Page 5 of Guarding the Doctor
“Yes ma’am,” my bodyguard answered immediately.
Again I had the sensation that something was going on that I wasn’t privy to.
“How will you make sure that Darla and I are on the same shifts?” I asked. “They usually rotate us quite a bit.”
“I already hacked into the scheduling system,” the woman who’d introduced herself as Wanda called from the end of the table. “You both have a shift starting in two hours, and you’re on the same schedule for the rest of the month. Hopefully that’ll be enough time for us to figure this out.”
Someone knocked on the door and walked over to Wanda, handing her an envelope.
“Your IDs are here,” Wanda said, sliding one to Martha and one to Darla. “Standard cover stories.”
“What about my… uh, client?” Darla asked. “She needs tracking. We don’t want another Tasha situation.”
Lois made an annoyed growling sound while the rest of the women at the table groaned.
“Tracking?” I asked, wondering what a ‘Tasha situation’ was.
“It’s standard practice for our protectees,” Lois said smoothly.
Wanda looked me over. “I know you can’t wear rings with your gloves, how do you feel about earrings with a tracker in them?”
I shrugged. “If you think it’s necessary.”
“It is,” Darla said firmly. “We need to know where you are at all times.”
Her strict tone made me shiver, but it wasn’t with fear. I was attracted to this woman. More attracted than I’d been to anyone in my life. Obviously, I was losing my mind. Someone had killed my friend, they were probably after me too, and I was fixated on how hot my bodyguard was?
She was hot too. Darla was a couple of inches taller than me, with long, thick golden hair, a shade that wasn’t blonde or brown but something in between. She had high cheekbones, smooth pale skin, and almond shaped brown eyes. I would describe her body as compact, with gentle curves, tight muscles, a combination of hard and soft. She was obviously super fit – and some kind of a shifter. I’d treated enough of them to recognize the almost feral energy that seemed to surround them at all times.
Like everyone except for Lois, she was dressed entirely in black, from her boots to her pants to the fitted leather jacket she wore. Darla wasn’t the kind of woman I was usually attracted to, but despite being in a room filled with beautiful women, she was the only one who caught my attention.
Given that she was supposed to be my bodyguard, that was going to be a problem.
A few hours later I exited the doctor’s locker room wearing scrubs and my new tracking earrings that looked exactly like small rubies if you didn’t look too closely. Marcella, the charge nurse, was standing there with Darla. My bodyguard had changed into navy blue scrubs. With her hair pulled up in a bun and a pair of tortoise shell framed glasses perched on her nose, she looked totally different than the badass bodyguard I’d met a couple of hours ago.
“Doctor O’Brian, this is Darla Pavlovski. She’s your new MA and will be shadowing you today.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, reaching out to shake Darla’s hand. “Please call me Kathryn.”
Just as we’d planned earlier, I led Darla around the Emergency Department, showing her all the patient rooms, storage, and supplies. As we approached the fishbowl, as we called the circular space in the middle that was part staffing desk and part gathering place, I saw our admin coordinator training Martha on the computer. I was surprised how quickly Sapphic Security had been able to embed people in the hospital. Then again, we’d been incredibly short-staffed since the pandemic, so no one was going to ask questions about having some relief staff.
With Darla at my side, I looked at the triage board. At the top of the board was a forty-five year old male who’d been in a knife fight.
“I’ll take thirteen,” I said, referring to the patient room number. We always referred to the patients like that in order to keep their names confidential from any passerby.
Darla stayed half a step behind me as we entered, her eyes scanning the room.
“Mr. James? I’m Dr. O’Brian. Can you tell me what happened?”
As I spoke, I pulled on latex gloves and moved closer to examine the wound. He had a good sized stab wound on his chest, blood seeping through the large gauze pad that had been taped there.
“Don’t they got any men doctors here?” he grumbled.
Despite the fact it wasn’t even noon he reeked of alcohol.
“There are no male doctors available right now,” I answered calmly. It wasn’t the first time some asshole had asked this question. “You’re welcome to wait for one to be free, but I should warn you that every minute that your wound is open, you’re more likely to get a serious infection.”
“Fine,” he said grudgingly. “Fix it.”
