Chance McCall

by Sharon Sala

  “Well?” Jenny asked. Her voice shook. She was blinking back tears and swallowing the denial that kept trying to slip past the lump in her throat.

  “I’ll tell you this much little lady,” Dr. Walker said as he guided Jenny toward the empty lounge and a sagging fake leather couch. “As my grandfather used to say, that’s one tough hombre.”

  “You mean he’s going to be okay?”

  “I don’t know yet just how ‘okay’ he’s going to be, or how long it’ll take to get him there, but he’s alive, Jenny, and that’s a lot more than I’d hoped for when we started.”

  “Thank you, God!” she whispered, then she buried her face in her hands and wept. It was the first time she’d allowed herself the luxury.

  The doctor patted her gently on the shoulder and began relating the injuries Chance McCall had suffered and what had been done to correct them. Jenny listened, her eyes fixed on each movement of the doctor’s lips, but little registered except the fact that Chance was alive. Then the room began to spin.

  Jonah took one look at the color receding from her face and shoved her head between her knees.

  “Can’t have you fainting on me, girl,” he said. “I’m too tired to treat another patient tonight. You go on home and get some rest. Your friend is going to be with us for quite a while. I’ve put him in a drug-induced coma to allow brain swelling to subside. Plenty of time for a visit later.”

  Jenny stared at the patterned tile between her feet as she felt the blood rushing back into her foggy brain. She felt like a fool. “I’ve never fainted in my life,” she mumbled, and pushed herself upright. Her entire body felt like her mouth did after a trip to the dentist. “And I’m not going anywhere. I want to see him. Please, Dr. Walker…I have to.”

  Jonah Walker took one look at the determination and desperation on Jenny’s face.

  “Well, come on,” he said, heading back down the hall with Jenny at his heels. “You can look, but don’t touch, okay? And just for a minute. Can’t let word get around that I’m easy. Damn nurses give me fits as it is.” He paused outside a door marked ICU.

  Jenny stepped around the doctor and stood for a moment, absorbing the whispered voices, the antiseptic and medicine smell of the area, and the gold lettering on the see-through door. Intensive Care Unit. Oxygen flowed throughout her system as she took a deep breath and wiped sweaty palms on the seat of her jeans. She put a shaky hand on the glass door and pushed.

  “He’s going to look rough,” Dr. Walker cautioned, and then caught his breath at the expression on Jenny’s face.

  “I don’t care,” she said fiercely and slipped inside.

  “Damn!” he said, and headed for the shower. “I hope to hell that poor bastard lives to appreciate a woman like that.”

  Jenny saw him instantly, but it wasn’t her Chance. He was lost somewhere in the network of tubes and needles that were pumping life-giving fluids and medicines into his badly injured body, trapped in the world of drug-induced sleep because, according to the doctor, consciousness would have been unbearable.

  A single sheet covered only what modesty demanded, leaving his long-limbed, well-muscled body, and his injuries, in plain view. Jenny clutched her hands against her belly, fighting the panic that threatened to overwhelm her. This was her fault!

  Dear Lord! Jenny pressed trembling fingers tightly against her lips and forced back a scream. She wouldn’t…couldn’t panic, and had no intention of humiliating herself again by nearly fainting.

  The need to touch him was overwhelming, to assure herself that life still coursed through him. He was so still. But a promise was a promise, so Jenny settled for a seat near his bed instead. Her eyes focused on the steady rise and fall of his chest as life-giving oxygen was fed into his body.

  “Are you his wife?”

  The nurse’s voice startled her. Jenny shook her head, and tried not to weep.

  “Then I’m sorry, miss. In this ward, only family is allowed and then not for long. You shouldn’t be here.”

  Jenny stared blankly into the sympathetic face of the nurse, oblivious to the tears falling freely down her face.

  The nurse sighed, pulled a tissue from her pocket, and handed it to her with a warning. “You can’t stay long.” She walked away, leaving Jenny to her silent vigil.

  “Jenny! Wake up!”

