Truda hated leaving Jamie alone with Braxton Crandall. She’d seen the look on his face. A mixture of jealousy and despair. But her wrist needed tending. She fervently hoped it was merely sprained instead of fractured, the way Nurse Freeman thought. Painful either way, but at least then this nice nurse might be able to treat her without bothering Jackson.
Not that she wouldn’t like to see Jackson. She would, but not in her current disarray after riding down a mountain, through a river, and back up another mountain. She smoothed down her hair with her uninjured hand and plucked out a twig. She did know how to mess things up. Now instead of going to dinner with him in her nicest outfit after curling her hair, she was going to look a wreck.
“We’ll get an x-ray before Dr. Jack gets here.” When Truda flinched at the mention of Jackson, the nurse assumed she was concerned about the x-ray. “Don’t worry. X-rays don’t hurt.”
“I know. I just hate for you to have to call the doctor in this late,” Truda said.
“Dr. Jack is used to coming in when we have an emergency.”
“Is this an emergency?”
“Outcomes are better when injuries are treated as soon as possible.” The nurse unwrapped Truda’s arm. “I’ll try to be gentle, but this might hurt a little.”
Truda bit her lip to keep from crying out as the nurse positioned her arm on the machine.
“Don’t move.” The nurse adjusted some dials and hit something that made a light flash. She moved Truda’s arm a little and did it again. “These take a while to develop, so let’s get you settled in an examining room.”
Truda wished she could just disappear back to Louisville for a few weeks and then make a return trip to Hyden. Maybe she should have asked Braxton Crandall to drive her there in his roadster. That would have solved two problems. Her having to let Jackson see her in such a shambles and Braxton being in Leslie County to convince Piper marriage to him was the only sensible course of action.
Dear Jamie didn’t have many prospects. Much like Jackson when she met him years ago. But Jackson had made his way. In time, Jamie would do the same, but first he might have some bumpy years.
Perhaps Erwin was right to push Piper toward Braxton. He seemed a nice enough young man. She felt a pang for Jamie with the thought. But it wasn’t her decision. Nor Erwin’s, although he thought it should be. Piper had a good head on her shoulders. She’d do the right thing. That thought made Truda feel even worse. The right thing, the sensible thing might not be, probably would not be, to follow her heart. Just as the sensible thing for Truda to do would be to find a ride to Hazard and buy a train ticket home. But for once in her life, she wasn’t feeling sensible. Not sensible at all.
Nor was she happy when the nurse, whose name she’d forgotten, told her she’d have to take off her riding shirt.
“I’d rather not.” Truda wasn’t concerned about the shirt, but surely she wasn’t expected to sit here in nothing but her brassiere for the doctor to treat her. Not any doctor, but Jackson.
“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, Miss Danson. The doctor will need to examine your whole arm.” She held up a cotton gown with big sleeve openings. “So off with the shirt and on with this. You can leave on your brassiere unless you have to have surgery.”
“Surgery?” Truda frowned.
“To mend your arm, but that may not be necessary. If it’s a clean break.”
Truda sighed. In a hospital a person had no chance for dignity or little choice about anything when needing medical care. She started working one of her buttons loose with her right hand. It was devilishly unhandy doing things with one hand.
“Here, let me.”
The nurse unbuttoned the shirt quickly and pulled it off Truda’s right arm, then gently eased the sleeve over her injured arm. She helped Truda slip on the hospital gown that felt like it had been starched. Why would anybody starch a hospital gown?
Truda felt completely out of sorts, ready to grumble about anything. She wasn’t normally a grumbler. She was a fixer, but a person couldn’t fix anything in a hospital gown with her arm propped on an examining table. She was the one who needed to be fixed. It was not a spot she liked being in.
The nurse gave her something in a glass. For pain, she said. Truda didn’t ask what it was, just swallowed the vile-tasting liquid.
“That may make the doctor’s examination less painful.”
“Thank you.” She tried to mean it, but Truda was glad when the nurse left her alone.
Truda knew how to be alone. The Lord had given her a good life. Work she was capable of. Erwin’s children to love, especially Piper. But now when she thought about returning to that life, her heart constricted. Perhaps she could get a dog for company. One of those adorable Golden pups at Wendover. As soon as her wrist healed.
That was crazy thinking. A dog is what got her in this shape. She couldn’t have a dog. She couldn’t have a husband. But she could have a broken wrist.
The door opened and Jackson rushed in. “Truda, what happened?” He had on a sport shirt instead of the doctor coat he’d worn earlier.
“I tripped over a dog or a dog tripped over me. I’m not sure which, but we both ended up in a heap. The dog seemed to come out the better of the two of us.”
Jackson sat down on a stool in front of her. “Good you can smile about it.”
“I’m sorry about this, making you come back to the hospital after you were through for the day.”
“Happens all the time. At least it wasn’t to head up in the hills, but wasn’t that where you were going? Up to Wilder Ridge?”
“Yes. I met the dog on some cabin steps near there.”
“How did you get here? Does somebody up there have a truck now?” He gently probed her arm.
