Sleigh Bell Dreams (Mistletoe Meadows Sweet Christmas #1)

Chapter 16

Judd hadn’t meant for Terry to see him. How was he going to explain that he got bitten by a squirrel? She would be suspicious immediately that he had been the one to go get the squirrel out of Mrs. Rosario’s house.

He had not been the only one with the idea though, and her grandson had been there, only he was a hothead and had insisted that they were going to have to kill the squirrel.

Mrs. Rosario had pleaded with him not to, and Judd quietly tried to get the squirrel out before Jack could succeed in his mission.

Unfortunately, Jack had gotten the squirrel cornered, as he held a frying pan in his hand, intending to brain the squirrel.

Judd had grabbed a hold of his hand to keep the frying pan from coming down, but the squirrel had felt threatened enough that he had attacked both men. Jack had enough presence of mind to drop the frying pan and run. Judd had been focused on one mission, and that was to get the squirrel out of the house, so he’d run, with the squirrel biting and scratching at his hand, for the open front door. He’d been able to get out and, with a bit of effort, had been able to get the squirrel off his hand without hurting it. It had run up the nearest tree and squawked angrily from the highest branch.

Jack had been very quick to say “I told you so,” and Mrs. Rosario had been very apologetic and got some bandages to give to him.

Judd, knowing he was not good with blood, had left as soon as possible and kept his hand in his lap in his car, putting pressure on it with the bandages to try to stanch the bleeding. He had done it without looking at his hand, hoping that he was doing the right thing, but unsure, not wanting to pass out while he drove.

“Would you like a drink of water or something before I get started?” Terry came back in the room, all business, carrying a bag that she set on the table and opened up.

“I’m fine,” he said, wishing he felt better, because then he would have gone in his side of the duplex, where he didn’t think that she would follow him.

He could be wrong though. She seemed pretty determined to take care of his hand.

Still, this whole blood thing might be a good excuse for him not to answer her questions, because he was almost one-hundred-percent sure she was going to have questions.

“How did this happen?” she asked as she snapped on a pair of gloves.

He rolled his head, and then leaving his bandaged hand in his lap, he put his other elbow on the table and put his head in his hand.

He hoped that that showed her that he was not answering her questions.

“Do you mind if I take this off?” she said, indicating the bandage.

“Go ahead. I’ll look away,” he said, not wanting to face the fact that he was breathless and truly was fighting to stay seated in his chair. He shouldn’t have glanced down at his lap.

He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t accidentally see something he didn’t want to. He didn’t know why blood affected him this way, but it always had. He felt a little bit like a baby, but right now, his main focus was not falling off the chair, and not passing out if possible.

“There is so much blood,” she said. “Is this a cut?”

“No,” he said shortly.

“All right. You answer yes or no questions. Is it from an accident?”

It was kind of an accident, but he said, “No.”

“Were you in a fight?”

Technically, it was a fight with a squirrel, but he felt like the accurate answer to that question would be, “No.”

“Wow. You got some jagged marks on here. This looks like a bite. You had an animal biting you.” He cracked an eye to see she studied his hand, where blood still seeped from the biggest wound which was on his wrist.

“This wound is where people cut themselves if they’re trying to commit suicide. But if you used a knife, at least a sharp one, it should have been straight across. This is definitely a bite. You got bitten by an animal?” She spoke as she turned his hand over from side to side, probing a little bit before he heard her bag rustle and then a chair scraping on the floor as she pulled it over, presumably to sit down on.

“Yes.”

“Yeah. Definitely looks like a bite. I hope you don’t mind if I sit down. If you were on a gurney, I could shift it up or down to make it so that I’m not hurting my back while I’m bending over.”

“It’s fine,” he said. He didn’t care if she lay on the floor while she took care of it. He did appreciate her taking care of it though.

“You are going to need a tetanus shot.”

“Okay,” he said.

“I have some at the clinic. You can come in anytime this week before four, okay?”

“Yeah,” he said.

Her hand was gentle as it held his. Then, she set his hand in her lap on what felt like a towel.

He didn’t watch, he couldn’t, but he focused instead on the feeling of her fingers, cool and careful, touching over his sensitive skin.

Her bag rustled again, and he cracked his eyes in time to see her reach into it and set out a few things on the table. She took a swab of cotton and poured some liquid on it.

