Free The Boyfriend of the Month Club by Maria Geraci Page A

line. “We can work you in with the rest of the emergencies after three. Do you think you can stand the agony until then?”
    “I guess I’ll have to. Thanks!” Then, remembering that she was supposed to be in terrible pain, Grace added with a slight moan, “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”
    “You’re welcome,” Melanie said curtly before hanging up.
    The rest of the day passed quickly. Mondays were usually slow at the store, but there was inventory to do and it was Penny’s day off. Grace worked through lunch, then handed the reins off to Marty. Marty Kovak was nineteen and had worked at the store since his sophomore year in high school. Besides being a senior cashier, he also did most of the stocking. Marty had an undisguised crush on Grace, which amused Penny to no end. Grace had never encouraged the crush, but it was hard not to be sweet to Marty when he stared back at her with his big brown puppy-dog eyes. Grace showed Marty her tooth and told him the story of how she chipped it (it just didn’t seem indelicate telling Marty about the tampon) and Marty had laughed appropriately, confirming what Grace already knew. Melanie the Nazi receptionist had zip sense of humor.
    Dr. Fred’s office was near the beach, so Grace had to cross the bridge, and because it was midafternoon, traffic was steady. She rolled into the parking lot to Sunshine Smiles at exactly ten minutes past three. Melanie, had said after three, so it wasn’t like Grace was late. Not technically.
    Melanie was startlingly attractive. With a full set of pouty lips and a body that looked good even in scrubs. “Any change in insurance or medical information since you were here last?” she asked Grace.
    Grace shook her head.
    “How about change in address?”
    “Nope.”
    “Have a seat and we’ll call you as soon as Dr. Joe can see you,” Melanie said.
    “Dr. Joe?”
    “Didn’t you get the letter? Dr. Fred retired last month and Dr. Joe took over his practice. Dr. Fred sent a letter out to all his patients explaining the whole thing.” She glanced at her computer screen. “I thought you said you hadn’t changed your address. You’re supposed to notify us if you move, you know.”
    Grace remembered receiving a letter from Sunshine Smiles, but she’d assumed it was a reminder to schedule a cleaning, so she’d tossed it unopened into her mail-to-be-dealt-with-later pile. “Um, no, no . . . I’m still at the same address. I did receive the letter, it just must have slipped my mind.”
    “Don’t worry, you’ll like Dr. Joe. Our patients have been giving him extremely high marks.” She handed Grace a sheet of paper. “Dr. Joe would appreciate it if you’d fill out this patient satisfaction survey after your procedure today. Our goal is to score perfect tens.”
    Grace tucked the paper into her bag and scanned the reception area looking for a seat. There must have been a lot of emergency cases because the place was packed, although no one looked like they were in danger of bleeding to death or anything. Still, Grace had a feeling that her “emergency” was pretty far down the totem pole, which meant she was probably in for a long wait. Good thing Dr. Fred always kept the best magazines in his waiting room. But after a few minutes of searching, all Grace could find that was readable was a two-month-old copy of Southern Living . Where were all the People magazines? They’d been replaced with Newsweek , and Time , and National Geographic , and magazines on extreme sports like mountain climbing and glacial skiing. Who was interested in that? Didn’t this Dr. Joe know there were no mountains or snow in Florida?
    The National Geographic s weren’t so bad, but Grace preferred learning about the exotic on the Discovery Channel. Everyone knew that magazines in a dentist’s office were supposed to be mindless fluff. Speaking of which, Dr. Fred had installed a state-of-the-art forty-eight-inch plasma-screen TV in the waiting room last