She laughed. “Exactly.”
“You have all that and more. Brains and beauty.”
“And you, Dr. Stevens, have the gift of the gab.”
“Not really.”
“No?” She arched a brow at him. “Because so far you’ve done a good job of talking me up.”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“Aren’t you?”
He grinned. “I’m glad you changed your mind, Chrissie.”
Red stained her cheeks and she glanced around the tent to make sure no one else could hear.
“Shh, I’d rather not advertise.”
“No one knows what we’re talking about, and if they did, so what? We’re two consenting adults.”
“True, but I’d just as soon not broadcast our personal business to the entire medical crew.”
“I’ll forewarn you that Bud and Agnes will take one look at
us and know.”
“You think?”
He nodded. “They knew we were involved four years ago. It won’t be difficult to figure out that we’ve rekindled the fire.”
She studied him. “Does that bother you?”
“I wasn’t the one worried about someone overhearing our conversation,” he reminded her, reaching out to brush his finger across her cheek as if he were wiping away a speck. He hadn’t been. He’d just wanted to touch her, to feel her soft skin beneath his fingertip, to reassure himself that she was real.
“True, but...”
“It doesn’t bother me if they know, Chrissie. They figured out long ago that I’m no saint.”
After all, Kerry had died on his watch.
“I’m not so sure about that. So far, every time I’ve seen Agnes, she’s sung your praises.”
Taking a deep breath, he shrugged. “I pay her to do that.”
“Sure you do.”
A hobbling group of women made their way into the tent and Trace stood from the chair and went to meet them.
“Right this way, ladies. We’ll get you triaged and taken care of.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
UNFORTUNATELY ONE OF the male volunteers had spotted a wasp nest and taken it upon himself to knock it down.
Instead, the wasps had knocked him down and attempted to take several others along the way. In the end, three different people had gotten stung. Ethan Meadows, the man who’d stirred up the wasps to begin with, had sustained a significant number of stings and had several areas of fairly extensive swelling.
Chrissie had ice packs on the sting patients and Trace was keeping a close check on Ethan due to the number of sting sites he had.