Gun Shy

by Diane Saxon

  Her nerves showed in the quick swipe of her tongue over her lower lip, enough to give his heart a guilty hitch.

  “I don’t think so, Jack, I’m not what you’re looking for. I don’t do one-night stands. We already established that, didn’t we?” She didn’t attempt to remove his hand, but she narrowed her gaze as he continued to stroke. He grazed his thumb across her nipple. His gaze flickered down to watch the movement of his hand mold her breast. He noted the soft warmth and weight of it, the hardening of her nipple, and then he glanced back at her and knew if he didn’t fight back, he was in trouble.

  “I’m not falling for the relationship trap, Katie, but what would you say to keeping it casual? Not a one-night stand, but we could heat up the sheets really well, no strings attached.”

  Kate leaned back out of his range, and the loss of their connection left a cold slice in his heart. One that cracked and burst into flames as she reached over to the instrument trolley, picked up a small scalpel, and leaned back in. She brought the scalpel up to his face, leaving him with no doubt she was perfectly capable of wielding it with ruthless efficiency. She held it steady without breaking eye contact with him while insult flashed through her eyes. She almost made him regret his treatment of her. Almost, but anger still bubbled beneath the surface, egged on by the pain radiating from his entire body.

  “Keep still, I might just take your eye out if I slip, and I really don’t want to hurt you, Jack.”

  With reluctant admiration, he folded his hands in his lap and kept still, trusting her to follow through on her threat. She was no pushover.

  “Perhaps Cormack Blunt’s more your type. Not so rough around the edges.”

  “Don’t do this, Jack.” She dropped her hand to her side. “Don’t insult me. On the one hand you persist in pushing me away and on the other you can’t help chasing me. I don’t want Mac. I don’t want any other man, but I’m not prepared to take what you’re offering either.” Her stare was direct, her voice clear as she stood in front of him. “Make up your mind and let me know when you decide what it is you want. You’re not a child, so stop acting like one. I won’t sleep with you just so you can walk away with another notch on your bedpost. If you want to see me again, you’re going to have to ask me properly, not make excuses, not just turn up unexpectedly and think I’ll drop everything to accommodate your childish demands. I value myself much higher and I don’t see why you shouldn’t too.”

  She held his gaze for a moment longer and then lifted her hand, leaned in, and deftly clipped the stitches across his eyebrow using her forefinger to gently straighten his skin while she inspected her own handiwork.

  She confused him.

  She shamed him.

  A small kernel of hope unraveled in his chest.

  “Jesus, Kate, I’m sorry.” He opened his arms and hauled her into his chest, surprised she didn’t stab him in the eye with her scalpel. He deserved it, but there was no resistance, just a small girly squeak as he squeezed the air from her lungs. Her body compliant, she made no objection to his tight grip on her. Relieved, he dipped his face into the crook of her neck and breathed in her scent. “I’m really sorry, I’m going crazy here.” He molded her closer. “You drive me crazy. I want you so much, I’m acting like an ass.”

  Remorse tugged hard as he leaned back and raised his hand to cup her cheek. She may not have slashed her scalpel through his skin, but she’d ripped his heart in two.

  With no resistance from her, he dipped in to touch his lips against hers. A gentle exploratory touch. An apology. He kissed the corner of her mouth and then traced his way with soft nibbles along the velvet skin of her cheek. Her tense muscles loosened as he continued up to her temple, across her eyelids and down her nose to the very tip to take one last sip.

  Hope pounded through his veins as he leaned away. He studied her once more, as her eyes fluttered open. Sure it wasn’t his imagination that the ice had thawed a little, he lifted his hand to stroke the wild tendrils of hair that had escaped the ponytail back behind her ear.

  “Kate. Perhaps we should see each other.”

  Her small hesitation made his heart miss a beat.

  “Perhaps.”

  His pulse thundered in his ears. He needed to get away from her. Look what she’d managed to get him to agree to, and he’d only been in her company five minutes. It wasn’t like she’d held a gun to his head, just a scalpel to his eye. “Not an actual date, you understand. Perhaps just coffee.”

