Page 22 of Conri

“She’s cut herself on the slicer.”The elderly woman was ringing out people while covered in blood.“I’ve called an ambulance, but they’re having trouble getting through the traffic.”

“I can help.I’m a doctor.I’ll just go get my bag.”He ran out to his car to get his bag and was back in the store in seconds.His brother had already left, so he didn’t need to stop and talk to him.He found the young girl in the back room holding paper towels over a good-sized slice in her hand.He asked her what she’d done.

“I was slicing meat when the turkey fell over, and I reached up before I could think that was a bad idea and adjusted the loaf.The slicer didn’t care that I wasn’t part of the turkey and sliced me through my hand.Am I gonna die from loss of blood?”He told her that he’d take care of her.“Good.I have a blind date tonight, and I didn’t want to go.Don’t you hate it when people set you up for a date when all you want to do is read a good book and go to bed early?If not, then I must be an odd woman out.”

“I’d rather read a book too.I don’t even care if it’s a terrible book so long as I don’t have to go out with a stranger when people are thinking that we’re getting married.Can you please hold your hand still?I’m going to stitch it up loosely to make sure that the blood stops flowing.”

He didn’t stitch it tightly but only closed the four-inch wound.They’d have to clean it out when she got to the hospital, and he didn’t want to put her through that twice.As soon as the ambulance showed up, he told them what he’d done and how she’d been reacting when they asked.He was asked if he could go to the hospital with her, and he said that he didn’t have any privileges at the localhospital here.

“We would like you to go in case someone has questions at the other end.Even if you could follow us in your car, that would be a great help to the doctors at the clinic in the event that they need you to answer things that we might not know.”He couldn’t help but feel like he was being bamboozled into going but ended up following the ambulance with a cruiser behind him to keep him out of trouble for following at the speed they were going.He really wanted to go home and read a crappy book over this.

It took another hour to get to the hospital in their town.He wondered how they were able to keep others from dying with it seemingly far away and the traffic being as bad as it was.When they pulled into the emergency department, he parked his car in the lanes, too, and went inside.He didn’t figure he’d be there very long if he was only answering questions for the people inside.

He should have known better.

After several hours in the department, helping treat others who had been brought in from the market days, he was ready to get a hotel and sleep it off before trying to get home.He was beyond exhausted, and he knew that his car was going to be towed as no one would allow him to go out and move it.The young woman that he’d come in with had been released hours ago after getting fifty-four stitches in her hand and sent home.

At three-thirty in the morning, he was given a room with a cot where he could sleep it off.Exhausted, he didn’t even care that the bed was hard as stone and the sheets were too small for his large frame.Almost as soon as he laid his head down, he was out.It had been a terribly long day, and he was glad that it was over.

~*~

Sharon didn’t know what to do about her hand and getting out of work.She’d been able to get out of the blind date, thankfully, and now she had to figure out how she was going to go to her job while being bandaged up like she was.

“You can run the register.”She supposed that she could expect to bag things up.“You’ll be fine.I can do the rest, and we just won’t have any sammiches for the day.I’ll have one of the others come in and slice meat up, and I’ll make them in between customers if it comes to that.You got yourself some pain pills, don’t you?”

“I do, but they make me woozy a little bit.”Daff, an apt name if she’d ever heard one, said that she’d make sure that she was up on her feet.“I just don’t want to cause you any more trouble than I already have.”

“This is my shop, and I do what I want.You don’t have to do anything with the people getting gas, so that’s gonna be all right.You just ring them out, and we’ll have a productive day today.”She said she’d try not to do too much that would cause her double work.“You just be you, honey.You’ll see that people can be kind when they wanna.I know a few people around here that sets stock in you.”

She had no idea what that meant but let it go.Sometimes, having Daff explain something was worse than having her just say it and move on.So here she was, running the register in the busiest part of the day, hoping to goodness that she could get a break soon so she could pee.Another hard job when you only had one hand to adjust and pull up your pants.

