Part 1 (2/2)
”The pain's not so bad.” The joint in question ached at Hunter's verbal hopscotch around the truth, and, f.u.c.k it. He threw in the towel. ”I was hauling bales of hay with Owen, and I lost my balance on the edge of the hayloft. I managed to catch myself before I fell all the way over, but the force torqued my shoulder pretty hard. The pain isn't as bad now, but my arm is still sore. It's the same one I hurt in high school, so . . .”
Doc Sanders nodded, the end of her neat ponytail swinging over the shoulder of her doctor's coat. ”I remember.”
”You do?” Surprise p.r.i.c.kled through Hunter's chest beneath the faded-green gown he'd put on over his jeans.
The doc dished up a wry grin. ”Not too many of my patients tear a rotator cuff on the winning touchdown in a high school football champions.h.i.+p game, Hunter. Plus, if you recall, I a.s.sessed your injury on the way to the hospital. So, yes. I remember.”
”Oh, right.” Leave it to Doc Sanders to be able to dial up the details. The woman was whip smart. It also probably didn't hurt that she'd been a local for twenty years and Hunter's doctor for just as many.
Speaking of hurt . . . Time to get that all clear so he could go back to what mattered. Owen hadn't just been spouting off about how much needed done this week. ”This pain isn't near as bad as when I tore my rotator cuff, though. And I didn't fall on my arm or anything like I did back then.”
Okay, so the grab to save his a.s.s today hadn't tickled, but he was well enough acquainted with manual labor to know this shouldn't be a big deal. Hauling bales of hay-or farm equipment or fertilizer or feed or any of a dozen other things-was all part of the daily checklist at Cross Creek. He could handle a little soreness.
”Rotator cuffs are tricky business,” said Doc Sanders. ”Let's start by taking a look at yours and seeing what we've got.”
Her fingers traveled over Hunter's chest, shoulder, and arm in a careful clinical a.s.sessment. The contact wasn't so bad, and he could even handle the gentle pressure she applied when she got to the muscles and tendons on the back of his shoulder, proper. But as soon as she asked him to lift his arm and move it side to side, the pain jackhammered back through him hard enough to push a hiss through his teeth.
”So what do you think?” Hunter asked, his pulse picking up speed at the seriousness coloring Doc Sanders's expression.
”What I think is you're not going to like this. But without X-rays and an MRI, there's no way of knowing what we're dealing with here.”
A cold sweat popped over Hunter's brow. ”The injury is that bad?”
”It might be,” she qualified. ”Sometimes, damage to a rotator cuff is caused by one specific incident that can be easily pinpointed.”
”Like when I tore mine in high school.” Getting body slammed by an all-star defensive back with his arm fully extended had definitely been a specific incident. At least Hunter had gotten the arm with the ball over the goal line first. Not that the touchdown had mattered much when he'd had to spend eight months on the sidelines at the farm.
Doc Sanders nodded, taking a step back on the gray-and-white linoleum. ”Exactly. But other times, we see what's called degenerative damage. The cause is usually repet.i.tive stress over time. All it takes to aggravate that sort of damage is one wrong move, even a small one.”
Ah h.e.l.l. ”Like grabbing on to the edge of a hayloft.”
”I'm afraid so,” she said, her expression backing up the truth in her words. ”Listen, Hunter, we don't know anything for sure right now other than the fact that your shoulder needs to be looked at more closely. There's a possibility your pain is being caused by run-of-the-mill muscle strain. But with you already having suffered a full-thickness tear once before, and the fact that manual labor is a big part of your daily activity . . . I have to send you to the orthopedist in Camden Valley to find out what we're dealing with.”
Hunter sc.r.a.ped in a deep breath. Held it. Forced himself to stay calm, composed. Steady. ”Worst-case scenario.” At Doc Sanders's obvious hesitation, he added, ”I can handle it, Doc. But I need to know.”
Slowly, she nodded, and her answer knifed through him harder than any pain his shoulder could dream of working up.
”Worst case is that your rotator cuff is torn, which would put you out of commission on the farm. Indefinitely.”
CHAPTER TWO.
Emerson Montgomery straightened the boxes of elastic bandages on the shelf in front of her for the thousandth time that hour. Turning to survey the one-room physical therapy office tucked in the back of Millhaven's medical center-aka Doc Sanders's family practice-she surveyed her new digs in search of something to keep her occupied. She'd already rearranged the rolls of athletic tape, wiped down the questionably st.u.r.dy portable ma.s.sage table-along with the geriatric treadmill and rec.u.mbent bike over by the far wall-and organized the mismatched hand weights and resistance tubing she'd dug out of the storage closet.
She was still an hour shy of lunch on her first day at work, and she'd officially run out of things to do. Beautiful.
Now she had nothing but time to dwell on the fact that in the last two weeks, she'd lost a job she'd loved, a boyfriend she hadn't, and the ability to keep the one vow that had saved her life twelve years ago.
She was back in Millhaven.
