Janice Lynn - The Doctor's Meant-To-Be Marriage

“It’s my job to help you take care of your health. That means your mental and emotional health as well as your physical.”

“I’m not sick,” Hannah insisted. “I just want to go on the Pill so I won’t get pregnant.”

“Even if you go on the Pill, you still need to make your boyfriend wear a condom. The only way to protect yourself from sexually transmitted diseases is to abstain or have your partner wear a condom.”

“Or to have sex with a virgin,” Hannah added with a touch of irritation. “I know all this already. We went over this stuff during health class when I was in junior high school.” She eyed Chelsea suspiciously. “You’re going to tell my mom, aren’t you?”

“No, but I recommend you tell her.”

“Me tell her? You have got to be kidding me.” The girl snorted, her expression dramatic. “I thought you said your job was to look out for my health, not to get me killed.”

“Your mom wouldn’t kill you.”

“Maybe not,” Hannah admitted. “But she wouldn’t let me see Brett anymore, and that’s worse than dying.”

Having fallen hard for Jared at only a year older than Hannah, Chelsea wouldn’t judge the girl. Neither would she point out that her entire life was ahead of her, whether Brett remained in her life or not.

“Whether or not you tell your mother is your choice. My job is to give you the best information I can so you can make wise health-care decisions. In this case, having an open discussion with your mother is what I believe to be best.”

Ha, like she’d ever had an open discussion with her own mother. These days, she and Iva only saw each other a couple of times a year. Thank God, as she didn’t think she could survive more. Only through Will did Chelsea find contact with her parents tolerable. Sometimes she wondered if they would even include her in family activities if not for her brother.

What right did she have to advise Hannah to tell her mother? What if Hannah’s mother made Iva look warm and cuddly?

“It’s your call,” she said softly. “But I want you to at least consider talking with her.”

“Sure.” Sarcasm never dripped as thickly as it did off Hannah’s flippant tongue.

Chelsea took a deep breath. She didn’t seem to be getting through to the teenager.

“OK, let’s move on. We’ll discuss the different birth-control options you have.”

Hannah’s gaze narrowed. “What kind of options?”

“Pill, patch, shot, cervical cap, intra-uterine device, all of which require a pelvic examination first.”

The girl cringed. “You have to see me down there?”

“To do the thin prep test that checks your cervical and vaginal cells, I have to physically examine you.”

The girl’s face fell. “I don’t think I can do that.”

“Have a pelvic exam?” Chelsea clarified, wanting to make sure she understood what Hannah was saying.

The girl nodded. “Just the thought embarrasses me and makes my skin feel hot and sweaty.”

“You have to have the test before I will write you any type of prescription birth control.”

Hannah let out a long sigh. “Why?”

“Some tumors grow at an accelerated rate when hormones are added.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “I don’t need hormones. I just want the Pill so I don’t get pregnant.”

“Many types of birth control are hormones, including the Pill.”

“Oh.” The girl sat quietly, digesting what Chelsea had told her.

“Another thing you should consider having is the HPV vaccine.”

The girl crossed her arms and gave Chelsea a smug look. “I’ve had all my vaccines.”

“That’s wonderful, and perhaps you have had HPV, too, but it isn’t a required vaccine so not everyone has. The vaccine is recommended for girls aged nine through twenty-six. HPV, or human papillomavirus, is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States and causes most cases of cervical cancer.”

Hannah’s eyes became round. “There’s an STD that causes cancer?”

“Yes.” Chelsea was glad to see she’d caught the girl’s interest. “There are around fifty strands of the virus. The vaccine protects against the strands causing cervical cancer.”

“If this HDP is so common, why haven’t I ever heard of it?”

“HPV, and you probably have heard of the disease without knowing it. Genital warts are also caused by human papillomavirus,” she explained.

Hannah’s nose curled in disgust, and she nodded. “I do remember studying those during health class. Nasty business.”

“Let me give you some information to read.” Feeling pleased she’d made a connection with the girl, Chelsea stood. “I’ll come back in a few minutes, and you can decide what you’d like to do regarding your pelvic examination and the vaccine.”

She stepped into the hallway and didn’t see Betty anywhere. Scanning the nurses’ station, she wondered where brochures and handouts might be kept but didn’t see anywhere obvious.

“Problems?” a deep voice asked from behind her. A voice belonging to the man she’d had to force off her mind all morning. Her spirits lifted just at knowing he was near, that he still felt the connection between them and had sought an excuse to search her out, to share a conversation. Perhaps he was a man confident enough to overlook her imperfections and care for her just as she was. Hey, a girl could dream.

She turned, but her heart stalled.

Jared’s eyes would have formed glaciers on the sun. Ouch. Why was he looking at her like that? With something akin to…Chelsea sought the right word and could only come up with loathing.

