His Bidding (The Best Medicine #1) by Ella Blythe Read Free Book Online

more curt nod, Brynn left his office, gripping the two bags of Chinese food as though her life depended on them. She sat alone in the staff room and wolfed down a bit more of her microwaved dim sum, feeling as though she was sleepwalking. And that was how the rest of her day went: business as usual, dictated by Sam’s completely normal manner from the minute Maureen had returned, and that strange feeling of dissociation from everything she did.
    At day’s end, Brynn debated going in to wrap things up, as she always did with whoever was on call, but it felt inappropriate somehow today. Awkward, to use Sam’s earlier word. Instead, as the last patient walked out the front door and Maureen went to lock up right behind the man, Brynn found herself lingering over files at the front desk. She was flipping through charts without absorbing anything she saw when Maureen came back. The girl gave her a quizzical look, and without meeting her gaze Brynn felt her cheeks color again.
    “I’m really sorry,” Maureen said.
    “For what? I thought the day went pretty well.” Brynn was still avoiding looking up, and tried to appear deeply interested in the patient notes that were in front of her.
    Maureen cleared her throat, much the way Sam had earlier. “I...think I interrupted something earlier.” She paused. “I know it’s none of my business, but...”
    Now Brynn looked up. She dreaded what Maureen was going to put out there, but some small part of her sort of wanted to unburden herself, even just a little bit.
    “...you’ve got a thing for him, don’t you?”
    Fighting the urge to say that was the understatement of the century, Brynn swallowed, her mouth feeling very dry. “That obvious?”
    Maureen smiled. “Pretty obvious, yeah. But if it makes you feel any better, he’s way more obvious about it than you are.”
    Brynn felt her eyes widen in surprise. “What?”
    “Well...he likes you. I mean, he really likes you. Like that.” Maureen blushed for no apparent reason, one hand twirling a braid. “And he’s not nearly as good at hiding it as you are.”
    Surprise moved aside to make room for a slight surge of giddiness. “Do you think?” She realized they were talking on a level that was below even her young coworker’s age category, but aside from Lisa, she’d had nobody to talk to about this, and Lisa had never been in a position to drop a bombshell about Sam’s supposed returning of her affection. This was a welcome change of pace. She liked feeling innocent and free again, though she was mindful of not letting on about the charity ball discussion.
    “He’s different when you’re here,” Maureen said, taking a seat behind her desk and swiveling around, looking as happy to engage in schoolyard gossip as Brynn felt. “I mean, not that he’d act the same with Nurse Gollum, anyway, but...I mean, really different.”
    Nurse Gollum. Brynn laughed. It hadn’t been lost on her that the woman who worked here during the shifts Brynn didn’t take was no threat to her, in terms of her job or as far as any possible romantic entanglements were concerned. She was a tall, bony woman approaching sixty years old, with a tight grey bun and terrible posture, with a bedside manner to match. “I always wondered what she must’ve done to get her job. I never met the old doctor who sold this place to Sa–“ She bit her tongue. “Dr. Hitchens.”
    “You can call him Sam, you know,” Maureen said with a giggle. “It’s pretty much accepted. Even if he didn’t have a crush on you, I think he’d be fine with it.” The girl raised an eyebrow. “And I think you can probably call me Mo now, since we’ve started talking about this kind of thing.”
    The two laughed together, and Brynn leaned back to half-sit on the desk. “Mo it is. How do you know so much? You’re just a kid!”
    “I’ve been around.” Mo blushed. “Ew. That’s not how I meant it.”
    Brynn dissolved into giggles. “I know it isn’t. But