Doctor Of My Dreams (BWWM Romance) (3 page)

Chapter 3 - Nadine

My tires squealed as I skidded to a stop outside the hospital, and I jumped out of the car, running into the emergency room. It was packed with people with injuries ranging from an ingrown toe nail to a cut spilling blood onto the floor. I ran up to the front desk.

“I’m looking for Trevor Lewis,” I wheezed, trying to catch my breath. My chest felt tight and I struggled to breathe around the lump in my throat. “He’s five,” I added.

“There were no kids here today, dear,” the receptionist said with a flat voice.

“There’s got to be some mistake. I...“

My phone rang and I cut my sentence short to answer.

“Where are you?” Dianne asked over the phone.

“I’m at reception. They’re telling me there were no kids here today. Where did you take him?”

“Oh, we’re at St. Mary,” Dianne said. Her voice sounded far and tinny. I swore under my breath.

“I can’t afford St. Mary, Dianne. I don’t have medical insurance.”

“Oh, Nadine I’m sorry, I didn’t know… don’t you worry about it. We’ll figure it out. Just come on through, I’ll meet you outside.”

I hung up and flew out of the emergency room. I tore down the road, speeding tickets to hell, and made it to St. Mary in record time. The private hospital parking was a lot cleaner than the hospital I’d just been at, and part of me was relieved. The other half of me sagged when I saw the expensive cars in the parking lot, the cameras monitoring every angle of the entrance, every little thing that screamed out this place had money and would charge me an arm and a leg.

“Oh thank God, where is he?” I asked Dianne when I met her at the door.

“He’s with the doctor now, I had to wait for you to sort out the paperwork.”

I followed her inside and she handed me a clipboard.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked. On the way here I’d imagined the worst. A broken back. Paralyzed for life. A coma.

“I think his arm is broken, but I wasn’t sure. He wouldn’t stop crying and he screamed every time I touched it.”

“A broken arm?” My body crumpled under my own weight and I lowered myself into a chair. A broken arm I could deal with. I blinked down at the clipboard, not seeing anything that was printed on the forms.

“He’s going to be alright. Here, let me get you a coffee,” Dianne said and stood up, disappearing through double doors. A coffee. Well that was the least she could do. I let out a shaky breath, trying to collect myself and come back down to earth. I’d been running on such a high level of adrenaline that now that I knew it wasn’t something life-threatening, I felt like I was going to faint.

I took three deep breaths, holding each for three seconds before I let them go. Finally my heart slowed down, and I could focus on the form.

When I finished filling it out, I put it on the counter and the receptionist took it, typing up the details into the computer. I sat down again, and Dianne appeared with a two hot cups of coffee. She passed me one, and I took a sip. It was scalding hot.

The doors opened, and a doctor appeared. He had blond hair and blue eyes that smiled at me across the room. I felt warm all over, like I was defrosting. He looked down at a clipboard.

“Mrs. Lewis?” he asked. I stood up and shoved my cup of coffee into Dianne’s hand. She nearly dropped hers.

“I’m here,” I said and walked to the doctor. He was confident and calm, and it felt like I stepped into a circle of comfort when I came closer to him. “Is he okay?”

The doctor’s eyes were light blue and open, like the sky on an autumn day. The kind of blue I could get lost in. He looked upright and sure in his white doctor’s coat.

“I’m Doctor Richard Morgan,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Nadine Lewis.” I took his hand. His skin was rough as if he hadn’t only been doing doctor’s work his whole life. My hand disappeared in his. “And that’s Miss,” I added and then I felt like an idiot. The one corner of his mouth tugged up in a lopsided grin that made me feel equally unbalanced.

“Right. Miss. You can come through to see him.” What in the world would he think of me? Making it so clear that I was single. He pushed open the door of an examination room.

“Trevor’s been such a big boy.”

Trevor sat on top of an examination bed with a yellowish cast around his arm and up over his elbow. It reached halfway up to his shoulder.

“Oh, Trevor,” I said and wrapped my arms around him, breathing in the sweet-sour scent that always hung around him. He smelled like cookies and mud.

“Are you alright, angel?”

“I’m fine, this is glow in the dark!” He held the cast up proudly.

