by Dianne Drake
Instead of answering, arguing or otherwise coming back at her, which she expected and most likely deserved, Michael merely pulled his mask down, took several steps forward and gave Alek a tender kiss on the forehead. Then he pulled his mask back up, glanced at his watch again and said, “Before we start our next battle, I’d suggest we start the appendectomy first.”
No more words between them, no more animosities, which were pretty one-sided, anyway. He was right. It was time to operate. Alek glanced up at the moose as she took her place at the makeshift operating table directly underneath its head. It was looking directly at Michael. But of course it was!
“Damn,” Michael muttered as he adjusted the IV drip. “I was really hoping it hadn’t perforated. Now we don’t have a choice. He’s going to have to go back to Elkhorn with us.”
“It could have been worse,” Alek said. She was irrigating the infected area, trying to clean it out. “I’m not seeing nearly as much infection in here as I thought there might be, so I don’t think he’s been this sick for as long as we thought he was.” She glanced over the top of her surgical mask at Michael. “But I was hoping I’d made the wrong diagnosis and that the appendix hadn’t perforated. It would have been easier leaving him here for his recovery.”
“Just goes to show you’re a damn good doctor.” His eyes smiled at her over the top of his mask. “No matter what some idiot doctor said about you a long time ago.”
“Just goes to show you’re a good judge of talent,” she responded, then laughed.
“Like I said earlier, I like that little crinkle around your eyes so much better than the frown. Even through the goggles.” Required protective wear for surgery.
“And I like a closed wound better than an open one, but unfortunately I don’t think we should close him up tonight. Too much risk of spreading the infection, especially now that we’ve invaded it. We need to keep an access in, so let’s get this thing packed up and stabilize him for now, then we can go crinkle and frown without goggles all we want to until morning.”
“We’re not taking him back right away?” Michael asked.
“Not while this pilot has bleary eyes. Not safe. So unless you’re hiding a secret pilot’s license from me, I’m going to take a little snooze before we go anywhere.”
“Want me to finish up here?” he asked. “I think Oolagon and I can handle the rest.” He glanced over at the man who’d served as a surgical technician throughout the appendectomy, and Oolagon nodded his consent.
“Actually, I’d love for you to finish up here.” Without a speck of argument, Alek stepped back from the table, pulled off her paper gown, mask, goggles and gloves and tossed the surgical baton over to Michael. Then she went straight to the only bedroom in the cabin, shut the door behind her and collapsed flat on the bed, figuring that she’d probably toss and turn until it was time to get back up and fly home, trying to figure out that kiss—what it had meant, and why. More than that, trying to figure out her overreaction, and lingering feelings, about it—what those meant, and why. But she was wrong, because as the pleasant memory of his lips was slipping in, she slipped right off to sleep.
“He’s going to be out for quite a while,” Michael said to Oolagon. “Just keep an eye on his vital signs, check them every fifteen minutes.” He was talking to a group of four local volunteers who’d come in to sit vigil. They were a serious, quiet group of men, all with the gravity of Bill’s situation clearly etched on their faces. “And don’t hesitate to come get me if you think something is wrong. No matter what it is,” he emphasized.
Bill was in a stable condition, but the antibiotics weren’t knocking down his fever as they should, and Michael was concerned that the infection—peritonitis—had spread further than he and Alek had originally thought when they’d first cut in. Under the circumstances it was difficult to tell and difficult to diagnose. But the prognosis wasn’t as good as he might have liked, all things considered. Bill had survived the surgery admirably, but overall his condition wasn’t improving, and on top of that now he had an unclosed surgical wound to contend with and a long, bumpy ride ahead before he had any chance of getting the rest of the medical treatment he needed.
On top of it, Alek couldn’t fly, which meant that precious hours were ticking away. But there was nothing left to do. Sit, watch, wait and pray for the best. “And come get me if he wakes up, or if his bandages soak through, or if—”
Oolagon stepped forward from behind the pack of volunteers and thrust out the palm of his hand to stop Michael. “We take care of our own,” he said. “You don’t have to worry.”
“Point taken,” he replied, then headed to the bedroom door. “Call me in two hours.”
Oolagon gave him a polite nod, then turned his back to take Bill’s pulse. Point taken, message received. It was time to take a nap, too.
Once he shut the bedroom door behind him, Michael stood there a moment, watching Alek sleep. She was huddled into a tight little ball, clinging fiercely to the center of the double bed. Such an amazing woman, he thought as he plodded across and sat down on the edge. Stubborn and a touch unmanageable, she demanded so much of others. And more of herself. He liked the fierce way she went about her life. For her, it was always a great march onto the battlefield with the strong determination to conquer.
And she did conquer. At least, she’d conquered him. More and more with each passing moment. And, yes, he did like that sass in her. It kept him alert, kept him waiting for the next round.
And sexy…My God! He still didn’t have a lot of memory of her in class. More her attitude and challenge than her. But that was by her own design, he was coming to realize. She kept herself separated, reserved, alone. And was a virgin, if what she’d said out there was true. And there was no reason to think that it wasn’t.
