“Of course, of course. My girlfriend’s the same. The second something happens, and we get hurt, they want to blame themselves for not stopping it while smothering you with attention. Some say it’s down to women having a maternal instinct, you know,” he said, getting out a foam strip and laying stuff out on a table he wheeled over from the side of the room.
“I’m not sure if that’s true, but they’re remarkably good at it. Then again, we have a lot of male nurses who are outstanding at looking after their patients, so who knows why. I say just go with it,” he advised me, half of his mouth tilting in a small smile. “They hate us being hurt, and if this is what it takes to help them through it—and what you’ve just gone through is by no means a small thing, so it’s understandable that Miss Waite is feeling this way—then it’s worth it. We’re equally as bad when the situations are reversed. Can you imagine if she was lying here instead of you?”
The machine started making some sort of rave music again, the beat and pitch incredibly obnoxious in the otherwise silent room. “I don’t even want to consider that ever being a possibility, Doc. She’s my world.”
Nodding, he went back to what he was doing, carefully raising the head of the bed, watching me for increased pain and stopping when it became clear I needed time to adjust. It took him longer than it should have to get me to a slightly higher position, but he was patient and watchful.
With every indication that I was hurting, Tamsin’s hand would shake, and at one point, she whimpered when I had to clench my eyes shut. I fucking hated it.
I hated that I was hurt, I hated that I couldn’t remember any of it, I hated that I was in pain. But I hated that she was crying and suffering at all even more.
Lowering the sheet so that it was pooled in my lap, he checked my side and nodded like what he saw was good.
“Amazingly enough, there’s very little bleeding coming from the wound here, much less than I would’ve expected,” he informed me, just as the door opened and a big breasted blonde came in wearing a scrub top that was a size too small for her. Seeing the new arrival, Tamsin growled, and her hand spasmed slightly. “Ah, Nurse O’T. Thank you for joining us.”
Not recognizing the name, I asked, “Oh tea?”
Facing me straight on, I understood the growl from Tamsin. She had trouble written all over her.
For one, that scrub top—I knew from things that Rose had told me that their scrubs were best worn loose so that that they could move and be more comfortable. Granted, they couldn’t be too baggy, but this woman had bought ones that were skin-tight, meaning that her deep cleavage was visible in the V of the neck of the top. The pants weren’t that much better, and I figured that if she had to squat down for anything, she’d burst the seams.
She also had thick makeup on, with a goldy pink color surrounding her eyes dramatically, and bright red lipstick. Her big hair was puffed up at the top and done in layers that flipped out at the bottom. Basically, she’d give men a naughty nurse porn feeling, and from how she was biting down on her lip as she looked between the Doc and me, that could well have been what she was going for.
“No, silly,” she giggled, and it took everything in me not to curl my upper lip. “O. T., as in—”
O’Tits?
“—O’Tally. My family is Irish.” This was punctuated by what I think she wanted to be a sexy look, but it kind of made her look like she had issues. I’d seen crazy eyes on some people in my past, and hers screamed fucking tonto.
Dropping her head back, Tamsin growled, “And there was me worrying it was going to be Missy. Why can’t this hell just end?”
Squeezing her hand, I watched Nurse O’Tally walk around to the other side of the bed and pick my wrist up to take my pulse.
Over her shoulder, the doctor rolled his eyes at me. “I think we’re good on the pulse, but if you just keep an eye on the room and check in on him from time to time, we’ll be great.”
Pouting at him, she argued, “But it’s my job.”
Tamsin looked like her head was going to explode, but she managed to hold it in. “Would you guys mind giving me just five minutes with my fiancé, please?”—fiancé?—“He’s just been shot while he was proposing, and all I want to do is make sure he’s okay.”
Hell, even I would have left the room if I was them after hearing that. The doctor was already walking over to the door, but the nurse seemed like she was there to stay.
She was just about to say something when the door opened, and DB popped his head around it, smiling when he saw that I was awake.
“Ah, good, you survived the surgery.” His head disappeared, and I heard him hissing at someone, then he walked into the room with my brother trailing behind him, carrying the mass that was Clyde in his arms. “We brought someone to see you. He’s been sniffing your shit in the department and howling like he was fucking mourning, so we brought him in to shut him up.”
“What in the fuck are you feeding this beast?” Raoul snapped, gratefully sitting down when Tamsin pushed the chair toward him.
The second he was settled, Clyde lost it and wriggled off him, whining as he walked up to Tamsin and stuck his head in her crotch.
“Ranger does that to me, too,” Raoul commented. “Does anyone know why? It makes me feel slightly violated.”
“I heard that it’s because they can smell other dogs on you,” Nurse O’T breathed, staring at DB and Raoul wide-eyed.
DB took a step away from her, and Raoul leaned slightly to the side so that he had Tamsin as a shield between them. “I’m not entirely certain that animal protection organizations like people like that.”
Making sure his badge was clear, DB used his Sheriff's voice. “Do you think you could give us some time with our man here, please?”
The effect was instant as she moved straight to the door. “Absolutely. Call me if you need anything. My name’s Nurse O’T—”
“O-Tits?” Raoul whispered around Tamsin to me.
“That’s what I thought,” I snickered, stopping more from the look on Tamsin’s face than the pain it caused in my shoulder.
When she was gone, they all turned around to look at me.
“Okay, hit me with it. Well, unless it’s another bullet or you’re aiming for my good shoulder.”
Crossing his arms in front of him, DB looked pissed. “How much do you remember?”
Leaning my back against the raised bed and giving it all of my weight, I breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought maybe I’d gotten drunk and hurt myself, but I remember now being out at the house to show Tamsin. She didn’t kill me for ordering the kit without her, by the way, because she’s perfect for me,” I smiled smugly at them, knowing full well that’s what they’d placed bets on happening.
“Well shit, Logan fucking won,” Raoul groused. “Rose would’ve killed me if I’d done that.”
“Tabby would’ve, too,” DB agreed, narrowing his eyes at Tamsin. “What kind of mutant are you?”
“An awesome one,” she smiled smugly.
“Anyway, I’d just asked her to marry me—she said yes even though I don’t have a ring yet. Oh, and she said it in the ambulance. There was a bang, pain and Clyde went running into the trees. I remember you guys arriving, but I’m not getting much after that because I was so focused on keeping Tamsin safe.”