His fingers grazed her ankle and sent tiny sparks up her leg until they settled in her belly. She shifted under his touch.
“Now, prop your leg up here and keep the ice on it.” He turned her around so her ankle stayed up on the bench. He placed her hand on the cold pack. “I’m going to the parking deck to get my car and bring it around to the side door. Then I will be back. Okay?” he said.
“Yes, that’s fine.” It wasn’t ideal, but she wasn’t sure what to do. What if her ankle was really broken? The last thing she wanted was an ambulance to come and make a scene about getting her. That bit of gossip would make it to her office before she even reached the hospital.
It only took a few moments for him to bring the car around. From the look of it, you’d think he took great pride in rescuing damsels in distress. He grabbed her stuff and lifted her off the bench.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
“I could let you hobble to my car, but it’s faster if I carry you,” he said.
She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to hurt herself before she got to the hospital, but if he carried her out of the courthouse, her colleagues would never let her hear the end of it. She just knew it.
Being close up against him had her flustered again, but it wasn’t from the heat this time. She could feel the outline of his muscular chest pressing into her side. She’d been mistaken earlier. He probably weight-lifted and exercised on a regular basis the way he felt.
“North Eastern Medical is the closest hospital to us,” he said, pulling her out of her moment of body analysis. “Is that one alright?”
“Yes, that’s fine, Mr. Rusak,” she said.
He chuckled. “I think it’s safe to go by our first names now. Call me Andrei.”
“Andrei,” she said, testing it out.
“Can I call you Victoria?”
She thought about it for a second. “Since you’re literally carrying me, I guess it’ll be fine.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re a tough one to please?” he asked as he sat her in the front seat.
She took the seat belt from him and clicked it herself. “It comes with the job,” she said. He didn’t say anything else as he closed her door and went around to the driver’s seat.
The hospital wasn’t that far away, so they got there fairly quickly. He pulled up to the emergency room drop-off area. “We need a wheelchair please,” he said to an emergency room attendant who came out. “I think she has a broken ankle.”
The attendant rushed back in and came out with the wheelchair. With both Andrei and the attendant there helping her out of the car, she felt like an invalid.
“I am going to park the car and come right in,” Andrei said.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
“I know I don’t have to. I want to.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that, so she let the attendant push her to the intake window. It was a miracle the emergency room wasn’t busy. If there’d been some sort of shoot-out, she would’ve had to wait a while with an ankle that might or might not be broken. She wouldn’t be at the top of the triage list. She was lucky that a possibly broken bone put her at the top of the list for now.
They took her information and carried her straight back for x-rays. The swelling had increased since she couldn’t have the ice on it in the car, and she was having more pain now. The nurses gave her new ice packs, something for the pain, and a pill to help with the swelling.
She waited in the sterile room for the doctor to see her. She hated hospitals, the way they looked and smelled, like death, urine, and cleaning supplies. Waiting alone in this empty room was starting to irk her. After what felt like forever, the doctor finally came in to discuss the results.
“Hello, Ms. Bellamy. I’m Dr. Smith,”
“Please tell me it’s not broken. I have too much to do this week.”
“Well, you’re going to need to stay off it for a few days first. It’s not broken, but you do have a very bad sprain. I am going to wrap it with an ace bandage and give you some pain medicine and an antibiotic to fill. You’re going to need crutches for a few days, too. I want you to stay off it for at least a week, or you’ll risk making it worse than it is now.”
“I can’t walk for a whole week?”
“If you want this to eventually turn into a long-term injury, then you’re more than welcome to try walking, but you’ll get back to your regular routine after you let it heal. I’ll give you a note for work, but you’ll also need to follow up in two weeks with the orthopedic clinic upstairs. Continue to use the ice packs. That was a smart move to use. It helped the swelling from being a lot worse than it is.”
“Thanks,” she said. She wasn’t an eye-roller, but she couldn’t help the motion as the doctor basically commended the guy who had cause her to fall in the first place. “Can I go now?”