She ended the call without giving me a chance to respond. Which was fine, because I didn’t really have a response.
But her words forced me to jog my memories of Teddy as a girl. While I finished my hoagie with the works, I tried to remember. She’d spent hours at our house with Hannah growing up, and I had dutifully played the role of annoying older brother when I was around, teasing them both. Back then, Teddy wasn’t a bombshell—she was nothing but long limbs and big glasses, a bit geeky-looking.
And I had made sure she knew it. “Shit.”
No wonder she wants nothing to do with me. Here I was thinking Teddy thought of me as a friend, an annoying brother figure like Antonio, but no. Clearly, she saw me as a tormentor.
“Dr. Rutledge to the ER. Dr. Rutledge to the ER, please.” Mel’s voice was calm over the PA system, which meant it wasn’t a life-threatening emergency, but I needed to get moving. Looking down at the mostly-eaten hoagie, I tossed it in the trash and left the tray on top before heading back to the emergency department.
“What have we got?”
We served several small towns including Jackson’s Ridge, and there wasn’t always an ER nurse around to assist, so Mel often stepped in as necessary.
“Just a bad cut. Call me if you need me.” She handed me the small file and headed back to her desk.
I smiled at the sight of Teddy, but before I could ask her where she was hurt, she stepped aside to reveal a twenty-something kid with white-blond hair.
“Austin?”
The kid flashed a smile and held up the hand that wasn’t bleeding. “That’d be me, the one with the bloody thumb.”
The smile and the joke meant he was all right. “What happened?”
Teddy huffed out a breath and shook her head, glaring down at the kid like he was one of her brothers. “The idiot saw a pretty girl and let her turn his head while he was working with power tools. Damn near severed his finger.” She folded her arms and took a seat in the chair beside the exam table. “You have to be more careful, Austin.”
He smiled up at me. “This girl was movie-star hot, Doc. Thick red hair and big blue eyes, and tits that had me drooling. Drooling, man.”
Teddy rolled her eyes but stayed silent. She was obviously worried about this kid, and I wanted to know why.
“How do you two know each other?”
Austin flashed another grin. “Teddy’s my boss, but sometimes she acts like my mom, which is weird because my mom isn’t hot.”
Teddy growled her annoyance and nibbled her lush bottom lip. “Injuries cost money, Austin, for me and for you. If this is worse than it looks, you’ll be without a paycheck for weeks and I’ll be a man down on one of my jobs.” She stood and glared at Austin, then me, before she stormed out the room.
Austin stared at her ass until the door shut to block his view, but once she was gone, he let out a worried sigh. “She’s right. I can’t afford to go without a paycheck and I should be more careful.”
“I guess those baby blues weren’t worth it?”
He laughed. “She was hot, but I should’ve taken a moment to turn off the saw.”
“Probably.”
His eyes probed me while I cleaned his wound and examined it. “What’s your story, Doc? You seem to be the only person Teddy doesn’t like. Why?”
Even the kid had noticed the cold shoulder she’d given me. “What makes you think she doesn’t like me?”
“Easy. Teddy deals with assholes all the time who think she doesn’t belong in the biz, and she manages them with a smile. Greets everyone with a smile. Except you, so I want to know how bad you screwed her over.”
Damn, he was the second person in less than an hour to assume I had done something bad to Teddy, which forced me to reconsider the past again. “Maybe I wasn’t as nice to her as I could’ve been when we were growing up, otherwise I got nothing, kid.”
“You mean, you didn’t date her and dump her?” His eyes were wide with shock and then amusement. “You have no advice to offer, then.”
I finished stitching and bandaging him up with a sigh. “Not in that regard, no. But I do have wound care instructions you need to follow for the next seven to ten days.” I tried not to smile when he groaned but it was hard. Really damn hard.
“Thanks, Doc. Tell Teddy I’ll meet her by the truck.”
“Who says I’ll see her?”
He gave me a knowing smile and a disbelieving look. “Just tell her, would you?”
“Fine.” I found Teddy in the lobby chatting with the hospital administrator, Suzie Wright, who no doubt was asking for a favor. She was the queen of getting the citizens of Jackson’s Ridge to do their part to keep top-notch medical care in this region.