Have Gown, Need Groom

He mumbled something incoherent, still half asleep. Even so, his fingers momentarily tightened around the sheet. “Relax, Mr. Tippins, I’m not going to hurt you.” She slowly pried his fingers from the material. The paper-thin elastic gloves popped against her wrists as she prepared to do a preliminary exam. Striving to be gentle, she pushed his denim shirt out of the way, removed the pressure bandage then dampened a cotton swab with antiseptic.

He moaned and stirred, his hand swinging around to cover his wound once more. She shook her head as they played tug-of-war with the sheet.

“Mr. Tippins, just lie still please. I have to examine you.”

His head bobbed up and down in concession, but the way his shoulders straightened signaled he’d braced himself for more pain. And his hand tightened around the covers jerking it over his backside again. This was getting ridiculous.

“Uh, Mr. Tippins, I can’t help you if I don’t examine the injury.”

He made a noncommittal noise which sounded faintly like a swear word, then slowly released the back of the sheet and buried his head in his arm. Hannah almost laughed, but caught herself. Poor man, if he was shy, she certainly wouldn’t make things worse by making some silly comment about the location of his injury.

She pressed the area around the bullet wound to measure how deeply it was embedded, putting pressure at different points. The bleeding had stopped, the skin yellow…

“Ow.” He flinched.

“Sorry, Mr. Tippins. I’m almost finished.”

His head bobbed again, and she patted the area with the cotton swab, wiping away the dried blood.

“Great place to get shot, wasn’t it?” His voice rumbled thick and low, almost gravelly. “I feel like Forrest Gump.”

“I can’t think of a good place to get shot,” Hannah said dryly, a smile twitching at her mouth.

“Think I’ll make it?”

He was joking, a good sign. “You’ll be fine.” She tossed the cotton swab into the trash.

“You’re going to have to put me under the knife, aren’t you?”

Hannah sighed. Men could be such babies. Even the big muscular ones. “If you’re asking if the bullet will have to be removed surgically, then yes. It’s embedded a good four to five inches.”

“Will you do the surgery?”

“Yes. If they’re short in surgery I’ll probably assist. We’re a small town facility here.” Hannah heard his sigh and her defenses rose. “Do you have a problem with female doctors, Mr. Tippins?”

“No,” he muttered. “Not as long as they know what they’re doing.”

She stiffened. Was he insinuating she didn’t? “I can assure you I’m well trained. I completed a surgical rotation last month before I joined the ER. I’ll be gentle, too, I promise.”

“Oh, your hands are great, Doc, it’s not that.”

Hannah shook her head, exasperated, finally deciding the pain must be affecting his brain. “Then what is it, sir?”

He exhaled, his body rumbling with his breath. “I just don’t like hospitals, that’s all.”

“Not very many people do,” she said sympathetically. She spotted an unusual-looking bruise and leaned closer to examine it. “Hmm.”

“I hate it when doctors go ‘hmm.’”

Hannah chuckled. “Sorry. It’s nothing really. I noticed a small dark spot. Thought it have been an exit wound but it’s not.”

“Probably a bruise, I went down pretty hard on a tire iron when that creep shot me.”

She peered closer, contemplating thanking him for what he’d done for her father, but suddenly realized the bruise was a small birthmark. A crescent-shaped, quarter-moon birthmark. Right on the arch of his hip.

Her chest tightened—she’d seen that birthmark before. “It can’t be,” she whispered.

His head snapped up. “What’s wrong, Doc?”

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken out loud.

He angled his head slightly to look into her eyes and for the first time, Hannah saw his face. “It can’t be what?”

His dark gaze locked with hers, the pupils of his eyes slightly dilated, the unmistakable cleft in his chin hauntingly familiar. Hannah staggered backward, a bolt of heat engulfing her as if an inferno had burst into flames at her feet. She recognized this man. She knew him…intimately. He was the tall, dark handsome man from her erotic dreams.

His heavy-lidded, dark-brown eyes paraded over her, a sliver of need sizzling in the luminous depths. The room began to spin crazily, and the day’s events crashed to a sudden mortifying halt.

Jake Tippins moaned, and she quickly glanced back down to see if he was okay, but the room rocked sideways. Hannah clutched the bedrail to steady herself, but her legs faded into numbness and the spots that danced before her eyes emerged into one big black hole. She’d never fainted in her life, but she recognized the symptoms. Just before she passed out, she tried to warn her patient to roll out of the way.

Chapter Three

What the hell?

Jake gritted his jaw in pain when the dreamy looking woman suddenly staggered and reached for the gurney. He twisted sideways to catch her, but the IV limited his movement, and she collapsed beside him on the floor.

“Help! Someone help me! Nurse, hurry, the doctor passed out!”

His gaze zeroed in on her name—Dr. H. Hartwell. He’d thought that’s what she’d said, but he’d been so sleepy he’d figured he’d heard wrong. Hannah Hartwell was Wiley’s daughter. What was she doing in the ER? She was supposed to be at her wedding. “Someone get a doctor!” he yelled again.

Impatience flaring, he climbed awkwardly from the gurney, grappling with the IV pole as he knelt to take her pulse. Thank God she was breathing. A sprig of baby’s breath protruded from her surgical cap, and her eyes looked slightly red and swollen. He pushed off the cap, revealing wispy blond hair. Yep, it was the same woman he’d seen in the wedding gown. So, he hadn’t been delirious.

“Dr. Hartwell, wake up,” he whispered, panic hitting him. Had Wiley heard about the shooting and ordered Hannah from her wedding to take care of him? Was that the reason she’d been upset?

Her cheeks seemed pale, long blond eyelashes lying on her creamy skin like thin layers of cornsilk. And her slender body was way too still for comfort.

Suddenly the nurse appeared, her eyes widening in dismay. “What in the world…?”

“She passed out,” Jake explained. “I’ve been yelling for help.”

A tall, older physician with a scowl on his face stormed into the room. Jake watched helplessly as they settled Hannah Hartwell onto a gurney and wheeled her away.

“I…WHAT happened?”

“You passed out on us, Doc,” Tiffany said. Hannah tried to get up, but Tiffany pressed a gentle but forceful hand on her arm. “Relax. You need to lie still and let us check your vitals again.”

Hannah bit back a moan, mortified. “I’m fine, really, Tiff. I just need something to eat.” And to figure out what’s happening to me today.

The chief of staff frowned. “Dr. Hartwell, I don’t understand what you’re doing here, or why you dragged all these reporters along—”