It all added up to an impossible situation. He couldn’t have her, she didn’t want him…and yet his mind was trying to tick off a way he could have and she would want. In what circumstances, he didn’t know. Not that it mattered anyway, since it wouldn’t work out.
Just fatigue, he decided. Because he sure hadn’t slept much since he’d met her. A good night’s sleep, or even a good couple of hours, would clear his head of all the foolish notions and get him back on track. He was sure of it!
Easing down on the mattress, trying not to disturb her, Michael raised his feet carefully off the floor, then settled in flat on his back. It had been a good long while since he’d slept with a woman, and certainly in the past, it had never been this way…simply sleeping. But the bed felt good, and even though he was taking pains not to wake her up, sleeping next to her felt pretty damn good, too, and that wasn’t the fatigue talking.
“You don’t really think you’re going to stay there, do you?” she asked, not even opening her eyes. “In this bed, with me?”
Of course she would protest. She couldn’t be Alek and not protest. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking. In this bed, with you, since it’s the only bed in the house.”
“Take the floor,” she said. “And a pillow, of course. It can get awfully hard down there without a pillow.”
“It’s not like you’re sprawled over the entire top of this mattress, using every square inch of it,” he countered, smiling in the dark. “And even if you tried, you couldn’t, because there’s not enough of you to sprawl.”
“But I like options, and if you’re in part of the space, you’re limiting my options.”
“Or expanding them, depending upon how you look at the situation.”
“The point is, I don’t want to look at any situation in bed next to me. If I did, I would have invited you to share my spare space. Which I didn’t.”
Michael laughed aloud. “You don’t ever give an inch, do you?”
“Actually, you’ve taken far more than an inch already.” Alek rolled over on her back and lay in the same position as Michael—flat, stiff-shouldered, hands folded across her belly, staring up at a dark ceiling. “And now I need your space.�
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“For what? You’ve already got plenty of your own.”
“To get comfortable. Your space may be more comfortable than mine. Or I might wish to sleep diagonally. Or roll about occasionally.”
“Well, you go ahead and make yourself comfortable anyplace you like except on my spot, because I’m not budging. Not a twitch. And now you’re cutting into my sleeping time.” He rolled over on his side, with his back to Alek, then pulled himself into a slight curl. “So unless you’re going to sing me a lullaby or tell me a bedtime story, the next thing I want to hear from you is a snore.”
Alek moved herself into the same position as Michael, only in the opposite direction, and as she pulled herself into a slight curl, their bottoms touched. “I don’t snore. And I don’t sing lullabies, either.”
It was almost worth it, giving up his sleep for the nice little bickering, but she needed her sleep even more than he needed his, since she was the one who was going to have to fly them out of there come daybreak. So he didn’t reply to that. Not one word. Instead, he concentrated on the feel of her bottom pressed to his, and wondered how it would be to sleep like that every night.
Pleasant. And absolutely aggravating, he decided a half minute later as she wiggled to find a better position, and he could feel that wiggle oh, so vividly, all the way through him. So had that been on purpose? he wondered. A little Aleksandra Sokolov torture, to keep him roused and, yes, aroused. A tempting little press of her bottom simply to taunt and frustrate him. And he was frustrated! Or was she actually settling in?
Hell, maybe he should sleep on the floor, because her close proximity was driving him crazy. That, and her way of wiggling at the right intervals. One more wiggle from her bottom to his and he would likely…She wiggled again! “Damn it, Alek, would you hold still?”
She didn’t answer, but he did hear a soft little giggle from her side of the bed, and that’s all it took. Flipping over, he spooned her. Pulled her back to him, formed his body to her curves, and slung his leg up over hers to keep her there. If this hadn’t been a stranger’s bed, with a room full of people on the other side of the door, not to mention one very sick man who needed better than a couple of cavorting physicians, this would only have been the beginning. But as Alek settled back against his body’s contours, she let out an exhausted sigh, and within seconds he recognized the breathing pattern of someone deep in sleep.
It may not have been the way he would have planned their first night in bed together, but it was nice. Intimate. Cozy. Kissing Alek on the back of the neck, Michael shut his eyes and drifted along with her.
“He’s still sedated,” Michael shouted as Alek nosed the plane up. “I don’t think he’ll feel a thing.”
“He didn’t feel a thing all the way out to the plane, so the rest of this should be easy.”
Michael pulled off his mitten and felt Bill’s forehead. Much too warm, considering all the antibiotics they’d pumped into him and were still pumping, and all the snow packs they’d made to chill him. Plus, Alek had changed the dressing before they’d left. Of course, riding in the bed of an open pickup truck all that way couldn’t have been easy on their patient. It wasn’t easy on Alek and him, and they weren’t sick.
But in spite of the difficulties, Oolagon had driven the truck, while the two of them, along with Umuk, had huddled in the back, tending their patient and trying, not too successfully, to buffer all the bumps along the way.
