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“Back to normal.”
“That’s good to hear.” They sounded pathetic, like strangers making small talk.
“I met her mother today.”
“Jamie?” she asked, wondering why she sounded so surprised. James would have met her when she’d picked up Cindy. “How’s she?”
“Not nearly as well as her daughter.”
Melissa could believe that. Jamie didn’t have the resources to cope well with the problems she faced.
“We talked for a long time. She told me everything you’ve done.”
Heat burned Melissa’s cheeks. “Just doing my job.”
“No.” He brushed his palms down his thighs, looking pensive. “You’ve done much more than that, much more than most doctors would have, and we both know it.”
He sounded so sincere, so full of praise rather than condemnation that Melissa found it hard to swallow.
“One day of working at the clinic and your disposition about my patients has totally changed?” She regarded him suspiciously. “I don’t buy it.”
“My disposition hasn’t changed.” He didn’t bat an eyelash. “I think you work too hard and too much.”
“Did my small-town practice bore you to tears?” Another one of those moments when she wondered why she hadn’t held her tongue. They were having a decent enough conversation. Why purposely bait him?
“You’d ask me that after airlifting a ruptured aortic aneurysm?” he snorted, then gave a slow smile. “Surprisingly, even beyond Bob Woods, it didn’t.”
Surprising indeed.
“Why did you get someone to cover for you today?”
James’s smile faded and his eyes narrowed. He considered her for a long time. “I got my class covered because when you didn’t answer my calls last night, I got worried.”
“And drove to Sawtooth in the middle of the night?”
“I kept trying here and your cell phone. It was when I still couldn’t get you after midnight that I got worried, arranged for someone to cover the rest of my ER shift.”
“You were working last night?”
He nodded. “Why didn’t you answer your cell phone? I know you keep that thing on you at all times.”
Usually she did keep the p
hone near her, but she hated carrying it because of possible radiation to the baby. There was too much controversy on the subject to take a chance. She’d gotten into the habit of leaving it on her desk.
“I turned it to vibrate so it wouldn’t wake Cindy, then didn’t hear it vibrating when you called.”
“You scared me.”
By the dark look in his eyes, she could tell he had feared for her safety. “I’d have called if something happened, James.”
“If you could call.”
She gave a nervous laugh. “Don’t be so melodramatic. I’m fine. I was fine last night.”
“There was nothing fine about you last night. You were exhausted and risking your health, our baby’s health, and that of your patient.”
“My patient is fine. You said so yourself.”
