A Proposal For The Officer. Christy Jeffries

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СКАЧАТЬ wave of nausea tumbled through her as she unzipped a small black case. Ignoring the man’s raised brows, she turned on the little machine, inserted a fresh test strip and pricked her finger. It took all of her focus to press the droplet of blood to the litmus paper. There was a series of beeps before the dinging alarm signaled that her glucose level was way too high. Stupid smoothie. And muffin. She should’ve known better. And she would have, if she hadn’t been so starving after dropping her nephew off at baseball practice. She’d thought she’d been so smart, swinging by the market to pick up real groceries instead of grabbing a Snickers at the Little League snack bar while she waited.

      It seemed to take hours for her to dial the correct dose on her insulin pen.

      “What are you doing?” The panic in his voice probably matched the horror in his eyes. But Molly didn’t have the energy to explain. She pulled up the hem of her shirt, not caring that she was exposing herself to the poor man. She could administer the shot in her arms or thighs, but the doctor said it would get into her system a lot quicker if she injected it into her stomach. She didn’t even feel the sting of the needle and could only hope she’d landed it into the right spot before depressing the plunger.

      “Lady, I really think we need to call an ambulance,” he said, his once-calm voice now sounding about as shaky as her nerve endings felt.

      “I’ll be good as new in a second.” She made a circle with her finger and her thumb in the universal signal for A-OK. “The insulin will help even everything out.”

      He kneeled on the pavement next to her, and she heard the hearty exhale of breath leaving his mouth. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”

      “I’m feeling better already.” And it was true. She was. But Molly knew from the last time her blood sugar had spiked like this, it would take a little while to return to normal. She looked at the pulse jumping inside his neck and felt a wave of guilt wash over her. If this was how a complete stranger reacted to her hyperglycemia attack, how would her sister react? Or the rest of her family?

      “Sorry for scaring you,” she added, more resolved than ever to keep her recent diagnosis a secret. “I would’ve been fine on my own.”

      “You sure didn’t look fine.” His head slumped back against the open car door behind him, then he scrubbed a hand over his lower face. A handsome face actually. The trendy glasses made him look scholarly, but the square jawline made him look determined. Like he wasn’t willing to leave her alone until he knew all the answers. “Does that happen often?”

      Molly wished she knew. It wasn’t like the time she got chicken pox, the itchy red scabs on her torso a constant reminder that she was sick. Curbing her sugar intake was tough enough, but remembering to stay on top of her glucose levels was even trickier since most of the time she felt perfectly fine. As a pilot, Molly had to be “combat ready” at all times. Sometimes she was on duty for twenty-four to forty-eight hours straight, which meant there was no way to ensure that she could eat on a certain schedule to maintain her insulin coverage. The military wasn’t going risk both a multi-million-dollar plane and the flight crew because the pilot had hypoglycemia. Everything was still so unpredictable when it came to the disease she’d officially been diagnosed with over a month ago. According to the specialists, that unpredictability meant she could no longer do the only thing she loved.

      She drew in a ragged breath and shrugged. “I’m still new to the wonderful world of diabetes.”

      “Wait. Why would you eat that much sugar if you’re diabetic?” His expression looked the same as if he’d just asked, Why in the world would you pull the pin out of that perfectly good grenade?

      “Because the guy behind the counter said it was healthy.”

      “And you take nutritional advice from a kid who isn’t even old enough to shave?”

      Kid! The realization made her scalp tingle and she felt her eyelids stretching wide-open. She was officially the worst babysitter in the world.

      “I need to get to the ballpark. Now.”

      * * *

      “Lady, you’re in no shape to be driving right now, let alone playing ball.” Kaleb Chatterson adjusted his glasses while slipping the car key he still held into the front pocket of his hoodie. Normally, he had an army of assistants and interns he could’ve sent to the local grocery store to pick up the ingredients for his dad’s margaritas. But he’d needed a break from his parents’ nosy questions about his social life and his brothers’ incessant teasing about the lack of one.

      Coming to the aid of some strange woman in the middle of a medical crisis wasn’t exactly what he’d anticipated when he’d volunteered for the errand.

      “I’m not the one playing.” She rolled her eyes, which were a deep shade of blue. “My nephew is. I’m supposed to pick him up from baseball practice at 1630.”

      Kaleb noted her use of military time and filed that nugget of information in the back of his mind. “How long does it usually take for you to recover from one of these, um, episodes?”

      “Well, last time it took a couple of hours, but I got the insulin dose sooner this time so half that, maybe?”

      Kaleb’s stomach balled into a knot. He’d once had a crate of antibacterial hand sanitizer delivered to the office when several employees came down with a minor cold. He didn’t do sickness or injuries or anything that might hint at the human body’s susceptibility to disease. He most assuredly was not the person to go to in a medical crisis. And while it seemed as though the lady now had a decent handle on her situation, he would feel a lot more at ease if they had a second opinion. “Listen, my brother’s fiancée is a doctor. Let me call her and she can drive over and check you out.”

      Or check him out. Luckily, his adrenaline was pumping his blood around so hard he wasn’t likely to faint. Hopefully. He stayed squatted down, close to the ground. Just in case.

      “No way. Especially not here where everyone in town would see me.”

      He eyed the barcode sticker on the rear window of her car, a sure sign that it was a rental. “Are you a local?”

      “God, no. I’m just in town visiting my sister and her family. What about you?”

      “I’m from Seattle. So if you’re not from here, what does it matter if someone sees you?”

      “Long story and I’m about to be late.” She pulled up her blousy sleeve and looked at the sturdy chronograph watch. Her hand and forearm were equally tan, but a thin line of skin around her ring finger was strikingly white.

      Telling himself that he wasn’t one of his comic-book heroes and the lady beside him probably wouldn’t like being considered a damsel in distress, Kaleb did what he always did when he was out of his league. He pulled out his phone, tapped on the voice to text feature and spoke into the speaker. “Angela, find out how to recover from low blood sugar.”

      “High blood sugar,” the woman corrected him. Yeah, that made more sense considering how much she ate at once.

      “Make that high blood sugar,” he said into the phone, then nodded toward her lap. “Would you mind putting that thing away?”

      “What, this?” She lifted up the object and Kaleb felt the color drain out of his face. “It’s just a needle. You’re not afraid of it, are you?”

      “It СКАЧАТЬ