Open Wounds (Harbour Bay #2)(60)

Where in hell was the doctor?

One would think a member of the police force would be the first patient seen, but forty-five minutes had gone by, and they were still waiting.

“Kellie, calm down. I’m fine.”

She glared at him. “You are not fine, Darryl, you’re bleeding.”

“I’ve noticed,” he said, which only made her narrow her eyes.

She was spiralling out of control. Every time she let her mind wander, she thought of how she’d almost lost him. One wrong move and the world would be a darker place without him in it. The thought became unbearable as she tried to hold back the tears that threatened to escape.

“This is not a joke,” she said with sudden calm, her voice eerily soft.

Darryl’s smile abruptly faded. “Believe me, I’m well aware of that.”

She nodded jerkily and resumed her pacing. A minute later the door behind her opened and she spun around.

“About time,” she muttered.

Kellie’s mouth dropped open in shock as she stared at one of the most gorgeous women she’d ever seen. Eyes the colour of the ocean on a clear day framed by naturally dark lashes against flawless porcelain skin. The woman’s raven hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, her body unflatteringly hidden beneath a loose uniform.

“Rose,” Darryl said amicably. “Glad you could make it.”

The nurse—Rose—smiled, showing off straight white teeth. Her dentist bills must have been huge as a child. “Someone is in a good mood,” she said.

“I’m offsetting her bad one,” Darryl explained, indicating Kellie.

She glowered at him. How dare he?

When he got better, she’d kick his arse. Then kiss him better like he’d asked of her earlier.

Rose moved gracefully across the room, and Kellie had a sense that she knew this woman. But how could that be? She knew for a fact she’d never met the nurse. Darryl seemed to know her.

A little too well, Kellie thought sullenly.

Someone would be answering questions when he got out of here.

Rose sat down on a small wheeled stool, and rolled closer to the examination bed where Darryl sat. She took his hand in her own small, delicate one.

Kellie took a few steps closer, her teeth cutting into her lip with worry and watched as Rose removed the now red towel and probed at the injury.

“This is deep. How’d you get it?” she asked, and Kellie realised Rose had become a nurse rather than a friend in that short moment she had examined the wound and discovered it to be more than a mild cut.

Darryl shrugged. “Fell into a mirror.”

Rose raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. “You’ll need stitches,” she told him as she moved his hand to hover over a stainless steel bowl resting on the table next to the bed. She retrieved a slender opaque container with a nozzle on the top that Kellie assumed to be antiseptic liquid and washed out his wound, clearing it of smaller shards of glass to keep it from getting infected. “When was your last tetanus shot?”

Darryl winced and Kellie was immediately by his side, caressing his back to comfort him. He smiled gratefully at her.

“A couple years ago, I think.”

Rose nodded. “I’ll give you another just in case.”

Kellie shuddered. She hated needles.

A short time later, he’d had his shot and Rose finished up with the last of his stitches. Kellie had alternated from comforting Darryl, to pacing, to looking over Rose’s shoulder as she worked. If the nurse had minded, she’d been polite enough not to comment.

Kellie occupied her mind during the entire process, switching between concern for Darryl, grateful that his injury wasn’t more serious and scouring her memory for when she might’ve met Rose previously. Although the woman made no sign that she recognised Kellie, the sense of familiarity stayed with Kellie.

Frustrated, she began pacing again. Rose shared a look with Darryl and her blood boiled from jealousy. She’d never once been jealous in her entire life and Kellie hated the feeling, but she knew she was seeing the little green monster when she imagined Rose and Darryl together.

She stopped suddenly and glared at them, hating to be out on the inside joke. “What?” she demanded, and both Darryl and Rose’s heads swung in her direction.

“How long have you two been dating?” Rose asked conversationally.

Kellie fiddled with a loose fabric on her shirt. “We’re not.”

He stiffened. She winced internally. She'd hurt him with that denial.

Rose glanced at each of them in turn, and her mouth formed a perfect O. “Forgive me, I just assumed…”

Kellie stared at her back intently. The nurse caught her gaze over the curve of her elegant shoulder and cocked her head enquiringly at Kellie.

Her eyebrows drew together in puzzlement.

Rose smiled and turned her attention back to Darryl’s hand.

“If you’re wondering why I seem so familiar it’s probably because I look like my little brother,” Rose told her. “He works at the LAC.”

Realisation dawned on Kellie and she smiled. “Nick,” she said, and Rose nodded. She could see it so clearly now. How had she not noticed it before? Rose had the same midnight black hair, only hers was much longer and pulled into a high ponytail. Her eyes were also the same cornflower blue as Nick’s. But that was where the similarities ended. Where her brother was six foot, Rose was closer to her height.