Read Online PATIENT CARE (Medical Romance) (Doctor Series) by Bobby Hutchinson - Free Book Online Page B

more resistance than we did.” He laughed, and so did James.
    Rudy leaned forward, chin resting on his hands. “You plan on having kids someday, Melissa?”
    Rudy certainly had no qualms about asking personal questions. James waited for her answer.
    “Not soon, as in this year or next,” she said. She blushed a little. “But someday, sure, I’d like to have babies.” She turned to James, a hint of challenge in her eyes. “How about you? Think you’ll ever want some little Burkes?”
    “I’m not sure.” Six months ago, he’d have given a firm and definite no. But since his fortieth birthday, his ideas about being single were changing. He’d begun to notice families, in the supermarket, on the beach, surrounding someone’s bed at the hospital. And for the first time in his life, he’d begun to feel empty. “I suppose everyone thinks about having a family.”
    “You come from a big family, Doc?” Rudy rested his huge arms on the counter.
    James shook his head. “I was an only child. My mother died when I was fourteen. Dad remarried. He lives in San Diego. He’s a researcher for the U.S. Navy.” He hadn’t seen his father in two years. He’d never gotten along with his stepmother; she was possessive of his father, almost to the point of paranoia, and that possessiveness excluded James.
    “How about you, Melissa? You have brothers and sisters?”
    She shook her head. “Only child, same as James. But my mom and I have always been really close. Well, apart from a couple of years when I was a rebellious teenager.” She gave a small, sad smile.  “Mom told me from the time I was little that I could do anything I wanted in life, and that education was the key. My dad died when I was a baby. He had life insurance, and no matter how hard up we were, my mom never touched a penny of it.” Her voice wobbled, but she went on. “Mom worked as a clerk in a grocery store to support us, and she always told me the insurance money was for my education.” Her eyes filled with tears. “She was so proud when I got this job. I was going to take her to Hawaii at Christmas.”
    With Melissa’s words, the detachment about his patients that James always strove so hard to maintain crumbled entirely. Betsy Clayton went from being the bowel obstruction who happened to be Melissa’s mother to a woman who’d had dreams and hopes and plans, a woman who’d sacrificed to give her daughter an opportunity at a better life than she’d had.
    “Thelma and me are going to Hawaii in February,” Rudy said. “We been saving for a coupla years, and last month Thelma won a bundle at bingo that put us over the top. We got all the brochures, and I got Thelma a CD of Hawaiian music, told her if she learns the hula for me I’ll buy her a grass skirt when we get there.” He chortled. “I bet you get to Hawaii a lot, huh, Doc?’ ’
    “I’ve never been.” James hadn’t taken a real holiday for three years. “Most of my time is spent here at St. Joe’s.”
    Rudy was perplexed. “But that’s work. So what d’ya do for fun?”
    “I guess I see my work as fun.” James felt a little defensive. “I enjoy riding my bike to work. And sometimes I ride with a group on Sunday mornings, out toward Squamish.”
    Rudy nodded and waited, and when James didn’t continue, he said in an incredulous tone, “That’s it, a bike ride now and again?”
    “Well, I like to fly-fish,” James added. He hadn’t done any fishing since early spring, though, and then only for a long weekend. He hadn’t really thought about it much, but now he realized that surgery had eaten up his life. He had no close friends, no pets, and his social life at the moment consisted of an occasional movie or a few glasses of beer at the local pub on a Sunday afternoon.
    Even his sex life had ended six weeks ago when Heidi Menzies, whom he’d met in the swimming pool just after she’d moved into his building, broke off the relationship they’d had for five months.