do this here,’ he muttered. ‘We have to get back.’
She nodded. She knew. On some level she knew that. But her head was still spinning from the kiss—it was hard to think about anything else. And if that had been his plan, she couldn’t fault it.
But it was hardly a good long-term strategy.
He took a step back, clearing his throat. ‘You all right to do the lac now?’ he asked.
The laceration. Right. That’s what had happened before the kiss. She tried to picture it but her brain was still stuck back in the delicious quagmire of the kiss.
‘Give me five minutes and then come to the cubicle. I promise it’ll be a different sight altogether.’
Billie nodded. ‘Okay.’ She shifted off the door so he could open it.
And then he was gone and she was alone in the staffroom, her back against the door, pressing her fingers to her tingling mouth.
Billie took a few minutes to review the chart of her head lac patient. His blood alcohol was way over the limit. He’d gone through a glass window. The X-ray report was clear—no fractures, no retained glass—but she pulled it up on the computer to satisfy herself nonetheless.
The laceration wasn’t deep but it was too large for glue.
Ten minutes later she pulled back the curtains of the cubicle. Gareth faltered for a moment as he looked at her and she didn’t have to be a mind-reader to know what he was thinking.
The way his eyes dipped to her mouth said it all.
‘All ready,’ he said briskly, as he indicated the suture kit laid out and the dramatically changed wound. The blood was gone, leaving an uneven laceration, its edges stark white. It followed the still-sleeping patient’s hairline before cutting across his forehead.
Billie swallowed as she took in the extent of it. It wasn’t going to be some quick five-stitch job.
‘Size six gloves?’
She nodded as she dragged her gaze back to Gareth, thankful for his brisk professionalism.
‘Go and scrub,’ he said. ‘I’ll open a pair up.’
Billie stepped outside the curtain and performed a basic scrub at the nearby basin. When she was done she waited for the water to finish dripping off her elbows before entering the cubicle again. She reached for the surgical towel already laid out and dried her hands and arms then slipped into her gloves, hyper-aware of Gareth watching her.
She took a deep breath as she arranged the instruments on her tray to her liking and applied the needle to the syringe filled with local anaesthetic.
She could do this.
She glanced at Gareth as she turned to her sleeping patient. His strategy had worked—she wasn’t thinking about the gruesome chore ahead, all she could think about was the kiss.
‘Good grief,’ she said, screwing up her nose as a blast of alcoholic fumes wafted her way. ‘Think I should have put a mask on.’
‘Aromatic, isn’t he?’
‘It’s Martin, right?’ she enquired of Gareth as if they’d been professional acquaintances for twenty years. As if he hadn’t just kissed her and rocked her world.
Gareth nodded. ‘Although he prefers M-Dog apparently.’
Billie blinked. ‘I’m not going to call him M-Dog.’
Gareth laughed. ‘I don’t blame you.’
‘Martin,’ Billie said, raising her voice slightly as she addressed the sleeping patient.
Gareth shook his head. ‘You don’t have much experience with drunk teenage boys, do you? You need to be louder. You don’t hear much in that state.’
She quirked an eyebrow. ‘You talking from experience?’
He grimaced. ‘Unfortunately, yes.’
Billie returned her attention to the patient. ‘Martin!’ she called, louder, firmer. But still nothing.
‘Allow me,’ said Gareth. He gave the teenager’s shoulders a brisk hard shake and barked, ‘Wake up, M-Dog.’
The teenager started, as did Billie, the demand cutting right through her. It was commanding, brooking no argument.
And very sexy.
Had he learned that in the military?
‘Hmm? What?’ the boy asked, trying to co-ordinate himself to sit up and failing.
Billie bit down on her cheek to stop from laughing. ‘I’m Dr Keyes,’ she said as Martin glanced at her through bloodshot eyes. ‘I’m going to put some stitches in that nasty gash in your head.’
‘Is there going to be a scar?’ he asked, his eyes already closing again. ‘Me mum’ll kill me.’
Billie figured that M-Dog should have thought about that before he’d gone out drinking to excess. But, then, her sister Jessica had never been big on responsible drinking either. She guessed that was part and parcel of being a teenager.
For some, anyway.
‘Martin, stay with me,’ Billie said, her voice at the right pitch and command for M-Dog to force his bleary eyes open once again. ‘I’m going to have to put a lot of local anaesthetic in your wound to numb it up. It’s going to sting like the blazes.’
He gave her a goofy grin. ‘Not feelin’ nuthin’ at the moment.’
Billie did laugh this time. ‘Just as well,’ she said, but the teenager was already drifting off. ‘Okay,’ she muttered, taking a deep breath and picking up the syringe. She glanced at Gareth. ‘Here we go.’
Gareth nodded. She looked so much better now. She had pink in her cheeks, her freckles were less obvious and she’d lost that wide-eyed, freaked-out expression.
Billie’s hand trembled as she picked up some gauze and started at the proximal end of the wound, poking the fine needle into the jagged edge and slowly injecting. M-dog twitched a bit and screwed up his face and Billie’s heart leapt, her hand stilling as she waited for him to jerk and try and sit up. But he did nothing like that, his face settling quickly back into the passive droop of the truly drunk.
Clearly he was feeling no pain.
Gareth nodded at her encouragingly and Billie got back to work, methodically injecting lignocaine along the entire length of the wound, with barely a twitch from M-Dog. By the time she’d fully injected down to the distal end, the local had had enough time to start working at the beginning so she got to work.
Her stomach turned at the pull and tug of flesh, at the dull thread of silk through skin, and she peeked at Gareth.
‘Talk to me,’ she said, as he snipped the thread for her on her first neat suture.
He
