Читать книгу The Greek Doctor's Proposal - Molly Evans - Страница 6

Albuquerque, NM, USA

SO MANY times Jeannine Carlyle had walked into a hospital as a nurse. Then for a time she had been a patient. This time as she entered the pediatric ICU of a large teaching hospital, she was going to put the last six months behind her and put her life back together. So much about her had been changed, but being a nurse and wanting to help people had not. Lying flat on her back after a life-threatening miscarriage and months of rehab hadn’t changed that, but had only made her conviction stronger.

After entering the ICU, she approached the nurse manager. “Hi, Arlene.”

“Jeannine, glad to see you here bright and early.” Arlene glanced over Jeannine, assessing her attire. “You found the right color scrubs, I see.”

“Sure did,” Jeannine said, and looked down at her royal blue outfit. “Slightly different than the last place I worked, but I needed new scrubs anyway.” The weight loss she had suffered recently had made her previous scrubs entirely too large. Though spring had blossomed and the weather was warming, she wore a longsleeved T-shirt beneath the scrubs to cover the healing marks on her arms. Trying not to be overly conscious of them, she tried to ignore them, hoping that if she didn’t draw attention to them no one else would notice her disfigurement. There were no scars on her face, but she felt every one of them as if they were all visible. She knew they would heal, but the inside of her that hurt the most might never recover.

“Well, glad to have you on board.” Arlene began to walk down the hall further into the PICU. “We’ll be having grand rounds soon. Our medical director, Dr. Kyriakides, will be presenting a very interesting case we had a few months back. I can introduce you to some of the staff first.”

“Sounds great.” A good way to get to know some of the staff without having to jump in with both feet on her first day on the job. What a relief.

Arlene hesitated outside a large conference-room door. “Are you sure you’re ready for this? Coming back to work, I mean?”

Jeannine felt her stomach slide. “Are you having reservations about me being here?”

“No, I’m not. Your résumé and references more than proved you’re a very capable nurse. It’s just that the pediatric ICU can be a very emotionally difficult place to work at times.” Arlene’s compassionate gaze searched Jeannine’s face.

“Yes, I know,” Jeannine said, and hoped the redness she felt in her face wasn’t too visible. “But I have to start somewhere sometime, don’t I?” No place was going to be easy, but with her finances having dwindled to next to nothing, she couldn’t afford to be off from work any longer. She needed this job to keep her life going.

“You’re right. But please let me know when you need a break. Look at the schedule and make sure you give yourself adequate time off, not too many days in a row, okay?” Arlene gave her a sad smile. “You’re a strong woman to have survived your ordeal, so I know coming back to work must seem a piece of cake after that.”

Jeannine gave a small laugh. “Maybe not quite a piece of cake, but something I have to do. Starting over, starting fresh, is what I need right now.”

During the interview process she had had to disclose why she had been out of work for so many months. She hadn’t been on vacation for months at a time and she hadn’t been terminated from her last job. A life threatening miscarriage had forced her to quit her job. Being a patient had given her a whole new perspective on life.

“There is a certain amount of difference between the ER and the ICU, so it may take some adjustment for you. Don’t expect to learn everything at once.”

“I won’t. Moving from ER to ICU will hopefully give me a buffer. Never knowing what was coming through the doors in the ER was always stressful. I didn’t realize how stressful until I left there.”

“Well, in any case, I’m glad you’re here.” She nodded toward the conference room. “Let’s get in there before all the bagels are gone.”

Jeannine grabbed half a bagel and found a seat in the back of the small room crammed with chairs. She nodded to staff members entering the room, but focused on the pastry in her hand.

When an amazingly handsome man entered the room, she nearly dropped her bagel on the floor. Tawny skin and dark hair that fell past his collar, he was broad shouldered and trim in the hips. She didn’t know who he was, but he certainly commanded the attention of everyone in the room. With the long white labcoat, he was identifiable as a high-ranking physician at the hospital. Probably an attending physician or senior resident. She was too far away to read his name badge and several people shuffled past, blocking her view.

“Attention, everyone,” Arlene said, and raised a hand. “Let’s get started. You all know Dr. Kyriakides, I believe. But I want to introduce our newest staff member, Jeannine Carlyle. Jeannine, would you stand up?”

Reluctantly, Jeannine stood and choked down a bite of bagel that was suddenly lodged in her throat. “Hi, everyone,” was all she could think of to say.

How lame is that? she asked herself, and sat again, wishing she could slide under the chair in front of her. But she soon forgot her embarrassment as the physician began his presentation of a pediatric case from a remote Indian reservation in New Mexico. Watching him, listening to the case history and the problems the patient had experienced during his hospitalization, Jeannine forgot for a short time that she was starting a new job, that her life had been completely uprooted, and simply lost herself in Dr. Kyriakides’ voice and the slide presentation.

At the end of the presentation, staff members grabbed the remainder of the pastries and returned to their patients. Jeannine was the last to leave the room as the doctor packed up his computer. “Thanks for the presentation. It was very informative,” she said.

“You’re welcome. You’re the new nurse, right?” he asked, and shook her hand.

The faint smell of his cologne drifted toward her, and she took a step back. “New at this job, but not a new nurse.” Definitely not new to this game.

“Did you just move here or have you been in Albuquerque a while?” He finished rolling up the cables and stowed them in a black computer case.

“No, I worked across town. I needed a new start.”

“That sounds serious. Starting over isn’t very easy, is it?”

“No. It’s not.” Trying to avoid his piercing gaze was impossible. The dark hair and tawny skin gave him away as being of Mediterranean descent, but there was something else to him. Jeannine shrugged. He was none of her business except in a professional way. Beautifully exotic men were off limits to her. Relationships period were off limits to her, since the last one had almost killed her. “I…had a serious injury that took me out of work for a while, but I’m back in action now. Don’t worry, Doctor, I’m up to it.” Was she being defensive already? She didn’t need to tell her life story to everyone she met today, did she?

“Worrying is wasted energy, as far as I’m concerned. And please call me Miklo. I know they like to toss the medical director title around a lot, but I’m a doctor just like the rest. I simply have more paperwork.”

His engaging smile managed to pull her lips into an answering response.

“I’ll try. I’m not accustomed to addressing physicians by their first names. Usually just the residents.”

Miklo looked down at her and smiled. “Then just think of me as a really old resident.”

Against her will, Jeannine laughed at the small joke. But laughing was something she hadn’t done in some time and to be joyful on her first day at work was an unexpected gift. She’d learned to find those gifts in unusual places. “Thank you, Miklo.” She stepped toward the door. “Guess I’ll be seeing you later.”

“Yes, well, welcome to University Hospital.”

“Thanks,” Jeannine said, and left the conference room.

* * *

Miklo watched the new nurse go. She was a trim, pretty woman with long blonde hair and blue-green eyes that were filled with pain. She’d said she was starting over, and he knew from his own painful experience that starting over was never easy, no matter the reason.

Life as he had known it had been changed by the death of his wife. Pregnant with their child, they had both died in a tragic car accident three years ago. He’d been working instead of taking Darlene to a baby shower. The grief, the guilt, burned within him still at unexpected times. Like now. Clenching his jaw, he shouldered the heavy computer case and left the PICU. With a quick glance down the hall, he saw Jeannine at the nurses’station with her head bent over a chart, a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose.

As he left the hospital and went about his day, the image of Jeannine at the desk stayed with him. She seemed to be a lovely woman, and he hoped that her transition was going to be a good one.