An Honest Kiss

Chapter 13

It was a week before the new crop of staff arrived and the word had gotten out that Bowers and Brent were leaving.  While there wasn't necessarily dancing in the streets, there was a much happier vibe to the place. The best part was that with everyone's happiness that Bowers's reign was over a lot of the staff forgot that they were upset at her and started to treat her as part of the team again.

That was until Bowers cornered her one day after breakfast.

Rachel had been late coming off duty.  One of the night nurses had taken ill and had to take off duty so it doubled Rachel's work load.  She still wasn't forgiven to the point that she didn't get the extra work that came along. She had missed breakfast so she had snuck through to the kitchen to beg some food off of Mary before she turned in for the day.

Mary had just whipped her up an omelet and they were sitting at the large stainless steel counter, Rachel was eating and Mary was sipping on a cup of coffee laughing over a story that Rachel had been telling her when Bowers walked into the room.

"Mary would you please excuse us?" Bowers requested without any other form of acknowledgement to Mary.

Mary looked at Rachel in askance and Rachel nodded that it was all right.

"I told you to leave Mary. Why are you still here?" Bowers spun around confronting Mary, her face contorted with anger.

Mary gave her a thoughtful look before she rose and left.

There was a tense moment of silence while Bowers gathered her thoughts.

"This is your doing, isn't it?" Bowers asked as she started to pace the floor.

"What's that?" Rachel played dumb as she picked up her coffee cup.

"The reason my contract hasn't been renewed. It's your fault?"

"No. I imagine it's Dr. Cooper's doing. Isn't he the one that makes all the decisions? Or maybe he had help from Dr. Lancaster, she's been after him for a while, maybe she finally caught him." Rachel's heart twisted at the thought even though she knew she had just made it up at that moment.

"No, I asked her."

That was unexpected and Rachel tried to hide the surprise she felt that Bowers had felt comfortable enough to go straight to Dr. Lancaster.  She didn't doubt for a minute that Dr. Lancaster had thrown her as bait to Bowers.

"Is it possible she lied to you?"

"No, it's not. One thing I know is a liar, and you have been lying since the moment you got here."

Rachel couldn't deny it as she looked at Jolene Bowers in all her righteous anger. She felt sorry for her. If she felt this was her calling then her being pushed out would not be easy on her, but somehow Rachel felt that she was long past feeling that her job was a calling and she was there to serve a purpose, if it had ever been true.

Rachel couldn't think of anything to say to make the situation better, but there was plenty she could say to make the situation worse so she just stayed silent.

"Nothing to say for yourself?"

"Everybody lies about something, even you." Rachel sipped her coffee watching Bowers covertly.

"How dare you insinuate that I lie? I do not lie."

"So then the reason you're so hard on all of the pretty girls is because they're all bad at their jobs, even me?" Rachel watched at Bower's face turned red. It started at her neck and worked its way up to her cheeks. Unable to stop, Rachel allowed herself to finally let go. "Tell me Jolene," she dragged out her name, "Why did you come here, was it to help people?"