Smolder (5 page)

“Do downward dog, Josh," I managed to say in a strangled tone.

Josh, ever the helpful brother bent over from a standing position and placed his hands on the floor so his body made an inverted v in the air, and it was impressive. It also took up all of the free space in my bedroom between the bed, furniture, and a few scattered boxes. I stopped laughing as Josh rose and took a deep breath.

“I smell steak.” My brother had a gift for grilling steak, and the smell drifted across the hall from the kitchen.

Any remainder of depression or fear evaporated as Josh helped me to my feet and the three of us walked into the kitchen, through the sliding glass doors out onto the patio. My brother had steaks and potatoes on the grill, a tub of ice with beer and a few Diet Cokes off to the side.

Owen walked through the yard up to the marsh and checked out the neighbor's fence. It was hidden behind a wall of azaleas.

He returned. “It looks safe enough back here, and with Travis in jail, you should be safe here.”

Josh glared at me. “You are here for five days and someone is after you already?”

I nodded. “He beats women and his wife finally had enough and left him. He blames me. You know bullies are never responsible for the fallout.”

Josh and I had both been bullied as kids. It’s why we had the jobs we did as adults.

“I'll keep her safe, Owen. I've got a few days off to help her get settled. And then you will take over?”

I blushed and felt my face grow warm under my brother's stare. “We need to talk.”

Josh just laughed and tended to dinner.

Owen gestured to me and walked inside. I followed him.

“I'm going to go home. I'm positive you are safe here. I have a promise from the district attorney's office to call me if Travis even flinches. Besides, I'm not sure anyone could get past Josh.” He still looked a little stunned.

“He's sure no one can. That was why he has shown up and worked out in the driveway everywhere I moved. He likes to think it intimidates the neighbors.” I paused. “It also gets him a lot of dates.”

Owen pulled me into an awkward hug like he was a teenager and my dad stood behind me. He patted my back a couple of times, released me, and walked to the front door.

“I'll see you at work tomorrow, Doctor.” He waved and left.

“Damn, woman. Three days at work and you already have a new boyfriend,” Josh said behind me.

“Okay, stud. Let's not talk about picking up people your first week at work.” I poked him in the ribs and grabbed a Diet Coke from the beer tub.

“It's not my fault women throw themselves at me.” He stood proud and winked.

“Oh boy, you are full of it.”

I loved these moments with Josh. Maybe I moved so often because each time, we spent up to a week together.

“There are two men flirting with me," I threw over my shoulder as I kicked off my shoes and dipped my toes in the pool.

“Officer Abs, and who?”

“Nice. A Russian surgeon at the hospital. I met a part of his ego today, and it might be a little higher than I want to climb.”

“You love a good challenge,” Josh said as he plated the steaks.

He was right. I preferred the men who made me work a little. Bruno was a warning I heeded. The “I'll-give-you-everything-from-the-start” guys made me suspicious, and Owen Mata was one of them.

“Yes, I do.” I took the offered plate, and we sat at the small picnic table. “Speaking of which, how is Bunny, or Biffy, or whatever this week's blow up doll is calling herself?”

“Did it ever occur to you that I might actually meet a real girl?” he shot back. “No, wait. That didn't come out right.”

“Oh, I think it did. And you do meet real women, Joshua. All the time.”

“I mean, there is one now, El.”

He had a huge smile on his face. It seemed my older brother had found someone.

“It's about time. Tell me about her.”

He did. She was an accountant he met when he got his taxes done. She was surprised a wrestler could have a discussion about finances that didn't require crayons and construction paper. To be fair, he was surprised a math nerd could make his pulse race when she inhaled. It sounded like a perfect match.

We talked until we were yawning between every sentence. Josh doused the grill, and I picked up the plates and got the trash. I went to bed full, safe, and feeling more at home.

Chapter Five

I woke up and reached over to try and find the snooze button. It clicked, and I curled back up for my fifteen minutes more.

“Get up and eat breakfast, or I'll throw you out of bed.”

I remembered Josh was here, and he was a morning person, the kind that night people wanted to bonk on the head until sunset.

I could smell the coffee and eggs. “I'm coming.” I followed him to the kitchen.

“Morning, sunshine.” Josh poured a bowl of coffee for me and set it on the table.

“Morning, star shine. Why are we quoting the Age of Aquarius?” My coffee turned mocha as I added the creamer and sugar.

“You are grumpy in the morning. It's an ugly trait.”

He turned to flip the eggs, and I stuck my tongue out at his back.

“I saw that, El. You’re predictable.”

