but he recognized a bedside manner when he saw it. Her voice had changed. Her whole demeanor had changed. The words may be teasing, but the tone was sweet. Much sweeter than she’d shown him so far. Distracting him from the pain and humiliation, and doing a damned fine job of it too.
“Not that it’d be my fault,” Imogen added, helping him up. “I’m sure you spent years bench-pressing fallen trees just so you could make annoying women babble at you when you fall off mountains.” She flipped the shirt inside out and gently wrapped his arm. “Pressure here. Try not to jostle that, there’s grit and debris in the wound. You think a speck of dust in your eye hurts…bits of dirt and wood in an open wound would be torturous.”
Half an hour later Wyatt sat in the passenger seat of her ridiculous purple vehicle, instructing her through town. His little town wasn’t particularly secluded, not like the communities he drove the practice to, but it still took time to get there from the mountain. But it took no time to get through the tiny town to the large lot where his big shiny silver bus was parked.
A much better bus than Dad’s. Getting that wreck off the mountain would give him the incentive to get the cabin built. It just meant going inside first to get stuff. Pictures. Mom’s jewelry box. The family bible. Dad’s crossbow. Important stuff. The only problem? Wyatt didn’t want to go inside.
“This isn’t the hospital,” Imogen said, dragging his mind back.
“No. It’s my practice.” He popped the car door open and stepped out, closing the door again with his knee to keep the pressure on his wound. “Keys, right front pocket.”
Imogen looked at the jeans pocket and then back up at his eyes. The fact that he was standing there, shirtless and bleeding, demanding she fish around in his pocket after he’d spent the day repeatedly refusing her requests registered. “It’s locked.” And his arm hurt, but he wasn’t going to admit that. He added a word to avoid admissions. “Please.”
She crammed her hand into his pocket and retrieved the keys. “Which key?”
He indicated and she let them inside.
“Why are we wasting time here?”
“We’re here because it’s close, it has all required medical supplies, and there’s no waiting.” He followed her, bumping the lights on with his good elbow. “First exam room, you’ll find everything we need in the cabinets.”
Imogen went ahead of him, doing as he’d bid, but obviously not happy about it. “This is silly. I’ll clean it, dress it, then we’ll go to the emergency room. You cannot suture the outside of the forearm on your dominant hand. And, yes, I noticed you’re a righty.”
Time for her to kick up another fuss. If she wanted the job, she’d prove it. “That’s why you’re going to do it.”
“I’ve never sutured.” She grabbed supplies and then headed to the sink to wash up. “And it’s kind of illegal. I’m an RN, not a PA. Actually, it’s illegal for you too.”
“After you glove, wash my arm from the elbow down. Then irrigate with the saline and grab a mirror from the third drawer so I can see it.”
“All that I can do. It’s legal.”
Her thoughts played across her face so clearly she might as well have said them. She thought he was testing her.
Of course he was testing her.
“I bought the supplies. This is my practice, and you don’t work for me,” Wyatt murmured as she set about cleaning his arm. “You’re just a friend I’m trusting to help me out.”
“You have funding. Didn’t the funding buy these supplies?”
Smart. But also cautious and a little too reticent—traits that wouldn’t serve her well around here.
“No. I haven’t actually acquired funding yet.” Another test. One that stopped her cold.
“Amanda said you were in danger of losing your funding.” She lifted her gaze from the wound and stared at him with the biggest blue eyes he’d ever seen. Big blue eyes with a smudge of dirt under one. It was good his hands were occupied because he had a sudden urge to thumb the smudge away.
She had to stop staring at him like that. Made it hard to focus. She was probably experiencing the same thing. He was making the tests too hard.
“That’s what I told her, and if you’re her friend you won’t tell her different.” Her mouth had fallen open with surprise. Wyatt tilted his head to try and see what she was doing as it was the only way to keep from staring at her mouth. He coughed. “She wouldn’t accept her full salary if she knew it came from me and not from a fund.”
She started moving again. Despite her suspicions and the long day, her hands moved steadily and gently over the wound. “So, this is a regular practice? That stuff about getting the use up…”
“That’s true. There is funding available if I can get the patient base big enough. Until then…” She should smell terrible. He knew he smelled awful after the long day, but she smelled good, and she’d worked herself hard—probably to the point of dehydration.
She dried his arm after flushing the wound and checking under magnifying glass for any debris. Whatever her thoughts about his revelation, she kept them to herself. “It looks clean to me, but I still wish you’d—”
“You want me to trust you. Show me I can.” He reached out with his other hand, making contact with her forearm. Whatever strange chemistry rumbled between them, she felt it too. Her gaze fell to his hand, compelling him to take it away. “Today I saw a hard worker, someone who wants to help. Now show me someone who is willing to take the same chance on me that she’s asking me to take.” Wyatt smiled, trying to soften what amounted to a dare.
“That’s not the only problem. You’re trusting me to do this right without any practice. I’ve never so much as stitched up a turkey for Thanksgiving.” Imogen held the mirror up so he could see the wound. Seeing it made it sting worse, but she was right—flayed to the fascia. Should be easy to stitch.
“If you can follow directions, you’ll do fine. If you mess up, I’ll go and get new sutures put in tomorrow. But if they’re good, I’ll give you two weeks to prove you can handle the position.”
“I thought I’d already proved myself on your mountain.” Imogen pointed an accusing gloved finger at him.
“I never said yes.” Antagonizing her before making her stitch him up might not be the best idea he’d ever had, but he’d rather she snapped at him than a patient. “I just let you move the logs.”
Her eyes called him an ass again, but to her credit she bit her tongue.
“You were being very annoying,” Wyatt said, and when she scowled, he held up one hand, “But I can now see your bedside manner is different.” When she still scowled, he corrected himself. “It’s better. Good.”
“A month. That’s the bare minimum required for a fair trial,” Imogen countered.
“Is it?” Wyatt couldn’t help but grin at her. She was ballsy, and that was something people here would respond to—it was easy to respect bravery. “One month, unless you do something so terrible I can’t keep our arrangement. Behave, and don’t annoy my patients.”
He was the cousin of her best friend, and they were close. Close-ish. Imogen wasn’t entirely certain what that entailed, but it didn’t matter. He might be kind of a jerk, but she had to believe he wouldn’t do something to ruin her life. Oh, sure, he might not hire her because she allowed herself to be talked into doing something illegal, but the chances were slim that he intended to jeopardize her license.
Imogen wanted to say no, be as uncooperative as he’d been all day. She’d learned how to be stubborn the last time she’d held still for six months. But being flexible might actually get her what she wanted. Unless he tried to trick her again.