Great. Lovely.
“You should take this as a compliment, Rogers. There are a limited number of people in the world I’d save from a rampaging capybara. In fact…” He yawned again. “It’s just you.”
How ridiculous was it that I found this charming? Clearly my standards were slipping.
I leaned up and flipped my pillow over, hoping to find a coolish spot, and then I lay back down with a huff.
Riggs’s pallet creaked as he shifted. “Go to sleep, for fuck’s sake.”
“Oh my gosh, Mr. Riggs, what a great idea!” I shot back. “Why don’t I just get rid of my insomnia by sleeping? Later, I’ll rid myself of allergies by not sneezing and cure patients of diarrhea by suggesting they not use the restroom. What would I do without you and your advice?”
“Without me, you’d have fallen into a ravine earlier today while following some random dude down the side of a jungle mountain like a Bear Grylls wannabe,” my own personal demon reminded me. “Repeat after me, Duchess: we do not leave the village for any reason. That’s not just my rule, that’s a Doctors Across Continents rule for safety and liability purposes.”
“Hey! I’ll have you know, I was milliseconds away from grabbing a tree branch, and I was nowhere near the edge of the ravine! I didn’t need your help at all,” I mostly lied. “And don’t make it sound like I was out on some kind of wilderness adventure. That ‘random dude’ was a man whose wife was having a complicated labor all alone. I did what I had to do so I could get to her.”
It was hard to care about things like liability and personal safety when someone’s life was on the line.
Riggs was silent for a full second. “You did good work,” he grunted finally. “If you hadn’t controlled her bleeding with oxytocin, she would have died. Instead, you kept her calm and made sure she and her son were healthy.”
Perversely, I was nearly as annoyed by his praise as I was by his insults. How the heck was I supposed to know how to take him?
“Yeah, well, it’s a good thing I keep oxytocin tucked in my bag right next to the Band-Aids I hand out while pretending to save lives.” I flung his words from the gala back at him.
He ignored this, because of course he did.
A thought occurred to me, and I frowned down at him in the darkness. “Wait, how do you know the name of the drug I gave Lourdes?”
Not that it was a secret, of course. It was standard protocol for treating postpartum hemorrhage. But Riggs had mostly stayed outside the one-room home to give her privacy, so I wasn’t sure how he’d even had a chance to notice… unless he already knew the treatment protocol somehow.
Riggs said nothing, and he said it loudly.
“Have you had some kind of medical training? I know you know how to do vaccinations and first aid, but I figured that was some kind of Army basic training program—”
“Marines,” he corrected like I’d known he would. “And we don’t learn to give vaccines in basic training, no.”
“Okayyyy.” I pulled the word out into three full syllables. “So you have had medical training, then?”
Riggs clammed up once more.
“For God’s sake, Riggs. I’m not asking for your credit card number and sexual history here. I’m just trying to make small talk. I told you all about my family, didn’t I? About Kev and his Horn of Glory obsession? About my grandfather? And you can’t even… Ugh!” I blew out a breath. “Never mind.”
“I’m not here to be your BFF,” Riggs gritted out. “I’m here to protect you.”
“You can be friendly and still protect me!” I curled my abs and sat up straight in the bed. “And Jesus, protect me from what? There’s nothing here to protect me from!”
At that exact moment, as if on cue, a loud banging noise rent the still night air—the sound of the metal security door at the front of the clinic being shaken nearly off its hinges.
“What in the—?” Before I could finish the sentence, Riggs had grabbed my wrist with unerring accuracy despite the darkness, pulled me off the bed onto his pallet, and rolled himself on top of me, all in one smooth movement.
“Shhh,” he whispered, bracing himself over me on his hands and knees.
“Is it the guys from the other day? Are they robbers?” I demanded, not at all shushing. “Are they trying to get at the medical safe? Are they—?”
Riggs put his hand over my mouth. “Shhhh, Duchess. Trying to assess the threat. Be still while I listen,” he breathed in my ear.
He held himself perfectly still for one beat, then another, and I could make out just enough of his face in the shadowed light to see how fiercely he was concentrating.