A Boss Beyond Compare. Dianne Drake

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СКАЧАТЬ its patients, too? Look out there.” He pointed to the gardens just off the end of the lanai, where Laka was helping an elderly woman take a walk down the path. The woman shuffled along on a walker, doing fairly well, actually, and Laka walked along with her, keeping a steadying hand on the woman’s back. “Her name is Pearl. Replaced hip. Aged eighty-nine. How would she fare in one of your clinics?”

      “We have rehab facilities—”

      “She lives at home, Susan. Not in a rehab facility. Laka, or one of the other clinic workers, goes over there twice a day to help Pearl walk. She’s living at home, where she’s happy and comfortable. We send meals over from the clinic, too. All Pearl needs is a little assistance, and I can promise you that if we were to send her to a rehab facility, she’d give up and die. For her, staying at home means everything so that’s what we’re helping her do, and she’s allowed her life and her dignity. It works out for us, too, as when we have children in the pediatric wards, she comes over to read stories to them. Or if we have babies staying here, she spends time sitting and rocking them, and singing to them when their parents can’t be here. It’s a valuable relationship, Susan, and I’m betting you don’t have anything that personal in any of the Ridgeway facilities, do you?”

      His voice was softening now, going from anger to…well, it could have been pride because there was a lot here to be proud about. But maybe it was love. Grant did love this clinic, and he had a passion for the way medicine was practiced here. Watching Pearl make her way along the path for a moment, Susan finally shifted her gaze back to Grant. “No, we don’t, and I’m sorry. It would be nice to think that we could do something like that, but the truth is, when you have a hundred facilities to look after, it just can’t be that way.”

      “Meaning the individual patient doesn’t matter.”

      “Oh, the individual patient always matters, which is why we operate the way we do. We strive to give the best care to everybody who comes through our doors, but it’s just not so…”

      “Personal,” Grant supplied.

      “It’s nice to have an ideal, Grant,” Susan said, standing. It was time to leave. Truly, she did feel bad for what would of necessity happen at this little clinic, but it wasn’t under her control. Somebody other than Grant was selling the place, and if she and her father didn’t buy it, someone else would. Judging from the beautiful land on which it sat, that someone else might not be a company vested with medical interests. This would be the perfect place for a plush resort, or luxury condos… She wondered if Grant could see that handwriting on the wall, because it was written everywhere. Property this beautiful was scarce, and if Ridgeway didn’t seal the deal…well, she didn’t even want to think about the possibilities. “And I wish you well in yours. I’m sorry this won’t be turning out the way you’d like it to, but I really don’t make the deals. I just oversee the medical operations.”

      “You don’t seem like the type,” he said, as she stepped away from the table.

      “And what type is that?” she asked, starting to bristle again.

      “Corporate.”

      “And what is the corporate type supposed to seem like?”

      “Not like you. Out there on the beach, when that boy drowned…the way you took it so hard…”

      “I’m not unfeeling, Grant. I went to medical school just like you did, went through the same medical service rotations, learned the same procedures, dealt with the same kind of patients. And even though we don’t agree on anything that Ridgeway Medical does, it’s not fair to characterize me the way you’re doing. Saying that I can’t care, or that I don’t have compassion because I’m corporate is the same as my saying that because you’re only a country doctor you’re too simple to understand the reasons a corporation like Ridgeway exists. I wouldn’t do that because you do understand why we do what we do, even if you don’t like it. And being a country doctor certainly doesn’t make you backward, so I wouldn’t ever say anything like that.”

      It was time to go, time to get back to the life she knew. She didn’t have a fight with Grant, and didn’t want to have one. He wouldn’t believe that, but she did admire his passion for the kind of medicine he practiced. She even envied him that. It had been such a long time since she’d felt that kind of passion about anything, and she only hoped that once Ridgeway took over his clinic, he would hold on to it. Doctors like Grant Makela were rare.

      Men like Grant Makela were even rarer.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      “WORK here!” Grant shouted at Susan as she was about to climb into her rental car.

      She spun around, assuming that he was chasing after her, but he wasn’t. He was still standing on the lanai. Imposing figure of a man, she thought. That had been her first impression, and it hadn’t changed. Standing there, in his shorts, Hawaiian floral-print shirt and sandals, he absolutely took her breath away. Forcing him to wear anything other than what he did was tantamount to a crime, but that was one of the changes on the horizon. “What?” she called back, not sure she’d heard him correctly.

      “I said, work here. You said you were on holiday, so spend the rest of it working here.”

      He clearly wasn’t going to come to her, so she walked halfway back to the lanai, then stopped. “And what would that prove?”

      “You’ve never worked in one of your facilities, have you?”

      Was that a devious little smile on his face? It was hard to tell, staring into the sun the way she was, but she would have sworn she saw a smile cross his lips. “I oversee corporate medical policy, but I leave the individual hospital and clinic admin matters to the hospital administrators.”

      “Not administration, Susan. That’s not what I’m asking. I’ll bet you’ve never donned a lab coat, hung a stethoscope around your neck and set off as a practicing doctor in any of your medical facilities. You know, treat strep throats, prescribe for bronchitis, that kind of thing? You haven’t done it, have you?”

      Such a devious smile, and he was challenging her, as it turned out. He probably thought he’d get her to work here for a few hours, for her to see what the real medical world was like, then change her mind. Except it didn’t work that way. Too bad, too, because if she had it in her to give him his clinic, she probably would. “What I’ve done is make it possible for hundreds of doctors to treat thousands of patients with strep throats and bronchitis.” She liked his gutsiness, though.

      “Then work here, as a doctor. Let me rephrase that. Work here like a doctor who isn’t encumbered by the dictates you put on the doctors working for Ridgeway Medical.”

      “How long?” she asked, surprised she had. She really had no intention of doing this, but she was the moth being drawn into the flame. The closer she got the more she knew she would surely meet an awful demise, yet something in her was wired to keep moving toward the flame. And she was a heck of a lot smarter than that moth. “If I were to stay here and work, which I’m not going to do, how long would you expect me to do this?”

      “How many more days left of your holiday?”

      He was serious. Grant was actually serious about this! “Six, including today.”

      “Then I’ll take six, including today.”

      This was crazy. She was actually entertaining the invitation. СКАЧАТЬ