I stare at him. “You walked into my clinic bleeding.”
“Technically I walked him in.” Tom lets the door swing shut. The bell gives one last soft chime before the room settles again.
His gaze moves from Dan’s arm to me. It lingers a fraction too long. Something in my body answers before I can stop it. Heat flashes low and sudden, sharp enough to steal my breath. My pulse kicks hard, not just from the adrenaline or the situation, there’s something else layered underneath it. It settles deep and spreads, and it’s impossible to ignore.
It’s something to worry about later. Right now, I have a patient to look after. I turn toward the hallway. “Exam room.”
Dan follows without argument. Tom closes the distance behind him. Once inside, his hand settles on Dan’s shoulder. “Sit.”
The word hits low and immediate, and my body reacts before I can brace for it. The heat tightens my core, my breathing catches, and something inside me pulls toward the authority in it.
I go still and lock my knees against following Tom’s order.
Dan doesn’t.
His shoulders shift under Tom’s hand, subtle but there, his breath changing just enough to give him away. I can see the same pull, mirrored in my husband’s expression and body language.
Dan settles on the edge of the exam table without argument.
I shake the thoughts away and pull gloves from the box, forcing my hands to steady. Training slides into place like armor. “Let’s see the damage.”
Dan rolls his sleeve up. The fabric sticks briefly where the blood has dried before peeling away.
A jagged length of spruce branch, thick as two fingers, is embedded in his forearm like the tree decided to keep part of him. For half a second I forget how to breathe.
Then training takes over. “Did the tree start the fight,” I ask, reaching for the saline, “or did you?”
Dan grimaces faintly. “Log shifted.”
Tom folds his arms across his chest and leans against the counter. “He tried to stop it.”
Dan shoots him a look. “It was rolling straight at you.”
Tom’s eyebrow lifts. “I’m flattered you think I’m that slow.”
I rinse the wound and watch the saline carry the blood away in thin pink streams that run into the tray. The branch of spruce sticks out of Dan’s forearm at an ugly angle, bark dark and slick where it disappears into the flesh. He studies the ceiling like it suddenly became fascinating.
“You clean this before coming in?” I ask.
“We came straight here.”
Relief loosens something in my chest.
“Good. Last thing I need is you making it worse. You didn’t try to pull it out, right?”
“Nope.” Tom’s answer rolls through the room, low enough that I feel it more than hear it. I glance up before I can stop myself. He stands near the counter with that same easy stillness he carried into the clinic, big shoulders relaxed, watching without hovering. Somehow the room feels steadier with him there.
I look back down at Dan’s arm.
“Don’t move yet.”
He snorts softly. “It’s a stick, Mel.”
“Dan.”
That one word is enough. He falls quiet.
I take his wrist and turn his hand slightly so I can see his fingers.
