Saved By Doctor Dreamy. Dianne Drake

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       CHAPTER THREE

      “HOW WAS YOUR gout patient?” Damien asked Juliette on his way back into the hospital. She was coming out of the clinic, looking somewhat perplexed. “It was gout, wasn’t it?”

      “It was gout,” Juliette confirmed. “I was concerned about his age, though. He seems too young to be afflicted with it.”

      “I thought so, too, but the people here live hard lives. They age faster than normal.”

      “And he’s had a complete physical?”

      “Before he presented with gout symptoms?” Damien shook his head. “Getting people around here to submit to physicals when they don’t have any particular symptoms isn’t easy, but about six months ago Señor Mendez did come in. Nothing out of the ordinary turned up.”

      “Well, I gave him aspirin like you told me to. But there was something else going on. I think Señor Mendez was high on some kind of drug. At least, that’s the way he seemed. Slurred speech, slow movements. Do you know if he indulges?”

      Damien laughed. “A lot of the locals indulge. I’m surprised Señor Mendez would, though. He’s pretty straight. Doesn’t drink that I know of. Doesn’t do drugs—at least, I didn’t think he did. And, even if he did, it surprises me that he would go out in public that way because he’s a very polite, private, gentle man who spends every last penny he has to support his family. But I guess you never know what goes on behind closed doors, do you?”

      “Is it really that common around here?”

      “Ganja—marijuana—is cheap, and easily available.”

      “So what do you do if they come in here stoned?”

      “Treat them for what they came in for, and ignore the rest. I’m just the doctor here. I don’t get involved in anything else.”

      “Then you won’t report him?”

      “If he’s not bothering me, there’s no reason to. My personal policy is, if someone needs help they get help, in spite of all the external factors that might otherwise cause problems. In other words, if he’s stoned, you treat him, anyway. The rest of it’s none of my business.”

      “That’s decent of you.”

      “I aim to be decent to my patients. They’ve got enough hardships to face in their daily lives without me adding to them.”

      “But do you condone it?”

      “Nope. I’m a law-abiding citizen wherever I go, and the Costa Rican law makes ganja illegal, so I respect that.”

      “Then you, personally, don’t indulge?”

      “Never have, never will. Don’t smoke, either. Drink only in moderation. Work out regularly. Eat a balanced diet. You know, all good things for my body.” A body that seemed to be aging too quickly since he’d come to Costa Rica. Of course, that was about the hard work here. So were the new creases in his face and the pair of glasses he was now forced to wear any time he wanted to read. Most people wouldn’t consider him old, as he overtook his thirty-sixth birthday in a few weeks. But some days he just felt old—older than dirt. “Keeps me in good working condition.”

      “Well, I just wanted to let you know the condition of your patient.”

      “And I appreciate that. But I’m not really concerned about it. At least, not right now.”

      “When does that point change for you, Damien?”

      “When I see someone’s drug use as a potential danger to themselves or others. That’s when I’ll step in. But again, only as a doctor.”

      “We always had to note it in our chart at the hospital,” she said. “And if it was too bad, we were supposed to alert Security.”

      “Did you ever?”

      “Once. Then I had regrets, because he really wasn’t that bad. But I was new, still blindly loyal to hospital policy, probably more so than to the patient. Of course, that changed pretty quickly, the more involved I became with my patients.”

      “So you were a true, big hospital loyalist?”

      “Still am. But I’m more practical about it now. But you’ve got to understand that I was raised by a true hospital loyalist—the chief of staff, and those were the kinds of concerns he always brought home with him. What was best for the hospital was always his main concern, right after the kind of patient care we were giving.”

      “So your daddy’s a big shot in a big hospital?” Given her rich girl background, that didn’t surprise him.

      “That’s one way of putting it, I suppose. But to me he was always just my dad. A man who went to work, worked long, hard hours and came home to tuck me in every night. It never occurred to me that he was so important in terms of an entire medical community until I was probably ten or eleven and he took me to work with him to see what he did during the day.”

      “Did it impress you?”

      “Not so much then. I think I was more impressed by all the desserts in the cafeteria than I was by my father’s position in the hospital. Of course, the older I got the more I realized just what a big deal he was.”

      “But you have no aspirations for something like that for yourself?”

      “I had my shot at it. Dad offered me a promotion into administration a couple of months ago.”

      “So let me guess. You chose Costa Rica instead. Was it to run away from Daddy?” Probably her first real act of rebellion in a very laid-out life.

      “You say that like it was a derogatory thing to do.”

      “Was it?” he asked her.

      Juliette shook her head. “I like to think of Costa Rica as something СКАЧАТЬ