Still living on a budget, she often returned to the shop to find gently used treasures or brand new items with the tags still on. Even the Goodwill thrift store down the road had an impressive array of quality items. Living near the wealthy, if not among them, had its privileges. Although she made decent money, it was still hard making it on one salary what with rent, a car payment, insurance, utilities, and student loans still hanging over her head.
Getting this promotion with its healthy pay raise would certainly come in handy. The drawback: along with the money came a great deal more responsibility. She was interviewing for practice manager for the multi-physician group and rehabilitation center. It was Marcy’s job, who at sixty-two had decided to retire and travel with her husband, lucky duck. As a realist, Stacy felt she was a long shot. She knew there had to be a list of older, more experienced, better educated applicants a mile long. Still, her boss had suggested she apply. That said something.
Today was her second interview, which was promising, but she tried not to read too much into it and get her hopes up. This was to be a group interview with Marcy, Drs. Trent and Baker, the practicing partners, and one of the members of the board of directors. Feeling more confident than she did during her initial interview two years ago, she walked into the clinic and took the stairs to the right as Marcy had directed. Having a job to fall back on, she felt little pressure, which was very different from the state she’d been in that first time, when she had everything to lose.
At the top of the stairs, she pushed open the metal door and paused, the heavy door slowly closing automatically behind her. Did Marcy say turn right or left? Looking for a sign and not finding one, she noticed that both long halls looked alike, each lined with wooden doors with numbers, no signs. No one was around to ask, so she pulled out her phone to call Marcy.
A solid surface unexpectedly slamming into her from behind shoved her forward, her phone flying out of her hands as she fell, landing with an ‘oomph’ on her hands and knees. Grateful for carpeting instead of tile floors, she groaned. A sharp pain had ripped through her right knee as it was wrenched sideways on the way down.
A warm hand touched her back as another curled around her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, miss. Are you all right?”
She looked over her shoulder and froze. Wolverine? Great heavenly day, not again!
“Georgia?”
She tried to get up from her embarrassingly awkward position, but another sharp twinge stopped her short.
His hands spanned her waist from behind as he lifted her carefully to her feet. She grimaced as she stood and the pain worsened. She looked down at her hands, the skin on her palms and knees burning from grazing the carpet. She looked at him and softly smiled. “Wolverine, we’ve really got to stop meeting like this.”
“Here, lean on me.” He helped her to a seating area at the end of the corridor by large floor-to-ceiling windows. “I wasn’t expecting anyone on the other side of the door.”
“Yeah, totally my fault for standing smack dab in front of it like an idiot. I wasn’t sure where I was going.”
He turned her hands over, angling them to assess her abrasions. “Where else are you hurt?”
Looking down, she bent her right knee gingerly. Thankfully, the sharp pain was already receding, but a throb and tightness were setting in. “I tweaked my knee a bit but I think I’m okay.”
He crouched in front of her, brushing up her skirt hem as he began gently examining her knee with his fingers. “A bit of swelling here, I think, probably just a bruise. We should get some images to be sure.”
Glancing at her watch, she saw she had two minutes before she was late. “I’m late for my appointment. I’ll get some ice for it afterwards. I’m sure it will be fine.”
Frowning up at her, he said, “I’m sure whoever you’re meeting with will understand. As hard as you hit the floor and the way your knee twisted beneath you, there could be a serious injury.”
“It’s fine. I really have to go.”
He stood. While she was seated, his height put her at a distinct disadvantage, seeming even taller and more intimidating than the last time they’d met.
“If you go, you’ll have to leave AMA.”
“Pardon?”
“Against Medical Advice.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“Jared Baker. I’m one of the orthopedic surgeons here at the clinic. I see torn ACLs all the time. I know my knees, believe me.”
“Any other time I would listen, Dr. Baker, but my meeting is very important.”
“What if I get a wheelchair and take you there? Afterward I can finish my exam.”
She hesitated.
“It’s either that or I carry you,” he warned.
