will.” She popped two more spoonfuls into her mouth and then stood. “I’m on call tonight, so I need to jump in the shower really quick. And I’ll start packing for the trip.”
“Go,” Tessa said. “I’ll clean this up.”
Caren squinched her nose. “It’s a mess out there—there’s flour everywhere. Are you sure you want to tackle it?”
“Definitely.” Besides, it would give her something to think about other than Clay.
“Well, I’ve got an early surgery in the morning, so I’m going to turn in.” With a wave, Sam went up the stairs toward his unit.
“Thanks again. I think you’re all really going to love Kimber.”
Tessa stood and stacked their bowls. “If she’s anything like you, I’m sure we will.”
“DR. MATTHEWS? YOU’RE needed down in Emergency,” one of the nurses at the central station called over to him, phone still to her ear.
Six hours into his shift, Clay had performed two surgeries and done a phone consultation with a doctor from one of the other local hospitals. It had been hectic enough that there’d been whole blocks of time in which he hadn’t thought about Tessa once.
Until now.
“What have you got?”
“Looks like they have an elderly gentleman who fell down his front porch steps and broke a leg. Or maybe a hip.”
“Tell them I’m on my way.” Clay pushed the button on the elevator. The funny thing about fractures in the elderly was that cause and effect were rarely quite as simple as the nurse made it seem. Whether the break caused the fall or the fall caused the break was often up in the air. He’d seen enough spontaneous fractures in his time that he knew brittle bones could suddenly give way under the stress of years’ worth of use and abuse.
By the time he got down to the first floor his thoughts were all on his patient, already planning for various scenarios and how he’d deal with each.
One of the attendings stopped him just as he stepped into the hallway where the exam rooms were. “Are you the new orthopedist?”
“Yes, Clay Matthews.”
“Anthony Stark. Good to meet you. Your patient is in exam room four. I called in one of the residents as well, once we got a good look at him.”
That was odd, since the only orthopedic resident Clay knew of was at dinner. Maybe he’d come back early. “Okay, thanks. Has he been up to Radiology yet?”
“Yes. He just came back. It looks like a displaced break.”
Perfect. Displaced meant the two ends of the bone weren’t aligned—a more complicated situation to address. Compassion tickled the back of his throat. Another tricky piece of news. He knew of at least one patient in the past month whose heart hadn’t been strong enough to do the surgery needed to repair a broken pelvis. He could only hope that was not the case with the current patient.
The sound of someone bellowing came from the exam room where he was headed.
The ER doc gave him a half smile. “All I can say is good luck. Let me know if you need some help in there.”
Clay frowned and headed toward the curtained-off area where the sound of voices was growing louder. One female and one male… who sounded none too happy.
Noting that there was no chart in the holder, he swished open enough of the curtain to get through. He stopped in his tracks. Even though her back was turned, the female arguing with his patient wasn’t a nurse. It was Tessa. And she was trying her damnedest to pull back the sheet covering the patient, while he held on to the fabric with all his might. Her Brazilian accent was there in all its blazing glory.
Not that it was doing her any good.
“No one is seeing my privates except my doctor!”
“I am a doctor, Mr. Phillips. I’m here to look at your leg.”
What the hell? Why was Tessa trying to look at his patient’s leg? Dr. Stark had said he’d called in another resident, but Clay had assumed it was an orthopedic resident.
If it wasn’t for the seriousness of the man’s injury, he might have been tempted to just stand back and see how things played out between the two of them, because the Tessa he knew didn’t give up once she got going. For anything.
That probably wasn’t in the best interest of his patient, though.
He stepped closer. “Anything I can do to help?”
Two heads craned around to look at him. Surprisingly, Tessa’s normal irritation at seeing him was nowhere to be seen. Instead, she looked almost relieved.
The patient—Mr. Phillips—yanked harder on the sheet. “This little lady is trying to get a look at my equipment.”
He wasn’t sure whether he was more shocked by the “little lady” description or by the fact that a patient was basically calling Tessa a Peeping Tom.
“I’m trying to see his mole.”
Ouch.
Wait. Maybe she really did mean mole as in…
“I thought this was my patient. Broken left femur?”
Tessa nodded. “And a suspicious skin lesion on his other leg. Which is why Dr. Stark called me in.”
Damn. Of all the rotten luck. So much for the idea that keeping busy could keep him from thinking about her. Because right now his job included the very person he was trying to block out of his mind.
Even more pressing, though, was the need to keep the patient calm. Which meant he just might have to ruffle a few of Tessa’s feathers.
Stepping to the other side of the bed, he ignored her for a moment. “How about if I ask Dr. Camara to step back while I take a look? Would that be better?”
“But—”
He stopped her words with a look. Surprisingly, instead of the dark anger he expected to see on her face she simply nodded, let go of the sheet and took ten steps back until she was against the curtain on the far side of the space.
Glancing at the patient’s face and seeing it crumple in relief, he noted a dark bruise where the man had evidently fallen already apparent on his right cheek. As was the pain he’d been holding back. Clay touched the top edge of the sheet. “May I?”
Mr. Phillips released the covering and allowed Clay to pull it down. He edged the gown up as far as he could without totally exposing the man. The area just above his left knee was obviously broken, the frail-looking limb bent at a five-degree angle. And at the top of his other thigh was a dark mark about
