2. Prescription For Love

“It would be a great idea. You know we’re a good combination.” Flann leaned in again, just a little. Carrie’d been looking at her with interest for a while too. She didn’t mistake those kinds of signals. “I know you feel it, same as I do.”

“Maybe,” Carrie said quietly. “But we’re a pretty good combination right now.”

“And we’d only get better. Why don’t you think about it and let me know. The offer is open.” “I

I’ll call you.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Abby rounded the corner and stopped abruptly, her gaze traveling from Flann, perched on Carrie’s desk, to Carrie.

“Oh, sorry,” Abby said quickly. She hurriedly handed several papers to Carrie. “They told me in personnel that Presley needed to sign these. I thought I’d just walk them back.”

Carrie straightened and took the forms. “Of course. I’ll see that they’re completed and get them down there before lunch.”

“Thanks.” Abby turned to Flann. “Nicole Fisher—that’s the patient from the motorcycle accident— is stable. Neurosurg should be reviewing her repeat CT about now. I’ll give you a call when they’re done.”

“I’ll be up in a few.”

“Of course.” Abby glanced from Flann to Carrie again, her face smooth and cool. “I’ll see you there, then.”

She turned and quickly disappeared.

“Did you want to see Presley?” Carrie said, sounding oddly formal all of a sudden.

“For a minute,” Flann said contemplatively, wondering how much Abby had heard of her and Carrie’s bantering date talk. Not that she should have cared. Oddly, though, she did. Pushing that irrational reaction aside, she slid off the desk and tilted her head toward the door to the inner sanctum. “Can I go in?”

“I think she’s got a few minutes before a conference call. Let me check.” Carrie typed and a second later said, “Go ahead.”

“Don’t forget to call me.” Flann knocked once on the door, stepped inside, and closed it.

Presley was behind her desk, making notes on a pad.

Flann flopped into a chair in front of Presley’s big desk—the one that used to be her father’s and everyone expected to one day be Harper’s—and crossed her ankle over her knee. “Morning.”

“Flann.” Presley smiled. “I was just about to call you.”

“I had a few minutes between cases, so I thought I might as well drop over and save you from tracking me down.”

“I hear you met Abby.”

“I did. You didn’t waste any time getting her here.”

“There’s no point in wasting time. Every day we are losing money. I know you and Harper and

Edward aren’t happy about the changes that are coming, but they’re coming, and we’ve all agreed.” Flann blew out a breath. “I know, and I know you’re right. It’s just hard.”

“I mean to do everything I can to see that the Rivers stays a community hospital, with community doctors and nurses and staff serving the community. But we don’t have enough qualified physicians to expand our facilities, and an independent ER will bring revenue to SunView that I can funnel into the hospital, as well as referrals that we would have lost otherwise.”

Flann grunted. In this she and Harper were attuned. They didn’t care about money, they cared about practicing medicine. Her father was the same, and his before him. Unfortunately, doctors were often terrible at business, and the doctors who had been influential in running the hospital for 150 years hadn’t moved fast enough with the times. She got it. She knew Presley was their best chance. But she also knew when the ER residency program started and new blood started moving in, the dynamics within the hospital would shift. Trainees who hadn’t grown up here, who had no roots here, would be treating patients they hadn’t grown up knowing. The personal touch would disappear, and with it, some degree of the personal responsibility that got her and Harper and their father up out of a warm bed at night to see that a patient got the best care possible.

The changes had already started, and it’d only been a few weeks since the takeover. The ER was no longer under the control of the department of surgery. Abby Remy was now in charge, but a good 50 percent of Flann’s practice was ER based. She saw all the trauma patients and all the acute medsurg problems, and she was used to being the one to call the shots. “Remy is young,” Flann said. “She just finished her fellowship, right?”

“She’s not young in age or experience,” Presley said. “She missed a few years and it took her longer to finish med school than it might have, so she came out of her residency a little bit later.”

“Why the delay?” Flann said. “She certainly seems smart enough.”

“She had a young child, and she was raising he—him pretty much on her own until her mom could relocate and help out.”

Flann sat up straighter. “She’s married with a kid?”

“No, she’s a single mom.”

“How old’s the kid?”

“Blake is almost sixteen.”

“Wow.” Flann whistled. “She doesn’t look old enough to have a fifteen-year-old.” “We were in college.”

“And she made it through college and med school and an ER fellowship with a kid. Okay, I’m impressed.”

Presley laughed. “That’s what it took to impress you?”