Part 4 (1/2)
”I'll take you to the hospital.”
”But-”
”No buts.”
”Okay, but-” Her breath caught, then left her in a sigh. ”Well, I jus' don' know what t' say.”
That bought her a crooked smile. ”Try, 'Thanks, Sam, I appreciate it.' ”
There was no arguing with this man. He was more bullheaded than she was. With a tiny smile, she repeated his words.
”That wasn't too hard, was it?” he said softly.
She yawned again. ”Sam, you've been awful nice. I really do 'preciate it.”
”You're a nice lady. You don't deserve to hurt.”
Something in his tone caught her attention, something very determined, but her mind was too foggy to figure it out. It was getting harder and harder to keep her eyes open. She let them drift closed on a whisper. ”Guess it was my turn.”
”Is that how it works? We all take turns hurting?”
”Seems like it . . . sometimes. Other times, seems like there're people who get . . .” She trailed off, half asleep, then finally added, ”. . . more than their share.”
”Which is why it's a good thing there are people like you around to take care of them.”
”Sam, you really are a nice man. Don' know why you preten' t' be so . . . What're y' doing?”
”Just looking. Relax.”
He'd lifted the ice pack from her ankle, and she felt the brush of warmth as he laid his hand on her swollen, chilled flesh.
”I won't hurt you, Katie.”
”Doesn' hurt. Feels good. Kinda funny, though.”
”You've had an ice pack on.”
”Hmm. Makes your hand feel . . . hot.”
Very hot. But it was a pleasant sensation, completely absorbing and not at all painful, and she sighed at the luxury of being touched with such tenderness. Who would have thought, she mused, that he could be so tender? Who would have thought, after all the hard things he'd said, that he could express, or even feel, such compa.s.sion? Oh, but he did feel it, and he somehow made her feel it, too, in the simple touch of his big, strong hand.
It seemed an eternity pa.s.sed. Surely she'd slipped off to sleep and was dreaming. It was a lovely dream, filled with scenes of happy times, childhood memories she hadn't thought of in years. Suns.h.i.+ne on Lake Superior. Walks in the red-gold world of an autumn woods. Her mother's laughter.
The best memories, though, were the babies. Images of her much younger self holding her brother Josh, when he was an infant, sent a wave of pleasure wafting through her. There were other babies, too-tiny strangers, still wet and naked from their mothers' bodies-and one after the other, the memories of helping those new beings along their journey into the world flashed through her mind. What a gift it was to hold those precious pink bodies. What a humbling, thrilling moment when they slipped, helpless and wrinkled, into her hands. The touch, the flesh-on-flesh contact: She felt it even then, along with the awe and reverence that went with knowing she was the first person, the very first, to see and hold the new life.
She clung to those treasured memories. They were what she lived for, what she couldn't do without. They were also what broke her heart.
Kate sighed, vaguely aware that she wasn't dreaming anymore and that Sam had taken his hand away and replaced the ice pack. She sighed again, sorry that he'd stopped touching her, yet filled with the oddest floating sense of well-being.
”You go to sleep, Katie,” he said. ”I'll see you in the morning.”
”Okay. But you won' like me any better.”
”What kind of nonsense is that?”
'T'morrow. I'll be a wreck again. You won' like me any better than t'day.”
”Honey, I liked you fine today.”
”Didn'. Made you mad.”
”It wasn't you, Katie. I told you that. Now go to sleep.”
She had little choice. With a final shuddering sigh, she gave up her last hold on awareness. Not however, before one final irrelevancy crept through her mind. He called her Katie. She'd never liked the name, but she hadn't bothered to correct him. Of course, he' d call her anything he wanted, regardless of what she said. Still, there was something about the way he said Katie that made her inclined not to dislike it. He made it sound different. He made it sound . . . special.
Three.
”Doc, I promise you, I haven't lost my mind. Last night that ankle looked like an overgrown eggplant.” Kate sat on the edge of her small kitchen table, her left leg extended below the hem of her denim skirt as she offered the ankle for inspection.
Bill Cabot's pale blue eyes studied the appendage through the thick lenses of his black-framed gla.s.ses. Clucking his tongue, he shook his head. ”Well, Kate, what can an old man say? Ruth Davenport called at seven and sent me scampering over here before I'd even drunk my coffee. She had me believing gangrene had set in, and here I find you bouncing around as if to say the woman's gone senile on us.”
”I don't know about gangrene,” Kate said, chuckling, ”but it's true, I couldn't have walked last night if my life had depended on it. Doesn't make a bit of sense.”
Wiggling her bare toes, she flexed the ankle in every direction, but it didn't hurt any more than it had an hour ago- which was not at all. She'd woken up and jumped out of bed before she'd even remembered the injury. Yet the swelling was gone, and her skin was a healthy pink with not a bruise in sight. If she hadn 't found yesterday's disheveled clothes neatly arranged over the shower rod, including the ruined jeans, she' d have wondered if she'd dreamed the entire incident. Somehow her ankle had recovered overnight, and while she found it awful darned strange, she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
”I think you were looking for an excuse to get a whole, uninterrupted night's sleep.”
”Hmph!” Kate hopped off the table, tugging down her plum-colored knit top, then picking up her empty coffee mug to carry it to the sink. ”I'll remember that the next time you ask me to take your calls because your knee's bothering you.”
”You'd doubt my word about my knee? Shame on you, girl!”
”Besides,” she scoffed, ”I haven't got a reason to complain about night calls. There aren't that many.”
”You wouldn't complain if there were. Which brings me to something I've been meaning to discuss with you.” Setting his coffee mug down on the bright yellow place mat, Doc turned in his chair to wag a finger at her. ”You're a workaholic, Kathleen Morgan. Worse than I am, and that's saying a lot.”
She put the milk in the refrigerator as she replied. ”I'm no such thing. I just like what I do.”
”Ruth told me you fixed dinner for Sarah Winfield three nights last week.”
”Gretchen Brown and I agreed to help Sarah out in the evenings, but Tommy came down with an ear infection last Monday, and Gretchen couldn't do it.”
”And yesterday morning you went grocery shopping for Laura Graff.”
”For pity's sake! Laura's nine days from her due date, David can't take off work to shop, and Mr. D.'s closed by the time he gets off. I was just being neighborly.”
”Maybe. And maybe you need something to occupy your time besides taking care of your neighbors.”