Chapter 3
Toby
As I put the final touches on the diabetic menu options, someone knocked on my office door.
This job was so cool. Definitely a step up from my previous job as lead nutritionist for the local school system. I’d enjoyed that as well, but the hospital’s menus were by far more complicated and fiddlier.
I was enjoying it, for sure, but I’d only been here for a few hours. Time would tell if it was a good long-term option.
“Come in,” I said absently as I ran through my to-do list in my mind.
Once I had all the menus updated, things would slow down considerably, and I could spend a lot of time getting to know my staff.
Anthony stuck his head in. “You ready?” Anthony, a respected doctor here at the hospital and the alpha of the Bluewater clan, had become a fast friend, even though I still resisted fully joining his clan.
“Is it time for the meeting already?” I turned my watch over and sighed. “Yes, I’m ready. This day is going by too fast.”
He grinned. “I told you, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Our last lead nutritionist was…” He grimaced. “Less than impressive.”
“I’ve already totally overhauled the diabetic menu based on the options from the food supplier,” I said. “It’ll be a lot better.”
“That’s great,” he said brightly as we walked to the conference room just down the hall from my office. “I’ve fielded more than one complaint from upset spouses after the doctors tell the patient to go light on carbs, then we send them a meal full of them.”
I grimaced. “Ugh, yeah, the menu was terrible.”
Anthony opened the door, and the room was already full of doctors. I sat at the head of the table. “Good morning, all. Thank you for coming in today. I’ll be brief. Does anyone have a patient with a specific dietary need?”
A couple of doctors slid me their requests, and I made notes to set up an inbox where these things could be sent.
Once I made a menu for a specific dietary need, that menu could be reused. As I explained my plans, the doctors seemed pleased and receptive. All in all, the meeting went really well.
By the time we finished, my tattoo had been burning for a while.
I itched to roam the hospital and see if I could catch a glimpse of her again.
I still didn’t even know her name, nor had I had time to ask.
Things had been moving at such a fast pace that I hadn’t even broached the subject with anyone but Wesley, back home.
I could hardly believe it’d been a month since I saw her. My tattoo pulsed again as I gathered my papers, reminding me that my dragon was getting impatient for me to meet the mystery woman of my dreams.
After documenting everything we talked about in the meeting, setting up my inbox, and sending out the new diabetic menu, I decided to stretch my legs and walk around the hospital a bit.
I’d made note of the floor she’d been on before, and hoped she’d be there again.
She’d been wearing a different color scrub top than the other nurses.
I didn’t know what that meant, maybe she was borrowed from another area or in training or something.
Nurses and doctors, some I’d seen in the meeting, but mostly people entirely new to me, kept catching my eye and saying hello. My walk took a while as I introduced myself as the new lead nutritionist. I tried to keep the conversations brief as I cruised around, searching for my mystery mate.
She’d been on the maternity ward before, around all the babies, so I headed that way.
The hospital rules said I couldn’t go onto the ward without a doctor or nurse escort, so I stood outside the room that held all the babies and looked at their cute, chubby little faces.
My eyes kept darting to the nurses’ station on the far side of the babies, looking for that fiery red hair that I’d been dreaming about for too long now.
A woman exited the maternity ward and stopped beside me. “Are you waiting for someone in the ward?” she asked kindly.
“Oh, no, sorry. I’m the new lead nutritionist, Toby. I was just getting a feel for the hospital and stopped to stare at the babies.” Not entirely untrue, though I did have red-headed ulterior motives.
“Oh, it’s lovely to meet you. I’m Dr. Abby.” The blonde doctor held out her hand, and her posture changed slightly. I sensed the rise in her pheromones, as well. She was attracted to me.
I didn’t let on like I knew it, though, as usual. Dragons tended to be attractive to humans, for whatever reason. I’d gotten used to it over the years.
This was a great opportunity to get the information about my mystery mate from her, too. “Seems like there are a lot of nurses all on one unit,” I mused as I looked back at the babies.
“We’re a teaching hospital,” Dr. Abby explained. “So, each floor has a team of nurses doing clinicals. They rotate in and out of clinicals, but there’s almost always a class going, so it’s a never-ending stream of nurses training and graduating.”
“Ah, that explains it.” I grinned. “The last time I was here, I met a bunch of nurses, but one stuck out to me. She was young, red hair, quite small of stature.”
