“Stop it, Tristen,” Santos ordered.
Tristen looked at Santos in shock. He had never called Tristen by his name before.
“If you don’t settle down, you could make your foot worse,” Santos said. His face darkened with a frown while the hard look in his eyes bored into Tristen’s soul. Long minutes passed as their wills battled for control.
Tristen collapsed in defeat. Leaning his forehead against Santos’s cheek, he admitted, “I won’t be able to go through with it. When I was a teenager, Jimmy and I had a fight. I needed four stitches in my chin. It took five men to hold me down so the doctor could stab a needle into my ass cheek to put me out of it enough for them to work on me. They ended up tying me to the bed because I still fought them through the drugs.”
A hand on Tristen’s arm brought his attention to Parker. “Times have changed. They have medication in a pill form that will help make things easier,” Parker said.
Tristen nodded. He might not believe a word Parker just said, but it wasn’t the man’s fault he had a deep, ingrained hatred and stark fear of needles.
“We’ll take my truck. Let’s go.” Roman pulled his keys out of the pocket of his jeans before ordering, “Little bit, front seat.”
Minutes later, much to Tristen’s dismay, they were on their way to his doom.
In the back seat of the crew cab truck, Tristen ended up staying in Santos’s arms while Parker kept his foot elevated on his lap. By now the pain had raised a few notches on the agony scale. The pressure sock seemed to make it worse.
“Take it off,” he ordered, moving his foot around.
“No can do, Tristen,” Parker said, tightening his hold on Tristen’s leg.
“Look, I’m a grown man, over the age of twenty-one,” Tristen pointed out. “If I want the sock off, you have to take it off. For that matter, if I refuse to seek medical treatment, legally I don’t have to.”
“And the diva has arrived,” Jimmy said from the front seat.
“I wouldn’t talk, little bit,” Tristen snapped.
“Hey, only Roman can call me that,” Jimmy responded.
“Holy crap, you two,” Parker said.
“At least if they keep arguing, there’s a good chance we can get Tristen into the clinic without a major blowup,” Roman observed.
“Tristen is right here, and you might as well turn this truck around. I’m not going in.” Tristen was proud that his voice sounded so strong. Panic and pain were making him reckless enough to go up against Roman.
Roman’s dark blue eyes bored into him from the truck’s rearview mirror. Tristen swallowed hard before looking down in submission. Yikes, he made a note never to take on the huge man again. His skin felt as though it had been fileted off.
Five minutes later they had entered the small city of Sandstone. To Tristen, it looked about the size of a large town. Through the front windshield, he saw a blue hospital sign with an arrow pointing to the right. Roman put his right turn signal on. Tristen rubbed his hands over his arms, trying to make the small hairs lay back down. It didn’t help. Fear started taking over.
Chapter Five
Santos’s eye throbbed, and he had a slight headache. Tristen’s brother was also starting to become a pain in his ass. Every time he’d make any headway on calming Tristen down, Jimmy would make a snarky comment, and everything would go to the shits again. Finally, Roman grabbed Jimmy’s chin and gave the little hellion a hard look. To Santos’s relief, Tristen’s little brother backed down, at least for now.
An idea of taking Tristen up into the mountains on an overnight camping trip was starting to look better all the time. He wanted to spend some time getting to know the handsome man. Between the team’s remarks and Jimmy’s attacks on Tristen, Santos was finding himself in a constant state of alert. If things didn’t smooth out fast, he would have no problem leaving Rescue for Hire West and going somewhere else with Tristen. Santos liked the job itself, but nothing else was keeping him here.
Santos glanced up to see Roman’s dark, assessing eyes looking at him in the rearview mirror. “When we get there, if you have a chance, you might want to find some ice,” Roman said.
Roman not using the word “clinic” had Santos’s respect for the man rising. Tristen had settled down for the moment, and Santos didn’t want to set him off again. Roman turned the truck into the hospital parking lot, following the arrow signs labeled clinic.
