Free PATIENT CARE (Medical Romance) (Doctor Series) by Bobby Hutchinson Page A

shirt he kept in his locker, Rudy’s words troubled him, and they were still with him when he arrived at Betsy’s bedside.
    “Any change?” He couldn’t remember the nurse’s name, although he’d seen her often enough. “No more incidents that involve my patient falling out of bed, I hope.”
    “No on both counts, Dr. Burke.”
    He waited until she moved away, and then James leaned close to his patient.
    “You can wake up whenever you choose, you know, Betsy,” he told her, feeling like an idiot as he did so. He was aware the nurses advised relatives to speak to comatose patients in this manner, but he’d never done it himself, and it felt strange. He glanced around, but there was no one to hear him. “You have a beautiful daughter who cares about you. She’s very upset because you’re not getting well,” he said in a stern tone.
    Maybe stern wasn’t the way to go. The lack of any response was strangely freeing, and in a softer tone, he added, “I like your daughter very much, Betsy. And I feel responsible for what’s happened to you, which really complicates the situation between Melissa and me. So it would be much better all around if you just woke up.”
    He looked down at her, for the first time recognizing in Betsy’s features faint echoes of her daughter’s beauty. “I brought you some tapes I had lying around.” He fumbled in his medical bag. He’d actually searched them out in one of the secondhand bookstores he frequented. He slid one into the portable player by the bed and turned it on.
    “You Are My Sunshine” began playing, and like an idiot James watched for a response. None came, naturally, which annoyed him.
    “Damn it all, why don’t you just quit this nonsense, Betsy? We need you awake,” he said forcefully. “Melissa does, and I sure as hell do, too, if I’m gonna get anywhere with her.”
    A sound behind him made him turn. The nurse he’d spoken to was standing there, an expression of utter amazement on her freckled face. Why the hell did nurses wear shoes that allowed them to sneak up like that?
    James’s face burned, and he beat a hasty retreat into the corridor.

Chapter Ten
     
    Three days passed for Melissa in a frenzy of activity. Every moment of every day was crammed. Meetings were the worst; she met with the ministry in an effort to come to some agreement about the conflict. She met with the press, and because the strike was attracting province-wide attention, there were swarms of radio and television stations vying for interviews. She met with the union heads of the various departments; they were worried about nonunion people moving in on their jobs. She spent endless hours on the phone trying to get patients to other facilities, and their families often insisted on speaking directly to her, concerned about the care their loved ones were receiving.
    Every time she could steal a few moments, she raced upstairs to be with Betsy. And every time she entered her mother’s room, she prayed silently and hard that there would be some change, some little thing that would be cause for hope.
    There was nothing. Betsy remained in stable condition but unresponsive, and with each day that passed, Melissa’s hopes grew fainter and her spirits sank.
    The only bright spot was meeting James. Each morning as she pulled into the parking lot, he was there, waving at her from the front of Rudy’s trailer. Seeing him, finding out more about him, became something to look forward to, something that took her mind off both her mother and her work for just a while.
    They talked about everything, and sometimes about nothing at all. He told her and Rudy about a boy who’d died from a medication he’d prescribed, and how it had almost ended his career as a doctor. She found herself able to talk about her marriage to Nadim and how it had affected her. Rudy acted like a catalyst, asking the bold questions that neither Melissa nor James dared put to each other.
    She learned that he liked eating