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Carson takes my hand once more, kisses it, and then says, “Follow me.”
“Wait. It’s in the house? We have an on-site hospital?”
“It’s not in the house,” he replies, and guides me out the back door that leads to Mildred’s house, but before we get to her door, we take another path to the right, and around a couple of big boulders, there’s another building. “It’s in here.”
“The fact that you have a freaking clinic where we live is not reassuring, Carson.”
“It should be. If something happens, we can fix it.”
Dr. Asgood walks in and looks familiar with the space as she grabs all the instruments she’ll need out of drawers.
“Did you design this?” I ask her.
“Yes. It was just finished a few days ago. Let’s do the x-ray first.”
Carson doesn’t leave my side, even when the doctor warns him about the radiation from the machine.
“I don’t give a fuck. I’m not leaving her.”
She simply shrugs and takes the images, and then we look at them together.
“It’s moved under this muscle,” I say, pointing to the screen. “It’s not going to be easy to get out.”
“I can do it laparoscopically,” she says, shaking her head. “I’ll make an incision on each side, one for the camera and one for the tools to get it out. Should only take about fifteen minutes, tops.”
“Can you numb me up?”
“Of course, but if you prefer, I can call in an anesthesiologist . . .”
“No, let’s just do it.” Without overthinking it, I take off my shorts and hop up on the table.
“He can be here in less than an hour,” Carson says with a scowl. “I don’t want you to feel anything.”
“I pushed a ten-pound baby out of an opening the size of a papaya, Carson.” He goes a little pale, and I grin at him. “I’ve got this.”
“What do you do, Rina?” the doctor asks as she gets me prepped. “You must be in healthcare.”
“I’m a nurse.”
She pauses, and her eyes fly to mine. “Do you have a specialty?”
“I’ve been working in urgent care for a long time. I spent a little time in a trauma-one hospital, in the ER, but I had to find something that didn’t take me away from Charlie at night.”
She narrows her eyes on me, glances at Carson, and then proceeds to sterilize my leg before injecting the numbing agent.
“It so happens that I need a nurse,” she says casually.
“No,” Carson barks.
I raise an eyebrow at my husband. “I do need a job, you know. I’m not a housewife. I admire the women who can run a household and take care of their kids full time. It’s a damn hard job. I’m not made for it.”
I turn back to Asgood.
“What kind of hours are we talking about?”
“Well, that’s up to you, obviously, because you’re the boss’s wife.” She smiles and crosses her arms over her chest as we wait for my leg to go numb. “But I could use someone several days a week and for dire emergencies.”
“I have Mildred full time now,” I murmur, nibbling my lip. “I suppose you’re talking about gunshot wounds and knife wounds and the like.”
