First-Time Valentine. Mary J. Forbes

J.D.’s nightshirt. Minutes later he lay snug and dry under the covers. His knee throbbed like a son of a bitch.

      While he sipped water, Lindsey took his pulse and inserted an ear thermometer. She had calm hands and a soothing voice. He’d always imagined hospitals as semi drug-induced prisons where the injured were at the mercy of emotionless medical staff who pretty much wanted you out of the way and not holding up the assembly line.

      The type of hospitals NHC praised. For some reason, tonight the standard felt false.

      Checking his stats, Lindsey asked, “How’s the knee?”

      “Feels like it’s been run over by a truck.”

      “We’ll give you some more Tylenol.”

      His breathing eased. “Is the doc coming?”

      “We’ve called her, but it’s just the Demerol working itself out of your system.”

      After he’d taken the pills, the nurse tucked him in as if he were a child. “You’ll sleep now,” she said kindly.

      He damn near expected her to kiss him goodnight on his forehead, but she stepped back and drew up the guardrail. “Good night,” she whispered.

      He was too tired to respond. Already the pills were spreading their smooth serenity into his raw knee and his last thought was that he couldn’t remember anyone ever tucking him in at night.

      Definitely not his old man.

      The wind had died down by the time Ella drove through the cold dawn to the hospital the next morning. All night, between bouts of sleep, she’d worried about Sumner. Considering Lindsey would have notified her if something had gone awry, forfeiting sleep had been silly and foolish. Sheesh. If she thought of the thousands of lost nights during her studies and internship….

      Pulling into her parking spot, she inhaled hard. If she hadn’t been so driven, so fevered over getting her medical degree, maybe there would have been someone after Tyler….

      Oh, God. The last thing she needed was to remember Tyler. Dear Tyler with his brilliant medical mind. His broken body after his skiing accident in their first year of internship. Tyler whom she had loved, but hadn’t been in love with. Until he was gone, dead of acute pneumonia, and she cried and despaired and regretted.

       More for him or for you, Ella?

      The thought stopped her cold at the door of the change room.

      Be honest. Tyler hadn’t wanted to live. He hadn’t been able to surrender his dreams of neurosurgery.

      All right. The tears were more for me.

      Her conscience shaken, she pushed into the room. As always, changing into her scrubs and lab coat made her a doctor once more. No time for regrets or moaning over lost chances.

      She walked to the nurses’ station and collected her charts, scanning each of the seven patients requiring her attention. J.D., she noted, hadn’t slept well initially according to Lindsey: Cold sweats, shivers, dry mouth. 9:35—Changed Demerol to T3. 24:03, paged Dr. E.W.—Changed bedding/gown. Patient repeatedly asked for Dr. E.W.

      That his temperature rose a half degree after a restless night was normal. His vitals overall were good. She reread repeatedly asked for, glanced down the hallway to 239 and her heartbeat quickened. He was okay. The remainder of the night had been uneventful. She wondered if he was awake, if he’d eaten breakfast, if he waited for her.

      She began her rounds. Each patient received her personal attention, each received encouragement for healing. These were the ethics her father had taught that made WRG a hospital where patients could heal in comfort and ease. Patients are people. She could almost hear her father’s voice. They have faces and names. They are not medical terms.

      She walked into J.D.’s room with her dad smiling over her shoulder. “How are we this morning, Mr. Sumner?”

      He was sitting up in bed, knee raised by pillows, his hair falling endearingly over his forehead—and with a sex appeal that seared like a flame.

      God, he was a striking man. All the studying, all those late, late nights when she’d propped her eyes open with toothpicks and drank coffee until her back teeth floated…none of it prepared her for this. For J. D. Sumner.

      Her next breath snagged at the flash of his smile. “Hey, there, Doc. Can you get me out of here this morning?”

      On the pretense of checking his chart, she walked to his side. “You had a bit of a tough night.”

      “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

      “Mm-hm.” She pressed two fingers against his wide, warm wrist. Heart rate steady, strong and slower than yesterday. “Do you exercise regularly, Mr. Sumner?” she asked, examining his knee for discoloration and swelling.

      It took her a moment to realize he hadn’t replied. Ella lifted her head. Eyes dark and deep as jungle pools stared back.

      “Why won’t you call me by my first name?” he asked quietly.

      “It’s better this way.” First names are too close and persona.

      A chuckle. “Ah…got it. Better for you. Interesting.”

      “Not interesting, professional.”

      At that he laughed. “Now there’s a fun word coming from one of this hospital’s finest. In my world, professional comes with proficiency and competence.”

      “And we’re not?” she asked mildly.

      “Oh, you’re professional, don’t get me wrong. You just need to speed things up a little. Not do so much hand-holding.”

      She ignored his critique. “Hold as still as possible, I want to change the bandages. Then later this morning we’ll get you up and around for a few minutes. And for your information, professionalism is at the top of our agenda, particularly when it comes to patient care.” She shot him a stern look. “Which your company doesn’t seem to understand, from what I hear.”

      “My company understands you would do well to update equipment, move into the modern world. Why work with old tools, old standards, if new ones are at your fingertips?”

      She tossed the bandages in the trash bin by his bed. “God forbid, I ever need medical care in an NHC-run hospital. I’d be a faceless, nameless entity.”

      “You’d be cared for in the most resourceful, sophisticated way possible.”

      Ella paused, her eyes locking on his. “Have you received any unsophisticated medical attention since you were admitted, J.D.?”

      She realized her error the instant his name left her tongue and his grin bloomed big as a kid’s on the last day of school.

      “Now, that sounds perfect,” he said, much too brash for her liking. “A little culture, a little smokiness, a little se—”

      “Stop right there.”

      “I was going to say—”

      “Do not go there.”

      “—sensitivity.” Another broad grin. “Ah. You thought I had something else on my mind.”

      Despite his injury, the man was relentless. And he read her too well. “What you have on your mind is not my concern.”

      “That a fact?”

      “Absolutely. My interest in you, Mr. Sumner, falls into one category. You are my patient. Nothing else.”

      He sighed with flair. “You break my heart, Ella.”

      Oh, boy. She had to force herself to remember that he’d been in the board meeting the other night representing Northeastern HealthCare. He could possibly eradicate everything