Read Online Patient Nurse by Diana Palmer - Free Book Online

through this.”
    â€œHeavens, I hope so,” she said wearily. She glanced at the clock. “Another hour and I can go home.”
    â€œSee the surgeon,” Brad said solemnly. “You’re taking a risk.”
    Her shoulders slumped. “I suppose I am. Maybe that extra money doesn’t matter so much after all. Do you like cats?” she added hopefully.
    He shook his head and grinned. “I’m allergic to them. Why?”
    â€œOh. Never mind.” She still had to worry about what to do with the new cat. Perhaps she could work out something with another member of the staff. She’d have to wait and see.
    She finished her work, barely, and went off duty after she’d briefed her relief nurse. It was still pouring rain and cold outside. But she heard Ramon’s scathing words in her head the whole way, and never noticed the icy wetness on her cheeks.
    Â 
    Ramon came back onto the ward less than half an hour after Noreen had left it, to make one last check of his patients before he went home. He examined carefully the man whose blood thinners had been given later than scheduled and noted that his progress continued. He was vaguely disturbed with himself for his attack on Noreen. It wasn’t like her to be slow with medicines or overlook notations on the charts. He wondered what had happened.
    Brad was just coming out of his last patient’s room with his equipment when he saw Ramon waiting for him. He squared his shoulders for a frontal assault, because the surgeon looked more formidable than usual with that scowl on his lean face.
    â€œWhy was Noreen slow with the medicine?” he asked bluntly.
    Brad’s mouth pulled down. “Because she’d been out sick for two days and had to work a double shift tonight. Two of the RNs are down with flu.”
    Ramon’s face tautened. “I see.”
    Brad searched the taller man’s eyes. “You really should take a good look at Noreen,” he replied quietly.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    Brad wanted so badly to tell him. But it was Noreen’s secret, not his. “Never mind. It’s not my business.” He nodded and went on his way.
    Ramon recorded his notes, and then drove himself home. But even as he pulled into his garage, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he’d apologized to Noreen. With a sigh of resignation, he reversed the car out of the garage and drove the few miles to the apartment house where Noreen lived.
    She sounded shocked when he rang the buzzer in her apartment, but she did let him in the front door. She was waiting at her door when he came up the flight of stairs. It was a modest apartment house, with only four occupants, but it was clean and not too spartan.
    â€œWhat do you want?” Noreen asked, clutching her blue checked housecoat close at the throat. She was barefoot and disheveled, as if she’d been in bed. Surely not; it was barely nine-thirty.
    â€œDonaldson told me you’d been pulling a double shift,” he said shortly. “I didn’t know.”
    Her eyebrows arched. “Would it have mattered?I can’t think why. Jumping to conclusions about me seems to be your main form of entertainment.”
    His brows drew together. “All the same, I don’t like berating you for…” He paused as he heard a soft sound in the apartment. “What’s that?”
    She grimaced, quickly looking up and down the hall and toward the staircase. She pulled her housecoat closer and stepped back. “Please come in.”
    He stepped into the small combination living and dining room and she quickly shut the door, just as a tiny ball of fur came trundling out of the kitchen mewing.
    He gaped at it. The tiny thing was smaller than her foot, barely weaned by the look of it, and half-starved to boot. She bent and picked it up, cuddling it under her chin. It purred and purred.
    â€œI’m not allowed to have pets,” she