by Vella Munn
“What then? Anti-inflammatory and ice packs? Rest.” Rest meant no paycheck and having to dip into her savings. Maybe having to limp along with her old vehicle for the indefinite future.
“Or surgery.”
“No! I—no.”
“Why not?”
Darn Terron! Why did he have to look down at her like she was some specimen he was studying? His presence trapped her almost as much as his words had.
“I’m not going under the knife.” The strength behind her words buoyed her. This was her body. No one could do anything to it without her permission. “Don’t you have to go to work?”
By way of answer, he reached in his jacket pocket for his cell phone. His call, most likely to Rey, was short. He’d clock in as soon as he could but something important had come up. He’d explain later.
“That takes care of that,” he said. To her relief, he walked over to the window, leaving her able to breathe without his presence complicating the process. Now if she could just get her nerves to stop jumping. “It’s raining. Might get cold enough tonight for snow.”
“Thank goodness Shadow has a place to stay dry. I appreciate…” She’d already thanked him for the dog house. Doing so again was simply stalling.
Something about his stance and the distance between them distracted her from what she’d blurted about not allowing herself to be touched by a surgical knife. He didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be part of this mess with her injury. Maybe he was regretting ever speaking to her, but it wasn’t as if he’d get the bill for her medical treatment. She had to stop thinking about herself and focus at least some of her attention on him.
“No one wants surgery,” he finally said. “But most times we don’t have a choice. My parents didn’t.”
And his parents were dead. Was that what he was thinking, that people got sick and died? But her heart wasn’t going to stop beating because of a bum shoulder. However, surgery would, maybe, change how she lived her life for the foreseeable future.
Ah no! I don’t want this.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” She concentrated on getting the button back through the buttonhole.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “How about telling me why you’re rejecting surgery.”
“Defense mechanism? All right, here’s something. Who will take care of Shadow if I’m out of commission?”
“He isn’t your responsibility.”
“It’s not like that. I want to take care of him. To make his life safe and warm. To show him that he can trust humans.”
Terron shook his head and flattened his hand against the windowpane. “Shadow isn’t the issue.” He wasn’t looking at her, not that it helped much. “Your shoulder is. You have to make the decision.”
“What decision?” Would he ever leave? Maybe she could get him to stay all day.
“You know what I’m talking about—surgery.” He faced her again. “The only way we can reach that point is by getting you to a doctor.”
We? She couldn’t wrap her mind around the word. It had been I for so long. More to the point, that condition had changed only once and look how it had turned out.
“What?” he demanded. “Darn it, Kolina, that isn’t a sliver we can remove with tweezers.”
“I know it. The thing is…”
“What?”
“I’ve never been to a doctor.”
His mouth sagged open. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“But—”
“It’s not that big of a deal. I’ve always been healthy. My mother didn’t believe in forking money over to the medical profession.” She needed to stop before she went any deeper, but she hadn’t really talked to someone, to a man that was, since Brian had died. The need to do so was nearly overwhelming.
“Moving around the way Mom did—I think the different schools I attended were always a step behind her when it came to immunizations and checkups. By the time I assumed responsibility for my wellbeing, our relationship had become distant. It isn’t that we don’t love each other but—I’ve never asked her why she did what she did.”
He looked confused, not that she blamed him. Every time she’d asked her mother why she was opposed to the medical community, her mother had clammed up. It didn’t make sense but that was Mom. Fortunately there’d been no broken bones or need for stitches, no serious illness as far as she remembered.
After briefly pressing his cheek against the misted-over glass, Terron walked over to her and held out his hand. She put her good one in it and watched, not breathing, as he lifted it to his mouth and kissed the back. Something melted inside her. She struggled against the impulse to cry.
No, not cry. That she didn’t do. Ever.
“What—was that about?” she managed.
He ran his mouth over her fingers. “I’m not sure.”
Chapter Eleven
The next day, Terron pulled into the parking lot of an immediate care clinic in Kalispell. Kolina had barely spoken during the drive down from Lake Serene and after bringing up the contrast between traffic in the mountains and in town, he’d fallen silent. About a half hour into their journey, she told him Alisha had offered her a job but hadn’t expanded on it and he hadn’t asked for details. It had snowed a little last night, but rain this morning had melted the thin blanket of white. Right now the world looked worn out.
As he got out and walked around to open her door, it finally registered with him that she’d actually agreed to get a medical opinion. From the moment he’d told her he needed to go to town for supplies and she could ride with him, he’d half expected her to bail. She might have if she’d been able to work, but her shoulder wasn’t getting better. She was stoic all right, quite different from his mother who’d shared her every discomfort with her husband and son. He wanted to both shake Kolina for shutting him out and compliment her courage but did neither. He also didn’t tell her that the bit about needing to go to town had been a stretch and that he’d come close to keeping his mouth shut.
