The Best Medicine (3 page)

And a patient! There was that little matter as well.

“Mr. Connelly, I’m here to address your facial injury, so let’s deal with that first.”

I ignored the way his gown slipped off his shoulder as he readjusted on the bed. I ignored the edge of his deltoid tattoo peeking out from the shifting fabric too. It didn’t allure me in any way. I was a professional. I would simply concentrate on his injury, not his physique. Just because Hilary and Gabby thought I needed some sexual gymnastics, and just because it had been ages since my last horizontal workout with a man, and just because it was my birthday, this man-boy from Neverland was certainly not what I needed. What I needed was to get to work.

The nurse started setting up a suture tray without being asked, while I gently peeled off the gauze.

My patient had a jagged laceration running along the edge of his jaw, ending at his chin. It was about three centimeters long, deep but not all the way to the bone. Still, a wound like this would require a multilayer closure, and he’d most definitely have a scar. I could keep it minimal, though. I’d leave him dashing rather than disfigured. I could do that. I had mad skills.

“You’re going to need some stitches, Mr. Connelly. Have you ever had stitches before?” I pressed at the skin.

He chuckled again. “Plenty of times.”

“Are you accident-prone?” I’m not sure why I asked him that. It wasn’t medically relevant, but something tugged at me, an inconvenient curiosity about how this patient spent his time.

“No. I just don’t like sitting still.” His voice was deep, with a pleasant raspy quality. The kind of voice that might make a less professional woman think illicit thoughts. Fortunately for him, and for me, I wasn’t that kind of woman. Most of the time.

“What types of injuries have you had in the past?” I asked, while continuing to
not
peek at that tattoo.

He sighed, as if pondering my question hurt his head, which, under the circumstances, it probably did.

“Dislocated shoulder, torn ACL. Wrist fracture. Split my forehead snowboarding once.” He reached up and touched the corner of his right eyebrow, indicating a pale scar.

I might have noticed that scar had I not been avoiding eye contact. I leaned closer to examine it. He turned toward me just as I did, and I found myself thinking it was diabolically unfair that any man should have such thick, dark lashes while mine required copious amounts of mascara.

“Do you want to hear them all?” he asked. “I told the other doctor everything.”

I straightened up again and glanced at the nurse. “Could you hand me the chart, please?” She did and I flipped through it, taking in the laundry list of his previous injuries thoroughly documented by Dr. McKnight. Broken bones, sprains, contusions. This guy was either clumsy as hell or a full-throttle adrenaline junkie. And he looked a little too muscular to be clumsy.

“Well, Mr. Connelly, aside from all the physical damage done to your person before today, would you say you’re in generally good health?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ma’am?

Oh. That one stung. I was a feminist through and through, but no woman under seventy-five wants to be called ma’am. He may as well have called me granny. Sharp, useless distress pierced my lungs. Maybe this birthday thing was bothering me more than I realized. I suddenly felt . . . dare I say . . . crotchety?

“Don’t you think it’s rather reckless to be on a Jet Ski while drinking whiskey?”

Oh, yes. That was most decidedly crotchety. I could feel my lips pinching around the word
whiskey
like a prohibition-era preacher’s wife.

But my facially gifted young patient just laughed. “Yeah, the whiskey was a bad decision. But I gave up beer for Lent. Plus I didn’t plan to be on the Jet Ski. That was sort of an accident.”

I couldn’t imagine how one accidentally ended up on a Jet Ski, but really, this was none of my business. It wasn’t my job to pass judgment on this unleashed puppy. It was only my job to fix what he’d broken. Not to mention the fact that I was pretty sure Lent was somewhere around Easter, and since it was June, he was obviously not going to give me straight answers anyway. Time to mind my own business and get to work.

“Well, let’s give you some stitches and get you out of here.”

The nurse turned, and I finally caught sight of her ID badge. Her name was Susie. Where the hell had I gotten Lecia? This was precisely the reason why I needed to be careful addressing anyone by name. I could not be trusted to get it right. I could list all the muscles in the human body, but ask me to name the clerical staff in my own office, much less random nurses in the emergency department, and I’d be sunk.

