Lewis let go a low curse then, with him, moved into the room. Neither of them cared if Robert Jessop liked it or not. They were going to stay with their woman.
“Ah, good, you guys made excellent time. I was just asking Michaela what sort of nail gun she has.”
Lewis stepped up to her and ran his hand down her hair to her back. “Hang in there, baby girl. Doc needs to know if the nails you use have barbs on them.”
“No. No, they’re smooth.”
Robert Jessop nodded.
Michaela’s lip quivered. “I’m glad you guys are here. It really hurts.”
“We’re going to take care of that, sweetheart,” Doc Jessop said. “I just want us to get an x-ray first. You gentlemen feel free to accompany us. We’ll take the stretcher.”
Randy and Lewis eased her down on the stretcher, and they helped the doctor move her down the hall. To Randy’s untrained eye, it appeared this clinic was very well equipped. It didn’t take long to snap the images the doc needed. He had a look at a computer that was in the corner and then smiled.
“You must drink a lot of milk,” he said to Michaela.
She seemed a bit calmer, and Randy felt confident that his and Lewis’s presence had something to do with that.
“Milk?” Lewis asked as they rolled her stretcher down the hall back to room one.
“The nail didn’t shatter the bone of her finger. It makes what has to happen next a lot easier for us both.”
Once they were back in the exam room, Robert Jessop wasted no time. He inserted an IV needle into Michaela’s right hand and hooked up some saline. Less than a minute later, he injected something into the tube.
Within a couple of minutes, Michaela sighed. “That’s better. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. While I get ready to separate you from the nail and the small piece of wood, why don’t you tell us what happened?”
Randy listened as she recited her day, including her call with Tammy earlier. She sounded almost tipsy, but he figured that was the result of the drugs the doc had just given her.
“After the nail gun jumped and nailed me, I screamed. It was all I could do to pull my cell phone out of my pocket with my right hand. I just hit redial and called last person I’d spoken to—Tammy.”
It didn’t take the doctor long to pull the nail out. He peeled off Michaela’s glove and examined the wound. The puncture in her finger looked obscene on her pretty hand. Fortunately, with no broken bone, the puncture itself needed only basic care—cleaning and antibiotics—and of course, time to heal.
Before long, Robert had her hand dressed, and she was almost dozing off. They sat quietly while he explained he’d added a shot of antibiotics to ensure infection had no chance to even start.
“She shouldn’t be alone tonight.”
Michaela blinked her eyes open. “I have to go to work.”
“Not tonight, you don’t,” Robert said. “By now, Jillian will have called Angela.”
Michaela frowned at him, and Randy had to work hard not to laugh. She looked so cute, trying to look fierce, because with the pain medication inside her, she really was a little loopy and looked it.
“She won’t be alone, Doc,” Lewis said.
Michaela swiveled her head to look at him and Lewis. Side by side, they were on her left. Robert Jessop, sitting on her right, nodded.
“Good.” He turned his attention to Michaela. “One bit of good news. You’re up to date on your tetanus shots, so we don’t have to do that.”
“I stay up to date on them.”
“Most women do. It’s the men who get the butt shot—which I now perform in honor of my father, Adam, who’s mostly retired. I want to see you tomorrow, about this time. I’ll change the dressing and check for infection. In the meantime, rest tonight, and don’t get it wet. Along with some antibiotics, I’ll give you a few pain pills to get you through the night. I also want you to take a few days off work.”
The Doc left them for a moment, and Randy scooted over to take his spot. She still looked disgruntled with the doctor’s orders. “Scared us, baby,” he said to her. “We just got a call that you’d had an accident and were headed here. Scared the living hell out of us both.”
“I wasn’t scared. Just mad at myself for letting that stupid nail gun jump and nail me.”
“It’s happened to more cowboys around here than you know,” Robert said.
“That’s how he knew to ask about the nails,” Lewis said.
Doc Jessop handed Randy two plastic bottles—one that contained eight pain pills and one that held antibiotics. He pocketed them and continued to hold her hand. She closed her eyes for a bit, only opening them, minutes later, when Robert disconnected the IV. When the doc nodded, he and Lewis helped her to sit up.
She held up her hand. “Aside from not being able to work, this is going to put me behind schedule on my renovations.”
“No, it won’t. You sit and point and tell us what needs to get done, and we’ll take care of it for you.”
“No, that’s okay. I can do it myself.”
“You can, but you’re not going to, not anymore,” Lewis said. “Deal with it.”
“What he just said,” Randy said.
Michaela gave them both a dirty look and opened her mouth to rebut that. Then a sound erupted, coming from just outside the open exam room door—from the waiting area—that shut her mouth and increased her frown.
It was the sound of applause, and it was a message that Randy hoped she understood was one filled with love.
Chapter Seven
“We all love you,” Jenny Benedict said. “And we all want to see you succeed.”
As soon as Michaela emerged from the exam room, her left hand bandaged, she’d been greeted by the sight of a throng people
