Tessa didn’t think so. Reaching out, she stopped when there was a two-inch gap between her fingers and his bloody flesh. It was like she couldn't bring herself to actually touch him. That bothered him way more than the cut did.
“You’ve been shot,” she whispered.
“I know—”
“Shot shot,” she echoed. “The bullet hit you and everything. Oh my god.”
“It’s fine, I—”
“It’s not fine. There’s no reason for you to have been hit. It should’ve been me.”
Lucas’s fist tightened reflexively. A fresh spurt of blood bubbled and started to trickle. “Don’t say that, Tessa. Don’t.”
Ignoring him, she pulled away. She looked around the office, only just realizing that it was the front room, the place where patients waited to see the doctor. There wasn’t anything there to help her. “Where are your supplies? I’ve got to clean that out now.”
That caught him by surprise. “What? No. I’m the doctor. Even one-handed, I’m sure I can fix this myself.”
“Let me do it.”
“Tessa—”
“Listen to me. When I first started college, before I became a teacher, I took nursing classes. Let me take care of you.”
Her jaw was set. He can see she was feeling responsible for his injury. If it gave her some peace to play nurse, fine. It couldn’t hurt. Besides, as the only doctor in town, there was never anyone left to take care of him. It might be nice to be the patient for once.
“I’ll get the supplies,” he told her. “You can bandage me up when I get back.”
“No. Tell me where. I’ll go.”
Maybe it was the blood loss making him weak, but he decided not to continue arguing with her. Even though it would’ve been faster to get them himself, Lucas gave her instructions on how to find his examination room. Everything they would need to do a quick bandaging would be in there.
Tessa disappeared. He used the sleeve of his lab coat to try to staunch some of the blood. She returned a few minutes later with an armful of supplies that she dropped down on one of the waiting room chairs.
Her pale complexion had turned a sickly shade of green in the time she was gone. He expected her to hurl any second. To his surprise, she managed to keep it together. Gritting her teeth, she picked up the disinfectant first and tore the lid off.
Though he expected the sting, the disinfectant burned worse than actually getting shot had. Tessa chanted apologies under her breath as she dabbed the wound with a freshly soaked cotton ball.
It didn’t look so bad once all the blood was washed away. The cut was about three inches long, the length of the side of his bicep, and it was way shallower than she initially thought.
The bullet had taken off quite a few layers of skin, though, and while it was shallower, that didn’t mean it wasn’t just a little deep.
“Do you think we should stitch this up?”
He kept his voice mild. “You’re the one with the nursing classes. What do you think?”
“I think I should let you get sepsis,” she muttered, peering closely at the depth of his wound. Then, as if she just heard what she said, she gasped. Covering her face with her gloved hands, she hurriedly apologized. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Apology accepted,” Lucas said solemnly. He let a small, inappropriate grin tug at his lips only because her face was covered and she wouldn’t know he was teasing. To be honest, he liked that spark of temper she showed. It was way better than watching her take another headfirst dive into a pool of guilt. “So… stitches? Yay or nay?”
Scrunching her nose as she squinted, Tessa got a good look at the cut. She shook her head. “I think I should put on some antibiotic cream, then either gauze or some plaster.”
“And I think those nursing classes paid off.” When Tessa’s golden eyes widened in surprise, he let out a small chuckle. “If it was a flesh wound, I’d need stitches. I’m lucky it was just a graze. Sometimes they bleed too much, but nothing important was hit.”
“You were.”
“What?”
Tessa was dabbing the deep abrasion with some of the white ointment she found in his supplies. “You said nothing important was hit. You’re wrong. You were.”