Zeke, Elizabeth Lennox [readnow .txt] 📗

“Okay. Right. Tough guy. Why don’t you come this way and we’ll…well, I’ll just…” she trailed off, laughing a touch uneasily. “I’ll just clean you up. How’s that sound?”

Zeke liked the sound of that. “I don’t need a doctor,” he told the nurse. The PFC who had driven him to the hospital followed and Zeke rounded on him. “STAY!” he ordered.

Startled, the private backed away, completely intimidated. But he stayed. The nurse chuckled, leading Zeke towards the exam rooms. “This won’t take long,” he decided.

The nurse’s gaze flicked to Zeke’s back, then she nodded. “Right. Just a few minutes.” She led him to one of the ER beds and patted the end. “Why don’t you sit right here, and I’ll just…get a doctor to take a quick peek. Nothing to it.”

Zeke eyed her warily, not sitting down. Instead, he started to cross his arms, but pain shot through his back and he dropped his arms to his sides with a sigh. For a moment, he felt a bit dizzy, but told himself that was caused by the creepiness of being in a hospital, which he’d always hated. Doctors, hospitals…everything about them gave him the willies. He hated needles most of all, but even the hospitals were bad. He avoided them like the plague!

At that moment, a woman with lots of beautiful, dark, curly hair piled haphazardly on her head came over to him, led by the nurse that had abandoned him moments ago. “Right here, Doctor Fisher,” the nurse explained. “He says it’s just a scratch.”

The doctor glanced at the nurse, who had that look that silently said, “He’s nuts!”

“Right.” The doctor turned and looked at Zeke and…paused. She was gorgeous! Since she was wearing scrubs, Zeke had no idea what her military rank was, but he didn’t care. Emerald eyes stared from a heart shaped face that looked like she should be on a runway. Except she was a tiny little thing. Being just over six feet, five inches tall, Zeke usually preferred tall women. Women that didn’t force him to contort himself to kiss them.

“Doctor Fisher?” the nurse asked, gently nudging the doctor. The woman jerked slightly, looking around, then realized that she’d been staring and pulled herself together.

Pity. Zeke hadn’t minded staring back at her. He couldn’t remember ever seeing such a pretty face before. Oh, he’d seen beautiful women, but there was something about this one that…something about her called to him.

The nurse took the doctor’s elbow, leading her around the bed to Zeke’s back. For a moment, Zeke considered pulling her back around so that she was facing him, but then the reality of the situation came back to him. The sooner she looked at his back and, okay, maybe cleaned up whatever felt so sticky, then the sooner he could leave. And the sooner he could call her up and ask her out for dinner! Hell, if he’d known that a doctor this pretty was working on base, he would have gotten shot a long time ago!

Doctor Abigail Fisher eyed the man’s back, slightly impressed. She’d seen a lot in the years since gaining her medical degree, but this was a new one. The bullet had left a shallow gouge across the man’s back from armpit to armpit. The wound wasn’t that deep, but since he didn’t have an ounce of fat on his body, the blood vessels were very near the surface. In other words, he’d bled like a stuck pig!

“Hmmm…” she said, keeping her voice calm and relaxed. “Cathy, I think we’re going to need to clean the wound before I can see what needs to be done. Would you mind…?”

“I’m on it,” the nurse replied eagerly.

Abby frowned at the nurse’s back as she hurried away to get the cleaning supplies. Then again, she didn’t blame her. This guy was…hot! As a doctor, Abby could testify to the man’s amazing physical fitness. If all of her patients put this much energy into their fitness, she’d be out of business! As a woman…Abby gave herself a mental shake. She was here as a doctor. Only a doctor.

Cathy returned, loaded down with supplies. “Ready,” she said, slightly breathless.

Abby rolled her eyes, and collected his chart, sighing as she noticed Cathy hadn’t finished filling it out. For obvious reasons.

“I’m going to have to cut your shirt off,” Cathy announced, pulling scissors out of the box of supplies.

The man, an officer, she realized, according to his chart, didn’t seem to mind the cleaning.

“As long as that’s all it is, go ahead,” he said, his voice deep and gruff.

Abby looked at the man, then down at his chart. “It appears that you’re due for your tetanus shot. Do you want…?”

“No!”

Abby smiled professionally. “Right,” she replied, marking something off on his chart. “Don’t like needles, huh?”

He hissed when Cathy pulled his tee shirt away from wound. “I’m not a fan, no.”

She grinned at that. “Right. So…” she didn’t mention that she suspected that the wound across his back was going to need stitches to in order to heal properly. Lots of stitches! “Okay, so, we’ll skip the tetanus shot for now. But can you tell me how this happened?”

The guy sighed, drawing her attention to his deliciously broad shoulders. All of the soldiers on base worked out several times a week. But Abby could testify that none were as…well developed as Lieutenant Colonel Zeke Jeffers.

He flinched slightly, trying to peer over his shoulder, which meant Abby needed to distract him. “So, you were in a training accident?”

“Not me,” the guy replied firmly. “Another guy. We’re training for the team to find new recruits. Some