Page 83 of The Hellion and the Captain
“Can you do it with it on, Doc?” Rhys asked. “Williams here would rather do this quickly and get on with it. He’s a tough lad.”
“I need to see the shoulder to know what I’m doing. Is this the first time it’s happened?”
Emmaline nodded, and Dr. Lewis said, “This might hurt,” as he waited expectantly. “Here. I’ll help,” he said, leaning in tohelp Emmaline remove the shirt. Rhys had just leaned forward and opened his mouth, likely to ask the room to be cleared, when a pounding sounded on the door.
“Lockwood, open this door!” came a voice that was all too familiar.
“My brother,” Emmaline whispered, looking up at Rhys pleadingly, asking him to get rid of him.
He squatted down before her. “Do you trust me?” he asked her.
She nodded, surer of her answer than she ever had been of anything else.
“Don’t open that door,” he told Jonny, who was just reaching for the handle.
“But it’s Freddie Whitmore,” Jonny protested. “I’m sure of it. What do you need, Freddie?” he called out before Rhys could shush him, and Emmaline winced.
“I need to see my sister!” he roared, while the players all looked around in confusion.
“His sister?” Felix said. “What’s he talking about? There are no women in here, Fred! Rhys, can we open the door and let him come see for himself? He’s a good sort.”
“No,” Rhys commanded. “Lock the door and gather round close.”
They all looked at him as though he had grown a second head, but they were also used to following their captain, no matter what, and did as he asked, coming to sit around Rhys and Emmaline, whose hair was stuffed haphazardly in her cap as she cradled her left arm.
“I’m going to tell you something, and you’re going to have questions, but we don’t have time to answer them all now. But I am trusting you more than I ever have anyone else — well, nearly anyone,” he said, exchanging a glance with Emmaline before returning to the players before him.
“Emmett here joined the team this year, yes?”
“‘Course,” Tommy said as they nodded.
“Emmett…” he took a breath. “Emmett is not who he says he is.”
“Then who is he?” Tommy asked, stepping forward, as Emmaline used her right hand to slowly slide her spectacles from her nose and then pull her cap off, allowing her dark hair to cascade in waves around her shoulders.
They all stared at her, unspeaking.
Unsurprisingly, Tommy was the first to find his voice. “What the fuck, Emmaline?”
“Tommy, you’re in front of a lady!” Hardy chastised.
“Sure, but?—”
Emmaline smiled weakly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But focus on winning the game. We’ll deal with the rest later.”
Dr. Lewis stepped forward. “Lady or not, I need to set that arm,” he said, pushing his spectacles up his nose.
“To the other side of the room,” Rhys said, waving the players away. They all turned away as Dr. Lewis removed just one half of Emmaline’s shirt, lifting the arm gently out of the sleeve. Emmaline wished she could hear what the players were saying, but she would trust that Rhys would handle it.
“It’s clean but it will still hurt,” Dr. Lewis said before sending a small smile her way. “It actually helps me that you’re a woman.”
“Why is that?” she asked.
“Because, in my experience,” he said, flexing her arm at the elbow, placing one arm on the top of her shoulder, the other on her upper arm as he externally rotated her arm and lifted it forward, “women handle pain much better than men.”
As he finished speaking, he moved his hands swiftly and expertly, rotating the arm internally and allowing the bone to slip back into place, causing pain like fire asthough it was being ripped apart to shoot up Emmaline’s arm, and she cried out, capturing the attention of the men across the room.
But just as quickly as it had hurt, the pain subsided, leaving only dull throbbing in its wake.
