Call Me Wild (16 page)

Jessie pulled off the water-filled waders—not an easy thing to do with an unconscious man bleeding beside her—rolled them up, and threw them to shore.

Blood pooled beneath Fisher’s head. She knew head wounds bled a lot, and the water in his hair made it look worse than it was—at least that’s what she told herself. She took off the vest and T-shirt, wrung the T-shirt out, and wrapped it around his head. He was going to need stitches. “Fisher? Come on. You gotta wake up. I don’t think I can get you to shore on my own.”

The water had felt like ice, and even now that she was out of it, with the warmth of the rock seeping through her wet sweats, she shook uncontrollably. “Fisher, please wake up. Please.”

She didn’t know what to do. Should she leave him and try to get help? God, he could die out here. She heard herself whimper, something she’d never heard before, and fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck, her eyes were leaking again.

“Damn you, Fisher. If you die on me, I swear I’m gonna kill you!”

She covered her eyes and cried. God this sucked so bad.

“I’m not dead yet.”

“Stay awake, Fisher.” God, every time he closed his eyes, Jessie wondered if he was dead. She gave him another nudge, but she was afraid to take her hands off the wheel for too long as the Land Cruiser bounced up and down the steep mountain road.

She glanced at the directions to the hospital she’d hastily scribbled on a scrap of paper. Karma said it was a forty-five-minute drive during the day—once you hit the main road. But with night falling and the fact that she was driving a strange car down dark and windy, sorry-excuse-for-a-mountain-road, who knew how long it would take. But then, Karma had also said Jessie should take Fisher to the hospital if she thought it was necessary—as if Karma didn’t.

Fisher had passed out for cripes sake. Sure, it had been for less than a minute, but so what? And he was bleeding. Okay, so the bleeding had stopped, or it seemed to after Jessie had washed the area and wrapped some gauze around his head. Still, she wouldn’t be able to rest until Fisher got a clean bill of health.

She reached over to nudge him again.

“I’m up. Will you stop hitting me?”

“Don’t go to sleep. You have to stay awake.” She wasn’t sure why, but she got the impression it wasn’t a good thing for a person with a head injury to sleep.

“How could I possibly sleep after you stole my keys and insisted on driving my baby?”

Getting the keys wasn’t hard to do, which just made her even more nervous. It was very clear to her that Fisher had an unhealthy relationship with the piece of crap he called a car. Lord only knew why, the damn thing had more ailments than a hypochondriac with a new copy of the
Physician’s Desk Reference
. “I’m a great driver.”

“Yeah, tell that to someone who didn’t have to push your car off the road it never should have been on in the first place.”

“God, are you going to bring that up again?”

She shot him a dirty look. Leave it to Fisher to still look hot with a bandage wrapped around his noggin, when she looked like something the cat threw up.

“I’d probably have a lot more to say if I could remember what the hell happened.”

“I told you. You hit your head on a rock in the river, and I somehow pulled you onto that huge boulder close to your special place.”

“Yeah, that’s the part I don’t understand. I wasn’t planning to take a dip, and if I had, I sure as hell would not have gone that far downstream. It gets really gnarly down there.”

Tell me about it. She sneaked a glance at him. At least she had his attention now, not that she’d wanted it before—back on the beach, before she’d fallen in.

Okay, so she had wanted him to turn back into Mr. I-can’t-stop-undressing-you-with-my-eyes. She wouldn’t lie to herself—not for long anyway. And she wouldn’t lie to him… Hell, if he got pissed at her for causing his brain injury, at the very least, the anger might keep him awake long enough for her to get him to a hospital.

“I guess I went out into the river too far. I took a step, and it was as if the bottom dropped out. The next thing I knew, I was flying down the river, and you were screaming at me. You grabbed me, but then you hit your head, and we ended up in a weird whirlpool. You fainted—”

“I didn’t faint. I was knocked out.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Women faint with shock, if they have low blood pressure, for all sorts of reasons. When a man takes a blow to the head, he gets knocked out. There’s a huge difference. Fainting is… prissy. I’m not prissy.” He brought his hand up to the softball-sized lump on the back of his head. “It figures. I was rescuing you again.”

She rolled her eyes. He didn’t see it, which was just as well. “First of all, you need to retract the word again. That implies you’ve rescued me before, which you haven’t. Secondly, I dragged you out of the river after you fainted. I ended up being the one doing the rescuing.”

“You’re going to have to show me proof, since I don’t remember.”

“Yeah, isn’t that convenient?” She was sure the bloodstain was still on top of the boulder, but just the thought of it had bile rising in her throat. “Do you remember walking back to the cabin?”