“This might sting, but it’s an antiseptic that will kill any germs.”

“Good,” he said. He could take the pain, didn’t mind that at all. It was the blood he couldn’t handle.

“I’m going to work kind of quickly, because I really want to get this one big cut stitched up. It’s still seeping, although not gushing, so there’s no danger. It’s just once I get that done, we should be able to get the blood cleaned up, and you should be okay. You... Will you be okay once you can’t see blood anymore?”

“I should be,” he said, thinking back. It had been a while since he’d seen a lot of blood, and usually he was able to handle it and just have a few woozy moments. He didn’t think he’d ever had something that had as much blood as this.

“All right. That’s the plan then. I’ll dress these other wounds once I have the big one sewn up. I am going to give you a shot of novocaine, which will numb the area, but it’s probably going to sting a little. I thought I had some numbing agent in my bag, but I don’t.”

“Fine. I can handle the pain.”

“I know you can, but I don’t want to hurt you any more than what I have to. I feel a little sympathetic for you because you look so miserable right now.”

“I feel miserable,” he said, careful not to start talking too much. He didn’t want her to get the idea that she could start asking him questions.

And indeed, while she filled the syringe and pushed the needle into his hand, she said, “What kind of animal did this to you? Was it a dog?”

“No.” He racked his brain for something he could say. Something to tell her what happened without saying the exact situation. “Some dude was going to kill a squirrel, and I confronted him, and the squirrel attacked us. I...had my hand out front, because I was grabbing his weapon, and the squirrel just latched on. It must have ripped my wrist when I shook it off.” There. He didn’t mention that the weapon was a skillet, and he didn’t mention any names, because as soon as he said Mrs. Rosario’s name, she was going to remember the conversation at dinner.

“Goodness. Seems like there’s a lot of outlaw squirrels running around. First Mrs. Rosario, and now you.”

“Except, I prefer that my incident not get talked about in church,” he said, because there were people who would pick up on that. Plus, he was talking to the person who posted about the Secret Saint and his benevolence. He didn’t want any more of that than necessary, and Mrs. Rosario had promised not to tell anyone. Of course, he didn’t know what her grandson was going to say.

Probably nothing good, which was just fine with Judd.

“I guess I’ll have to start carrying nuts in my pocket, or granola, since that seems to be what squirrels enjoy,” Judd said, hoping to move the conversation along and guide it away from any more details.

“That sounds like a good idea. In your line of work, you probably do run into squirrels. I’ve heard they have a tendency to build nests in houses in places where you don’t want them.”

She seemed like she was talking just to keep up the chatter.

“I do see a lot of squirrels,” he said, to emphasize the fact that this was just another run-of-the-mill thing for him on his job.

“I didn’t know they could be so ferocious,” Terry said as she threaded a curved needle.

He looked away from it and closed his eyes again. Needles didn’t really bother him, but he wasn’t feeling the greatest, and just in case, he thought he would be better safe than sorry.

“You don’t look like the kind of person who would get so woozy over blood. You know?” she said, chuckling to herself a little bit.

“Are you laughing at me?” he said without opening his eyes. He didn’t care, he was just happy they weren’t talking about squirrels and what happened anymore.

“Well, chuckling a little bit. After all, you do look like a tough guy.”

Much to his mother’s dismay. She wanted him to look like a businessman.

But that wasn’t what he wanted. And while he had never been outright rebellious with his parents, he hadn’t allowed them to dictate to him what he had to do.

He did value their advice and insights. And hoped that his children would do the same with him. If he ever had any.

“Does this hurt?” she asked, and he didn’t feel a thing except for a little tug.

He wasn’t sure exactly what she was doing, since he didn’t look, but he said, “No.”

“All right. You’re going to feel a little bit of tugging as I stitch this up. Just let me know if you feel any pinching, which probably means I didn’t get you numbed well enough. I’ll give you some more.”

“Nice. More drugs. That sounds good.”

“No. You are not taking advantage of having a doctor as a tenant. No unnecessary drugs.”

“Wow. She’s strict,” he said, smiling but still keeping his eyes closed. She might have stopped the bleeding, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

It was a few minutes later that she said, “All right. If you can handle looking at a cut that is not bleeding, you can open your eyes. I’m going to finish cleaning the rest of this. None of the other ones are deep enough to need stitches, but I’ll put a Band-Aid over this one and maybe this one here.”