“Yes, like your habit of falling asleep before most toddlers.” We have had this argument since we were kids. Our mother used to joke that she never set a bedtime for Josh. He would start to tip over when he was tired, and our dad would carry him upstairs. Mom told that story to every girl he ever brought home to meet them. If the girl didn’t think it was a cute story, she didn’t get Mom’s seal of approval. I missed her more every time Josh and I were together.

“What time do you need to be at work?”

He joined me at the table with his coffee and a full half-gallon of orange juice.

“Nine,” I answered between bites. Josh was the best cook in the Quinn family. Our father understood when he decided to become a pro wrestler, but made Josh promise that if he got injured, he would stop wrestling and go to culinary school.

“It's seven thirty, you have plenty of time.”

The air coming through the window was fresh and cool. Living on the marsh may be one of the best decisions I'd made. I loved nature, and Josh's crack yesterday about his hippy-dippy sister was correct. This weekend, we planned to go to a local florist and get the seedlings and potting soil for an herb garden. Gardening calmed my nerves and helped me to set aside all of the stories I heard throughout a workday.

Josh headed to the local gym to work out for the day. He usually called ahead of time and let them know he was in town. Training young men who wanted to get into the ring was a passion of his, and this allowed the locals to sign up for sessions with him for a few days. I’d never checked the local gym scene, anywhere. Josh would call ahead, scope out the ratings online, like it was a research project.

My mind wandered back to the past two days and I realized that if I was going to get a grip on the new job, I would need to pay less attention to my hormones and more attention to my patients. Cleaned up and full of resolve, I drove to work.

The office was open, and Lee acted like the past two days had not happened. She gave me a full rundown of the day's schedule that included a number of insomnia and chronic pain patients from local physicians.

I started in the emergency room. Last night, there was a celebration and one of the couples involved came into the ER around six a.m. The physicians and nurses could not get the couple to cooperate with them and all the consult said was, 'please hurry before we need to amputate.'

I hurried. Unfamiliar people smiled at me as I walked as fast as I could through the back hallways. There were private hallways for doctors and staff to get from place to place that the public can’t access. It helps in transporting patients so they don’t get wheeled down a public hallway and allows the staff to maneuver quickly through the hospital where conversations about patients can be conducted without anyone overhearing it. The emergency room appeared in front of me as I turned the final corner and a crowd stood outside of one room. The group consisted of nurses, technicians, medical residents, and one irate woman shouting about being kept from her husband. I slowed down, this was the room where I was needed.

One of the medical residents, a nice young kid who still looked like he needed a backpack, pulled me aside as I stepped through the doors.

“Doctor Quinn, we have a complication.” He nodded in the direction of the irate woman.

“The wife showed up,” I filled in for him.

“Yeah. And now the couple is less cooperative.” He blushed and turned his head to something over my shoulder while he continued. “They are stuck together. Intimately. He took some erectile dysfunction medication, and they started before he was…”

His voice trailed off, and I saw a sheen of nervous sweat on his face.

“Before he was at full mast?” I tried to hide my grin. “It's okay. I think I can take it from here.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” He rushed past me and away from the crowd.

Medical school didn't really prepare you for the weirdness that wandered into an emergency room.

“Poor kid.” Dr. K stood next to me. “His innocence left today.”

“Oh, he will hold onto it a little longer,” I assured the concerned attending. “Now, anything medical I need to be aware of before I make him unhappy?”

“I don't know how you could remove someone's erection.”

He didn't realize he had said it aloud until one of the nurses gasped.

“Ahem. I mean, no, Doctor Quinn. There is no medical issue you need to be concerned with. His heart and lungs appear normal, as do the woman's, so emotional distress will not place them at any risk.”

“Thank you, Dr. K.”

I took a deep breath and walked to the room. The man's wife attempted to stop me, but I avoided her and kept walking. She was the husband's problem once he got free.

The couple covered in bed sheets argued in whispers. I turned back closing the door behind me, much to the chagrin of the crowd gathered just out of sight.

“Is there anything I can help with?” I asked, and they turned their heads to me.

The woman read my name badge and scoffed. “We don't need a psychologist. We aren't crazy.”

“You are stuck to a man's penis, lying on a hospital bed in the emergency room, and his wife is ten feet away. Does that sound normal to you?” I asked.

The man cursed as if he hadn't heard his wife outside the door. “My wife is here?”

“Yes, couldn't you hear her yelling?” I replied.

“We heard a lot of people yelling. You would think this doesn't happen every day.”

I waited for the absurdity of the statement to catch up to him. It did.

“Oh.”

“Would you please tell me how this happened?” I asked.

The woman answered. “His wife was out of town at his sister’s. Finally. She never leaves him alone because she thinks he's having an affair. I came over with my new nightie.”