  Marcus’s voice unwound Jenny from her makeshift bed in the lounge. “What?” she mumbled, disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings. She came instantly awake as she remembered. “Chance! Oh God! Daddy…is he…?”

  She called me Daddy! How good it sounded! In all of her twenty-three plus years he’d never once corrected her for calling him Marcus. Where Jenny was concerned, he had a lot to regret. Her fingernails dug into his wrist and pulled him from his musings. The question demanded an answer.

  “I don’t know anything about Chance’s condition. Henry and I just arrived. Here, drink this, and don’t burn yourself,” he said, as he thrust a cup of hot, steaming coffee into her hands. “I’m going to find a nurse. We’ll know soon enough how he spent the night.”

  Jenny tried to blink the sleep and confusion from her eyes as she watched him stalk down the corridor. If she hadn’t been so distraught, she would have wondered about his presence. He’d never been around much when she’d needed him before.

  Henry took the cup of hot coffee out of her hands, set it down on the table, pulled her into his arms, and patted her awkwardly. The hug was clumsy but warm, and for just a moment, Jenny felt safe.

  He smelled of Lava soap and Old Spice cologne, a deadly combination on anyone else, but on Henry, better than the usual dust, hay, and manure.

  “It looked like you needed a hug,” he mumbled self-consciously. She was as near to a daughter as he would ever have. It was his right.

  Jenny sighed and settled into his arms.

  Henry Thomas had worked for the Triple T for almost twenty years. His small, wiry body had not weathered the years as well as it might have. He walked with a limp, an autograph from a horse that no longer existed. His face had more wrinkles than an unmade bed. But he was all heart, and loyal. In Jenny’s world, that was all that mattered.

  “All the boys send their best,” Henry said.

  Jenny nodded and dropped onto the lumpy chair that had served as her bed. She leaned back and took a long swallow of her coffee, ignoring the heat as she drained the cup.

  “They feel real bad about Chance gettin’ hurt,” Henry continued. “Kinda guilty-like. But I told ’em it wasn’t no one’s fault, ’cept maybe that damned greenhorn. It just happened.”

  It was quite a speech for the normally taciturn man. Jenny stared up at the concern on his face. She squeezed the empty white foam cup and swallowed a lump in her throat.

  “It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t let Marcus parade those fools through the house. I only did it because I thought Chance…” Her voice shook. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.” Her mouth quivered and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying.

  “That ain’t so, honey,” Henry said. He patted her knee and slipped into the seat beside her. “Besides, Chance never gave it a thought. He just reacted. You know how he feels about you. He couldn’t have no more stood and watched that horse trample you than he could’a stopped breathin’.”

  Jenny’s voice was low and quiet. “But that’s just it. I don’t know how he feels about me. He’s kept me at arm’s length since my sixteenth birthday. He’s treated me as if I had the plague. But I know how I feel about him,” Jenny whispered. “I just hope and pray I get a chance to prove it. If I don’t…”

  The Styrofoam cup she’d been gripping popped, showering itself into bits. She stared down at the mess and sighed. She’d just started to pick up the pieces when she saw Marcus coming down the hall. She leaped up and ran to meet him.

  Marcus abruptly blurted out his news. “He’s better. Stronger vital signs, they call it.”

  As Jenny started down the hall to see for
herself, he grabbed her roughly by her arm and then let go, regretting the motion, as she blinked back tears.

  “You can’t see him yet. Besides, you look like hell, girl. You need to…”

  “I’m not going home. I won’t leave him.” Her last words were nothing more than a whisper as she buried her face in her hands. “I can’t.”

  “Well now, I don’t remember asking you to,” Marcus said. “Here!” He shoved two sets of keys into her hands. “You have a room across the street at the motel, a suitcase full of clean clothes on the bed, and your car.”

  Marcus took a deep breath, suddenly shy in front of his daughter as she flung her arms around his neck.

  “Thank you, Marcus,” she whispered, then withdrew, every bit as embarrassed as her father. Affection was not something they had learned to share with each other, but definitely something they needed to explore.

