All of Me Read Online Free Page A

‘I’m not the enemy’ do you not understand?”
    Ivey shook her head. “Sorry.”
    “Dr. Allen Stewart.” She should know the name of her real enemy, and it wasn’t Jeff.
    “Who?”
    “He thinks the hiring of one midwife is the beginning of a long, slippery slope in which he ends up destitute on the side of the road.”
    “He’s not any different than most doctors I’ve known.”
    “How long have you been a midwife?” He changed the subject, hoping she wouldn’t notice he’d taken a tangent leading toward the personal. In the past, biology had never been her strong suit, unless you counted the time they’d spent in the bedroom.
    “I worked as an apprentice midwife for Babs Holiday, and for the last two years I’ve been on my own.”
    “Why not work as a home birth midwife?”
    “I want to work in a hospital. We need to stop acting like doctors and midwives are mortal enemies and learn to work together.”
    “It’s not going to be easy. And Stewart is a hard-ass.”
    “So you don’t think I can handle him?”
    “I didn’t say that.” Jeff didn’t like this little semi-friendly exchange. It was easier to keep the emotions bottled up and tamped down tight where they couldn’t bother him. Right now they were rising to the surface and annoying the hell out of him.
    Just because he was lonely and couldn’t remember the last time he’d been laid, it was no reason to take up with the ex.
    Ivey shut her tablet. “Why don’t we end for today?”
    “Good idea. My shift starts in an hour, so I’m going to grab lunch.”
    “Another long shift?”
    “Yep.” Right about now, Ivey would be counting her blessings that she hadn’t wound up with him. Maybe whoever she’d wound up with could give her more than two hours a day of his time. “At least you’ll know where to find me.”
    “Right.” Ivey glanced up at him, the hint of a smile on her lips. “Will you be in the cafeteria? I mean, in case I need you. To ask you a question.”
    “No, I won’t be in the cafeteria because that would be crazy.”
    He’d be heading to Em’s. She made the most succulent pot roast he’d ever tasted, and he’d grown accustomed to the fact that a home-cooked meal waited for him every night he could make it to her kitchen before closing time. Even though there hadn’t been many of those nights lately.
    “That bad, huh?”
    He hesitated for a second, and then hormones won the day. Again. “You should come with me. I’ll show you the best place in town to eat.”
    Her brow creased. “No, that’s all right.”
    “What’s the big deal? We could catch up. Since we can’t speak about anything personal when we cross the threshold.”
    Damn, he hated the fact that he wanted to be with her even for a few more minutes. Maybe some place where she’d loosen up a bit. This whole prairie woman look wasn’t the Ivey he remembered.
    She clutched her tablet like it was the last raft on the Titanic. “Why do we have to talk about anything personal?”
    “We don’t. But we were friends first, and if nothing else we could be that again.” What the hell was wrong with him? This was Ivey. Ivey who left him right at the toughest time of his life. He should be pissed.
    Except for the fact that what she’d said earlier had brought back an old memory he’d long buried. First year of med school he’d been drowning. He knew the stats for first year students. So did Ivey. The dropout rates were astronomical, and he couldn’t join those ranks. Not with how much his middle-class parents had sacrificed to help put him there. He and Ivey had managed a long-distance relationship for four years, but that first year of med school she’d become unbearably clingy and needy.
    So yeah, he’d told her he wanted a break. He hadn’t expected she’d listen so well. Interesting how he’d rewritten that in his mind, mostly because from the time she’d been sixteen Ivey had always been his, and he’d never expected that to change.