No Ordinary Billionaire (Sinclair #1)

Chapter 11

“Honey, Beatrice and I are both feeling so much better. I guess we didn’t have food poisoning after all.” Elsie Renfrew looked Sarah right in the eyes and lied to her.

Sarah looked at the two gray-haired women sitting in her exam room and bit her lip to keep from laughing. Beatrice and Elsie had made an emergency appointment, the so-called emergency obviously being that their curiosity was killing them.

She’d realized it was a sham almost from the moment the two of them had come into her exam room together with guilty expressions. Both of them looked rosy from the afternoon heat, but neither one of them looked the least bit under the weather.

“No more stomach pains?” Sarah asked calmly.

The two ladies shook their gray heads at the same time.

“No more nausea?”

They kept shaking their heads as they shot beaming smiles at Sarah.

Sarah closed their patient charts and put them on the cupboard. “Okay, ladies . . . what are your questions? You two are horrible charlatans. I was worried when I heard that both of you were sick.” She gave them what she hoped was an admonishing look, but it was difficult when they were smiling up at her so innocently. Sarah knew better, but it was hard to lecture two elderly women.

“We heard about what happened to your house. We were worried,” Beatrice confessed contritely. “We haven’t seen you around town, and you didn’t play for senior bingo. You’re always there.” Beatrice sounded genuinely concerned, her eyes wide and troubled.

Sarah’s heart melted. These two might be trouble, but their concern touched her. Not even Elsie could fake the alarm Sarah could see in her sharp eyes. “I’m fine. I’ve just been busy taking care of things for the house. I’m staying with a friend.” She couldn’t tell them the truth. It was best if nobody else learned about her stalker and started talking.

“I don’t understand why someone would do something like that. Amesport is usually a safe town,” Elsie commented, her tone almost frightened.

Sarah put her arm around the elderly woman. “It is safe here, Elsie. Nothing else has happened. It was probably just a drunk tourist.” The last thing Sarah wanted was for either of these women to be afraid. They both lived alone, and she didn’t want them to be scared in their own homes. The attacker was after her and her alone.

“I’m not worried,” Beatrice said ferociously. “If I knew who did it, I’d knee him in the balls for what he did to you, just like they taught us at that self-defense class at the center.”

“Beatrice, the correct term is ‘testicles,’” Elsie corrected her friend. “Sarah’s a sweet girl. Let’s not be crude.”

It had been a while since Sarah had been called a girl, and she found it amusing that Elsie actually thought using the term “balls” was vulgar. She’d worked in a big-city hospital with a lot of gang-related incidents. There probably weren’t any really crude words that she hadn’t heard at least hundreds of times. “I appreciate that you were both concerned, but you can see that I’m fine. Next time, don’t make up a story to see me. Just stop in.” Sarah opened the exam room door, and the two women rose to leave.

“I heard you weren’t doctoring that Dante Sinclair anymore. Too bad. He’s one hot tamale,” Beatrice informed Sarah as she walked out the door. “You could have burned up the sheets with him.”

“After they get married, Beatrice,” Elsie said adamantly.

“Really, Elsie, you need to become a modern woman. Nobody waits until they’re married anymore,” Beatrice muttered informatively.