“Okay, Ben, you ready? I’m just going to inject a bit of numbing agent into your finger.”
“What is that?”
Josh inched a bit closer to the curtain at the sound of the raised voice.
“It’s a small dose of lidocaine with epinephrine,” Katie explained. “It will numb—”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” The patient—Ben, that was it—raised his voice up a notch. “I’ve been on the internet and that stuff makes your fingers fall off. No way are you putting that poison in me!”
Josh only just managed to stop an eye roll. Self-diagnosis was a growing epidemic in the ER...one that was sometimes harder to control than any actual injury.
“I think if you read all of the article you’d find that’s more myth than reality.”
Always sensible. That was his girl!
Ben’s voice shot up another decibel. “Are you telling me I’m a liar?”
“No, I’m saying digital gangrene is about the last thing that’s going to happen if I—”
“You—are—not—putting—that—sh—”
“Hello, ladies.” Josh yanked the curtain aside, unable to stay quiet. “Need an extra pair of hands?”
“No,” Katie muttered.
“Yes,” Jorja replied loudly over her boss.
“They’re trying to give me gangrene!”
“Really? Fantastic.” Josh rocked back on his heels and grinned, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “I haven’t seen a good case of gangrene in ages.” He flashed his smile directly at Katie. “Are you trying to turn Mr. Kingston here into The Gangrene who stole Christmas?”
Everyone in the cubicle stared at him for a moment in silence.
“The Grinch!” Josh filled in the silence. “Get it? Gangrene? Grinch?”
There was a collective headshake, which Josh waved off. “You guys are hopeless. They’re both green!”
Jorja groaned as the bad joke finally clicked.
“Well,” he conceded, “one’s a bit more black and smelly, and isn’t around for the big Christmassy finish, but, Ben, my friend...” Josh took another step into the cubicle, clapping a hand on the young man’s shoulder from behind and lowering himself so that he spoke slowly and directly into the young man’s ear. “I’ve known this doctor for a very long time, and if she needs to stabilize the neuronal membrane in your finger by inhibiting the ionic fluxes required for the instigation and conduction of nerve impulses in order to stem the geyser of blood shooting from that finger of yours, she knows what she’s talking about, hear?”
Ben nodded dumbly.
“Right!” Josh raised a hand to reveal a set of car keys dangling from his fingers.
He saw Katie’s eyebrow quirk upward. He would have laid a fiver on the fact she was thinking he’d taken up pickpocketing to add a bit more adrenaline to his life. He’d win the bet and she’d be wrong. He’d just seen enough drunks in his Big City ER Tour. The one where he had done everything but successfully forget the brown-eyed beauty standing right in front of him.
He cleared his throat and stepped away from Ben. “You owe Dr. We—Dr. McGann an apology. And while you do that—” he jangled the keys from his finger “—I’ll just be popping these babies over to Security until we get someone to pick you up.”
Ben opened his mouth to object, his eyes moving from physician to nurse and back to Josh before he muttered something about being out of order, his mother’s stupid car, and then, with a sag of the shoulders, he finally started digging a cell phone out of his pocket.
“Excellent!” Josh tossed the keys up in the air, caught them with a flourish, gave Jorja a wink and tugged the curtain shut behind him before anyone could say boo.
“Well...” Josh heard Jorja say before he headed off. “He’s certainly a breath of fresh air!”
Katie muttered something he couldn’t quite make out. Probably just as well.
Josh grinned, his shoes glued to the floor until he was sure peace reigned behind Curtain Three. He heard Katie clear her throat and put on her bright voice—the one she used when she was irritated with him.
“Now, then, Ben, if you can just show me that finger of yours, we can get you stitched up and home before you know it. Jorja? Could you hand me some of the hemostatic dressing, please? We need to get the wound to clot.”
Josh began to whistle “Silent Night” as he cheerily worked his way back toward the main desk. Job. Done.
* * *
“How long do you intend to continue this White Knight thing?”
Josh’s instinct was to smile and tell her he would wield his lance and shield as long as it took for her to see sense and come back to him. Longer. Until the day he died, he would protect Katie. He’d taken a vow and had meant it. He had broken part of it, and he was going to spend the rest of his life making good on it. Even if that meant walking away, no matter how hard it hurt.
But this was work. Personal would have to wait.
“Where I come from, people stick around to help one another when the going gets tough.” He laid the Tennessee drawl on as thick as molasses. It always got to her and this time was no different.
He watched as her hands flew to her hips in indignation, then shifted fluidly into a protective, faux-nonchalant crossing of the arms. Her eyes widened, the lids quickly dropping into a recovery position. One of her eyebrows arched just a fraction before her face became neutral again. But she couldn’t keep the flush of emotions from pinking up her cheeks.
He shifted his stance, ratcheted his satisfaction down a couple of notches. He wasn’t playing fair. He knew more than anyone that teamwork in an emergency department was something Katie valued above all else. Unless, it seemed, it came from him.
He stood solidly as she gave him the Katie once-over. He wouldn’t have minded taking his own slow-motion scan over the woman he’d dreamed about holding each and every night since she’d told him in no uncertain terms she’d had enough of his daredevil ways. He’d have to play it careful. Divorce rules shifted from state to state, and he hadn’t checked out Idaho. If she’d moved to Texas he would have shown up a lot earlier. No need to wait for a signature there. As it was, he thought two years had given them each more than enough time to know they were meant for each other. Given him enough lessons to know she’d been right. He’d suffered enough loss to know it was time to change. Move forward—whatever shape that took.
“Where are you staying?”
Unexpected.
“Here.” He pointed at the hospital floor.
There went that eyebrow again.
“Locum tenens wages aren’t enough to get you a condo?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t know how long I’d be staying.”
She refused to take the bait.
“Usually housing comes with the contract.”
What was she? The contract police? Or... A lightbulb went off... Was she trying to figure out where he’d be laying his sleepy head? Was she missing being held in his arms as much as he had longed to hold her? Truth was, he never bothered with separate housing on these gigs. Hospital bunks suited him fine... Friends’ sofas sufficed when he was back in Boston. Home was Katie, and it had been two long years...
He heard the impatient tap of her foot. Fine...he’d play along.
“Not this