Page 26 of Clara Knows Best

“That’s great,” Clara answered. “You must be pretty tired, huh, Jesse? My dad said you got home at like four.”

“I can operate on a few hours of sleep if I have to. But yes, I’m pretty tired.”

“Like function-operate, or operate-operate?” Yoli joked.

“Both.”

“What were you doing until four?” she asked with interest.

“Operate-operate,” he said dryly.

“There was a motorcycle accident,” Clara explained, on her way out of the room with a large flower arrangement and six balloons.

“No way! The patient who just called and canceled said it was because her son was in a motorcycle accident. I wonder if that’s the guy you operated on, Dr. Flores!”

“Maybe,” Jesse said. He tied the last bow, tossed the goodie bag into the box with the others, and stood up. “Can I see the patient file for the eight forty-five?”

“Yessir, right this way. Okay, this is Dr. Pike’s office here. Looks like Clara’s got you set up in Dr. Wilder’s. This open file here is probably your eight forty-five. Clara tends to think of everything.”

“Thanks, Yoli.”

“My pleasure. Do you have any big plans for next Monday?”

He kept his expression blank. “No. Why?”

“It’s Valentine’s Day. Clara and I are focusing on finding dates this week.”

He put a hand on the doorknob. “I don’t do Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll get out of your hair,” she said, and went out so that he could close the door.

The hand-on-the-doorknob trick seldom failed.

Before he had even sat down in the desk chair, he heard Yoli’s voice in the lobby, clear as a bell. “Why do you think he doesn’t do Valentine’s Day?”

“I don’t know,” Clara answered carelessly. “Maybe he just doesn’t do it in Romeo. He doesn’t live here. Doesn’t know anyladies.”

He tried to tune them out and focus on the patient information on his screen.

“Maybe we should set him up with someone. Maybe someone he went to high school with!”

“Nope. I don’t want any part in that.”

“I’m going to think of someone for him,” Yoli maintained. “Hey, do you think he’d go out withme?”

“Absolutely not.”

“All right, fine, sheesh.”

“I mean, you work together. It wouldn’t be smart.”

“We work together for like, a week! We don’t really work together. Do you think I’m not his type?”

“I can hear everything,” Jesse snapped.

His overconfident office manager laughed, but his tech ventured a timid apology, which he ignored.

Ten quiet minutes later, someone knocked.

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