eyes met his and there was a defiance in them he found both irritating beyond words—and at the same time, oddly intriguing.

He supposed that maybe his mother had a point. He could stand to get out more. Then people like this annoying woman would hold no interest for him.

“Why don’t you write the shelter into your schedule anyway?” she said. “Having a commitment might make you more inclined to honor it.”

“Are you lecturing me?” he asked point-blank.

“I’d rather think of it as making a tactful suggestion,” she replied.

She could call it whatever she wanted to, Mitch thought. But no matter what label she put on it, they both knew what she meant.

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