Saved By The Doctor (BWWM Romance) (7 page)

He shook his head. “No. Just incredibly flattered.” He turned to look right at her. “Now, if only you could paint me. Then I think I really would be on top of the world.”

An infestation of butterflies had thus invaded Jackie's stomach. She was at a complete loss of defense. “I could...” The words slipped Jackie's mouth and before she knew it, she had committed to something she didn't even want to back out of.

He gently placed the painting back, then turned to face her. “Alas,” he replied with a sigh, “I don't pose without a date first.”

Jackie raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said you'd never met a painter before me.”

He shrugged. “I've got to get you to come out with me somehow,” he replied, leaning into her. 

Jackie shot him a blank stare, standing her ground. “I'm not going to date my doctor,” she murmured. Their lips were almost touching.

“Well, then I'll just have to keep trying,” he replied, his eyes cast down in a gaze set directly for Jackie's mild pucker.

Her breathing came in hard and heavy as goose bumps covered her skin. “I think you should go.”

He stepped away from her, a look of confusion darkening his face.

Jackie just shrugged. She couldn't afford to lose control of herself.

Chapter Seven

Jackie shoved the phone back into its jack on the dirty wall of the loud kitchen where she worked. She stopped only to swipe the thin layer of beading sweat off of her forehead then turned to find dishes stacked all the way down the food line. Servers were darting in and out of the kitchen, dropping empty plates and picking up checkbooks but none of them so much as looked at the line. Jackie's face fell. She was in between people on her only empty table and her other four tables were full of people who had just gotten their entrees. She had plenty of time to run food... but she didn't want to.

“Rib-eye with asparagus?” she called as soon as she slammed the heavy tray down on the stand in front of a particularly relaxed family on the patio.

A man, who was clearly the head of the table, raised a finger at her.

Jackie set the plate down then proceeded to hand all the other dishes out. Once everyone looked satisfied with the dishes they were staring at, Jackie whipped out her flashlight to illuminate the man's steak. However, as he continued to examine it, a frown set in.

His wife, who sat at the other end of the table, stared wide-eyed at him, as if terrified by what would come out of his mouth next. “Uhm... is this a medium rare to you?” he demanded.

Jackie pursed her lips. She was about to get blamed for someone else's mistake. She pasted her best smile on and braced herself for the worst. “I'm sorry, is that too cooked for you?” she demanded in the nicest voice she could muster.

He glowered at her. “Where I come from, a medium rare steak is pink in the middle.” He gashed through his piece of meat and pried it open. “Does that look pink to you?” he demanded.

Jackie blinked twice. The steak was as pink as it could possibly get. “No, sir. I don't know what they're up to back there, but that is definitely not pink.”

He huffed a quick breath, the fork and knife trembling in his shaking hands. “It's like the people that work here are blind.”

Jackie held her breath to keep herself from retaliating.

“I like to taste my meat... not the char off the grill.”

That was it. Jackie was cutting him off. “Say no more, sir. I will get this fixed for you as soon as possible.”

The man set his jaw. “Of course you will.”

As Jackie raced back into the main dining room, her jaw set and her head still turning from that immensely annoying altercation, the hostess, a 22-year old girl with a nice smile, stopped her in her tracks. “Jackie!” she called, “You have another table.”
 

Jackie gave her a short nod, but walked right past her section to the manager's office in the back of the dining room right before the kitchen. “Jeff, I need you to comp a rib-eye and send in a new one.”

He dropped his pen, took off his glasses and looked right at her. “Why?” he demanded.

“Because a man out there wants his steak raw,” she snapped, before turning around.

“Wait!”

Jackie stopped.

“I meant to tell you. Your mother called.”

Jackie's eyes went wide. As she was supposed to be watching Laila, it couldn't be a good sign. “What did she want?” she demanded.

Jeff shrugged. “I didn't ask.”

Jackie's heart immediately began to race as she dropped the plate on Jeff's desk and sat across from him, grabbing his phone.

“What are you doing?”

Jackie glowered at him. “It's probably about my daughter, Jeff. I can't ignore this.”

“Jackie,” Jeff snapped.

It took everything in her not to roll her eyes. “Just go greet my table, Jeff.”

He shook his head, but got up anyway. “You're killing me, Jackie.”

“Touché,” she muttered as she listened to the phone ring.

“Hello!” It was her mother's frantic voice, barely audible over the sound of Laila's crying.

Jackie's eyes stung and her toes tingled. “Oh God! Mom! What's wrong? Where are you? Why is Laila crying?” she hissed.

“Baby, I don't know what's wrong with the poor child. She was complaining; saying she had a headache, so I gave her some Motrin and it didn't go away. When I finally took her temperature, it was over 103...”

“Oh God, she has a fever!” Jackie replied. “Where are you right now? I'm coming,” she demanded.

“We're on our way to Bellevue,” her mother answered.

“Okay,” Jackie hung up the phone and ran to find Jeff, all the while thinking of every possible illness her daughter could have, from the flu to the Black Death. She ran out of his office and down the short hallway, ignoring her table and all the other servers until she arrived at the front desk, where Jeff stood leaned over talking to that hostess. “I have to leave,” she demanded.

