Jonah gave Lauren a quick nod, then grimaced at the sight of half a dozen patient charts stacked at the nurses’ station. He had never been one for sticking to a rigid schedule, but he’d really have to hustle today. Kastner wouldn’t like this backlog.
“Is the waiting room full?” he asked the nursing supervisor as he slipped into his lab coat.
“Yes,” Lauren answered sharply, glancing up at the clock. “Dr. Kastner was late this morning, too. And there’s no sign of Jacquelyn.”
“She’ll be late.” Jonah spoke without thinking, then immediately regretted his words. Stacy, who was helping an older patient down the hall, jerked her head toward him, curiosity gleaming in her eyes. “I spoke with Jacquelyn this morning,” he went on, hurrying to his office. “She had a rough night after her chemo treatment, but said she’d be in later this afternoon. Maybe after lunch.”
Once in his office, Jonah checked his messages, fumbled in a drawer for his stethoscope, then took a moment to swipe his hands through his still-damp hair. Stacy possessed a shrewd intuition, and soon she’d be asking Lauren how Jonah Martin knew so much about Jacquelyn’s condition. He’d already seen more than a few lifted eyebrows between the two women because he sent them home on Jacquelyn’s chemo nights, preferring to administer the drugs himself. He knew they were murmuring about preferential treatment and special attention, and probably wondering what else might be going on….
What was going on? He wasn’t exactly sure, but he knew it had gone too far. This morning he had hated to leave Jacquelyn’s side, even her warm little house. His feelings for her had ripened from admiration to affection to something more, and he had sworn he’d never again become involved with one of his coworkers. He was setting himself up for a tumble and he was putting Jacquelyn in a difficult situation. While it wasn’t exactly improper for doctors and nurses to date, everyone knew such a relationship made an already intense working atmosphere almost unbearable. Other doctors at the hospital would say he’d taken advantage of a pretty young woman at the point of her greatest vulnerability. And if they heard that he’d spent part of the night at her house, no matter how innocent or humane his reasons for going over there, Jacquelyn’s reputation would be tarnished.
No matter how he considered it, he couldn’t deny that trouble was circling again. Once the rumor mills started cranking, Jacquelyn would be portrayed as a gold-digging nurse or he’d be painted as a lecherous doctor who preyed on powerless patients. Lauren and Stacy could—and would—attest that he and Jacquelyn remained in the office alone, after hours….
Whatever this thing between them was, he had to stop it. He hadn’t been in Winter Haven long enough to put down real roots, and whatever feelings had begun to blossom in Jacquelyn’s heart would shrivel up and disappear in time. If that had been love shining in her eyes, it was misguided, founded on her need and his position as her caregiver. Once she was well, she’d become her old feisty self again. She’d probably be glad to see him go.
He paused, torn between his waiting patients and what he had to do. Well, the patients had been waiting for an hour; a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt. Kastner had been late, too, so he could share the blame for the backlog.
Jonah picked up the phone and dialed Eric Elrod, a friend from medical school who had transferred to a hospital in California. Eric had called a couple of weeks ago, asking if Jonah was interested in a transfer. At the time Jonah had thanked him and declined, but things had changed.
“Hello, Eric?” He’d managed to catch his friend at home, and for once Jonah was glad of the three hour difference in time zones. “Listen, if your hospital still has that opening in oncology, I’d like to hear more about it. Can you fill me in on the details?”
Stacy and Lauren stepped out of Dr. Kastner’s office and moved silently to the nurses’ station. Stacy found her voice first. “I don’t get it. How could they hire him with these kinds of accusations hanging over his head?”
Lauren sank into a chair. “Because nobody puts accusations in an official record. Looks like he left before anyone proved anything.”
Stacy leaned against the desk. “So how did Kastner find out? Who called him?”
“Someone from the old boys’ network, I guess. And you know what they say—bad news flies around the world while good news is still putting on its boots.”
“Do you think—could he have done anything to Jackie?” Stacy asked, anxiety spurting through her. “And would Jackie tell us if he had?”
