“Nope. I’ve already programmed it into my phone. In fact, I have you on speed dial,” she said. “Just in case.”
CHAPTER NINE
FATHER’S DAY SHOULD be outlawed.
Or at least the giving of gifts involving any type of motor should be banned. So far that afternoon, Jessi had treated a leg that been kissed by a chain saw, a back injury from an ATV accident and a lawn mower that had collided with a lamppost before bouncing back and knocking its new owner unconscious. Not to mention assorted other minor injuries. And she still had two hours to go until the end of her shift. The one thing she hadn’t seen had been the screen on her cell phone lighting up or feeling its vibration coming from the pocket of her scrubs.
All was silent with Clint and her daughter.
Sighing, she grabbed the next chart and headed for the curtained exam room. Patient name: William Tuppele. Complaint: the words fishing hook and earlobe ran through her head before she blinked and forced her eyes to read back over that part.
Okay. So it wasn’t just things with motors that should be banned from this particular holiday.
When she entered the room, a man dressed in hip waders with a camo T-shirt tucked into them sat on the exam table. And, yep, he was sporting a shiny new piece of jewelry.
She looked closer and gulped. Had something behind his ear just moved?
Stepping farther in the room, she glanced again at his chart. “Mr. Tuppele.” She omitted the words How are you? because it was pretty obvious this was the last place the man wanted to be. Instead, she aimed for cheeky. “Catch anything interesting today?”
Instead of smiling, the man scowled. “Great, I get a nurse who thinks she’s a comedienne.”
She bristled, but held out her hand anyway. “I’m Dr. Riley. How long have you been like this?”
“About an hour.” His gaze skipped away from hers, his words slurring the slightest bit. “My son caught me with his hook. It was his first fishing trip.”
“Hmm.” She kept the sound as noncommittal as possible, but from the way his face had turned scarlet and—she tried not to fan herself openly—the alcohol fumes that bathed every word the man spoke, she would almost bet there was no “son” involved in this particular party. Rather, she suspected a male-bonding episode that had gone terribly wrong.
Hip waders and booze. Not a good combination. They were lucky no one had drowned. “Did someone drive you to the hospital?”
She certainly didn’t want to let a drunk loose on the roads.
“One of my buddies. He’s down in the waiting room.”
Jessi could only hope the buddy had been less generous when it came to doling out those cans of beer to himself. She made a mental note to have someone check on his friend’s sobriety level.
She sat on her stool just as the worm—and, yes, it was indeed a piece of live bait—gave a couple of frantic wiggles. Lord, she did not want to touch that thing, much less have to handle it. But the best way to remove a fishing hook was to cut off the end opposite the barb and push the shank on through, rather than risk more damage by pulling it back out the way it had gone in. That barb acted like a one-way door. They went in, but they didn’t want to come out.
The worm moved again.
“Hell,” said the man. “Can you please get this damned thing off me? It stinks.”
And it’s creeping me out.
Mr. Tuppele didn’t say the words, but she could well imagine him thinking them, because the same thoughts were circling around in her head, too. Maybe this was the worm’s way of exacting revenge on anglers everywhere.
And maybe she could call one of the male nurses.
Ha! And give her patient a reason for his earlier sexist remark. Hardly. “When was your last tetanus shot?”
“Haven’t been to a doctor in twenty years. Wouldn’t be here now if one of my … er, my son hadn’t been so squeamish about taking it out himself. “Is my ear going to be permanently pierced? I don’t cotton to men with earrings and such.”
She smiled despite herself, tempted to match his it-was-my-son fib and tell him that, yes, he would be permanently disfigured and might as well go out and buy a couple of nice dangly pieces of jewelry. But she restrained herself. “No. I knew a man who had his ear pierced in high school but had to stop wearing an earring when he went into the military. It’s all healed up now.”
At least she assumed that’s when Clint had stopped wearing the single hoop in his ear, because there was no sign of it now. And how was it that she had even noticed that? Or remembered what he’d worn back then?
She’d kind of liked his earring, back in the day.
“Good. Don’t need anyone getting any strange ideas about me.”
Too late for that, Mr. Tuppele. She already had a few ideas about him. And they went much deeper than men sporting earrings. “Let me set up. I’m going to call in a nurse to give you a shot to numb your ear.”
“I don’t need it numbed. I just need that damned thing out.”
“Are you sure?” The rest of the staff was going to thank her patient for sparing them the need to get close to that wriggler.
“Just do it.”
“Okay.” Trying not to shudder, she got her equipment together, praying the worm died before she had to deal with it. As disgusting as she found it, she felt a twinge of pity for the creature. It hadn’t been its choice to be cast into a river for the first hungry fish to gulp.
Gloves in place, she squirted some alcohol on the wound in back of his ear, waiting for the string of cuss words to die down before continuing. She grabbed her locking forceps and clamped the instrument right behind the worm. If the barb had gone all the way through his ear, she could have just cut it off and backed the hook out, worm and all. But while there was a tiny bit of metal showing in the front of the lobe, the barb was still embedded in the man’s flesh. It was going to hurt, pushing it the rest of the way through. She got a pair of wire cutters and took a deep breath, then moved in and cut the eye, leaving as much shank as possible behind that worm.