“Should you be working?”She’d heard that at least a dozen times today and always just nodded and said she was fine.Daff was doing a good job of keeping her from using her hand a great deal.When someone came into the shop, and they had pops and more stuff than they could carry, she’d have them bagged up and out the door sometimes before they got their change.

By lunch, she’d had enough and only wanted to sit down and have a break with a pain pill.Taking half of one was almost as bad as taking a whole one, but it did take the pain away for a little while.Coming out of the back room, she saw the doctor who had helped her last night.

“I wanted to check on you and see how you were doing?Should you be here?”She explained to him how she wasn’t doing anything but running the register for the place and that Daff had the rest under control.“I did notice last night that she seems to know what she’s doing.Today, I’m headedhome.I was at the hospital until all hours last night, and all I want to do is check on you and make sure you’re all right, then head home.”

“I’m sure that the hospital was happy for your help.I know that I was when you came in.”She thought the man was about as handsome as she’d ever met.Even as tired as he looked, he looked good enough to snack on.Embarrassed, she changed the subject.“My hand doesn’t hurt too badly right now.I know that they had to put in a lot of stitches in it, and I’m grateful for what you did for me.”

“It wasn’t anything.Just getting the wound closed so that you’d stop bleeding was first and foremost.Then, once you were at the hospital, they got it cleaned up and sealed for you.You’re lucky you didn’t lose a finger.I hope you’re more careful next time.”She thought that he looked embarrassed and smiled a little.“Anyway, I just wanted to check on you and see how you’re doing.”

He looked hesitant to leave.She didn’t mind him hanging around, so when the next customer came in, she dealt with him and the next two afterwards.She was ringing out the next customer when he suddenly asked her if she’d like to have dinner with him.

“I mean, I know that we can’t go to a steak house.You’d be hard-pressed to cut up yours, but I could do it.It won’t be like a blind date for us since we know one another.Sort of.I’m Kendrick Valley.I’m a medical doctor for Dresden and the local hospital.And you’re Sharon.”She told him her last name.“Sharon Taylor.It’s lovely to meet you.”

“Same from me.”She felt silly again and rang out a couple more people.“I’d love to have any kind of dinner with you.And you’re right.It wouldn’t be like a blind date.Besides, I don’t have any bad books I can read at the moment.”They both laughed.

“Would tonight be all right with you?I’d understand if you just wanted to go home and rest your hand with some pain medication.We can do it some other night this week.”She said that she really was all right and wanted to have dinner with him.“I have a better idea.How about I pick up some pizza tonight, and then we can have dinner together on Friday night.That should be better for your hand and me getting a good day’s sleep in.I’ll call you too.If that’s all right?”

“It would be perfect.I love pizza.”She really did, too, and was glad that he suggested it so that she could rest her hand, too.It really wasn’t as great feeling as she said it was, and she was sure that he knew it.“I’ll write down my address for you, and since you don’t know the pizza places around here, I’ll order one for us so that we can get to know one another.What do you think of that?”

“Perfect.”She gave him her address and a time.She’d order the pizza and make sure that it was delivered on time.When he reached for the piece of paper, their hands brushed one another, and she felt a tingling that she’d never experienced before.It was like a connection or something.After he left her.She did wonder what he was going to do for the rest of the day while he waited around for her to get off work.

~*~

Kendrick knew that she was his mate but wasn’t at all sure how to go about telling her that he was a wolf and that she was his other half.He didn’t even know if she knew what a shifter was.She hadn’t smelled like anyone that could shift had been around her, but then she had been covered in a good amount of blood, and that could have been it.It had taken him at least two hours to figure out why he kept getting drawn back to the area that she’d been in, and then it hit him.She was his mate.Kendrick thought about what his brother would say if he were to tell him.

They’d make fun of him is what would happen.They were relentless in their teasing of Conri, and he was their alpha.They’d be terrible with him if they found out, and he just didn’t want to hear it.Not until he got to know her better, anyway.Besides, he might well be mistaken.

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