Against Doctor's Orders Read online

  “On my way. Thanks, Sandy.” She passed the phone back to Dora. “Thanks, Dora.”

  “Don’t look so worried, Harper. Your father will take care of the Rivers. The two of you will.”

  Harper didn’t even ask how Dora knew something was happening. Dora always seemed to know everything, as Harper’d discovered the first time she’d hidden a frog she’d picked up on the way to school in her lunchbox and Dora had discovered it within a matter of minutes, almost as if she’d had X-ray vision. She only hoped Dora was right about this too, and she and her father could handle whatever was coming.

  *

  “That would be the assistant chief now,” Edward Rivers said at the sharp rap on the door. “Thank you for your patience.”

  “Not at all.” Presley, seated in a blue-upholstered club chair in front of Rivers’s broad dark wood desk, turned slightly and glanced over her shoulder. Harper Rivers walked in and slowed when her gaze met Presley’s.

  Presley read an instant of confusion, then a spark of anger that was quickly quelled as the midnight blue of Harper’s eyes turned arctic. Harper dismissed her after that first quick appraisal and focused on Edward Rivers.

  “You wanted me?” Harper said.

  “Harper, this is Ms. Presley Worth, Vice President of Operations at SunView Health Systems,” Edward said. “Dr. Harper Rivers, Assistant Chief of Staff.”

  Presley rose and held out her hand to Harper. “We’ve met, briefly. Good to see you again, Doctor.”

  Harper shook her hand. “I see you got the job.”

  Presley smiled wryly. She deserved that slight barb. Harper Rivers might have appeared the quieter of the two Rivers siblings, but she was by no means the passive one. “Yes, it appears that I have.”

  “Ms. Worth,” Edward said, “perhaps you could brief us on your requirements so we can see that you have everything you need.”

  Presley stood as Edward sat behind his desk and Harper leaned a shoulder against a bookcase with rows of hardback texts, some of which appeared as old as the building itself. Sitting put her in a subordinate position, and she needed to take command immediately in the presence of two alpha males, gender notwithstanding. Walking to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, she put the sunlight behind her to shade her face just enough to force both doctors to concentrate on her. Smiling, she launched into her familiar pitch.

  “In a transition such as this, we proceed in stages, beginning with an overall assessment of the institution, its internal operations, financial projections, et cetera. That provides us a general view of how to position the institution within the SunView system. We then move on to the second stage, which you might think of as the integration stage—where systems are streamlined, efficiency protocols are instituted, assets are reallocated—all with the aim of optimizing resources and returns. The final stage would be the placement of a permanent management team to continue the operational plan going forward.”

  Harper, hands in the pockets of her trousers, frowned. “What does all that mean in practical terms? Will you be bringing in your own people to run the hospital?”

  Presley chose her words carefully. Harper was the scion of a medical dynasty, not a simple country doctor, and at this stage, the less actual detail the administration of the target institution was provided, the better. “SunView employs individuals who have experience in this kind of assessment and analysis, of course. At this point most of the communication will be done remotely, but I and my admin will be here on site.” She glanced at Edward. “I’m afraid I’ll have to impose on you to provide some office space for us.”

  “Of course,” Edward said. “You may have this office immediately.”

  “Thank you,” Presley said, glad that he had saved her the awkward task of informing him she was taking over in all but name. “That’s very kind.”

  Harper sucked in a breath. Her father seemed to know a lot more about what was happening than he’d let on, and none of it made her very happy. “Wait a minute. You’re not eliminating the chief of staff position—that’s a medical—”

  “Actually, Harper,” her father cut in, “it’s considered an administrative appointment, and as such, is very much part of Ms. Worth’s territory now.”

  “You misunderstand,” Presley said. “We are not removing Dr. Rivers at all. However, certain functions of the post will need to be modified, particularly those involving allocation of resources.”

  Harper gritted her teeth and decoded Presley’s doublespeak. Her father’s role as chief of the medical staff was to represent the various medical departments in budget negotiations with the board, among other things. The same board who had sold the hospital to SunView. The board who no longer held the reins, financial or otherwise, effectively giving SunView control over everything, including the medical staff. The taste of betrayal was a bitter pill, and bile soured her throat. Were the board members so shortsighted they couldn’t see what they had done?

  “Just how many positions do you plan on eliminating?” Harper asked.

  “Naturally, streamlining operations is one of our goals.” Presley smiled. “Dr. Rivers, I’m sure you can appreciate that the hospital is a business as much as it is a humanitarian institution. If the business is not viable, the hospital cannot survive.”

  “I haven’t heard anything about patients in all of this. This isn’t Silicon Valley. We aren’t a biotech company.”

  “Indeed,” Presley said. “But you are in the business of caring for people.”

  “Medicine is a profession. We’re not selling commodities here,” Harper said flatly.

  Presley disagreed, but she’d heard this argument before and knew better than to engage with traditionalists like Harper at this stage. Eventually, Harper and those like her would bow to the inevitability of the circumstances. What Harper didn’t yet fully comprehend was that all the power now rested with SunView and, by extension, her. Hopefully, by the time Harper did realize it, the takeover would be far enough along that the internal momentum would quell any lingering resistance.