  Jenny turned the plastic motel key over in her hand, checked the room number, and started toward the exit sign down the hall.

  Marcus and Henry watched her leave, each with a different ache in his heart. Henry Thomas loved her like a daughter, but to Marcus Tyler…she was a daughter he didn’t know how to love.

  Jenny’s had become a familiar face in Tyler Municipal.

  “How’s he doing today?” she asked, as she leaned over the desk inside ICU.

  “The same,” the nurse answered. “Every day he seems to get a little stronger. He’s breathing on his own. The incision from surgery is healing well. There are no fluids in his lungs. And you know what a problem that can be when broken ribs are involved and the patient is immobile.”

  Jenny nodded. She’d heard it all before. “Nothing else?” she asked softly.

  “No…he still hasn’t awakened,” the nurse replied, and then felt obligated to continue in an encouraging tone. “But with a head injury such as his, sometimes this happens. Any day now I expect him to open his eyes and glare at us for all the times we’ve poked him with needles.”

  “I hope so,” Jenny answered, and then hurried to Chance’s bed, unwilling to waste a moment of her allotted visiting time. “Hi, mister,” she whispered, and feathered a kiss on his stubbly cheek. “Have mercy! You need a shave!”

  She spoke in normal, conversational tones, just as she had every day since his accident. Jenny was convinced that Chance could hear her and would wake up when he was ready to deal with the pain on his own. And, just as she had on every visit, she clasped one of his lifeless hands between her own warm ones and rubbed gently, massaging his fingers and the palm of his hands, careful not to disturb the intravenous needles fastened on both arms. She talked about Henry and the ranch…clumsy blunders that the new colt had made trying to chase a wily old barn cat. Anything that came to mind. And as she talked, she touched, patted, massaged and caressed, willing him, if only on a subconscious level, to know that she was here.

  Up to this point, everything in her life had revolved around this man. She couldn’t imagine life without him. He had to get better! He was her whole world and they’d never even made love. He’d hadn’t given her the opportunity to share the part of her that belonged only to him.

  Why, Chance? Jenny wondered. Why did you keep me at arm’s length? All I ever wanted was to be in your arms. What are you hiding from me…and from yourself? Why won’t you let me in?

  Where once only darkness and silence had existed, now there was sound. And with sound…pain! Gut-wrenching, clear-to-the-bone, pain. When it became more than he could bear, he would concentrate on the gentle touch, and the familiar voice that hovered just beyond consciousness. If he focused hard enough, the pain would be replaced by a nameless something…an emotion too far away to identify. He tried. But just when it was within grasp, the blessed darkness would come back to claim him.

  “Nurse! Nurse!”

  Jenny stepped back from Chance’s bed as the ICU team answered her call for help. She’d been sitting by his bed, talking and touching, just as she had for the past week, when she’d seen him move. Not an involuntary muscle spasm, but a specific motion toward his midriff where tight bandages bound healing ribs.

  Oh God! Jenny thought. Chance!

  It was the first conscious thing he’d done since diving beneath the horse’s hooves to protect her.

  His mouth stretched into a grimace and opened just enough to let a tiny moan escape. It was just as well it was gone. It had been hanging around inside his head for days, teasing and taunting, threatening to become a full-fledged scream, but hadn’t quite managed to make the transition.

  “Don’t move, please,” the nurse cautioned, as he began to pick at the needles and tubes tying him to the bed.

  “What?” he mumbled, as he tried to form the word around a tongue too thick and swollen to articulate clearly.

  “You’ve been injured,” she answered. “Doctor will be here shortly. You’re in a hospital. Please don’t.” She grasped his hand. “You’ll dislodge the needles.” The nurse’s firm voice stilled his movement as he digested her words.

  Hospital? Hurt? How? Unfortunately the deep breath he took before speaking got him pain instead of answers. His lungs expanded against his bruised and broken rib cage and sent oxygen spiraling into an already aching head.

  The pain forced him back into darkness. His body relaxed, regaining the inert status it had maintained for days.

  Jenny groaned softly, her joy at his first signs of recovery erased as he sank back into his personal twilight zone.

