Mad Gold (Providence Gold 2)

“Ouch,” Dahlia snapped, trying to turn to glare at him. “Warn a bitch, will ya?”

“You’ve got metal in your nose, tongue and belly button,” he deadpanned. “And you’re pissed off about an anesthetic which, incidentally, will stop you from feeling the next needle that goes into your body.”

“It’s not the same,” she huffed and then turned back to me.

Taking her time, her eyes scanned my entire face and then moved down my body. I’m not gonna lie, I was willing my dick not to respond as her eyes passed over it, paused, moved away, and then moved back to it before looking back up at my face. Once she’d found what she was looking for, she gave me a beaming smile – a miracle considering everything she’d gone through today – and then winked.

That was when the weight truly left me, and I breathed a sigh of relief. All the melodramatic feelings from before were gone (and totally forgotten. No way was I revisiting that shit ever) and all that was left was relief.

“You okay?” I asked her, needing to just hear her say it even though I could see it.

“Yes, it was just a flesh wound.”

“He shot her fat,” Parker spoke up from behind her with an evil grin on his face.

“Whatever, you little twat,” she snapped, really turning this time and letting out a whimper. “I’m glad I have fat, okay? If he’d shot you, you’d probably be peeing into a bag for the rest of your life. Me? No, because I have padding. Well, thank you cake, thank you donuts – y’all saved my life. Go eat some quinoa and spinach!”

After she finished her rant, she turned with a huff back to her original position, leaving us all staring at her in shock.

She had a fair point…

“You, uh…” the other doctor mumbled. “You ripped the two stitches we put in so far. We’re going to have to do them again.”

“I’m not asking for an embroidery pattern,” Dahlia mumbled, still in a snit. “Just sew the damn holes up.”

“We’re also going to have to put your kneecap back into place,” he warned her, going back to working on the hole in her back while Parker lifted the bandage over the one on her front and brought out another syringe.

Tearing my eyes away, I looked around the room for a bucket knowing the chances of me needing it would be high. Spotting one in the corner behind me, I edged slightly closer to it.

“I didn’t ask you for a dance, did I?” she growled as Parker skewered her with the needle, making me gulp. “Just give it a wiggle and put it in already.”

That was when the other Townsends arrived. Of course!

“Is that all it takes?” Levi asked, walking in and winking at Dahlia. “All Mad-dicks has to do is give it a wiggle and it’s in?”

“Apparently size isn’t relative,” Tate snorted, following behind his brother.

“Shut up, Taint,” a voice yelled from outside the door, making him growl.

“I do not like that woman,” he warned us, but his expression as he looked in the direction the voice had come from was what I suspected I looked like when I looked at my sister. We’d all heard about Tate finding his cousin's wife when she’d been kidnapped and when he spoke about her, it was definitely like he was talking about a sibling. So, him not liking her was complete bull cookies.

“You love me, Taint,” she shouted again and then started singing Tainted Love.

The doctor helping Parker out joined in as he finished his side of Dahlia’s gunshot wound, and then, once he’d cleared away all the stuff he wasn’t going to need, he moved down to look at her knee.

“We’re probably going to need an orthopedic consult on this too, but I think we can pop it in relatively easily. The x-ray showed a fragment of bone had chipped off the top of the patella, but surgery isn’t required.”

Nodding his head as he worked, Parker’s arm continued moving doing something I couldn’t see because I’d deliberately placed myself behind him for that reason.

“Give me five and then we’ll give her the jungle juice and do it. After it’s in, we’ll get an MRI done and make sure there’s nothing else going on.”

“I’m right here you know,” Dahlia hissed at him. “Stop talking about it like it’s a big deal. Have you seen Die Hard? Mel Gibson pops his shoulder out and then rams into a wall and it’s back in place. It isn’t that hard.”

“That’s Lethal Weapon,” Ariana offered helpfully from where she was still sitting, getting a glare in return from Dahlia.

Roughly ten minutes later, they’d given Dahlia the painkillers they’d discussed, and they were going to try to put her kneecap back where it should be.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with Cole and Levi, we all stood watching over her as the other doctor held Dahlia’s leg still, and Parker moved so that his thumbs were braced under the kneecap.