  “I can assure you, my goal here is to position this institution in a way to best benefit the community and, of course, the shareholders,” Presley said with as much patience as she could muster after a sleepless night in a hotel, a cramped tedious flight, and a long morning of being greeted with polite suspicion.

  As she expected, a look of distaste crossed Harper’s face at the mention of shareholders. Why was it that so many doctors found the business of medicine distasteful? It wasn’t as if they weren’t being paid for their services, but somehow, they resented being reminded of that fact. Harper Rivers certainly qualified as one of those, but her sensibilities were not of major concern at the moment. Establishing her authority was.

  “I’d like a tour of the institution, if that could be arranged,” Presley said to Edward.

  “Of course,” Edward said. “Harper will see that you’re familiarized with the hospital.”

  Harper glanced at her watch and made no effort to hide her displeasure. “I have patients this afternoon.”

  “And I wouldn’t want to delay you,” Presley said. “What time would be convenient for you?”

  A muscle jumping in her jaw, Harper said, “Tomorrow morning should be fine. Eight a.m.?”

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  “I’ll meet you in the lobby.” Harper nodded curtly, turned, and left without another word.

  Presley gathered her briefcase and bag. Harper Rivers could prove to be a problem. She might do better with the other Rivers on her side, and reconsidered Flannery’s invitation to show her around town.

  Chapter Five

  Midafternoon, Flannery stopped by the recovery room to check her two post-op patients. Mike McCormick, the laparoscopic hernia repair she’d finished right before lunch, was awake and sitting up. A husky thirty-five-year-old redhead, he’d resisted her recommendation to have the progressively enlarging mass in his scrotum repaired until he’d shown up in her office the
day before with pain so severe he could barely walk. Even then, he’d browbeaten her into promising he could go home after his procedure as long as he could tolerate the postoperative pain. She reminded him what it felt like to have a good swift kick in the gonads, and he reminded her he’d had plenty of hits below the belt as captain of the football team and all the other high school sports he’d excelled in. She’d only nodded and said they’d see about him going home after he woke up.

  “How are you doing, Mike?”

  “It feels like somebody twisted my nuts off.”

  She smiled and resisted the I-told-you-so comeback. “I promise, I didn’t. In fact…” She pulled the curtain around his bed and then pulled the sheet down to his midthighs. The incisions she’d made had been small ones in his groin crease and lower abdomen through which she’d introduced the scope to repair the defects in the abdominal wall from the inside. All the same, she’d had to do a fair amount of pulling and tugging on some pretty sensitive tissues, and although rare, there was always the concern there might be some compromise to the blood supply. She pulled on gloves and gently palpated his groin. “Everything is fine. There’s a lot of swelling, and you’re going to feel like you’ve got a soccer ball between your legs for four or five days, but I don’t see any problems right now. I suggest you stay overnight so we can give you—”

  “I best be getting home,” he said, his tone firm despite his pasty-white coloring and the beads of sweat pearling on his forehead.

  Flannery set humor aside. If he didn’t follow her instructions to restrict his physical exercise for ten days, he’d be right back in here with something worse going on. “Mike, look. You’re going to be miserable if you go home this afternoon. There’s nothing you can do around the farm anyhow.”

  “I can give orders, can’t I?”

  “Sure, if you’re not throwing up from the pain or the pain pills. Marianne can give orders just as well as you can. Let her take care of things until you’re back on your feet.”

  His jaw bunched. “It’s not Marianne’s job to run the farm.”

  Flannery resisted the urge to roll her eyes. If she hadn’t grown up with half her patients or their relatives, she wouldn’t understand how their minds worked. “Listen, take it from me. If you let her help you once in a while, she’ll know she’s important to you, and women like that sort of thing.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Is that right.”

  She nodded. “You can take it to the bank.”

  “You probably know.” He sighed, his frown more for show now than anything else. “I suppose I could tell her what needs to be done.”

  “You could, but you might ask her how things are going and I bet you’ll find out she’s got things covered.” She pulled the sheet up, wrote an order to increase his dose of pain medication, and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll be by early tomorrow morning and if things look good, you can go home. Get some sleep, don’t get out of bed, and let your wife take care of things for a few hours.”

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Her last stop was Bryce Daniels, the teenager who’d had the hot appendix. His temp was still a couple of degrees above normal, but he was awake and joking with the nurses when she pulled the curtain aside and stepped up to his bed.

  “Hungry?” she asked.

  “Yeah, like I haven’t eaten in a week.”

  “You’ll be getting juice and Jell-O in a while.”

  His face fell. “I was kind of hoping the guys could bring me a pizza. I’m really hungry, Doc.”

  “I believe it, but if your stomach isn’t settled enough after the anesthesia and you vomit, trust me, you’re going to be one unhappy dude. Let’s just see how the liquids go, and if everything looks good later on this afternoon, the nurses can try you on something a little more substantial.”

  “Okay, but I can go home tomorrow, right?”

  “As long as your temp’s down in the morning.”