  Dr. Walker came into the ward just as the nurses completed their check on Chance’s intravenous hookups.

  “Coming around, is he?” he asked, as he made a thorough sweep of the big man on the bed before grabbing the chart one of the nurses thrust in his hands. “Jenny! Out!” he ordered, and then cushioned his words with a cockeyed grin. “Wait for me in the lounge.”

  Jenny nodded and willed herself to walk away from Chance’s bed without disgracing herself. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Surely this is a good sign. The door shut behind her.

  It was late that night before she made it across the street to the motel. The sight that greeted her as she turned the key and opened the door never failed to make her groan. She didn’t know which was worse, the shag rug in three shades of burnt orange with contrasting green floral curtains and bedspread, or the red and black velvet painting of a matador and bull hanging in glaring prominence over the head of the bed.

  However, this time the room decor took a back seat to her jubilation. Chance was getting better. She thought she would just rest a minute before calling home to let Henry and the boys know.

  The next conscious thought she had was realizing it was morning. She jerked awake, heart pounding wildly, as she grabbed the telephone that was ringing.

  “Hello?” she croaked, and then cleared her voice, trying to sound alert. She hadn’t fooled her caller.

  “Sorry I woke you, Jenny,” Dr. Walker said. “Thought you might like to know he’s waking up again. If you hurry, you may be able to talk a bit. Don’t think he’ll go back out as fast again. He’s probably learned that less movement is better at this point in his life.” He chuckled at his own wit before disconnecting.

  She’s here again! Chance thought, and shifted slightly, careful not to disturb anything still tying him to the bed.

  Through all the time lost and the few times he had any conscious memory, he’d known she was by his side. Some inner peace always came over him knowing she was there. Then he would relax and the panic he felt at not being able to communicate would ebb away to a far corner of his mind.

  The sound of her voice, soft and low as she talked to someone nearby, drew him closer and closer to waking. He fought back the comforting darkness as his mind reached toward the sounds. A touch on his forehead, a petal soft caress against his cheek, made consciousness necessary. Now her voice was low and close to his ear. He focused on the sounds, struggling to string them together into coherency.

  Jenny suppressed her exhila
ration. His eyelids fluttered. He knew she was here!

  “Hey you,” she said quietly, “I’ll bet you’re getting tired of hearing me talk all the time, aren’t you? Why don’t you tell me to shut up and go home?”

  It was nonsense, but it was something…anything…to say. She had no intention of leaving. But the big man on the bed had no way of knowing that.

  His hand moved. It startled them both when he grasped her hand and then clutched, using the flesh and blood lifeline to pull himself from the pit of darkness.

  “Don’t go,” he begged, his voice dry and raspy from disuse. Slowly, slowly, the light of day came back into his world.

  “Dear God, thank you!” Jenny whispered. His fingers gripped her wrist with surprising strength. She let out a long, slow sigh of relief. “You came back to me!”

  He started to nod and then winced, blinking painfully as he realized it hurt less to speak than to move. He licked his lips, suddenly aware of the mundane nuisance of a dry throat and cracked lips.

  “Here,” Jenny urged, and pressed a cool, damp cloth to his mouth. She’d been doing so for days, but this was the first time he’d responded by sucking the moisture from the fabric. Jenny wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. Never in her life had so much gratitude and joy overwhelmed her at such a small, insignificant gesture.

  “Are you in pain? I can get a nurse…” Her voice trailed off as his grip tightened.

  “Not much…now,” he whispered. “Don’t go.”

  He stared, transfixed by the dark fall of hair, the intense blue eyes, and the generous curve of her lower lip. A heart-shaped face of rare beauty, a womanly body. Each feature was so familiar, yet for the life of him he couldn’t remember her name.

  Awareness began pooling in the pit of his stomach, and crawled ominously toward a heart thumping with panicked irregularity. His breathing quickened. A film of moisture beaded across his forehead and upper lip. He stared down at their locked fingers and dropped her hand as if he’d just been burned. The panic inside him threatened to overflow.