PATIENT CARE (Medical Romance) (Doctor Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

of a rock sometimes,” Rena, who had been quietly observing the exchange, remarked. “There’s an empty room just down the hall. Why don’t you try to get some rest? If there’s the slightest change in your mom, I’ll come and get you.”
    “Thanks, that’s what I’ll do.” Melissa realized she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but she also realized she needed to be alone, to get her emotions under control and figure out what else she could do to help her mother.
    For the remainder of the night, she lay sleepless on the narrow hospital bed, alternately agonizing about Betsy and going over the millions of details she’d have to see to in the morning. Each day the job action continued, the problems she had to contend with would multiply. Why did everything have to happen at once? She’d only been in her position for six months, and those who’d opposed her appointment would be watching gleefully, waiting for her to make some fatal mistake.
    Well, they’d better not hold their breath. About her job, at least, she was confident.
    At five in the morning she went back to CCU. There’d been no change whatsoever in Betsy’s condition.
    “I’m going home to shower and change for work. I’ll be back by six-thirty at the latest,” she told Rena. “If there’s any change, call me on my cell.”
    “Absolutely,” Rena assured her.
    But Melissa could see by the expression in her eyes that the nurse had no expectations Betsy would wake up while Melissa was gone.
    Outside the hospital, the dawn air was blessedly cool, although the clear blue canopy overhead and the coral pink in the east where the sun would soon rise heralded another record-breaking day in Vancouver’s uncharacteristic heat wave. Melissa drove home, showered, yanked another of Barry’s ensembles from her closet, pulled it on and raced back to the hospital to begin a day even more frantic than the previous one had been.
     
    For the next forty-eight hours, Melissa all but lived at St. Joe’s, dealing with one crisis after the next as the job action escalated. She attended meeting after meeting, none of which accomplished much as far as she could see. She held press conferences to reassure the public that emergency services were still available. She frantically called other hospitals to arrange for procedures that couldn’t be postponed.
    And through it all, a part of her mind was constantly with Betsy. There’d been no improvement at all in her mother. Burke had done an entire battery of tests, and he’d promised to discuss them with Melissa at noon on Friday.
    She was late for their meeting. That morning’s appointments, first with the Ministry of Health and then with the financial committee, both went past their allotted times. It was twelve-twenty by the time Melissa made it to the Coronary Care Unit, where Burke was waiting. He was standing, arms folded across his chest, foot tapping impatiently.
    “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Dr. Burke.”
    He didn’t nod or accept her apology, or even indicate that he’d heard her.
    Melissa was tired to the bone. She hadn’t had a decent meal in days. She was sick with worry about her mother, and she had three more meetings that afternoon before she could even hope to get to the paperwork that almost buried her desk. She still hadn’t managed to find suitable placements at other hospitals for four urgent surgical patients, three of whom would have been operated on by this same Dr. Burke, who was acting as if his time was of the essence. The patients’ relatives were out of their minds with worry, and their frustration and anger had to be dealt with—by Melissa.
    It was hard to be sympathetic to the doctor’s position when she was confronted hourly with the human misery it created. And how could a man who looked so blasted attractive be so lacking in people skills?
    “This office will do,” he said in a stiff tone, ushering Melissa into a small room the nurses used for meetings. He gestured to a