“I came on the train from St. Louis, Zane. It took the same three days but this time it seemed much, much longer because—” She broke off and smoothed her fingers over his limp hand.
“Rosemarie is fine. She’s getting so big now, isn’t she?
“Growing up just like a weed, my father would say. She is a beautiful child, Zane. She asks for you over and over, but I do not think she should see you like this. Later, perhaps, when you can open your eyes and can talk to her. Otherwise it might frighten her.”
She paused to steady her voice. It would not help him to hear her cry.
“Dr. Graham says you may be able to hear me, so I’m going to keep on talking.” She paused and drew in a shaky breath. “Well, let’s see. The conservatory faculty is in its usual uproar over who gets which rooms and what students and the first recital dates. It all seems silly and unimportant to me now that I am here, but I will tell you about it anyway since...since Dr. Graham thinks it may help you.”
She stroked his hand, then lifted it to her cheek. “My friend Millicent—I’ve told you about her, haven’t I? She also teaches piano. She helped me pack my valise. I was in such a dither I couldn’t think, so it is possible I have brought too many pairs of gloves but no undergarments.”
She watched his face for a flicker of life. Nothing. And his breathing remained unchanged.
“Sam is treating Yan Li as if she is made of spun sugar. He won’t even let her lift an iron skillet to scramble eggs!”
The nurse, Elvira Sorensen, now fully recovered from her gunshot wound, brought a glass of water for her and Winifred gulped down the contents. Her throat felt dry and scratchy from talking.
She talked until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer, and then Dr. Graham stepped in and gently guided her out and down the hall. Sandy was waiting to walk her home. Her heart swelled at the kindness of the young deputy, but she couldn’t articulate one single word of thanks. He seemed to understand. On the front porch he tipped his Stetson and gave her a thumbs-up sign.
Sam and Yan Li fussed over her and coddled Rosemarie until bedtime. They had set up an extra crib in their room off the kitchen, and Yan Li assured her that Rosemarie was used to sleeping downstairs.
“Baby sleep, no matter what,” Sam confided. “Same for you, missy. Must sleep.”
The following morning Yan Li made the little pancakes Zane liked so much. Rosemarie had developed a taste for them as well, though more ended up on her face than in her mouth. Winifred picked at her breakfast until Sam stood frowning beside her. “You eat,” he ordered. “Yan Li make special.”
An hour later Winifred tiptoed into Zane’s hospital room to find Dr. Graham bent over him, stethoscope in hand.
At her questioning look he shook his head.
“There’s been no change, my dear.”
She resumed her place at Zane’s bedside and again began to talk. She told him every inconsequential thing she could think of, about Yan Li’s pancakes and Rosemarie’s ability to smash them back into dough and smear them in her hair; the crisp sunshine outside; the lettuce in Yan Li’s garden that was going to seed in the fall heat; even Sam’s frowning presence beside her at her breakfast table.
Elvira brought a fresh glass of water and Winifred sipped it and went on talking. Hours later, she stopped to draw a breath and heard a strident voice in the hallway outside.
“I must see Zane! Where is he?”
Winifred’s heart stuttered. Darla Bledsoe. What was she doing here? Zane’s hold on life was tenuous at best; Darla would only disturb him.
She rose quickly, walked through the door of the hospital room and stepped into Darla’s path.
“Stand aside,” the young woman snapped. “I know he’s in there.”
“I will not stand aside,” Winifred replied calmly. “Zane is unconscious. Dr. Graham says he needs complete quiet, and no visitors.”
“But you’re here! I want to see him.”
“No.” Winifred put as much steel in her voice as she could muster. “You may not see him.”
Darla’s face grew mottled. “Why not? I’m closer to him than you are!”
Winifred ignored the comment. “Go home, Darla. If you want to help Zane, then pray for him.”
The widow made to push her way past, but Winifred stepped in front of her. “Zane does not want to see you.”
“You don’t know that,” Darla shouted.
Winifred took a deep breath. “I do know that. I am not letting you past this door. You will leave him in peace.”
Dr. Graham arrived, took hold of Darla’s arm and brusquely ushered her away. Shaking, Winifred returned to Zane’s bedside and again took his hand in hers.
Suddenly she felt a gentle but definite pressure against her palm.
“Elvira! Elvira, come quick!”
The nurse barreled into the room, her angular face white. “What’s wrong?”
“Zane squeezed my hand! I’m sure of it, he pressed my hand.” She began to cry. “D-does that mean he’s better?”
“Maybe. Let me get Doc Graham.”
Less than a minute later, Zane’s partner stepped into the room. He lifted Zane’s eyelids and studied his pupils, then slapped his stethoscope onto his bare chest.
“Hmm. You say he squeezed your hand?”
“Y-yes,” Winifred sobbed. “I know I didn’t imagine it. I stepped outside to speak to Mrs. Bledsoe... I’m afraid our voices were very loud, and when I came back—” She couldn’t go on.
“Hmm,” Dr. Graham said again. “Glad you got rid of Darla Bledsoe.” He bent again over Zane’s body.