“It’s a hairline fracture just below the elbow. He was lucky. It will heal without problems and you can come back to remove the cast in six weeks. Don’t get it wet.”

“Richard says I have to take baths with a bag over my arm,” Trevor said.

Doctor Morgan grinned and walked over to a drawer. He produced a lollipop.

“Here you go,” he said to Trevor. “For being so brave.”

Trevor looked at me, a question in his eyes. I never allowed him sweets before supper, but I nodded.

“Thank you, Doctor,” I said. Trevor hopped off the bed and I held out my hand. He took it.

“Are you going back to work?” he asked when we walked out of the examination room.

“Not today. We’re going home.”

I walked back to the waiting area. Dianne stood up and Trevor ran to her to brag with his cast. I turned to the receptionist. She handed me the bill.

Blood drained from my face.

“I don’t have this kind of money on me now,” I whispered.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but you can’t leave the hospital without paying the minimum amount.”

“Can I pay it down? I can do installments.”

The receptionist shook her head and pointed to a sign that was screwed to the wall behind her. I’d somehow missed it. It stated that all patients had to settle at least the doctor’s fee before being able to leave.

Dianne appeared next to me.

“What’s the problem?” she asked.

“I can’t cover the payment. Not even the minimum fee. Will you help me out?” I hated having to ask. It felt like I was begging. But I had no choice.

Dianne glanced down at the bill and shook her head.

“I don’t have that kind of money,” she said.

“Then why did you bring him here?” What did she think I was going to do if she wasn’t even able to cover these kinds of fees herself? “Where do you go when you’re injured?”

Dianne’s face closed. “I think that’s beside the point,” she said tightly. I smiled at the receptionist and excused myself, beckoning for Dianne to follow me a couple of steps away.

“You know my situation, Dianne. I can’t afford this kind of money. I wouldn’t have brought him here in the first place. What do you suggest I do?”

“I don’t know,” Dianne said, shrugging and crossing her arms over her chest. “I can’t just fork out cash for everyone, you know.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to stop myself from panicking.

“Please, Dianne. I can’t leave here without paying at least something. I pay you every week for Trevor.”

“Then use that, I haven’t taken it from you yet,” she said. “I won’t charge you for today because I feel guilty.” She walked away from me. Sure, how nice of her. I knew she had enough money. We’d been neighbors for years. I almost wanted to say friends.

I suddenly felt like I wanted to cry, tears welling up in my eyes.

“Miss Lewis?” someone spoke behind me and when I turned around it was the doctor.

“Oh, Doctor Morgan,” I said and blinked furiously to get rid of the tears. “Sorry, am I in your way?”

“Not at all,” he said. “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. If it’s any help to you, I’ll cover the minimum amount and you can settle the rest later.”

I shook my head.

“I can’t accept that from you. I...“ My voice caught in my throat. He took my wrist, holding it only between his fingers, and electricity ran through my body. His eyes were a light blue, looking right through me, and when he spoke again his voice danced over my skin like a caress.

“Don’t worry about it. I understand. Please, the money is nothing to me. I’d rather see you and your son safely home.”

I wanted to say no. The protest formed on my lips, but I didn’t say the words. The atmosphere around us was charged. I was aware of how close he was standing to me, I could feel the heat radiating off his body. I was suddenly very aware of his lips, not too full, and pressed into a line of thought. When I forced myself to look at his eyes they were on my lips too. I breathed out in a shudder.

“I don’t know how I can thank you,” I said. Richard smiled and it defrosted me.

“Will you go out with me?” he asked. Something inside of me lurched when he did.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

He looked sheepish. “I know this is uncalled for. But I’d like to just see you outside of this hospital environment. Besides, you look like you could do with a break.” He looked apologetic as soon as he said it. “I mean… I can do with an escape as well. Really, you’ll be doing me a favor.”

I hesitated.

“Naturally Trevor can come too,” he said like he’d read my mind. “It’s not a date.”

I didn’t know why I agreed. I didn’t know this man from a bar of soap and I’d just accepted payment from him like a beggar, and now I was agreeing to go out with him. But it wasn’t a date, like he’d said, even though a part of me felt a little disappointed about it. I shook my head. I was being ridiculous. At a loss for words and affected by a man like a teenager. This wasn’t a date, it was an act of charity. And I felt like I owed him.

