Dancing in the Moonlight - Harlequin.com

RAEANNE THAYNE
105
* * *
He shouldn’t have manipulated her into this.
Jake studied Maggie out of the corner of his eye as he
finished examining Hector Manuel, a sixty-year-old potato
factory worker with a bleeding ulcer. After three hours of
clinic—and with an hour’s worth of patients still sitting in
the waiting room—he couldn’t for the life of him figure
out how to tell Maggie he didn’t want her there anymore.
She had been an incredible help, he had to admit.
This week’s clinic had run more smoothly than any he’d
done yet. With the improved communication, he’d been
able to see more patients and he felt as though the advice
he’d been able to give had been better understood and
would be better followed.
She had translated in at least two-thirds of his cases
today, and he couldn’t figure out how they had ever gotten
by without her. Her fluency with both Spanish and the
medical jargon had been a killer combination, enormously
helpful.
At what cost, though? he wondered.
Although she was doing her best to hide it, she
looked beat: her eyes had smudges under them that
hadn’t been there when she walked in; her shoulders
stiffened tighter with each passing hour; and every few
moments she shifted restlessly on her chair trying to find
a better position, though he was sure she had no idea she
was doing it.
Even if he told her in no uncertain terms to go home,
somehow he knew she wouldn’t quit until every last
patient was treated.
He could almost hear her argue that she was sticking