Jade Star (Star Quartet 4)

“Promise what?” he asked, resting his chin on the top of her head.

“Are you truly glad I’m your wife?”

Her voice was muffled, and he wished more than anything that he could see her face at that moment. Her expressions were so open, at least to him. Now, he thought, he had to rely on the nuances in her speech. “Yes,” he said.

“And can we work together with patients?”

Pleading, he thought. It was important to her, and, he realized, it wasn’t such a bad idea for him. It would certainly keep his mind occupied.

“We’ll try,” he said.

But it wasn’t Dr. Pickett who sent them their first patient, it was Limpin’ Willie.

“Me name’s Ryan,” the huge, shaggy man said, standing in the doorway, his black felt hat in his hands.

“Do come in, Mr. Ryan,” Jules said. “Come into the surgery. I’ll fetch my husband.

“Limpin’ Willie told me he’d rather come to you, no matter you can’t see nothing.”

Saint smiled. “Tell me what’s wrong, Ryan.”

“I got meself pounded on the back of the head a couple of hours ago.”

Saint wasn’t about to ask how the pounding had come about. Ryan sounded every bit as much of a villain as any other Sydney Duck. He asked instead, “Any dizziness?”

“Yep, a bit. When I walk.”

/> “Any blurred vision?”

Ryan thought about this for a while, then nodded.

“Yes, Michael,” Jules said for him.

“All right. Sit still now, Ryan. Mrs. Morris is going to hold up a finger. First follow it to the right, then to the left . . .”

Jules was scared to death that she wasn’t following Michael’s instructions exactly right. After each test, Jules told him the result.

Saint said finally, “Sounds to me like you got yourself a concussion, Ryan. Now, here’s what you’re to do. I don’t want you to be alone for another twenty-four hours. When you sleep, have someone with you, have them wake you every four hours and ask you who you are and where you are. That’s just to make sure that your brains aren’t addled. Then . . .”

After the grateful Ryan had taken his leave, pressing money into Jules’s hand, she returned to the surgery, a wide smile on her face. The smile dropped away when she realized Saint couldn’t see it.

“This,” she announced, “is the first money I’ve ever earned in my entire life. Fifty dollars, Michael!”

He heard the excitement in her voice and said, “Come here so I can congratulate you.”

He drew her down onto his lap. “Well done, sweetheart.”

“We’re a good team, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” he said slowly, “I think we are.”

“Michael?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know if I can stitch somebody. I think I’d throw up all over them, and that wouldn’t be very reassuring for the patient, would it?”

“We’ll see,” he said. “And now, wife, I think what I would like to do is spend the next hours upstairs studying your body with my hands.”