“Easy on him, maybe, but…” A rapid jerk that stiffened Bill’s body for a second caused Michael to press his fingers to man’s wrist to take a pulse, but as he did that, Bill lashed out, grabbing him by the wrist and effectively pulling him down to the floor in a position in which, if he resisted, Bill could have easily snapped his wrist. At the same time, Bill let out a bloodcurdling scream, followed by a string of profanities that would have made even the most foulmouthed person blush, and tried sitting up under the restraints, which made him even more combative and loud when he discovered he couldn’t budge.
“Hold him still,” Alek shouted. “When he’s thrashing like that, I can’t hold the plane steady.”
“I’m trying,” Michael shouted back, but he was still pinned down as Bill was beginning to twist his wrist. Another sharp twist and it would snap for sure.
Alek set the plane on autopilot, unfastened her harness briefly, then leaned back over the seat long enough to grab Bill by the other wrist. In that moment of surprise he lashed out at her, letting go of Michael. “And if he knocks you out, what am I suppose to do up here?” Michael shouted, as he scrambled to his knees to fasten the wrist restraints on the litter around Bill.
In the instant that Alek had taken hold of Bill and he’d let go of Michael, Bill had whipped over on his side and grabbed her by the forearm, locking her into much the same position as he’d done with Michael. She slapped at her patient, not so much to hurt but to force him to let go. Unfortunately, his grip only tightened. Then came another round of cursing, followed by Bill’s attempt to bite her hand. As he struggled against Alek, who was trying to free herself from his grip, he pulled up against his restraints so hard the veins in his neck were popping out and his face went a dark, angry red. “Get him restrained,” she screamed at Michael over the profanity, as she pushed against Bill. “Or medicate him.”
“I’m trying,” Michael shouted back, as he prepared a syringe with a sedative. “But if I grab him, he’s going to break your wrist.”
“Better a broken wrist than a crashed plane. And he’s bleeding from his wound, now,” she called as the red stains from his open incision started to creep through the blanket.
To distract their patient, Michael tossed a blanket over Bill’s face, and miraculously it did the trick. He immediately let go of Alek’s arm and started to wrestle with the blanket, which gave Alek enough time to fasten herself back into her seat and check her instrument readings. Wonderful plane! Her old one hadn’t had an autopilot.
Once she was sure the plane was stable, Alek turned around to watch Michael swab the IV port and inject the sedative. “Is he holding on? Michael, look out!”
Too late. Bill threw off the blanket and took a swing at Michael, landing his blow square on Michael’s jaw. Michael was immediately slammed backward into the side of the plane, causing a sudden shift in the aircraft balance, which caused the airplane to plunge sharply.
Alek spun back around in her seat to make corrections before the plane went into a nosedive, as Michael simply sat there on the floor, stunned and rubbing his chin. Bill continued to scream and thrash about, injuring his appendectomy wound and bleeding even more.
At this point, all Alek could do was pray for a fast effect of the sedative, try and get them home and hope for the best. “Michael?” she called over the racket. “Are you okay?”
“Okay,” he called back, though he wasn’t trying to get himself up.
“You need to stay where you are. Don’t move. Do you hear me? Don’t move. You could have a shattered jaw, neck injury or worse, and right now there’s nothing I can do for you. Do you understand me, Michael? Do not move.”
The sedative was taking over now and Bill was finally settling down. She was concerned about his bleeding but until they landed there was nothing she could do. And she certainly didn’t want Michael attempting anything. “Don’t move, Michael,” she repeated, as Bill’s screams diminished to a whimper.
“I’m fine,” Michael returned.
“I’ll be the judge of that once we’re landed. Until then you’re my patient, and I’m ordering you to keep down.”
“Pretty mean punch for a sick guy,” he said, sliding down to a flat position on the floor next to his patient as the cabin began to spin around him. “I think I’ll be taking a nap now. Wake me up when the flight attendant comes around with those little packets of peanuts.” With that, Dr. Michael Morse slipped into a deep sleep, along with his patient.
Alek looked back for a second, then turned her full attention to getting both he
r patients to safety.
The instant the plane rolled to a stop on the snowy landing strip, Alek was out of her harness and scrambling over the seat. She took at quick look at Michael, flashed a light in his eyes to assess pupillary action, a determining factor of potential brain damage. Once she saw that it was normal, she slipped a cervical collar around his neck then turned to Bill, who was sleeping soundly now with a contented grin on his face, of all things! Smiling in relief, she pulled back the blanket to have a look at his incision. “Now you grin at me after you almost crashed the plane.” So much mess for such a small cut, but at least the bleeding had subsided, which meant it was now a matter of getting him into surgery, cleaning out his wound and sticking in a tube for a few days to make sure the infection had a good chance to drain away. She turned around and felt his head. Still too hot, but at least now he was headed off to a proper facility and not a medical make-do a hundred kilometers from nowhere.
“Looks like you’ve had quite a night and day of it,” Dimitri said, motioning two locals over with a stretcher.
“Surgery went well, but the ride back…” She moved aside as the attendants crawled in and lifted Bill’s litter out, then set it atop the awaiting stretcher. “Let’s just say that I’ve had better.” She glanced over at Michael, and shook her head. “So has he.”
