Chapter Text
It’s because I’m left handed.
I can’t hold scissors correctly. I can’t write with a pen without smearing ink all over the page. I can’t operate a computer mouse properly. I can’t shoot a hostile suspect without wounding one of my comrades. You know, the usual stuff that makes you look incompetent even though it’s only because you’re left handed.
I sat on the edge of the hard, plastic chair. I was hunched over myself: elbows on my thighs, face in my hands. I looked defeated. However, that adjective didn’t really apply to my situation. Regardless, I sat in the chair looking defeated. I was waiting to see if my partner was going to make it through surgery. And if he did, he was probably going to kill me.
“Special Agent Milligan?”
I looked up at the “special” even though I’m not actually a special agent. People always mistake me for one when I flash my credentials despite the fact that it looks nothing like a special agent badge. I’m what is categorized as “Professional Support Personnel.” But who really gives a damn about semantics when you’ve possibly just permanently disfigured a good friend?
The doctor looked at me with that blank doctor expression they give right before they either tell you your loved is going to be okay or that something awful has happened, like, they just spontaneously combusted or something.
“Will you come with me, miss? Uh, ma’am.”
I stood up carefully on my twisted ankle and limped painfully after the doctor. He hadn’t sat beside me and looked gravely in my eyes, so the knot in my stomach got a fraction looser and I was able to be amused about the thirty-something doctor mistaking me for someone who wasn’t old enough to be a ma’am.
The hospital was done in shades of soft blues and greens. My father would have called them crazy colors. Not because they were wild and exciting, but because they were the type of colors you put around crazy people to soothe them. It was a much more homey hospital than most with pictures on the walls and plants on the desks. But then again, this was a small town with a small hospital with an ER that saw about as much excitement as the third geekiest person you went to high school with. You know, the top nerd and his dork in command were always teased and razzed, but somewhere down on the bottom of the social food chain were the people who were just ignored. The people who end up bringing semi-automatic weapons into school just to create a little excitement.
“Have you had your ankle checked?”
My eyes snapped up to the doctor and I ran full into him. He had stopped at the doors to the emergency bay. We had walked less than ten feet. I had forgotten how small the hospital was and thus did not have as much time to get lost on one of my tangents as usual.
I took a step back, embarrassed, though not entirely upset. He was one of those doctors your mother’s always trying to get you to marry: tall, blonde, big brown puppy-dog eyes, Beamer in the parking lot, Jaguar in the garage. And the reason I wasn’t that upset was because I had run into a very solid and well-defined hunk of man-chest. The bulky white coat had managed to hide the good doctor’s greatest charms.
I jerked my hands back suddenly because I realized I’d left them on the doctor’s pects for longer than decency dictated. I finally managed to process that he had asked me a question.
“Huh?” I grunted.
Articulate and poised. Two of my finer qualities.
“Has anyone checked your ankle?”
He smiled while he repeated his question. Half doctoral concern, half flirtatious teasing.
“It’s only twisted.”
I raised my hand before he could inform me that only doctors are capable of diagnosing twisted ankles.
“I’m an MD. I know I’m fine. I’d like to see my partner.”
Dr. Love—I shit you not that’s his real last name—raised his eyebrows. Then he shrugged and punched in the code that unlocked the heavy double doors to the emergency bay. He pushed one door open and held it for me on the other side. I walked in, trying not to limp, and followed Dr. Love to a curtained off bed.
Around me the ER was eerily quiet. A man was getting sutures in his hand and four nurses and two doctors sat around the nurses’ station watching a soap opera. Well, it was a Monday afternoon. Maybe all ER’s are quiet on Monday afternoons. I laughed to myself. I knew that wasn’t true.
The doctor and I stopped at the curtain. He looked to me with his hand resting on the edge. I gave a curt nod and he pulled the curtain back.
Now, you may be wondering how I managed to peacefully take in my surroundings and size up Dr. Love with my partner lying in an emergency room gurney. How I managed to go off on my little thinking tangents with my partner’s life dangling in the balance. Well, I have this sort of flare for the dramatic. It’s a flaw. I’m working on it.
