Prescription for Love

by Radclyffe

  “I brought you some OR clogs—they might be a bit big, but they’re clean.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you down there.”

  “I need to look at your hand.”

  “Go shower,” Abby said. “You’re just as cold and dirty as I was. My hand is fine.”

  “Let me see it. Thirty seconds.”

  Since she’d waste more time arguing, Abby stepped forward with her hand out, palm up. “Your verdict, Dr. Rivers?”

  Flann cupped Abby’s hand, her fingers a gentle cradle. “Not too deep, but your whole palm is scraped up. You ought to put some antibiotic ointment on it when you get downstairs.”

  “I will.” Abby pulled her hand away when Flann showed no signs of letting go. They’d probably only been touching for ten seconds, but her whole arm flashed with heat. Why attention from a woman she barely knew could rock her so completely left her as shaken as the trembling in her depths. The need that pulled at her when Flann focused on her was foreign and terrifying and bittersweet. Everything she’d forgotten how to want. “You need to keep your leg dry.”

  Flann held up a big sheet of adherent plastic. “Jeannie got me this. I’ll wrap it around the dressing.”

  “You’ll need help with that.”

  “I’ll get Jeannie to do it.”

  “I’m right here.”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  She minded the idea of Jeannie doing it a lot more, for some reason. “Just give me a minute to get dressed.”

  “Sure.” Flann leaned against the tile wall.

  Really. As if she couldn’t tell when she was being teased. Abby pointed. “Flann. Out.”

  “Oh,” Flann said, her smile widening. “Just checking.”

  “Well, you can stop. I’ll call you.”

  Flann laughed and backed out. Abby wanted to be outraged at Flann’s outrageous presumptions and her interminable flirting, but she wasn’t really. Flann’s exuberant confidence and relentless charisma made her feel young in a way she couldn’t remember ever feeling. She must’ve, once, before she’d made a colossal mistake that had left her pregnant and also given her the greatest gift of her life. She’d lost her youth, but she’d gained so much more and had not one iota of regret. Still, Flann’s playful seductiveness woke something in her, and allowing herself a few moments’ secret pleasure couldn’t do anyone any harm. But the moment was over. She pulled on the scrubs over her bare skin and stepped into the clogs. “Ready.”

  Flann came back and dropped scrubs and more towels on the floor. She untied the pair of scrub pants she’d gotten from Harper and let them slide to the floor.

  The shower enclosure was steamy and very quiet. They were very much alone and Flann was not her patient now. Flann’s legs were tanned and toned, and a little bit of bare, lean midriff showed above the black briefs. Flann was a very sexy woman, and Abby was not immune.

  “Okay, how do we do this?” Abby kept her gaze firmly on Flann’s face.

  Flann held out the eighteen-inch square of adherent plastic. “You hold both corners on your end, and I’ll peel off the backing. Keep it tight so it doesn’t wrinkle, lay it down over the bandage, and wrap it all the way around. Make sure you get skin on both sides of it so it sticks.”

  Abby had to crouch in front of Flann again, and she ordered herself back into physician mode. She grasped the plastic as directed, Flann peeled off the thin paper backing, and Abby pressed the adherent film to Flann’s thigh. Flann’s muscles jumped.

  “I’m sorry. You’re tender, aren’t you?”

  “I’m okay. You’re doing great.”

  Abby carefully wrapped the plastic around Flann’s thigh, completely enclosing the gauze bandage she’d placed earlier. When she was done, she looked up. “All right?”

  Flann’s teasing grin was gone. In its place was an expression Abby had never seen directed at her before—a dark flash of hunger that flared in the shadows of Flann’s gaze.

  “Really good.” Flann brushed a strand of hair from Abby’s cheek. “You do have good hands.”

  Flann’s fingertips were soft and warm, and heat flowed down Abby’s body. She leaned into Flann’s palm and Flann’s fingers slid over the edge of her jaw onto her neck. Her nipples tightened.

