“You did the right thing Angie. Jeff will be here soon and he’ll see to George,” said Luc.
“Okay. Why didn’t George shift back to human form?” asked Angie.
“He probably hurts too much. It sort of makes our brains forget thinking logically,” he said.
The wolf whimpered as Luc said this. Angie patted the wolf on the head and murmured to him.
“I’m going to see if Jeff is here,” said Luc. He was loath to take pressure off the injury, but he knew that Jeff would have trouble finding the staircase. “I’ll be right back,” he said as he headed up the stairs.
Luc got to the front door just as Jeff pulled in next to his car. Jeff grabbed his medical bag and headed for the front door. “Where’s George?” Jeff asked.
“Follow me. He’s lost a lot of blood,” said Luc.
“Damn. I was afraid of that when Meg said it was pulsing,” said Jeff.
“Yeah. He’s on the floor down here,” said Luc and let Jeff go ahead of him down the stairs. Meg and Martha followed them down the stairs.
“George, This is Jeff. No Biting!” said Jeff as he knelt next to the huge wolf. “Angie, let me know if it feels like he’s trying to lift his head.”
“Oh, Okay,” said Angie not totally understanding why she’d been asked that.
“If he lifts his head, he might be trying to bite Jeff,” said Luc when he saw the puzzled look on her face.
Angie nodded. She wrapped her arms around the wolf’s head gently. She’d be able to tell if he so much as twitched a muscle.
Jeff smiled at her and then looked to the wolf. The towel was soaked and a puddle was forming on the blanket. He cut the bandage and looked at the wound. He counted the pulse under his fingertips and the blood seeping from the wound. “Damn!” he thought.
“Martha, hold this to the wound,” he said handing her a corner of the towel. Martha took it and pressed against the wound. This freed Jeff up and he grabbed a needle and a bottle out of his case. Filling the syringe, he grabbed the fur around the scruff of the wolf’s neck. He injected the fluid into the wolf and then started to get equipment out of his bag.
“Jeff, what’s going on?” asked Luc.
“He has a puncture. I don’t have time to get him to my clinic. I’ve got to act now,” he said. He checked the wolf’s pulse again and then began to cut fur from around the wound. He sliced open the wound area and reached in to where the bleeding was emanating. Whatever had punctured George was small. However, it had nicked muscle and a bit of the diaphragm. Jeff opened the wound a bit more and then reached for his suture kit.
Ten minutes later, Jeff was sewing up the last layers of skin. He’d sewn up the damage and was now ready to bandage the wound. Martha handed him things without a single clue that Luc could figure out. Jeff started to wrap bandages around the wolf and realized it was impossible. He stuck medical tape to the fur and skin the best he could. After one last injection, he stood up.
“Damn, what the hell did he do?” Jeff asked.
“He shifted and fell through the floor,” said Angie. “He was really wobbly and that’s when I found he was bleeding. I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t.”
Jeff nodded and went to look at the mess where George landed. After a moment, he found a long nail covered in blood. “This is what got him,” Jeff said. “At least it wasn’t a splinter. Metal is a far cleaner wound. It nicked muscle and his diaphragm. Good thing he’s so damned big. If it had been anyone smaller, we’d have punctured a lung.”
“Jeff, will we have to move him?” asked Luc.
“No way we can. If he shifts, he’ll rip open the wound. He will break the stairs in this form. Just look what he did to the floor. You must have some sort of rot or termite infestation there. My guess would be water damage though. He was just too damn big for your floor. He’s going to have to stay in your basement for a few days if you don’t mind Angie,” said Jeff.
“Oh, I don’t mind. I’ve got plenty of blankets. Just let me know what to do,” Angie said.
“I’ll leave you a list, and Jeff will have things to add to it I’m sure,” said Martha.
Angie nodded. She looked around and was trying to decide where to start. Then something crossed her mind. “We must not call Ginny. If she finds out, she’ll be back here so fast that Patrick won’t even have time to blink,” she said. “Oh, and the kids. They mustn’t know either. They’d spill the beans in a second,” Angie added.
“She’s right,” said Meg. “We have to get things organized as to why George isn’t home tonight. Have to do it fast and get the word to Ysabel.”
“Easy enough done. Just tell Ysabel that George is spending the night at Angie’s.” said Luc. “It won’t be a lie, and she’ll just assume that George is having a grand time. I’ll get Cal and Peter to go over and help with the construction work on the house. We’ll get them to fix your floor too. We can all just keep up the illusion that George and Angie are having a lovely time,” he finished.
“Um,” started Angie.
“Don’t worry Angie. No one will know a thing until we tell them. If they get too nosy, we tell them the truth. This is George we’re talking about and we can explain the deception,” said Jeff. “I know this isn’t how you wanted the evening to end, but it will give you two more time to decide how you really feel about each other.”
“But what is George going to think of this?” asked Angie. She was torn between being worried and upset and it showed on her face.
“Angie, from the way he was cuddled up with you even though he was injured, he likes you a lot more than you may be giving him credit for,” said Martha.