My Only - Alex & Jamie (4 page)

He lifted his head and she glanced up. He was smiling a knowing smile, indicating that he hadn’t missed her reaction. In fact, he definitely had a twinkle of his own in his eye, “Alex.”

“Deep breath, Alex,” she instructed, listening carefully to his air exchange. She saw him wince as he inhaled.

“How is your pain on a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst?”

She tried to get back on track. Professional. She was a professional, she reminded herself. She was a nurse. She was here to help him.

“Six,” he answered.

“Okay. This is a PCA.” She lifted the small hand-held mechanism with a button on the top that was connected to his IV of Morphine. “When you need a hit, just press the button.”

“Got it.” He laid his head back as she placed the device close to his right hand. His fingers brushed against hers as she pulled her hand away and a chill danced through her entire body.

What the heck?! She had no idea what was going on with her! Maybe she was even more sex-deprived than she had originally thought.

She took a deep breath to try and steady herself. “I want you to be as comfortable as possible. So if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“That’s a loaded statement,” he said, smiling, as his eyes drifting down her body as he appeared to study every inch of her.

She thought she might be in serious danger of blushing. Blushing! Like a junior high school girl with a crush! She didn’t know how he managed to be charming when those lines, coming out of any other guy’s mouth, would have her rolling her eyes with disgust.

As his eyes traveled back up to her face she noticed that they were beginning to droop, and dark circles had started to appear beneath them. He needed to rest. But first, she was sure there were a few people here that would like to say hi to him.

“Okay, well, my work here is done. I’ll let you visit with your family,” she said as she started to back away to make room for his visitors.

He reached out and grabbed her hand before she had a chance to slip away. The look on his face was pure earnestness as he said, “Jamie.”

She stepped back toward him as she said, “Yes?”

“Can I ask you something now?”

“Yes,” she replied, unable to tear her gaze away from his intoxicating, vivid green eyes.

“Will you marry me?” He asked with a sexy, tempting, half-smile on his face. He barely got the words out before his eyes began drifting shut.

“Yes,” she heard herself reply in a whisper.

“Good,” he said, his smile widening right before his eyes shut completely and he passed out again.

As soon as those mesmerizing eyes were closed, and the spell that they had somehow managed to cast over her was broken, the realization of what she had just said hit her like a Mack truck.

Oh. My. God.

She wanted to die. Well, not
die
...but she definitely wanted to crawl under a rock and live out the rest of her life of complete and total humiliation in peace. Was that too much to ask?

Grace stepped up beside her and patted Alex’s leg. “Thanks for humoring him, sweetie. I once had to tell a patient that I knew where his buried treasure was, and that I would go dig it up for him.”

There were chuckles in the room, and Chelle laughed as she added, “One time we had a woman in labor that was
adamant
we call the police and have her husband arrested for impregnating her and putting her in so much pain. I told her I would, just to calm her down.”

“Are you going to try and get me arrested?” Her husband (Riley, she thought it was) put his arms lovingly around his wife.

“Maybe, so you better be nice to me,” she teased.

“Forever,” he said, staring deeply into her eyes.

“Forever.” She smiled as he bent down and kissed her softly.

Okay, obviously they're having a private moment, Jamie thought to herself. She stepped back into her corner as the crowd began dispersing. Now that Alex had woken up, even for a moment, some of his visitors decided to head home.

She took the chance, while everyone was distracted saying their goodbyes, to try and catch her breath from what had just happened. She knew it wasn’t a real proposal. Alex had not just really proposed to her. But...still. She couldn’t shake the feeling that had washed over her when he had said those four little words - will you marry me. And she couldn’t, for the life of her, begin to understand why she had said, YES!

She appreciated the fact that Grace had bailed her out of her rather embarrassing faux-pas, but the truth of the matter was, she hadn’t been ‘humoring the patient.’ Nope, she had really been completely swept up in his eyes, his mouth, his chest, and the way he was looking at her and she had said...yes!

She needed to get control over whatever was going on with her, and quick. Alex needed her to be professional and on top of her game. Not love-sick and delusional.

Oh, Lord! It was going to be a long night.

--- ~ ---

Alex felt himself being pulled out of a deep peaceful sleep. He tried to resist it, attempting to stay suspended in the blissful state of slumber, but he wasn’t able to block out the persistent sound of his name being called.

“Alex, Alex.”

Hmmm, he may not want to wake up, but he couldn’t complain about the melodic sound of the voice disturbing his restful zzz’s …

“I need you to wake up.”

…it was gentle, soulful. It soothed him. He loved it. He could listen to it forever.

“Alex, can you open your eyes for a minute?”

He heaved a heavy sigh of surrender, giving up the fight to remain asleep. He knew that he would do anything that sweet, angelic voice asked him to do.

After his eyes opened, it took a moment before everything around him came into focus. When it did, he could barely believe what he was seeing. Standing beside him was the most
gorgeous
creature he had ever laid eyes on.

Wait a minute. Did he know her?

He did. Right? She looked so familiar.

“Hello, Alex,” she said as she leaned closer to him.

This insanely sexy vision knew his name. Nice!