Her breath caught in her throat as her eyes flew to his. Was he serious?
“You’ll find I am always quite serious about injuries, Georgia.”
Had she said that aloud? Maybe he was just very observant, although he didn’t remember her name. He had however used the nickname he’d given her so long ago. The way he said it in his deep baritone; no way had she had forgotten that in two year’s time. Or the way his glossy hair, just slightly overlong, curled by his ears. Her lips parted on an indrawn breath.
“Your answer?”
“I suppose the chair will be all right, but I need to hurry.” She checked her watch. “I’m already three minutes late.”
“Will you wait here until I get back?”
She hesitated again, thinking she’d probably blown it anyway. Just last night she’d been polishing her interview skills and had read an article ‘Ten ways to blow a job interview.’ Number one on the list was being late. Hiring managers saw it as a bad sign for reliability if you couldn’t even be on time for an interview. It was often a deal breaker. As a supervisor herself, she felt the same way. When the pool of applicants was so large these days, it was too easy to send it to file thirteen and move on to the next ‘on time’ candidate.
Her knee began to throb.
“Georgia?”
“Yes, I’ll wait.”
He nodded once, satisfied. “Stay right here, I’ll be back.”
She watched him hurry down the corridor and lost sight of him as he entered a room at the far end.
“Stacy?”
Hearing her name, she turned and saw Marcy poking her head out of a room no more than twenty feet away. She tried to rise, grimacing.
Marcy rushed forward in concern. “You’re hurt. What happened?”
“I got hit by a two-hundred-pound Mack truck.”
“What?”
“Sorry. I collided with someone in the hallway and wrenched my knee. That’s why I’m late; not a good impression, I know.”
“Nonsense, accidents happen. Let me help you. Dr. Trent is right inside and can take a look at that knee.”
“But Dr. Baker—”
“Jared’s running late anyway,” she interrupted, switching into grandmother mode. “Let’s see to you now. Kick off those heels. You can’t walk in those while injured.” Marcy wrapped an arm around her waist and supported her. Giving one last look down the other hall, Stacy found no sign of Wolverine and let Marcy help her inside.
* * *
Dammit! Where did she go? Jared searched the halls—empty. He’d only been gone five minutes. Pulling out his phone, he dialed the receptionist. A moment later, he was disconnecting in frustration. No, she hadn’t seen a petite blonde limping out the front door. He spent the next fifteen minutes looking for her. By the time he returned to the second floor he was beyond irritated. He was also feeling guilty for once again knocking the tiny woman to the floor, all one hundred pounds of her. Moreover, he was concerned about that knee. If she was walking around with a torn ligament or worse, a fracture, she could be doing even more damage.
Contrary woman; what he wouldn’t give to have her across his lap, his hand warming her bare bottom and teaching her a
much-needed lesson about keeping promises. That thought gave him pause and he felt the same familiar stirring as he always did when he thought of the little blond from Georgia over the past few years. Of course, he usually imagined her bare for other reasons, not a spanking and he reminded himself, she wasn’t his woman, but lord help her if she was.
His mind flashed on an image of her, as she’d been only short minutes ago. On hands and knees, her tight black skirt pulled taut across that glorious ass. Damn, the thought of that rounded ass stirred him. So much so, that he was sporting a nearly erect cock when he entered the conference room a moment later.
“Sorry I’m late. I lost a patient.”
As his eyes swept the table, he was surprised to see Georgia seated next to Marc, her leg elevated with an ice pack on her knee.
“On the table? Good Christ, Jared, what happened?” Marc asked in alarm, understandably misinterpreting his statement.
“No, I didn’t mean literally.” His eyes zoned in on his wayward patient, skewering her with the intensity of his gaze. “I’ve been looking for you, Georgia. You were supposed to wait for me.”
Confused, Marc’s eyes zipped between the two. “This is Stacy Altman, Jared. She took a tumble and needs a scan. It’s probably just a bruise but I’d feel better if we got some pictures.”
