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Where the heavy ers, the skin was split in a deep gash Ah the ers The cuts on his ring finger and pinky didn’t appear to have reached the bone

She turned to Tracy “Set up two suture trays I’ to ask Dr Stanley to help with the two deeper wounds as they’re more extensive”

Although her eyes widened, Tracy just nodded and went about setting up the trays

A to do to her patient then left the bay to find Cole Technically, he should have left the o Instead, as he’d done each day since arriving, he’d hung around

Now he stood across the sick ward, talking to Richard, Peyton, as the ship’s nurse anesthetist, and the physician assistant As if sensing Arinned Why did her heart light up at his s smoothly in herin his company, didn’t even want him there

But she’d been crazy about him once upon a time

Crazy about him in the worst kind of way because she had liked hi in his company, had wanted to spend as much tih, look at life in Technicolor

She’d denied just how much the way he affected her had meant, had denied she’d caredrehearsal, she’d quit denying And look how that had ended up—two Stockton hearts broken in one night What a fool she’d been

Even now, looking at him, unable to suppress the quivers low in her belly, she wondered if she was just as much a fool

“I need your help,” she said, shoving aside her self-preservation instincts

I to “I’m yours All you have to do is ask”

She so wasn’t touching his coination toyed with the double entendre Had he intentionally sent her thoughts into a ind?

“I have a hand injury that’s going to require ers Sensation is decreased There’s a hairline fracture in the index finger, but no other breaks I was hoping you’d have a look The index and ”

“Sure” Cole followed her into the bay While he washed his hands, he introduced himself to the injured corpsman He exaht about the first two fingers I’ll suture them”

She could do theue But this wasn’t about what she could and could not do This was about proving to her crew that she wouldn’t compromise them or their patients, that she could set aside her personal feelings because she was a professional, a Stockton