A part of me knew that wasn’t true. That Tim had lied to me that day. I saw the look on Truitt’s face, the hurt in his eyes when I said I was going out with Tim. But then he simply turned and walked away. If he had truly wanted to ask me out, why would he just walk away?
Glancing up when I heard a commotion at the main door of the ER, I nearly dropped the chart. My brother was in a mad rush to get over to me.
“Liliana?” I asked, my voice panicked.
“She’s fine. It’s Truitt.”
A sense of dread washed over me, so intense it was almost shocking. “What about him?”
Looking past Ryan, I saw Phil, one of the male nurses, and Pete helping Truitt into a wheelchair. “Oh, my gosh, what happened?” I asked as I rushed over to help them.
Ryan came up next to me. “Well, I stopped by Truitt’s place to check on the playhouse. I asked him if I could help with some of the framing, and we had a bit of an accident with the nail gun.”
Sickness rushed through me. “The nail gun?”
Lucy rushed past me and made her way over to Truitt. “Get him into bay seven.”
“My lucky bay!” Truitt said with a humorless chuckle.
Spinning back to face Ryan, I gave him a look that demanded he told me everything.
“Fine! Fine! I accidentally shot a nail into his foot.”
My hand came up to my mouth as I gasped. “How in the world did you do that, Ryan?”
“It got jammed, and Truitt was trying to tell me what to do, and for some reason it went off.”
“How far did it go in?”
He shrugged. “He had on some pretty thick boots, so hopefully it isn’t in too deep. Although, he did let out a pretty long string of curse words after it happened and told me he was going to pull my balls through my throat, so I’m going to guess it hurt.”
“For the love—!” I said, pushing past him as I made my way over to where they had taken Truitt. Pete and Lucy were both trying to see how far the nail had gone into Truitt’s foot.
“Let’s order an X-ray so I can see where the nail’s path went. Then call and get me an orthopedic surgeon on the line to take a look at it.”
Lucy glanced my way and smiled. “We’ve got this, you can head on home.”
My eyes bounced from her to Truitt. Why was I not wanting to leave? My shift was over. Lucy was the attending nurse.
Truitt let out a soft groan, and I knew I wasn’t leaving. I needed to make sure he was okay. It wasn’t like Truitt’s injury was life threatening; it wasn’t, by any means. Unless an infection set in.
Lucy was now staring at me with a befuddled expression. “I haven’t ever seen an injury like this before, I’d like to stay and observe,” I said, quickly thinking on my feet.
With one brow raised, Lucy tried not to smile. I saw the twitch at the side of her mouth, though. “You want to observe?”
I nodded. “If that’s okay with you, Doctor.”
“Pete doesn’t care if you observe, do you?” Truitt asked, a hint of pain laced between his words. He looked as if he was fighting with all his might to keep from crying out.
Pete simply smiled and shrugged. “I don’t care, the more nurses the better.”
Truitt closed his eyes and I knew he was in pain. Then he looked my way. “I think my brother paid yours off to get me into this place again. The odds weren’t looking so good for Roger in the pool, I guess.”
My mouth opened, then snapped shut. For once in my life, I was unsure of what to say. My gaze took in his entire body. I needed to see for myself that he was okay. Something deep inside me cared very much for the man lying on the table…and that confused the hell out of me.
“I’m kidding, Saryn. It was an accident.”
“Something you’re very familiar with,” Pete said.
“Hey, I’m keeping you in business, Pete,” Truitt replied.
“X-ray is ready,” Lucy said.
While they took Truitt to get X-rays, I pulled Ryan off to the side.
“What in the hell happened?” I asked in a hushed voice.
“It’s like I said, the stupid gun got jammed. I was trying to fix it, but Truitt got impatient and walked over to me. He went to take it, and I don’t know, it went off.”
I rolled my eyes, then chewed on my thumbnail as I looked around the ER.
“Don’t worry, he isn’t going to try and sue me,” Ryan said with a chuckle. “That poor guy has the worst luck of anyone I know.”
Hitting him in the chest, I let out a sigh.
“Wait, if you’re worried he won’t finish the playhouse on time, Truitt will get it done.”