The smaller body in his arms stiffened when Roman guided the truck onto a circle drive running past all of the entrances to the hospital. A glance down at Tristen had Santos’s mind scrambling. The man’s eyes were glazed over, and his face was blank. Santos would have thought Tristen was in shock, but he could feel Tristen’s muscles tensing, ready to spring into action.
When Roman stopped the truck in front of the double doors marked Clinic-Emergency, Santos spoke. “Why don’t you all go in? Tristen and I will sit and talk for a little while.”
Jimmy turned around, his green eyes wide. “But….”
Santos said a small prayer of thanks to the powers-that-be, when Roman put his hand over his husband’s mouth and an arm around his waist and pulled him out of the truck.
With gentle hands, Parker moved Tristen’s foot onto the seat before he, too, left the vehicle.
Silence enveloped the inside of the cab. Even with the special pressure sock, a small amount of blood was seeping out the top. Still Santos waited, prepared to use his muscles and-or his mind to get Tristen to the help he needed.
“I’m sorry,” Tristen whispered, not moving anything but his lips.
“What are you sorry for, anjinho?” Santos asked.
“I never wanted you to see me like this,” Tristen answered. “I should be polished, with every hair in place. I should be able to make you want me with one smile. Instead, I’m a mess, and now you are going to be totally disgusted by me. Because I cannot, and will not, go in there.”
Tristen wasn’t looking at Santos. He was staring at the doors of the clinic as if they were demons. A line of tears trickled down his cheeks from over-bright eyes that showed too much white around the outer edges.
“I would never ask you to do something you don’t want to do unless there is no other choice, my anjinho,” Santos said.
“I can’t.” Tristen’s voice cracked as if he struggled to get both words out.
Santos watched Jimmy maneuver a wheelchair out the doors. His time was running out. Santos understood Jimmy’s need to help Tristen, but the little man was starting to more than get on his nerves.
“What if I carry you in and together we will listen to what they want to do?” Santos negotiated. “I’m a big guy. If you do not want something, I can take you out of there.”
Tristen looked up. Hope lit his red, tear-stained face. “Promise? No tricks or lies?”
Santos wished and hoped with everything in him that he wasn’t lying when he answered, “Promise.”
The next hour would tell if he had told the truth or not. They needed trust to build a relationship, and Santos did not want to betray that trust, but Tristen’s health came first.
Wide hazel eyes studied him. Santos looked back, keeping his face free of any signs of worry or doubts.
Tristen sniffed, some of his diva coming out. “I’m only letting you carry me in there because I can’t walk on this foot without getting blood all over.”
Santos opened the door, ignoring Jimmy and the wheelchair. “That is true, my anjinho. Getting blood on the sidewalk would not be good.”
“Are you making fun of me?” Tristen asked, frowning.
Lifting Tristen high against his chest, Santos slid out of the truck being careful not to knock Tristen’s injured foot against anything.
“No, I am not,” Santos answered. “I am getting you help before you lose too much blood and get sick.”
Santos liked that Tristen seemed to be concentrating on their conversation. That was better than freaking out. He was sure it was just a matter of time
before the panicking started again.
Tristen placed one finger gently under Santos’s sore eye. “It’s turning purple and swelling shut,” Tristen said. “Who hit you?”
They were almost to the door. So far, so good. “Isaiah and I had a difference of opinion,” he said.
“Did you at least punch him back?” Tristen asked.
Santos chuckled. “He’s going to be watching what he eats for a while until that lip heals.”
“Good, he shouldn’t have punched you,” Tristen stated in a tone that said he was the judge, jury, and executioner. Santos did love the man’s spunk.
The automatic glass doors opened, and Santos walked inside. He didn’t stop until he was standing in front of a glass partition that separated them from a receptionist sitting behind a counter.
Her eyes widened behind her bright orange glasses when she looked up and saw Santos with Tristen in his arms.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“Yes,” Santos answered. “My friend has cut his foot pretty bad and needs to see a doctor.”
