Where There's Smoke
“Do you think I’m stupid, or what?”
“Mr.—”
“If you want me anesthetized, get me a glass of whiskey. You’re not pumping anything into my bloodstream that’ll knock me out and give you an opportunity to call the hospital.”
“And the sheriff. I’m required by law to report a gunshot wound to the authorities.”
He struggled to sit up and when he did, the open wound gushed bright red blood. He groaned. Lara hastily slipped on a pair of surgical gloves and began stanching the flow with gauze pads so that she could determine how serious the wound was.
“Afraid I’ll give you AIDS?” he asked, nodding at her gloved hands.
“Professional precaution.”
“No worry,” he said with a slow grin. “I’ve been real careful all my life.”
“You weren’t so careful tonight. Were you caught cheating at poker? Flirting with the wrong woman? Or were you cleaning your pistol when it accidentally went off?”
“I told you, it was a—”
“Yes. A pitchfork. Which would have punctured instead of tearing off a chunk of tissue.” She worked quickly and effectively. “Look, I’ve got to trim off the rough edges of the wound and put in some deep sutures. It’s going to be painful. I must anesthetize you.”
“Forget it.” He hitched his hip over the side of the table as though to leave.
Lara stopped him by placing the heels of her hands on his shoulders. The fingers of her gloves were bloody. “Lidocaine? Local anesthetic,” she explained. She took a vial from her cabinet and let him read the label. “Okay?”
He nodded tersely and watched as she prepared another syringe. She injected him near the wound. When the surrounding tissue was deadened, she clipped the debris from around the wound, irrigated it with a saline solution, sutured the interior, and put in a drain.
“What the hell is that?” he asked. He was pale and sweating profusely, but he had watched every swift and economic movement of her hands.
“It’s called a penrose drain. It drains off blood and fluid and helps prevent infection. I’ll remove it in a few days.” She closed the wound with sutures and placed a sterile bandage over it.
After dropping the bloody gloves into a marked metal trash can that designated contaminated materials, Lara returned to the sink to wash her hands. She then asked him to sit up while she wrapped an Ace bandage around his trunk to keep the dressing in place.
She stepped away from him and looked critically at her handiwork. “You’re lucky he wasn’t a better marksman. A few inches to the right and the bullet could have penetrated several vital organs.”
“Or a few inches lower, and I couldn’t have penetrated anything ever again.”
Lara gave him a retiring look. “How lucky for you.”
She had remained professionally detached, although each time her arms had encircled him while bandaging his wound, her cheek had come close to his wide chest. He had a lean, sunbaked, hair-spattered torso. The Ace bandage bisected his hard, flat belly. She’d worked the emergency rooms of major city hospitals; she’d stitched up shady characters before—but none quite this glib, amusing, and handsome.
“Believe it, Doc. I’ve got the luck of the devil.”
“Oh, I believe it. You appear to be a man who lives on the edge and survives by his wits. When did you last have a tetanus shot?”
“Last year.” She looked at him skeptically. He raised his right hand as though taking an oath. “Swear to God.”
He eased himself over the side of the examination table and stood with his hip propped against it while he rebuttoned his jeans. He left his belt unbuckled. “What do I owe you?”
“Fifty dollars for the after-hours office call, fifty for the sutures and dressing, twelve each for the injections, including the one you wasted, and forty for the medication.”
“Medication?”
She removed two plastic bottles from a locked cabinet and handed them to him. “An antibiotic and a pain pill. Once the lidocaine wears off, it’ll hurt.”
He withdrew a money clip from the front pocket of his snug jeans. “Let’s see, fifty plus fifty, plus twenty-four, plus forty comes to—”
“One sixty-four.”