She touched his hand as she spoke, and he opened his eyes enough to see where her fingernail, blunt and carefully clipped short, pointed to two bigger cuts on his hand.

“You just want to be careful that you don’t get these dirty. And you generally don’t want to get them wet. If you don’t have any gloves, I probably have some at the clinic, since Dr. Vivik had pretty big hands and he left all his supplies there. I ordered in small gloves that fit me, and that’s all I have in my bag.”

“I can grab some. First thing tomorrow morning or something like that. It won’t be a big deal.”

“All right. I just didn’t know if you had work to do tonight or not. But just take it easy on that hand. Don’t be using it for anything that you don’t absolutely have to.”

He thought about what he had been planning on doing tonight and decided that maybe he’d better text Wilson and let him know that they were going to have to take a couple days off. He hated that they weren’t going to have all the Christmas decorations up, but if he gave it a few days, maybe they could do it the morning of Thanksgiving.

Of course, texting was going to be a little bit harder, as the bandage that she put on his hand inhibited the movement of his thumb somewhat.

“Normally I would put something on this to keep you from being able to use your hand. If you were a kid, or teenager especially. But I’m going to trust you on this.”

“All right. So I’ll just come see you if the stitches don’t hold?”

She laughed, then said, “That’s probably not very funny. Doctors have lost their practices over people suing for stupid stuff. I didn’t have you sign anything. Please don’t sue me,” she said, still laughing but sounding serious at the same time.

He didn’t know how she did it, but he got her message plain and clear. She was doing her best, and for him to sue her when she was doing him a favor was absolutely ridiculous.

“I understand that some people are like that, but to do me a favor, save me a trip to the ER, or at the very least reduce the chance of infection in my hand. I appreciate it.”

“No problem. Living with a doctor has benefits, so maybe you can knock a little off my rent next month.”

He opened his mouth to tell her that she wasn’t paying any rent, and then he realized that she was joking again.

He must be still more woozy than he thought.

“She makes a joke.”

“Doctors can have a sense of humor too,” she said with a sassy little toss of her head.

She started cleaning up her things, and he tested the bandage to see what he could do with his hand.

It turned out it wasn’t much, without risking having the bandage pull off.

That was just as well, it would remind him to take it easy.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to go lie down,” he said. Mostly because he had been up late the night before and then had gotten up early for church, and he was exhausted. He actually wouldn’t have minded sitting with her for a little bit, but he knew she was looking forward to a big day tomorrow, and while she planned on changing the clinic hours to ten to seven, they still were from 8:30 to 4:30, so she wouldn’t be getting up super early, but early enough. Especially if she was walking to work.

“I don’t mind at all. Stitches are easy,” she said.

“I really do appreciate it,” he said, ignoring the fact that he didn’t appreciate it to begin with. But she had been kind, hadn’t grilled him too much, and had just assumed that since she could, she would.

“Let me know how much I owe you, okay?”

“I told you, you can take it off my rent.”

“I’m serious. I don’t want you to do this without me paying you. These things cost money.” He had no idea how much novocaine cost. He’d never ordered any. Normal people couldn’t get it. There definitely were perks to having a doctor in the house.

“If you let me pay rent, I’ll bill you for the care.”

He had no idea whether he should take her up on that or not. Maybe he should ask her how much it might cost in her practice, but he decided he’d rather go and lie down. Maybe it was the blood or just the combination of no sleep, but he found himself eager to put his feet up.

“Let me give you a hand, at least to your door,” she said as he stood and gripped the table for support.

That time, she put his bandaged arm around her shoulder and put her arm around his waist. He was able to put his hand on the wall to steady himself and didn’t have to lean on her too much.

“If I don’t see you in the morning, I hope you have a good first day in your clinic.” He really did. He wished her the very best. He wished her even more and wished for himself that she would see him as more than just a...landlord? She probably thought of him as a drifter, someone who couldn’t keep a steady job, or something like that. He didn’t even know. And for him, every time he saw her, he had to fight to keep his eyes off her. Or to keep them from landing on her and staying there.

They couldn’t be more different.