around like… “I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself much sooner. I’m Dr. Graham Vaughn, and besides being the jerk who mistook you for an unsavory local reporter, I’m the only surgeon here right now who has admitting privileges in this hospital and is also available to show immediate attention to your arm.”
She stared at him for a full five seconds. “You’re kidding.”
“No. This is a busy place, and you’d be wise to take treatment when you can get it.”
Her eyes narrowed only slightly, but he could still see the wariness in those blue-gray depths.
“As I said, Dr. Teeter has his hands full,” he said.
She rested her head back against the pillow and closed her eyes. “I still have almost four hours to get sutures, and I’d like to be available in case they tell me I can see my brother.”
“The six-hour rule only applies to wounds not prone to infection,” Graham said.
“I’ll take my chances just a little longer, if you don’t mind.”
Time to treat her like a frightened patient, because that was exactly what she was right now, and he’d added to her fears. “If I had sliced my arm open on a broken—what, window?—and then exposed it to all the dust and grime and debris at a fire site, I don’t think I would want to push the golden hours past their limit.”
Her eyes opened again. “You’re really a surgeon?”
He grimaced at the lingering doubt in her expression. “You can ask the staff, if you’d like. Would you let me take a look at your arm? I promise not to bite. I’ll even try to get you one of the popsicles our nurses hand out to children who have been especially good during the suturing process.”
Her scowl would have withered a sumo wrestler.
He couldn’t suppress a smile. She fully shared Preston’s self-sufficient personality trait. “Please let me help you, Willow. Your brother is a good and trusted friend, and those are often hard to come by. I’m not going to jeopardize my friendship with him by hurting his baby sister, I promise. And I also promise to have you sewn up and ready to see him by the time he’s able to see you.”
Her response was a reluctant, heartfelt sigh. “Fine, then. Do your worst.”
He grimaced. Not exactly the response he’d have hoped for, considering the circumstances, but if he had just gone through what she’d endured tonight, he doubted he’d be at his charming best, either. Time to make this lady’s life a little easier.
Willow winced and stifled a cry of pain. She watched Dr. Vaughn stop and reach for a bottle of sterile saline solution, which he poured over the adhered bandage.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I should be able to get the rest off without any more discomfort.”
She waited, noting with surprise the depth of the wound. He was right—it did need sutures soon. A nurse had already set up a sterile tray and assisted with the anesthetic and suture material, then left him to his work as she rushed to more emergencies.
This place resembled downtown Kansas City in Friday-evening rush hour. Why was it that some of life’s worst catastrophes happened in the wee hours of the morning, when help was hardest to find?
He adjusted the overhead light to get a better look at her arm. She couldn’t help noticing, for the first time, that he’d changed into surgical scrubs.
The guy wasn’t really a jerk. She could tell that. In fact, he was probably a nice guy. Preston was a good judge of character. Graham Vaughn was even a nice-looking man with short, sandy-brown hair that had some silvering along the temples and eyes the color of rich toffee, with lines of friendliness around the perimeters. Preston hadn’t bothered to mention his boss was a surgeon—he had, however, mentioned that he was single.
And she’d snapped at Preston for even hinting, in any way, that she would be interested in whether or not a man was single, since she didn’t consider herself to be single.
She was a widow, and there was a big difference between being a widow and just being single. That fact was brought home to her nearly every night, when she discovered that her heart was still broken into splinters, and every morning, when she awakened alone.
“The edges of the wound are a little jagged, but still pretty well approximated.” Dr. Graham Vaughn reached for a package of sterile, cotton-tipped swabs, startling her from the preoccupation that caught her so often in its grasp. “I’m going to explore the wound now. This could hurt some.”
She braced herself. “Go for it.”
He lifted one edge of the wound and inserted the sterile swab.
Willow caught her breath and stiffened.
After a quick probe, he removed the swab. “The cut extends to the subcutaneous fat, but the fascia over the muscles appears intact. I don’t think there’s any tendon injury or deep nerve or blood vessel involvement. Of course, I still need to check for that possibility.”
He started his neurovascular exam by gently pinching each of her fingers, taking special care to also pinch the web space between her thumb and first finger, as well as check her pulse. “I’m screening for any sensory damage to any of the three major nerves that could have been damaged. Can you feel everything okay? Nothing feels dull to my touch?”
“Everything feels fine,” she said. In fact, it felt better than fine. The man now focused so intently on her injury was a different man from the one who had come striding across the lawn, yelling at her.
Okay, so he hadn’t exactly been yelling.
“Preston says you come from Kansas City,” the doctor said, his kind gaze flitting over her with apparent interest. “Which hospital did you work in?”
“Truman,” she said, touching each finger to thumb as Graham now turned his attention toward searching for any motor damage to the nerves. “But as I said, I’m not working now.”
“You came down here for a rest?” He indicated for Willow to spread her fingers apart.
She performed the maneuver without difficulty. “Something like that.”
He looked up at her with a brief question in his eyes, then refocused on his work. He had her flex her wrist, then her thumb, then each finger individually as he carefully observed the wound, looking for any evidence of a cut tendon.
Willow liked his thoroughness.
“Your brother loves you very much, and I know he’s been worried about you these past few months.”
She grimaced. How much had Preston told this man? “They say the grief process can take between two and four years. My husband died twenty-three months ago, Dr. Vaughn. It still isn’t an easy subject to discuss.”
He nodded, obviously already aware of her situation. “I’m sorry—believe me, I understand. Though I’m not a widower, I was plunged very reluctantly into the single world again after years of marriage. It’s been three years for me, and I still haven’t recovered.”
She looked
