Needed: Full-Time Father (Medical Romance) by Carol Marinelli Read Free Book Online Page A

pain could be genuine.
    ‘You’ve lied today, Judith, and yesterday, too…’ Holding up the bottles of medicine Max had handed her, Madison showed them to her patient. ‘These drugs have been prescribed from doctors hundreds of kilometres away, so how can you expect me to believe that you’re telling the truth?’
    ‘I tried over and over to get seen locally using my own name. I was in agony and no one believed me, so I knew I had to go where they didn’t know me.’
    ‘So you got up to your old tricks?’ Madison asked, but it was entirely without bitterness. Her brow furrowed as she tried to assess her patient, tried to imagine the desperate measures a woman like Judith would go to to get seen by a doctor.
    ‘I had no choice,’ Judith begged. ‘I was in agony, my stomach was killing me.’ Her voice was rising in hysteria, her hands clutching Madison’s, begging her to believe her—again.
    ‘Judith, I’m going to do your observations.’ Madison’s voice in contrast was calm. She attached Judith to the blood-pressure machine, checked her pulse and temperature, and noted that it was low. But Judith’s temperature had been low before, courtesy of a plug of wax in her ear to give an abnormal reading. In the past blood tests had revealed abnormally high levels of caffeine in her system to produce a racing pulse. She’d once even strategically taped stones to her body to give on X-ray the appearance of renal colic. Over and over Judith had abused the system, over and over she’d begged the staff to believe that this time she really meant it, that this time she wasn’t crying wolf. And she’d been believed.
    ‘I’m going to get a doctor to see you, Judith, but you need to be honest. You need to say exactly what has happened. Don’t try to make things up or exaggerate your symptoms—just tell the truth.’
    Stepping out of the cubicle, Madison scanned the department, instantly disregarding two of the more junior doctors. Whether or not Judith was playing games, anexperienced doctor was needed, and the only one in view right now was Guy Boyd, who was carefully examining an X-ray of a child’s elbow, his long fingers tracing the outline, then turning it around to get a different angle. Even though he was the obvious choice, because of what had happened yesterday Madison didn’t want to go to him. She wanted to avoid contact with him as much as possible, embarrassed that she had let down her guard a touch. For some reason he made her feel exposed and vulnerable, and for a woman as in control as Madison, that wasn’t something she wanted to feel.
    But the patient had to come first and right now Guy was the man for the job.
    ‘Where,’ Guy asked dryly as Madison joined him at the viewing box, ‘did patients go before this place opened? I can’t believe we’re full.’
    ‘I was thinking the same,’ Madison admitted. ‘It’s the same with shopping centres.’
    ‘Shopping centres?’
    ‘A new one opens and within a couple of days the lines at the checkout are full, there are people spilling out of cafés. I always wonder where they did their shopping previously.’ She was chatting idly while jotting down her own observations about Judith, being very careful to be objective with her findings, to push aside the appalling history of the patient. ‘Can you see a patient for me?’
    ‘Actually, I’m seeing five at the moment.’ Guy grimaced. ‘Is it anything very urgent?’
    ‘I’m not sure,’ Madison admitted. Guy turned away from the X-ray he was looking at, hearing the concern in her voice. ‘Judith’s particularly difficult. She was one of the regulars at my old hospital, and a few more besides.’ She held out the card for him to see if he recognised the name but Guy shook his head.
    ‘Unless she’s been to a hospital in India recently, I won’t recognise her…’
    ‘I wouldn’t put it past Judith,’ Madison joked weakly.
    ‘Is she a hospital-hopper?’
    ‘One of the best,’