The woman studied Santos for a moment before turning her gaze on Tristen. Santos found it interesting she didn’t blink or show any emotion when she regarded Tristen’s foot. He supposed a little blood was nothing new to her.
“Fill this out,” she ordered and shoved a clipboard through a half-moon cut out of the glass partition.
After Tristen picked up the board with the papers attached, Santos turned toward the groupings of chairs on one side of the large lobby. There were only about five other people in the waiting area, and he easily spotted Roman and Parker.
“Jeez, at least put him in the chair, Santos,” Jimmy complained. “He’s dripping blood everywhere.”
A set of heavy wooden double doors burst open. A man wearing blue coveralls pushed a rolling mop bucket out into the lobby. A nurse wearing green scrubs and a stethoscope looped around her neck stepped out from behind him.
“Sir,” she said, looking at Santos and Tristen, “can you follow me, please?”
Santos carried Tristen through the doors and down a short hall that opened up to a large room whose center was made up of a busy nurses’ station. Glass sliding doors ran along the perimeter of the room, each opening to a separate examining room. Santos was impressed. He’d expected curtained off cubicles.
The nurse went through the nearest door, and Santos followed. He set Tristen on the examining table but remained by his side. Roman and Parker walked into the room and sat down on a couple of chairs next to the wall. Jimmy followed, still pushing that damn wheelchair. The small spitfire paused then pushed the stupid thing into the room and parked it in the corner before settling in it himself. Santos shook his head at Jimmy’s antics.
“Okay then,” the nurse commented while taking a plastic basin out of a cabinet. “I guess we have a crowd for this one.” With quick, efficient movements, she lifted Tristen’s legs and pulled out the table’s extender. Setting his legs back down, she left his feet hanging off the end and positioned the basin on the floor to catch the blood dripping from Tristen’s foot.
The woman grabbed a blood pressure cuff out of a small basket on the wall and wrapped it around Tristen’s arm. After putting the stethoscope in her ears, she pumped the cuff while listening to his pulse. Once she finished, she looked down at Tristen’s foot.
“I’m not going to mess with that,” she said, giving Tristen a smile. “So what did you have a fight with?”
“A metal chair,” Tristen said, smiling back at the woman. “I won.”
The lady laughed. “Oh, you are a charmer, aren’t you? Fill out that paperwork and have someone bring it out,” she said while waving a hand toward Parker, Roman, and Jimmy. She gave Tristen one more smile before leaving the room.
Tristen flew through the paperwork. After shoving the pen under the metal clip on the board, he looked up at Santos and smiled. “All finished.”
Santos wasn’t fooled by the man’s show of bravado. Small lines of pain were bracketing Tristen’s mouth, and his face was pale.
“I’ll take it out,” Parker said, taking the clipboard and leaving the room.
“Why are you calm all of a sudden?” Jimmy demanded.
“Santos and I have a deal,” Tristen answered. His beautiful hazel eyes shown up at Santos with total trust reflected in their depths. “He’ll support my decision if I decide to leave.”
Jimmy snorted. “Yeah, right.”
The door whooshed opened, emitting a tall blond man wearing a long white coat, with Parker right behind him. A pure sky-blue gaze swept the room before settling on Tristen.
“Hi, Tristen.” The doctor held out his hand. “I’m doctor Chad Evans.”
Tristen shook the man’s hand and said, “Nice to meet you.”
“The nurse said you had a fight with a chair,” the doctor said while looking down at Tristen’s foot. “Who wrapped it up?”
“I did,” Parker answered.
Santos watched Parker and the doctor study each other. Undercurrents were buzzing between them. After a moment, Doc Evans went over to a set of cabinets attached to the wall near Roman. He took out a cloth-covered tray and set it on a portable table. After pushing the table over next to Tristen, the doctor snagged a short round, wheeled stool with his foot and pulled it over before sitting on it.
As the doctor pulled on a pair of latex gloves, he said to Tristen, “Let’s see what you have under those dressings.”
