Snowstorm Confessions

by Rachel Lee

  Then a thought occurred to her. “Luke? Have you worked with Mike Hanson for long?”

  “Five, six years. Why?”

  “I just wondered.” Because he’d been the only other person out there when Luke fell, and Luke had initially claimed he’d been pushed. “Do you remember any more about what happened?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s common enough, to forget what happened right before.”

  “I hear. I guess I stirred up a mess of trouble, saying I was pushed. Wonder where that came from.”

  “The concussion,” she said with more surety than she felt. “People can say and do a lot of crazy things.”

  “How do you know what’s real?”

  She managed a smile for him. “By what doesn’t change.”

  “Not true,” he said, his face drooping. “Life changes. All the time.”

  “You’re right. It does.” And sometimes that was its saddest part.

  * * *

  Changing the sheets and sponging him down didn’t prove that difficult physically, but for her it was sheer hell psychologically. She lowered his leg so she could roll him onto his side and sponge his back. She didn’t care if the sheets got damp, but beneath them was a foam pad, what they sometimes called an egg crate, to help prevent pressure sores. That definitely couldn’t get wet.

  So she pulled out a rubber sheet, and once she had carefully rolled him to the side, she tucked it beneath him to catch any water. It was then she saw all the bruises that covered his back. She couldn’t withhold a sound of distress.

  “What’s wrong?” He was starting to sound pretty groggy from the pain pill.

  “Your back is a mess. You must have rolled when you tumbled. Just bruises. Let me know if I hurt you.”

  “You already did that,” he muttered.

  She had to resist an urge to snap at him, especially since she was sure he wouldn’t have said it at all if he weren’t full of drugs and concussed. Luke had never been a man to show weakness of any kind. Initially she had admired that in him. Now she wondered.

  Wringing out a cloth, she began to wash him from his neck down, baring only small parts of his body to prevent him from growing chilled.

  “Feels good,” he mumbled.

  “As long as the water stays warm,” she answered. Maybe she should have gotten a heating pad to put beneath the bowl. Or she could just hurry.

  She had to be gentle, not wanting to hurt him, but she hoped the rubbing of the terry cloth would stimulate circulation. And instead of going fast, she lingered. It had been years since she had run her hands over this muscled back, but time hadn’t diminished the impact anyway. He was a beautifully built man, sculpted by years of physical labor, without a spare ounce of flesh on him. She knew she wasn’t maintaining proper clinical detachment, but she figured that was a lost cause under the circumstances.

  “Feels good,” he mumbled again, drowsily.

  To her, too. She worked her way down slowly, relearning every line of him, lingering more than she should have. Her breath quickened, and she felt stupid for it. This man hadn’t wanted her, and anyway, even if he had he was out of action.

  When she reached his buttocks, she felt him quiver, and a similar quiver ran through her. It did not help to realize that that hadn’t died with their marriage. Biting her lip, she forced herself to a quicker pace, then covered him with a blanket so he wouldn’t get chilled.

  “You feeling all right?” she asked as she rounded the bed.

  “Great.”

  “I need to get more warm water, then I’m going to turn you again.”

  He didn’t answer and she hoped he had dozed off again. This was getting too intimate when it should have been purely clinical. Damn him.

  When she returned, she rolled him gently onto his back. One groan escaped him, but only one. “It’s okay,” he mumbled.

  She started at his shoulders and began to work her way down bit by bit. When she reached his hips and was about to move the blanket, his good hand reached out with a speed that surprised her.

  “No. Not there.”

  “I’m a nurse,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as weak as she suddenly felt.

  “No,” he repeated.

  She couldn’t help feeling relieved. Honestly, she didn’t know if she could manage to handle his privates with anything approaching proper detachment. But she remembered them, remembered all too well. He was perfectly built in every respect, at least as far as she was concerned. And for a few seconds as she stood there, she realized she wanted nothing more than to touch him intimately again, to caress him and draw groans from his lips. She needed to get a grip. Quickly.

  Apparently even in his present state, memory was bedeviling him as much as it was her. He’d never been shy about his body, and if it had been anyone else proposing to wash him, he probably wouldn’t have objected.

  Maybe more than one thing wasn’t completely dead yet.

  After that, though, things went faster. She made up one side of the bed with a fresh sheet, rolled him over and finished the job while he lay on the freshly made side. Man, it had been a while since she had needed to do this. Usually the LPNs handled it.

  But at last he was clean and in a fresh gown. “Bathroom?” she asked.

  “Nah, just give me that bottle thing.”

  “Call if you need help.” She practically fled. Time to regroup, she told herself as she waited in the kitchen. Time to build up the time and distance he’d erased so effectively. Time to remind herself of all her good reasons for not reacting to him. Time to figure out how she was going to handle this until he could be transported.

  Because somehow she had to. Sometimes the hardest part of life was just dealing. The curveballs seemed to keep coming.

  * * *

  Trent stopped by every evening for a quick look at Luke and three days later pronounced himself very satisfied. “The recovery is really going well,” he said. “I don’t see any new swelling since you left the hospital, Luke, and there’s no sign of infection. At this rate we’ll take you back for X-rays in a few days, and maybe we can get you into a walking cast.”