It really felt like he knew hers too. He tried to remember. It was on the tip of his tongue. The information was somewhere in his brain, he just didn’t know how to access it. Wait, it was…he could almost say it…it was…almost. If he could just think of her name, then he could…

She leaned across him to adjust the flattened pillow behind his head, fluffing it for his comfort. As she stood back upright, her gaze was laser focused on him. Although his eyes were still too fuzzy to clearly make out the details of her stare, the undivided attention still caused the oddest sensation of happiness and pure unadulterated joy to bubble up inside of him.

Screw it, he was going for it. Names were overrated anyways, he decided. “Hello, beautiful.”

He felt his arm lift so he turned his head to find out why. He saw that his new sexy friend was putting a blood pressure cuff around it.

“Do you know where you are?” she asked.

Yes, of course he did. Hold on. Did he?

After checking again to confirm that his arm was currently wrapped in a blue cuff he looked down and saw that he was lying in a bed. From the looks of it, he was sporting a cast on his left arm. Hmm, Strange. Continuing his investigation, he noticed that he appeared to be wearing a hospital gown, and a light blue blanket was draped over his body.

Aha, got it!

“In the hospital,” he said proudly.

He looked back at the angelic creature as she moved the stethoscope under the fabric of the cuff.

The corners of her mouth lifted slightly, “Do you know what month it is?”

Yes. Or…oh, man. He should know this. Right?

Nope. Nothing. He was drawing a blank. This one might actually stump him.

Not one to give into defeat easily, his eyes scanned the room for more clues, like the gown and blanket that had tipped him off to his current location. No calendars jumped out at him, but he did see that his brothers and their wives were all there, gathered around his bed. They were all either standing or sitting, and all just staring at him.

That’s weird, he thought. What were they doing here? They looked blurry. This didn’t seem real. Was it possible he was just dreaming all of this?

“Hey, guys.” He figured he might as well say hello, just in case they were, in fact, all really in the room. “Fancy meeting you here.”

This caused all of their fuzzy faces to scrunch up several degrees more than they already appeared to be. They all nodded awkwardly in unison with varying degrees of worry etched on them.

Man, tough crowd.

“Alex, do you know what month it is?” The beauty beside him removed the cuff and placed the stethoscope on his chest. He could feel her fingertips as she pressed the base of the listening device against him.

That felt nice. He liked the feeling of her touching him.

As she bent at her waist and leaned closer, listening carefully to his heart beating, a clean-fresh-citrus smell wafted through the air.

Hmmm, she smelled like summer. He loved summer.

“You smell pretty,” he heard himself say, his voice sounding a little raspy.

“Thank you. Do you know what month it is?”she asked again. Her tone remained steady but he did see a slight blush creep up her cheeks.

Damn, she was cute. “Maybe.”

“Alex, what month is it?” She returned to an upright position and had far too serious an expression on her pretty face.

She really wasn’t going to let this go. Okay. He glanced around the room to see if any of his family would help him out with an assist.

They all just stared. Nope. No help at all.

Well, fine. He could figure it out all by himself. Come on, he had to know what month it was. But, somehow…he didn’t. He did however notice, in his SOS scan, that Chelle looked very pregnant. That visual reminded of something he thought he remembered her saying, that “she had a turkey in the oven”… because she was due in November…on Thanksgiving.

He heard himself laughed out loud. Chelle is funny, he thought to himself.

His brothers and sisters-in-law all stared at him strangely.

“Well, she is!” he snapped at them.

The expressions on the faces of his siblings and their significant others grew even more concerned.

He didn’t understand why they were acting like this. Why did they seem so worried?

“Alex?”

He turned his head towards the sound of his name and saw the super-hot-hottie beside him. Damn, she was the epitome of every fantasy he had ever had. She was his living, breathing
dream girl.

“What month is it?”

Oh yeah, the month. “Well, if Chellie Bellie still has her turkey in the oven then…October?”

She smiled as amusement lit up her eyes, “Good guess.”

God, she was so beautiful.

She leaned down and he thought for a moment that she was going to kiss him. Score! But then a bright light suddenly flashed in his eye. Well, that was unpleasant! Then it happened again, another flash, right in his eyes. He tried to shut them but something was forcing them open. Weird…

When the light was gone,
she
was still there in front of him, but now she was holding up one finger.

“Can you follow my finger with your eyes?” she asked as she moved it from side to side.

He tried his best to do as she asked but
dang
, her finger was moving pretty fast.

“Good.” She straightened and he immediately missed her closeness. He wanted her to come back.

“How about your pain? On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worst.”

She was adorable. She sounded all…medical, when she said things like that. She was too cute.

“Are we playing doctor?” he asked, trying to figure out what was going on. Because if that was the case he would really like to start participating. He would love to give her a thorough exam.

He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her hand again. He began slowly rubbing his thumb across her wrist. He felt her pulse beating rapidly beneath the pad of his finger.

“No, we aren’t. This is real. You are in the hospital. You have sustained several injuries that need to be monitored. I’m your nurse, Jamie.” Her voice sounded a little shaky as she slowly pulled her hand away and pointed to her nametag.

“Hi, my nurse Jamie,” he heard himself say, wishing he was still caressing her smooth skin.

She repeated her question as she held up the thing-ama-bobber that had the button he liked to push ‘cause it made him feel a whole lot better when he did!

“How is your pain on a scale of one to ten?”

He really wanted to answer her, but his mind felt like it was hovering above him. He wished he could grab it and pull it back down into his head. He needed to think straight. He needed to bring his ‘A’ game with her.