Inappropriate - Vi Keeland Page 0,88
to speak to your sister.”
My eyes narrowed. “Why? What’s wrong?”
The nurse frowned and looked over at Ireland. “Nothing is wrong. It’s just our policy to have visitors wait in the waiting room during an examination.”
Ireland smiled. “I’ll be fine, Grant.” She looked at the nurse. “Can he come back in after the doctor is done?”
The nurse nodded. “Sure.”
I leaned down and kissed Ireland’s forehead. “I’ll be back soon.”
Then, begrudgingly, I went back to the waiting room.
Sitting down, I leaned back in the chair and scrubbed my hands over my face. Why didn’t I insist that she not drive from the damn restaurant? This was all my fault. I don’t know what I would’ve done if anything had happened to her. My insides twisted at that thought. Ireland didn’t know what she meant to me. Hell, I’m not sure I even knew before tonight. But now that she was okay, I was going to make damn sure to show her from now on. I knew all too well that sometimes life changes in the blink of an eye.
Chapter 32
* * *
Ireland
Dr. Rupert, the emergency room doctor treating me, looked like Penn from the magician duo Penn and Teller. At least I thought it was Penn—I could never remember which was which. In any case, Dr. Rupert bore an uncanny resemblance to the shorter, older one. Since I was pretty sure he was in his late seventies, I figured it wouldn’t insult him to mention it.
“Has anyone ever told you that you look like someone famous?”
He smiled, reached into his lab coat sleeve, and pulled out a bouquet of plastic flowers. “Does this answer your question?”
I laughed. “I guess so.”
He tucked the flowers headfirst into his lab coat pocket. “No relation, but patients are disappointed when I tell them that. So I find it’s at least a consolation prize to perform a trick.”
Dr. Rupert picked up the chart hanging from the foot of my bed and flipped through some pages. As he started to speak, the closed curtain opened and another doctor came in, drawing the curtain behind him.
“Good timing. This is Dr. Torres. He’s an orthopedic specialist.”
“Hello,” I said.
“Normally we don’t call in ortho for a consultation until after x-rays, but I wanted to have him examine you now, so we can give you all of your options.”
“Okay…”
Dr. Rupert pulled up a chair and sat down next to me. He had an old school way about him that doctors didn’t have much anymore. Reaching out, he touched my arm.
“The reason we wanted to do an ortho consult before the x-ray is because we found something in your bloodwork.”
I sat up in bed. Oh, God. The first thing that came to my mind was cancer. Some blood cell count must’ve been elevated, and now they don’t want to radiate me unnecessarily. My heart started to palpitate. “What? What’s wrong with my blood work?”
Dr. Rupert squeezed my hand and smiled. “Nothing. You’re pregnant, Ms. Saint James.”
I blinked a few times. “What?”
He nodded. “I had a feeling the news might come as a shock to you. I noticed on the intake sheet that you said your last period was a month ago, and you answered the Is there any possibility you might be pregnant question no.
“I can’t be. Are you sure?”
He nodded. “A blood test can pick up hCG as early as six to eight days after ovulation. Urine tests generally can take a bit longer.”
Panic set in. “I can’t be. It has to be wrong.”
Dr. Rupert’s smile fell. “Are you saying it’s not physically possible for you to be pregnant? There are rare cases of false positives in blood work, such as when you’re taking certain medication for seizures.” His brows drew together. “Are you on any medications? I didn’t see any listed.”
I shook my head rapidly.
“So it is physically possible you are pregnant? Meaning you’ve been with a man in the last month or so?”
I lifted my hand to my throat, which suddenly felt tighter. “Yes. But we used protection. And I’m on the pill.”
“Did you miss any of your pills?”
“No. Definitely not. And I take them at the same time every day.”
“Were you on any antibiotics or sick at any time?”
I shook my head.
Dr. Rupert sighed. “Well, it is only 99.7-percent effective, even under the best of circumstances.”
“But we used a condom, too!”
“Well, that obviously makes the odds even smaller that a pregnancy would occur. Sometimes there are just stubborn swimmers.” Dr. Rupert patted my arm. “Would you like us to