“I’ll call you. Your numbers are on record.”

I nodded. Richard dropped my wrist and he smiled at me and turned to leave. I noticed how broad his shoulders were under the white coat. The way his hands hung next to his side, steady and able. Warm.

I collected Trevor and walked away without saying anything to Dianne. In the car I could still feel Doctor Morgan’s fingers on my skin, like ghosts of himself he left behind.

On the way back, Trevor told me in detail how he’d broken his arm falling out of the tree, and how the X-ray machine worked.

“Richard explained it to me,” he said when he was done.

“Don’t you mean Doctor Morgan? It’s rude to call people by their first names unless they’re friends,” I said.

“He told me to call him Richard. He works with kids like me all the time. He says we’re way more fun than adults.”

I could imagine that. “I’m just glad you’re safe, sweetheart,” I said. “Imagine what all the kids at school are going to say about your arm!”

Trevor’s face lit up and he launched into speculations again which allowed me to switch off for a while. I nodded and gasped in all the right places, but my mind wandered back to the doctor. We hadn’t really talked. He’d only said one or two things. But his eyes had been like pools of blue I’d wanted to drown in. And his fingers on my skin had almost burned me alive, but in a good way.

How did a man have an effect like that on me? I hadn’t known anything like that, not even with Marcus, and he was the man I’d intended on having a family with. I sighed. He would call me, he’d said. I wondered what kind of man followed up with a phone call when it wasn’t even a date, if the men in my life usually didn’t even call after a four year relationship together.

“I like Richard,” Trevor said, and the words pierced through my train of thought. “He says he’ll see me again when we get the cast off.”

“That’s great, honey,” I said and turned into our street.

“I want to see him again.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said under my breath and we got out and walked to the dark and empty house together.

Chapter 4- Richard

I phoned her, hoping she would remember who I was, not as the doctor that had asked her out on a whim, but as the gentleman that had been willing to help. I’d been ridiculous asking her out like that. Her dark eyes had drawn me like a magnet, it was like she had this burning flame inside of her that attracted me no matter how hard I fought it.

Her coffee-colored skin was smooth and I wondered what it would feel like, I had resisted the urge that night to touch her and eventually I’d failed. I’d wrapped my fingers around her wrist in the most appropriate way I knew how in public.

She’d felt like a live wire under my fingertips, a current so strong I was still charged with it.

I had just wanted to see her again. The emergency room wasn’t my usual shift. I was scared I’d never have the chance again.

She didn’t look like the private hospital type, anyway. She looked like the kind that could make do with very little, stretch the smallest piece of cloth into a blanket that covered the world. She had a resolve to her that I hadn’t seen in someone for a very long time. It wasn’t the kind of resolve I’d seen in Astrid, the surefooted strut that she would get what she wanted because she pouted enough for it.

It was the kind of strength that she would get back up no matter what tripped her in the first place. I had the idea she’d fallen a lot of times before. It was the kind of strength that said she would get whatever she wanted because she fought for it.

That kind of soldier, that pillar of strength, attracted me. It drew me because it made me feel like that was someone I had to spend more time with. Not the fickle whims of a woman who has been indulged too much in her life.

I sighed and looked in the mirror, straightening the tie before I swore and pulled it off. It wasn’t a date. I’d made that very clear to her. I couldn’t go dressed up like this.

I changed my tailored pants, swapped them for jeans, and unbuttoned the top button of my shirt, rolled up the sleeves. Better. I didn’t look like the wealthy doctor now. I looked like I could be a friend.

A friend. The way her skin had felt under my fingers, the way her body curved and dipped, made me want to be everything but friends.

I’d chosen a restaurant that was out of the way a bit, a place I didn’t usually go to. I didn’t want to run into someone I knew. I didn’t want them to frown down on her because she didn’t have milky white, porcelain skin and bullet proof make-up. I just wanted a night where we could both escape.

I was walking out the door when my phone rang.

“You didn’t give me a date for the lawyer,” she accused. “We have to discuss the settlement.”

I sighed. I didn’t want to think about the pending divorce and all the assets we would have to divide.

“Can we do this later? I’m not really in the mood.”