My partner was propped on the gurney by several pillows with his foot propped up on some more pillows. His dark Italian skin seemed darker than normal against the sea foam green polka dotted white hospital gown he wore. His black hair was ruffled like a little boy’s who had just woken up. His arms were crossed over his chest very tightly and his eyebrows and lips were drawn up in such a way that it almost made him seem unhandsome. And he glared at me the way you glare at someone you want to hate but can’t because you like them too much.
I guess I deserved his anger. I did shoot off his little toe after all.
“We managed to reattach the toe,” Dr. Love was saying, “and he’ll probably regain—” the doctor searched for an appropriate word—“movement of the appendage in a couple weeks. It’s going to hurt like hell to walk on for a few days.”
“Thank you, Dr. Love,” I said turning to him and shaking his hand. I had headed off the uncomfortable silence because I knew my partner was only going to glare at me and not respond.
Dr. Love let his fingers trail across my palm as we released hands and gave me a great “I’m handsome and rich” smile. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Milligan. When you’re ready, I’ll take a look at your ankle.”
I smiled back and reached for the curtain, and then snapped it forward, cutting out the good doctor. I saw his white tennis shoes turn and walk away. I looked back at my partner. Special Agent Michael Farlini was not happy with me.
I stepped toward him and made a show of limping on my poor twisted ankle. His features softened just a little and his arms relaxed. Michael sighed and moved his left leg to rest on top of the pile of pillows and settled his injured right foot gingerly on top of the left. I moved to sit on the gurney in the space his leg had occupied.
The gurney protested the additional weight with a few creaks, but I settled in with my elbows propped behind me and my legs stretched out toward Michael. He frowned as he carefully picked up my left leg and removed the black pump from my foot. His long fingers trailed lightly over my tan hose and up and down my swelling ankle. Even those light touches were hurting a little. My ankle might be sprained instead of twisted. And yes, there is a difference.
I was a little nervous that he hadn’t spoken yet, but if he wasn’t yelling by now, he probably wouldn’t start. I watched, holding my breath, as his hands gently maneuvered around my ankle. He raised my leg just a little and I looked up to his face to meet his eyes. However, his eyes were traveling down the length of my leg and up my skirt. He had given himself a pretty decent view of my panties when he had raised my leg. I didn’t really mind. He’d seen my panties before. Hell, he’d seen me put on these particular ones this morning.
“Michael—”
He cut me off. I don’t believe I’ve ever finished a sentence that began with his name.
“Come here.”
His voice sounded thick. Was Agent Farlini choked up on tears? Surely not.
I sat up, mindful of his foot, and knelt by his hips, mindful of my ankle. I ran my hands up his chest as I leaned forward, forced into smiling because the little sea foam green polka dots were actually smiley faces. Michael Farlini was not a smiley face kind of guy. My hands reached his shoulders and slid around his neck. I rested some of my weight on his chest via my forearms, forcing my back to bow in a little. It wasn’t terribly comfortable, but it put our faces close together.
Michael raised his hands to cradle my face. I gave him a chaste kiss and smiled into his frowning face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“You were nearly killed today.”
“I hardly think a sprained ankle constitutes a near death experience.”
“You know what I meant.”
His low bass voice rumbled out of his throat and I could see the vibration of his Adam’s apple. I leaned down to kiss it, but his hands stopped my face, pulling me to his lips instead.
Michael Farlini was a passionate man and it showed in everything he did. In his work, in his training, with his family, in his bed. Apparently he was even passionate on gurneys.
Unfortunately, the town sheriff, a state trooper, and two federal agents (one of whom was our Supervisory Special Agent) pulled back the dividing curtain at just the right moment to find Michael’s tongue so far in my mouth we might be able to use the excuse that I had dared him he couldn’t touch my tonsils with his tongue to cover it up.
But, for some reason, I didn’t think any of them were going to buy it.