  “How big is my scar going to be?”

  She held her hands up ten inches apart and his eyes widened. She laughed. “About two and a half inches. But it’ll still impress the girls, don’t worry.”

  He grinned.

  “Get some sleep.”

  In the surgical locker room, she changed into jeans, her favorite pair of scuffed brown boots, and a plain white shirt and tossed her used scrubs into the hamper on her way out. As she was leaving the hospital, she noticed Clyde Endee talking to Presley Worth in the visitors’ lot. She diverted from her planned path to her Jeep and sauntered over to them. “Afternoon, Clyde. Ms. Worth.”

  “Hi, Flann. I was just dropping off a new car here for Ms. Worth.”

  Flannery took in the shiny Subaru hatchback. Presley worked fast, it appeared. “Door-to-door service. Nice.”

  “You know me, service is my middle name.” Clyde chuckled.

  Flannery said to Presley, “All done for the day?”

  “All done here. I’ve got some work to do at home.”

  “Are you the type to play hooky?”

  “Not usually.” Presley glanced back at the hospital and had the feeling that a dozen pairs of eyes were trained on them. As she’d walked out of the hospital, more than one individual had paused to watch her go by. Word traveled fast in a place like this, and she wondered what story was being spun about her arrival. She was used to being the outsider, the stranger who appeared on the scene to disrupt everyone’s routine and, in some cases, to threaten more than one person’s job. Often the only people who welcomed her were those behind the scenes who financed the enterprise or benefited from the profits. They were rarely the ones who performed the day-to-day functions of the business. Not many employees, management or otherwise, were happy to see her, but she couldn’t be concerned with being liked. What mattered to her was reconfiguring the newest acquisition to position it within the superstructure of SunView in order to maximize profitability.

  It wasn’t her job to make anyone happy, and whether she did or didn’t had nothing to do with how happy she was with the job. Her happiness was spelled out on the bottom line at the end of the day. Neither did it bother her when she made people unhappy with her recommendations and decisions. She wasn’t a corporate raider—more often than not, those in control of the institutions SunView acquired wanted to be absorbed, hoping for a quick profit and a lot of long-term benefits. Unfortunately, many of the employees stood to lose some or all of their livelihood. If she allowed herself to feel responsible for that, she wouldn’t be able to do her job, and what would be the point? She was good at what she did, and the better she was at her job, the more powerful allies she would gain at SunView, and she would need plenty if she planned to be head of the company. This hospital, like so many others, was a brief stop along her way to the top, and when she finished here, it would be forgotten as quickly as all the others.

  Ignoring Flannery, who seemed to be waiting for her to say more, she turned to Clyde. “Thank you for delivering the vehicle. If I have any questions or problems, I’ll let you know.”

  “My number’s on the card there.”

  Presley took the keys and a booklet with paperwork. She slid the papers into her shoulder bag. “That’s great. Thanks.”

  “Where are you staying?” Flannery asked as Clyde headed back to his truck.

  “At the White place, I’m told it’s called.”

  “Oh yeah? Pretty out there.”

  “If you like cows, I suppose.”

  Flannery grinned. “I didn’t have to guess you weren’t a country girl.”

  “Oh? And what was your first clue?”

  She glanced down at her shoes. “The Manolos.”

  “I think I’m impressed.”

  “Why? That a simple country surgeon—”

  “Oh, please. Between you and your sister, I’ve had enough of the simple country doctor routine. No, I merely don’t think you look like the kind of woman to be wearing heels or to recognize their desi
gner.”

  “Well, you’re right about the first part,” Flannery said. “But I’ve been known to have female friends who wear heels, and I am observant.”

  “That I can believe.” Presley walked around to the driver’s side of the car. “And you’re right, I’m not a country girl.”

  Flannery leaned on the top of the car and folded her arms. “So why here?”

  “Like I said—I’m here because of a job.”

  “And there wasn’t anyone else…where did you come from, anyhow?”

  “Phoenix.”

  “So no one else in Phoenix wanted to spend a few months up here in the peace and quiet, taking the country air?”

  “I’m sure there was more than one person who would’ve loved to come.” Presley smiled. “But no one who is as good as I am.”

  Flannery liked confident women, especially sexy, smart, slightly hard-to-get confident women. “What exactly are you doing here?”

  “I take it you haven’t talked to your sister yet.”

  Flannery straightened. “Harper? What about her?”

  “Nothing serious,” Presley said, surprised by Flannery’s instant protectiveness laced with suspicion. Seeing the two of them together earlier, she’d sensed they were competitive, but that wasn’t what she was reading now. Flannery looked ready to do battle. Presley tried to remember the last time Preston had ever been protective of her, and decided that would’ve been exactly never. Even as children they were adversaries, competing for their parents’ attention—when they were around—and jockeying for positions of favor with others. They’d never been friends, let alone allies.

  “Her version of events may be slightly different than mine, but as I’m sure almost anyone in the hospital will be able to tell you within the next few hours, I’m here to spearhead the transition of the hospital into SunView Health Systems.”

  “Something tells me Harper wasn’t happy to hear that.”