Officer, Surgeon...Gentleman!

Knowing he needed to do something before he succumbed to the errant electrical charges running rampant through his nervous system, Cole gloved up to swab the abscess again.

“Did you see the culture I’d previously done?” she asked, smiling sweetly. Sweetly? Cole didn’t know whether to laugh or be afraid. Amelia was a lot of things, but sweet wasn’t an adjective he’d use to describe her. Unless they were talking about her lips. She had tasted sweet.

“Yes,” he answered, studying her, “but your notes say the area was healing well. That’s obviously no longer true. I want a new culture.”

She flashed her perfectly straight teeth. “Good idea.”

Cole managed not to blink. Barely. Had she agreed with him without an argument? Something was definitely up. And not just his temperature and heart rate. He dabbed the swab in the center of the abscess, carefully inserted the tip into the auger filled tube and sealed the lid.

“You think something new is wrong?” the man lying back on the elevated exam table asked, watching as Amelia ungloved and opened a sterile drape, dropped gauze onto the field, poured a small cup of antiseptic solution and opened a package of sterilized scissors, needle holders and toothed tweezers.

“Possibly. That’s what the culture will tell us.” She opened a bottle of packing gauze and glanced toward Cole. “Do you want to irrigate the area or do you want me to do it?”

Cole hesitated only a millisecond. Despite her sugary sweetness of the past five minutes, Amelia was a take-charge, don’t-put-me-in-the-backseat kind of woman. Even during her residency, she hadn’t liked watching from the sidelines. If he wanted to win her trust he’d have to prove he could deal with her strength and independence, right along with her feigned sugary sweetness.

“You do it,” he told her. “I’ll assist.”

The smile she gave him was so brilliant the sun could have come out in bay two. Definitely his body heated as if the sun had. He was on fire from the inside out.

She donned more gloves, cleaned and irrigated the wound, then packed a thin ribbon of sterile gauze into the opening, leaving the tip out for easier removal.

Watching her work, Cole handed her what she needed before she had to ask. When she was finished and had covered the area with a dressing, she glanced up at him, her eyes sparkling with something that bit deep into him.

“You make an excellent assistant, Cole.”

Cole. She called him by his first name rather than Dr Stanley. Hearing his name on her lips made his knees wobble.

Whatever Amelia was up to, he was in trouble. Big trouble.

Because hearing his name on her lips brought back memories of the night he’d gone to her a few weeks after his breakup with Clara. Amelia had whispered his name right before he’d kissed her. As he’d kissed her.

As he’d pushed her back onto her dorm room bed, planning to make love to her.

Rubbing her fingers across Corporal Wright’s bandage, Amelia wondered if she was laying her friendliness on too thick? She hadn’t meant to be overly nice, but she’d be lying if she didn’t admit to enjoying the perplexity in Cole’s eyes.

Good. Let him wonder.

Not that he wouldn’t figure it out. He’d once known her too well not to know what lengths she’d go to for her crew, for her patients. Still, she welcomed the respite. Carrying around her anger for him was starting to give her an ulcer. At least now she felt as if she was on the offensive.

She much preferred offensive strategies. Always had.

In the grand scheme of personal protection, being nice to Cole for the sake of the crew and their patients wasn’t the greatest idea. But a girl had to do what a girl had to do for the greater good.

Besides, it wasn’t as if she was going to fall right back into her crush for him. She’d seen what he was capable of. Had seen him bail out on Clara, had seen him walk away from her after a kiss that had singed her toes to the soles of her maid-of-honor high heels. Then walk away from her room after she’d kicked him out, despite her body screaming for him to stay.

Although he’d always seemed to long to be a part of her family, Cole had major commitment issues.

“It’ll be a few days before I get the results of the culture back, but I’d like to see you again tomorrow,” she told their patient. “Keep your appointment that’s already scheduled, and I’ll change the dressing.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I think we should change his antibiotic,” Cole cut in. He told her the name of an antibiotic with better anaerobic coverage than the antibiotic Corporal Wright currently took.

“Okay, that sounds like a feasible plan.” She shot the corpsman another smile. “Take the antibiotics exactly as prescribed and be sure to finish the entire p

rescription to prevent developing resistance.”

“Yes, ma’am.”