Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 31414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 157(@200wpm)___ 126(@250wpm)___ 105(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 31414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 157(@200wpm)___ 126(@250wpm)___ 105(@300wpm)
Tamara didn’t expect to fall for anyone—especially not a broody biker with a deadly reputation. But when she stumbled across a dangerous secret, Savage offered her safety without question. And a place in his arms that quickly became home.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
TAMARA
The final patient of the day gave me a crooked smile as I slipped the blood pressure cuff off his arm.
“All done, Mr. Jenkins.” I typed the last of his vitals into his chart. “Your numbers look better than last week.”
“Must be all that green stuff the pretty nurse told me to eat,” he grumbled, trying to sound annoyed but not quite pulling it off.
I shook my head with a grin. “Spinach isn’t the enemy, no matter what you tell yourself. And don’t forget to drink more water, not soda.”
He waved me off with a shaky hand, already reaching for the can of Mountain Dew in his walker basket. “I’m eighty-two. If soda kills me, it’ll just mean I went out happy.”
It was hard to argue with his logic, so I kept my thoughts to myself as I helped him out of the mobile clinic’s exam room and down the ramp, watching to make sure he made it to the sidewalk safely before heading back inside.
My legs ached from being on my feet all day, and my stomach gave a low growl of protest. Lunch had been a granola bar around noon that I’d eaten standing up between patients. That was pretty typical for a Monday.
“Hey, Tamara. That was the last one, right?” Marcy asked.
I flashed a tired smile at the nurse who worked most of the same shifts as I did. “Yup, I’m just getting ready to wipe everything down and finish charting.”
“Great. Thanks, girl. You’re the best.” She disappeared again before I could say anything else.
I sank into the rolling chair at the computer station and pulled up Mr. Jenkins’s chart, fingers moving from habit. The hum of the AC unit mixed with the occasional creak of the van’s frame as it shifted on its tires. Normally, I liked the end-of-shift quiet. But something tugged at the back of my mind.
A weird feeling I hadn’t been able to shake all weekend.
It started with a patient whose name I couldn’t find in the system. Then a follow-up that never got scheduled. Today, it was a file that had been there on Friday and was suddenly gone when I looked for it this morning.
I clicked over to the database again, hoping I’d just been tired and misspelled the name all three times I typed it in. But I still couldn’t find anything as I backtracked through the patient list. There was no trace of her visit. No intake notes, no vitals, no discharge summary. It was as though she’d never stepped foot in the clinic, but she definitely had. I’d taken her pulse myself.
My fingers tightened on the mouse. This wasn’t just a typo. Someone had erased the record.
And it wasn’t the first time a patient’s file had mysteriously vanished.
The chair behind me squeaked. I spun around to find the head physician assistant watching me with narrowed eyes.
“You’re still here?” Barbara asked.
I nodded, trying to keep my expression neutral. “Just wrapping up my charting.”
Her gaze darted toward the computer monitor. “Having a problem?”
“No.” I shook my head and wiggled my hands. “My fingers are moving faster than my brain apparently. Just fixing a typo so I can add a couple of notes to Mr. Jenkins’s chart.”
“Okay.”
Barbara was my supervisor, so I should have asked her about the missing files. But she was quick to write people up for the tiniest mistake. And something about the suspicious gleam in her eyes made me wonder if she had a feeling that I had lied.
She disappeared down the narrow hall that separated the exam area from the mobile clinic’s admin side. I waited until the sound of her heels faded before turning back to the computer.
I searched for a few other names I could remember. Two more came back blank, and a third had a discharge summary, but it was dated two days before the appointment. That kind of mistake was hard to make since the calendar automatically chose the current date. Someone would’ve had to manually change it.
My stomach knotted. I clicked over to the shared folder and scrolled until I found a file labeled Transfers—Internal Use Only. I’d never seen it before.
Inside were spreadsheets of patient IDs, medical testing codes, and off-site transfers. Most of the names were replaced by alphanumeric strings.
I copied everything I could onto my flash drive. It was a cheap plastic thing I kept clipped to my badge for backup copies of clinic protocols. My hands were clammy on the keyboard, but I forced them to keep moving, glancing toward the hallway while I waited for the transfer to finish.
When the files finally finished copying, I clipped the flash drive back onto my badge. Then I shut down the screen and logged out like nothing was wrong.
My heart raced like I’d just run a marathon when I stood and grabbed my bag. I tried to look as normal as possible as I headed for the side door, which was closer to the parking lot and my car. But just as I reached for the handle, Barbara’s voice rang out behind me.