Page 10 of The Doctor's No-Strings Deal

Charlie smirked and shook his head. “No, I won’t be needing a list. Thank you.”

That got Megan a bit hot under the collar, but she couldn’t tell whether she was angry or maybe a little aroused. Or both. Charlie Sullivan really did know what he was doing. He was competent and confident in his abilities in a way that people like Megan and Kayla never could be. Megan envied that about him, but she told herself, it could also get him into trouble one day. And, disturbingly, that thought comforted her.

Their next patient was even younger. Dr. Ralter put Charlie on this one, which Megan couldn’t help thinking he might have done for her sake. Joseph, who looked to be about six, had an arm injury from public playground equipment. Charlie got to work cleaning the wound while Dr. Ralter watched on. He concluded the boy would need sutures and began preparing to apply them.

“What are sutures?” the boy asked.

“They’re stitches,” Megan clarified. “They’re super cool. You can show all your friends, and they’ll be really impressed.”

“Really?” Joseph asked, looking to Charlie for verification.

Charlie answered in a flat tone. “None of us can promise anything in regards to the behavior of your friends.”

Megan’s hand flew to her forehead. Was he really this dense? He was talking to a child, for crying out loud! Then, without ceremony or explanation, he pulled out a whole-ass needle.The boy took one look at it and started screaming. His mother swooped in and tried to comfort him, but he only screamed louder.

Like an idiot, Charlie tried to belatedly explain what he was doing. “This is just to numb the area. It’s nothing to be afraid of.” He was acting like he could reason the fear out of the child. The man clearly hadn’t spent much time with children. “You won’t feel anything after the initial sting,” Charlie assured Joseph, who only wailed louder.

Both Kayla and Dr. Ralter turned to Megan with pleading expressions. Megan was thinking it would be more beneficial to her to just let Charlie fail at this. Point for her. But poor Joseph was getting traumatized, and he was, in his own way, traumatizing everyone else in the room. It was obvious that Kayla couldn’t stand to hear the poor kid howl. She was a sensitive soul. And Joseph’s mother was absolutely beside herself with panic.

Whether Dr. Ralter was more interested in ending the chaos or saving Charlie’s butt wasn’t clear, but it didn’t matter. At this point, what mattered most to Megan was the kid. She sat next to him, on the opposite side of his wound, and addressed him.

“Hey, do you prefer to be called Joseph or Joey?”

The kid turned back to her and answered tearfully, “Joe.”

“Oh, just Joe is it? How come?”

His mother answered for him. “It’s the name of his favorite paleontologist. He loves paleontology.”

Megan settled in for a lengthy conversation as Charlie inched closer. “Paleontologists study dinosaurs, right?” Megan asked.

The kid nodded, and his tears slowed.

“That’s so cool!” Megan watched as Charlie bent down to numb the area around the wound. “I bet you know a lot about dinosaurs, don’t you? Which one’s your favorite? Is it theTyrannosaurus rex?”

The boy shook his head. “No, that’s kid stuff. If you want to learn about a really cool dinosaur, you have to read aboutAllosaurus.It was the best ever hunter in the Late Jurassic Period. Well, maybe only one of the best, but I think it was the best-best for real.”

Megan smiled as Charlie finished numbing and began the stitches. Joseph’s mother fell back into a chair, clearly relieved. Dr. Ralter nodded to Megan with a knowing look. And the boy went on and on about his favorite dinosaur while Megan asked all the right questions to keep him talking.

“Did you know they found out lots of dinosaurs had feathers?” little Joe was saying. “And they were probably colorful, too. People used to think they looked like lizards, but now they think lots of them looked like birds. Did you know that?”

“I didn’t! That’s amazing, Joe. I’m learning so much today. Thanks for teaching me. I can see why you like paleontology so much if this is what you learn.”

“Uh-huh,” the kid agreed, and his new, excited energy was noticed by everyone in the room. “You should check it out. I’m going to be a paleontologist when I grow up, so I could teach you some more things if you want.”

Charlie stood after having added the sutures and announced. “All done, kid. Now wasn’t that easy?”

The kid turned his head to see the gash on his arm all stitched up. Megan glanced over, too, and couldn’t help admiring Charlie’s work. He’d had a steady hand, and the stitches were perfectly placed. It was a work of art, truly.

Megan turned back to her new paleontology teacher and smiled. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? Now we just have to add a bandage, and you’re good to go.”

“Band-Aids aren’t so bad, I guess,” little Joe said with a much more confident look on his face. His eyelids were still a little puffy, but his tears had completely dried and were replaced by that twinkle kids often get in their eye when they’re talking about their favorite thing.

After Charlie was finished bandaging the wound, Joe’s mother approached Megan and shook her hand. “Thank you so much,” she said. “He hates doctors, you know, but I think he did about as well as he ever has this time. You’re a miracle worker.”

“Oh, it was my pleasure,” Megan assured her. “Now I know a whole lot more about dinosaurs than I did this morning.” They both laughed, and Charlie handed the mother her aftercare instructions.

Outside the room, Dr. Ralter gave Megan a pat on the back. “Good work, Miracle Max,” he said with a laugh. “Now I know who to assign the kids to. Hope you like getting puked on because you’ll be getting a lot of that from now on.”

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