Heart Trouble Read Free Page B

it up, swallowing it all in one fiery gulp. She set the empty glass down, looked over at him. His badge was now clipped to his belt in plain sight. He smiled but didn’t say anything. Erin stared back, taking him in through a more critical eye than before. He was even better looking in the bright light, if that was at all possible, and his eyes were dark green. She felt a funny fluttery sensation in her stomach when she looked at him, but attributed it to lingering nerves or the punch from the alcohol she’d just swallowed.
    “You’re bleeding,” Tess said, gesturing toward her knee. Erin tore her gaze away from Sean’s and glanced down. Blood had caked below her right kneecap and was creeping down her shin in a slow trickle.
    “I must’ve cut it on something when I knelt down on the floor.”
    “Sit,” Tess ordered. “I’ll go grab a first-aid kit. Jeez, I feel like I’m at work.”
    Erin climbed onto a chair. Sean spun another around in front of her and straddled it. Swiping a condensation-soaked napkin from the tabletop, he began carefully cleaning the streak of drying blood from her leg. It was a bit unnerving, having his warm fingers wrapped around her calf while he ministered to her. And she couldn’t deny there was a distinctive jolt of awareness at the contact points.
    She’d likely have bruises on both knees by tomorrow. Not near as worrisome as Henry’s predicament. He wasn’t out of the water, not by a long shot. Lots of things could still go wrong before he recovered.
    When Sean got too close to the actual injury, Erin flinched, and he raised his eyes to hers.
    “So,” Sean started. “A doctor.”
    “Jesus, I hope so, or I may be getting sued.”
    He laughed. “And how is that similar to a mechanic?”
    “Didn’t I try and fix him?” She halfheartedly waved her hand around. “Get him running again? Bleh, stupid analogy. Forget I said it.”
    “No, it works.” When he smiled, Erin felt her stomach do that weird somersault thing again. His hand was still wrapped around her calf, his thumb making little circles on her skin as his gaze roamed her face.
    Tess came back with the first-aid kit, interrupting the weird intensity of the moment. Erin sat still and let her play doctor for a change. There was a small sliver of glass wedged into her skin that Tess scraped out with her fingernail.
    “There. All done,” she said, smoothing on an adhesive bandage.
    “Tess, this is Sean… Sorry, I don’t know your last name.”
    “Rembert.” He shook Tess’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Tess. I assume you work together at Baptist?”
    “Tess is a nurse in the ER with me.” Erin stood, and her pinched toes protested. Wincing, she grumbled, “I would pay someone fifty bucks for a pair of used flip-flops right now.” More than ready to leave, she reached for her clutch. Which wasn’t where she’d left it. She looked under the table, around on the floor. Nothing. “My clutch is missing.”
    “What?” Tess asked, her voice going up an octave. “After what you did here tonight, someone stole your purse. Unbelievable!”
    Sean frowned, mouth pressed into a thin line as he planted his feet on the floor and stood. “I’ll check with the staff. See if anyone turned it in.”
    “And I’ll go look around at the other tables and in the bathroom. Maybe they took your cash and dumped the rest of it,” Tess said.
    Erin sighed and rolled her head around on her neck. This had been one hell of a night, even before her purse went missing. She routinely handled chaotic eighteen-hour shifts in the ER, barraged with gunshot wounds, car-accident victims, and feverish puking kids, and still managed to walk out the door wired like a cokehead. Somehow tonight had drained her dry, perhaps because she was out of her element with no one to back her up except Tess. Not that having Tess as backup hadn’t been reassuring—it had, but that man’s life had rested squarely on Erin’s shoulders, and it had