Читать книгу Daredevil, Doctor...Husband? - Алисон Робертс - Страница 10

HE HAD NO one to blame other than himself.

How stupid had he been?

Even now, a good twenty hours after the incident, the realisation that he’d kissed Summer Pearson was enough to make him cringe inwardly. Or maybe it was an echo of the flinch his current patient had just made.

‘Sorry, mate. It’s just the local going in. It’s a deep wound.’

‘Tell me about it. As if it wasn’t bad enough getting bitten by the damn dog, I had to rip half my leg open on the barbed wire fence getting away from it. Bled like a stuck pig, I did.’

‘I’ll bet.’ Zac reached for the next syringe of local that Mandy had drawn up for him. ‘Almost there. We can start stitching you up in a minute.’

‘You won’t feel a thing,’ Mandy assured him. ‘You’ve got the best doctor in the house.’

‘At least he’s a bloke. D’you know, there were two girls on the ambulance that came to get me?’

‘Hadn’t you heard, Mr Sanders?’ Mandy’s tone was amused. ‘Girls can do anything these days. Can’t we, Zac?’

‘Absolutely. I’d say you were a lucky man, Mr Sanders. Can you pass me the saline flush, please, Mandy? I’d like to give this a good clean-out before we start putting things back together.’

He took his time flushing out the deep laceration. He’d do the deep muscle suturing here but he had every intention of handing over to Mandy to finish the task. It might do his patient good to realise that girls could be trusted to do all sorts of things these days.

Like fly around in helicopters and save people’s lives. Not that he’d seen Summer do anything that required a high level of skill yesterday but he was quite confident that she had the capability to impress him. He was looking forward to a job that would challenge them both.

At least, he had been looking forward to it.

What had he been thinking on the beach yesterday evening? That because she seemed to be thawing towards him he’d make a move and ensure that she actually had a good reason to hate working with him?

Idiot…

Except it hadn’t been like that, had it?

Zac reached for the curved needle with the length of absorbable suture material attached. He touched the base of the wound at one side.

‘Can you feel that?’

‘Nope.’

‘Okay. Let me know if you do feel anything.’

‘Sure will.’

Zac inserted the needle at the base of the wound and then brought it out halfway up the other side. Pulling it through, he inserted it in the opposite side at the same level and then pulled it through at the base again. This meant he could tie it at the bottom and bury the knots to reduce tissue traction, which would give a better cosmetic result.

His patient was happy to lie back on his pillow, his hands behind his head, smiling at Mandy, who was happy to keep him distracted while Zac focused on his task.

‘What sort of dog was it, Mr Sanders?’

‘No idea. Horrible big black thing. Bit of Rottweiler in it, I reckon, judging by the size of those teeth.’

Zac tried to tune out from the chat. Tried not to think about big black dogs. But the suturing was a skill that was automatic and it left his mind free to circle back yet again to how things had gone so bottom-up on the beach.

He’d been enjoying himself. Taking pleasure in sitting beside an attractive young woman, sharing his favourite place with someone who loved it as much as he did. Feeling as if he was making real progress in forging a new professional relationship because of the way Summer had been telling him about part of her personal life. Loving the idea of such a faithful bond between owner and dog that a bit of ocean wasn’t about to separate them.

And suddenly something had changed dramatically. He’d been shoved sideways by the dog and Summer had been looking at him and it felt as if he was seeing who she really was for the first time and he’d liked what he was seeing.

Really liked it.

But he didn’t go around kissing women just because he found them attractive. No way. He would never force himself on a woman, either. Ever. Being made to feel as if he had done that stirred feelings that were a lot less than pleasant.

The needle slid in and out of flesh smoothly and the wound was closing nicely but Zac wasn’t feeling the satisfaction of a job being done well. He was in the same emotional place he’d been left in last night, when Summer had virtually dismissed him and walked away without a backward glance.

If it wasn’t beyond the realm of something remotely believable, he might have decided that it was Summer who’d initiated that kiss but the way she’d jerked back in horror had made it very clear that hadn’t been the case.

He felt as if he’d been duped. Manipulated in some incomprehensible way. Pulled closer and then slapped down. Treated unfairly.

The final knot of the deep sutures was pulled very tight. The snip of the scissors a satisfying end note.

Okay…he was angry.

He needed to put it aside properly before it had any chance of affecting his work. At least he was in the emergency department today. He was due for another shift on the helicopter tomorrow but maybe he’d find time to ring the base manager later and ask if he could juggle shifts.

With a bit of luck, he could find another crew to work with, without having to tell anybody why he couldn’t work with Summer again.

The call-out had been more than welcome.

‘Big MVA up north.’ Her crew partner today was Dan. ‘You ready to rock and roll, Summer?’

‘Bring it on.’

It was very unfortunate for the people in the vehicles that had collided head-on at high speed on an open road, but Summer had been suffering from cabin fever for several hours by now. She needed action. Enough action to silence the internal conflict that seemed to be increasingly loud.

The usual distractions that a quiet spell provided hadn’t worked. She should have made the most of the time to catch up on journal articles or do some work on the research project she had going but, instead, she’d paced around. Checking kits and rearranging stock. Cleaning things, for heaven’s sake.

A bit like the way she’d acted when she’d got home last night and couldn’t settle to cook or eat any dinner because she kept going over and over what had happened on the beach.

Trying to persuade herself that that kiss had been all Zac’s idea. That she hadn’t felt what she had when his lips had touched hers.

She was still experiencing those mental circles today and, if anything, they were even more confusing, thanks to that conversation she’d had with Kate late in the evening.

Of course he’s charming. Why do you think Shelley fell for him so hard?

But it was more than a surface charm designed to lure women into his bed on a temporary basis.

Zac cared. About elderly patients. About small boys who might have been washed off a rock and drowned.

Small boys. Children. Presumably babies. And if he cared about other people’s children, it just didn’t fit that he’d abandoned his own. The story was getting old now. Maybe she hadn’t remembered the details so well. Kate had been happy to remind her.

Yes…of course he knew Shelley was pregnant. That was why he tried to push her down the stairs.

So why hadn’t Shelley pressed charges or demanded paternal support?

She was too scared to have anything more to do with him. And she planned to terminate the pregnancy, remember? Only, in the end, she didn’t…

And Zac had been on the other side of the world by then. And Shelley had had one health issue after another. Always at the doctor’s or turning up at the Hamilton emergency department Kate still worked in. Things hadn’t changed much, either—except now it was her son who always seemed to be sick or getting injured. The whole family had to focus on supporting Shelley and little Felix and sometimes it was a burden.

‘Are you going to tell Shelley?’ she finally had to ask.

God, I don’t know…I might have a chat to her psychiatrist about it. The new meds seem to be working finally, at the moment. It might be bad news to throw a spanner in the works…