“No, I remember waking up on the couch, wondering why my clothes were wet, and I had a headache like you read about.”

That was a relief. “Isn’t it interesting that you’d forget that I dragged you out of the river and through the woods? God, it sounds like a bad Christmas song.” And felt like a nightmare. “You walked, like a guy on a three-day drinking binge. You said you were dizzy.” She’d been scared to death his brain would swell, and he’d drop dead just like the bad guy in the last romance she’d read. She may have rambled on a bit about how the bad guy hit his head, and then a few hours later, he stood and fell flat on his face—dead as a doornail.

No, it wouldn’t hurt her feelings if Fisher never remembered that, or the way her eyes sprang a leak when she’d thought he could die. God, just thinking about it made her eyes threaten to leak again.

“Do you even know where we’re going?”

“Yes, I called Karma as soon as I retrieved your backpack. She gave me directions to the hospital.”

A half hour later, Jessie pulled up next to the emergency entrance of the hospital and roused Fisher, something she’d been doing through the entire drive. Her arms were stiff either from dragging him from the river or just gripping the wheel like a lifeline.

“You’re not supposed to park here.”

“What the hell are they going to do? Give me a ticket?”

He pointed to the other side of the porte cochere. “You can park over there.”

“By the sign that says Physician Parking? But I’m not a physician.”

“What are they going to do, give you a ticket?”

At least he had his smirk back—that one with the winking dimple. She put the truck in neutral and put on the brake. “Let me get you inside before I park it, okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s not that far. I can walk.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re hardheaded?”

“I guess that’s a good thing, considering.”

Jessie parked in the doctors’ lot, risking a ticket, tossed his backpack and her purse over her shoulder, and hurried around to meet him as he stepped out of the truck.

Fisher smashed up against her. She wasn’t sure if it was because he’d lost his balance, or because he wanted her smashed against him.

She hoped for the latter, but was prepared to hold him up if need be.

“Now you smell like clear, cool river water and woods.” He pushed her hair behind her ear and kissed her—just a sweet kiss that gave her a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. His lips were so warm and alive, so unlike the way he’d felt a few hours ago. What a relief. He looked right into her eyes. His pupils were still the same size, which was good. “Thanks for rescuing me.”

“And I was just beginning to believe you’d be okay, and you go and say something like that. Now I’m really worried. Let’s get you inside and have your head examined.”

“I’m not hurt… well, not badly. And I don’t need my head examined. Unlike some people, I don’t have a problem being rescued every now and then. It’s nice to know I have someone watching my back. So thank you.” He kissed her again and winced when her arm came around his neck.

“Oh, sorry.”

“I feel like I got run over by a truck.”

She wrapped her arm around his waist and led him through the automatic doors.

A petite blonde nurse looked up when the doors swished open and barreled around the desk. “Doctor Kincaid, what happened to you?”

Jessie saw the woman’s lips moving. She heard her, but what she said just didn’t compute.

“Doctor Kincaid?”

***

Whoa, something was way off. Fisher didn’t know what happened, but Jessica stiffened under his arm and shot him a look that had him wondering if he should protect his privates. Jealousy maybe? Sure, Nurse Shaw was a flirt. Hell, she’d made more passes than Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Peyton Manning put together. It didn’t mean he caught any of them. “Darla, this is my girlfriend, Jessica James. Jess, this is one of the ER nurses I work with when I’m up here, Darla Shaw.”

“Great.” Jessica tried to pull away from him, but Fisher held on to her. “Now that we’ve all been introduced, and we
really
know who everyone is, why don’t you go back there and have your head examined?”

Fisher ignored her mumbling about lying, cheating men. Right now, trying to deal with his headache and the constant ringing in his ears was about all he was good for. “Darla, I need a CT scan. Could you see if they can squeeze me in?”

Jessica tried to disengage herself again, but Fisher kept his arm firmly around her. The nurse looked at Jessica and then him. “We need to look at that head wound before we do anything else, Doctor. And we’ll need a doctor’s order for the CT scan. You know the rules.”

“I am a doctor. Just write up the order, and I’ll sign it.”

“Dr. Kincaid, today you’re not a practicing physician. You’re a patient. Go into exam room six, and I’ll be right with you.”

Darla had that don’t-give-me-any-shit look about her, so he nodded, and immediately regretted the action as a wave of nausea crashed over him. Damn his head hurt. Keeping his arm firmly around Jessica, he walked her into the ER and headed straight for the bed. He pushed his sore body up, wishing he could just sleep, but knowing Jessica wouldn’t let him. He pulled her up beside him and probed the back of his head, wincing when he encountered the huge goose egg. Damn. No wonder his ears were still ringing.