  “That would be great,” Luke said. “I hate being stuck in bed.”

  “Well, the good news is, I’m going to allow you to spend some time in the wheelchair now with your leg up. It’ll give you some mobility.”

  “Maybe even the front porch,” Bri said. “We’re starting to get warmer at last.”

  “I’d continue elevating his leg overnight, but unless you detect some new swelling, he can sit up as much as he wants.” He turned to Luke. “Just don’t tire yourself too much. You’ve still got a lot of mending to do, including inside your head. So don’t push it.”

  Bri listened to this, wondering if Luke would follow instructions or just push himself to the brink over and over. She was surprised he hadn’t grown so frustrated with his confinement that he swamped her in it. In fact, when all was said and done, he’d been amazingly cooperative so far.

  “What about bending my leg again?” Luke asked.

  “The break above your knee was minor. Depending on how the X-rays look we may be able to give you back the use of your knee. No promises, but if we can, we will.”

  “God,” Luke said after Trent left, “that would be a relief.”

  “What?”

  “Bending my leg again. Right now it just juts out there and even getting to the bathroom is a major hassle. Nothing moves right.”

  She turned to look at him at last and found him making a funny face. Despite her best intention to remain distant, she had to laugh.

  “That’s better,” he said, surprising her. “The freeze around here has been amazing. It’s a wonder I don’t have frostbite.”

  She couldn’t protest that he was wrong. She had been pretty much hiding out in the kitchen, appearing only when she had to act the role of nurse. Maybe it wasn’t exactly friendly of her, but she didn’t need to be friendly. Those days were gone and she did
n’t want to risk letting them back in. She’d already discovered that three years hadn’t banished old yearnings and old pains, at least not entirely. Spending a lot of time with him would be folly.

  So she pretended she was at work, looking in on him as often as necessary, seeing to his essential needs, but definitely not sitting around and entertaining him.

  Now his pain meds had been reduced, and she doubted he was going to continue to be such a compliant patient. In fact, she was sure his boredom would start becoming a problem. Maybe having Jan take over for her would be salvation, much as she didn’t want Jan to have free run of her house. She liked the woman well enough, but at some level had never entirely trusted her. Among other things, she was an unkind gossip. Not the sort of person you wanted to share anything intimate with.

  On the other hand... Well, on the other hand it turned out she didn’t have to worry about Jan. She needed to worry about herself. The nursing supervisor called to say that she was putting Bri on family leave for the next week.

  “But why, Mary?”

  “Think about it,” Mary said frankly. “I hear he’s your ex. Do you really want some of the nurses here running over there to cover for you and hunting for juicy details?”

  Bri knew exactly who Mary meant. Much as she wanted to escape Luke for a few hours and get back on her normal routine, she couldn’t deny Mary’s point.

  “I know this must be hard on you,” Mary said. “But it could be harder, if you think about it. So tough it out, Bri. Maybe once the guy’s brain is less addled he’ll figure out a way to get himself to a convalescent facility.”

  After she hung up the phone, she sat at the table wondering how everything had just spun her life out of control and what she was going to do about it. Transport was expensive, and even though Luke was well paid, hiring an ambulance to drive him a couple hundred miles... Well, nobody short of a billionaire would want to do that. The cost of getting a facility to come pick him up would probably be nearly as much.

  Nothing like being in the boonies, she thought for the umpteenth time since the accident. Most people had family around here who could do this part, but Luke had no one but her.

  Which left her the reluctant nurse. Dang.

  In that instant a whole lot seemed to crash down on her. Feelings she’d been deliberately avoiding since Luke had come back into her life. Feelings about him being right there and spending most of her time trying to ignore him. Feelings out of the distant past.

  And again and again the memory of how many times he’d said he’d lost her. Did he really feel that way?

  She wanted to pack a bag and just run. A tsunami seemed to be headed right at her, and she wondered if she would survive it. Old wounds reopening. Old arguments rebuilding. New problems. Changes.

  How long could she keep a lid on it before something snapped?

  “Bri?”

  The sound of him calling her name pierced her heart. She didn’t want that. She didn’t want that ever again.

  * * *

  Jack hadn’t seen much of Bri since the accident, except when she ran out for a short time to get more milk shakes or things from the grocery. It made him uneasy. He needed to know what was going on.

  He’d thought giving the Luke guy that shove would have settled the matter one way or another. Either he’d die or be transported to a hospital far away.

  Instead he’d landed right in Bri’s house. Did she care that much for him still?

  He had to know, so he’d crawled into the attic again to listen. So far he hadn’t seen or heard a thing to make him nervous. Bri spent an awful lot of time in her kitchen or bedroom. She hardly talked to Luke.

  That was good.

  But hearing Luke call for her as though she was some kind of servant really ticked him off. He supposed he should be nice about it, considering the guy was stuck in bed, but he wasn’t feeling very nice about it.

  Every minute that Luke spent in her house struck him as a ticking time bomb. What if they made up?

  He wouldn’t be able to stand it.