Lauren’s expression darkened with unreadable emotions. “I don’t know. The entire story is hard to believe.” Her brows slanted in a frown. “He’s never approached me in an improper way—but then again, I’m a married woman.” She gave Stacy a pointed look. “What about you? Has Dr. Martin ever said or done anything—”
Stacy frowned and shifted her weight, trying to remember every occasion she had been alone with Jonah Martin. “There might have been a time or two when I thought he wanted to say something. I mean, he is single, and I’m not what you’d call exactly standoffish.” She started to smile, but thought the better of it when she saw the seriousness of Lauren’s expression. “He might have tried something if I’d let him. But when Jacquelyn got sick, I think he lost interest in me.”
“Such a nasty rumor.” Lauren shuddered dramatically. “And such a shame. Dr. Martin shouldn’t have to pressure any woman for attention. If I wasn’t married, I’d have considered going out with him myself.”
“So what happens now?” Stacy lowered her voice as she heard someone approaching through the hallway. “What do we do?”
“We steer clear of him as much as possible,” Lauren answered, distrust chilling her eyes. “And we wait for Dr. Kastner to confront him about those rumors. Until he does, we carry on and do our best. Our patients don’t have to know anything, but be sure you don’t leave Dr. Martin alone with a female patient for any length of time. This clinic doesn’t need the stigma of a lawsuit. We have problems enough already.”
Stacy nodded, then moved away, trying to shake off the dark feeling of foreboding.
As she walked into the clinic’s reception area, Jacquelyn felt her heart fill with the wonderful sense of going home. In a way she supposed this place was her home; she certainly spent more of her waking hours here than in her house. But the feeling of happiness in her heart could only have come from the knowledge that Jonah was here doing the work he had been called to do…which happened to be the same work she now passionately loved.
Jacquelyn saw Mrs. Baldovino waiting on a sofa, and gave the woman a broad smile as she pointed to the scarf she’d tied around her head before leaving the house. She was shedding like a sheepdog.
“Good morning, Mrs. Baldovino. What do you think of my headgear? You’ll have to show me all those intricate knots you use to tie up your scarves. I have a feeling I’ll be craving some variety by this time next week.”
The older woman gasped and clapped her hand upon her cheek. “Nurse Jacquelyn! You are being treated?”
“Yes, I am a patient here,” Jacquelyn answered, smiling at another man who looked up in surprise. “And losing my hair. It’s almost gone, but it’ll grow back.”
“You’ve been keeping secrets from us.” Mrs. Baldovino wagged her finger like a scolding teacher. “I didn’t know you were taking the chemo, too.”
“Just trying to identify with my patients.” Jacquelyn quipped, sinking onto the sofa next to the older woman. The words had barely escaped her mouth before her conscience smote her. Why was she still making light of the most crucial thing in all their lives?
She exchanged a polite smile with her patient, then shook her head. “Mrs. B., I shouldn’t have kept this a secret. A couple of months ago my doctor found breast cancer. I’ve had a mastectomy, and now I’m taking chemotherapy, too. And now I understand, I really understand, all the things you’ve been telling me.” She reached out and placed her hand on the woman’s arm. “For all the times I must have seemed hard of hearing, I am so sorry. I should have been a better listener.”
“Ah, Nurse Jackie,” Mrs. Baldovino answered indulgently, “you will be all right.” Her eyes brimmed with gentle compassion. “Ernesto and I will say a prayer for you every morning.”
“Thank you,” Jacquelyn answered, surprised to find her voice thick and unsteady. How could she have ever seen her patients as a collection of arms and vials and charts? Every ear in the crowded waiting room had heard her “confession,” and every eye now shone toward her in quiet understanding.
“Well, I suppose I had better get to work,” she said, rising from the couch. She caught a little boy’s eye and winked. “I’m moving a little slowly this morning—I was up all night tossing my cookies.”
The boy grinned while a handful of other patients laughed. Jacquelyn nodded at the assembled room. “I’ll be back to get some lucky audience member in a moment. Just let me tell Lauren and Stacy that I’m here.”
She hadn’t gone far down the winding hallway when intuition told her something was wrong. She heard Stacy’s taut whisper before she rounded the corner, but was unprepared for the look of complete and total shock on the younger nurse’s face.
“Jacquelyn!” Stacy gasped as Jacquelyn approached the nurses’ station. Lauren didn’t speak, but her eyes widened in a slight, watchful hesitation.
