Wanted by the Alphas(20)
“Maybe this will make it better,” she says.
“I doubt it. I’ve been coming here for years, and I’ve even gone to hospitals upstate, but nothing ever makes it better.”
Shannon strokes the girl’s fingers and knuckles gently, noting how knobby they are. Then she channels what has always been within her – the healing power which has been the crux and bane of her entire life. It’s subtle, and she sends a spool of it into the girl’s curled hand.
Martha almost withdraws her hand in shock.
“It tingles,” she says in wonder. “What did you do?”
“It’s just my special massage. I have more static electricity in my body than most people. Don’t worry, you’ll feel better after a while.”
Static electricity is one way of calling it, she supposes, though most people would have viewed her natural gifts as anything but science.
Martha stills her hand, her eyes growing rounder and wider as Shannon continues to massage her fingers and send healing impulses into them.
“I can’t believe, but the pain is gone,” she says.
More than that will be gone by tomorrow, Shannon thinks. The joints and bones will need some time to remodel and knit, but she has started the process and it is irreversible. She dare not send too much power into Martha for fear of being flagged. But she sends just enough so that Martha’s recovery can be attributed to pharmaceutical science.
“Let me have your other hand,” she instructs.
She is so focused on what she is doing that she fails to register the presence beside them.
A throat clears and a deep voice says: “Peggy out there tells me you’re looking for me?”
Shannon looks up.
Standing next to them is a gorgeous young man of about twenty-eight or twenty-nine. His long dark hair has been swept back and tied in a ponytail, and he wears the green scrubs of a surgeon. His eyes are a startling sea-green, and his features are so exquisite as to be almost pretty. But he carries himself in a very masculine way, with his hands tucked into his pants pockets and with his feet apart.
His beauty is so stunning that it immediately hits her like a blow.
“You’re Dr. Fitzpatrick?” she says.
“Last time I checked.” His sharp eyes observe Martha’s hands. “Making friends? My sister tells me you’re new in this town.”
Shannon is a little flustered in the presence of the man’s overpowering presence. She stands up and holds out her hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Kirk Fitzpatrick shakes it. His touch sends a delicious thrill coursing up her arm.
What’s happening to her? Yesterday, she just had hot sex with a very hot man who made her feel like no one ever did before. And today, she meets another hot man who does exactly the same to her, only in a different way. And this new man might just be her boss!
Are her hormones in ascendency or something?
“How are you, Martha?” Kirk says in a kind voice. “Been waiting long?”
“Um, great . . . I think, Dr. Fitzpatrick.” Martha is still looking at her hands, which appear exactly the same. Only she seems to have more mobility in the joints now. She flexes her fingers in increasing wonder. Shannon reckons that to be completely uninterested in Kirk, either Martha has to be a lesbian or her joints have just been transmogrified in a manner unbeknownst to her previously.
She has to hide a smile.
“I’ll see you later in my clinic, OK? Just let me interview this young lady first.” Kirk gestures to Shannon. “Shall we?”
He turns to go into his clinic, and Shannon gathers up her tote bag to follow, with a parting, “See you soon” to Martha.
Martha looks up, her eyes shining.
“Dr. Fitzpatrick?” she says in a loud voice.
Kirk turns. “Uh huh?”
“Whatever you do, don’t let this woman get away. You have to hire her! Please!”
Shannon flushes as Kirk nods and smiles at Martha.
“I’ll think about that.”
He opens his clinic door.
“After you,” he says to Shannon.
She enters, butterflies of a different sort fluttering in her stomach. She wonders what fate has in store for her now.
*
The clinic is neat, with all the medical instruments put away nicely on the shelves and trolleys lined with green cloth. Kirk seats himself behind his desk while Shannon takes one of the chairs across from him. A skeleton hangs from a hook in a corner, and she has to wonder if it’s real. Glossy posters of bones and joints are plastered onto the bare parts of the walls, and a tendon hammer sits on the desk like a phallic symbol.
She notes his personal mementoes on the shelves behind him – photos of his voluminous family, she presumes. She recognizes Ellie. One of the photos shows a family of seven siblings who resemble one another in some ways and not in others. There are five women and two men altogether. Kirk has the same eyes as his older brother, but he is handsomer by far and more prepossessing.