“I wouldn’t know about that, but I got here the same way I got up there. On a horse.”
“You have to be kidding. Riding down a mountain with a fractured wrist.” He smiled up at her. “My Truda. One of a kind.”
Her heart did a crazy leap. My Truda. She was glad he hadn’t felt the need to use his stethoscope. He might think she had heart trouble. Maybe she did.
“Before I sound too much like a brave heroine in a storybook, I have to admit that I had help. Jamie, the young man you met this morning, led my horse, and then a man named Malcolm Jenkins helped me through the river. I told him he was heaven sent.”
“Probably the only time Malcolm has ever been accused of that.” Jackson stopped examining her arm and scooted back on his stool to study her.
When he didn’t say anything right away, Truda asked, “Well, Doctor, am I going to live?”
“A long and happy life, I do hope. I looked at the x-rays before I came in here. You have a crack in the scaphoid bone in your wrist, but fortunately, the fracture has not displaced the bone. That’s the bone right here.” Jackson turned his hand palm up and then ran a finger along the base of his thumb to show the location of the break. “Nurse Freeman wrapping it up so quickly may have helped keep your hand stabilized so the break isn’t any worse than it is.”
“So I can just go about my business?”
“Afraid not. You’ll need to be in a cast six weeks for the bone to heal properly. Wrists at times can be difficult.” He leaned forward to touch her hand again. Not as a doctor examining it but as a friend giving comfort.
“But I’ll be able to go back to my position at the bank?”
“I’d like to tell you that you shouldn’t travel with your wrist in a cast.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “But it wouldn’t be true. Still, it might be good for you to consider staying here in Hyden for a few weeks? That way we can keep an eye on how the bone is healing by doing more x-rays.”
“They have x-ray machines in Louisville.” His eyes on her made her more than a little breathless.
“True enough.” He stared down at his hand on hers for a moment before he brought his gaze back up to her face. “Have you ever wanted to ask something completely outlandish?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve never been brave enough to think outlandishly.”
His lips turned up in a little smile. “I don’t believe that. I imagine you are very brave. Perhaps just not outlandish.”
“I’ve not always done the expected. Never married, for example.”
“Nor have I. Ever married. Which brings me back to the outlandish request.”
Truda’s heart was beating so hard, she was surprised it wasn’t shaking the hospital gown. “What is so outlandish?”
“I want you to stay here in the mountains. Not because of getting treatment for your wrist. No need pretending that you couldn’t find able doctors in Louisville. Better ones than me, I’m sure.” He reached and took her other hand in his. “But I do so wish for time to get to know you better.” He paused a few seconds before he went on. “For you to get to know me. To see if we can be more than simply ships passing in the night.”
“That doesn’t sound so outlandish. It sounds nice.” Truda almost whispered the words. He had such beautiful eyes that seemed to read her every thought and dream.
“It does, doesn’t it? But I’m tiptoeing around the outlandish part.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. So outlandish that, right here this minute, I can imagine dropping to one knee and asking you to marry me.” His gaze on her didn’t waver.
Truda didn’t blink. If he could be outlandish, then so could she. “I can imagine saying yes.”
His hand tightened his hold on her uninjured hand, and for a few heart-stopping seconds, she was sure he was going to kiss her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been kissed, except for a peck on the cheek by a family member. But as he leaned nearer, he jostled her left hand and she couldn’t hold back a gasp.
That seemed to bring them both back to earth. His cheeks reddened. “I’m not acting very professionally here. Time to be a doctor instead of a love-blinded swain.” He let go of her hand and stood up. “Let me get Nurse Randall to help with the cast.”
“Wait.” Truda stopped him. “We can’t leave it at this. Not my wrist, but our imaginations.”
He looked down at her. “How should we leave it?”
“We aren’t foolhardy youngsters. We know about life. And missed chances.” She took a breath and went on. “So perhaps we should postpone the outlandish and embrace a more measured approach.”
“Yes?” His gaze on her was intense. “In what way?”
“I can find a place to stay here while my wrist heals. Perhaps volunteer my services to Mrs. Breckinridge at Wendover or here at the hospital for a few weeks. I seem to have a talent for numbers that makes me a capable bookkeeper. Luckily, I’m right-handed.” She held up her uninjured hand.
He grasped it and pulled it to his lips. “Luckily, my sister has a nice house with a spare room she rents on occasion. This will be a very good occasion.”
Truda laughed in spite of the pain shooting up her left arm. “Then plans made and bargain sealed.”
“Not exactly sealed yet.” Jackson let go of her hand, put one hand on each side of her face, then bent to kiss her forehead.
Truda shut her eyes and absorbed the feel of his hands and lips. When he stepped back, she said, “Thank you, Jackson.”
“For what? Letting you sit here and suffer with a broken wrist while I made outlandish statements?”
“No. For making those outlandish statements.”
Jamie came into the room, followed by the nurse. He stayed just inside the door while the nurse shifted past him and began getting supplies out of a cabinet.
“Are you all right, Miss Danson?” Jamie asked.
“Just peachy.” Truda smiled to let Jamie know that this time she meant it.