  Abby swallowed. “I should get downstairs.”

  “I’ll be right down.” Flann didn’t move.

  Abby rose. They were inches apart. Flann’s lips parted, full and moist.

  “Abby—”

  “Don’t forget,” Abby said, slipping around Flann. “I expect you to check in every two hours.” She didn’t wait for Flann to answer.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Flann finished her sixth case of the night at five in the morning. They’d commandeered a couple of floor nurses to work in the recovery room until the regular staff could get in, hopefully sometime in the next few hours. Presley had sent word into the OR that she’d been in contact with local police and county sheriffs’ offices, and reports were that many roads were closed due to downed trees and mudslides. With so few roads connecting the outlying communities, many of the staff members would not be able to get into work for at least another twenty-four hours. Those who lived close enough to the hospital to make it in or who were on duty when the storm hit would be eating and sleeping at the hospital until relief arrived. Sometime during the night one of the old-timers Presley had once referred to as a dinosaur had shown up in the OR in scrubs. Franklin Thomas had spent his life as a general practitioner, but when he’d started practicing, around the time Flann had been born, he’d delivered babies, set bones, and on occasion removed an appendix or two. He’d pitched in and put on casts, washed out wounds, and performed other minor surgical procedures to give Flann a chance to concentrate on the most serious repairs.

  “Jeannie,” Flann said as she stretched some of the kinks out of her back, “if there’s no one on deck, I’ll head to the ER and see what else might be down there.”

  “Hopefully, not much.” Jeannie’s shoulders sagged with weariness. She and the few OR nurses they’d been able to assemble had been working flat-out for over twelve hours.

  “I think Glenn would’ve called up if she’d had anything, but I want to be sure before we let people start taking breaks.”

  “Right. We’ll be waiting.”

  Flann changed out of her sweat-soaked scrubs into clean ones, grabbed a white coat from a peg by the door, and took the stairs down to the first floor. The almost empty ER waiting room was a relief. The big board across from the nurses’ station indicated eight of the dozen rooms were occupied, but the emergency receiving bay was unoccupied. No pending traumas. The exhaustion she’d been keeping at bay seeped in, and she rubbed her forearm across her eyes.

  “Hey.”

  Abby’s voice cut through Flann’s fatigue like a sharp scalpel, energizing her. Flann straightened, and there she was. A few feet away, a chart tucked under her arm, her hair held back with a tie at the base of her neck. Faint circles smudged the pale flesh beneath her eyes, but that was the only sign she’d been up all night working. Her gaze was bright and focused and her smile—Flann hadn’t realized until just that moment how precisely like sunrise Abby’s smile was.

  “What are you doing down here?” Abby asked.

  “I escaped.”

  Abby laughed. “You’ve also missed several check-ins.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. They were stacked up like firewood there for a while. I couldn’t get away.”

  “I know. We were sending them up to you. How’s everybody doing?”

  Flann leaned against the wall, moving out of the way of a nurse pushing a stretcher toward the elevator at the end of the hall. The aches in her muscles disappeared as pleasure lightened the heaviness in her chest. Abby stirred a surge of energy, like a breeze chasing away the clouds after a summer squall. “Fortunately, most of the fractures were straightforward and they’ll be able to go home in a day or two. The guy from the car accident is in the ICU being monitored. His CA
T scan shows contusions, but nothing that looks surgical. Last I heard, the nurses were waiting for neurosurg to evaluate.”

  “We really need our own neurosurgeons on call.”

  “We need a lot of things,” Flann said with an edge. “But we’re not a level one, Abs.”

  Abby’s eyebrows rose. “Abs?”

  “Okay then. What do people call you for short?”

  “Abby.”

  “Right.” Flann grinned. “Have you heard from the kids?”

  “Not yet. But they have to be okay, right?”

  “They’ll be fine. Margie has a good head on her shoulders—she won’t do anything too crazy.”

  “Now, that’s reassuring,” Abby said dryly. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine.”

