Shaken to the Core by Jae

you. That’ll teach me not to make assumptions.”
    “No offense taken,” the doctor answered. “It’s not the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last.” Frustration colored her tone, but she radiated determination.
    Kate knew exactly how Dr. Sharpe was feeling. A silent understanding passed between them. For the first time in her life, Kate felt as if she had met a kindred spirit, someone who was like her, fitting in only on the surface, but deep down very different from all the other young women.
    “So,” Dr. Sharpe said after the handshake ended, “let’s see to our patient.”
    Kate stepped aside, revealing Giuliana behind her.
    The doctor froze in midstep. Her eyes widened. “Miss Russo! I didn’t expect you back here so soon.”
    Giuliana gave her a small smile. “Good evening, Dr. Sharpe.”
    Frowning, Kate looked back and forth between them. “The two of you know each other?”
    They nodded, but neither revealed how they had met.
    “How have you been doing?” the doctor asked.
    She looked at Giuliana with a gentleness that started a strange, unsettling feeling deep in Kate’s gut. She had wanted a caring doctor for Giuliana, so now that she had one, why was it disturbing her?
    “I do all right,” Giuliana answered. “But I hurt my leg.”
    “Let’s get you into a private room so I can take a look without everyone watching.”
    At that moment, the door crashed open and two orderlies rushed in a woman on a gurney. Blood ran down her face and stained her elegant dress. “She’s been hit by a cable car,” one of the orderlies shouted.
    A doctor in a three-piece suit rushed in from somewhere, followed by a man Kate knew from her unsuccessful attempts to become friends with San Francisco’s newspaper people. He was a reporter from the Examiner . A minute ago, he had probably been playing cards with the physician. No photographer seemed to be around, though—except for Kate. This was her chance!
    But Dr. Sharpe had taken a hold of Giuliana’s other side and started to lead her away.
    Kate’s gaze darted back and forth between Giuliana and the patient on the gurney. When Giuliana turned her head to see why she was staying behind, Kate took a step forward. Photographing a bleeding woman who might be on the brink of death and couldn’t consent to having her picture taken wasn’t right anyway. She’d go to the cable car barn afterward and take a photograph of any damage the vehicle in question might have sustained.
    With one last glance back at the woman and the doctor bending over her, she rushed after Giuliana and Dr. Sharpe.
    They got Giuliana settled on a bed.
    Dr. Sharpe washed her hands in an enamel washbowl and dried them thoroughly. “Would you mind taking your stocking off?” she said over her shoulder. She didn’t turn to look at her patient while Giuliana followed the order and reached beneath her skirt to roll down her stocking.
    Did she experience the same forbidden rush of feelings that Kate did when looking at another woman’s bare skin? Kate shook her head at herself. Surely not. As a doctor, Lucy Sharpe saw half-dressed women every day. For her, it was probably a very ordinary thing that didn’t make her heart race.
    Too bad Kate didn’t share that sentiment. She shuffled her feet while she lingered next to the bed, trying hard to keep her gaze elsewhere until Giuliana had pulled the dress back down.
    The doctor rubbed her hands together as if to warm them…or maybe because she was nervous after all. “Let’s see.” She stepped up to the bed and bent over Giuliana’s foot. “How did this happen?”
    “I fell down a chair,” Giuliana said, her cheeks reddening.
    Dr. Sharpe chuckled. “You fell off a chair? What were you doing up there? Replacing a lightbulb?”
    “Oh, no, I do not touch them. I dusted.”
    “Have you hurt your ankle before?” Dr. Sharpe asked while she manipulated the injured appendage, gently moving it in various