Flynn nodded. “It’s almost dusk. If you’d like to go in and get started, I’ll escort her back. Should we leave her bike on the porch?”
“I predict until the novelty wears off, she’ll want to store it in her bedroom.” Jenna laughed. “I’m okay with that.”
“You’re a good mother.” His voice vibrated with feeling.
Jenna glanced back over a shoulder. “Thanks. But you’re the one who settled her worries about her dad. I’ll be forever obliged to you for that.”
“I was worried you’d thought I’d overstepped my bounds.” He gave her a lopsided smile.
Jenna felt light-headed. “Uh, the blood-pressure cuff makes us even, then.” She jogged up the porch steps and opened the screen door.
“Hey,” Flynn yelled after her. “I forgot...the mailman delivered a package addressed to Andee. I set it on the kitchen table along with your other mail.”
Jenna leaned back out. “That’ll be the gift from my sister. Andee will be over the moon. I don’t mind if you help her open it while I take a quick shower.”
“Can do.” The screen door banged shut on Flynn’s response, followed by a scream from down near the pens and a dog barking.
Immediately, Jenna flew out the door again and down the steps, running flat out toward the noise.
Flynn had a head start and even with his bad leg Jenna couldn’t overtake him. They reached a screeching, bawling Andee at the same time.
She lay trapped beneath her bicycle.
Jenna dropped the handbag that had been draped over her shoulder. “Honey bunch, shh.”
Beezer quit barking and picked Cubby Bear out of the dirt. He set the bear down by Andee, then licked the side of her face.
Flynn pulled a penlight from his pocket and flashed it over the scene, shrouded in shadow. A skewed front bike wheel stuck half in, half out of a deep rut.
Andee, still lying twisted under the handlebars, asked through her sobs, “Is my new bike hurt?”
CHAPTER NINE
“YOUR BIKE LOOKS OKAY, but how are you?” Jenna leaned down and started to lift the bike off her daughter.
Flynn’s fingers curled around her wrist. “Wait, Jenna. Her left arm is broken,” he murmured. “Will you go to the house and bring me a magazine and string or sturdy tape? I’ll splint her forearm so it won’t hurt so much while we drive her to the emergency room.”
“Bro...ken?” Jenna clapped a hand over her mouth. She took a moment to regain her composure and ruffle Andee’s bangs. “Lie still for Flynn, honey, I will be right back.”
Leaving her purse on the ground, she sprinted away.
Flynn tucked Cubby under Andee’s good arm. “Sugar, I don’t want you to move while I untangle you from your bike, okay?”
“’Kay.” The girl’s sobs abated some. “I cra...crashed.”
“You did,” Flynn said, carefully removing the bicycle. “And you’ve hurt your arm.”
“Is Mommy mad?”
“Of course not,” he said, taking time to carefully check her for other injuries.
Jenna arrived with magazines and a roll of duct tape.
Kneeling, she said, “Andee, I love you so much. I hate that you fell.”
“Is my bike broke?”
Flynn fit a magazine under the part of Andee’s arm indented in a deep V.
“Ow, ow, ow,” she yelped, then whimpered, “that hurt, Flynn.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Your bike looks fine, but I’m afraid your arm needs a doctor.”
“Is that why my fingers feel funny? Owie funny?”
“Yes, it is.”
Jenna hovered anxiously, touching Andee’s cheek until she saw Flynn had finished wrapping a magazine around her tiny arm. Then she tore off three strips of silver tape and passed them to him.
“I hate to hurt you again, Andee, but you’ll feel it when I tape across the magazine. I have to do it to keep your arm steady.”
The child gazed trustingly up at Flynn. She only hollered out when he gathered her up in his arms and stood, cradling her injured arm against his chest.
Jenna rescued her purse and the bike. For the second time in one day, her legs threatened to buckle. As if he knew how unsteady she was, Beezer stuck to her side.
“If you’re putting the bike in the house, Jenna, grab a couple of pillows.”