“Okay, I’m going to have to push the barb through the front, are you sure you’re okay?”
“Fine.”
Holding the front of the man’s earlobe with her gloved fingers, she used the forceps to push hard, until the barb popped through.
The man yelled out a few more choice words, but he’d held remarkably steady. Having a hook shoved through your ear was evidently a surefire way to sober up. Fast.
“All right, the worst part is over. I just need to pull the hook the rest of the way out.” Holding a tray beneath his ear so she wouldn’t have to touch the worm, she removed the forceps and used them to grasp the barb in front. Then she pulled steadily, until the worm plonked onto the instrument tray and the hook was the rest of the way through his ear.
Praying the creature didn’t find his way off the counter and onto the floor, she set the tray down and used a piece of antiseptic soaked gauze to sponge away the blood and dirt from the front and the back of the man’s ear and then took a piece of dry gauze and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. “Can you hold this here? We’ll need to get you a tetanus shot as well as some antibiotics, just in case.”
Mr. Tuppele did as she asked and squeezed his earlobe between the two sides of gauze. But when she carried the worm over to the garbage can, the man stopped her with a yelled “Hey!”
She turned toward him, still holding the tray. “Yes?”
“That thing dead?”
She glanced down. It wasn’t moving any more, thank God. “I think so.”
“Touch it to make sure.”
Horror filled her to the core. She hated fishing. Hated bugs. Broken bones, bullet wounds, she could whiz through with ease, but anything that wiggled or crawled or stared with cold-blooded eyes she was just not into. “I’ll let you do the honors.” She held out the tray and let the man jab the worm with a finger while she cringed. Thankfully it remained limp, even after two more pokes.
�
�Damn. I was hoping to use that one again.”
Again? Hooking himself once hadn’t been enough?
She gave a mental eye roll. “Sorry about that. It was probably the alcohol.”
“There ain’t that much in my blood.”
And … Okay.
Dumping the worm and the cleaning gauze into the trash bin, she turned back to face him. “I’ll have the nurse come in with the shot and your prescription. Make sure you see your doctor if that ear puffs up or doesn’t seem to be healing after a couple of days. Or if you develop a fever.”
She took the gauze from him and checked his ear, before pressing tiny round bandages over the front and back of the puncture wound. “You can take those off in a couple of hours.”
The man managed to mumble out a “Thank you.”
Her phone buzzed, making her jump.
Clint. It had to be.
Patting the man on the back and telling him to take care, she went out and gave instructions to the nurse and asked her to send someone out to check on his buddy. By that time her phone had stopped ringing. “Anyone else waiting for me?”
The nurse grinned. “Not at the moment. But the new barbecue grills are probably being fired up even as we speak.”
“Heaven help us all.”
Hopefully, that wave of patients would come through after she was off duty. She forced out a laugh, even though she was dying to grab her phone and call Clint back. He knew she was on duty. Knew she’d get back to him as soon as she could.
The nurse got the injection ready and carried it into the room, leaving Jessi alone in the hallway. She took out her phone and glanced at the readout, even though she knew who it was.
C. Marks.
Hitting the redial button, she leaned a shoulder against the wall, an ache settling in her back at all the bending she’d done today.
“Marks here.”
“Clint? It’s Jessi. What’s up?”
“Just calling to see how much longer you were on duty.”
Jessi glanced at her watch. “I have another half hour, why?”
“I thought we might get together and talk about Chelsea.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No, she’s fine. No major developments, but no setbacks either. I just haven’t eaten, and I assume you haven’t either. Would you like to go somewhere? Or I could come to the hospital and eat with you in the cafeteria.”
She grimaced, glancing at the room she’d just come from. “No. The food here isn’t the best, and I’m not really hungry. I could do with a shake, though, while you get something else.”
She was still puzzling over his sudden change of heart.
“A shake sounds fine. How about we get it to go?”
Okay, she hadn’t thought this far ahead. “And go where?”
“We could go to the park on the east side.”
The park? She glanced out at the streetlights that were already visible in the darkening sky. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Good. I’ll meet you at the front entrance of the hospital, okay?”
“I’ll be there.”
Maybe somehow in that period of time she could shake off all thoughts of sitting inside Clint’s car in a dark park, sipping on a milk shake. Or the fleeting images of what they could do once they finished their drinks and had said all they needed to say.
A warning came up from the depths of her soul, reminding her of days gone by and how badly he’d broken her heart. But only because she’d let him.
You can’t head down that road again, Jess.
No, she couldn’t.
Well, if her heart could make that decree, then she could somehow abide by it.
So she would have to make one thing very clear to herself before he came to pick her up. She would not kiss Clinton Marks again. Not in the dark. Not in a park.
The impromptu rhyme made her smile.
And if he kissed her instead?
As much as she might wish otherwise, if that ever happened, then all bets were off.
Because she might just have to kiss him back.