Dr. Abby nodded. “You must mean Liza. She’s tiny, has the energy of three nurses, and bright red hair.”
I snapped my finger as my dragon practically purred. Somehow, he knew we were both talking about the same person. “Liza, that’s it. Is she working? I wanted to get her opinion on something.”
Dr. Abby pulled out her phone and tapped for a minute. “She’s not on my service anymore, but it says it’s her day off.”
I smiled as if it wasn’t that big of a deal. “Thanks for the info. I’ll catch her another day.”
I didn’t know what floor she was on now, but at least I wouldn’t have to stand outside the maternity ward and stare at babies anymore.
Not that I minded really. I did love babies.
My parents hadn’t given me any brothers or sisters.
I’d learned when I was grown that they’d had a lot of trouble conceiving, and dragons, typically, didn’t trust things like human fertility doctors.
Too much chance of something odd being noticed in the process.
I’d never known why they hadn’t gone to a witch.
Or maybe they had, and it hadn’t worked.
Whatever the reason, it had only been me, and somewhat my cousin Wesley, because he was always around.
My mom was Wes’s mom’s cousin. When Wes’s parents died, he came to live with us and became the brother I’d never had.
As a result, I’d always loved playing with other people’s babies. It had made me popular among the younger ladies of the clan, seeing an eligible male dragon who loved kids, but none of them were right. None were her. And now I knew why. My her had been waiting for me in Bluewater.
Heading back to my office, I took my time and greeted more people, introducing myself and really getting the layout of the hospital, as I’d told Dr. Abby I was doing, to make it less of a lie.
I picked up a meal in the cafeteria to see how it tasted.
That would be my next project and would take all afternoon.
Rehauling the menus for the non-restricted diets, the menu used by most of the hospital and the cafeteria.
As I ate in my office, I brought it up and began working.
And I was right. Before I knew it, my clock had slipped over to five and I wasn’t halfway done with the new menu. I’d get back on it the next day.
Something I’d learned early on, when I first started earning a salary instead of an hourly wage, was to leave when it was time to go home. The work would be there tomorrow, and I’d get it all done.
I punched the button on my dash to call my parents’ house line as I drove home to Bluewater. My mother answered on the first ring. “Toby,” she cried. Then she put her hand over the mouthpiece because the next thing I heard was a muffled, “Chad! Get the extension, it’s Toby!”
I chuckled as I waited for my dad to get on the line.
“Son, how are you?” he asked.
“I’m good, Dad, Mom. How are you both?”
Mom started rattling on about feeling lost without me to take care of, even though I’d lived alone for years. I didn’t even go to their place anymore for laundry. She hadn’t taken care of me in probably a decade.
“You know, I’d worry less if I knew you had a woman there to take care of you.”
I groaned. “Ma, come on. It’ll happen when it’s supposed to happen and no sooner.”
“You deserve someone to be there waiting for you when you get off work,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard me.
“Ma! You know not all women want to be there with dinner waiting. Besides, I love to cook. Maybe I’d like to find a woman who wants her mate to cook for her.
” That sounded nice, actually. “Though I wouldn’t complain if she did the dishes after I cooked.
” I thought about Liza, who was training in an extremely demanding field.
I’d be working fewer hours, almost certainly.
I’d love the opportunity to be waiting for her instead of the other way around.
I didn’t need a housewife, not by any means.
My dad laughed. “Leave the boy alone, Maggie. He’s settling in. How do you like your new place, son?”
“It’s great. I’m barely unpacked, but it’s roomy. Two-bedroom, two-bath. So, when you come visit, you can stay with me.”
“That sounds great,” Mom said. “When can we come?”
I laughed but didn’t answer. “The job is going well, since you didn’t ask.”
They both chuckled. “Sorry, son, how is your new job?”
“Great,” I repeated. “It’s a challenge, and I like working around all the people.
” It had gotten a little lonely in my shared office at the school district building back home.
My office mate had rarely been there, and mostly everyone stayed in their own spaces, ignoring each other until it came time to argue through a school board meeting.
We chatted until I pulled into my apartment complex and let them go. All the way upstairs and for the rest of the night, all I could imagine was cooking for Liza, cleaning while she was at work, though that one was pretty fanciful. More than likely, we’d hire a cleaning person.
But all in all, it felt like a fairy tale. I had no doubt there’d be a reality check or two along the way, but I couldn’t wait to start my happily after ever with Liza.