Prima Donna

by Drewry, Laura

  By the time he made it to out into the hall, Regan was coming toward him, T. J. Corrigan in her arms, and a wailing Amber chasing behind. Blood covered the boy’s forehead, his eye, and most of Regan’s shirt.

  Carter turned straight into his exam room where Tracy yanked the paper roll down the table and moved out of the way so Regan could lay T.J. down, but when she tried to get out of the way, the kid almost fell off the table trying to pull her back.

  “I’ll be back in ten seconds, I promise.” She took Amber, who was still screaming, by the elbow and headed for the door. “Start counting, T.J. One Mississippi, two…”

  “Hey, buddy.” Carter smiled down at the little guy, who cried so hard he could hardly get out his next Mississippi. “She’s coming right back.”

  He couldn’t hear what Regan was saying to Amber, but whatever it was, she was saying it fast. Shuffling footsteps sounded out in the hall and a heartbeat later, Regan was back beside T.J., her hands wrapped tight around his while Tracy and Carter began cleaning the wound.

  “T.J.,” she cooed. “Look at me. Good. Dr. Scott and Nurse Tracy are going to fix you up, okay? But you have to be brave, can you do that?”

  “Nooo,” he wailed, wincing when Tracy wiped some of the blood away. “I can’t!”

  “Look at me. Look.”

  It wasn’t until Tracy nudged Carter that he realized Regan had been talking to T.J. again, not him.

  “Good,” she went on, her voice smooth, calm. “How old are you now? Six?”

  “F-f-f-five.”

  “Five? Wow, you’re getting big. Now listen, I know you’re scared, and that’s okay, I’d be scared too. But when you scream like that, you scare your mom, and it makes her think you’re hurt worse than you really are.”

  T.J.’s bottom lip trembled hard, and huge tears continued to stream out of his eyes, but he finally managed to speak again. “B-but I got all the blood.”

  “I know, sweetie, but it’s just blood, and you’ve got lots of it inside, right, Dr. Scott?”

  Carter smiled, partly to help calm T.J., and partly because Regan didn’t even look up at him, she just knew he’d agree. “Lots.”

  “And in a couple minutes,” she went on, “Dr. Scott’s going to have you all stitched up and you won’t see the blood anymore, but we need you to hold still. Can you do that for me?”

  “Will…will it hurt?” he sniffed, glancing nervously from Regan to Carter.

  “A little bit.” Carter and Regan both answered at the same time, but the kid focused right on Regan, whose face smoothed into a soft smile.

  “It won’t hurt any more than this.” She pinched his arm, but his flinch was probably more from surprise than pain. “See, that hurt, but it wasn’t so bad, was it? And I’ll tell you what—I’m going to sit right here and you can pinch me as hard you want while Dr. Scott fixes you up, okay?”

  “O-okay.”

  “What happened?” Carter moved around to the head of the bed so T.J. wouldn’t see him coming with the needle. He hated this part, but with Regan whispering in T.J.’s ear, and her arm being pinched red, it was over fairly quickly, and then they just had to wait for the freezing to set. “Did you fall off your bike or something?”

  “N-n-no. M-Marcus and me was seein’ how far we could jump off’a swings.”

  Tracy scraped some wet gauze over T.J.’s cheek, wiping away some more of the blood, but without even looking up, Regan tugged the gauze from her hand and did it herself, gently, slowly.

  “Yeah?” Carter asked, lightly pushing on the skin around the wound. Kid didn’t flinch. “How far did you make it?”

  T.J. sniffed but there was a tiny hint of a smile. “Farrer’n him. He landed in the sand, but I got all’a way to the wood.”

  “Is that what you hit your head on?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  With Regan doing most of her job, Tracy checked her watch and cleared her throat. “Do you need me for anything else?”

  “Uh, no,” Carter said, glancing up from his suture kit. “I guess I can finish up.”

