Adored (LOVE LETTERS #1) - Kristen Blakely Page 0,2

you need?”

Vera nodded at her patient. “She needs an appointment with an oncologist over at Broward General Medical Center. Her blood work shows high levels of alpha fetoprotein, and I’d like to get a second opinion from a specialist. Blake Smith, perhaps? I’ve already explained this to her, but can you make the appointment, and then let her know where and when to see him?”

“Sure.” Maria reached for the file and then ushered the woman out ahead of her.

The woman darted a nervous look at Vera, but she muttered, “Gracias,” before leaving the office.

Vera sighed. The woman’s lips had trembled, and she had wrung her fingers so tightly it was a wonder she hadn’t twisted them into a knot. The woman’s medical records were incomplete; the driver’s license number and home address were conspicuously absent. She was an illegal immigrant, perhaps, or a prostitute. Either way, full disclosure was not in her best interest. The same could be said for most of the people Vera had seen that day.

She glanced at her watch before reaching for the next file on her desk. Almost done; she was a half hour from wrapping up a full day at the health center. Her gaze darted over the patient’s name: Rowan Forrester. The note in the file, scribbled in Iris’s familiar scrawl, indicated Rowan was coming in for “routine blood tests.” It was health clinic speak for a prostitute requesting a regular medical screening for STDs or HIV.

Vera shook her head. If only she could do more for these women than translating the results of a routine blood test. She quickly flipped through the full blood-work report—skimming past the lipid and protein results to scan the STD report—as the door opened to admit her next patient. “Come in, Miss Forrester. I was just going through your results and everything looks—” A shadow fell over her desk. She looked up. Her eyes widened; her jaw dropped. “—fine.”

Actually, he was more than fine. Rowan Forrester wore a black T-shirt and faded denim jeans on his six-foot athletic frame with more elegance and panache than she had seen other men wear tuxedos. His hair was chestnut brown; his piercing eyes were a gold-copper color she could only describe as amber. His symmetrical, chiseled features pushed him over the line from good-looking into gorgeous, and the easy confidence he exuded set him apart from every other person who had walked into her clinic that morning. Heck, it set him apart from every other person she knew.

“You’re a man.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded squeaky and pitched an interval or two higher than normal.

“Excellent powers of deduction, doctor.” His baritone was rich and warm. Laughter lurked in his voice. He sat down, without invitation, across from her. “I hope the blood tests and my medical records agree with you, or I’m in trouble.”

“I…I’m sorry. I just read your name and assumed you were a woman.”

Disgust flashed across his face. “You’re an Anne Rice fan, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Rowan was a perfectly good, solidly male name until that woman co-opted it for one of her heroines. Now, half of the Rowans in the world are female.” He leaned back in his chair. “I was expecting Dr. Whitley. Doesn’t she usually work here on Saturdays?”

“Dr. Whitley had a family emergency.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

“Her son took ill, and she needed to stay home with him.” Vera stared down at Rowan’s file, because it was safer than staring at his face. “As I was saying, your test results are fine. No STDs—” Realization was like a slap in the face. Heat rushed into her cheeks. Oh, God. He was a prostitute, or an escort, or whatever society called male prostitutes. It explained his good looks and sensual appeal. Vera rushed on with the rest of her spiel. “Still, you’ll need to practice safe sex. Condoms. You know.”

“Yes, I know.” He sounded amused.

Her head snapped up. She glared at him. “This isn’t a joking matter. You owe it to yourself and to your…partners…” Vera faltered. “—to practice safe sex.”

“You almost said clients, didn’t you?”

Damn it, why did he have to be right… and so amused about it? She had spent her entire day talking to nervous women with wrecked self-images, women who believed that the only money they could earn came from selling their body. Rowan’s self-confidence and insouciance, compared to those women, came across as arrogant, even selfish. “Do you even know what you’re doing? Your looks, your body—”

“My looks and my