“You’re sleeping with Lieutenant Bloodsworth, huh?” Keisha asked, grinning.
“I have in the past,” I said, and sniffed. So what if the past was just that morning? “He shouldn’t hold his breath waiting for the next time.” I was a bit chagrined that I had blurted out something as personal as details of my love life, but I’d been provoked.
It seemed to me that Red was driving inordinately slow. I didn’t know if he was always that careful-which might not be a good thing when you have someone dying in your ambulance-or if he just wanted to listen to as much of our conversation as possible before we arrived at the hospital. Other than Keisha, no one, absolutely
Keisha, however, was a woman after my own heart. She’d given me Fig Newtons, and she’d got my bag for me. Keisha understood.
“That would be one hard man to turn down,” she commented thoughtfully. “No pun intended.”
“A woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do.”
“I hear you, sister.” We shared a look of total understanding. Men are difficult creatures; you can’t let them get the upper hand. And thank God Wyatt was being difficult, because that gave me something to think about other than that someone was trying to kill me. I just wasn’t ready to deal with it yet. I was safe for the time being, and that gave me some breathing space, which was all I needed. I would concentrate on Wyatt and my list until I felt better able to handle the situation.
At the hospital, I was whisked away and put in a private little cubicle-well, as private as anything can be that has a curtain for a door-and a couple of friendly, cheerfully efficient nurses cut away my blood-soaked top and bra. I really hated that the bra had to be sacrificed, because it was this beautiful seafoam lace and matched my underpants, which I would now be unable to wear unless I bought another matching bra. Ah, well. The bra was ruined anyway, because I doubted any treatment would get bloodstains out of silk, plus I now had bad memories associated with it and probably wouldn’t have worn it again anyway. I was draped in a blue- and-white hospital gown, which was in no way fashionable, and made to lie down while they did a preliminary workup.
They also peeled the bandage off my arm, and by now I felt steady enough to get a look at the damage myself. “Ewww,” I said, wrinkling my nose.
Now, there’s no place you can get shot that you won’t have muscle damage, except maybe in the eye, in which case you don’t have to worry about it because you’re probably dead. The bullet had torn a deep gouge in the outside of my upper arm, just under the shoulder joint. If it had gone any higher, it would likely have shattered the joint, which would have been much more serious. This looked bad enough, because I didn’t see how the gouge could be closed with a few stitches.
“It isn’t so bad,” said one of the nurses. Her name tag said Cynthia. “It’s a flesh wound; nothing structural’s damaged. Hurts like the dickens, though, doesn’t it?”
Amen to that.
My vital signs were taken-my pulse was a bit fast, but whose wouldn’t be? Respirations normal. Blood pressure a little elevated over my norm, but not by much. All in all, my body was having a rather mild reaction to being shot. It helped that I was healthy as a horse, and in great shape.
There was no telling what sort of shape I’d be in by the time this arm was well enough for me to work out again, I thought glumly. In a couple of days I’d start doing cardio, then yoga, but there wouldn’t be any gymnastics or weight training for at least a month. If getting shot was anything like the other injuries I’d had in the past, muscles took a while to get over the trauma even after the initial symptoms were gone.
They gave the wound a thorough cleaning, which didn’t make it hurt any worse than it was already hurting. I was lucky in that my top had been sleeveless and there weren’t any fabric fibers caught in the wound. That greatly simplified things.
The doctor finally came in, a lanky guy with wrinkles in his forehead and cheerful blue eyes. His name tag said MacDuff. No joke. “Rough date, huh?” he asked jokingly as he pulled on plastic gloves.
Startled, I blinked at him. “How did you know?”
He paused, startled in turn. “You mean-I was told it was a sniper.”
“It was. But it happened at the end of my date.” If you could call being followed to the beach and taken by surprise a “date.”
He laughed. “I see. Gotcha now.”
He took a look at my arm and rubbed his chin. “I can suture this for you, but if you’re worried about a scar, we can call in a cosmetic surgeon to do the honors. Dr. Homes here in town has a nice touch with scars; he can make them practically go away. You’ll be here a while longer, though.”
I was vain enough not to be crazy about the idea of a long scar on my arm, but I also hated the idea of being shot and not having anything to show for it. Think about it. Would this be a great show-and-tell for my future children and grandchildren, or what? I also didn’t want to hang around the hospital any longer than necessary, either.
“Go for it,” I told him.
He looked a tad surprised, but he went for it. After numbing my arm, he painstakingly pulled the edges of the gash together and began stitching them closed. I think my choice appealed to his pride, and he set about doing an exemplary job.
In the middle of the procedure, I heard a commotion outside and said, “There’s my mom.”
Dr. MacDuff glanced up at one of the nurses. “Ask everyone to stay outside until I get finished here. Just another few minutes.”
Cynthia slipped out of the cubicle, pulling the curtain firmly closed behind her. The commotion got louder; then I heard Mom’s voice rising above everything, saying in that tone of finality, “I want to see my daughter. Now.”
“Brace yourself,” I told Dr. MacDuff. “I don’t think Cynthia can hold up against Mom. She won’t scream or faint or anything; she just wants to see for herself that I’m alive. It’s a mom thing.”
He grinned, blue eyes twinkling. He seemed to be an easygoing kind of guy. “They’re funny that way, aren’t they?”
“Blair!” That was Mom again, disturbing everyone else in the emergency department in her frantic need to find her wounded offspring, namely me.
I lifted my voice. “I’m okay, Mom; I’m just getting some stitches here. We’ll be finished in a minute.”
Did that reassure her? Of course not. I had also assured her, at the age of fourteen, that my broken collarbone was just a bad bruise. I’d had some lamebrained idea that I could wrap an Ace bandage around my shoulder and still perform, never mind that I couldn’t move my arm without screaming. That wasn’t one of my better judgment calls.
I’m much better now about assessing my injuries, but Mom would never forget and now wanted to See For Herself. Therefore, I wasn’t surprised when the curtain was whisked open-thanks for preserving my privacy, Mom-and my entire family stood there. Mom, Dad, Siana, even Jenni. Nor was I surprised that Wyatt was there with them, still looking both grim and irritated.
Dr. MacDuff looked up and started to say something along the lines of, “Get out,” though he probably would have phrased it more like, “If you people will step outside, we’ll be finished in a minute,” but he never got that far. He saw Mom and forgot what he was about to say.
That was a common reaction. Mom was fifty-four and looked maybe forty. She was a former Miss North Carolina, tall and slender, blond, and gorgeous. That’s just the only word for her. Dad was nuts about her, but that was okay because she was nuts about him, too.
She rushed to my side, but once she saw that I really was mostly in one piece, she calmed and brushed my forehead with her cool hand just as if I were five years old again. “Shot, huh?” she asked gently. “What a tale to tell your grandchildren.”
I told you. It’s scary.
She switched her attention to Dr. MacDuff. “Hello, I’m Tina Mallory, Blair’s mother. Is there any