“Thank you, Susie,” I called out as she walked away to tend to another patient.

I got myself situated with my instruments and supplies at hand and set about suturing this laceration. This was what I excelled at. Not names. Not chatting. This was my groove. The buzz of voices and pings of medical machinery blended into a common hum around me. This was the background noise of a better portion of my life, and I typically found the commotion soothing.

Not so much today as I tried to focus on the wound in front of me. But it wasn’t the noise or the chaos of the busy emergency department distracting me. It was Mr. Connelly’s face. From a purely scientific standpoint, his appearance was mesmerizing. He had a nearly perfect symmetry to his features, right down to his matching dimples, and very few people have that sort of balance. It was fascinating. That’s why I kept looking at him. For science.

As a scientist, I also couldn’t help but appreciate the broad musculature of his wide shoulders or the sinews of his forearm, which moved when he folded his hands over his lean, flat abdomen. There was probably a six-pack under that gown too. Not to mention some other fine example of well-proportioned mass.

Wow. Was it warm in here? I think it was warm in here. Or maybe this birthday had triggered my first perimenopausal hot flash. Because I couldn’t possibly be getting this hot and bothered just because Mr. Connelly was attractive. That kind of thing never affected me. I created beautiful faces for a living. And besides that, he was only twenty-seven years old, for goodness’ sake. Eight years younger than me. And he’d called me ma’am!

This was Delle and Hilary and Gabby’s fault, putting crazy, lusty thoughts into my head. That’s what the problem was.

Now maybe if I was a twentysomething-year-old woman, this agitation would be logical, in spite of his apparent lack of common sense or gainful employment. Or then again . . . maybe it wouldn’t. My twenties had been spent in medical school, and then residency, and then a fellowship after that. I’d studied while my peers had partied and slept around. They had gone on spring break, and I had taken that extra time to volunteer at a free clinic. My parents taught me work always came before play. And this guy was all play.

Still, there was a secret part of me who missed never having been frivolous and carefree and stupid. Not stupid enough to play chicken with a boat dock, but maybe stupid enough to be drunk in the middle of the week.

An unexpectedly remorseful sigh escaped before I could catch it.

“You getting bored?” My patient’s eyes were closed again, but a little crook bent the corners of his mouth.

“I’m doing a procedure, Mr. Connelly. I’m never bored during a procedure,” I answered.

“Tyler,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Please call me Tyler. The only person who ever called me Mr. Connelly was my high school principal, and that never ended well.”

“Why? Were you a troublemaker?” I could picture it. A boy too cute for his own good. Rousing the rabble. Fraternizing with the cheerleaders. Ignoring the bookish girls like me.

He opened his eyes and peered at me without turning his face. “I wasn’t a troublemaker. I was angelic. I just have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people.”

The curtain surrounding the bed whooshed abruptly to the side. “You got that right, kid. What the hell happened on that boat today?”

A silver-haired man with a deep sunburn and at least two days’ worth of whiskers stood across from me and glared down at my patient.

Aside from a short, shallow sigh, Mr. Conn—I mean, Tyler—didn’t show much reaction. “How’d you know I was here, Carl?”

“Word travels.” The man pulled a can of soda from the pocket of his—oh my God—was that a bathrobe he was wearing?

It was.

Light blue terry cloth.

He cracked open the can as if to make himself right at home. “But the details are a little sketchy. So, either you can tell me now what happened or I can listen to you explain it to the police, because they’re in the lobby, and something tells me they’re looking for you.”

That seemed to get my patient’s attention. He raised his hand to halt my work and tried to turn his face, but I caught him by the chin before he pulled out my most recent stitch.

“Did you say anything to them?” Tyler asked.

The other man scoffed as if that were the most absurd of questions. “Of course not.”

“Have you talked to Scotty?” Tyler asked him.

“Your brother? No. Why? What does he have to do with this?” The bathrobe-wearing soda drinker took to frowning, his lips pursed in concern.

“Find him and take him home. Tell him not to talk to anybody, OK?”

Carl took a loud gulp from the can. I heard soda fizzing and watched his Adam’s apple bob while I pondered who he was—and more importantly—what the hell was going on.