  “Uh-huh. And now for the real answer.”

  Flann shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind sitting down for a while.”

  “I’ll bet. Are you hungry?”

  Flann gave that some thought. She’d wolfed down the sandwich Abby had made between cases a few hours ago. When she was operating, she forgot about everything except what she needed to do to get through the case. “I think I will be before too long. What about down here? Need a hand?”

  “Between Glenn and Andy Bucknell, who got here a few hours ago, we’ve been able to clear the board more or less. We’re waiting to transfer an acute asthmatic up to a telemetry floor, and a couple more are waiting for X-rays and test results, but I think everyone is pretty much squared away.”

  “Are you going to be able to get out of here for a while?”

  “Maybe. At least long enough to check in on Blake. What about Harper?”

  “I got a short message from Harper in the OR about three. She and my dad are fielding local calls.”

  Abby gestured for Flann to follow. “I’ll stand you a cup of coffee and we’ll try calling again.”

  “You’re on.”

  Instead of going to the cafeteria, Abby led her to the ER break room where a fresh round of coffee was just dripping into the pot. Flann sank into a chair at one of the chipped Formica tables, the beige top discolored in places from too many spilled cups of coffee. Abby pulled two Styrofoam cups from a stack and looked over her shoulder. “Cream? Sugar?”

  “Black is fine.”

  Abby poured two cups and leaned down to pull cream from the under-counter fridge.

  Flann took the opportunity to study Abby unawares. She looked great even in scrubs—full in all the right places and sleek in others. Added to that, she moved with confidence and grace. She was pretty spectacular on all fronts. Flann would have sworn she was too tired to even entertain sex, but her belly heated and she couldn’t help imagining Abby naked and lying beside her on cool white sheets while a late-night breeze blew in an open window. Yeah, right. The scenario worked, but Abby Remy was not a good candidate for the rest of the picture. Flann sighed. She and Abby kept getting thrown together in the middle of a crisis, and every time Abby came out looking more and more desirable. Just the circumstances. Adrenaline and hormones. Nothing more.

  Abby handed Flann a coffee and sat across from her. “Considering that we don’t have any protocols in place for a disaster of this magnitude, I think everything went really well tonight.”

  Flann sipped her coffee. Abby’s eyes glowed and her voice lilted with excitement. “You’ve been having a good time.”

  Abby looked as if she might protest, then with a small smile, nodded. “You don’t really think I’m an ER doc because I like to take care of colds and UTIs, do you?”

  “While there’s nothing wrong with doing that,” Flann said judiciously, “no, I see you preferring a lot more high-powered situation. I’m surprised you’re not an intensivist or some kind of critical-care doc or something.”

  “I thought about it, but like I said, I enjoy the variety in the ER. And I like the tough cases. I like the pace.”

  “Then why are you here? Tonight’s an anomaly, you must know that. Ordinarily, you’re going to get the occasional car accident, some farming injuries, kids with broken bones from playing sports, and a whole hell of a lot of MIs, pulmonary problems, and…female-type issues.”

  Abby laughed. “I know that.”

  “Then I repeat, why are you here?”

  Abby stared at her coffee, contemplating how much she really wanted to say. She hadn’t even talked to Presley about everything that had happened in the last year, not really. And Flann, Flann was hardly the confidant type. And yet, the intensity of her gaze and the thoughtful timber of her voice were genuine. She actually wanted to know, and Abby wanted to say the words out loud, rather than whisper them in her mind when lying alone late at night. “Most of it has to do with Blake.”

  “You mentioned that, at least a little bit. That’s a big sacrifice to make—leaving a major trauma center for a quiet place like this.”

  Abby’s head snapped up. “I don’t think so.”

  Flann held up a hand. “Whoa. I’m not saying I don’t agree with it. But there’s no point in pretending you didn’t have to give up something.”