“You don’t say.” He continued to watch her, enjoying how a hint of pink crept into her cheeks as he raised a sardonic brow. “Funny you should say that, my friend. Ms. Altman here is my missing patient and that was my plan of treatment, exactly. I’ve got a wheelchair outside to take her for imaging right now.”
“Oh,” the pink-cheeked blonde said when she found her tongue. “Can’t we finish this first? The ice is helping.”
“Finish what?” It was Jared’s turn to be confused.
“Stacy is our interview.”
* * *
“Looks like a strain and a bad bruise. We’ll watch it for a while to make sure. In the meantime, you need to RICE it for at least 3–5 days.”
“Rice?”
He looked up from the lighted view box where the MRI images of her knee were displayed. “Sorry, that’s an acronym we use in sports medicine for rest, immobilization, cold—by this I mean ice, and lastly, elevation—R.I.C.E. I’m also going to give you a prescription-strength NSAID, which will decrease the inflammation and ease the pain a bit. I’ll see you back in a week for a re-check. Any questions?”
“No. Thank you for squeezing me in. I’m sure you were busy.”
“Nonsense, I’m responsible for the takedown, so I should take care of your injury.”
A knock at the door interrupted him. He opened it to find a woman in scrubs, his nurse she assumed. She held a tablet out to him and they began to have a conversation about a Mr. Patterson whose PT and INR were beyond therapeutic range, whatever that meant.
Despite her pain, Stacy smiled as their hushed voices blended into the background. He was responsible for her takedown… was that an intentional use of wrestling terminology? Wasn’t he just full of surprises? The first being that the man who kept knocking her to the ground every time she saw him turned out to be her boss. The second—which she didn’t think possible—was that he was even more handsome than the last time she had seen him. Maybe her memory wasn’t as sharp as she’d thought, because despite her grief and the struggle she’d had adjusting to her new life, she’d remembered him being the most gorgeous man she’d ever met, and he’d held a prominent spot in her daydreams and fantasies ever since.
Stacy shuddered involuntarily as her thoughts took a dark turn. Daydreams were so much nicer that the dreams that haunted her at night and the panic that followed. Ever since the funeral, after the numbness and shock had worn off, she had been living a nightmare. During the day, often out of the blue, she’d have symptoms. Sometimes the mounting symptoms were anxiety; shallow breathing, rapid heart rate, sweaty palms, and an overall disturbing feeling of apprehension—normal for ordinary people in an unfamiliar or stressful situation, but to Stacy, it often foreshadowed more. At times she could beat it back, but other times it would build, like high tide rolling in, surging forward, unstoppable, progressively consuming more of the shore until it erased everything in its path. And then it could not be held back. To Stacy the surge was panic, overwhelming and debilitating panic.
Worse were the nightmares. The first had happened on the night of the funeral, so horrific she relived it to this day. In her mind, she was in a large room with walls made of glass, the ceiling a skylight with blue skies and clouds, fluffy and white floating by. At first it was calm, idyllic, relaxing, but that had been a tease, a ruse to lure her in setting up a false sense of security. As she looked around, a stretcher appeared at the far wall. Suddenly, the room went black like a stage going dark. Then a light snapped on, shining down like a spotlight on the now sheet-draped gurney. Compelled to move forward, she did so, drawn inexorably closer. Although her mind didn’t want to, her body could not resist. The blackness that surrounded her was ominous as it closed around her like a specter. Her heart began to race and a feeling of impending doom swept over her. It was terrifying and she began to struggle. She was upon the stretcher now, only a hands-breadth away. As she looked down, she saw the blood staining the sheet and began to struggle. Although nothing physically held her, she was restrained, immobilized. Still, her hand, as if a separate entity from her body, reached for the sheet. No! She cried out in horror. She didn’t want to see what was beneath, but she was unable to stop her hand’s movement. It grasped the now saturated linen and pulled, slowly exposing what lay beneath. Abruptly it was whisked away and she screamed, a blood-curdling, soul-wrenching scream mixed with both terror and sorrow. It was her father. As she’d last seen him, he lay lifeless and cold, his dark hair a stark contrast to the pale linen. It was gruesome. She’d panicked and as if released from the unseen restraint had turned to escape. Out of nowhere, a second stretcher appeared, a second blood-covered sheet. This time some unknown force ripped away the sheet. It was her mother. She screamed and clawed to get away; at this point she often awoke, sweating and ripping the linens from her bed. Other times, she was in a full-blown panic attack; gasping for breath, pulse racing, throat constricting and unable to swallow.
