For His Brother's Wife

“Stella’s out there waiting for you,” Paige said as Cole took her hand in his to pull her closer. She waited until Aaron had left the room before she tried to extricate her hand from Cole’s. She would have tried sooner, but she was afraid of what Cole would say. “Why don’t you try to get some rest, Cole?”

“Why don’t you climb into bed with me and we’ll rest together?” he asked, giving her another goofy grin as he tried to pull her closer.

“The nurses and doctor won’t let me,” she said, thankful that the bed rail was between them. Even with him under the influence of a painkiller, she was no match for his strength. “Besides, you don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do.” He looked for all the world as if he did indeed mean it.

“We’ll discuss this later,” she said when Lucas Wakefield walked into the room.

Confident that Cole was in good hands, Paige started to leave the room so Luc could examine Cole’s leg. “I’ll be in the waiting room with Stella and Aaron.”

“Stay here,” Cole insisted.

She shook her head. “I can’t. Luc needs to examine your leg.”

“You don’t have to leave,” Luc said, smiling as he lifted the sheet to look at Cole’s swollen right knee. With practiced yet gentle hands, he tried to bend Cole’s leg as Paige looked on. When it appeared that it was locked in place, Luc shook his head. “I’m almost positive you’ve torn the meniscus. I’m going to order a MRI and call in an orthopedic colleague of mine for a consultation. Depending on what the MRI shows and what the orthopedist says, we may be doing surgery.”

“Okaaay,” Cole said, sounding drowsy. Apparently the full effect of the drug was going to put him to sleep.

“Surely you won’t do the surgery today, will you?” Paige asked, alarmed.

“Normally, we wait until we see if the problem resolves itself on its own. That usually takes two or three weeks,” Luc explained to her after it was apparent Cole had fallen asleep. “But the way his knee is locked, I’m afraid a piece of the meniscus may have been torn off and possibly lodged in the joint. That won’t get better without surgery.” He walked to the door. “I’ll go put the order in with Imaging and talk to you again after we get the results of the MRI.”

Within fifteen minutes a technician from the imaging department arrived to wheel Cole down the hall for the MRI, leaving Paige to sit down in a chair in the corner and wait for his return. It was the first chance she had to think about his reaction when he’d opened his eyes to find her standing next to the bed.

He’d seemed genuinely glad to see her, and that surprised her. Of course, he was under the influence of strong pain medication, but she always thought that drugs tended to remove filters and revealed what a person really felt. Could it be that he wasn’t as upset about last night as she thought he would be? If that was the case, why had he been so pensive after they made love? Was he as confused about what happened as she was? And why hadn’t he called her instead of Aaron?

“Paige, I’ve admitted Cole and he’s being taken up to the surgical floor,” Luc said, walking back into the small examination room almost an hour later.

Lost in thought, she hadn’t realized so much time had passed. “I take it that your diagnosis was confirmed?” she asked, standing up.

“It’s not quite as bad as it could have been,” Luc said as they walked out into the hall. “I used a little of my pull and had the radiologist give it a preliminary look. He said the meniscus is torn and ragged and looks like it needs to be trimmed so that it doesn’t get caught in the joint.”

“When will you be doing surgery?” she asked.

“Tomorrow.” Luc smiled. “I’ll be observing, and Dr. Campbell will be the attending surgeon. He’s the orthopedic specialist I called in. I’ll only be observing because of my friendship with Cole.”

“I suppose it’s because Cole is a TCC member and so are you that you’re going to be in the operating room with him?” she guessed.

Luc nodded. “Members of the TCC tend to look out for each other.”

“Is that also why the surgery was scheduled so quickly?” There was a bond between TCC members unlike anything she had ever seen.

“Partly,” Luc said. “If it was anyone else, we’d probably send him home and schedule the surgery within a week or two. But I know Cole. Given the opportunity, he’ll put it off because he’s too busy with work to be bothered. Unfortunately, that could cause more damage.”