vitals, haven't you? Or have you just been standing there watching me sleep?"
Again, my cheeks feel warm.
He crooks a finger. "Come on, I won't bite. Not unless you want me to."
I ignore the prickling sensation in my cheeks, draw a deep breath and step forward.
"Mr. Montgomery, please stop flirting," I tell him as I pull my stethoscope off my neck.
"Maybe not even then," he goes on as if he hasn't heard me. "I can't really do anything while I'm confined to this bed and hooked to all this stuff. I'm helpless."
"Somehow, I find that hard to believe."
I pull his blanket down and slip the bell of my stethoscope beneath the partition of his gown. It rests on a firm pectoral.
"You can take off my shirt if you want," Dustin says.
"This is fine." I place the eartips of my instrument in my ears. "Now, if you could be quiet for a few seconds, I really need to listen to your heart."
"Sure. In fact, you can listen to my heart all day."
I focus on the sound of his heartbeat. Steady. Good.
I take off my stethoscope.
"Well, what did it say?" Dustin asks.
"It says you're good to go for your surgery. An appendectomy, right?"
He laughs.
My eyebrows rise. "I'm sorry, Mr. Montgomery. Is there anything funny?"
"The fact that I've been healthy as a horse all my life, that I've been skydiving and bungee jumping and kite surfing and yet I've never had a broken bone, nothing more than a scratch here, a bruise there."
I look at the strip of paler skin on his arm just below where he has this tattoo of a horseshoe wrapped in some thorny vine. "This seems like more than a scratch or a bruise."
He lifts his arm to look at it, too. "It's nothing. Just a cut I got when I was climbing this rock. Got five stitches."
I nod.
"Anyway, I've never had any serious injuries, then one day, while I'm simply lying in bed, watching a movie, my appendix acts up and here I am."
"Well, the human body is a mystery," I tell him.
"I know that." He lifts his hand to touch my cheek. "And I know that yours is..." his gaze travels over me, "one I'd like to investigate and unravel."
I take his hand off me and step back.
"Mr. Montgomery - !"
"You're very pretty. Do you know that, Dr....?"
"Carver," I supply. "And I'm not. That's just the morphine talking."
"You're not?" He looks puzzled. "What? Hasn't your boyfriend said otherwise? If not, you should dump him."
Come to think of it, in all our three years together, Liam never did pay me such a compliment. He'd say my clothes were nice, clothes he helped me pick, or he'd say the pimple on my cheek was almost gone, but that's it. I guess I was right to dump him.
"I have," I answer. "But I still don't believe you."
"Because your nose is a little small? Or you have that tiny gap between your front teeth? I think they're both cute."
Instinctively, I purse my lips. "Because you're high on morphine."
"A doctor with low self-esteem? Isn't that dangerous? Shouldn't you have complete faith in yourself?"
"I have complete faith in my skills as a doctor," I affirm.
"And what about your other skills? Like your skills in bed? Shouldn't doctors have that - bedroom skills?"
"You mean bedside manner."
"Same thing."
"No." I shake my head. "And you, Mr. Montgomery, should be resting, so I'll be leaving."
"Don't leave." He grabs my arm and looks into my eyes. "Don't leave just because I scare you."
I grin. "Mr. Montgomery, you don't scare me. You're a patient."
He grins wider. "A very handsome patient."
"Who's high on morphine and starting to get annoying," I add.
His grip on me tightens. "Marry me."
My eyes grow wide. "What?"
"Marry me, Dr. Carver," he repeats.
My mouth gapes. I pull my arm away. "Mr. Montgomery, may I remind you again that - "
"Why? You think I don't want to marry you? You're pretty. You're smart. But you don't like to brag about any of that, which means you're a good person."
I roll my eyes. Unfortunately, the sweetest praises in the world mean squat coming from someone on drugs who's going to forget all this later.
"You're also not very confident, and I'd like to know why. I'd like to make you less shy. I can teach you things you never learned in med school. Plus I feel like we get along. And did I say you're pretty?"