  “Okay, good, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Regan didn’t have to say a word for Carter to know what she was thinking; it was written all over her face, and he couldn’t agree more. As good a nurse as Tracy was, she wasn’t built for pediatrics; she hadn’t uttered a word to the kid the whole time, hadn’t tried to comfort him or his mother, and the closest she’d come to touching T.J. was when she swabbed him with the gauze.

  But she did a hell of a good job with Jules’s and Rossick’s patients.

  “You’re being very brave,” Regan murmured, smiling down at their much calmer patient. “How are you feeling?”

  “O-okay.” The kid sniffled as his watery eyes grew wide. “Am I gonna have a scar?”

  “Nah,” Carter said, never taking his eyes off the jagged wound. “It’ll heal up fine and you’ll be good as new before you know it.”

  For some reason, that made T.J. frown.

  “What’s the matter?” Carter asked. “You don’t want it to heal up?”

  “Marcus says chicks dig scars.”

  Carter laughed so hard he had to step back for fear he’d stab T.J. with the needle, and when he looked over at Regan, she was shaking her head and laughing, too.

  “God help us,” she groaned. “He’s your mini-me.”

  Six stitches and a big Mike Wazowski bandage later, Regan led him out of the room while Carter went over wound care with a much calmer Amber. When they were finished, he walked her out to the waiting room where T.J. was sitting on Regan’s lap, running a blue Matchbox car up and down her arm.

  “Try not to let him run around too much tonight,” Carter said. “He’ll be fine.”

  “Amber,” Regan said quietly. “Are you okay to drive or would you like me to call you a cab?”

  “I’m okay, thanks.” Amber’s cheeks pinked with embarrassment. “Troy’s coming to—”

  The door flew open and a young guy with streaked blond hair came charging in and headed straight for T.J.

  “Dad!” T.J. cried. “Doc Scott gave me some scars!”

  When Amber and Troy both turned to Carter, he tipped his head toward the boy’s hand, now opened flat so they could all see the temporary tattoos he held. The little guy tucked one deep in his pocket, then nodded solemnly.

  “Gonna give that one to Marcus. Girls at Gym’bree don’t like him much; maybe this’ll help.”

  “Good idea,” Carter laughed. “Anything to help out another dude, right?”

  “Right!”

  Carter repeated the care instructions to Troy, then walked them to the door, shrugging away their thanks. When he turned around, Regan was grinning at him from her chair behind the desk.

  “Did you know Troy hit on Jayne last summer?”

  “That guy? But what about—?”

  “He and Amber are on and off all the time.” Regan rolled her eyes and chuckled. “And while he had his sights on Jayne, I think Amber was hoping to get a shot at Nick.”

  “Wasn’t she his housekeeper?”

  “Mm-hmm, until Jayne moved in.” With a soft snort, Regan rolled her eyes and started tapping away on her computer. “But good ol’ Amber didn’t lose much sleep over that, did she? Not with another rich, good-looking Scott in town, especially one who’s good with kids.”

  Carter couldn’t think of a single thing to say to that, and the sudden quiet in the office seemed to thicken, engulfing them in its power.

  “Thanks for your help in there,” Carter said. “Poor kid was freaked out.”

  “So was I!” Regan barked out a harsh laugh, making Carter grin. “Scared the crap out of me when they came running in here, blood everywhere, screaming their heads off, and then she just shoved him into my arms like I was supposed to know what to do with him.”

  “You were great.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, especially with her screaming like…oh my God…what time is it?”

  “Just aft
er six. Why?”

  “I’m late; Mrs. G’s waiting—I gotta go!”

  She was halfway to the door when she stopped and looked down at her blouse, now caked in T.J.’s blood.

  “I’m on it.” Carter hustled down to his office, pulled a T-shirt out of his bottom drawer, and tossed it to her. “Once you’ve been barfed and bled on as many times as I have, you’ll start keeping changes of clothes everywhere, too.”

  “But—”

  “You can’t go see an old lady when you’re covered in blood.”

  She glanced down at her blouse again, then at the T-shirt balled in her fist. “Right. Thanks. I’ll get it back to you.”

  Regan was long gone before he could tell her to just keep it.

