Page 6 of I Hate You More

You’re a good worker, Ruby, and the residents like you, but you aren’t really management material.

There’s a lot of paperwork that goes along with a job like this one. We’re not convinced a desk is the best place for you.

Are you sure this is what you want out of life? Someone with your…strengths must have other options.

Her strengths. Right. Smiling and looking pretty—exactly what every woman needed for a long and fulfilling medical career.

“I was just returning Mrs. Orson’s dog to her before I start my shift,” Ruby said in as sweet a tone as she could muster. She’d learned a long time ago that the best way to get around Harry was to ooze docility and then turn around and do exactly as she pleased. “No need to worry—I don’t plan to put in for overtime. I’m happy to do these little extra errands for the residents.”

Harry gave her an appraising look. Although his personality was decidedly rodential, he looked like a walrus. This was due mostly to his mustache, which was bristly and patchy in the most unattractive possible way.

“What did you do to the dog?” he demanded. “He looks the same as he always does.”

“Wheezy is dying,” Mrs. Orson announced in much the same manner that she regularly foretold her own demise. “He has six months left to live, and Ruby here is doing her best to ensure that his final days are happy ones.”

“Mrs. Orson—” Ruby began, but she was quickly cut off.

“We’ll go to our graves together, Wheezy and I,” Mrs. Orson announced. She allowed her hand to start trembling again and held it to her chest. “Speaking of, I can feel a spasm coming on. Be a dear, Harry, and fetch my heart pills from the medicine cabinet, won’t you?”

Harry’s mustache gave an excited twitch. “Of course, Mrs. Orson. Anything you say, Mrs. Orson.”

Ruby waited only until he’d ducked inside the small house before speaking. “You know he’s going to steal half your pain medication while he’s in there, right? You shouldn’t let him wander around without supervision. None of you should.”

Mrs. Orson laughed. It was always such a delight to hear that robust sound coming from such a tiny body. “Oh, honey. You think we don’t know what he’s up to? We may be old, but we’re not dead.”

Ruby could only stare at her.

“Sugar pills and baby aspirin, that’s all he’ll find in our cabinets. The real stuff—thegoodstuff—is hidden with the cleaning supplies. No man is ever going to look twice at a box of scrub brushes. You can quote me on that.”

“Mrs. Orson! If you have proof, you should report him. I’ve tried to do it a dozen times, but no one believes me. They think I’m after attention.”

Mrs. Orson’s answer was a gentle but mocking smile. It was a look Ruby got a lot, but it didn’t bother her as much coming from the residents. She liked to think of them as the fleet of loving grandparents she’d never had.

“It’s not right,” Ruby insisted. “He shouldn’t get away with it.”

“He doesn’t, dear.”

Harry emerged with two white pills in his hand. He rattled them around the same way a gambler would a pair of dice, and Ruby couldn’t help but imagine his pockets overflowing with baby aspirin with the A’s scraped off.

She shook her head as Mrs. Orson accepted the pills and carelessly kicked them back. Ruby could work here for the rest of her life and never run out of ways to be surprised. Every day was an education.

“Five minutes,” Harry warned as he took himself off. He pointed a finger at Ruby. “Then you need to be scrubbed in and on the clock, understood? I don’t care how many dogs are dying around here.”

Ruby was superstitious enough to reach down and pet Wheezy as soon as Harry rounded the corner. “He didn’t mean that,” she said, running her fingers through the tangled curls of his ears. The golden retriever did no more than stir, so she turned to glance up at Mrs. Orson. “Andpleasestop threatening death every time you don’t get your way. Think of how bad you’d feel if something happened to Wheezy.”

This admonishment had about as much effect on the older woman as the revelation that Harry was stealing her medication. Mrs. Orson blinked at her for a moment before picking up her book once again.

“But you said yourself that he’s in perfect health,” she pointed out. “You had that nice man from the dog show check him out.”

“I said he gave me diet food recommendations,” Ruby corrected her. “And he wasn’t nice. He insulted poor Wheezy.”

“Did he now?”

“Several times, actually. He also tried to bar him from entering the contest just because we were a few minutes late.”

“Then it was good of him to change his mind. You must have been very convincing.”

Ruby hesitated.Convincingwouldn’t be the word she’d have chosen to describe her interaction with Spencer Wilson. She’d used logic, yes, and persuasion, and maybe even a little bit of cunning, but he clearly hadn’t been won over—not by Wheezy and definitely not by her.