A startled gasp escaped his lips when he felt the telltale pinch of a needle piercing his bicep. Seconds later, he felt the warmth that would kill the pain spreading through his body and he could take a breath without wanting to scream.
“It’s okay, Chase. This should kick in pretty quickly,” the psychotic bitch said, sounding almost sorry.
She wasn’t fucking sorry and they both knew it, but right now, he was too fucking out of it to point that out to her, so he settled for giving into the medicine and letting it pull him into a deep, painless sleep, but once he woke up, they were going to settle a few things, starting with her fucking attitude.
*-*-*-*
“You’re fired,” her new favorite patient announced as she carefully helped him into bed.
“I’ll be sure to remember that later,” Sloane said absently as she pulled off his shoes and yanked the quilt she’d folded at the end of the bed over him and tucked him in.
“I’m not kidding,” Chase muttered.
“Yeah, I figured that,” Sloane said, sighing as she helped him raise his head and placed a bottle of water to his lips, giving him the choice to take a sip or stay like that. With a grumble that sounded oddly offensive, he reluctantly took a sip, licked his lips and laid his head back down on his pillow. In seconds, he was fast asleep and she was feeling like the bitch that he kept accusing her of being.
She shouldn’t have counted on him to tell her when he was in pain.
Not yet, at least.
It was a rookie mistake and he was paying for it. And now there was no question in her mind, she was definitely a bitch. Double-checking on him one more time to make sure that he was okay, she placed a clean urinal by his bed, opened her mouth to tell him how sorry she was, but instead shook her head and left him in peace.
For the next hour, Sloane focused on putting the rest of the groceries that they’d bought this morning away and started dinner. She threw together beef stew in a pot, grabbed her iPad, found her grandmother’s recipe for double-fudge brownies and set to work.
She baked when she felt bad and right now, she felt like absolute garbage. She’d screwed up and he was paying for it. She’d been counting on him to tell her when he needed a painkiller, which was her first mistake. He didn’t like asking for help and she should have been more prepared for that.
Yup, she was in charge and they both knew it, Sloane thought miserably as she reached up and wiped away a tear that had absolutely no business falling down her face. This was a job, she’d fucked up, learned a lesson and she would never, ever do it again. She was also going to apologize to him as soon as he woke up.
This wasn’t how she liked to start a job and this definitely wasn’t the way that she liked to treat her patients. They deserved better than that, a hell of a lot better. It didn’t matter how much of a prick he was, he hadn’t deserved the bullshit care that she’d given him and they both knew it.
But she’d been so damn focused on trying to make him realize that it was okay to ask for help that she hadn’t done her job and now the poor bastard left in her care was suffering. Angrily wiping away another tear that wouldn’t fix this, Sloane scrubbed her hands, checked on her patient and spent the next two hours making a home-cooked dinner that she hoped would help make up for this afternoon.
Once the brownies were done, she pulled the pan out of the oven, set them on the counter to cool, double-checked the stew, added the dumplings, and went to check on her patient only to realize that she’d seriously screwed up once again.
Chapter 7
“You’re fired,” Melissa said, shaking her head in disgust as she looked down at Sloane, who couldn’t seem to stop trembling, not that he could blame her.
He really couldn’t.
It had been a long fucking night from what Chase remembered, but at least he’d been passed out for most of it. Sloane unfortunately, hadn’t had that luxury. She’d stayed awake the entire night taking care of him and making sure that he didn’t die.
Even he had to admit that she’d done a hell of a job, but apparently, his sister, who’d never spent a fucking second in the field, did not. The moment that she’d stormed into his hospital room, she’d been all over Sloane’s ass.
He should be happy, but he wasn’t. He’d been in her shoes before and knew exactly how fucked up it felt when a patient or a fucking doctor didn’t give him all the information and a patient ended up paying the price.
“I’m very sorry about what happened,” Sloane said firmly before adding, “I understand if you want to fire me, but I highly recommend that you alert his doctor about his reaction to morphine so that he can send over a more thorough, up-to-date medical history for the medical staff here as well as a copy to keep at his house and for whatever agency you decide to go through. They’re going to need to know so that this doesn’t happen again.”
“You had no business giving it to him!” Melissa snapped, bringing his headache up to migraine level.
“Yes, ma’am, I did. We were out of the house and the file that you sent to the agency clearly stated that morphine was one of the painkillers that was used when he needed relief. Your brother is stubborn and refused to tell me that he was in pain, so when he went pale, started to tremble, and began to lose consciousness, I followed the protocol that you provided and gave him morphine,” Sloane bit out evenly, looking pissed even though he could still hear the terror in her voice.
“You could have killed him!” Melissa snapped, making him groan because her fucking voice grated.
“No, the file that you gave me could have. No one ever bothered to update his doctor, so when he put in the prescriptions for your brother, he based them on what was in the file,” Sloane snapped back, taking him by surprise because he would have simply told his sister to go fuck herself and walked off. “You can fire me, but I am not leaving his side until I make sure that you get an updated medical chart in here.”
“Regardless, you’re fi” his sister began yelling again, deciding to take it out on Sloane instead of admitting that she’d screwed up.
“Shut up,” Chase groaned as he dropped his head back against the thin hospital pillow and did his best not to lose the applesauce that Sloane had managed to shove down his throat. “She’s staying,” he said, in no fucking mood to hear his sister take this out on Sloane.
“No, she’s not.”
“If you want to bitch at someone, then call the fucking hospital that released my records or look in the fucking mirror because I didn’t hear you warn her about morphine,” Chase groaned, pressing his hands against his head and wondering when this fucking headache and nausea would go away.
“Chase,” Melissa said, sounding embarrassed as she should be, “I was only looking out for you.”
Without opening his eyes, he nodded toward where he thought Sloane might be standing her ground. “It seems that’s what she was doing so fuck off, Melissa, and leave me alone,” Chase said, hoping that she would just get the fuck out of his room so that he could finally pass out in peace.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this fucking sick and exhausted. Oh wait, that wasn’t true because he remembered the last time he’d gone through this hell and that was when some fucking physician’s assistant had given a full dose of morphine, nearly killing him.