The Doctor's Damsel in Distress

No, Madison didn’t want to get hurt either, and it wouldn’t take much for him to hurt her, to leave a crack in her heart to rival the size of the Grand Canyon.

She’d already had more than her fair share of heartbreak and wouldn’t allow any more.

Good thing this time she was the player, not the one who’d end up with a broken heart.

CHAPTER FIVE

MADISON inserted the IV catheter into Mamie Johnson’s arm, attached the appropriate tubing, and taped the line securely in place.

“Sorry about that, Mrs. Johnson,” she apologized, disposing of her latex gloves in the appropriate bin, “but you should feel better soon.”

She punched in the flow rate of the electrolyte-enriched fluid meant to rehydrate the woman who was a frequent flyer thanks to her poorly controlled diabetes and congestive heart failure.

“I’ve had worse,” the woman commented, loosening her grip on the bed sheets. “That numbing agent did help some. Thanks.”

“I’m glad.” Once again giving her patient a visual once-over, she patted the woman’s frail, bruised hand. “I’ll be back to check on you, but if you need anything before I return, just hit the nurse call button.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” The woman picked up her remote control and flicked through television stations, pausing on a daytime talk show about women who slept with their sister’s husbands.

“You get ’er, girl,” Mrs. Johnson urged the betrayed wife, who was giving her sister her comeuppance.

Madison bit back a smile at her patient’s fist waving in the

air. At least the elderly woman was finally showing some interest in something. Assured that her patient wasn’t in distress, she went to check on her next patient.

Her cellphone beeped in her scrub top pocket, indicating a text message. When she checked the message, she saw it was from Levi. Canceling their plans for dinner. Something unexpected had come up and he was no longer free for the evening. Could he please have a rain-check? Her vision darkened, flashbacks to Simon canceling their plans, often by an impersonal text message, hit her hard.

Slipping her cell back into her pocket, Madison sighed.

Could Levi have a rain-check? No, she wasn’t so sure he could. She wasn’t going to ride this emotional roller-coaster.

If she was the player, shouldn’t she be the one canceling plans? Not the one feeling utterly disappointed that he’d called off dinner? And she was feeling utterly disappointed, which was so un-player-like.

Continuing to see Levi was asking for pain down the road, pain that once again made her the victim. It was a given. If she spent time with Levi, she would end up hurt, but perhaps the ride there would be worth whatever pain she endured? After all, the man did it for her. As in one look at him and she wanted to take a long, long drink to quench a thirst she hadn’t even known she’d had.

Still, even if she was a lousy player—hey, she was new at this player thing—she didn’t want to be someone’s rain-check girl. Somebody’s victim. Didn’t she deserve better than a text message canceling their plans? Maybe she was technologically challenged, but she just didn’t see a text message as an appropriate way to cancel a date—if dinner had been going to be a date.

Yes, she deserved much better than that, and she was going to tell him so.

On Friday morning, Madison saved Mr. Ridge for last, hoping Levi would be finished making his rounds when she went in to take his vitals. She’d barely seen him, just a few glimpses here and there since Monday.

Brief glimpses because she’d done her best to avoid him, had even swapped his patients to another nurse. Mr. Ridge had been the only one of Levi’s patients she hadn’t traded off.

Levi hadn’t responded to her text that she preferred a man to call her to cancel dinner plans and that if he couldn’t pay her that courtesy, then, no, he couldn’t have a rain-check.

No text message. No phone call. Nothing.

She’d considered texting him to say that she also preferred a man who didn’t ignore her messages, but she’d refrained. What would be the point? It wasn’t as if he’d ever cash in that rain-check now, but she’d made her point. She wasn’t a doormat waiting for some man to wipe his muddy boots on her.

Not even one as gorgeous as Levi. Even if he had saved her life. And been the best company ever at the pizza parlor. And was so gorgeous that just looking at him made her thighs clench together.

Speaking of thigh-clenchers, Levi was in the room with his patient and Mr. Ridge’s daughter. Great. She should have taken a while longer before checking on Mr. Ridge.

No, she needed to take care of her patient. Even if that meant coming face to face with the man she most wanted to avoid.

Wanted to avoid because deep down she wanted nothing more than to soak in every aspect of the hunky doctor before her.

She forced her gaze to assess her patient first, then turned to his daughter. The fiftyish woman looked tired from her stay of more than a week with her father at the hospital, but fortunately the feeble-appearing man had improved tremendously since his downturn on Monday.