Second Chance With Her Army Doc. Dianne Drake

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СКАЧАТЬ there was a tourist doctor nearby, and where she could find his office, and now here she was, seeking medical care.

      The young girl leaned over the desk to appraise the cut, then settled back down into her chair.

      “I’ll put you on the list and he’ll see you as soon as...” She shrugged. “When he’s ready.”

      It was a plain office. Not much to look at. No outdated magazines to read. But it was freshly painted. She could still smell the remnants of new paint.

      “How long have you been here?” she asked the girl.

      She looked up from her phone and said, “We’re new. Just opened.”

      “Is the doctor Matt McClain?” she asked, hoping it was not.

      “Nope. He takes care of the cowboys. We’re strictly here for the tourists, who get injured doing things like whatever it was you were doing that got you cut up.”

      “Do you need my name for your records?” Sloane asked.

      “Doc will take care of that.”

      “Will he take care of my insurance papers as well?” This was an oddly run practice and she wondered what kind of doctor allowed it.

      “Well, he won’t let me do them, so I guess it’s up to him.”

      Definitely odd. And if she’d needed something more than stitches she’d probably have gone looking for Matt. But she was here now and, since there’d been no other cars in the parking lot, it shouldn’t be too long before she got called in.

      She was right. Within another couple of minutes the receptionist gave her a wave to go on back, without so much as looking up from her phone.

      So she took it upon herself to wander down the hall, find the exam room, then sit up on the exam table and wait. Another minute passed before she heard footsteps heading down the hall and her blood froze in her veins.

      No, it couldn’t be. She knew those footsteps. Knew them by heart.

      Consequently, when the doctor pushed open the door, Sloane’s head started to spin. “What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to hold back on her wobbly voice.

      “Sloane? What are you doing here?” He closed the exam room door behind him but made no attempt to walk over to her.

      “I asked you first,” she said.

      “I’m trying to start over. Matt gave me a job here. He needed help, I needed help...so it worked out. Now you.”

      “Vacation. I came here because—Well, I didn’t know you were here. Last I heard you were in Vegas.”

      “Actually, Tennessee,” he said. “Vegas before that.”

      “Now you’re here? Seriously?”

      “As serious as it gets. So, I’m assuming you want me to stitch up that cut on your leg?”

      She’d almost forgotten about that, she was so flustered. “It happened last night. I was out stargazing and met up with the sharp end of a rock.”

      “Since when do you stargaze?” he asked, finally walking over to the exam table.

      “Since last night.”

      “And what did you learn?”

      “That Venus shines the brightest and it’s best to stargaze on your own, or with a sure-footed friend.”

      “Meaning...?”

      “Meaning I did the tourist thing and now I’m paying for it. So, why here, Carter? I’m assuming Matt gave you an opportunity, but you’re clearly not working as a surgeon. More like what? A GP?”

      “Exactly,” he said, as he bent to assess the cut.

      “But you’ve never done that kind of work.”

      “And you’ve never gone stargazing. So, I suppose we file it all under ‘first time’.” He looked up at her. “Everything has to start somewhere, doesn’t it?” Then he ran his hand down the calf of her leg.

      Sloane shivered to his touch the way she always had. “Why are you touching me that way?” she asked. “We’re over. You quit touching me that way months ago.”

      He took his hand off her leg, stood up and smiled.

      “Actually, that was a perfectly good GP’s assessment. I wanted to make sure your leg wasn’t too warm, which might indicate an infection setting in.”

      “I’m a doctor. I know to disinfect it.”

      “And I’m a doctor, too. A doctor who’s trying his hardest to be a good doctor.”

      “You always were good, Carter. Nobody ever questioned that. It was everything else that went with you...”

      “My attitude?”

      Sloane let out a deep sigh. She hadn’t come on vacation to start this whole thing over again. She was trying to get away from it. Sort it out and put it behind her. But how could she do that when Carter was here?

      “I’ve said all there is to say about your attitude. So how about the stitches?”

      “I’d prefer to butterfly it. Less chance of scarring.”

      Butterfly stitches were not exactly stitches, but thin strips with an adhesive backing used to close small wounds.

      “Oh, and when was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”

      “Good on the butterfly stitches. Much better than needle and thread. And as for the tetanus shot...”

      She shrugged her shoulders. She should know, but she didn’t. Like most people, she didn’t keep track of those sorts of things. Although she could have told him the exact date and time of the last gamma globulin shot he had taken.

      It had happened because of a needle stick. One of his patients—a child—had got belligerent and whacked Carter a good one as he’d been trying to give the boy a shot to calm him down before an appendectomy. Carter had already administered a mild sedative when the boy had started flailing and caught Carter’s hand. The one with the used hypodermic needle still in it.

      The puncture hadn’t been bad, or deep, but hospital policy had demanded a visit from the old gamma globulin needle to help give Carter a temporary boost in his immune system. Which had turned out to be a good thing since, as it had happened, the kid had been in the very early stages of chickenpox.

      That had been one month and thirteen days before he’d shipped out to Afghanistan. So why did she remember that when she couldn’t remember her own last tetanus?

      “No clue,” she told him, recalling the sexy way he’d dropped his pants so she could stick him in the butt with the needle. It had been slow, seductive, and it had definitely raised her libido a notch or two. In fact, СКАЧАТЬ