“I know I look bad,” Jacquelyn said, moving behind the counter. She dropped her purse into the deep drawer where the office staff kept their personal possessions. “And this scarf isn’t a fashion statement. My hair is falling out. But I can deal with it.”
“You do it,” Stacy said, turning to Lauren. “You’re the supervisor, so you tell her.”
Jacquelyn turned. “Tell me what?” The anxiety in their eyes had nothing to do with her appearance, after all. A creeping uneasiness rose from the bottom of her heart when the two women exchanged troubled glances. “Did one of our patients pass away?”
“No one died.” Lauren stepped forward and straightened her posture. “Dr. Kastner called us into his office this morning. As you know, last weekend he attended that medical convention in Atlanta—”
“So?” Irritation spiced Jacquelyn’s uneasiness. What did a medical convention possibly have to do with their troubled faces?
“While he was there, he met a doctor from the University of Virginia Hospital. A man who knew Jonah Martin. Who knew why Jonah Martin—” she lowered her voice “—had to leave.”
Nervous flutterings pricked Jacquelyn’s chest. He left to take another job. And another, and then another—
“You wondered why he has worked in so many hospitals,” Stacy said, breaking in. “As it turns out, there’s a good reason.”
Suddenly conscious of an unnamed dread, Jacquelyn hid a thick swallow in her throat and turned away. “He left because he wanted to move on. He’s always advancing—”
“He left because one of his nurses threatened to sue him,” Lauren answered, an edge on her voice. “Apparently he dated her a couple of times, then something happened and she accused him of sexual harassment. Nothing was ever proved, of course, because the poor girl was too traumatized to press charges. Everything was settled quietly when Martin left the hospital.”
Jacquelyn felt a wave of grayness pass over her. “It can’t be true.”
Lauren’s eyes narrowed. “If it’s not true, then how do you explain his record? Six hospitals in seven years? And you’re always complaining that he’s too close, too personal with his patients—”
Jacquelyn closed her eyes and held up her hand, cutting Lauren off as the paraphrase of her own words echoed in her ears. It couldn’t be true, and yet there were things about Jonah that had disturbed her from the first day she met him. His two-sided personality, his odd aloofness, the gleam of hunger in his eyes when she caught him watching her in an unguarded moment…
“He doesn’t seem like the type to harass women,” Stacy said, chewing on her thumbnail. “But if it’s not true, why would he run? He has to be running from something.”
A scream clawed in Jacquelyn’s throat, begging for release, but her clamped lips imprisoned it. What a fool she was! Jonah Martin didn’t love her. What she had seen in his eyes was lust, not love. And she had allowed him into her house, given him free rein to come and go while she was alone and vulnerable.
She staggered toward a chair as her knees turned to gelatin beneath her. He had admitted that he and God had had a falling out! By the looks of things, God was right to turn his back on Jonah Martin! How could she have been so blind, so foolish? Was she so emotionally needy and desperate that she turned to a lust-driven doctor for attention and support? Even Stacy would show more sense!
Stacy’s concerned face moved into Jacquelyn’s blurry field of vision. “Do you need some water? You really don’t look too good.”
Jacquelyn felt as if her feelings and brain were paralyzed. “I think,” she said, bracing her arms on the sides of the chair, “that I shouldn’t have come in today.”
Jonah stepped out of his office and shot a look of pure annoyance toward the nurses’ station. Lauren and Stacy had been off their game today. Of course he hadn’t helped things by being late to work, but though he’d been rushing through his exams to catch up, the nurses hadn’t been helping. Now the two of them were huddled behind the nurses’ counter with their backs to him, probably indulging in gossip of a uniquely feminine variety.
“Lauren,” he called, sighing with exasperation. “Can we bring in another patient, please?”
Lauren turned and gave him a hostile glare. “Of course, Doctor.” She swiped at the stack of patient charts on the desk and moved off toward the reception room.
Stacy turned and eyed him with a similar withering stare, and then he saw Jacquelyn. She sat in the corner chair, her face as pale as snow, a flash of cold in her gaze. She had tied a bright scarf around her head, but hollows lay beneath her eyes, dark, bruised-looking circles.
