Graham shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Grabbing my white coat from the exam table, I slid my arms in either side before putting my stethoscope around my neck and heading for the door.
“You let me know if the pain gets any worse. And try not to overdo it.”
I looked over my shoulder and nodded wordlessly at Graham before turning and exiting the room while rolling my eyes.
“Glorified carpenters,” I grumbled as I left.
“I heard that!” Graham yelled from behind me.
“You were meant to,” I retorted, but had to grab my side because the expansion of my lungs and chest movement of raising my voice even slightly caused my ribs to rebel.
Instead of taking the stairs back up to the surgical floor, I opted for the elevator to save myself the discomfort. I avoided the nurses’ station since Grace wasn’t in yet anyway. I’d purposely come in early to seek out Graham for him to do an X-ray and diagnosis of my ribs, before coming into work for the day. Heading into my office, I flicked on the light and tossed my stuff on the sofa, and immediately fired up my computer to make the rearrangements to my schedule. I tried to convince myself it wasn’t a terrible thing to be out of the OR for the next few days since I did have a huge amount of paperwork that I’d been avoiding, which I needed to catch up on.
But the thought of Grace being in surgery, standing next to a surgeon in the OR, and that surgeon not being me, began to play around in my head. The jealousy I started to feel was unlike anything I’d experienced before. I didn’t get jealous, not over a woman anyway. Another surgeon getting a coveted surgery, sure. A fighter at the Underground besting me in the ring, hell yes. But a woman causing me to feel envy that I couldn’t be next to her at all times? The feeling was completely foreign, yet here I was experiencing it.
Chapter Ten
Grace
“I heard he fights in a secret fighting league or something.”
“Really?”
I heard the whispered words of the two nurses as I entered behind the desk of the nurses’ station, placing my bag underneath, in its usual position. I recognized the voice of Angela. It wasn’t unusual to hear her gossiping about any of the hospital’s employees. If someone had personal business they didn’t want known, it was best to stay far away from Angela. The woman was a great nurse, but couldn’t keep her mouth from moving. The second voice I heard was less familiar, but I recognized it as coming from Suzanne. She was also a newer nurse to this floor, though she’d been at Memorial for a few months before I started. I hadn’t worked directly with her just yet, but from the first time I met her, something about her eyes gave me pause. She always seemed to be scheming on something or someone.
“Good morning,” I interrupted, hoping this would end the gossip fest.
“Morning, Grace. How are you? Did you hear Dr. Reynolds rescheduled his surgeries for the next couple of days?”
That had me spinning around so quickly I nearly lost my balance. Recovering, I smoothed my palms down the sides of my scrubs. “No. Is he going to be out of town?”
I pulled my lips inward and mentally scolded myself for being so damned obvious. But Jacob wasn’t one to reschedule his surgeries without a good reason, as far as I knew. My gaze fell on Angela for an answer.
“You don’t know?”
That question had come from behind Angela. It was Suzanne who was peering at me with her arms folded as if she knew something that I wasn’t aware of.
“No, I don’t.” I tried to make my voice come out as even as possible.
“He’ll be in town as far as I know. No real reason was given. In the system the surgeries are just posted as rescheduled,” Angela continued, obviously not picking up on the tension between Suzanne and I.
“Well, I heard he fights in some sort of secret fighting club. Probably got hurt fighting,” Suzanne stated poignantly, staring at me.
“What kind of a doctor gets involved in underground fighting? Asurgeonno less,” Angela wondered out loud, while staring at the computer.
“I don’t know but that’s what I’ve heard. You wouldn’t know, would you, Grace?”
Blinking, I took in Angela’s superior grin. I couldn’t tell if she was happy that she believed she knew information I didn’t or if she was just excited to be aiding in the spreading of gossip about yet another doctor.
“I wouldn’t know. And trust me, even if I did, I wouldn’t be standing here spreading rumors about the people I work with behind their back.” I spun around while rolling my eyes and rounded the corner of the nurses’ station to check the board for the day. Sure enough, the schedule that I was supposed to be working with Jacob was off the board. I had another surgery scheduled for ten o’clock that morning with a different surgeon. Looking over at the clock high on the wall, I saw that it gave me enough time to go and check in on Johnny Westbrook before I needed to prep the patient for surgery.
All the while, as I walked to Johnny’s room, I kept glancing over my shoulder, wondering if I’d see Jacob, and if so, what I would say. The previous night didn’t end how I anticipated—nor he, I would assume.
I ran my hand down my face at the heavy feeling that settled over my heart at the thought of my sister, still curled up on the couch this morning. She only got up twice—once to go to the bathroom and the second time to eat a little bit of soup that I’d defrosted. And that was only after I begged her to eat. She wasn’t home alone, however. That morning, I went over to my retired neighbor’s home, who had also been a nurse, and asked if she would check-in on my sister throughout the day. Mrs. Walters readily agreed.
“Hey,” I greeted, surprised when I entered Johnny’s room and saw Jacob standing there.
