reading?” His scowl would have terrified small children and rabid dogs.
“What?” She scowled right back at him.
The fabric of his pants shushed along the examining table as he turned toward her, white beard twisting over his good shoulder. “God knows I don’t want to rush you.”
“Oh, I took all the time I needed.” She slammed a lid on the gremlins of temper wriggling free.
“Yeah, I noticed. Weren’t in any hurry, were you?”
“Of course not.” Under the beat of temper, her voice stayed cool, a tiny edge of malice icing it. “We pride ourselves here in the ER on our excellent, painstaking care. You’ll live to slide down another chimney, big guy.”
She took out the basin and grabbed towels and gauze pads to clean the area around his neck. Cammie, the best ER nurse around, had already laid out the Neosporin and irrigation syringes.
“I’m going to clean out the wound before I stitch it. This will take a few minutes.”
“Hell.”
His beard fluttered with his breath, the strands wisping against her cheek as she leaned toward him. Inside her damp sneakers her toes curled, another tiny, unnerving response.
She took a step back. “Gee, hate to inconvenience you. You think you can spare us that much time?”
“Just get on with it, will you?” Not a question. An order.
“My pleasure.” She pinched her lips. “Gotta tell you, Santa, you really need to work on your people skills.”
“You think?”
“Unless you’re a whole lot different around happy little children, yeah, that’s what I think. You’re mighty short on charm, Claus. Didn’t anybody spell out the job requirements?”
“I do just fine, thank you, Doc.”
“Not in denial at all, are you? Got a real clear picture of yourself, do you?”
His mouth twisted in the thicket of acrylic beard.
She grabbed the 60cc high-pressure syringe and the bottle of sterile water from the Mayo stand beside the examining table. Holding the towel under his shoulder, she began irrigating the wound, tidying up and moving the 4x4 sterile gauzes quickly over the area.
The tight muscle along the top of his shoulder twitched once and then was still.
“So what happened, Santa? On your way to a party, had too much to drink and you took a walk on the wild side?”
“Anybody ever tell you you talk too much?”
“Doing my job, Santa, that’s all.” She flung the stained gauze into the container and bent closer to his shoulder, angling the high-intensity lamp directly onto his neck.
Under the stink of liquor, his skin smelled clean, confusing her. He smelled way too good for her peace of mind. Too clean and fresh for a sloppy drunk. Sophie touched the edges of the wound, checking the depth. “Your drinking buddies roll you?”
“I was careless.”
Probing gently now, she cleaned the last of the blood away. “Stupid, more likely.”
“Yeah. Probably that, too.” His hard-edged eyes flashed her way. “But mostly careless.”
“Too bad. Carelessness causes a lot of trouble.”
“I’ll make sure I write that down so that I don’t forget. Next time.”
She looked up at him. “Hey, Claus, do the ER a favor and make sure there isn’t a next time? Save us all a lot of time?”
Even masked by the scruff of beard, his mouth was tight with resentment.
But his eyes followed her every movement. “Filled with sympathy and compassion, aren’t you?”
“For those who need it? You betcha.” She glared back at him for a long second before returning to her work. The sharp edge of contempt in his eyes bothered her, but she wasn’t sure why. What she did know was that he was ticking her off. And once more that disturbing sense that she was missing something here peeked out of the shadows. “You want to know if I have compassion, buster? Sympathy? Up to here.” Head down, she motioned to her chin. “But you? You’re a waste of my time, you and all the other bozos who make messes because you’re careless or just looking for a good time. I have to do the clean-up after you’ve had your fun. And sometimes, Claus,” she poked him in the chest, “sometimes I get damned tired of deliberate self-destruction. I don’t have the patience for it. There are people out there,” she gestured vaguely toward the world beyond the curtain, “people with real problems, problems they haven’t caused, and you’ve just created a paper-producing, time-consuming mess that I’m not in the mood to deal with.” She slapped the irrigation needle and bottle down on the tray. “Not tonight.”
“Long speech. It’s a wonder you didn’t pop a gasket holding all those words in this long.”
“No speech. Telling it like it is.” Finished with the irrigation, she yanked the edge of the beard around his jaw. “Beard’s got to go, Claus. I can’t stitch the wound with this mess dangling in the way.”
He turned. His face was suddenly too close, his warm, coffee-scented breath mingling with hers, the strands of his beard tangling with her hair. He reached up, those long fingers separating the commingled strands, and his palm brushed against her cheek, lightly, accidentally.
Then, as if he weren’t aware of his movement, as if his fingers moved with an unwanted will of their own, he tucked her hair behind her ear, a curiously personal touch that rippled all the way down her body to her toes, curling them in her damp green socks.
She blinked.
He frowned, dropped his hand.
Sophie spun to her feet. The stool wobbled and rolled away, careened into the wall. Like a crazed horse, her blood leapt and bolted through her veins.
Behind her, Santa cleared his throat.
Snapping open the supply cabinet, she pulled out cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol. As if it had a memory of its own, her ear still tingled where he’d touched. She stared blindly at the objects in her hands.
Coffee-fragrant? No smell of liquor on his breath? Alcohol stink only on his clothes?
She glanced back over her shoulder. His eyes were tired, bloodshot. Drifting shut, but focused.
That didn’t fit either.
Caught up in her irritation, she’d missed that sharpness.
And there was that damned, niggling sense that she should know him.
Not wanting to look at him, not wanting to be stranded in the unsettling ocean of his gaze, she pivoted and began pulling at the sticky edges of his beard, lifting it from his neck. She rubbed the alcohol-dampened swabs along his jawline, working swiftly, loosening the glued-on beard until it fell
