“What happened?”Her voice was low, calm, cool.Emotionless.Like he was a stranger and meant nothing to her.
“He was hit in the side with a stick during the game,” Gerry explained.“We thought a rib might’ve busted, but we didn’t pick up anything on the X-ray.”
“We’ll run a CT scan and see what that shows.”She laid a hand on Kyle’s forehead.
His pulse jumped at the unexpected touch, like every pore remembered her and leaped to reach her.
“You feel a little cool.Heartbeat’s high.”
He studied her, willing her to meet his gaze again, but she refused.
“Can you shift to your side?”
He rolled slightly, exposing the injury a little more.How could she remain so cool and calm while his heart might hammer right out of his ribs?For that matter, how had she achieved her goals so quickly, while he felt like he was skating on the sidelines of those big dreams that had taken him east years ago?
“Hmm.There’s a red welt.”
“That discoloration and swelling wasn’t there before,” Gerry said.“It didn’t look like that earlier.”
“These kinds of injuries can have delayed presentations,” she said.“It may be your kidneys, so we’ll need to do a scan and check for internal bleeding.”Her gaze touched his then instantly veered away, as if frightened.“Has there been any blood in your urine?”
He coughed, his cheeks warming.“No.I mean, I wouldn’t know.”He peeked at her.Why didn’t she look embarrassed?
“We’ll need to take some blood and check your hemoglobin and hematocrit levels.”She gestured for a nurse to do so.
“What then?”
“Well, depending on the results we may need to do an IVP—”
“What’s that?”
“An intravenous pyelogram.It’s a type of X-ray that examines the urinary tract including the kidneys and bladder.”
Why did every second he lay here seem more and more embarrassing?“You’re not going to be the one to do that, are you?”
Her dark eyes dipped to his for a second then strayed away again.“No.You’ll go to the team that specializes in identifying and treating this kind of trauma.”
“Trauma?It’s just an injury.I deal with them all the time.”
“This kind of injury needs urgent assessment and care.You don’t want to end up on dialysis, do you?”
“What?”
An older white-coated man with a lanyard that read Emergency Physician drew near.“Now, now, Dr.Rivas—”
It still amazed him to hear her called that.
“—we don’t need to worry the young man unnecessarily.Hello, I’m Dr.Singh.What seems to be the problem here?”
She told him, using a variety of medical gobbledegook Kyle had no chance of following.But Dr.Singh did, nodding, his eyes sliding to Kyle.
“I’m sending him to get a CT scan and the bloodwork ASAP.If necessary, we’ll consider an IVP,” Gen concluded.
“Sounds like you’ve done everything I would.Well, young man, let’s get things rolling.”He issued instructions to two aides who drew near.
“I can go home after that, though, right?”
Dr.Singh shook his head.Gen kept hers still, like she was unconcerned.“We’ll see.Depending on the outcome of your results we may need to keep you in for observation for at least a day, possibly more.”
