minimize scar tissue.”
“I don’t care about scars. Got enough of them already, so a few more won’t make much difference.” He sniffed. “Aroma-what? What’s that?” Bear asked, a puzzled expression on his face.
“Plant extracts that have healing properties.” She’d studied aromatherapy and used it on her father when he’d been ill, and she was now thinking of becoming a practitioner in addition to her nursing career. Complementary therapies were helpful to standard treatments, and she was a believer in them.
“Like folk medicine?” he asked and his fierce expression eased a little.
“Something like that.” That was probably the simplest way to describe the therapy that didn’t sound too out-there for most people.
“Okay. Phone’s on the wall there.” Bear nodded to the wall beside the mess of a desk scattered with magazines and paperwork.
“Thanks.” Ellie looked at the numbers scrawled on a piece of paper beside the phone. Dialing the number, she waited for Mark to answer. She quickly explained the situation and hung up. “He’ll be here in a minute. Only one camper left for the morning clinic.”
A single nod was the only response from Bear. She noticed that he had reverted back to his tight-lipped expression again and suspected the burn hurt a lot more than he was letting on. “Can I ask you a few questions, Bear?”
“As long as they’re not about my clam chowder recipe,” he said.
“No,” Ellie said and hid a grin, knowing that Vicki had worked long and hard to get that recipe out of him. “They’re medical questions. Are you on any medications or do you have any medication allergies?”
Bear answered her questions and a few minutes later Mark charged through the door of the lodge, carrying two medical supply packs. “I wasn’t sure what we were going to need. I brought a few things, then we’ll get you to the infirmary to do a full exam.”
“I don’t need no full exam. I just need my burn looked at.” He held his hand and forearm out to them.
Ellie winced inwardly at the sight of the red, inflamed skin and took a pair of exam gloves from Mark. “Do you think it will blister?”
“Not sure. Might,” Mark said and applied exam gloves before touching the wound that ran from Bear’s thick fingers all the way to midforearm. “You said he put the injury in cold water right away, correct?”
“Yes. And to my knowledge, the sooner a heat injury is cooled, the better.” Burns weren’t her specialty, but that much she remembered and the advice made complete sense. Sometimes common sense was the best medicine in the world.
“Should I put ice on it?” Bear asked and winced as Mark touched a particularly tender spot that could have been the initial contact site.
“No. You don’t want to apply ice to skin that’s already delicate.”
“Delicate? There’s nothing delicate about Bear,” the thin assistant cook said with a snort. “He’s as tough as they come.”
“You’re right about that, Skinny,” Mark said. “The injured skin is the only thing delicate here, and we don’t want to add anything too cold to it, because skin damaged by heat could then be damaged by cold.”
“Makes sense,” Bear said and gave a nod.
“If you have no objection, Mark, I’d like to try some aromatherapy oils on the injury, too.” She chewed her lip, not sure how he would react to that request. Many doctors didn’t understand, or agree with, the benefit of treatments that weren’t created in a chemistry lab.
“Aromatherapy?” Mark asked with a quick glance at her, brows raised, silently asking for more information.
Clenching her hands together, she prepared to support her case. “Yes. I know it’s considered an alternative treatment, but I like to think of it as complementary. I’ve used it successfully on a variety of ailments. No adverse reactions, either.” Mostly she’d treated her dad and a few friends, but she truly believed in it. Heart racing, she hoped he would agree. She might even be able to document the use of oils on a burn for others to follow.
“Any objections from you, Bear?” Mark asked and turned the man’s wrist slightly, looking at the wound that ran all the way around his wrist. “Otherwise, we’ll just send you off to the ER in town.”
“Nope. She said it’s kind of like folk medicine, and I’m okay with that. Anything to take the sting out of it is okay with me, and I don’t want to go to the ER. I got stuff to do.”
“Aromatherapy is widely used in Europe, and I’ve used it before on burns, though not one as large as this.” In the kitchen she was a klutz and had succeeded in burning herself in myriad ways, so she kept a bottle of lavender essential oil handy to treat herself with.
“Okay, Nurse Ellie. Do your thing.”
Mark issued the order, and she was suddenly energized by his open-minded nature. Working with him might not be so bad after all.
“I’ll be right back.” She raced to her room, grabbed her kit of aromatherapy vials and quickly returned to the lodge. Unzipping the protective neoprene case, she pulled one bottle out and clenched it in her hand. “Keep holding your arm over the sink, will you? In case anything drips off,” she said.
“I think you did a good job of cooling the injury right away, Bear,” Mark said and stood to observe Ellie’s treatment.
“Hurts like hell though,” he said, grumbling, but allowed Ellie to minister to him. The first few drops of oil hit his skin and the fragrance permeated the kitchen. “You didn’t tell me it was perfume!” Bear cried and tried to pull away from her.
Grabbing him by the apron front, she kept him in position. “It’s not perfume. Now live up to your reputation and hold still, will you?”
“Oh, man. The guys will never let me live this one down. My wife, neither.” He bowed his head and shook it in disgust, certain his fierce reputation had just been torn to shreds.
Beside them, Skinny snickered, but quieted after a glare from Bear.
“It’s better than being in pain, and it’s certainly better than a burn that could scar badly and prevent you from cooking for all these campers.” Gently, she used her fingers to rub the oil over all areas of the burn. “There are wonderful healing properties in this oil, as I said. Who cares what it smells like, right?”
Bear gave a sniff of lingering disapproval, but relented. “I guess.”
“If it will make you feel better, you can tell people I held you down while Ellie poured it on you,” Mark said.
Bear gave Mark’s thin frame a glance and snorted. “Now, no one’s gonna believe that one.”
“I’m stronger than I look,” Mark said and flexed his left bicep.
Bear barked out a laugh and shook his head. “I make biscuits bigger than that, Mark.” Bear relaxed, and Ellie knew that had been Mark’s intention.
The tension between the three of them eased. “Did Ellie get her doughnuts?”
“No. I burned myself just as she walked in. They’re still in the cooler.” He nodded to indicate which one.
Mark rubbed his hands together at that information. “Any others that you want to get rid of, like Boston cream? Breakfast was a long time ago.”
“Yeah, help yourself. There’s a couple left.” Bear held still while Ellie wrapped a light gauze dressing to his injury.
“That ought to do it.” She applied one strip of tape to keep the end of the gauze secure.
“I can’t cook wearing this thing. I look like a mummy.”
“Leave it on through the afternoon. Step back