Zena Valentine - From Humbug To Holiday Bride

“Where’s your uniform?” she rasped.

He grinned, then watched her raise her left hand and fumble to reach the little trapeze overhead. “I’m not a doctor,” he said before reaching up to adjust the apparatus lower so she could reach it.

“Then go away,” she ordered, and turned her head away.

But when he looked down moments later, she was staring at him with barely suppressed rage and wariness. He looked away from her face. Why shouldn’t she be wary, lying helpless for three weeks flat on her back and knowing nothing would ever be the same? And he was a stranger to her.

“My name is Hamish Chandler. Deborah Billings’s aunt asked me to see you,” he said as he made a final adjustment to the trapeze. “Is that better?” He gave the apparatus a yank.

She frowned at him, then raised her left hand and gripped the bar. Her lips turned up at the corners, more of a sneer than a smile, but the change was encouraging nonetheless. She was a fighter all right, Hamish thought.

“You ought to be one,” she whispered.

He dug his hands into his pockets. “One what?”

“Doctor.”

“Yes, I appreciate your keen observation. It took a great deal of skill to do that properly.”

She didn’t acknowledge his attempt at humor. “And the cloth. Do it again,” she rasped.

He swished the cloth under the hot water and twisted out the excess moisture. This time he placed it in her left hand, and she flopped it over her face, slowly patting it over her features in circular motions, avoiding the small jagged scar on the right side. After it had cooled, she once again flopped it over the edge of the bed for him to catch if he could. He interrupted its fall and laid it on the stand close to her pillow. “More?” he asked.

“Got a mirror?” she asked, still whispering.

“Afraid not.”

“Look around. In the drawers over there.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

“Why?”

“Damn you.” She pressed her eyes closed for a few seconds. When she opened them again, they were blazing with frustration. “I want to see.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” she whispered.

“You’ve been here three weeks, and I gather they haven’t let you see yourself. I don’t have the authority to countermand those orders, Miss Dolliver.”

She grimaced. “Who in the hell are you anyway? If Deborah sent you, you’re supposed to be cheering me up.” The words were spat with all the force it took her to get them out. Then she reached again for the bar above her, gripped it, then let it go.

“Deborah didn’t send me,” he said. “Her aunt asked me to stop by and see you.” He wondered whether he should explain who he was. He decided to go with full disclosure. “I’m pastor of the Kolstad Church.”

She muttered an expletive that he ignored. “I suppose you’re going to pray over me,” she jeered.

“I suppose I will.”

She reached for the bar again and gripped it until her knuckles were white, then released it, lowering her hand to her side. Her eyes were as hard as cold iron, but he saw something else barely detectable lurking there. It was fear.

She swallowed hard and winced. “So, why did Deborah’s aunt send you? If she did.” Her skepticism was as heavily evident as the dripping sarcasm. She closed her lids momentarily, then lifted them half-mast. “I remember Deb’s aunt,” she whispered affectionately.

“She’s my housekeeper, and she’s quite fond of you. Apparently, your friendship with her niece was significant to them both when you were in college.”

“Deb works here. She could visit anytime. But she’s a friend. She respects my privacy,” she whispered pointedly. “I don’t want visitors.”

He paused, letting the hospital noises from the hallway fill the space. “I know,” he said finally.

She glared at him. But he saw her struggling to be fierce, and he sensed something softer behind it all. She seemed hardly able to hold her eyes open.

“No visitors,” she rasped again. “Deborah knows that.”

“They care about you,” he said.

“Oh, damn,” she cursed softly, her eyes closing in a grimace.

He thought for a moment it was another spasm coming on and was about to bolt for the nurses’ desk. Then he realized she was distressed by something else. Once again he found himself the object of those eyes the color of fall grass.

“Why you?” she demanded.

He frowned, wondering why she was upset. What was she reading into his visit? While he wondered, she came to her own worst conclusion.

“What are they trying to tell me, sending a minister? Am I going to die? After all this, am I dying anyway?” He was struck by her bitterness.

“Of course not,” he said. “You’re getting better.” He wondered suddenly how the conversation had become so complex. “I think your doctor would have told you about your condition.”

“He says I’m…oh, what he really meant was I’m…crippled!” Hamish could barely hear the last word. He felt her horror and leaned forward to take her left hand in his. It was small and soft, cool and clammy.

“I don’t know your official prognosis,” he said as gently as he could, watching a large tear slowly squeeze out from under long, dark lashes and make its way toward her ear. “Please don’t read more into my visit than is intended.”

“Then why are you here?” she demanded.

He rubbed her small hand in his large one and looked at the many small cuts and scratches that were now healing. She didn’t pull her hand away, and he was strangely pleased by that, as if he needed the comfort of holding her hand as much as she might need his comfort in doing so.

“Ah, dear lady,” he said. “I’m not sure. Yet.”

He watched her lids fly open, sharp curiosity in her gaze. She was studying his face, her lips twitching with words she apparently wanted to say but was holding back.

“I know it sounds crazy,” he said. “But I’m not even sure why I’m here except that I was touched by Mrs. Billings’s concern for you.”

“Touched,” she scoffed. “Yeah, sure. Touched.”

She let him keep her hand, and the action took the sting out of her words, as if her mouth had spoken and the rest of her denied what it had said.

Hamish identified with the bitterness and sarcasm he heard. It had been many years, but he remembered when he had greeted every stranger with contempt and mistrust, ready to fight against any real or imagined threat to his survival. That was life on the streets, every man for himself, trusting no one. Ever. Remembering how it had been then, he inhaled deeply and smiled a sad smile.

What, he wondered, could have brought her to such bitterness when she had so much in her life—luxury, adventure, success? Her bone-chilling resentment was coming from some place deeper than he could see.

“Are you here to convince me my recovery is hopeless?” she demanded in a hoarse whisper.

“No, I haven’t heard your medical prognosis,” he said again.

“Yeah, sure,” she said, and pulled her hand away, reaching once again for the bar above her. He found it distracting the way she kept playing with the bar, gripping it, letting it go. But then, it was her only exercise as far as he could see. Nothing else moved. Only her left arm and hand. Her body twitched slightly. She paled and whispered, “Oh, God,” then quickly inhaled slow, deep breaths.

The nurse in the pink sweater slipped quietly into the room and lost no time in giving B.J. an injection in her left arm. “There,” she said, pulling down the wrinkled cotton sleeve that draped to B.J.’s elbow. “Hopefully that will keep those nasty spasms away. Just in the nick of time, too, I see.” She looked up at Hamish and smiled. “Are you a relative?”