He slowly stood up and looked at her. “I'm sorry?” he murmured, as if he hadn't heard her correctly.

He had. “I have to go to the hospital. My daughter has a raging fever,” Jackie continued, keeping her explanation short so that she could get out as soon as possible.

“Isn't your mother with her?” he asked, his face contorted into an unapologetic wince.

“I still need to be there, I'm her mother.” Jackie pressed.

“You've got five tables going right now,” Jeff argued.

Jackie cocked her head to the side, shaking it slowly and wondering how the hell anyone gets to be so jaded. “Jeff, if it was yours...” she trailed off, referencing his college-aged daughter.

He heaved a heavy sigh then turned his face away from her. “Fine. Go.”

But Jackie was already slipping out of her apron and running out of the door before he could even finish that phrase. She hailed a taxi in under two minutes, screaming her destination at the driver and sitting at the edge of her seat, giving him minute-by-minute suggestions on how to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. Soon enough, the cab driver stopped in front of the crowded drop-off lane at the hospital. “Thank you!” she yelled as she threw two twenties at him and darted out of the cab.

Her heart began to pound again as she ran through the double doors and put in her daughter's name. After being told she was in the emergency room, Jackie's anxiety hit a new frenzy. She was seeing in blurring doubles as worried tears streamed down her face. She couldn't imagine how she would feel, or what she would do, if anything bad happened to Laila. At that moment, when she pushed open the heavy double doors of the emergency room and found herself staring at the image of her daughter, lying on her back and covered in ice, with three doctors scurrying around her, squealing things to each other like little mice. She realized that the Universe could snatch her little baby away from her in one fail swoop, and that there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it.

Before she could take another step, she felt a hand on the small of her back. She turned to find herself staring at her menace... and her dream: Dr. Allan Chase. “What happened to her?” he breathed, his voice, his eyes, his very breath a measure of profound concern.

Jackie stepped away from him. The last thing she wanted was for him to see her vulnerable yet again and without her life together. She couldn't believe he had popped up yet again. It was after hours and he was only in internal medicine. Jackie could think of nothing to do then to express her utter frustration at this whole situation. “What are you doing here!” she cried.

His mouth hung slight ajar as he shrugged. “I heard...” his voice trailed off as Laila's piercing scream ran through the room.

“It hurts!” she screeched.

Jackie ran towards her child, but couldn't get much closer than the tight radius the three rats had made. “Jacquelyn.” She turned to find her mother standing next to her, her face a mirror of her worry.

Jackie threw her hands around her mother's neck. “Mom, what's going on?” she cried. Out of her peripherals, she saw Allan rush around to the other side of her bed, snapping his gloves on his hands.

She shook her head. “I don't know, baby. We were watching TV and she said she didn't feel very well. Then her fever really kicked in. I think she picked at her stitches and they got infected.”

Jackie's eyes went wide. “She what?” she demanded.

But one of the doctors turned to face her. “We've given her a cocktail of meds and something to help her sleep.”

At that, Jackie looked around the man's shoulder to find that she had indeed calmed a bit. Her eyes were still wide and she was still shaking beyond all relief, but she seemed to be in less pain. Yet, one look at her leg and Jackie knew exactly why she had calmed down. Allan had taken hold of her. He had spread what looked like an anesthetic medication on the swollen area around it and begun to pull up the stitches. The edges of her lips pulled themselves into a weak smile as she allowed all of her anxiety to melt away. She couldn't help but to notice that she actually felt safe around Allan, that it was more emotional work for her to keep him away, than it was to just let him in.

By the time he had finished fixing her wound, all the other doctors had drifted away and Laila had fallen asleep. The next thing she knew, he was slipping off his dirty gloves and walking towards her again. Jackie had to resist the urge to wrap her arms around him and give him a grateful kiss on the cheek. “I can't believe you whisked in again,” she breathed, her eyes slipping above his shoulder to her daughter.

He shrugged. “It was nothing. I was just finishing up some paperwork and it was a slow night. So when I heard the alarms, I had to come see what was going on. I'm sorry it had to be you.”

Jackie frowned. “Well, one thing you'll learn about me is that it's always me.”

Allan chuckled at this then followed her gaze to her daughter. Jackie's mother had come back from the 24-hour cafeteria with a cup of yogurt and was sitting on the edge of her bed, staring right at her as she ate it.

“But seriously, though. What do you think happened?” Jackie asked.

“Well,” Allan started. Jackie could tell from the sound of his voice that he was trying extra hard not to make it seem like it was her fault; that she should have been watching Laila herself or whatever other things doctors seem to come up with all the time. “She seems to have picked at her stitches. They got infected, which is what happened with the fever.”

“But she should be okay now?” Jackie asked as she watched her mother run her hands over her daughter's face.

Allan nodded. “She should be okay,” he replied.

Jackie released a deep sigh of relief. “Okay,” she breathed, before turning to look at her daughter again.

She could tell from her peripheral vision that Allan was looking directly at her. “I don't know how to ask you this...” he trailed off and Jackie began to think the worst.

“What?” she asked, turning her gaze on him.