Christy Jeffries - A Proposal For The Officer

Wait. How did this guy know what she’d talked about with the store employee? “Have you been following me?”

“No. I was sitting at that wrought iron table in the back of the store, trying to answer some work emails, but a bunch of clanging drew my attention to the display of soup cans at the end of an aisle. You were stocking up on the minestrone as though a blizzard had just been predicted.” He tapped something on his watch and showed her the sunshine icon on the tiny display screen. “It hasn’t, by the way. But then I saw you again when you were slouching against your shopping cart in the freezer section where you almost took out a display of ice-cream cones. Are you going to be sick or something?”

She didn’t feel any less confused after that description of her sluggish attempts to make her way through the store. Or dizzy. “I don’t think so.”

“Come on,” he said, and moved his hand to the small of her back. “There’s a bench right outside and you can sit down.”

“I need my purse,” she said. You also needed to use the restroom, her bladder said.

“Where is it?” he asked.

The guy looked familiar, but his non-military-regulation hairstyle eliminated him as someone she’d served with. Molly had only been in Sugar Falls a few hours, yet her gut told her this man wasn’t a local, either. Of course, she’d also been pretty convinced that anything with fruit in it was healthy so perhaps she shouldn’t be so quick to listen to her instincts.

Who are you? she wanted to know. But she didn’t exactly have time for formal introductions. Instead, she replied, “Back by the bottled water.”

“Okay, stay here,” he ordered as he sprinted away. Yeah, right. Molly wasn’t about to stand around and wait. She weaved toward the parking lot, her only plan to get to the safe privacy of her rental car.

Her feet had barely hit the pavement when the Good Samaritan jogged up beside her, her very feminine tote bag swinging from his very masculine shoulder. “Should I call someone?”

“No,” Molly said, her eyelids widening in frustration despite the fact that she wanted to close them and take a nap. “I don’t want anyone to know.”

“To know what?”

She clamped her teeth together, wishing she would’ve done so sooner to keep those telling words from slipping out.

“Never mind.” She pulled the key fob out of her pocket. “The little white Toyota over there is mine.”

“I seriously doubt you should be driving right now.”

“I’ve got it,” she ground out, despite the fact that she was practically leaning against him as he steered her toward the passenger side of her rental car. She collapsed down on the seat as soon as he got the door open, then she began digging in her purse.

Another wave of nausea tumbled through her as she unzipped a small black case. Ignoring the man’s raised brows, she turned on the little machine, inserted a fresh test strip and pricked her finger. It took all of her focus to press the droplet of blood to the litmus paper. There was a series of beeps before the dinging alarm signaled that her glucose level was way too high. Stupid smoothie. And muffin. She should’ve known better. And she would have, if she hadn’t been so starving after dropping her nephew off at baseball practice. She’d thought she’d been so smart, swinging by the market to pick up real groceries instead of grabbing a Snickers at the Little League snack bar while she waited.

It seemed to take hours for her to dial the correct dose on her insulin pen.

“What are you doing?” The panic in his voice probably matched the horror in his eyes. But Molly didn’t have the energy to explain. She pulled up the hem of her shirt, not caring that she was exposing herself to the poor man. She could administer the shot in her arms or thighs, but the doctor said it would get into her system a lot quicker if she injected it into her stomach. She didn’t even feel the sting of the needle and could only hope she’d landed it into the right spot before depressing the plunger.

“Lady, I really think we need to call an ambulance,” he said, his once-calm voice now sounding about as shaky as her nerve endings felt.

“I’ll be good as new in a second.” She made a circle with her finger and her thumb in the universal signal for A-OK. “The insulin will help even everything out.”

He kneeled on the pavement next to her, and she heard the hearty exhale of breath leaving his mouth. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”

“I’m feeling better already.” And it was true. She was. But Molly knew from the last time her blood sugar had spiked like this, it would take a little while to return to normal. She looked at the pulse jumping inside his neck and felt a wave of guilt wash over her. If this was how a complete stranger reacted to her hyperglycemia attack, how would her sister react? Or the rest of her family?

“Sorry for scaring you,” she added, more resolved than ever to keep her recent diagnosis a secret. “I would’ve been fine on my own.”

“You sure didn’t look fine.” His head slumped back against the open car door behind him, then he scrubbed a hand over his lower face. A handsome face actually. The trendy glasses made him look scholarly, but the square jawline made him look determined. Like he wasn’t willing to leave her alone until he knew all the answers. “Does that happen often?”

Molly wished she knew. It wasn’t like the time she got chicken pox, the itchy red scabs on her torso a constant reminder that she was sick. Curbing her sugar intake was tough enough, but remembering to stay on top of her glucose levels was even trickier since most of the time she felt perfectly fine. As a pilot, Molly had to be “combat ready” at all times. Sometimes she was on duty for twenty-four to forty-eight hours straight, which meant there was no way to ensure that she could eat on a certain schedule to maintain her insulin coverage. The military wasn’t going risk both a multi-million-dollar plane and the flight crew because the pilot had hypoglycemia. Everything was still so unpredictable when it came to the disease she’d officially been diagnosed with over a month ago. According to the specialists, that unpredictability meant she could no longer do the only thing she loved.

She drew in a ragged breath and shrugged. “I’m still new to the wonderful world of diabetes.”

“Wait. Why would you eat that much sugar if you’re diabetic?” His expression looked the same as if he’d just asked, Why in the world would you pull the pin out of that perfectly good grenade?

“Because the guy behind the counter said it was healthy.”

“And you take nutritional advice from a kid who isn’t even old enough to shave?”

Kid! The realization made her scalp tingle and she felt her eyelids stretching wide-open. She was officially the worst babysitter in the world.

“I need to get to the ballpark. Now.”

“Lady, you’re in no shape to be driving right now, let alone playing ball.” Kaleb Chatterson adjusted his glasses while slipping the car key he still held into the front pocket of his hoodie. Normally, he had an army of assistants and interns he could’ve sent to the local grocery store to pick up the ingredients for his dad’s margaritas. But he’d needed a break from his parents’ nosy questions about his social life and his brothers’ incessant teasing about the lack of one.

Coming to the aid of some strange woman in the middle of a medical crisis wasn’t exactly what he’d anticipated when he’d volunteered for the errand.

“I’m not the one playing.” She rolled her eyes, which were a deep shade of blue. “My nephew is. I’m supposed to pick him up from baseball practice at 1630.”