CHAPTER TEN
“YOU USED TO have an earring in high school.”
A swallow of his milk shake went down the wrong way, and Clint gave a couple of rough coughs before turning in his seat to stare at her. In the dim light of the parking lot at a nearby burger joint, he could just make out her questioning gaze. He’d decided against going to the park, worried about being too alone with her.
This was more public, although he wasn’t exactly sure what he was worried about. Surely they could both handle this situation like adults. Running into each other from time to time was part of adult behavior.
And going to the fair and having dinner with her and her mother?
All part of being back in his hometown. It meant nothing. At least, he’d better make sure it didn’t.
And what about her asking about his earring?
Jessi must have changed clothes before leaving the hospital, because she wasn’t wearing a lab jacket or rubber-soled shoes but a pair of slim, dark jeans, lime-green T-shirt and a pair of shoes that had a wedged heel. Not what he would consider doctor gear at all. In fact, she looked much more like the teenager he’d known in high school than a mom with a grown daughter.
He felt like an old fuddy-duddy in comparison, still in his shirt and tie. He could have sworn the kid at the drive-through window had eyed Jessi with interest. Clint had thrown the teen a glare in return, which had felt like something Jessi’s actual father might have done.
When had he turned into such a square?
Maybe when he’d seen the emotional wounds of those returning from battle. And how they reminded him of his own.
“I did have an earring. I took it out the night before I reported for boot camp.”
The night of their graduation. The night he’d made love to Jessi. It had marked the end of an era for him, a journey from childhood to becoming a man. Removing the earring that night had been something the old Clint wouldn’t have done. He’d have reported to boot camp and waited until someone ordered him to take it out. But he hadn’t. After watching Jessi’s house for a while that night, he’d gone home—avoiding the after parties and festivities that had gone along with graduation—and stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. God, he’d wanted to stay in Richmond that night. For the first time he’d thought of doing something other than running away. And it had been all because of Jessi.
Instead, he’d unhooked the small gold hoop and pulled it from his ear. As if that one act would give him the courage to walk away when everything inside him had been yelling at him to stay and fight for her, shoving aside his fears about what might happen if he did. What kind of life he might drag her into, if he stayed.
But, even if he’d decided to risk it all for her, Jessi was already spoken for, at least according to Larry and all their friends.
The image in the mirror that night had told him which of them had had a better shot of giving Jess a good life. The choice had been obvious—at least to him. He had just been a screwup from a dysfunctional family, his finger a constant reminder of what that brought.
He hadn’t wanted that for her.
So he’d let her go. An act his teenage self had decided was the mature thing to do. He still had that old hoop in a box somewhere.
Jessi unexpectedly reached up, her fingers cool from holding her frozen drink as they touched his chin. Using gentle pressure, she turned his head to the right, leaning over to look. Her breath washed across his skin, the scent of vanilla catching hold of his senses and making him want to sneak a taste of her mouth.
“Is there still a hole where your earring used to be?”
What was with all the questions? And why had he ever thought sitting in a car—or anywhere else—with her was a good idea?
Just being an adult. Proving he could control his impulses.
He swallowed. “I haven’t really looked in a while.
Why?”
“We had a guy come into the ER tonight who’d hooked himself while fishing and I had to push the barb all the way through his ear. He was worried his family would think he’d pierced it.” She gave a soft laugh. “He wanted to know how long it would take to heal. I told him he should be more worried about the risk of tetanus than a tiny hole.”
Her nose wrinkled. “The worst thing was there was still a live worm attached to the end of that hook.”
“Well, that had to be an interesting scenario.”
“I almost couldn’t do it.” She let go of him and leaned back in her seat. “Did you ever have to do something and wonder if you’d be able to get through it?” She made a sound in her throat. “Never mind. Of course you have.”
He could think of two at the moment. One was leaving her behind twenty-two years ago. And the other was not touching her now, when everything inside him was straining to do just that. “I think everyone eventually gets a case like that. Or at least wonders if the patient would be better off with another doctor.”
Jessi suddenly bent to get her milk shake. In the process the lid came off, dumping the cup, and half of its contents, right onto her lap.
He moved to grab it just as her cry of dismay went up. “Oh, no. Clint, I’m so sorry. Your car.”
“I’m more worried about you turning into a block of ice.” He sent her a half grin as he tried to scoop some of the shake back into the cup. It only ended up sloshing more onto her shirt and jeans.
“Don’t move.” He got out of the car, cup in hand, and strode into the restaurant to throw it away, exiting a few seconds later with a fresh empty cup and a handful of napkins.
Together they corralled most of the spillage between the paper cup and a spare lid, and then sopped up the remainder with the pile of napkins.
“I always was the clumsiest girl in high school.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“You used to cut yourself down for things, even when they weren’t your fault.”
He could always remember some self-deprecating comment or other she would throw out there in school, making everyone laugh and passing it off as a big joke. But there had always been a ring of conviction to the jibes that had made him wonder if she didn’t actually believe all the “I’m such a klutzo” and “Wow, am I ever a nerd” statements.
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