PATIENT CARE (Medical Romance) (Doctor Series) by Bobby Hutchinson Page B

that Friday night at seven, she realized that she could have put on almost any item in her closet, apart from her bathing suit, and felt comfortable. The simple blue cotton sundress she’d chosen was fine.
    “Hey, Doc, Melissa—over here.” Rudy’s booming voice carried over the earsplitting buzz of conversation, the lively music coming from four musicians on a dais at the end of the room and the shrieks of half a dozen little kids playing hide-and-seek under the snowy tablecloths.
    Melissa clutched James’s hand, and he led the way through groups of people standing and sitting, talking and laughing, eating and drinking. They passed an elderly woman in a wheelchair, a young mother breast-feeding her infant, a group of rowdy teenagers.
    Rudy and a dramatically beautiful tiny woman were guarding two chairs at a round table.
    “Melissa Clayton, meet Thelma, my better half.” Rudy’s face was flushed with excitement and pride. “Doc, you remember Thelma from when you took out my gallbladder.”
    “Indeed I do. How are you, Thelma?”
    “Nice to see you again, Dr. Burke.” Thelma’s smile was breathtaking, reflected as it was in her dark eyes. She reached out with both hands, took Melissa’s and held them for a moment. “I’m so pleased to meet you at last, and isn’t it wonderful about your mother?”
    Melissa was still trying to get used to the fact that this dainty woman was Rudy’s wife. “Thank you more than I can say for praying for her,” she managed to blurt out.
    “We just present our case,” Thelma said with a shrug. “What happens after that has nothing to do with us.” She swept a graceful hand toward the buffet table. “Let’s go and get something to eat, and then we can visit. I want you to meet the other women in the prayer group.”
    Bracketed by Rudy and Thelma, Melissa and James made their way to the buffet. Accustomed by now to the lavish, high-calorie dishes in Rudy’s trailer each morning, Melissa wasn’t surprised by the array of mouthwatering food. She tried to select wisely, but with Rudy urging her to try this and that and Thelma indicating which dishes she herself had prepared, it seemed rude not to load up her plate with a little of everything. She noticed that James abandoned his vegetarian, low-calorie rules. His plate was heaped just as hers was as they started back to the table, and he rolled his eyes and shrugged helplessly when he saw her examining his choices.
    “Seeley’s good at gallbladders,” he murmured to her.
    Rudy was greeting friends. “There’s Dougie. Hey, Dougie, meet the doc and Melissa. This here’s my friend Dougie Murdoch. He’s a Sheetrock salesman.”
    Dougie introduced his wife and four children, his mother-in-law, and his aunt.
    Thelma introduced Maisie and Jean, members of her prayer group. They introduced husbands and cousins and grandmothers, until Melissa’s head was spinning.
    “Enough socializing,” Thelma finally ordered. “The food’s getting cold.”
    They sat down at their table, and Melissa realized how hungry she was. She’d had a tuna sandwich at lunchtime and nothing since.
    “Everything tastes fabulous,” she told Thelma, and it did. It might have had something to do with pounds of butter and sugar and gallons of cream, Melissa mused as she ate her way through more food than she usually consumed in a week.
    The thing that Rudy and Thelma had in common was their gregarious, inclusive personalities, Melissa soon realized. They were people magnets. As soon as they were finished eating, friends pulled up chairs and slid tables together, with Rudy and Thelma at the center of it all. The laughter and good-natured teasing flowed, under laid by honest affection. She and James were introduced over and over again as smiling faces joined the ever-widening circle. Melissa soon gave up even trying to remember names.
    It was getting warmer by the minute in the hall, and she’d had too many glasses of fruit punch. Melissa excused