Dianne Drake - Saved By Doctor Dreamy

“Then where do you sleep?” she asked him.

“In a hut next door. Another one-room setup. Not as nice as the hospital, though.”

Juliette cringed. “I hate to ask, but where will I stay when I’m here?”

Ah, yes. The first test. No sheets, no bed—no room of her own. This is where it began, he supposed. Or ended. “Well, I’ve got two choices. You could stay here in the hospital, use an empty bed and hope we don’t get so busy you’ll have to give it up. We’ll partition it off for you to give you some privacy. And the perk there is that the hospital has running water, a shower, a bathroom. Or, if you don’t like that idea, you can shack with me. And the drawbacks there are—I don’t have running water, don’t have a bathroom or a shower. I have to come into the hospital for all that. Oh, and rumor has it that I might snore.” He cringed, waiting for what he believed would be the inevitable.

“So if I choose your hut, I’d be what? Sleeping in bed with you?”

“No, I’m a little more gentlemanly than that. I’d give you the bed, and I’d take the floor.” Said with some forced humor, since humor was all he had to offer at the moment.

“But in the same room?”

“Kind of like the student years, when you’d crash in the on-call room, no matter who was sleeping next to you. You did sleep in an on-call, didn’t you?” Somehow, he could picture Juliette as the type who would lock the on-call door behind her and keep the room all to herself.

“I did,” she said hesitantly. “When I had to.”

“So let me guess. You didn’t like it.”

“It was necessary, when I was pulling twenty-four-hour shifts. But did I like it? Not particularly.”

“How did I know that?” he asked, still waiting for the curtain to fall on this little act he was putting on. Who was he kidding here? Girls accustomed to silk sheets liked silk. And he sure as hell didn’t have anything silk.

“You didn’t know that,” she said, expelling an exasperated sigh. “You’re just into making snap judgments about me. All of them negative. Do you ever see anything positive in any situation, Damien?”

Maybe she was right. Maybe he was so used to looking for the negative that he wouldn’t recognize a ray of something positive if it walked right up and slapped him in the face. Damn, he didn’t mean to be like that. But something about Juliette poked at him. It was almost like he was trying to push her away. From what? He had no clue. “Look, I’ll try to be more positive, OK?”

“Don’t put yourself out on my account. I’m a big girl. I can take it.” She squared herself up to her full five-foot-six frame and stared him down. “And I think I’ll just stay in the hospital, all things considered.” Narrowing her eyes, she went on, “I hate snoring. And, just for the record, Damien, you’re not going to scare me off. I came here so I could stay better in touch with patient care, and I don’t intend to back out of it, no matter how hard you’re trying to push me away.”

“I’m not trying to push you away,” he defended.

“Sure you are. Don’t know why, don’t particularly care. Just let me do my job here, and we’ll get along. OK?”

Well, she certainly was driven. He liked that. Liked it a lot. “Look, if you want privacy, you can have my hut on the weekends you’re here, and I’ll stay in the hospital.”

“The weekends I’m here will be every weekend.”

“You’re sure of that? Because it’s a long, tough drive to get here, and I don’t have anything to make your life, or your work, easier when you’re here.”

“I’m adaptable, Damien. I’ll make do.”

He wanted to trust that she would. “Look, we can finish talking about your housing options later on, over dinner. But, right now, Señor Mendez is waiting in the clinic. Remember, gout? Oh, and I’m going to go make a house call. I have a patient who’s a week over her due date, and she’s getting pretty anxious to have her baby.”

“Borrow my car. Take her for a ride on that bumpy road into town. That should induce something.”

So she had a sense of humor. Even though she made her offer with a straight face, Damien laughed. “Might work better if I borrow a cart and a donkey from one of the locals.”

“They actually have donkey carts here?” she asked in full amazement.

“It’s called traveling in style. A modern convenience if the cart is fairly new and the donkey is reasonably young.” He stopped himself short of ridiculing the kind of car she probably had back home. A sleek sports model, most likely. Shiny and silver. Convertible. Her hair let down from its ponytail and blowing in the breeze. Nope, he had to stop this. It was going too far, almost daydreaming about her the way he was. “Anyway, I’ll probably be back before you’re done with Señor Mendez’s toe.”

“Will Alegria be able to unlock the medicine cabinet for me?”

Before he answered, he fished through the pocket of his khaki cargo shorts until he found a key. “Here, take mine. Just make sure you give it back before you leave here—when? Sunday night? Monday morning?”

“Haven’t decided yet. I guess it will depend on the workload.”

He dropped the key into her outstretched hand. “Well, next time I get to Cima de la Montaña I’ll have a key made for you.” Provided she lasted that long. In a lot of ways, he hoped she did because, in spite of himself, and especially in spite of all his doubts, he liked her.

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