His first instinct was to gently scold her for bothering to come in. She ought to be home in bed. He’d have taken her home himself, but—
The bitter gall of resolve burned the back of his throat. He had allowed himself to become too involved with an entirely inappropriate person, and Eric Elrod would soon be faxing information about that oncology position in California. Though Jonah’s emotions bobbed and spun like flotsam on a Winter Haven lake, he could learn to ignore them. For Jacquelyn’s sake.
His thoughts were distracted by Mrs. Baldovino’s boisterous greeting. “Ah, Dr. Martin!” she called, breaking away from Lauren in order to hurry over and take Jonah’s hands. “Tonight we shall have that dinner date. We will eat lasagna, and my Ernesto has agreed to cook! The tests have come back, and my cancer is in remission!”
“I know, and that’s wonderful, Mrs. Baldovino,” he said, summoning a smile. “I will be happy to eat with you and Ernesto. Has he thought any more about that tummy tuck?”
“Ah, Dr. Martin, you are naughty!” Mrs. Baldovino shook a finger at him, then reached up, clasped his head, and firmly kissed him on both cheeks. “But you are the best doctor. And I shall never forget all you have done for me.”
She turned and caught of glimpse of Jacquelyn behind the nurses’ desk. “And of course, my dear Nurse Jacquelyn! You are invited to dinner as well. And I will show you how to tie your scarves in pretty knots, and Ernesto will tell jokes to make you feel better—”
“I’m afraid she won’t be able to join us,” Jonah interrupted, steeling himself not to look in Jacquelyn’s direction. “She’s not well. In fact, I was just about to send her home.”
“I am so sorry.” Mrs. Baldovino clasped her hands and gave Jacquelyn a look of pure sympathy. “Should we postpone our dinner, then? Would tomorrow night be better? The weekend?”
“No.” Jonah winced inwardly when his voice sounded more curt than he had intended. “You’ll have to make do with me, I’m afraid. You see, I was wrong to include Nurse Jacquelyn in this little venture, and I wouldn’t want to put her in an awkward position.” He smiled at his patient as if she were a small child and playfully waved her away. “Now go with Lauren and let her stick your finger. And I’ll see you tonight for that lasagna.”
As Mrs. Baldovino moved away, still chatting a mile a minute, Jonah turned again to the nurses still behind the desk. At the touch of his gaze Stacy threw back her head and defiantly moved toward the patient charts, but Jacquelyn simply stared at him, raw hurt glittering in her green eyes.
What had he done this time?
Jacquelyn went home to bed. She drowned herself in sleep, trying to forget the unimaginable hurt of the last few hours.
Jonah Martin was a liar, a hypocrite and one of the cruelest men she had ever known. His own record indicated something was amiss, and she’d been quick to spot it on her first day back in the office. Why, then, had she put the inconsistencies in his bio out of her mind? How had her innate dislike of him turned into affection? She was no fool, but she was a woman. And Jonah Martin was too good-looking and charming for his own good.
He had not only toyed with her heart, he had taken her life into his hands. He’d ordered a mastectomy, which could have reasonably been avoided, and he’d kept her on an immediate and strict chemo regime which probably could have been postponed for several weeks. Was he intent on killing her or did he only want to break her heart?
Without ever saying so, he had led her to believe he loved her, and then in front of Lauren, Stacy and even Mrs. Baldovino, he’d proved that he had no interest in her whatsoever. She wouldn’t have believed the rumor about his alleged sexual harassment until she saw how boldly and completely he dismissed her today. If his intentions toward her were honorable, he could have announced them right then and there. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t even remembered to give her his home phone number—so much for the meaning behind that useless promise!
And yet he had the gall to talk about God and tell her to rest in the Lord! Ha! “Even the devil can quote scripture,” she murmured, beating the pillow as she tossed on her bed. “And that’s what Jonah Martin is—a devil with blue eyes.”
Even Daphne Redfield had been deluded. That saintly woman had been fooled by that handsome disguise; she had even believed Dr. Martin’s usual overwhelming and unwanted attention toward Jacquelyn signaled something more than mere medical concern. “I guess you got your signals crossed, Daphne,” Jacquelyn mumbled into her pillow. “God sent you a message for me, but the devil monkeyed around with the words. God is good—He would have warned me about Jonah Martin.”