  “Ha.” Fingers cool against his overheated cheek, she gave him a light tap. “Coffee isn’t going to get me into bed with you, buster. Not unless it’s really good quality.”

  Relieved that they were back on more even footing, he hauled her in closer, smacking his mouth against hers. He parted her lips with his own, slid his tongue inside to explore, and shuddered with pleasure as she melted in response.

  “Hey, hey, hey. Break it up, you two, we have an injury here.”

  Kate wrenched herself out of Jack’s arms, a vibrant red hitting her hairline, and he slowly slid off the bench as Mac half carried Buddy through the entrance to the tent. The guy was doubled up in pain, but there was no blood in evidence. Mac heaved him onto the bed and towered over him, his feral grin hardly the image of the sympathetic supporter he appeared to want them to believe.

  “Another one for you, Doc. Although you have got off lightly this time. Most games, you’d have far more injuries than this. Perhaps it’s because Jack’s been missing for most of the damned time.” His wild chuckle reverberated around the tent as a heartfelt groan came from Buddy.

  “What happened?” All concerned professional, Kate moved Mac to one side and leaned over Buddy as she tried to straighten out his crumpled body.

  A smidgeon of amusement tickled Jack as he met his cousin’s wicked gaze. A little retribution wouldn’t harm the man.

  Buddy’s eyes were scrunched up tight, his face a dirty gray. His pathetic moans filled the tent as he rolled back and forth, his arms clutched at his stomach. An inkling of what was wrong with him pricked at Jack as he leaned in closer to take a look.

  A small furrow creased Kate’s smooth brow as Buddy refused to uncurl for her. “I may have to get him to the hospital for x-rays. He might have broken a rib.”

  Mac sidled in to peer over the top of her head at Buddy. He clucked his tongue and sucked air in through his teeth. “I don’t think you should be so hasty, Doc. Damned clumsy kid. He tripped right over my foot and on his way down,” Mac choked down his laughter, “his balls accidentally collided with Bill’s elbow.”

  Kate whipped her head back, her mouth dropped open. Mac slapped his hand on her shoulder, and Jack could only admire her for her tenacity as she kept her feet.

  “I told you, Doc, the girl has sharp elbows, and heaven forbid you put anything in their way. Especially as she was just recovering from being pushed on her ass two seconds before by the very same person who flailed toward her as she hauled herself up. I know she feels just terrible about the situation.” Mac swiped a hand across his forlorn face. “Terrible. So bad, I think I saw tears on my little sister’s cheeks as I brought Buddy off the court.” His mouth tightened as he gave a regretful shake of his head. “She’s very sensitive that way.”

  Suspicion flashed over Kate’s features as she glanced from one to the other. Jack struggled to restrain his snorting laughter, but Mac’s face was so earnest, it served to remind Jack how his cousin had become a top Hollywood actor.

  In fear of being ignored, Buddy let up another loud sniffle and writhed on the bed.

  With a shake of her head, Kate reached into the cooler on the floor and grabbed out a pre-prepared ice pack. Jack swallowed his laughter and exchanged a pained glance with Mac as she leaned in, deftly stuck her hand, ice pack and all, down Buddy’s shorts, and pressed it on the afflicted area. She waited for Buddy to look at her. When he did, she gave him a gentle smile that had Jack’s heart racing, and then she placed Buddy’s hand on his groin area and sl
id hers away.

  “There, hold it just there. I’m sure it feels dreadful, but it will be okay, if you just hold the ice against yourself for a few minutes or so to stop any swelling. Then I’ll have a look to make sure you haven’t damaged yourself too much.”

  Mac burst out a rude snort. “With all due respect, Doc, if you pressed your hand against my dick, my swelling would never go down.”

  Jack’s laughter rumbled through his chest as his cousin poked him in the ribs. “I think you should take a look at my dick, Kate. I think I have a swelling.”

  Mac’s belly laugh filled the tent as they held on to each other and bent up double, in an imitation of the injured Buddy, whose only response was a pitiful whimper.

