Nursing The Doctor (14 page)

He took an immense bite and groaned with pleasure, consuming the entire slice in huge bites.

“Ohhh, this is wonderful. Have some, Lil, and hand me another, please.”

“No, thanks, I’m not hungry.” She couldn’t delay this conversation one moment longer. She separated pizza slices and transferred them to his plate as she talked.

“Greg, it was my blood they gave you. For the transfusion.” There was no other way to do this. “I didn’t know it at the time. The blood bank phoned me and asked me to come down that day because I’m AB negative and they didn’t have any. I didn’t even know you’d been injured until later that week. I was on my long break. I just raced down and did it. I had no idea you and I were the same blood type.”

“Well, Lil, what can I say?” He was still devouring the pizza at his usual rapid rate, and he held out the plate for another slice. “I’m grateful. From what Bellamy told me and from what he didn’t say, I gather the transfusion went a long way toward saving my life.” His smile was warm. “It’s an honor to have your blood running through my veins, ma’am. Thank you.” It was obvious he wasn’t paying much attention. “Think I could maybe have that last slice, honorable blood donor?”

She pulled it free and handed it to him. “I only found out a few days ago that you were the recipient.”

He stopped eating for a moment and gave her a long, speculative look. “How exactly did you find out, anyway? I thought information like that was marked Top Secret in some locked computer file.”

“It is, actually.” She gulped and raised a hand to her throat. This was the terrible, awful, nightmarish part. She couldn’t do it sitting down. She got to her feet and walked to the window and back.

“Greg, I had to know, I had to find out who got it. See, about a month before I gave that blood, I got a needle stick in the ER. You weren’t on shift that night. I...I totally forgot about it, because when I got home there was trouble with my grandma. She’d started a fire, and then after that a whole lot of other stuff happened, and I...I just forgot all about it. I didn’t even remember it when I gave blood. I didn’t remember at all until a week ago.” She was babbling, but she couldn’t stop. She had to get it all out, endure his outrage, his justifiable condemnation of her.

"The man I was treating the night it happened came back into the ER last week and Dr. Duncan did a full blood workup on him.” Her knees felt as if they wouldn’t hold her up any longer, and she sank into the chair again. “Greg, he tested positive for Hepatitis C.”

He’d been about to take a final bite. Instead, he lowered the crust slowly, balanced it on his good knee and stared at her.

“Hep C, huh?” His tone was mild. Only the intensity in his expression revealed his reaction. His deep brown gaze was hypnotic, and she couldn’t look away no matter how much she longed to.

She nodded and gulped, unable to make her voice work.

“Hep C. Most commonly transmitted through the blood.” His voice was thoughtful. “And not detectable for, what, maybe twenty weeks?”

Lily nodded again. “They use an assay for antibody to test for HCV. It takes a mean of twenty weeks after infection to develop it,” she quoted. Every scrap of the information she’d read was indelibly printed on her brain. Her voice quavered. “Apparently there’s no definitive data available on transmission by needle-stick injury. I...I checked everywhere.”

Her voice broke and she bowed her head. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Greg. It was unforgivable of me to forget about the needle and then donate blood. I’d do anything to change this, but there’s absolutely nothing I can do to fix it.” She sat, head down, shoulders hunched, waiting for the barrage of his anger.

“Lily.” His voice was quiet and deep, and she heard the whir of his electric wheelchair approach. Then he was beside her, reaching out to touch her hair gently with his fingers.

She flinched, and he stroked her cheek with the back of his hand.

“Lily, it’s not the end of the world. Sure, the possibility of infection is there, but it’s pretty unlikely. Hell, it’s probably one chance in what, a thousand?”

As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t let him minimize this. She shook her head. “I think about one chance in fifty is more accurate.”

“So okay, one in fifty. Lily, look at me.” He used a finger to tilt her chin up, and the gentle kindness in his tone brought on the tears she’d been suppressing.

They began to run silently down her cheeks, hot and stinging. She closed her eyes, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop them. “I...I feel so terrible about this.”

“Well, stop it right now.” His voice went on, quiet and intense. “Lil, we both know that the work we do puts us in close contact with all sorts of infections every day. It goes with the territory. It’s a job hazard, like falling bricks for a brick layer. So you forgot a needle stick, big deal.”

His voice dropped in pitch. “Lil, listen to me and remember this. I’d far rather be alive with the faint chance of some liver damage down the line than six feet under because there wasn’t any available blood for transfusion.” His tone was intense, intimate, commanding. “God, Lil, you gave me my life back, don’t you see that?”

He was still cupping her chin in his palm, and he tightened his grip and moved her jaw gently, teasingly, from side to side.

“Let it go, Lil. Don’t cry, please. You’ll make those beautiful green eyes all red and puffy. Agonizing over this won’t change it, and nothing’s happened yet. Look, we’ll make a pact, okay? We’ll worry like hell in twenty weeks, how’s that? We’ll mark it on the calendar and prepare for it and set aside time to agonize.”

Her nose was running. She sniffed, and from the pocket of his pajamas he pulled out a tissue and efficiently mopped at her face.

“One thing about this place, there’s always a box of tissues handy. It’s one of the few amenities I can’t find any fault with.” His voice was light and teasing. “Nearly the only one. Oh, yeah, and after today I’ll have to add the social workers to the short list. Your friend Frannie’s an angel. You been friends long?”

He was deliberately shifting the focus, and she let him. She was drained, far too emotional to talk any more about the blood issue.