  “She did good in there.” Rossick’s languid voice startled Carter. “I poked my head in to see if you needed help after Tracy left, but it looked like the two of you had it under control.”

  “Yeah, it was fine. Tough kid.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Is Jules still here?”

  “Nah, she’s up doing a delivery.” Rossick shuffled his feet a little, stuffed his hands deep in his pockets. “You wanna grab something to eat?”

  “Sure. Give me a couple minutes—”

  The phone cut him off in mid-sentence, but it wasn’t the normal ring. It wasn’t even the office phone, it was Regan’s cell tucked in behind her coffee mug. Carter picked it up as the last ring faded and the name Hillcrest faded from the screen.

  “She’s going to want to know they called,” he said, ignoring Rossick when he asked who. “Give me half an hour? Fish and chips?”

  He didn’t wait for Rossick to agree, just grabbed his stuff, hustled out the door, and a couple minutes later, he was at Edith Goodsen’s apartment.

  “I’ll get it.” Regan’s voice, muffled, from the other side of the door. “You let me know what Barry found in that trunk.”

  The door whipped open and there she was, his old UBC T-shirt looking a hell of lot better on her than it ever did on him.

  “You, uh, forgot your phone,” he said, holding it out to her.

  “Who is it, dear?” Mrs. Goodsen called from somewhere inside.

  “Thank you.” Regan frowned down at the phone for a second, then called back over her shoulder. “It’s Carter Scott, Mrs. G.”

  “Well, invite him in!”

  “I can’t stay,” Carter murmured, even as Regan waved him through. “But Hillcrest’s number came up on your screen, so I thought you might want to check your messages.”

  Regan’s face paled slightly as she gripped the phone and slid the door shut.

  “Go,” he said. “Call them back and I’ll sit with Mrs. G till you’re done.”

  She swallowed hard, nodded, and stepped out into the hall, so Carter headed straight into the apartment.

  “Hiya, Mrs. G,” he laughed, pressing his hand gently against the pink spongy curlers all over her head. “You’re looking good.”

  “Oh, you!” Her crepey hand was feather-soft when he took it in his and kissed her knuckles. “What brings you here?”

  “Regan left her phone at work, so I thought I’d drop it off for her.”

  “That’s a nice boy. Come, sit.” She waved him toward the brown leather wing chair and sighed. “Regan’s so sweet, but she works too much. She needs to slow down a little.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he sighed. “I know it.”

  “Well, can’t you do something? You’re her boss, for goodness’ sake.”

  “Technically, I’m not,” he said. “I’m not a partner at the clinic, I just rent space from my friends.”

  “Oh.” For such a fragile-looking little thing, she could snort with the best of them. “Well, I must say, Carter, I thought you Scotts were made of sterner stuff than that.”

  It took him a second to respond, and when he did, it was more of a sputter.

  “What d’you mean?”

  “I mean you’re a grown man, for goodness’ sake. If you’re not sure you want to be a doctor, then don’t you think it’s about time you figured out what it is that you do want?”

  “I do want to be a doctor.” Carter had no idea what she was on about. “I love working at the clinic.”

  “Yet you don’t love it, your patients, or the people you work with, enough to commit to them. What does that say about you, dear?” She tipped her head in that way only grandmothers could, and raised her eyebrows in expectation. “You need to either shit or get off the pot, young man. Pardon my language.”

  If the sweet little old woman, with pink spongy curlers in her hair and a fancy tea cup in her hand, hadn’t kept a perfectly straight face, he would have laughed out loud, but she was serious.

  And she was hitting a little close to home, too. Partnering up with Jules and Rossick was something he’d been thinking a lot about lately, but was he ready? Part of him thought yes, but another part of him wasn’t convinced. Signing on with them would mean he actually believed he’d be around long enough to make it work; that he was moving past the fear of getting sick again and all that would entail.

  But was he past it? He didn’t know. What he did know was that ever since a certain redhead came into his life, he hadn’t thought about it nearly as much as he used to, and that was no doubt because most of the time he was thinking about her instead.

