Page 33 of Storm Bound
Mrs. Bartkowicz giggled like she’d been caught red-handed and accepted Charlie’s challenge.
He was such a natural. A nurturer. It was no wonder everybody in this town loved him. Even the ones who didn’t know him.
“Is there anything left to do, Doctor? I can help. Ava should probably get home to her daughter,” Charlie said, approaching both of us.
“Oh, it’s fine, Charlie. We’ve still got time,” she said.
Charlie turned to me for guidance, but I had none to give him, because as soon as his beautiful green eyes looked at me, I was a goner, back to fantasy land with him as my knight in shining armor.
“Dr. Kravitz,” he called when I didn’t answer.
That shook me back to reality. I had to watch out for that. I couldn’t afford to get like that in front of him. It would only make the pain of not being able to have him stronger.
“Uhm, yes, I agree. You should go home to your princess,” I said. “And you should go home, too, Charlie.”
I didn’t want to add the last part. I wanted him to stay here with me and hold my hand through all of this, but that wouldn’t help matters now, would it?
“I’m good. I’ll stay and help out,” he said.
“We’re done with boarding up anyway,” Ava said as we all moved to the waiting room.
“Well, we still need to be here in case anyone else comes by,” Charlie said.
“It’s fine. I can handle it all. You should both get going,” I told them.
The phone rang, and Ava walked off to answer it, leaving Charlie and me alone. Together. In the same room.
He stared at Ava, and I stared at him, unable to draw my gaze away from him, but as Ava disappeared into the front room, he turned and caught me staring.
“Sorry,” I said, feeling the heat rushing to my cheeks.
He smirked and flopped himself on a chair.
“It’s okay,” he said in a sultry voice that gave me a semi-chub.
Charlie turned his attention to the examination room and walked to it, tidying up around the room with his back on me.
I heard Ava’s heels clacking back into the room before I heard her call me.
“Doc, you’ve got an emergency. Mrs. Bates is in labor,” she said.
I ran through the mental notes on all my patients, but so far, I’d only seen one pregnant woman, and she was only twenty-two weeks when she came in.
“Sorry,” Ava shook her head. “I keep forgetting you don’t know all the patients yet. Mr. and Mrs. Bates have a farm a few miles from here. She’s 35 weeks, and her water just broke. She’s having contractions every five minutes or so.”
And therein lay the problem of not knowing my patients or this town. I had no clue how far away she was, what condition her husband was in, and whether I could make it there on time, or if I’d have to give instructions over the phone and hope for the best.
“Where exactly does she live? I can get to her,” I said, although I lacked the confidence.
Like she’d said, I didn’t know the town yet, so whether I could actually get to her or get lost on the way there was another matter.
“I know where it is. I’ll take you,” Charlie said and grabbed my bag from my desk.
“No,” I snapped before I could stop myself.
Charlie froze, staring at me. Ava was, too. “I meant, it’s okay. I just need the address for the GPS. You both should be getting home.”
“Nah, I’ll drive. You'll be lucky if you have any signal with the GPS at this time,” he said and handed me my bag.