She accepted another tissue and blew her nose. Her voice sounded as if she had a head cold. “I met Frannie when I first started working here. She’s a good person.”

“Takes one to know one.” He smiled at her, the old crooked grin that had always set her heart racing. They were sitting so close she could feel his cast pressing against her knees. She could smell hospital soap and antiseptic, along with the underlying male scent that was totally Greg.

“Lily. Sweet, wonderful Lily.” Without warning, he reached his good arm around her shoulders and cupped the back of her head in his palm, drawing her face toward him.

She drew in a sharp, surprised breath, and then his mouth closed over hers.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

He kissed as if he were starving for the taste of her, as if he’d waited his entire life to make this contact.

There was nothing hesitant about him. His lips closed over hers, and any thought she might have entertained about drawing away disappeared in an instant. He angled his mouth so the fit was close, closer, and sensation superseded every startled thought in her head. Pleasure points in her breasts and abdomen sprang to life as if they’d been asleep, just waiting for this moment, for this man, to awaken them. She felt herself grow fluid, malleable.

She responded as she’d never responded in her life to a kiss. She wanted nothing more than to sit there, kissing Greg Brulotte until the pleasure drowned her.

Not a single inch of their bodies touched except their mouths, but he used tongue and teeth and lips as if they were musical instruments and he a virtuoso. His hand on the back of her head was threaded through her hair, holding her firmly.

He took his time, using the tip of his tongue to outline her lips, using his teeth to nip at the fullness of her bottom lip, using his entire mouth to devour her.

Soon she was breathing in short, sharp bursts. Need burned in her belly, and her breasts were sore and aching when he finally drew away, just a little, enough to look deep into her eyes.

“I always knew it was there, Lil,” he breathed. “What a shame we wasted so much time.”

He kissed her once again, a quick, light confirmation of what had just passed between them, and then slowly, reluctantly, he released his hold on her head. Instead, he took her hand and enfolded her fingers between his, palm-to-palm, pulse to pulse. It was both intimate and reassuring.

“God, Lily, thanks for that. Right now, at this particular moment, I feel like myself, like a man again,” he said, expelling a long, heartfelt sigh. “It’s the first time that’s happened since the accident. I was beginning to doubt that it would ever again.”

She knew he had an erection. It was obvious beneath the thin fabric of the pajama bottoms, and she realized with a terrible sinking feeling that the kiss had been only an experiment for him.

She tried to hide the intense disappointment that washed over her. She tried to draw her hand away, but he held it fast.

He leveled a long, cautionary look at her. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first time I laid eyes on you, Lily Sullivan. So don’t get it into your head that any warm female could have managed to make me feel this way.”

His voice deepened. “You’re absolutely lovely, Lil.” He grinned at her. “If it were physically possible, I’d haul you over to that bed and do a lot more than just kiss you, too.” He laughed aloud. “You’re turning pink. I’ve always been intrigued by the way you blush at my more innocent remarks and don’t turn a hair down in ER at stuff that would boggle a gynecologist.”

“It’s fine when it’s part of the job,” she managed to say. “But when things get on a more intimate basis, I guess I get nervous.”

“Why’s that?” The question was direct, and without considering it, she answered directly. “Because I have trouble trusting men.”

He frowned. “I can’t imagine it happening, but did you get dumped?”

Again he was disconcertingly direct.

Again she answered without thinking. “Nope. I guess I’ve always done the dumping.”

“Figures. So, what’s with the trust thing?”

She wasn’t about to get into that. “A birth defect, I guess.” She kept her tone light. “Happens in one out of every million girl babies. Haven’t you read the research material, Doctor?”

“Apparently I missed that issue of Lancet. What do the experts recommend as treatment?” His words were light, but the look he was giving her wasn’t at all humorous.

Abstinence. But she didn’t say it aloud. “They’re working on a vaccine.”

“A trust vaccine, huh? Should be a great market if they ever perfect it.”

A sharp, officious rap sounded at the door. “Damn it all to hell, a person can’t buy a moment’s peace around here,” he exploded. “That sign clearly says no visitors, but it’s obvious nobody in this joint can read.” He moved his
wheelchair back a discreet two feet before he barked out, “Now what?”

“Your medication, Doctor.” An immense nurse, tall and very wide, with massive shoulders and fleshy arms, marched into the room. She had graying hair screwed back into a tight knot and she was decidedly sour faced behind thick horn-rimmed glasses that magnified her eyes.

She held a tray of medications like a shield in front of her. She nodded formally to Lily and silently handed Greg a paper cup with numerous pills in it and a glass of water.

When he didn’t immediately swallow them, she stood at attention for several long moments and then said in a menacing tone, “Take your medications, Dr. Brulotte. Now, please.”

She wasn’t someone Lily would have confronted without a lot of cause, but Greg was totally unfazed by her.

“I will, Nurse...” He checked her nametag, and so did Lily.

Valerie Krupps.

“Nurse Krupps,” Greg said. “I give you my solemn word as an officer and a gentleman. But not now.” He was aware it was the first time he hadn’t welcomed his medication, and the thought surprised him. “Half an hour can’t make that much difference, and I am an adult, contrary to the way I’m treated in here. So trust me on this, all right? As you can maybe see, I have company just now and I don’t want to be in a drug haze at this particular moment. Is that clear?”

The sarcasm in his tone made Lily catch her breath.

“So, if you wouldn’t mind leaving us alone now, Ms. Krupps?”