  Lips twitching, Kate put a hand on each of them to usher them through the door. “Gentlemen, would you like to leave my treatment room now?” All business, she waited for them to go, but Mac turned, swamped her face with his huge hands, and smooched her mouth in a loud, sloppy kiss.

  The swift curl of jealousy took Jack by surprise as the doctor threw back her head and laughed. The spit dried in his mouth as he watched her. She was beautiful when she laughed, and he wanted to be the one responsible for making her happy.

  He glanced between Kate and Mac. She’d not kissed his cousin back, though.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but Mac grabbed him in a headlock, making his face throb like a bitch.

  Chapter Eight

  Friday nights in the ER were always busy. Blood was the main business of the day, usually from minor brawls or drunken trips. Turnover was swift with generally non-life-threatening incidents. Dealing with it exhausted and irritated Kate, especially when she witnessed what humans inflicted on each other and themselves, apparently because they were having a good time.

  She’d learned long ago, when she was a trainee, to have quick hands with drunks. Quick to clean, quick to fix, quick to pick up the nearest receptacle so they didn’t spew up over her feet. She was also quick to avoid the groping hands and the reeling bodies and quick to send them home.

  It wasn’t always the drunks who suffered though. All too often Kate found they were the instigators, the perpetrators, and the culprits. Frequently, they were the criminals, and the victims were their own families—husbands, wives, sons, and daughters.

  It wasn’t that she was oblivious to their pain and suffering, but Kate had learned to disassociate herself in the name of self-preservation. If she allowed her emotions to dictate, she’d never be able to carry out her job.

  Once in a while, though, someone snuck through her defenses.

  This time it was a wife who had been in the line of fire. Brought in by her elderly neighbor who’d found her on the front lawn outside her own home. Small, mousy-haired, and delicate. Bruised, battered, and cut. Worst of all, twenty-five weeks pregnant.

  It wasn’t lack of sympathy that made Kate ignore all those factors, simply the more pressing need to ensure her patient was tended to. That the baby inside her had its vital signs checked to make sure it was fine and there was no damage, or it wasn’t about to abort because according to the neighbor the stupid, alcohol-soaked father had punched Susan several times in the stomach while he screamed abuse and splattered saliva in her face. He’d screamed at her, not for the first time, telling her how they couldn’t afford a baby and it might be just as well if it wasn’t born at all. He’d told her how stupid she was to get herself pregnant and how useless she was as a person, how she deserved his abuse.

  Kate sucked in a slow breath in order to compose herself before she turned around to face her patient, who lay motionless on the hospital gurney.

  Pity refused to be pushed aside altogether.

  Both the woman’s eyes were swollen closed from the fists that had plowed into them, but it didn’t stop the tears from leaking through to run down her temples into her hairline. She was silent, except for the wretched hitch of breath as she cried. Not a sound did she make while Kate carried out her investigations, while she scanned her womb and monitored the baby, while she put the mother on a drip and then tended the minor wounds.

  A hard knot of tension built into steadfast fury as Kate noted all the injuries. Old wounds, new gashes, lacerations all over the woman’s body. Bruises, breaks, cigarette burns. The abuse was not only a singular drunken outburst of unexplained viciousness carried out by a man who had been driven beyond reason, but evidently an on-going habit which had started long ago in their relationship and escalated since the woman’s pregnancy.

  When she’d done everything she could, Kate arranged a bed for Susan so the baby could continue to be monitored throughout the night.

  She sat by the woman’s side long after her shift had finished, far into the night. Numb with so many emotions, her breath shallow with the restrictive pain pressing a heavy weight on her chest, Kate absorbed the woman’s agony as her own.

  She’d explained everything to Susan, each step of the way. She let Susan know the baby was going to be okay, no damage appeared to have been done to the fetus, but she was still in danger of going into labor, so they needed to keep her in for possibly a couple of days.

  Still, the woman never spoke.

  From the rhythm of her breathing, it was evident that Susan was still awake, but the quietness stretched out and the woman’s pain filled the silence.

