“Are you the new orthopedist?”
“Yes, Clay Matthews.”
“Anthony Stark. Good to meet you. Your patient is in exam room four. I called in one of the residents as well, once we got a good look at him.”
That was odd, since the only orthopedic resident Clay knew of was at dinner. Maybe he’d come back early. “Okay, thanks. Has he been up to Radiology yet?”
“Yes. He just came back. It looks like a displaced break.”
Perfect. Displaced meant the two ends of the bone weren’t aligned—a more complicated situation to address. Compassion tickled the back of his throat. Another tricky piece of news. He knew of at least one patient in the past month whose heart hadn’t been strong enough to do the surgery needed to repair a broken pelvis. He could only hope that was not the case with the current patient.
The sound of someone bellowing came from the exam room where he was headed.
The ER doc gave him a half smile. “All I can say is good luck. Let me know if you need some help in there.”
Clay frowned and headed toward the curtained-off area where the sound of voices was growing louder. One female and one male… who sounded none too happy.
Noting that there was no chart in the holder, he swished open enough of the curtain to get through. He stopped in his tracks. Even though her back was turned, the female arguing with his patient wasn’t a nurse. It was Tessa. And she was trying her damnedest to pull back the sheet covering the patient, while he held on to the fabric with all his might. Her Brazilian accent was there in all its blazing glory.
Not that it was doing her any good.
“No one is seeing my privates except my doctor!”
“I am a doctor, Mr. Phillips. I’m here to look at your leg.”
What the hell? Why was Tessa trying to look at his patient’s leg? Dr. Stark had said he’d called in another resident, but Clay had assumed it was an orthopedic resident.
If it wasn’t for the seriousness of the man’s injury, he might have been tempted to just stand back and see how things played out between the two of them, because the Tessa he knew didn’t give up once she got going. For anything.
That probably wasn’t in the best interest of his patient, though.
He stepped closer. “Anything I can do to help?”
Two heads craned around to look at him. Surprisingly, Tessa’s normal irritation at seeing him was nowhere to be seen. Instead, she looked almost relieved.
The patient—Mr. Phillips—yanked harder on the sheet. “This little lady is trying to get a look at my equipment.”
He wasn’t sure whether he was more shocked by the “little lady” description or by the fact that a patient was basically calling Tessa a Peeping Tom.
“I’m trying to see his mole.”
Ouch.
Wait. Maybe she really did mean mole as in…
“I thought this was my patient. Broken left femur?”
Tessa nodded. “And a suspicious skin lesion on his other leg. Which is why Dr. Stark called me in.”
Damn. Of all the rotten luck. So much for the idea that keeping busy could keep him from thinking about her. Because right now his job included the very person he was trying to block out of his mind.
Even more pressing, though, was the need to keep the patient calm. Which meant he just might have to ruffle a few of Tessa’s feathers.
Stepping to the other side of the bed, he ignored her for a moment. “How about if I ask Dr. Camara to step back while I take a look? Would that be better?”
“But—”
He stopped her words with a look. Surprisingly, instead of the dark anger he expected to see on her face she simply nodded, let go of the sheet and took ten steps back until she was against the curtain on the far side of the space.
Glancing at the patient’s face and seeing it crumple in relief, he noted a dark bruise where the man had evidently fallen already apparent on his right cheek. As was the pain he’d been holding back. Clay touched the top edge of the sheet. “May I?”
Mr. Phillips released the covering and allowed Clay to pull it down. He edged the gown up as far as he could without totally exposing the man. The area just above his left knee was obviously broken, the frail-looking limb bent at a five-degree angle. And at the top of his other thigh was a dark mark about the size of a quarter.
Irregular edges. Mottled coloring that looked like the boiling up of a tar pit.
Tessa was the expert when it came to skin conditions, but Clay knew enough to bet this was exactly what she thought it might be. Melanoma. The deadliest form of skin cancer. And the most likely to have spread. Whether it had metastasized to his bones and caused the femur to break was something they wouldn’t be able to determine without more tests. Regardless, both conditions needed immediate treatment. The break was the most urgent, but the size of the growth on his other leg was also worrisome.
He glanced up at her and gave a nod. “He does have a lesion.” He added a quick description, leaving out the actual word.
“I need to see it to be sure.”
Mr. Phillips started to reach for the sheet again, but Clay stopped him with a hand to the shoulder. He glanced back up at Tessa. “Could you leave us alone for a moment?”
Even with her red hair pulled back in a clip and twin smudges of exhaustion beneath her deep green eyes, Tessa was beautiful. Probably even more so now than she’d been back in medical school. There was an iron determination that hadn’t been there when they’d been together. Or maybe it had been and he’d simply been too busy—and too entranced by her porcelain skin and vibrant personality—to notice.
But he saw it now, and so he added, “Please? Trust me on this.”
Without another word, she ducked beneath the fabric of the privacy screen rather than pulling it to the side.
He turned back to his patient. “Mr. Phillips, Dr. Camara is a professional.”
“Still. My wife has been the only woman to see me naked in all these years.”
“You’ve never had a female doctor?”
The man shook his head. The pain had to be excruciating, but evidently the thought of having Tessa see him was even more uncomfortable than his injuries. Clay could always call in another dermatologist—a male one—and risk bringing Tessa’s wrath down on his head. But that wasn’t fair, either. Tessa was a doctor, and to send her away just because she was a woman made something stick in the lower regions of his gut. So he came up with another solution instead.
“How about if we do this? We’ll keep your hospital gown where it is, and I’ll cover you with the sheet like this.” Clay arranged the folds so that it draped over his waist and created a little “U” of exposed skin. Only the skin lesion was visible. Nothing else. They’d have to examine the rest of him to see if there were any other suspicious areas but they could do that while he was under anesthesia for his leg, if tests showed he was strong enough to even have the operation.
The head of the bed had been cranked up so that Mr. Phillips could see what Clay was doing, and the man visibly relaxed. “I guess that would be okay. But don’t let her pull it any farther.”
Clay gave him a grave nod. “You have my word.”
“Well, okay, then.”
“Tessa? Could you step back in here?”
The man turned his head sharply. “I have a daughter named Tessa.”
“Well, see there? That must be a sign.”
Tessa