He nodded. “Dr. Adkins.”
She watched as he rubbed his jaw and rolled his head, tension obvious in his stance. Dr. Williams was normally upbeat and talkative. To see him so serious was a little disturbing, and she wondered if she had been wrong to page him at home.
“Sorry to drag you back here on your night off.” Half her job as a resident seemed to be interpreting the actions and mood of the staff doctors.
He gave a shrug. “It’s been a hell of a week. The kids have chicken pox, which means my wife has been stuck in the house for the last six days, which isn’t making her pleasant to be around. She finally ran off to the grocery store, since there’s nothing but ketchup to eat in the house, and I had to call her back before she made it to the bread and dairy aisle.” He rolled his eyes. “She wasn’t real happy, let me tell you, especially when I suggested she just order food to be delivered to the house. I was glad to get out of there and escape her wrath.”
Josie knew Dr. Williams was a family man through and through, and guarded his days off fervently to spend time with his kids, but in this case she sympathized with his wife. Being in the house for days on end with kids and no milk for cereal didn’t sound like a picnic.
“You know, you might want to stop at an all-night store on your way home and pick up the milk and bread. It will go a long way towards forgiveness.”
He nodded. “You’re brilliant. I never would have thought of doing that. Maybe she’ll be so grateful she’ll actually do some of my laundry. She’s been so busy entertaining the kids, who are crabby beyond belief, that I’ve been wearing the same socks for three days.”
Josie fought the urge to look down at his feet.
Then Dr. Williams stopped outside Houston’s room and his tone turned curt and professional. “So what have we got?”
Aware there was only a curtain separating them from Houston, she whispered, “Severed flexor pollaris longus. And he bagged a nerve.”
Dr. Williams shook his head, his expression more serious than she had ever seen it. “That’s not what I wanted to hear.” He jerkedhis thumb towards the other side of the curtain. “Does he know yet?”
“No.” She bit her lip as she imagined the reaction the news was going to get.
He flung the curtain aside. “Well, it’s not going to get any easier the longer we wait. Let’s get it over with, shall we?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Houston heard the voices murmuring on the other side of the curtain. His leg ached like hell and his hand felt numb. He shook his head to clear it.
He glanced around. He was in the ER. That made sense. He’d gone a round with a shark and had lost. The bump, the bite, then paddling himself to shore. He remembered all that.
It was what came afterwards that was foggy. He had been flat on his back staring up at Josie, her perky green eyes trained on his leg.
Then nothing.
They must have given him a painkiller.
Which normally had the effect of a semi-truck barreling into him at ninety miles per hour. He was extremely sensitive to drugs. He couldn’t even take over-the-counter decongestants without passing out.
Mike Williams strolled into his cubicle. “Hey, there, Hayes. Heard you had a wipeout and I had to come and see for myself.”
He forced himself to smile. “It’s not a wipeout when a shark drops in on your wave.”
Mike chuckled and flipped the blanket off of his leg. Josiepeered over him with Mike. Houston was suddenly aware that he was wearing nothing more than a hospital gown, which had ridden up to nearly his waist. If they twitched that blanket around any more he was going to be flashing them.
He had enough problems right now. He didn’t need to add an inappropriate hard-on to the list. He’d been dreaming of Josie when he was dozing in and out of consciousness. Dreaming that she was in his bed, doing those delicious things to his cock with her tongue.
Houston didn’t like the fact that Josie could arouse him without even trying, even while he was drugged up and unconscious.
Nor did he like being flat on his back. How in the hell did patients stand this? He felt like he was laid out on a slab in the morgue.
“Quit gawking at me and help me get this bed up.” He rolled over, careful to tuck the blanket first to prevent skin exposure, and searched for the button to raise the bed.
Only to find to his astonishment that his right hand was wrapped in a splint. It had also been packed in ice, which had now fallen into his lap from his movement. “Damn! Get this ice off of me.”
He had meant Mike. Not Josie. But she moved first, before he could even think, and suddenly her hands were on his waist, retrieving the ice pack. Actually, they were lower than his waist. In his lap. With nothing but a paper thin hospital gown between her fingers and his skin, and he was tenting the fabric with a partial boner.
If this wasn’t humiliating he didn’t know what was. Yet Josie looked cool and efficient, the picture of the unperturbed doctor. He should feel grateful, but instead found himself irritated that she was undisturbed by his near nakedness. Just the night before he had been tasting between her thighs, and now she was giving him a blank clinical stare.