Compromised by Carina Alyce

Author:Carina Alyce [Alyce, Carina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Carina Alyce

Chapter 35

Barely able to get through the first three clinic patients, Michael vowed this was his last patient of the day. He grabbed the next chart off the wall and walked in without reading the name.

For a few seconds, he was fairly sure he was having a sleep-deprivation hallucination. The woman on the exam table was the spitting image of his old ballet teacher.

Then again, her chart probably wasn’t lying too. “Instructor McClunis?” he asked.

“Michael Harper,” the woman greeted him, as slim as he remembered her from his teens.

“Umm, it says you came back to discuss your incision.” Michael skimmed the printed chart. In the past decade or two since he’d seen her, she’d been promoted to CCFD battalion chief… and had been crushed by a ceiling in the August apartment fire.

“Not exactly. I’m really damn fucking tired. I didn’t know losing my spleen would make me feel this shitty. Do you think there’s a towel or scalpel in there?” She pointed at her abdomen through the paper gown. “There’s my urine in case you think I have a UTI or something.”

“You lost more than your spleen.” Her list of injuries was impressively extensive, assuming he was reading her chart correctly. It was unlikely he’d have imagined quite this array of injuries.

“Everything else was a broken bone. Doesn’t explain why I feel breathless and dizzy and tired.”

“You had a pneumothorax needing a needle decompression in the field.” Michael checked her chart again.

“Yes, but I was feeling better for a while, but ever since I went back to work a few months ago, I’ve felt awful.” Her words did have an odd breathless quality to them. “I thought you went to Cleveland State to major in business and ballet.”

“I did. I got my CPA-MBA.” Michael checked the vitals listed in her chart. Her heart rate and respiration rate were on the higher end of normal, and she didn’t have a fever, which argued against an infection.

“And you’re a medical student now. How did that happen?”

“Joshua died in Afghanistan a few years ago. I should have been more supportive.” He put his stethoscope on her chest and listened to her heart. She might have had a slight murmur.

“Josh would be proud of you to change your life,” McClunis said.

Feeling even more tired than he did before, Michael took the stethoscope out of his ears. They were having a highly personal conversation in the middle of her exam, and he couldn’t control his response. “How would you know?”

“I watched you two for years. Anyone could see he dragged his butt to ballet because you loved it.”

“I should have been a better brother. I…” he stopped himself. “I’m sorry. I’m supposed to be examining you and asking you about how you’re feeling.”

“I’ve been to the doctor before, but Harper, you look like crap. It’s like seeing one of my rookies after a bad twenty-four-hour shift. And I’ve seen you tired, like the time you practiced the pas de deux for Romeo and Juliet with Caitlyn for three hours.

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