Jacquelyn hadn’t seen Daphne in over a week. Her blood counts had not risen to a level high enough to continue her chemo, and Jacquelyn knew from whispers around the office that the cancer hadn’t responded as Jonah had hoped. Her blood work continued to show an elevated CEA level, so apparently the latest round of chemo hadn’t been enough to stop its growth…or even to slow it.
Jacquelyn knew that even Jonah’s perfectly patient temperament had been sorely tried by the protocol’s failure to put Daphne’s cancer in remission. On the afternoon Daphne left the clinic without receiving her chemo, Jacquelyn had entered Jonah’s darkened office to drop off a chart and had been surprised by the sight of him on his knees beside the desk. Apparently he hadn’t heard her, so she backed out as quickly as she had entered, the chart still in her hand, an exclamation of surprise muted on her tongue. At that moment she had believed he was praying. Now, of course, she thought it more likely that he was looking for something he had dropped on the floor, a paper clip or something….
Almost, she thought, pulling the covers closer to her ears, I almost listened to him.
She huddled under the covers as a cold knot formed in her stomach. She had finally begun to hope for the future, and then Lauren and Stacy had dropped that bombshell. She’d been dreaming of a home and a love completely different from what she’d known with guys like Craig Bishop, but all that remained of her dreams were the raw sores of an aching heart.
She bit her lip and choked back tears. She might be drowning in grief and humiliation, but at least she’d been spared public embarrassment. Jonah had seen to that. There would be no big breakup, no ugly confrontation. Lauren and Stacy would never know the full extent of Jacquelyn’s feelings for the handsome doctor, and only God would know how little Jonah had cared.
She would not let this defeat her. This deep, unaccustomed pain in her heart felt worse than her disappointment with Craig because she was sick, tired and weak. She’d feel sourness in the pit of her stomach for a while, maybe even a long while, and then she’d get on with her life. Jonah Martin may be a wretch, but Jacquelyn Wilkes was no quitter. As soon as she was stronger, she’d request a transfer, maybe to the pediatric oncology ward at the main hospital.
The shrill ring of her telephone broke through her jagged and painful thoughts. Instantly awake, she sat up and grabbed the phone. “Hello?”
“Miss Wilkes?”
The question hit her like a stab in her heart. Only highway patrolmen, doctors and emergency room personnel called in the middle of the night, and no one who knew her called her “Miss Wilkes.”
“Yes?” Her stomach was still clenched tight, and despite her control, her teeth began to chatter.
“This is Joe Redfield, Daphne’s husband. Daphne asked me to call you. I thought you might like to know.”
“Know what?” She knew the question was tactless and rude, but her mind wouldn’t function.
“We had to take her to the hospital this morning and—well, they couldn’t do anything else, so they’ve sent her home. She asked me to call you a while ago, but I waited.” Mr. Redfield let out a long, audible breath. “Anyway, she’s in a coma now, and I thought you might like to know that her time is coming. She thought a great deal of you, Nurse Wilkes, and I know she’d want to say goodbye.”
Goodbye? But she didn’t do goodbyes. She didn’t go to funerals, she didn’t make bedside visitations, she didn’t get involved….
Old habits were hard to break, but for Daphne, she’d try. “I’ll be right there.”
She hung up the phone and pressed her hands to her face, trying to still her quaking emotions and already regretting her promise. Sheer black fright swept through her, terror she had not felt since her own mother’s death. Why hadn’t she said no? Why hadn’t she come up with an excuse? Mr. Redfield would understand, and he’d just said Daphne was in a coma. She wouldn’t know if Jacquelyn was present or not, and Joseph Redfield was a stranger, so he wouldn’t care….
But Daphne had been there for her. When Jacquelyn had come home from the hospital, Daphne’s warm eyes had greeted her; her comforting voice had talked her through the panic that often welled in Jacquelyn’s throat. Daphne had bought her tea, baked her cookies, fed and cleaned up after Bailey….
The big dog lifted his head in surprise when Jacquelyn suddenly threw back the quilt. “I gotta go out,” she whispered, hurrying toward her closet. “I’ll be back later. In time for breakfast, I promise.”
The dog lowered his head to his massive paws as if he understood perfectly.