“Keep talking to him if you can manage it, Winifred. Even if he is very deeply comatose, he can still hear.” He shot her a look. “But before you do, I want you to go home and get some rest. You’ve been here most of the day. Eat something. You’re not going to do Zane much good if you collapse.”
Winifred nodded. “I will. Just let me stay a few more minutes.”
Dr. Graham pulled a gold watch from his pocket. “Five minutes, Winifred. Or I’ll come back and carry you up the hill myself.” He laid his hand briefly on her shoulder on his way out.
She waited until the door closed behind him. “Zane,” she breathed. She lifted his hand again. “I’m going to keep talking to you, and maybe it will drive you crazy, and maybe I will run out of things to say, but I’m going to keep talking until you can answer me.” She drew in a shuddery breath.
“Oh, Zane, I refused to let Darla see you. I hope I didn’t overstep, but, well, even if I did, I don’t care.”
She pressed his hand to her forehead and brushed tears off her cheeks with her free hand.
And then he squeezed her fingers again.
Four hours later Winifred returned to the hospital to find Elvira Sorensen waiting for her in the entryway, mopping at her eyes with a sodden handkerchief. Winifred’s heart rolled up into her throat.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Oh, God, she couldn’t bear it.
Elvira enfolded her into her muscular arms. “Oh, no, dear, he’s not dead. An hour ago he opened his eyes. He really did! I think he was disappointed to see my face and not yours, but he looked right at me and tried to smile.”
* * *
Zane cracked open one eyelid and immediately snapped it shut. Blinding sunlight poured in the window and waves of pain washed over the back of his head. Where the hell was he?
Then he heard Elvira Sorensen’s scratchy voice. “Zane? Zane, can you hear me?”
A groan was the only sound he could produce. He hoped she understood.
“Zane, you’re in the hospital. There was an accident at the sawmill and Ike Bruhn was pulled into a belt saw. When they stopped it, you pulled him away and the log rolled over onto you. Do you remember any of this?”
He’d swear he had heard Winifred’s voice, but he must have dreamed it. Did he also dream that he heard an argument between Winifred and Darla Bledsoe? Winifred’s words had made him want to cheer, but he found he couldn’t utter a sound.
He felt Elvira move away from him. Someone else was in the room, but he couldn’t tell who it was. Doc Graham?
No. Whoever this was smelled good.
Then he heard Winifred’s voice again. “Zane.” That was all she said, but it was enough. With an effort he opened both eyes and squinted against the light.
Her face was blurry, but her touch on his hand was real enough. He tried to say her name.
“Zane, you are going to be all right. I know you are.” Her voice sounded so calm, so sure. He prayed to God she was not lying to him. His right temple felt like it was exploding and he couldn’t keep his eyelids open.
“Head hurts,” he managed to say. “Get Samuel.”
He sensed her leave his bedside and heard the door open. “Get Dr. Graham,” she said to someone. A moment later someone bent over him and he smelled the antiseptic of Graham’s hospital smock. A cold stethoscope settled on his chest.
“Samuel,” he murmured. “Bad headache.”
“Small wonder,” the physician muttered. “I’ll get some laudanum.”
Winifred settled again by Zane’s bedside, listening to his ragged breathing. She knew he was in pain; his almost bloodless lips were pressed into a thin line and one hand opened and closed convulsively. Dr. Graham returned with a half glass of something in his hand and helped Zane to raise his head and swallow it down.
“How’s Ike?” Zane murmured.
Dr. Graham straightened. “His arm’s broken in two places. But you’ll like this, Zane. His wife’s expecting. Ike said if it’s a boy he’s going to name him after you.”
A fleeting smile curved Zane’s mouth. “Austen,” he muttered. “Nathaniel hard to say.”
The door closed behind him, and Winifred tried to stop the tears stinging her eyes. Dear God, would he really recover? She watched his bare chest rise and fall as his breathing slowed. His tense mouth began to relax and the frown creasing his forehead smoothed out.
She brushed her lips lightly against the cool skin of his cheek, then let her head droop forward until it rested against his rib cage. His hand settled against her hair.
“You really are here,” he said, his words slurring. “Thought I was dreaming.”
She couldn’t answer. Behind her the door opened and Elvira tiptoed in and touched her shoulder. “Come and rest, Miss Von Dannen. I’ll make some tea.”
Winifred nodded, swiped at the tears coursing down her cheeks and followed the nurse into the hallway.
“Doc Graham thinks the worst is over.”
The nurse’s words brought a fresh onslaught of weeping and while the water heated in the tiny nurse’s room, Elvira joined her in a good cleansing cry.
* * *
The following morning Winifred stepped into the hospital entryway to find Rooney Cloudman pacing up and down outside the door to Zane’s room, a bouquet of yellow roses in his gnarled hand. He thrust them at her.
“These are for you, Miss Winifred.”
She buried her nose in the blooms. “Oh, Rooney, they are beautiful.”
“I heard about what you said to Darla Bledsoe t’other day. Just wanted you to know you done right.”
