Page 20 of Colby
“I’m going to go in with you.”Kayce told her that wasn’t necessary.“Yes, it is.I’ll go in with you so that you’re safe.Just don’t tell me to leave you unless you leave first.Understand?”
“No.But I’ll do what you tell me.”He opened the door and saw a flash of red.The woman who was being seated on the room’s chair was wearing a dress so bright red that it hurt his eyes.Then he noticed what the dress consisted of.Holy Christ, she might well have been naked for all it covered on her body.He’d seen more material on a bathing suit; this was so tight and skimpy.
“There you are.”She had a pinched look on her face.“You doctors always have a woman around you.It’s almost like you don’t trust us to be in the same room together.”
He didn’t.In that moment, he didn’t trust her as far as he could toss her.And being a lion and healthy, he figured he could toss her pretty far.As soon as he looked at the chart, then at the little boy who was seated on the table for him, he moved around the woman and looked at the child.
“I have paperwork that tells me that you fell at school today, Tim.Can you tell me what you were doing when you fell?”The woman said that she would answer the questions.“All right, but I’m going to need his side of the story first.Then you can tell me your version of what happened.”
“He was playing on the swing when he fell out.”Tim said that he had jumped out and had fallen on the rocks.“Okay, he jumped out.I thought someone said that he was pushed out of the swing.Can you get your girl here to go and get me a box of tissues?I’m feeling very emotional right now.”
“There’s a box—well, there was a box on the counter.No worries, I can get you a box right here.”He was never so glad that they stocked tissues in the rooms for usage.“There you go.Now, Tim, where did you get hurt?Your knees or your arms?”Putting them on the counter, he saw the previous box in the trash can.So that had been what she’d been doing when she had been moving around in the room.
“I didn’t get hurt at all.I was having fun when they called my mom in.”Kayce didn’t understand what was going on with the school if they called the mother in for no reason, but that wasn’t why he was here.He was going to examine the little boy and make sure that nothing was broken.Ignoring the mother, whom he assumed was the mother of Tim, he examined his knees and his wrists before getting to his elbows.“I guess I did get them all scuffed up.They don’t hurt like they did at the school nurse’s room.”
“There are stones still in the wounds.How about we clean them up and get the stones and grass out of them before we bandage them up for you?”Tim was all for it, and that was when he noticed that the mom was talking to his nurse.Abby wasn’t having anything to do with her trying to send her out of the room.“We’ll need a clean-up kit for Tim, and I’ll go and get it.If you could call the school for me, Abby, we can get to the bottom of why the wounds weren’t cleaned at the school.They should have made some sort of effort to clean them up.”
“Why can’t she just get the kit or whatever and call the school at the same time?Why do you need her in here in the first place?”He said that he always had a nurse in with him, and he liked it that way.“Well, I don’t.It’s too crowded in here with all four of us.Why can’t it just be the two of us?And Tim, of course?”
Kayce left the room first and went down the hall to get the kit.While Abby was on the phone, he stood waiting for her to get finished with the phone call.There wasn’t any way he was going back in that room alone.The woman had claws that were far-reaching, and he wasn’t going to be a part ofwhatever she had in mind.
He wasn’t stupid in thinking that he didn’t have a clue.He just didn’t want to think that someone like her would get him tricked into whatever she had going on in her head.Now he understood why the other doctors were avoiding him.They wanted no part of—the least they could have done was warn him what was going on.
The sooner he got out of this practice, the better he’d like it.There was no friendship around here.They didn’t do anything after work.It was as if they were all on their own and didn’t want anything to do with the rest of them.He’d had enough.The one time he’d tried to get to know his fellow doctors, he was told that they didn’t socialize, they just worked together, and nothing more.It wasn’t what he wanted in a practice at all.
When Abby got off the phone, she told him that the school had orders not to clean up anything about Ms.Jacobson’s son.If he was sick, they were to let him vomit, then call her.Nothing was to be done with her child, and they were to call her when something happened.She would take him to the doctor when she saw fit.Apparently, even when he wasn’t ill, she’d take him out of school to run him to the doctor just to get a second opinion.
“You knew this?”Abby said she was sorry, but everyone knew about Ms.Jacobson.“I see.Well, I guess I’m happy that you didn’t abandon me when you had the chance.Let’s get this over with and move on.In the future, I’d appreciate a heads up about what is going on.”
