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