  The front door opened and Regan slipped back in. “Thanks, Carter. Did you want a cup of tea?”

  “Uh, no thanks,” he said. “I gotta get going. Mrs. G, always good to see you.”

  “You already know what you want,” she said with a lift of her teacup. “So stop being so namby-pamby and just do it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Namby-pamby?” Regan frowned as she walked back to the door with him. “What was that all about?”

  “Nothing,” he muttered. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine.”

  “Regan.” It had been a while since she dropped the F-bomb on him.

  She paused, blew out a slow breath. “Tina thinks we should try for another visit this week.”

  “Good, I’ll go with you.”

  “No.”

  “Regan?” Mrs. G called. “Is everything okay, dear?”

  “Yeah, I’ll just be a second,” she called back, then lowered her voice to a firm whisper. “I can do this on my own, Carter.”

  “I know you can, I just don’t think you should.”

  “Thank you, but she wants to do it on Thursday, and we both can’t book the day off.”

  “ ’Course we can. My receptionist is a whiz at rescheduling patients.” He pulled the door open, stepped into the hall, and grinned back at her. “Besides, I’ve got an overdue appointment with my barber in the city, so we can kill two birds with one stone. Set it up, Red, and let me know.”

  He flashed her a wink and pulled the door closed behind himself, then stood on the other side for a long moment, his hand pressed flat against the wood. He’d been called a lot of things in his life, but namby-pamby was a first. As he turned to go, Mrs. G’s voice made him stop in his tracks.

  “He’s the one, isn’t he, dear?”

  “The one what?” Even with a distance of thirty-odd feet and a wood door between them, Carter could hear the waver in Regan’s voice.

  “The one you said makes your kneecaps melt; that’s him.”

  Carter strained to hear, even pressed his ear against the door, but no matter how much he wanted her to, Regan never answered the question.

  Damn it. He would have waited longer, but his phone buzzed in a text from Rossick, which put him back on track.

  Jules was sitting next to Rossick when Carter finally arrived at the restaurant.

  “How’d the delivery go?”

  “Excellent,” she smiled. “Happy to report Mom and baby are both doing fine.”

  “Good.” Thankfully Rossick had preordered drinks, so as soon as the waitress set down his beer, Carter chugged a good long guzzle before s
itting back in his chair.

  “Oh God,” Jules groaned. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Carter frowned and took another swig of his beer, but Jules kept blinking at him until he shrugged. “Just trying to figure out a couple things.”

  “Can we help?”

  He almost said yes; almost told them he wanted to partner up, but the words froze on the back of his tongue and stayed there until he washed them down with another swallow of his beer.

  “Thanks, but I got it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” There was no point talking about it until he was absolutely certain it’s what they wanted, and part of that meant showing them he could be a stand-up guy.

  Problem was, he’d never tried to be one before and he wasn’t entirely sure he could do it.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m a nice man.”

  Han Solo, The Empire Strikes Back

  “I really appreciate this,” Ellie said, climbing into the passenger seat of Regan’s car. “There’s no way Jayne would ever let me borrow her car.”

  “Gee, I wonder why.” Regan shot her friend a warning look, followed by a smile. “Just remember, it’s a Honda, not a Ferrari.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Probably do the car some good to blow the carbon out of it once in a while.”

  “Cars don’t get carbon buildup anymore.”

  “Oh, really?” she laughed. “And when did you become a mechanic?”

  Regan just grinned and turned down the highway toward town.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea going in with Carter?” Ellie asked. “I still think one of us should take you in, not him.”

  “I don’t think any of you should take me in,” she muttered. “But since he’s already talked to her, at least he has some idea of what we’re in for. It’s easier this way.”

  Ever since she’d set up this appointment, she’d tried to brace herself for what was to come. It was one thing for him to talk to her mother on the phone, but to see her in person, to be there if—when—she started going off on Regan, that was something else entirely.

  Outside of work, this could very well be the last time Carter would want to have anything to do with Regan, and she knew it; she expected it.