Read Online Heart of Gold by Robin Lee Hatcher - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robin Lee Hatcher
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stand working as an agent before boredom sent him back to what he loved best?
He needs a wife. He needs to marry a woman who will love Todd and take care of him when Matt is away .
Pain pinched her heart. She hated the idea that Todd might learn to love someone else as his mother, that she might be replaced in her son’s heart. Would he forget her completely?
She shook her head, trying to drive away the thoughts. She couldn’t think of herself now. She had to think of what was best for her boy. And what was best was for him was to be with family, to be with his uncle.
“And his uncle needs a wife,” she whispered. “But where is he to find one with so little time left? Especially here in Grand Coeur.”
She went to her bed and slipped between the cool sheets as her thoughts returned to earlier that evening when Matthew and Todd had joined her in this bedroom for supper. All three of them had enjoyed the meal prepared by Shannon Adair.
Shannon Adair.
She was young and attractive, a Christian, the daughter of a minister, and she seemed fond of Todd. Why not her? But something told Alice she would have to approach the matter carefully.
Very carefully.
8
Shannon sat near the window of Alice’s bedroom, thumbing through the pages of one of her most prized books, Notes on Nursing by Florence Nightingale. She paused in the section on taking food.
Every careful observer of the sick will agree in this that thousands of patients are annually starved in the midst of plenty, from want of attention to the ways which alone make it possible for them to take food. This want of attention is as remarkable in those who urge upon the sick to do what is quite impossible to them, as in the sick themselves who will not make the effort to do what is perfectly possible to them.
Shannon lifted her eyes from the page to look toward her patient. What more could she do to help Alice take the nourishment she needed to improve her health? She barely ate enough to keep a bird alive. Even the fried chicken Shannon had prepared yesterday hadn’t tempted her to eat more than a few bites. Perhaps it was too rich for her stomach. But she could not grow strong on chicken broth or beef tea alone.
Perhaps Shannon was expecting too much. According to Dr.
Featherhill, Alice had only a few months at most to live. Still, Shannon had nursed dying men back from the edge of the grave. With good care and prayer, many patients had defied the predictions of doctors.
She looked down at the book and continued to read.
I am bound to say, that I think more patients are lost by want of care and ingenuity in these momentous minutiae in private nursing than in public hospitals. And I think there is more of the entente cordiale to assist one another’s hands between the doctor and his head nurse in the latter institutions, than between the doctor and the patient’s friends in the private house.
“What are you reading?”
At Alice’s question, Shannon looked up again. “Nothing important.” She set the book aside and rose from the chair. “Can I get you something? How about some beef tea and bread?”
“Perhaps later. I would rather talk with you awhile. Please.”
Shannon was not surprised by Alice’s request. The woman had asked the same thing numerous times over the past two days. Shannon found it impossible not to comply. After all, wasn’t that part of her job as a nurse? To do everything possible to make the invalid comfortable? But these too frequent tête-à-têtes felt much too . . . intimate to her. She would prefer their relationship remain a professional one, as nurse and patient. That was difficult to do as she learned more about Alice.
“I was thinking about your home in Virginia,” Alice said softly.
“The way you described it. I can see it clearly in my mind.”
Shannon settled onto the chair beside the bed.
“It’s hard to say good-bye to the places we’ve come to love, isn’t it? I was just sixteen when Edward and I
He needs a wife. He needs to marry a woman who will love Todd and take care of him when Matt is away .
Pain pinched her heart. She hated the idea that Todd might learn to love someone else as his mother, that she might be replaced in her son’s heart. Would he forget her completely?
She shook her head, trying to drive away the thoughts. She couldn’t think of herself now. She had to think of what was best for her boy. And what was best was for him was to be with family, to be with his uncle.
“And his uncle needs a wife,” she whispered. “But where is he to find one with so little time left? Especially here in Grand Coeur.”
She went to her bed and slipped between the cool sheets as her thoughts returned to earlier that evening when Matthew and Todd had joined her in this bedroom for supper. All three of them had enjoyed the meal prepared by Shannon Adair.
Shannon Adair.
She was young and attractive, a Christian, the daughter of a minister, and she seemed fond of Todd. Why not her? But something told Alice she would have to approach the matter carefully.
Very carefully.
8
Shannon sat near the window of Alice’s bedroom, thumbing through the pages of one of her most prized books, Notes on Nursing by Florence Nightingale. She paused in the section on taking food.
Every careful observer of the sick will agree in this that thousands of patients are annually starved in the midst of plenty, from want of attention to the ways which alone make it possible for them to take food. This want of attention is as remarkable in those who urge upon the sick to do what is quite impossible to them, as in the sick themselves who will not make the effort to do what is perfectly possible to them.
Shannon lifted her eyes from the page to look toward her patient. What more could she do to help Alice take the nourishment she needed to improve her health? She barely ate enough to keep a bird alive. Even the fried chicken Shannon had prepared yesterday hadn’t tempted her to eat more than a few bites. Perhaps it was too rich for her stomach. But she could not grow strong on chicken broth or beef tea alone.
Perhaps Shannon was expecting too much. According to Dr.
Featherhill, Alice had only a few months at most to live. Still, Shannon had nursed dying men back from the edge of the grave. With good care and prayer, many patients had defied the predictions of doctors.
She looked down at the book and continued to read.
I am bound to say, that I think more patients are lost by want of care and ingenuity in these momentous minutiae in private nursing than in public hospitals. And I think there is more of the entente cordiale to assist one another’s hands between the doctor and his head nurse in the latter institutions, than between the doctor and the patient’s friends in the private house.
“What are you reading?”
At Alice’s question, Shannon looked up again. “Nothing important.” She set the book aside and rose from the chair. “Can I get you something? How about some beef tea and bread?”
“Perhaps later. I would rather talk with you awhile. Please.”
Shannon was not surprised by Alice’s request. The woman had asked the same thing numerous times over the past two days. Shannon found it impossible not to comply. After all, wasn’t that part of her job as a nurse? To do everything possible to make the invalid comfortable? But these too frequent tête-à-têtes felt much too . . . intimate to her. She would prefer their relationship remain a professional one, as nurse and patient. That was difficult to do as she learned more about Alice.
“I was thinking about your home in Virginia,” Alice said softly.
“The way you described it. I can see it clearly in my mind.”
Shannon settled onto the chair beside the bed.
“It’s hard to say good-bye to the places we’ve come to love, isn’t it? I was just sixteen when Edward and I
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