Chapter 1

God, that thing looked awful, hideous even!

It was green and goopy with brown and red chunks and had yellow slime oozing from its pasty white wrapping.

It looked like something that was inside one of his patient's diapers yesterday.

"What do you think, Dr. Morgan?"

Max looked at his office manager and asked seriously, "You aren't going to eat that are you? It looks terrible!"

Laura Goode looked down at her plate and replied haughtily, "Of course I'm going to eat it, it's my lunch!" She watched an expression of revulsion cross her boss's expressive face and huffed, "Were you even listening, Dr. Morgan?"

He was still staring at that awful blob of green-yellow slime on her plate. "What is that thing?" Max rearranged his overlarge frame in the too small chair and whispered to his young head nurse, Anastasia, "Is that thing even a food product?"

Anastasia slapped her hand over her mouth, embarrassed, when a girlish giggle escaped. "Stop it, Dr. Morgan, Laura's serious. Weren't you listening?"

Luckily the staff had, over the years, become accustomed to Maxwell Morgan's frequent lapses in attention. Usually they assumed, correctly, that he was puzzling over a case or mentally digesting some article or study he'd recently read. Far too often, lately, his mental meanderings weren't work related at all. No, recently he'd been thinking more and more about his beautiful head nurse.

There was no excuse for it, really; overwork leading to tiredness perhaps then leading to daydreaming. Normally he kept a very tight reign on his imagination while in the office. Lately; however, thoughts of the luscious Anastasia Petrova intruded with greater regularity.

She was a vision; you couldn't blame a man for appreciating the view. Warm chestnut curls cascaded down her back, bewitching green eyes twinkled merrily, a lush pink mouth curved into a ready smile. Anastasia was curvy, womanly, and soft in all the right places; she had a figure blessed by her Russian Gypsy heritage. And the way she moved that figure... She flowed from place to place. Max loved to watch her move. So did the children's fathers. Anastasia was young and bright, a relief from being married with children, as it were.

The kids loved her for her teasing nature and tolerant sense of humor. Max had two-hundred and fifty kids in a pediatrics practice and an office manager forever hounding him to take on an associate or a partner.

"... Morgan... Dr. Morgan? He's gone again." He heard Laura despair over him.

"Ouch!" Max winced when the throbbing on the back of his neck penetrated his foggy mind. "What was that for?" He looked at the innocent expression on Anastasia's face.

"Do we have your attention now?" Anastasia asked sweetly. No one in the office would have suspected her of pinching her boss, but her younger brothers could tell them differently. She was big on pinching to garner wandering attention.

"Yeah, what?" He asked while rubbing his sore neck.

"What do you think of having a pajama day?" Laura enunciated.

Max though it over. Every Friday the staff tried to do something fun; Friday's were long and hard days usually due to far too many sick kids. Why is it always just before the weekend when little Johnny gets the flu or little Suzy the Chicken Pox?

He'd learned long ago to have extended hours on Friday's and to be available by pager on Friday nights. The staff was good about it, too. The nurses split their shifts to work the longer hours and they rotated the triage calls. He and his Physician's Assistant, Eric, usually took turns being on call over the weekends.

The best part about Friday's, though, was the theme. Years ago, on Halloween, the staff dressed in costumes. The following year they had repeated the event and decorated the office, too. Each exam room had a different theme; haunted castles, screeching dungeon, bloody murder scene, and so on. It was such a hit it became a yearly tradition until Laura. When Laura worked her first long Friday she'd suggested the weekly Friday theme idea. Since then they'd had Dye Your Hair For A Day, Dress As Your Favorite Actress or Actor Day, they'd even all dressed up as Tele Tubbies and Care Bears.

"I vote yes, not only yes, but hell yes!" Eric grinned at Max from across the table.

"So it's okay, Dr. Morgan?" Tina asked. Tina was one of the nurses, newest to the staff, and fresh out of nursing school.

"What was the theme idea? I missed it."

Anastasia laughed, "You should have been paying attention then! We want to combine Fuzzy Slipper Day with our new idea of Pajama Day."

"I still vote hell yeah!" Eric crowed. "Who wouldn't want to see Tina in a tiny little nighty?"

Everyone laughed but Tina. Everyone knew Eric was a gentleman that preferred other gentlemen, but Tina still wasn't used to his bawdy sense of humor, especially when it was directed toward her, which it seemed to be quite frequently.

"Hey, now think of the kids and their parents!" Laura admonished. "No tiny nighties, no ratty t-shirts, nothing see through."

Max quickly saw the advantage to Pajama Day especially when combined with Fuzzy Slipper Day. What does Anastasia wear to bed, he wondered?

"Okay, I agree." Suddenly he thought of those fathers seeing Anastasia in something see through. "But with Laura's restrictions." Max gave his seal of approval and watched his staff set about making plans.