Healing Her Boss's Heart. Dianne Drake

a medical situation. People around here trust her, probably more than they’ve ever trusted my mom and me, and we’re both doctors.” Probably a whole lot more than he’d trusted himself as, for the past five years, he hadn’t had a lot of that going on.

      * * *

      The trip down the mountain wasn’t as bad as he’d anticipated. Help had arrived, they’d carried Priscilla to his truck, and while the ride to the hospital was interminably long due to road conditions and safety concerns, three hours after getting to his grandmother, she was safely tucked into a hospital bed, with an IV drip in her arm and heart monitor leads stuck to her chest, fussing that she was feeling fine and she wanted to go home to her cats.

      “She’s stubborn,” Carrie commented, as she passed by Jack, who was seated in the chair across from Priscilla’s bed, on her way to fill the bedside pitcher with water.

      “And proud of it,” Priscilla said, even though her eyes were closed.

      Jack glanced up at the heart monitor over her bed, glad it was reading normal. Glad that Carrie had been there to help him through this. But, most of all, glad that Carrie had met his every expectation of her as a medic. He didn’t always have a lot of patience with the people who worked with him. They were too slow to suit him. Or, didn’t have a technique or bedside manner he liked. But Carrie had been...perfect. She’d known exactly what to say, and do. And, most of all, she’d gained his grandmother’s trust, which wasn’t an easy thing to do, as Priscilla hated modern medicine. “Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping, old woman?” he asked, his eyes stuck on Carrie as she carried the water back to the bedside stand.

      “How am I supposed to sleep when you’re hovering over me the way you are?”

      “I’m not hovering,” he said, giving Carrie a wink. “I’m just being a good doctor and watching over my patient.”

      “Which is the same thing as hovering. So, go hover somewhere else.” She opened her eyes, reached over and squeezed Carrie’s hand. “And you, young lady, look like you could do with some sleep.”

      “So she gets to sleep while I have to go hover?” Jack asked, as he pushed himself to his feet, then walked over to the bed. He bent over and kissed Priscilla on the cheek. “You take care of yourself tonight, Priscilla,” he said. “And call me if you need anything. I’m ten minutes away.”

      “I’m fine, Jackie,” she said. “Just had a little scare.”

      “Which gave me a big scare. Now—sleep.” With that, he took hold of Carrie’s hand and led her from the room. Once in the hall, he slumped against the wall, shut his eyes and simply stood there for a minute before he said anything. “If anything happened to her, I don’t know what...” He opened his eyes and stopped. He was revealing too much of himself. He’d almost allowed Carrie into places no one was allowed. But she was easy to talk to, to be around. Which meant, he was going to have to be more careful. “Look, Carrie. I appreciate you going out there with me. Priscilla can be difficult at times, and the way you were with her...again, I appreciate it.”

      “Why do you call her Priscilla, and not Grandmother or Grandma?” she asked.

      He chuckled. “When I was young, she made me call her Mrs. Anderson. Said it was all about proper respect. It wasn’t until I was about fourteen or fifteen that she let me call her by her first name. She said I’d earned that right.” Carrie had earned that right immediately. He was impressed, as Priscilla was a hard person to reach out to. But Carrie had reached out and touched. Which made him feel...good. Yes, he felt very, very good about Carrie. Maybe that even went a little beyond her medical skills. He felt good about her in general.