She nodded and hurried up the porch steps. Beezer followed.
She and the dog emerged from the house in short order.
“Jenna, will you shut Beezer inside?” Flynn called.
Without questioning, Jenna complied.
Sounding shaky, Andee said, “But I want Beezer to go to the doctor with me.”
“He can’t go into the hospital, Andee. It’s better that he stay here.”
“But...he went to the doctor with you.”
“I go to the veteran’s clinic. They let dogs in. The community hospital is different.”
Andee whined, “Why can’t I go to vet...vet...place you said?”
Flynn smiled. “Because you’re not a veteran, sugar.”
Jenna returned, clutching two bed pillows. “My SUV has more room inside than your pickup. But would you drive so I can sit in back with Andee?”
“Sure. Let’s put her in the middle seat belt and not in her booster, where it’ll be more difficult to support her arm.”
Jenna opened the back door and propped the pillows against the child seat.
Flynn slid partway in and gently settled Andee, who cried out sharply. He backed out fast to let Jenna climb in.
Starting the SUV moments later, he glanced back to make sure they were okay before he got under way. Andee cried from the jarring until Flynn reached the highway, where the road smoothed out.
The adults refrained from talking. Jenna filled the silence by quietly singing one of Andee’s favorite songs. It helped pass the time until Flynn pulled up outside the hospital emergency room. “I’ll go grab a wheelchair. Why don’t you take her in and get the ball rolling while I park?”
Jenna nodded anxiously.
The girl still held Cubby in a death grip with her good arm. Over the last mile or so she’d stopped crying. But her wailing commenced the minute Flynn moved her to the wheelchair.
“Please don’t cry, sweetie,” Jenna murmured. “I have to fill out some paperwork so they’ll let a doctor see us.”
“They’ll need your insurance,” Flynn said, pausing to hand Jenna the purse she’d left on the floor mat. “Are you guys still covered by the military?”
“No, our benefits are in limbo. I had to take out a private policy.” She didn’t mention having opted for a high deductible. In fact, his reminder about insurance knotted her stomach. The cost to repair a badly broken arm would probably wipe out everything she’d gotten for her rings. Funds she’d earmarked for Flynn’s AC. But it was what it was. Andee’s health came first.
Resolute, Jenna navigated the wheelchair through the automatic door. She was relieved to see an almost empty waiting room.
“I want Flynn.” Andee fussed.
Jenna filtered her fingers through the girl’s sweat-damp curls. “He’s parking the SUV.” She gave their names to the nurse behind the counter, who then asked the nature of their visit.
The woman murmured sympathetically when Andee spoke up, saying tearfully, “I crashed my new bicycle and broke my arm.”
“I see. Well, let’s get you into an examining room. Your mom can fill out the papers in there.” The nurse turned again as Flynn entered, looked around and joined them. “Ah, here’s Daddy,” the nurse announced around a smile. “He can lift you up onto the exam table so I can cut off the splint and have a look at your arm.”
“He’s a friend,” Jenna put in quickly.
“But I can certainly lift Andee up onto the table,” Flynn responded.
And he did just that, shifting a pillow from the head of the table to tuck it under Andee’s arm.
Andee’s cries again tapered to loud sniffles.
Before now Jenna had only viewed the injury in a dim light provided at the scene by Flynn’s penlight. Now as the nurse cut away the duct tape, exposing the misshapen bend, she shuddered and clamped down on a sob of her own.
Flynn slid an arm around her shoulders and massaged the tight muscles on either side of her neck. “Why don’t you sit? You haven’t filled out the registration forms.”
Nodding, Jenna sank gratefully into a straight-backed chair. She popped up again when a young man wearing a white coat bustled into the room.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Reynolds. Ouch. Did you fall out of a swing or a tree?”
Shaking her head side to side, Andee observed him with big eyes. “I crashed my new bicycle.”
“Ah. Nurse, we need pictures of that arm stat.”
