Love on Call by Shirley Hailstock Page A

no dependents. She was composed and efficient and her presence had a calming effect on the patients. The nurses knew that. And Brad was beginning to think they abused it.
    â€œMallory never refuses,” Dana said.
    Brad moved to the computer behind the nurse. He pulled up the computerized schedule that the printout had been taken from. Looking at the history, he verified what Dana had said. Mallory was called three times more often than the other residents.
    â€œWell, she’s about to get some R and R,” Brad stated, his voice low. Dana stopped adding pills to small white cups and stared at him. Brad ignored her. She knew he rarely intervened in the administration of the hospital, but any doctor would be concerned about overworking a resident. “If these schedules are correct, she’s been working way too many hours.”
    â€œThey’re correct. I tried to tell her to take it easy, but I think that incident with Wayne Mason scared her more than she lets on.”
    Brad was keenly interested. “What do you mean?”
    â€œShe is tired a lot, more so since the incident than before.”
    â€œSome days she’s bright and well-rested, and others she’s tired and withdrawn,” Brad stated.
    â€œExactly,” Dana agreed. “She’s my friend, but I’ll tell you what I think.”
    Brad waited for her to continue. He was anxious to hear it.
    â€œI think she’s having nightmares about that guy.”
    It was plausible, Brad realized, and it would explain his own observations. Being a doctor meant having a certain level of fatigue, but Mallory’s ups and downs seemed a little more than what was expected. Brad couldn’t say he’d noticed any tiredness in her when he’d had her in his arms. But she had been drinking coffee when she picked him up, and at his house they had more. Existing on caffeine wasn’t good for anyone. Mallory Russell was burning out.
    â€œHave you asked her about Wayne Mason?”
    Dana nodded. “She says she’s fine. That she doesn’t even think about him or that night.” The nurse lowered her voice as if the two of them were coconspirators. “But I’m sure that isn’t the truth. How could someone not be affected by a crazed addict holding a knife to your throat?” She moved her hand to her own throat protectively.
    Brad saw the logic in Dana’s words, but something didn’t sit right with him. He’d seen Mallory up close and she didn’t appear to be nervous or afraid, traits he would expect in someone suffering from stress.
    He remembered holding Mallory in his arms, smelling the scent of her perfume and that indefinable fragrance that was her. Remembered her mouth onhis. Her softness as he’d held her…. Quickly he threw cold water on those thoughts. Dana Baldwin was more observant than the other nurses and he didn’t want any rumors starting about him and Mallory. Since there was no basis for them.
    Do you want there to be? The question came unbidden. Brad didn’t have time to think about it now. He went back to the computer screen. He checked Mallory’s efficiency level, finding it consistently high. Whatever was bothering her wasn’t affecting her performance. According to the computer timetable, the night she’d picked him up at the police station she’d worked three hours past her schedule. Then she’d stayed up all night with him and been called in the next day.
    Obviously the woman didn’t know how to say no—that is, to anyone but him.
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    Mallory pulled her jacket off the hanger in the doctor’s lounge and pushed her arms through it. She slammed the door to her locker and spun the combination lock.
    â€œWho the hell does he think he is?” she muttered on the way to her car. A week. She was ordered to stay out of the hospital for a week. What would happen to her patients? Not the ones in the regular rooms; there