Jessica sat rigid and madder than a wet hen. He might as well get this over with. He just hoped it wouldn’t be as painful as the rest of the day had been… or would be. “Okay, what did I do?”

She speared him with another one of her killer looks. “If you have to ask, maybe you got your brains scrambled worse than I thought.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Look, I don’t remember anything that happened between the time I dove in after you and when I woke up on the couch. So if I did or said anything to piss you off in between, I’m sorry, but I really have no idea what it could be.” Unless he told her he was in love with her. God, wouldn’t that be awkward? But if he had told her, why would she be mad? She didn’t believe in love. She’d be more apt to laugh at him than be mad, wouldn’t she?

“You and Karma must have had a really good laugh at my expense, Dr. Kincaid. But that’s just fine. I’ll get you out of here, take you home, and that will be the end of it.”

“The end of what? What the hell are you talking about?”

“This—you and me and this whole research fiasco.”

“Darlin’, I know I’m not as sharp as I usually am, but I haven’t a clue as to what you’re talking about. If there’s something going on with Karma, if she said something, you’d better tell me about it. I don’t have anything to do with it. If Karma is laughing at anyone, it’s me. I’m the one who was set up to come out here, remember? Not that I’m complaining. Actually, I owe her a big fat thank you. Now, why don’t you just tell me what the heck is bothering you?”

“I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

“To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never lied to you about a blessed thing.”

“Bullshit. All this time I thought you were a trust fund baby living off your rich grandfather.”

“Why would you think that?” It made no sense. “Hold on. If you thought that, why did you call me ‘doctor’ when you pulled your hamstring?”

“I was being facetious!”

“How was I supposed to know that? And if you thought I was something I’m definitely not, why is that my fault? If you wanted to know what I did, why didn’t you just ask?”

“Karma knew what I thought, and she never corrected me.”

“And I’m sure she had a good laugh at both our expenses. It still doesn’t make it my fault. I would think you’d be happy to find out I actually have a real job.”

Jessie didn’t like feeling like a fool, but she had to admit that maybe it wasn’t Fisher’s fault. Jessie jumped to a lot of conclusions and never did ask him what he did.

The nurse rolled a cart in and looked at the two of them. “One patient at a time, Dr. Kincaid.”

Fisher didn’t look too happy to be interrupted. “Fine.”

Jessie, on the other hand, was relieved. The sooner they got out of here, the sooner she could take him home and leave him in the loving hands of his mother.

Fisher released Jessie, and she wasted no time sliding off the bed. He grabbed her hand before she could get away—it was as if he’d read her mind and knew that had been her plan. She needed to get away—even for a little while. “I’ll go wait outside.”

He held tight onto her hand. “Don’t go.”

The nurse didn’t even try to hide her curiosity. Jessie was sure that Fisher and his new girlfriend would be the subject of the next week’s hospital gossip.

Jessie gave up her plan for an escape and stood when the doctor came in.

“Fisher.” A hand came through the curtain and pushed it aside. “I heard you were giving Nurse Shaw a hard time.” The doctor stepped through with a smile on his weathered face. His hair was gray, and he had some age on him, but his body and bright blue eyes belonged on someone much younger. The man was in amazing shape.

“Dr. Roger Gilg, this is my girlfriend, Jessica James. Jess, Roger’s a neurologist, and we ski together whenever we get the chance.”

“Nice to meet you.” Jessie shook his hand and tried to get away again, to no avail. The doctor asked questions about how long Fisher had been unconscious, how disoriented he’d been, and how his motor skills were affected afterward—things only Jessie could answer. He ordered a CT scan and had the nurse clean the wound, before he closed the small gash with a few stitches. All the while Fisher stared into Jessie’s eyes. The only time he let her go was when they took him for a CT scan.

Relieved, Jessie went to the waiting room and took a seat. She stared into space and tried to see Fisher as a doctor. Hell, she didn’t even know what kind of doctor he was—not that it mattered. Though it did answer a lot of questions, like how he seemed to know her body even better than she did.

She picked up the hospital’s brochure and paged through it. There was list of doctors, and there on the second page was a picture of Fisher. Fisher Kincaid, Doctor of Orthopedics. She read that he did his residency and sports medicine fellowship at Rush in Chicago, which explained the Chicago number on his satellite phone. He was even board certified. Wow, had she ever been wrong about him being a bum. It didn’t happen often, and she wondered why she’d been so quick to jump to negative conclusions about Fisher. What did that say about her?