“Why? My arm hurts.” Andee tried to shrink away from his touch. The movement obviously caused her pain because she began to shriek anew.
“X-rays don’t hurt,” the doctor promised. “They’ll show me what I need to do to fix your broken bones. Right now your fingers are swollen up like little sausages. We don’t want them to stay that way. And you’d rather the hurting stop, right?”
Andee nodded tearfully. “I don’t want sausage fingers.”
“Mom, Dad,” the doctor said, “we’ll bring in a portable X-ray. It’ll take a few minutes to get some shots and set up to reduce that fracture. Mom, you look peaked. If you feel faint, it’s okay to step out of the room when I start.”
Neither of them corrected his misconception, but at the doctor’s statement, Flynn transferred his gaze to Jenna. “You’ll hold up. Andee will want you with her.”
Tightening her hold on the clipboard, Jenna took strength from how tall, solid and dependable he was. If his blood pressure had increased during this, it sure wasn’t obvious. “I’m good,” she declared.
The doctor inclined his head. “A tech will be in shortly. I’ll leave you to complete registration while Nurse Foster gathers what we need.” To Andee he said, “You take good care of that bear until I get back.” He left, and a man in light blue scrubs rolled in an X-ray machine. Things moved quickly after that. And it wasn’t long before Dr. Reynolds swept back in.
“Good news.” He drew Jenna’s and Flynn’s attention to a computer screen. “Both bone pieces are aligned and there are no muscle or ligament tears.”
He then went to the sink and began to wash his hands. Pulling on latex gloves, he discreetly selected a hypodermic from a surgical pack Nurse Foster had prepared. She’d already cleaned Andee’s arm with a liquid the girl complained was cold.
“Little bee sting,” the doctor said.
It wasn’t until after Andee uttered an ear-piercing scream, which caused Jenna’s stomach to plummet, that she realized how deftly the nurse and Flynn had held Andee still.
And still Flynn anchored his free hand around her waist, tucking her against his side. She took comfort from the heat radiating through his shirt as Dr. Reynolds eased Andee’s bones back into place.
“You’re a brave girl,” he said. “For that I’ll give you a cast with pink-and-white flowers. Would you like that? Or you can have a yellow one with bright green frogs.”
Tears still billowed from Andee’s eyes. “Mommy?” A question hung on the one shaky word, sounding so pitiful Flynn relaxed his grip as Jenna moved closer to the table.
“Your choice, honey.” Bending, she kissed Andee’s wet cheek before the tech moved everyone away to shoot more X-rays.
The nurse kept Andee occupied, leaving the doctor free to explain what was going on. “Her fingers should look more normal by morning,” he said. “These porous casts let air circulate around the arm. At her age, bones generally knit fast. Take her to your family doctor to have it rechecked in four weeks.”
“I don’t have a family doctor yet,” Jenna said. “We only moved here a month ago.”
“Ah, sorry, I noticed you’re favoring one leg,” he said to Flynn, “so I assumed you’d seen a doctor recently.”
“I go to the VA,” Flynn put in, still not correcting his family status.
The tech entered and showed Dr. Reynolds the new X-rays.
“Perfect,” the doctor announced. “So will it be flowers or frogs, young lady?”
Jenna fiddled with Andee’s hair. “I happen to know Auntie Melody sent you a present that will look nice with pink-and-white flowers. It’s waiting for you at home.”
“But I want frogs.”
That made everyone in the room laugh. “Frogs it is.” The nurse opened a cabinet and brought out casting material. In a few nimble moves the doctor had Andee’s forearm encased in fabric covered in smiling green frogs on lily pads.
When the ordeal was over, the nurse directed Jenna to an area marked Accounting.
Flynn carried Andee and Cubby into the waiting room, where she just had to show her new cast to the few people that’d come in after them.
“There went my alpacas and your air conditioner,” Jenna said to Flynn, who waited at the door for her. “By the way, I’m sorry they all kept assuming you were Andee’s dad.”
