never sutured.” She grabbed supplies and then headed to the sink to wash up. “And it’s kind of illegal. I’m an RN, not a PA. Actually, it’s illegal for you too.”
“After you glove, wash my arm from the elbow down. Then irrigate with the saline and grab a mirror from the third drawer so I can see it.”
“All that I can do. It’s legal.”
Her thoughts played across her face so clearly she might as well have said them. She thought he was testing her.
Of course he was testing her.
“I bought the supplies. This is my practice, and you don’t work for me,” Wyatt murmured as she set about cleaning his arm. “You’re just a friend I’m trusting to help me out.”
“You have funding. Didn’t the funding buy these supplies?”
Smart. But also cautious and a little too reticent—traits that wouldn’t serve her well around here.
“No. I haven’t actually acquired funding yet.” Another test. One that stopped her cold.
“Amanda said you were in danger of losing your funding.” She lifted her gaze from the wound and stared at him with the biggest blue eyes he’d ever seen. Big blue eyes with a smudge of dirt under one. It was good his hands were occupied because he had a sudden urge to thumb the smudge away.
She had to stop staring at him like that. Made it hard to focus. She was probably experiencing the same thing. He was making the tests too hard.
“That’s what I told her, and if you’re her friend you won’t tell her different.” Her mouth had fallen open with surprise. Wyatt tilted his head to try and see what she was doing as it was the only way to keep from staring at her mouth. He coughed. “She wouldn’t accept her full salary if she knew it came from me and not from a fund.”
She started moving again. Despite her suspicions and the long day, her hands moved steadily and gently over the wound. “So, this is a regular practice? That stuff about getting the use up…”
“That’s true. There is funding available if I can get the patient base big enough. Until then…” She should smell terrible. He knew he smelled awful after the long day, but she smelled good, and she’d worked herself hard—probably to the point of dehydration.
She dried his arm after flushing the wound and checking under magnifying glass for any debris. Whatever her thoughts about his revelation, she kept them to herself. “It looks clean to me, but I still wish you’d—”
“You want me to trust you. Show me I can.” He reached out with his other hand, making contact with her forearm. Whatever strange chemistry rumbled between them, she felt it too. Her gaze fell to his hand, compelling him to take it away. “Today I saw a hard worker, someone who wants to help. Now show me someone who is willing to take the same chance on me that she’s asking me to take.” Wyatt smiled, trying to soften what amounted to a dare.
“That’s not the only problem. You’re trusting me to do this right without any practice. I’ve never so much as stitched up a turkey for Thanksgiving.” Imogen held the mirror up so he could see the wound. Seeing it made it sting worse, but she was right—flayed to the fascia. Should be easy to stitch.
“If you can follow directions, you’ll do fine. If you mess up, I’ll go and get new sutures put in tomorrow. But if they’re good, I’ll give you two weeks to prove you can handle the position.”
“I thought I’d already proved myself on your mountain.” Imogen pointed an accusing gloved finger at him.
“I never said yes.” Antagonizing her before making her stitch him up might not be the best idea he’d ever had, but he’d rather she snapped at him than a patient. “I just let you move the logs.”
Her eyes called him an ass again, but to her credit she bit her tongue.
“You were being very annoying,” Wyatt said, and when she scowled, he held up one hand, “But I can now see your bedside manner is different.” When she still scowled, he corrected himself. “It’s better. Good.”
“A month. That’s the bare minimum required for a fair trial,” Imogen countered.
“Is it?” Wyatt couldn’t help but grin at her. She was ballsy, and that was something people here would respond to—it was easy to respect bravery. “One month, unless you do something so terrible I can’t keep our arrangement. Behave, and don’t annoy my patients.”
He was the cousin of her best friend, and they were close. Close-ish. Imogen wasn’t entirely certain what that entailed, but it didn’t matter. He might be kind of a jerk, but she had to believe he wouldn’t do something to ruin her life. Oh, sure, he might not hire her because she allowed herself to be talked into doing something illegal, but the chances were slim that he intended to jeopardize her license.
Imogen wanted to say no, be as uncooperative as he’d been all day. She’d learned how to be stubborn the last time she’d held still for six months. But being flexible might actually get her what she wanted. Unless he tried to trick her again.
She considered his expression, saw nothing but sincerity there and sighed. Like she had a choice. She wasn’t built to leave someone suffering if she could help them. Leaving him with an untreated injury just because he ticked her off…Couldn’t do it. And she couldn’t go halfway on her promise to Amanda—she made promises so infrequently already.
“I suppose we should numb it. Where’s your pharmacy? And tell me what to give you.” If the stitches were crooked, loose or too far apart, it was his own bossy fault.
He rattled off directions and sent her packing with his keys to a locked cabinet for drugs and a suture kit. Not even a flinch when she gave him the injection. He just started explaining how to work the needle and the kind of stitch he wanted.
Imogen drew a deep breath and picked up the instruments. She’d seen this done a million times. She’d removed stitches a million times too. No problem. It was just like repairing a hole in her favorite dress. If her favorite dress happened to be made out of human flesh. Ugh. Amanda had better have booze at her house left over from her non-pregnant days.
The first stitch seemed to take forever. Imogen realized she was wincing in tandem with Wyatt’s frowns. She tried to relax her forehead, a tension headache brewing between her eyes. “Looks straight.” A slight tug tested the give, and when it looked decent she allowed herself another deep breath, “One down. How many do I need to do?”
After looking at the cut again, he asked, “How many do you think?”
“Six? Seven?”
“Sounds about right.” He smiled, a gentle but encouraging light in his eyes. The man didn’t trust her to haul logs but he trusted her to sew up his body. Very strange. “You’re doing great. Just do that a few more times.”
She moved on to the second stitch, ignoring the warmth tickling her belly from his praise and his faith in her.
If this was a glimpse into what the coming month had for her, she wouldn’t be bored.
But she should probably invest in a big bottle of aspirin.
Wyatt