  Chapter 4

  Now that Luke was spending more time in the chair, the hospital gown had to go. With his permission, she cut the leg off a pair of his sweatpants and soon got them on him. Then she cut the arm off a matching sweatshirt to just above the elbow and helped him into that.

  “I feel almost human,” he announced when she was done.

  She saw he was trying to smile, an expression that was coming easier as the swelling in his cheek receded some. He was still not in great shape, but the improvement was fast and noticeable.

  “Potato soup for dinner tonight,” she told him.

  “Homemade?”

  “Yes.”

  “I love your homemade potato soup.”

  He always had. “With ground turkey,” she added, knowing how much he liked that. “It’s still chilly out, but do you want to try sitting on the porch for a bit?”

  “Please.”

  He was being incredibly polite, she noticed. Almost as if they were strangers. Either he was still addled, or he was trying to pretend they didn’t have a past. Either way was fine by her. Or so she told herself.

  She lowered the bed to the level of the wheelchair, then locked the chair in place. He was becoming quite the expert at levering himself in and out of it with one arm.

  She had a moment of concern, though, when he slipped onto the chair then lowered his head. “Luke? What’s wrong?”

  “Dizzy.”

  That was expected post-concussion, but she needed to know more. “How dizzy? Worse?”

  “Not worse. Just a little.” After a moment he lifted his head. “Better now.”

  He was still limited to short sentences because of his cheek, and the way he was talking she wondered just how cut up the inside of his mouth had been.

  She looked straight into his eyes, but saw the pupils were even. Okay, then, nothing worse. Yet. Grabbing a blanket, she covered his legs, then wrapped another around his upper body as best she could. “You tell me if you start to feel chilled.”

  “’Kay.”

  “Promise?”

  He just glared at her, and she had a crazy urge to laugh. Dizzy or not, that was Luke. Even when they were married he hadn’t liked being fussed over.

  Out on the porch she locked the chair so it wouldn’t roll, then ran back inside to get her jacket. She pulled up a plastic chair beside him.

  “The snow is finally almost gone,” she remarked. “And I think I see some buds on the trees. It’s been a late spring.”

  “I noticed.”

  “So you said the ski slopes won’t be visible from town?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Good, because those mountains are too pretty to be scarred.”

  “Agree.” He shifted his weight in the wheelchair. “Should all be pretty. For everyone.”

  “Will you have all the shops up there, or will people come to town?”

  “Both.”

  She looked at him and realized it was getting easier to see him nearby. She was growing accustomed to his face again, to quote an old song. “How so?”

  “Some people don’t want to leave the resort. Others want to see more. Around here, that’s this town. Build up the Old West flavor and your shops will be busy.”

  “If they carry the right merchandise.”

  “Yeah. Not my issue.”

  No, she supposed it wasn’t. “Has your company even thought about the fact that this town serves working ranchers and local people? They can’t be priced out of the place. Not like Aspen and Vail.”

  “Part of the charm,” he said.

  “What is?”

  “Working town, not plastic town. They don’t want to ruin that, I hear.”

  “They better not. I imagine a whole lot of people are already getting upset about this. They didn’t like the semiconductor plant, for example, and that created a bunch of good jobs for a while. It also brought a whole lot of new people who didn’t u
nderstand our way of life. You’re going to face some opposition.”

  “Always do.”

  If she allowed her memory to wander to her past with him, she had no difficulty remembering occasional references to local opposition. He never made much of it, but for the first time she wondered if he had been trying to protect her from some very real dangers in his work. Look at him. She couldn’t forget that he claimed to have been pushed, even though he didn’t remember that now.

  Ice touched the base of her neck.

  “Nice to be outside again,” he said. His speech was definitely becoming clearer.

  “I imagine so.” He’d always preferred being outdoors, but he’d also always preferred being active. “Feel like a prisoner?”

  “Not much I can do about it.”

  “Not right now.” She hesitated. “Have you thought about transport to a convalescent facility?”

  His gray eyes pinned her. “Wanna get rid of me?”

  Sheesh. Looking into those eyes, something inside her whispered that that was the last thing she wanted. How stupid could she be? “I’m thinking of your recovery. You’ll probably get a walking cast soon. You’ll also probably need some rehab.” She hung back from telling him the community hospital had a decent physiotherapy department. She feared it would sound like an invitation, one she didn’t want to offer.

  “Sorry I messed up your life,” he said. “But I’m not leaving.”

  “Why?”

  “My job.” He fixed her with his stare again. “I may not be able to climb the mountain, but I’ve seen enough to finish my report. This is my project.”

  “They won’t take it away from you? Mike seemed pretty sure they were going to send someone else.”

  “Not soon. Everyone’s tied up. I’ll call them Monday and tell them I have a handle on it. As soon as I can walk again, I’ll get out of your hair.”

  And go back to the motel. She had to admit she really didn’t like the idea of him living there, but she also figured he’d endured worse conditions. Was he in her hair? Yes. Had he made a mess of her life? Only a little. He’d be gone soon.

  “I’m not trying to throw you out,” she said finally.

  “But you’re uncomfortable. I get it. I just wanted to say hi and defend myself, and instead I wind up in your living room. You must be thrilled.”