She paused and turned to make sure I could see her entire face. “It was the most expensive nightgown anyone had given me and now it's cut up and somewhere in the basement of this hospital.” She was visibly hurt.

“Anyway, Georgie took extra little blue pills when I got there to make sure we could have fun all night. We started making love after a bottle of champagne, and I noticed Georgie had stopped moving. So, I asked him why he stopped moving, and he wouldn't answer me. I tried to get up and when I did, well, he came with me. I stood up and kind of bounced up and down but he was really stuck in there.”

Georgie was so embarrassed he had pulled the sheet over his head.

She continued, “I've never had anyone get stuck before, and I've played around a little bit in my time.”

I didn't doubt that. It was evident she had seen a number of plastic surgeons as the scars were visible from my slightly behind-and-below her reclining form angle.

“After my Phillip died, I played with everyone. The pool boy, the young lifeguard at the club pool, I even slept with some of my friends’ husbands. Well, I was hurting, you know?” There was no tinge of regret in her tone. She looked genuine, and I had to fight to keep from laughing.

“Yes, ma'am. When we lose someone we love, there is a strong desire to find affection. Not everyone chooses the sexual promiscuity route, but it is not unheard of.” I thought that sounded very good.

“Exactly. Anyway, back to Georgie. He wouldn't shake loose even when we tried olive and baby oil. I called 911, and told them I had a man stuck somewhere private and to please hurry.” She looked flustered. “Do you know the police showed up in riot gear? Where did they think I had a man stuck?”

“I'm out,” George said and pulled away.

“It appears you are free to go, ma'am. George has freed himself,” I said to the relieved couple and left the room just as his furious wife ran into it.

“The sexual promiscuity route?” Dr. K looked as if he was going to burst into laughter at any moment.

He looked adorable with a huge grin on his face that emphasized his dimples and laugh lines around his eyes. It made me happy to see him light up like that. I wanted to go over to him and share a laugh, but we did have an audience around us.

“It was serious to her.” I took my patients seriously even if the situation veered into the strange. “They came apart.” I fought the urge to laugh and bit my lip.

“He got embarrassed. Her story took all the blood from his penis and moved it to his cheeks.”

“That is an odd visual before lunch.”

I thanked Dr. K for another fascinating consult and went back to the office. He caught up to me a few yards later.

“I wanted to tell you how beautiful you look today,” he said. His cheeks were pink, and he took my right hand in his and kissed it. He took his time and made sure our eyes were locked. A rush of desire ran through me.

“I could get used to moments like this,” I said. I think I swooned.

I never understood the meaning of the word until that moment, but I suddenly understood it perfectly. As he stood in front of me smiling, my body melted into a puddle at my feet. I put my left hand to my face, and it was as hot to the touch as I was sure the rest of me did at that moment.

“So could I. As long as I’m not holding a scalpel.” He winked and went back to work as his name was called over the intercom.

Falling. I’m falling.

I walked back to my office in a haze barely aware of passing people in the hallway. Even speaking to them but I couldn’t recall the conversations even a few steps later.

Lee handed me two phone messages and began singing under her breath. I was down the hall before the words clicked. “I'm stuck on you.”

“You are a sick woman, Lee Curtis.” I sat at my desk and returned the calls.

It was two of the nurses who wanted their children tested. I asked Lee to set up those appointments for the next two Friday afternoons.

I hung up the phone and waited. Lee's phone hit the cradle, and she was in my office seconds later.

“What happened in the ER?”

She checked the patient's charts every time there was consult to add their information into my patient database. So she would know the details before I did. Although many of the handwritten ER notes only give an overview, enough to make a curious assistant even more curious.

“What did the intake information say?” I asked.

She blushed. “One man and one woman attached due to erection.”

“That about covers it. It was his mistress, and his wife was there by the time I got there.”

Her laugh lit up her face. “How do you ask people questions when you are sure they are lying?”

I smiled. “I love that part. The lies get more inventive and interesting all the time.”

“I get angry when someone lies to me.” She leaned back in the chair.

“In my personal life, that applies to me as well. Patients lie because they don't know we ran the blood and urine tests. The 'I don't drink or smoke anything' line is pretty normal, until I remind them we have the test results.”

She nodded. “Then they tell the truth.”

I agreed. “Most of the time. For a rare few, the lies get more complicated, and we start having fun.”

“You are strange, Dr. Quinn, in a good way.” She rose turning to leave the room.

“Thank you, Lee. Normal is boring,” I said. “And Dr. K kissed me.”

She turned back. “Here I thought you were flushed from the consult. You have a crush, Doctor.”