  Kate breathed out a heavy sigh and checked her watch. She was four hours over her shift and would be back on again in just under six hours. Her back might break if she sat any longer in the upright chair beside Susan’s bed, but she still couldn’t bring herself to move. She’d seen this before, such similar circumstances. The woman last time had been her own sister, and her twin babies had only just been born. Her sister hadn’t spoken either. Not for weeks.

  She wouldn’t allow herself the tears, but she missed Lydia. Lydia and the twins. Her whole life before she’d come to America.

  Kate’s heart broke for the woman before her. But the hard truth of the matter was she was likely to go back to her abusive husband, and the possibility was with the escalation in this latest attack, the next time he would kill her.

  She shook her head as despair weighed her down. She needed to leave, get out of there so she could breathe in fresh air, clear her head, and get her emotions back under control.

  She came to her feet to stretch out muscles that protested her movement after being sedentary for so long. The cool blues and grays of dawn tapered across the night sky to lighten the room and remind her she needed to go anyhow or she wouldn’t get enough rest before her next shift.

  “I should report him, shouldn’t I?”

  The soft, rasping tones of the woman reached across the room to her. Kate turned from the window. Had she misheard? She stared through the dusky light at the woman in the bed. She could make out the glitter of tears trickling from behind the swelling of her purple eyelids.

  The idea of leaving forgotten, Kate curled herself into the uncomfortable chair and took hold of Susan’s hand.

  “I’m sorry? What did you say?”

  “I should report him, shouldn’t I?”

  Kate swallowed the hard lump in her throat. Her sister had reported her abuser. In the end, it wasn’t the police who’d saved her. She’d saved herself.

  “Yes. You should.”

  “Call the sheriff for me please. Ask him to come.” Her voice was a weak and exhausted whisper, but Kate heard the underlying grit. “He can’t harm my baby. He can’t be allowed to do it again. I want my baby to be safe.”

  “I’ll phone the sheriff’s office now. Someone will come soon.”

  As she tried to slip her hand from Susan’s icy one, the woman held on and squeezed it, although the grip was still pitifully weak.

  “Jack. It needs to be Jack. No one else needs to know. Just Jack.” Her hand flopped from Kate’s, and she turned her face to the wall, her shame palpable as the silence once again weighed heavy in the room.

  »»•««

  “Hi. Jack?�
��

  The soft grumble on the other end of the line confirmed she’d disturbed his sleep.

  “I’m so sorry to wake you, I…”

  “Kate?” Her name in his husky bed-voice sent a warm thrill through her stomach.

  “Yes. I’m sorry to call you so early, but…”

  “You do know its five thirty don’t you?” He didn’t sound quite as sleepy.

  “Yes, but…”

  “And I’m naked.” His dirty chuckle did nothing to dissipate the image in her mind as she heard the rustle of bedding as though he moved.

  “Well, I wondered…”

  “If you could come around and shake your pink pasties at me, because believe me, sugar, it’s the only reason I can think you would wake me up in the middle of the night.”

  Definitely no longer sleepy. The man appeared to be able to wake in an instant, leaving Kate hovering between amusement and annoyance. “It’s hardly the middle of the night, Jack. I can see the dawn breaking.”

  “Well I can’t because I still have my eyes closed. But if you care to come on over with those pink pasties, I promise, I’ll make the effort to crack them open.”

  Amusement won, and she couldn’t see the harm in a quick, mild flirtation with the sheriff over the phone. It was probably the safest way to flirt with him. At a distance. Susan wasn’t going anywhere, and this was probably the easiest way to get Jack awake and out of his bed.

  “I don’t have any pink pasties.”

  She wondered if he’d fallen asleep when the heavy silence continued for longer than it should. She opened her mouth to speak, but his voice came over the line, hoarse and low. “I might just have to see about buying you some.”

  Heat shot up her neck and into her face. Heavens, it was a good thing no one else was in the office where she’d decided to make the call.

  He stopped her next words with his own. “No, it’s okay, Doc. You don’t have to thank me yet. Just show them to me when you put them on. That’ll be thanks enough.” The deep gurgle of his laughter emptied her head of all thought other than him. Hot and naked in bed.