She’d looked so slight and vulnerable sitting next to him in the large cab, a desirable woman who didn’t seem to know how feminine she was. He wished he could dismiss that about her. At the same time, his awareness of her made him feel alive. His awareness doubled as he placed his hands around her waist to ease her journey to the ground. Fortunately, he had the sense to let her go once her legs were under her. Otherwise, what? He’d envelope her? Want to care for and about her?
No, not that.
This was just about getting a stubborn woman to do what logic said needed to be done.
At least Shadow, who’d moved into the dog house, had provided them with a much appreciated distraction. Shadow appeared to be reserved around but not afraid of people. Eventually Shadow had decided the two humans were good enough for him. Terron wasn’t sure how he felt about having a dog give him his seal of approval. Most likely Shadow would want something in return.
Once they were done at the clinic, in addition to hitting the grocery store, they’d go to a pet supply place since Kolina was determined to give Shadow the best food she could afford.
He didn’t mention if she couldn’t work, before long, she wouldn’t be able to support the mutt, or herself. The resort helped some with medical insurance costs for its employees, the operant word being some.
It didn’t matter that he’d done everything he could think of to prepare himself for walking into a place dominated by doctors and nurses, the moment he stepped inside the clinic, he wanted to leave.
Smells from the past he longed to keep buried assaulted him, and he stood on wide-spread legs trying not to breathe through his nose or look at posters about quitting smoking and getting flu shots.
“What is it?” Kolina asked.
“Nothing.”
“No, not nothing.”
Hopefully she was assuming he was worried about her diagnosis. There was some of that all right but mostly he was being swamped by memories of countless ap
pointments for his parents, appointments that in essence had always turned out the same. They’d been on a train without brakes going where none of them wanted to go.
He needed to be back at Lake Serene, to watch for snowflakes, to smell the cold and wet, to spot deer or elk prints in the mud, to hike deep into the wilderness. To see or at least hear the elusive wolf.
To borrow the quad and take Kolina on a ride with no destination. To stop and talk—more than talk. Ease past the barriers they’d both put up.
To explore what it was to be a man and a woman.
No complications.
“Terron, if you don’t want to stay you don’t have to.”
He’d had no choice when it had been his parents. This was different. Kolina Childs, he tried to remind himself, was simply someone he’d started hanging out with a few days ago. She didn’t expect him to hold her hand. It was enough that he’d provided transportation.
No it wasn’t.
Much as he longed to, he couldn’t desert her.
“I’m all right. Just more memory lane than I expected.”
She pressed her good shoulder against his. “I’m so sorry, and I hope you’ll tell me more about those memories.”
I’ve said all I need to, all I’m going to. “Let’s get you taken care of. You have your insurance card?”
“My never-used card, yes.”
Because their shoulders were touching, he knew when she shuddered. “You’re going to be all right. Believe me, this is nothing.”
She pulled away and stared at him. He expected her to tell him he didn’t know what he was talking about.
Instead, she nodded. “Thanks for saying that. I needed to be reminded to put things in perspective. Next to what happened to your parents, this is a blip.”
As he selected a chair with an empty one next to it, she went to the counter and checked in. Although the clinic didn’t require appointments, she’d called ahead. His parents had each had several doctors, specialists, and more specialists so walking in blind so to speak and taking one’s chances and knowing nothing about what to expect was foreign to him. He wanted this part of today to be over, for her to have a diagnosis and to know what she had to do to get better. That way he could stop worrying about her.
Was it that simple?
“I don’t want you going in with me,” she said once she was seated.
He hadn’t thought that far. More to the point, he hoped she couldn’t sense his relief. He squeezed her hand. She squeezed back and then pulled free.
“This feels so strange,” she said. “I have no idea what’s beyond that door. I know…”
“What do you know?”
She leaned forward and stared at the floor. “That nothing drastic is going to happen in there. At least I do intellectually. I’m just having a hard time convincing myself that the diagnosis won’t be too much of a shock.”
How long before her name was called? Hopefully soon so he wouldn’t have to hold up his end of a conversation, wouldn’t want to haul her out of here. “Why do you think you’re so uptight?”
She rocked back and forth then stopped. “Because of what happened to Brian.”
“Brian?”
“My fiancé. Former fiancé. He’s dead.”
He couldn’t speak.
*
The room the tall, young woman led Kolina into was dominated by an examination table with shelving all around and a counter full of shinny things. The woman hadn’t told her to climb onto it so she chose the chair next to a small workspace with a laptop on it. The blood pressure cuff tightened more than she’d expected and the little clip pinched her finger. She answered no to a bunch of questions about her health history. Then the woman said the doctor would soon be in and left.
Where was the man, if the doctor was a man? What was she supposed to do with herself while she waited? Magazines devoted to fishing, beauty, and child rearing didn’t interest her, and she figured she’d get in trouble if she peeked inside the various cupboards.
