Not that my patient is a potential romantic partner.
No, it was just that the man was stupidly handsome. According to the bit of his chart that they’d been allowed to read, he’d spent seventeen years in the service. That was no small feat. She might have expected such a person to be covered in scars, even already have a missing limb or at least a minor disfigurement.
Not Lance Blackburn. That man was broad shouldered, strong jawed, black-haired, and even had a hauntingly gorgeous pair of pale green eyes. She hadn’t seen him on his feet for obvious reasons, but his chart listed him as six-foot even and his physique said he’d come off as larger if he wanted to.
And she, obviously, had been single and left to her own lackluster services for far too long.
Lynnette gave herself a sharp shake, willed away any heat that may have risen to her face, and pushed open his door.
Lance was awake, unsurprisingly, and scrolling on his phone. He immediately lifted his gaze to her and offered her a crooked grin. “Mornin’, Lynn.”
The door slipped from her fingers and closed a little harder than she normally allowed. “Are we at the nickname stage already?” She couldn’t ask the question without smiling a little.
“Why not? I’m trying to get away from rigid formality.”
She walked around to check the readouts, as she always did, and said, “Somehow, I find that difficult to believe.” His numbers seemed within the realm of reasonable, if not too strong, so she marked down what she needed and set the tablet on the back bar. “How’s your pain, Lance? I hear you’ve decided to tough it out like you think it’s a competition.”
He chuckled. “Pain is weakness leaving the body,” he quipped. “Didn’t you know?”
She groaned before she could stop herself. “You did not just quote that bullshit.”
His next laugh was louder. “Maybe I should keep spouting masochistic bullshit if it gets such honest reactions from those pretty lips.”
It wasn’t nearly the first time a patient had flirted with her. Hell, she doubted she went a week without a patient who flirted with her in some way. So, Lynnette had no idea why those arguably simple words brought a surge of heat to her cheeks.
Intent on ignoring it, Lynnette stepped up to where his stitched-up leg was propped and carefully peeled back the blanket so that the entire area was exposed. “Let’s try for a serious answer this time, shall we?” She tapped his toes one at a time. “Tell me if you can’t feel this.”
His expression strained for a moment and, as she flicked his baby toe, he said, “Seems wiggling is out for the time being, but I can feel just fine.”
“Of course you can’t wiggle them yet,” she replied. “It’s a miracle the doctor didn’t feel compelled to amputate, for as badly as this leg was torn apart.” Her fingers skimmed up the bandaging. She told herself she was checking to make sure it was intact. Until she met the warm skin of his leg, just above his knee, and her fingers sank in. “The pain relievers are for your benefit. They’re nothing to be ashamed of. Why are you insisting on not taking them?”
He studied her, those gorgeous eyes almost glowing against his skin, and his Adam’s apple bobbed before he spoke. “My mouth gets me in enough trouble when I’m sober. Last thing I wanna do is make you hate me.”
Lynnette pushed out a disbelieving laugh and forced herself to release him, busying her hands with pulling the blanket back into place. “You want me to like you, Marine?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Satisfied with the blanket’s positioning, she faced him and mulled over her word choice. While she might like to push the medication thing, people often had complicated reasons for refusing a medicine. Especially heavy-duty pain meds. So as long as he seemed coherent and she saw no signs of distress, she opted to let it go. Which meant that instead of continuing that angle, she would start a new one.
Partly to form a bond with her patient, and partly to stall going back out into the corridor when she knew Bishop was nearby.
“How’d this happen? I can’t imagineOregonis the most dangerous place you’ve ever been.”
A strangled laugh escaped him and he shook his head. “No, most definitely not.” He paused, head slightly tilted, and said, “I’m not wholly sure I can tell you that story….” Hescrunched up his face, resettled, and continued as if he’d been thinking internally the whole time. “This nonsense happened in a tiny forest town my buddy used to call home. Misty Glades, according to the sign.”
Lynnette’s eyes widened but she held off on interrupting. She didn’t like giving out personal information to her patients, anyway.
“We were about ten feet off the bus,” Lance continued, “and spotted a robbery in progress at some cute little bakery. So, being the good-hearted badasses we are, we intervened. Subdued Dumb and Dumber, made sure the old man on the scene wasn’t having a cardiac event, all that good stuff.”
Bakery…“Sweet Stop?” Lynnette said, unable to hold the question inside. “The bakery, was it Sweet Stop?” Jenna’s sign and logo was a tad on the cutesy side, so the description fit. But even if it hadn’t, she couldn’t think of any other bakeries in the accurately assessed ‘tiny town’ of Misty Glades.
He arched a brow. “Yeah, that sounds right. You know it?”
She barely bit the words back.Too personal.Boundaries mattered. “I do, yes.” She drew a breath. “Sorry. Keep going.”
Something in his eyes suggested he recognized that she was withholding, but he didn’t call her out. Maybe he understood why. More likely, he thought he could pry the information out later. But he continued without argument. “It took fucking forever—sorry—for the deputies to show. Pricks one and two rolled in like they were on a Sunday cruise lookin’ for their donut fix.”
Lynnette winced. She knew what that meant.
