Page 5 of Ever After All

A moment later, it was just Wyatt and me in this small exam room. This was actually the first time we’d been together alone since that fated morning. I’d woken up married with my body sore from head to toe in all kinds of delicious ways.

He waggled his brows when I met his gaze again. I cleared my throat and forced myself to focus.

“So, uh, you got a fish hook in your shoulder, and—” I gestured to the side of his head where a piece of gauze was in place.

Wyatt winced. “I bonked my head on the corner of the boat windshield. It’s nothing, but it hurt like hell at the time.”

“I bet.” As I studied him, I could see he was trying to keep his pain at bay. A light sheen of sweat coated his forehead, and his skin was pale under the bright glare of the overhead lights. “Are you okay?” I asked gently.

He cleared his throat and nodded. “I’d just like to get the hook out of my shoulder and get stitched up. Will you be doing that?” He looked a little worried, and my heart felt pinched.

My usual calm, dispassionate approach was feeling wobbly. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about my patients, but we had to keep our emotions at a distance in this work. Otherwise, we’d be sobbing some nights, and that wouldn’t usually help patients stay calm. In this case, Wyatt would be fine. He was fine. But no matter what I tried to tell myself, I cared about him. An awful lot.

I took a slow breath and turned away. “Let me see…” I spun the computer monitor in my direction, quickly scanning his info. “It says here you rated your pain at a four?”

When I arched a brow in question, he shrugged, clearly not thinking about the hook buried in one of his shoulders. He immediately winced, his breath hissing in through his teeth. “Well, now it’s maybe a seven.”

“Can I persuade you to take something for your pain? It says in there that you said ibuprofen would do the trick.”

“It will,” he said firmly. “I’m scared of those pain meds. They ruin lives.”

“It’s a reasonable fear, but they are warranted in this situation. Taking a single dose is safe. You have a giant hook in your shoulder, Wyatt,” I pointed out.

He rolled his eyes again and heaved a sigh. “Just tell me how to get out of here as quickly as possible.”

“I will do my absolute best to make that happen,” I replied, feeling my heart soften as I studied him. This strong, tough man, a hotshot firefighter wrapped in a muscled body that I knew intimately, seemed vulnerable. The hospital wasn’t fun for anyone. In a case like this, it was incredibly frustrating. When things were dicey, people tended to have a little more patience. Wyatt would be fine, but he definitely needed stitches. Entering the hospital was like hopping on a conveyor belt. It was a one-way journey, and you had to stay on it until you made it all the way through to the other side.

I tipped my head to the side. “You’re going to be fine. We’ll get that hook out, the doctor will come and stitch you up, and you’ll be off. We’ll send you home with some antibiotics to prevent infection.”

“Can’t you do all of this?” he asked, startling me as I moved to turn away and felt his hand curl around my wrist. His touch was like a flame encircling my wrist.

“There’s a lot I can do, but the doctor has to handle the stitches. Plus…” Pausing, I cleared my throat. “We have a personal relationship. I probably shouldn’t be the one handling this.”

Wyatt was quiet as he stared at me. “This is Fireweed Harbor. You have a personal relationship with half the damn town.”

I pressed my lips together. “I know. This isn’t that big of a deal. But the doctor’s the one who needs to stitch you up, not me.”

I moved to go again, and Wyatt tightened his grip on my wrist. His touch was so light that the shift was incremental. “What is it?” I asked.

“I think you know,” he pointed out.

“I know?” Heat flashed into my cheeks.

“How long do you plan to ignore me?”

“I’m not ignoring you, Wyatt,” I ground out. “We just have to figure out this whole divorce thing.”

“Why?” he pressed.

“Wyatt!” I was exasperated.

“Tell me you’ve had it as good with anyone else,” he said flatly.

My pulse hummed along at a breakneck pace, and I tried to take a steadying breath, but I could barely get any air into my lungs. I wanted to lie—I really, really did—but found that I couldn’t.

“Let’s see how it goes,” he said.

“See how what goes?”

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