Everyone in the room watched the doctor roll the sock off Tristen’s foot. The gauze bandage came away with the sock, and blood flowed from three deep, ragged cuts that crossed the inside of Tristen’s foot and big toe.
“Can you wiggle your toes, Tristen?” the doctor asked.
“Yes,” Tristen answered and moved his toes. When the doctor touched each toe, Tristen assured him he could feel it.
Doctor Evans tore open a package of dressings and wrapped them tightly around Tristen’s foot.
“Well, I have to say you did do a number on that foot,” the doctor said, leaning back on the stool, making it creak. “I can try and stitch it up here, or if you would feel more comfortable, I can take you to the operating room.”
“No needles,” Tristen said and pressed his lips together in a tight line.
The doctor blinked slowly, but otherwise showed no other sign of surprise. “A dislike of needles is quite common,” he said.
“No needles.” Tristen looked at Santos. “Are you ready?”
“We need to give the doctor a chance, fofinho,” Santos urged.
“You said—”
“On a scale of one to ten, what number would you say your fear of needles is?” the doctor asked.
“Fifteen,” Tristen answered.
The doctor nodded, but a look of speculation lit up his blue eyes. “If I could make you comfortable enough, would you agree to let me take care of your foot here?”
Tristen didn’t say anything. He just stared at the wall in front of him. Santos could feel him pulling away.
“Hear him out.” Santos put his hand on Tristen’s leg. The man’s pale face was now tinged with gray.
Tristen covered Santos’s hand. “What can you do without needles?” Tristen asked the doctor.
“Just one moment,” the doctor said before leaving the room. Minutes later he came back with a small paper cup containing two yellow pills. “This is a muscle relaxer. This should help you to be able to handle me working on your foot.”
“No blankets or holding me down.” The look Tristen turned on the doctor was fierce. Baring his teeth at the doctor, he said, “If I say stop, you stop.”
“All right, I can agree to that,” Doctor Evans said.
Tristen nodded and took the pills.
Chapter Six
It was like a surreal horror movie scene. He was lying on a bed in a hospital while people in white coats hurt him. He cried and cried, but his mommy wouldn’t help him.
Tristen opened his eyes a
nd sat straight up. On the other side of the hospital room was the door. He was so out of here.
Hands grabbed his shoulders, and Santos’s face blocked out everything else. Tristen struggled, pushing against hard muscles, trying to get Santos to let go. Santos never moved.
“It’s okay, I’m here,” Santos said. “You need to stay in the bed.” Santos looked over at a doctor standing next to a metal portable table. “The relaxants aren’t working, Doc.”
“I have to leave,” Tristen said, trying to make Santos understand. Santos’s arms came around him, trapping him further. Panic blinded him, and Tristen began pounding on Santos’s shoulders and arms. “Let me go,” he screamed.
A sharp, burning poke sliced through his upper thigh. Heat coursed through his veins. Tristen’s rigid muscles loosened, and all of the worries and concerns drained away. Santos’s gentle hands eased him back onto the bed.
Santos followed him down, and Tristen smelled the scent of unique man and soap that was all Santos. “I will not leave you, anjinho. We will do this together. Do not be afraid. I am here.”
He kept listening to the deep, accented voice whispering in his ear until his eyelids became too heavy and he let them close.
“Tristen, are you with me, buddy?”
Blinking, Tristen tried to focus on the waving image of a doctor. “Are you done?” he asked. His muddled brain couldn’t wrap around what needed finishing, but the question seemed important.
The doctor looked at Tristen from the other side of a white sheet that was hanging across Tristen’s abdomen. Tristen poked at it wondering what they were doing behind it.
“Don’t touch the sheet, Tristen,” the doctor said. “We don’t want to contaminate the area.”
“Are you done?” Why was this important? Tristen didn’t know but needed the answer.
The Tracker Claims the Cutie [Rescue for Hire West 2] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) Page 4