The room was too clean and smelled what? Artificial? She should have bottled up the scent of pine and lake water, maybe brought along a picture of Mount Lynx. There was a little mud on the sides of her tennis shoes, she hadn’t been able to do a decent job of shampooing her hair, and hadn’t put on makeup because she didn’t own any.
As she’d done in the waiting room, she stared at the floor and faced the fact that she was in this alone. Terron had provided transportation and the push she’d needed to come here, but it wasn’t as if they were in a romantic relationship. She hadn’t had one of those since Brian and—
Would Terron want her to tell him more about her dead fiancé? Could she?
Darn it, why had she blurted out what she had and was there a label she could put on what existed between Terron and her?
More than friends. Way less than lovers.
The door opened, and she pushed the questions to the back of her mind. Dr. Margolis was younger than she’d expected, not that she had anything to go by, well over six feet with long fingers. Instead of looking at the computer where she figured her vital statistics were recorded, he leaned against the exam table and studied her.
“How about you tell me what happened?”
Feeling more at ease than she’d expected to, she covered her shoulder’s recent history. He asked for details about her job. “In essence you’re repeatedly stressing that part of your body,” he told her. “That’s why athletes have as many physical issues as they do. They make their bodies do things bodies weren’t designed for.” He patted the examination table. “One thing for you to think about, pro athletes get paid a lot more than I’m guessing you do.”
“You aren’t telling me something I haven’t considered.”
“Good because I have the suspicion you aren’t going to like what I’ll be telling you once I’m done.”
The thankfully short examination hurt. She tried to distract herself by mentally replaying Terron’s massage but kept losing her train of thought. When Dr. Margolis was done manipulating her shoulder, he said he wanted an MRI of the area. Fortunately this clinic was set up to do them.
However, the length of time getting the MRI was taking bothered her. She asked the technician if someone could let Terron know what was happening.
“I’m sorry he has to sit out there,” she said. “Tell him I’ll call when I’m done. That way he can, I don’t know, go do something.”
She’d been led back to the exam room and told to wait some more when the door opened and Terron walked in. After seeing nothing but women in pink and a doctor wearing a dress shirt, Terron’s flannel shirt was a relief. So was his familiar face.
“What are—” she started.
“I asked. They told me the doctor will soon look at the MRI. I’m sure he’ll have something to tell you. I thought, well, I’m here.”
Her eyes started burning. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome.”
They sat side by side, not talking. She had no idea how much time was passing or why she wasn’t telling him what had been happening since they’d parted. His presence was comforting, yet it went beyond that. Once again, having him so close reminded her that she was a woman.
He did that to her a lot.
When Dr. Margolis came in, Terron shook hands with him and introduced himself as a friend.
“I’m not going to jump to any conclusions about your relationship with this young lady,” Dr. Margolis said, “but I hope you can get to her. She impressed me as being pretty independent and not a devotee of my profession, but she has to be serious about letting her shoulder rest.”
“Surgery?” Kolina got out.
“Fortunately, no. I can tell you’re relieved. What you have is a strain, specifically a torn tendon. Tendons, in case you didn’t know, are the tissues that connect muscles to bone. My guess is the tendon was already stretched from repeated heavy lifting. The collision with the stairs complicated things. You were right to ha
ve iced it. That helped hold down the swelling but it’s there.”
“So that’s what she’s going to need to do?” Terron asked. “Keep ice on it?”
“In part.” Dr. Margolis leveled her with a serious look. “It has to have the rest I talked about followed by physical therapy and targeted exercises. Otherwise, you’re going to be back in here. Eventually the tendon won’t be able to heal itself. It’s already permanently compromised.”
“Physical therapy?” Kolina blurted. “Where?”
“Kalispell has several clinics. I’ll give you a prescription you can take anywhere, ideally the one closest to where you live.”
“I live at Lake Serene.”
Dr. Margolis frowned. “That’s right. Well then hopefully the therapist will design a program you can do on your own. Not yet because you need to wear a brace designed to immobilize and compress the tendon. I want to see you again in ten days.”
When he told her to get back up on the table and started unbuttoning her top, she was glad she’d managed to put on a bra this morning. Dr. Margolis must have assumed that Terron and she were lovers because he didn’t hesitate to remove her top in front of him. She didn’t look at Terron but sensed his gaze on her.
The compression brace fit over her upper right arm and had an adjustable strap that went over her breasts and under her left arm. Despite how foreign it felt, she was grateful for the support.
“I don’t know how I can work with—”
“That’s the point. You aren’t supposed to work.”
“But—”
“I get it. You have financial concerns.”
Yes, I do.
As Dr. Margolis helped her back into her top, she glanced at Terron. He winked and nodded. It helped.
Dr. Margolis wrote a prescription for an anti-inflammatory to go with the shot he gave her and told her to schedule another appointment. Finally she was free to leave.
“That went better than I thought it might,” Terron said as he opened the clinic’s front door. Clouds muted the daylight. “I’m relieved you won’t need surgery and have no doubt you’re even more so. You know what I think?”