Emerson blew out an exhale, trying to ignore the stiffness in her knees that made her wonder if her synovial fluid had been replaced with expired Elmer's glue. She knew she should be happy Doc Sanders had been willing to hire her to do supplemental physical therapy, especially when the fifteen job inquiries Emerson had made before her last-ditch call to the doctor had yielded fifteen positions requiring sixty hours a week, with fifty-nine of them on her feet. Under normal circ.u.mstances, Emerson would've pounced on any of those employment opportunities before returning to Millhaven. h.e.l.l, under normal circ.u.mstances, she'd have never left her high-powered, higher-energy job as one of the top physical therapists for the Super Bowl Champion Las Vegas Lightning in the first place. Of course, everything she'd known about normal had been blasted into bits five weeks ago.
And if there was one thing Emerson knew by heart, it was that once you broke something into enough pieces, your chances of putting it back together amounted to jack with a side of s.h.i.+t.
The door connecting the physical therapy room and the hallway leading to Doc Sanders's office s.p.a.ce swung open with a squeak, and the woman in question poked her head past the threshold.
”Hi, Emerson.” She swept a hand toward the PT room in an unspoken request for entry. Emerson nodded, sending a handful of bright-red hair tumbling out of the loose, low ponytail at her nape.
”Hey, yes, sure. Come on in Doc . . . tor Sanders,” she said, awkwardly tacking on the more formal address. But the woman was her boss, an MD whom she respected greatly, and at any rate, more than a decade had pa.s.sed since Emerson had left Millhaven. She was an adult now, a professional. Accomplished. Capable.
Even if her pretense for coming back home was a complete and utter lie.
”Emerson, please,” Doc Sanders said, her smile conveying amus.e.m.e.nt over admonition. ”I know with all your experience, you're probably used to different protocol with physicians, but call me Doc. No one in Millhaven has called me Doctor in . . . well, ever. And quite frankly, it makes me feel kind of stodgy.”
Emerson dipped her chin, half out of deference and half to hide her smile. While all of the doctors on the Lightning's payroll had been top-of-their-field talented, they'd also sported enough arrogance to sink a submarine, making sure everyone down to the ball boys knew their status as MDs. Even though she'd technically earned the t.i.tle of ”Doctor” along with her PhD five years ago, she never used it, preferring to go by her first name like all the other physical therapists at the Lightning. True, she'd been the only one of the bunch with the varsity letters after her name, but the t.i.tle meant nothing if she wasn't good enough to back it up hands-on. Plus, she'd always felt something heavy and uncomfortable in her chest on the rare occasion anyone called her Dr. Montgomery. She turned around every time, looking for her father.
Don't go there, girl. Head up. Eyes forward.
Emerson cleared her throat, stamping out the thoughts of both her father and her lost job as she kept the smile tacked to her face. ”You got it, Doc. How are things in the office?”
”Not so bad for a Monday, although I could've done without Timmy Abernathy throwing up on my shoes.”
”Gah.” Emerson grimaced. Broken bones and ruptured tendons she could handle, no sweat. But stomach woes. No, thank you. ”Sorry you've had a rough morning.”
”Eh.” Doc Sanders lifted one white-coated shoulder. ”Timmy feels worse than I do, and I had an extra pair of cross-trainers in my gym bag. At any rate, I've got a patient for you, so I thought I'd pop over to see if you have an opening today.”
Emerson thought of her schedule, complete with the tumbleweeds blowing through its wide-open s.p.a.ces, and bit back the urge to laugh with both excitement and irony. ”I'm sure I can fit someone in. What's the injury?”
”Rotator cuff. X-rays and MRI are complete, and Dr. Norris, the orthopedist in Camden Valley, ordered PT. But the patient is local, so I figured if you could take him, it'd be a win-win.”
”Of course.” An odd sensation plucked up Emerson's spine at the long-buried memory of a blue-eyed high school boy with his arm in a sling and a smile that could melt her like b.u.t.ter in a cast-iron skillet. ”Um, my schedule is pretty flexible. What time did he want to come in?”
”Actually, he's a little anxious to get started, so he came directly here from the ortho's office . . .”
Doc Sanders turned toward the hallway leading to her waiting room, where a figure had appeared in the doorframe. Emerson blinked, trying to get her brain to reconcile the free-flowing confusion between the boy in her memory and the man standing in front of her. The gray-blue eyes were the same, although a tiny bit more weathered around the edges, and weirdly, the sling was also a match. But the person staring back at her was a man, with rough edges and s.e.x appeal for days, full of hard angles and harder muscles under his jeans and T-s.h.i.+rt . . .
Hunter Cross.
Emerson stood with her feet anch.o.r.ed to the linoleum, unable to move or speak or even breathe. For the smallest sc.r.a.p of a second, she tumbled back in time, her heart pounding so hard beneath her crisp white b.u.t.ton-down that surely the traitorous thing would jump right out of her chest.
A blanket of stars littering the August sky . . . the warm weight of Hunter's varsity jacket wrapped around her shoulders . . . the warmer fit of his mouth on hers as the breeze carried his whispers, full of hope . . . ”Don't go to New York. Stay with me, Em. Marry me and stay here in Millhaven where we'll always have this, just you and me . . .”
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