Читать книгу From Brooding Boss to Adoring Dad - Dianne Drake, Dianne Drake - Страница 8

THE clinic wasn’t at all what she’d expected. Actually, she didn’t know what she’d expected, but this wasn’t it. It was sparse, just a tiny waiting room with several wooden chairs and two scantily stocked exam rooms. Basic, functional and neat. Tidy almost to perfection. Each exam room contained one exam table, a very old-fashioned type possibly fifty years out of date, one supply cabinet, a sink and a stool. There was room enough to turn around, barely enough room for much more. But the paint was fresh. White. Spotless. Everything very professional, including the white jacket Coulson handed her.

“We don’t have much in the way of medical amenities here, but looking the part gives our patients more confidence in us,” he said as he tugged on his knee-length white coat. “Shows respect for them, too. Like they matter enough for us to be professional.”

That was almost as surprising as everything else here. It was all bare bones. The cabinets she peeked into contained almost nothing. The locked medicine cabinet he showed her had so few medications to choose from there was almost no point in locking it. And as far as instruments … there was a dearth there as well. Bare bones, yet in some strange way impressive. An admirable doctor making do with so little. “It’s …”

“It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen,” he finished for her. “You probably didn’t even know that medicine existed on this level, did you? ”

“I’m not that sheltered,” she said defensively.

He chuckled. “Sure you are. Rich doctor, probably from a rich family … You handed me a few hundred thousand dollars for ten acres of land and some buildings that, in Jamaica, is worth much less than half of that. Which tells me until this very moment you didn’t know about medicine on my level.”

“OK, I’ve had advantages, and I’m not ashamed of it. My father came from a working family who did well for themselves, and I benefited from that. But that doesn’t mean I’m sheltered.” Although right now she did feel that way.

“Well, sheltered or not, we’ve got people lining up outside, waiting to be seen. You get the women and children, I get the men.” He pointed out the window to a group, all sitting in various types of plastic chairs. The ones she’d seen from afar earlier. Some were reading, a couple of the women were sewing, children were playing. Two of the men were engaged in a game of checkers. It was a casual, friendly scene.

“Then it looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me, because the women and children outnumber the men three to one, which means I also get Davion to assist me.” She pulled on the white coat and almost drowned in it, it was so large. “Perfect fit,” she said, rolling up her sleeves, and, in fact, looking forward to seeing patients.

Adam straightened the jacket’s collar, his hand accidentally brushing over the line of her jaw. Goosebumps immediately leapt to her arms. “Davion’s good. The future best doctor in Jamaica. So.” He held up the one stethoscope. “This is it, and the tubing is brittle. I have one blood-pressure cuff, not calibrated, and not able to be calibrated it’s so old. So be gentle if you need to use them, and use them sparingly because they don’t have much life left in them.”

She noted the patches of tape on the stethoscope, and was glad she’d asked her dad for a new one. Next time she talked to him she was going to ask for a blood-pressure cuff and who knew what else. “The medical authority on the island doesn’t provide you with any kind of assistance?” she asked.

“Assistance goes to the public hospitals and medical facilities. And those are mostly in the larger cities, serving the majority of the population base, as well as the tourists. It makes sense, to keep the medicine where the majority of the people are. Out here … we’re on our own. We get lots of sympathy and emotional support from the health ministry and the rest is up to us. Overall, they’re doing a fairly good job of administering health care throughout the island, especially with the limited resources they have. But there are still areas like this where medical care is hard to come by, either because the people don’t want to travel to seek it out or they can’t.”

“So you’re the equivalent of the old-fashioned country doctor, the one who goes to the patient rather than having the patient come to him.”

“Something like that.”

And he supported his medical practice out of his own pocket. That, if nothing else, was certainly painting a different picture of him than the one she’d originally seen. “Look, Coulson, I think I had an attitude about your working at the bar. That’s before I knew …”

“It buys the penicillin,” he said, shrugging. “Sometimes, you do what you have to do.”

“I’m sorry about that penicillin remark, too.” She took the battered stethoscope from his hand then the blood-pressure cuff. “And to show you how much, I’ll buy the bammy. Now, I’m going to go see the pregnant woman first. She looks like she needs to get home and get comfortable more than anybody else here.” Erin glanced out the window, watched her sitting uncomfortably in a green plastic chair, watched the way she clung to her husband’s hand and the way he rubbed the small of her back with his other hand. It was nice. In a way, she envied the woman.

“First child,” Adam explained. “Due in a couple of weeks, and I’m hoping you can convince her to go to one of the hospitals, because I can’t. Oh, and I do have a speculum you can use to examine her. Davion will get it for you.”

Thirty minutes later, after as a good an exam as Erin could give Breeon Edward, she tapped on the door of the exam room where Adam was examining an older man. “Can you step out here for a minute?” she asked, when he opened the door a crack. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Give me five minutes,” he said.

Erin used those five minutes to try out her powers of persuasion on Breeon. “Having your baby in a hospital is a good thing because they have different ways to help you, and your baby.”

Breeon shook her head. “My husband can’t take me. Leron drives the bus that goes to the villages and he can’t take the time off work. But that’s OK. We can have the baby here, and everything will be just fine.”

“What if I could find someone else to drive you to a hospital so Leron wouldn’t have to take off work?”

Breeon gave her head a firm shake. “My mother is here, and my sister. The hospital won’t let them help. Doc Adam can do this, and Trinique, if she gets back. And now that you’re here, you can help, too, if you want. But no hospital.”

That was the end of the argument. Breeon slid down off the exam table and headed to the door. “Doc Adam is checking me every two days now, so I’ll see you in two days. Good morning, ma’am Doc.” With that, Breeon exited, grinning from ear to ear as Leron met her in the hallway.

Only Erin wasn’t grinning when she met Adam in the hallway moments later. “It’s breech,” she said.

“Damn,” he muttered. “She’s had a rough pregnancy. Carrying too much baby for her small frame. But I didn’t expect this.”