Following the Doctor's Orders. Caro Carson

was venturing way too far into personal territory by asking him that, but wasn’t that information she should know about a man before she dated him?

      She glanced at his free hand. No ring, no mark left by a ring. No sign that a woman had ever placed a gold band on that finger, claiming him.

      “Never married,” he said curtly. He pushed away from the wall and leaned back against the counter, a casual pose that seemed much more like the Zach she knew. “Do you really think if you aren’t available, then I’m going to step into the hall and ask Mary Ellen instead?”

      “Mary Ellen’s engaged.”

      Zach’s easygoing smile returned. “Just one more reason I’d rather be with you.”

      “What are the other reasons?”

      “Spend the evening with me, and I’ll tell you each one.”

       Chapter Five

      She’d said yes.

      Brooke’s shift had started with two hours of misery, thanks to those miserable parents, but after seeing Zach in the break room, she’d been buoyed along by a sense of sweet anticipation, eight pleasant hours so far, all because she’d thrown caution to the wind and said yes.

      Maybe she didn’t know herself as well as she’d always thought she did. Or maybe she’d been intrigued by a glimpse of a man who had layers that ran deeper than a handsome face and a quick, laughing wit. Or maybe...

      Or maybe, it was just good, old-fashioned physical attraction. Zach had leaned over her, placed his hand on the wall near her head, and her body had responded. She could catalog all the classic signs of arousal. Blood vessels had dilated, breathing had deepened, heart rate had increased.

      Incredibly, being around her had produced the same effects in Zach. She’d been staring into his blue-green eyes when she’d realized that his breathing had changed slightly, too. Since Brooke shined a penlight into patients’ eyes all day long, she’d noticed that the pupils of Zach’s eyes widened as she challenged him. That one telltale sign, a pupil dilation indicating an arousal of the autonomic nervous system which no one could fake, had given her more confidence than all the smiles he sent her way. She didn’t trust her own instincts, the ones that said this attractive man found her attractive, too, but she could trust science.

      He was into her.

      She was smiling at the thought even now. Just two more hours and her shift would end and her date would begin. The anticipation was intoxicating. Brooke bent her head over the patient’s chart and tried not to look as giddy as she felt inside. It was quite the emotional high to have a schoolgirl crush that was actually being returned. Endorphins, dopamine, serotonin.

      She liked Zach Bishop, and he liked her back. Why had she fought that so hard? There was nothing bad about a little uptick in endorphins. How could she have so coldly considered choosing to spend her time with Tom Bamber for the sake of predictability?

      The desk radio interrupted her thoughts. An ambulance was on its way in, transporting a patient who was already coding. She wiped the grin off her own face, feeling almost ashamed to be happy when others were not. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her white coat and listened while a nurse wrote the information being relayed.

      The radio reported a white male, ninety-six years old, was en route. They were bagging him, using a balloon-like device to push air into his lungs. Defibrillation had failed to produce a heartbeat. Manual chest compressions were ongoing, and had been ongoing for the entire thirty-minute ambulance ride in from a distant ranch. Brooke knew they would still be ongoing when they arrived in an estimated ten minutes; the patient was not going to spontaneously recover. Whoever was forcing that heart to squeeze by pushing on the chest would have to keep pushing.

      The last of Brooke’s buoyant emotions sank. It was time to do the hard work of her profession.

      Ninety-six years old. A total of forty minutes of chest compressions before arrival. No one was immediately declared dead on arrival without every effort first being made, but the checklist of medical options was short in this situation.

      Brooke was waiting in the crash room when they arrived. The paramedics told her the patient had been found in his bed when a family member brought his dinner tray to him. The first item on Brooke’s mental checklist was also the last: assess body temperature. The thermometer’s reading was repeated to be completely certain, but she knew any chance of resuscitation was gone. His body had cooled after he’d died in his sleep, peacefully, well before his family had noticed and called the ambulance. Brooke stepped back from the patient and formally announced the time of death.

      That wasn’t the hard part of her job. Declaring a patient dead was something she was qualified to do.

      But the next logical step was never easy. She had to inform the next of kin that their loved one was gone. Grief was an unpredictable monster, and no matter how she approached a deceased patient’s family, no matter how young or old the patient was, no matter how expected or unexpected the death was, the monster always landed a blow.

      Brooke had learned to protect herself from it as much as possible. She always entered a room of waiting family members while wearing her white coat, a symbol of care and competence and authority which Brooke believed was reassuring to the family in a subconscious way. She shook hands, her polite yet serious demeanor generally the first step in preparing the family to hear the news she had to deliver. She did so as simply and concisely as she could, telling them when, and why.

      Then the monster had its turn.

      Each time, Brooke could only stand by and witness the assault. Whether the monster caused shocked silence or unrestrained wailing, Brooke stayed in the room. Inevitably, there would be additional questions about what had happened, and she was in the best position to explain why the body had failed, why a treatment had or hadn’t been attempted, or anything else the family wanted to know.

      As the monster finished its first round of punches, someone would make the emotional request to view the body, or else someone would ask a practical question about funeral arrangements, and then Brooke knew it was time to leave the family in the competent hands of the hospital’s morgue attendants.

      With her duty complete, she would return to the nurses’ station, pick up the next chart in sequence, and move on to her next patient. Laceration of the forearm. Evaluation of abdominal pain. More patients needed to be cared for, regardless of Brooke’s personal feelings, so there was no sense in giving in to her emotions. It was a routine she usually handled as well as anyone could.

      Today should not have been different.

      Brooke informed the family of the ninety-six-year-old patient that their loved one could not be revived. She waited for the first wave of grief to pass, then left the family when the hospital administrator arrived to handle the final arrangements.

      It was time to move forward. Yet Brooke stood at the nurses’ station, and wondered why she felt shaky.

      “Dr. Brown, can you take room four?” A nurse held out a clipboard, expecting Brooke to take it the way she always, always did.

      Today, she hesitated.

       Just give me a minute. I need a minute.

      “I’ll complete this death certificate first,” Brooke said evenly.

      “Oh. Sure.” After a second of hesitation, the nurse set down the clipboard and walked away.

      Brooke’s hand felt stiff and ungainly—what on earth is wrong with me?—as she began filling out the form, taking care to keep her writing legible so the admin clerks wouldn’t transcribe any errors into the final legal document.

      This death should not have been a difficult one, as these things went. The patient had lived a longer life than most people. His death had been painless, at home, and he’d clearly lived his last days surrounded by people who cared