“Let me come over, we can have some wine and discuss it like friends. We can sort it out easily and by the time we see the lawyer it will be quick.”

“I’m going to decline,” I said flatly. “I’d prefer to talk at the lawyer’s office when we're both present.

”Come on, don’t be like that. Just because we’re separated doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.“

“No, you’re right. The affair you had since before our marriage, that’s the reason we can’t be friends.” I glanced at my wristwatch. I had to go. I was going to be late.

“Why did you talk to the tabloids?” I asked, suddenly remembering the article.

“They asked,” she said like she didn’t care.

“I don’t want our life on the internet, Astrid. You know that.”

“In this era, do we even have a choice?” she asked. There was no point arguing with her. I wondered why I still tried.

“I’m running late for something. I’ll have to talk to you some other time.”

“You never do shifts on a Thursday,” she said. “Are you going out?”

“It doesn’t matter where I’m going. I’m late.” I hung up on her because I didn’t want her asking more questions. I didn’t want her to pry and suggest coming over, or find out where I was going and hang around to make life miserable for me.

Because she had the ability to do that and she used it. Often.

I got in my Audi R8 and turned the ignition, backing out of the driveway. I stopped just before the gate, and shook my head. I pulled the car back into the garage and got out. If she couldn’t afford doctor’s bills it wouldn’t work to arrive in a car like this. Instead I phoned a taxi, and ten minutes later it arrived.

“Cisco’s, please,” I said and the taxi pulled off. I looked at my watch again – almost twenty minutes late already. Dammit.

When the taxi pulled up in front of Cisco’s, Nadine and Trevor sat outside on a bench. Nadine looked like she was nervous. When I peeled out of the taxi she looked visibly relieved. Trevor jumped up and ran to me, holding up the cast that was casting off a pale yellow gleam in the night air.

“Well, look at that,” I said, making a point of admiring the cast.

“I charged it over there,” he said, pointing to the halogen lamp that shone directly over the bench.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” I said to Nadine who had put her hands on Trevor’s shoulders. If it was just a coincidence or if it was to make her hands and body inaccessible for a handshake or a hug, I didn’t know. “You should have gone inside and gotten a table.”

“I wasn’t sure you were going to come,” she said, looking up and down the road. She wore a salmon-colored dress that reached halfway down her thighs and accentuated her full chest with a plain but flattering square neckline. Her lips were painted a glossy pink color to match, and she wore golden earrings and a locket around her neck. I wondered whose photos were in it. Her braided hair was pulled back at the top but spilled over her shoulder in little strings.

“Now why would you think that?” I asked. She shrugged and looked down at Trevor’s hair. It was curling around his ears.

“Shall we?” I asked and gestured for them to walk to the restaurant door. The seating hostess took us to a table in the back corner, close to the children’s play area so Trevor would know how to find us again.

“Tell me what you want to drink, quick,” Nadine said to him. He pointed on the kids’ menu and then he disappeared.

“He was so excited to come out,” she said, smiling after him. “We don’t get to come out often.” She looked up at me quickly. “I’m really busy.”

“I know how that gets. Sometimes I don’t leave my house for any other reason than work for weeks on end.”

She looked like she relaxed although she still wiggled the fork on the napkin in front of her back and forth.

I asked her about her work. She told me about her job, she’d been working at the bohemian-looking place off Maine that Astrid had turned her nose up at so many times. That was the only reason I knew it.

She told me about her studies, about her dreams to open her own place. Every time she finished telling me about something, she looked at me with a question in her eyes, like she expected me to frown on her life. All I could keep thinking was that someone like her had magically managed to beat the odds and kept doing it every day.

She asked me about work and other aspects of my life. I was careful to give her only the facts she needed to know. What she didn’t need to know was anything about Astrid, about the amount of money I earned, about the fact that I didn’t really need to work at all with my parents’ inheritance that became available to me when I’d turned eighteen.

She saw me as a person, not a checkbook. I wanted to keep it that way.

When she laughed, it danced around the room like chimes on the wind. When I spoke about my life, her eyes became big and liquid, like she really cared, and when Trevor came to show me a sticker he’d gotten from the vending machine with the coins I gave him, she smiled from the inside, like sunrise, her eyes beaming so softly.

