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He remembers my name.
I struggled to peel my eyelids back and succeeded momentarily. The world was a blur, and I was pretty sure he was carrying me through the darkened hallway.
“Hey, I’m going to help you, but you’re maybe one second away from me calling an ambulance. So, help us both out and stay awake.”
Alarm jolted through me, and I took a deep breath, forcing my eyes open. “There you go,” he encouraged, his voice low.
He couldn’t do anything without reminding me of sex. How did he get through his day without being pawed by raving, hormonal women? Apparently, I was on the brink of death here, and all I could think about was him saying those words with his fingers down my pants, encouraging me, urging me onward…
Sweet baby Jesus,I thought. Was horniness a side-effect of strep throat?
Paper crinkled under me as he set me down on an exam table. The lights were switched on, and I took in the boring, small exam room with framed pictures of watercolor flowers and encouraging phrases like, “Today is a gift. Give yourself to it freely,” and other nonsense that made about as much sense as the mantra I repeated uselessly to myself every day.
Dr. Cade was busy. He rifled through drawers and cabinets, pulling out things that crinkled in plastic packages, and he piled them on a rolling, silver tray like he’d used at the hospital.
“Laurel, you still with me?”
“Mhm.”
“Are you allergic to anything?”
“Penicillin,” I said drowsily.
He gave me a dubious look. “You’reallergicto it?”
“I got a rash when I was like two,” I said with difficulty.
“And you’ve never had it since?”
I gave him a shrug. I really had no idea.
“You probably had a reaction,” he said. “But I’ll use something else just in case.”
He was pulling a lot of stuff out of those cabinets. The dollar sounds wentcha-chingin my head. Dr. Cade had said he would help for free, but the supplies were going to cost more than my next paycheck.
“Any chance you could be pregnant?” he asked.
I guffawed.
“That’s not a yes or no,” he said tersely. Apparently, he was in a hurry.
“No,” I said firmly.
He pulled on a pair of gloves and wasted no time, not even stopping to explain what he was doing. He swabbed the inside of my elbow with alcohol, and then ripped open a bunch of packages. I saw the saline bag on the table and freaked out. I didn’t hate needles, necessarily, but I’d had an IV when Calla was born, and I’d had bruises for weeks from their failed attempts to find my veins.
I sat up, suddenly, but Lachlan put a hand on my stomach and pushed me back down, not even looking up from what he was doing. “You move, and I’ll have to redo it,” he said with a warning glance. I stilled.
He braced my arm against the table and leaned over me, angling the long, intimidating needle toward my blue veins. I screwed my eyes shut, swallowing against the sharp pain in my throat. There was a stabbing pinch, and then Lachlan moved with practiced grace, removing the needle, taping down the IV against my arm, and fiddling with the blue clamps on the line.
I opened my eyes with a dubious squint.Actually, that wasn’t too bad, I admitted to myself.
Dr. Cade pulled an IV stand from behind the bed and kicked it over like he didn’t have time for any of this bullshit, then hung the IV bag. Cold trickled into my arm as he punctured a tiny vial with a syringe. “You still here, Laurel?”
“Yes,” I squeaked.
“Good. If you die in here, I’m going to lose my license.”
I did the equivalent of a snort that didn’t require the use of my throat. I was fairly certain neither he nor I were worried about me dying.