“Yes, sir.”She paused for about a minute before she spoke again.“She’s looking for a man to sue.She wants to get you into a room alone so that she can say that you made a pass at her.She’s tried it before, but all the doctors here are aware of her ways and are never alone with her.She’ll sue you for sexual assault.”
“And everyone knows this but allows her to come here.”Abby nodded even though it wasn’t a question.“And they knew that she was making an appointment with me this morning.”
“They switched their schedules around so that you’d get her today.I don’t know that they were hoping that I’d not say anything, but we nurses stick together even if our bosses don’t.”Kayce decided that he was going to give Abby the heave-ho when he left this place.He didn’t want tricks and half-truths when it came to working together.He had to trust her, and right now he didn’t.Even though she’d told him eventually, it could have been bad had she not.She put her hand on his arm.“Are you mad at me?I did tell you.”
“Yes, I’m furious with you.This could have been really bad for me.”He opened the door and made his way in, hoping that Abby would come in with him.“All right, Tim.Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Abby did come in with him and helped him clean up the wounds on Tim’s elbows.Once he was wrapped up, he gave instructions to the mother to make sure he kept his wounds clean, and he could take the bandage off tomorrow.Just as they were leaving, Ms.Jacobson put her arm on his.
“We could have a good time the two of us.”He told her to unhand him.When she didn’t move her hand off of him, he let just a little of his cat go to show her he wasn’t a pushover.She leapt back so quickly she nearly fell off her heels.Good.Maybe she’d leave him alone from now on.“You’re not right.This isn’t going the way it usually does.I want a different doctor.”
“I can do that for you; however, no one is going to be left in the room with you alone, not even with your son.You might as well find yourself another doctor’s office to try your tricks with.It will no longer work here.”He was just angry enough to tell her off, but he had to remain calm.Right now, his lion wanted out to teach her a lesson, and he was barely controlling him.“You have a good day, Ms.Jacobson, and take my advice on this office.”
For the rest of the day, Abby was a model nurse.She never left him alone in any of the patients’ rooms, nor did she mention Ms.Jacobson again.By the end of his day, he was exhausted and had a headache, something that he’d never had before.Stress, he knew what it was, and thought that he knew what it was from.Trying to keep a good front for all his other patients was taking its toll on him.
After work, he did something that he’d never done before.He stopped at the pizza place that had beer and sat down at the booth.Ordering himself a beer and a large pizza, he was sitting therewaiting on both when his brother Lance walked in.He sat in the booth with him and smiled.
“Georgie said she talked to Abby this morning.Said you were having a shitty day.”He told him to go away.“I won’t do that if you think to drown yourself in beer all night.Come home with me, we’ll share our combined pizza orders and have a good time.”
“She knew what was going on.She wasn’t going to—what do you mean, Georgie spoke to Abby?Since when are they friends?”He told him what had happened.“So she called to talk to me and got Abby instead.That’s a breach of some kind of professionalism, don’t you think?”
“Abby was worried that you were going to fire her and talked to Georgie when she called.I’d call it like you did.A breach, but she was worried and thought that Georgie was a friend and not a family member.”He still didn’t care for it.“Neither do I.But it’s done now, and you’re coming home with me.For dinner.”
“I just want to be left alone.I’ve not had a moment’s peace since she showed up this morning and started my day off with her ways.Did you hear what she was wearing?Who wears that sort of dress to a doctor’s office with their kid?No one that’s who.Christ, I’ve had a really crappy day, and I don’t know that it could get any worse.”He told him not to say that or the fates would take it as a challenge.“That would be just what I need, my mate to show up about now and demand something of me.I might be the last one to get a mate, but I’m certainly not in the mood for one.I’ve seen the way they twist you up in a knot and hang you out to dry.”
“That was all on us, not our mates.”He just shook his head when his beer was brought to him.“Can you bring him a bottle of water, too?He’s changed his mind about the beer.Haven’t you, Kayce?”
He thought about drinking it anyway, but he really didn’t want it.Nodding that he was right, he glared at his older brother.There were times when he hated being the youngest, and it mattered little that he was old enough to vote and be a doctor.He would forever be the baby in their eyes, no matter how old he got.