  Abby’s first instinct was to argue, or at least tell Flann she had no idea what she was talking about until she was in the same situation. Until she had a child for whom she was completely responsible. A child who needed love and protection. Flann gazed back steadily, no touch of arrogance or superiority in her expression. Just calmly waiting. Abby took a deep breath. “It’s hard to think of it that way. He’s my child. I’d do anything for him.”

  “I believe you.” Flann smiled. “My parents are like that too. Especially my mother. I respect you, more than I can say.”

  Abby had heard that before, in one form or another, from her own mother, from the parents of some of the teens in Blake’s trans support group, from Presley. Hearing those words from Flann touched her in a way she hadn’t expected—Flann knew what it had taken to get where she was. Flann understood the thrill and the tremendous sense of accomplishment that came with treating critically ill patients in a crisis situation. Abby’s throat tightened, and to her horror, her eyes stung with unshed tears. She brushed a hand across her face. “Well, I must be more tired than I thought.”

  Flann took her other hand and squeezed gently. “Long fucking night.”

  Abby laughed shakily. “You can say that again. I don’t think I ever thanked you for saving Blake during that storm.”

  “No thanks necessary. And I didn’t, really. But I’m glad I was there.”

  “God, so am I.” Abby tightened her grip on Flann’s fingers, barely able to picture the horror of what might have happened. “He’s been through so much already. I never dreamed of a natural disaster as our next challenge.”

  “Was it bad for him, before you moved?”

  “I wish I knew the answer to that. He doesn’t always tell me everything, I don’t think. Partly that’s just being a teenager, and partly probably trying to protect me.”

  “He’s his mother’s son,” Flann said softly.

  “I know his friends, of course. I’ve known them most of their lives. He went to preschool with them, and then with a couple of them all the way through into high school.”

  “Private school?”

  Abby nodded.

  “It must not have been easy raising him, with you being a resident.”

  “My mother lived with us. That made a difference. I had some insurance money from my father’s death, so that helped pay for Blake’s school.”

  Flann knew she was pushing, but she wanted to know. Needed to know in some deep way she couldn’t even name. “What about Blake’s father?”

  Abby laughed. “David? He’s a nice enough guy, but…I would call him something of a flake. He’s into tech and always looking for the next big wave. He hasn’t caught one yet. He never had enough financial resources to really help out.”

  “He’s not in the picture?” Flann’s chest tightened, waiting for the answer.

  “He’s never really been in the picture,�
� Abby said slowly, not taking time to ask herself why she was answering. Why she wanted to answer. “He was my best friend in high school—the two gay kids against the world. We came out together, had our hearts broken at the same time. Presley was my best friend in college, maybe my only real friend. The sorority gave me a kind of community, but I was lonely, I guess. David showed up in the city one night, chasing a job. I wasn’t quite twenty yet, away from home for the first time. It was wonderful to see him and we went out to dinner, had a lot to drink, and ended up back in his hotel room reminiscing. Turns out he was a little lost and lonely too. Somehow…” She shook her head. “God, I don’t even know to this day how it happened. But it happened.”

  “Wow. And you never considered—”

  “Never. Not from the second I found out. I wanted the baby. David, on the other hand, was running before the sentence was out of my mouth.” Abby shrugged. “That was fine with me. I didn’t expect anything from him, and I’m just as glad things turned out the way they did.”

  “Does Blake see him?” For some reason, Flann hated the idea of Blake feeling rejected or hurt because his father wasn’t in his life.

  “Oh, sure. David’s always been in and out of his life. I left it up to Blake as he was growing up to decide how much he wanted to see him. It’s been a couple of years since his last visit. David lives out west with his lover now.”

  “Blake’s okay about it?”

  Abby smiled, hearing the protectiveness and the concern in Flann’s tone. They were still holding hands, and she didn’t want to let go. “He’s good.”

  “Does David know about Blake?”

  “Blake told him on the phone. David seemed to take it well, but you just never know until you’re really confronted with it. Besides, the next time David sees him, Blake is likely to be a lot different from the child he remembers.”