He started to reply, but his cell phone rang. Flynn worked it out of his pocket and managed a “Hello?” on the fourth ring. “Mom, hi. Listen, I’m just leaving the emergency room. Can I call you later? What? No, not me. Jenna’s daughter fell off her bike and broke her arm.”
Walking beside him, Jenna could hear his mother’s exclamations of sympathy, followed by rapid-fire questions.
He rolled his eyes at Jenna, but asked Andee, “Do you want to tell my mother you’re okay?” He waggled the phone toward her.
The girl lifted her head from his shoulder. “Do I know her?”
“No, but I’ve mentioned you enough that she feels she knows you.” He held the phone to Andee’s ear, then halted by the SUV Jenna was unlocking.
“Yep, it hurt awful,” Andee said. “It’s better now ’cause I got my arm wrapped in funny green frogs.”
Flynn raised his voice. “They’re on her cast. Mom, say goodbye. We’re at the car and everyone’s tuckered. Especially Jenna,” he added, since the powerful parking-lot light he’d left the SUV beneath illuminated dark circles under her tired eyes. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“She said goodbye and remember to call her,” Andee relayed.
Nodding, Flynn pocketed his phone.
“Flynn, do you mind if I sit in back with Andee again on the way home?”
“Why would I mind?”
“No reason. I... It’s nice to have help. I would have handled it alone if I’d had to.”
“I know that,” he said. He closed their door and went around to open his.
They hadn’t gone far when Andee fell asleep with her head on Cubby Bear. Jenna felt compelled to say “From the time she was born Andrew was away more than he was home. I dealt with her choking on a penny when she was three. And she swelled up with hives the first time she ate a strawberry. It was a holiday and all of my neighbors were gone. Still, I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you were there tonight to splint her arm.”
“It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Please. Let me thank you. I’m trying to say it was a big deal to me.”
“Okay.” He glanced at her over his shoulder just as her stomach growled.
So loudly it embarrassed her.
Flynn eyed her again. “We missed dinner. I don’t believe there’s anyplace open in town since they roll in the sidewalks at eight. Anyway, you look exhausted. By no means am I a good cook. But I can probably throw together eggs, bacon and toas
t.”
A sigh escaped her. “I’ve already leaned on you more than I have any right to do.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“Look, I know you didn’t want to relocate to my place. You laid out a strict timetable I thought I could meet. Now I doubt I can and I’m sorry.”
Flynn gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I should confess... I... Well, I was smarting from having been dumped by my fiancée. I didn’t trust you because it seemed as if yet another commitment I’d signed up for was...well...was falling apart.”
He shook his head.
“Spending time with you has showed me that relationship was a mistake from the start.”
The silence lengthened.
“I don’t know what to say,” Jenna finally responded. “Relationships can be complicated.”
“I should be thankful that her lack of commitment came to light before we got married.”
“And had children.”
“See, that was part of the problem. She wanted to concentrate on her career. My injury and subsequent decision to leave the military didn’t fit her plan, either. Which is why it took me a while to accept any part in our breakup.”
“What was your part? Or do you have any idea?”
“Over the many weeks I spent in the hospital and then in rehab, I worked out the future to suit me without consulting her.”
He paused, a distant look in his eyes.
“She didn’t know I owned the airpark or that I opted for discharge. There are always two sides that you can’t separate until the shouting’s over.”
Jenna thought about her last few years with Andrew. He’d been away so much she had felt neglected. She’d acted like a single mom, giving Andee her undivided attention. When he got home he’d seemed demanding. Perhaps on those rotations, never for long, he might have felt she’d ignored him.
Andee had trailed him like a puppy, but perhaps he’d closed himself off, not because he hadn’t wished to be a dad, but because he’d needed time to decompress.
It had been easy to see he’d been under stress. She should have worked harder to get him to see a doctor no matter how much he’d objected.
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