“Your mother’s not going to like this,” he said to Tyler, taking another swallow.

“Mom is the least of my concerns right now, Carl. Just find Scotty. Keep him off the phone if you can. And keep him away from Mom.”

Carl squinted and crossed his robe-clad arms. He’d yet to acknowledge me in any way. I’m not even sure he realized I was there. He just gazed down silently at my patient, until at last he said, “Little man fucked up, didn’t he?”

Tyler glanced at me as if measuring my trustworthiness, then looked back to Carl.

“No. Scotty is fine. I’ll take care of it. Now get out of here before the police see you and arrest you for vagrancy. You look like a bum in that bathrobe.”

Carl smoothed one hand over the lapel as if it were mink instead of threadbare terry cloth. “I love this bathrobe. Your mother gave it to me for Christmas. I think she shoplifted it, but she wanted to get me something nice.”

“It’s for inside the house, not out in public. We’ve told you that a thousand times.” Tyler sighed, this time deep and slow. A tension that wasn’t there before showed in the clench of his jaw. But Carl’s shrug was the epitome of indifference. He clearly found no issue with his attire or how it came to be in his possession. Finally, he looked my way, his eyes widening a little as they got to my face. He tilted his soda can toward me in a random toast. “Sorry for the interruption, Red. Family business.”

“She’s a doctor, Carl. Show a little respect.” Tyler mimicked the nurse’s earlier words, and I might have chuckled if I wasn’t so bewildered.

“Nice to meet you,” Carl replied. He held up the can, pinky finger extended. “Why do you have glitter in your hair?”

“What?”

No! I ran a hand over my head and metallic confetti drifted downward, right onto my patient’s face.

“Oh my gosh. I . . . oh!” I brushed at Tyler’s cheek to flick the pink and purple flakes away. “I’m sorry. It’s . . . it’s my birthday.”

Tyler looked up at me, the corner of his blue eyes crinkling in what I could only assume was amusement at my expense.

“It is? Happy birthday,” he said.

Carl raised his soda can higher still. “Happy birthday, Doc. Take good care of my boy here, will you?”

I nodded. “Um, yes. Certainly. Of course.” Glitter in my hair? I was going to kill those birthday ninjas! Something subtle and untraceable.

“Well, I’m off. I’ll try to head those cops off at the pass,” Carl said as he turned.

“No,” Tyler answered. “Let me handle this, Carl. Promise.” It wasn’t a plea. It was a directive.

I watched the terry-clothed shoulders lift in another lackadaisical motion. “OK, kid. If you say so. But your mother isn’t going to be happy.”

He stepped away from the bed and flung the curtain back to its original position. The metal rings jingled like chains rattling and then fell silent.

“I’m sorry about that,” Tyler said once the curtain had stopped swaying. His skin flushed, and although I could credit it to him feeling better, realistically I knew it was from embarrassment. But I was in no spot to judge. I didn’t usually treat patients with glitter in my hair.

“That’s OK,” I said to him. “Let’s get these stitches finished, though.”

I readjusted on the stool and picked up another suture, but my curiosity bubbled like a chemical reaction inside a test tube. I wanted to ask where he’d been today and why the police would want to question him. But I’d learned a long time ago that every patient has some sad or exciting story to tell, and it was always better to leave those kinds of messy details to the social workers. Sometimes that was hard to do, but whatever had happened before my patient hit that boat dock was no business of mine. I knew better than to get tangled up in it.

A moment passed, and I continued closing the wound until Tyler let out another big sigh.

“Do you have brothers and sisters?” he asked. His voice sounded wistful, and I felt my policy of avoidance weakening.

“No.”

Actually, I had a couple of stepsisters somewhere, but I didn’t really count them since most of my father’s marriages had been so brief I’d barely had time to sign the guest book before the wives and their dependents were gone. It was better not to get involved in the details of their messy lives either. It kept
my
life much simpler.

Tyler crossed his arms over his torso. The gown slipped off his shoulder a little farther, revealing more of that tattoo, but not enough so I could make it out. It was ridiculously tantalizing. This must be how men feel when they see cleavage.

“Well, I have a couple of each,” he said. “And it’s a lot of work keeping them out of trouble.”