Her mouth was fascinating. Thick, full lips that caressed every word before it left her mouth, and her teeth were perfect. When she sipped her drink through the straw it made a perfect ‘O’ around it, and I could just imagine what it would be like to kiss her.

As if she read my mind she looked down and her cheeks flushed enough for me to imagine she blushed.

The time passed quickly. Trevor fell asleep on the seat next to her, and she tipped him so his head lay on her lap. We ordered coffee and when it arrived, she wrapped her long fingers around the cup. The steam curled out of it, wrapping around the silence between us.

“We have to get going,” she finally said. “I have to get this little guy in bed for school tomorrow.”

I got the check, and Nadine fished some bills out of her handbag.

“No, please. This is on me.”

“You paid for the hospital bill too,” she pointed out. “All of it. I phoned and asked.”

I shrugged, feeling stupid. Of course she would have noticed I’d paid it all if there were no down payments for her to make.

She stood up, looking frustrated, and scooped Trevor up in her arms. He mumbled something against her shoulder and she looked top-heavy carrying such a big child.

“Here, let me take him for you,” I offered, but she turned away from me.

“I’ve got it,” she said and marched to the door. Outside she walked towards a battered green Volvo and managed to get the back door open with one hand. She shoved an elevated seat to the foot well and got Trevor settled on the backseat with a jacket as a pillow.

“Why are you angry?” I asked. She slammed the door and turned to me, her black eyes hot and hostile. It made her beautiful. That flame inside of her had flared up to a raging furnace. Her movements, fluid and angry, were like poetry. When she spoke her voice was hard and the words sliced through me one by one.

“I don’t know what this is to you, a charity case of some kind to make you feel better about the money you have, or something like that. But I don’t need your help and I sure as shit don’t need your money. The meal was great. I’m grateful you helped out at the hospital, but I don’t need this. Trevor and I have been getting along fine without anyone taking pity on us.”

She turned and marched to the passenger door, but I grabbed her wrist.

“Nadine,” I said. She yanked her wrist out of my hand and glared at me. I held my hands up in defense.

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do anything that made you feel uncomfortable. I just...“

“What? You just what? Thought you’d help the poor single mother because she obviously can’t do anything by herself? Did Dianne say something?”

“What? Dianne? Who the hell… You’ve gotten it all wrong, I just...“

“You’ll be better off without us dragging you down,” she sneered. She wouldn’t let me finish my sentences. All I wanted was to tell her that I helped her because I was attracted to her. That she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen on two legs, and I wanted to give her the world, and the money was the only way I knew how without sounding like a freak. Money was the only language I understood because I’d grown up with it as a way of showing love.

She stood in front of me spewing rage like a volcano, a Valkyrie. So I did the next best thing I could think of. I grabbed her face in my hands, and kissed her full on the mouth.

It was the last thing in the world she expected me to do. She froze under my hands for a moment, and I froze too. If this moment broke and ended in a fist in the mouth, so be it. But she softened in my hands, turning into butter, and her mouth moved against mine, kissing me back.

She sighed into my mouth, and I stepped closer, no longer holding her there, but just holding her.

It changed from warm and gentle to hot and urgent. Her body pressed against mine and I was aware of the swells of her breasts, pressing against my chest. My body responded to her, growing and hardening until I had to shift so it didn’t catch in my pants. My body trembled lightly all over, a shiver that felt like it was coming from her.

Her hand trailed down onto my chest, and I could feel the heat of it through my shirt, burning an imprint into my skin. Her breathing sped up, and the world fell away.

“Mom?” Trevor’s voice was muffled through the car window, but it was enough to break the spell and yank us back down to earth. I let her go and she stepped back like she was floating.

“We’re going to leave now, honey,” she said, turning her face toward the car but her eyes were still locked with mine.

“That’s why,” I said with a hoarse voice. She nodded without saying anything and I opened the car door for her.

“Will you let me know when you’re home safe?” I asked leaning down by the open car window.

“I will,” she said, and smiled. When she drove off, I watched until her red taillights disappeared around the turn. I sighed. It was happening again. I was falling for a woman. I hoped that this time I wasn’t sacrificing so much of myself, because God knew that I couldn’t help it.

Not with her.