Patient Nurse Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the men who will be at the conference is her lover,” he said with a short laugh. “That’s why she’s so eager to go.”
    Noreen’s face was a study in shock.
    â€œYou didn’t know?” he asked very softly. “I can’t satisfy her,” he added bluntly. “No matter how long I take, whatever I do. She needs more than one man a night, and I’m worn to the bone when I get home from the hospital.”
    â€œPlease,” she’d whispered, embarrassed, “you shouldn’t be telling me this…!”
    â€œWhy not?” he’d asked irritably. “Who else can I tell? I have no close friends, my parents are dead, I have no siblings. There isn’t a human being on earth who’s evermanaged to get close to me, until now.” He searched her face with eyes that hated it. “Damn you, Noreen,” he whispered fervently. “Damn you!”
    He dropped her arm and stalked off the ward, leaving her shaken and white with shock. He really hated her. That was when the mask had come down and she’d seen it in his eyes, in his face. She didn’t know why he hated her. Perhaps because Isadora had said something to him…
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    She’d gone to their apartment that night, confident that Ramon had already left, to find the maid hysterical and Isadora sitting out on the balcony in a filmy nightgown, in the icy cold February rain.
    She’d been out there, the poor maid cried, ever since her husband had left the apartment. She didn’t know what had been said between them, but she’d heard the voices, loud and unsettling, in their bedroom. There had been a furious argument, and just after the doctor had gone, the madam had taken off her robe and gone to sit in the rain. Nothing would induce her to come inside. She was coughing furiously already and she had a high fever that she’d forbidden the maid to tell the doctor about.
    Noreen had gone at once to the balcony and with the maid’s help, had dragged Isadora back inside.
    They’d changed her clothing, but the effort had made Noreen’s heart, always frail, beat erratically.
    While she was catching her breath, the maid announced that her husband had already phoned twice and was furious. She had to leave.
    Noreen was reluctant to let her go, feeling sick already, but the poor girl was in tears. She gave permission for her to leave, and then went to listen to Isadora’s chest.
    Her cousin was breathing strangely. She wasn’t conscious, and her fever was furiously high.
    She had to get an ambulance, she decided, and went to phone for one. But when she lifted the receiver, there was a strange sound and no dial tone.
    Furious, she started out into the hall to ask a neighbor to phone for her. Suddenly everything went pitch-black.
    She was really frightened now, and her heart was acting crazily.
    She moved down the hall, feeling for the elevators, but they weren’t working. There was the staircase. They were only four flights up. It wouldn’t be too far. She had a terrible feeling that Isadora’s lung had collapsed. She could die…
    Making a terrific effort, she pushed into the stairwell and started down and down, holding on to the rail for support as her breathing began to change and her heartbeat hurt.
    She never really remembered afterward what happened, except that she suddenly lost her footing, and consciousness, at the same time.
    She came to in the hospital, trying to explain to a white-coated stranger that she must get back to her cousin. But the man only patted her arm and gave her an injection.
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    It was the next day before she was able to get out of the hospital and go back to Ramon’s apartment. But by that time, the maid had found Isadora dead, and worst of all, Ramon had come home before she was moved.
    Noreen had arrived at the door just as the ambulance attendants came out with Isadora’s body.
    Ramon had seen Noreen and lapsed