“Stay here, Stacy. I’m going to get a wrap for your knee.” As if from a distance, she heard those words, saw the door close and she was alone, as was the norm now—always alone. She felt detached and confused, but still stuck in her nightmare.
The dark room of horror filled her head. Her parents’ bloodied bodies, they were real and present, as was the laugh out of the darkness. The cruel relentless laugh as it echoed around the large room. Suddenly, a blast of light, brilliant and blinding flooded the room. As she shielded her eyes, it gradually began to fade and her vision became clearer. She still stood trapped between the stretchers, twisted blood-stained sheets all that remained because her parents were gone. Spinning around, she tried to get away, but the stretchers banged against the walls. What was this? The large room had shrunk, now closet-sized. Again the laughter came; harsh and unsympathetic, it resounded as the walls moved, pressing inward, inescapably closer until she couldn’t breathe. As the specter laughed and laughed, ceaselessly tormenting, oppressively tightening until it squeezed every breath of air from her lungs.
As memories and images bombarded her, she became vaguely aware of the cold exam room and the hard table she sat on. The antiseptic smell was familiar too. An image of her father in the morgue overwhelmed her. Holy shit! She jerked, leaping off the table in a sudden urge to get out of there. It was too much like the morgue.
Leaning against the table, Stacy concentrated on her breathing, finding a focal point, clearing her mind of the torment, breathing as the counselor had taught. She’d had one session with her. It was a free session at campus student services and her last one since she’d graduated. The referrals they’d given her had been discarded, useless to her because when her da
d passed, her health insurance ended with him. The blows had just kept coming.
Inhaling deeply through her nose, she blew out the breath like blowing out a candle as her counselor had said. Surprisingly, unexpectedly, it worked. With this new job, some of her problems would end. She just needed to make it over the hump, but that meant no one could see her in this condition.
“Dr. Baker, call 6-1-0. Dr. Baker, call 6-1-0.”
The sound of the PA system blaring suddenly into the quiet room snapped Stacy back to the present, or had she never left? Her hands were sweaty and her pulse a bit fast. Frowning, she couldn’t determine if that had been a panic attack just now or a flashback into the past. When it happened and she detached, it was hard to tell and only tortured her mind further when she tried to figure it out.
Still, she huffed a relieved breath. She was alert and fully aware again. The pain in her knee telling her the reality, except the residual panic remained. Looking down at her tremulous hand, she saw her the prescription and the written instructions he’d given her, now crumpled from her grasp.
He’d said they were done, hadn’t he?
“That’s good enough for me! I’ve got to get out of here,” Stacy stated aloud as she eased away from the table. She needed to get home in case an attack recurred. Although it had been months since her last, she had been known to have multiple in one day when stressed. Dammit! She thought she was getting better.
She took a step, wincing as her knee adjusted to her weight. Nothing torn or broken, she’d be fine, he’d said. Without waiting, as he’d asked, she headed out. Bypassing the awful wheelchair, she limped out of the exam room and out to the checkout desk. By the time she’d paid her co-pay (thank heavens for her job with good insurance), she had adjusted to the slow hitching gait she needed to keep her knee from screaming in protest. Since the doctor’s offices were on the second floor, she took the elevator and in minutes was limping out to where she’d parked her Jeep.
Sweet Salvation Page 4