But he couldn’t loathe her. All she’d done had been to ineptly flirt with him ten years ago. OK, she’d kissed him, too, but he’d kissed her back, so surely he didn’t blame that completely on her?

Jared had left the next day and, despite initially trying to contact him, she’d not seen him since.

Not knowing how she’d clung to his words, Will had updated her from time to time. Jared wasn’t married and, other than the longtime girlfriend she hadn’t known about when they’d first met, there hadn’t been anyone special in his life. Laura. She’d suffered at the name, mourned at the existence of the woman who had held Jared’s heart, but she’d never wished the girl’s fate on her. Later that same year Laura had been killed in a car accident.

Jared was Will’s best friend. He wouldn’t hold a grudge for ten years over something as simple as her foolishly throwing herself at him. Would he?

Wishing she didn’t feel like she carried the bubonic plague, she gave a slight smile. “I was looking for a handout on the HPV vaccine and hoping we had one that explains pelvic examinations.”

Without any softening of his features he pointed to the small lab where basic phlebotomy tests were performed. “In those two filing cabinets.”

She nodded, expecting him to walk away, but instead he opened a drawer and pulled out a sheet on the vaccination.

“We keep folders here with all immunization information in them. I don’t recall seeing a handout explaining what to expect during a pelvic examination, but if there is one, it would be in here.” He flipped through another drawer.

Chelsea stared at the back of his dark head, wishing she could read his thoughts.

“Nothing,” he said, closing the drawer and facing her. “You can probably pull something up online when you get time and mail it to your patient.”

Good idea, except she didn’t think Hannah would be receptive to getting mail at home regarding the reasons for her office visit. Although she’d verbally gone over what would take place, she wanted Hannah to have something concrete that explained exactly what would happen during the exam.

“Or I have a patient-education program on my computer. It might have something.”

“Really?”

“We could check…” He hesitated and she wondered if he regretted his words even before they’d completely left his lips.

“If it wouldn’t be a bother.”

He didn’t meet her eyes. “No bother.”

Chelsea followed him to his office, surprised he’d offered when he seemed so antagonistic toward her. Perhaps he was afraid she was going to throw herself at him like she’d done all those years ago. She wouldn’t, of course. Sure, being near him gave her those same throw-caution-to-the-wind urges, but she’d matured, gained some experience with the opposite sex. She wouldn’t make a fool of herself again.

Jared stood beside his desk and clicked his computer mouse, bringing up the home screen. Chelsea used the moment to glance around his office.

Plain, uncomplicated, and to the point. No personal items other than the award and acknowledgment certificates framed on the wall. Already her office had more of her than this room reflected of its owner.

Then again, maybe he liked keeping things simple and the minimalist look worked for him.

“I’ve got a couple of different programs, but if we can’t find what you need, the Internet is sure to have something.”

Chelsea’s gaze returned to him, going over the lean lines of his body. Time had been good to Jared. Too good. If possible, she thought he was even more handsome now than he’d been ten years ago, but there was something different, something missing from his eyes. The happy twinkle she’d grown to love that spring break. Instead, Jared’s eyes only shone with a deep inner sadness that she suspected many failed to see.

“I appreciate this,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat. She had to stop thinking of Jared as a martyr or as a pinup poster. Just because he looked like a brooding pinup model, it didn’t give her the right to keep mentally ogling him. Wasn’t that what women were known to complain about happening to them? Personally, Chelsea could go for a little visual ogling from time to time, just to boost her battered ego, but she digressed.

Jared was her colleague, her coworker, and her brother’s best friend. For her to embarrass them both by throwing herself at him again would just be wrong. Plus, her attraction to him would make their professional relationship strained. She’d worked too hard to get her degree, to have the career she dreamed of, to let misplaced hormones rob her future.

“Ah.” He glanced over his shoulder to indicate she should check out what he’d pulled up on his computer monitor. “This what you’re looking for?”

Chelsea skimmed the form. “Perfect.”

He clicked the mouse again, and the page shot out of his printer. “Here. If you run across something else you need and can’t find it, let me know. Patient education is important.”

“Yes.” She took the offered printout and glanced at it without really seeing the diagrams and words. “Thank you, Jared.”

“You’re welcome.” An awkward moment passed where they stared at each other, not speaking, just locking gazes. He looked away, swiped his palms over his pants, then closed the computer program. “Got to get back to my patients.”

“Right.”

They both stepped out into the hallway.

“Oh, there you are!” Leslie, a bubbly nurse practitioner who worked in the clinic, saw Chelsea and bounded up to give her a quick hug. “Sorry I missed you this morning.” Her gaze swerved for a second. “I got a late start, but no matter. I’ve been hoping to catch sight of you all morning.” She flashed a smile at Jared. “You, too, actually.”

Jared’s brow rose, but he didn’t comment.

“Will, Jennifer and I want the entire office to go out tonight for dinner to celebrate Chelsea’s first day.”