Winifred gulped. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have stopped her that way, but I just couldn’t... Heavens, it’s probably all over town.”
“Yep, it’s all over town all right. Haven’t heard so much cheering since Thad MacAllister brought in his bumper wheat crop last summer.”
Winifred’s face heated. “I should not have presumed.”
“Aw, now, Miss Winifred.” He laid his arm across her shoulders and squeezed. “Me and Sarah, we think you should presume all to hell.”
Winifred laughed in spite of herself. When a chuckling Rooney left the hospital, she entered Zane’s room and received her second shock of the morning. Zane was propped halfway up in bed, laboriously spooning oatmeal into his mouth.
“Oh, Zane! You’re sitting up.”
“Damn right. Head still aches, but—” He broke off to drag in a breath and plunged his spoon into the bowl. Winifred noticed his hand was shaking. She reached to take the utensil.
“I can feed you, Zane.”
He batted her hand away. “No. It’s good practice.”
He ate so slowly Winifred gritted her teeth to keep from snatching the bowl away. “Good practice for what?”
“For coming home. Not an invalid.”
She noticed his frown deepening and guessed his headache was back. Still he doggedly finished the oatmeal, slid down on the pillows and closed his eyes with a sigh.
“Get Samuel, will you?”
Dr. Graham administered another dose of laudanum, and Zane slept. Winifred read some Wordsworth, paced up and down the hallway outside his room, had tea with Elvira and sat by Zane’s bedside and read until her eyes burned.
Late in the afternoon she looked up to find Zane watching her.
“Who brought the roses?” he asked, tipping his chin at the vase on the side table.
“Rooney Cloudman. I was so touched I forgot to ask about their honeymoon trip.”
One of Zane’s eyebrows rose. “None of our business.”
“It seems everything that happens in this town is everybody’s business.” But she decided not to tell him of the gossip circulating about her encounter with Darla.
“Tell me about Rosemarie. Is she all right?”
“She is just fine. Sam and Yan Li keep her entertained, but she asks and asks where her papa is.”
“What do they tell her?”
“They say you are...traveling.”
“Good.”
“I think it might reassure her to see you.”
“No. Don’t want her to see me like this. Might frighten her.”
“But—”
“Don’t.” He almost snapped out the word, and Winifred was torn between joy that he had enough energy and breath to do so and annoyance at his order.
She drew in a slow, calming lungful of air and folded her hands in her lap. “I suppose it is a good sign that you are—”
“Bad-tempered?” he inserted.
“Irascible. You are never like this, Zane. Do you want some more laud—?”
“No.”
She rolled her eyes. “Goodness, one would never mistake you for a soft-spoken man, now would they?”
Zane just groaned.
“Really, Zane, don’t you think—?”
“Dammit, Winifred, I’m not used to being sick.”
“You’re not ‘sick,’ Dr. Dougherty. According to Doc Graham, you have had a severe head trauma.”
“Hate being down,” he grumbled.
Winifred resisted the impulse to laugh. It was the first and only time she’d ever seen a chink in the gentlemanly good humor Zane always exhibited. Maybe it was a good thing for him to realize he was as human as everyone else. That even a physician had vulnerabilities.
But enough was enough.
Chapter Nineteen
The next afternoon Winifred rebelled. Yan Li dressed Rosemarie in a ruffled pink pinafore, and hand in hand Winifred walked Zane’s daughter down to the hospital and into Zane’s room. He was sitting in a chair by the window and Rosemarie made straight for him.
“Papa! Papa!”
Winifred lifted he
r onto his lap. Zane clasped his young daughter in his arms and held her tight. Over her pink pinafore-covered shoulder, he caught Winifred’s eye and tried to frown. Then he tried to smile and couldn’t do that, either. A fist closed around her heart.
Zane closed his eyes and rocked Rosemarie to and fro, murmuring things Winifred couldn’t hear while Rosemarie played with the buttons on his pajama top and chattered on and on in a spate of nonsense syllables. Zane responded as if they made perfect sense.
Finally he set her onto the floor and she toddled over to Winifred and threw her little arms around her knees. “Up,” she demanded.
Winifred shot a look at Zane and caught her breath. His gray eyes were wet and shiny. Oh, dear Lord, had she done the right thing in bringing his daughter? Zane had been so...so... Well, lately it was hard to know what was best to do.
Rosemarie sat on her lap, playing with the buttons of the blue dimity shirtwaist she’d donned this morning, until she grew drowsy. She lifted the baby to kiss Zane, took her tiny hand and walked back up the hill to the house for lunch and a nap.
When she returned to the hospital that evening, Zane was wide awake and waiting for her.
“Tell me about you, Winifred,” he said with no preamble.
“Me?”
“How is it that you are here?”
“On the train, as usual. That seems an odd question from someone who’s met my train on a number of occasions.”
“I mean, why did you come?”
She stiffened. “Zane, I cannot believe you are asking this. I came because Samuel wired me you had been injured.”
“Ah,” he said.
“Oh, Zane, I came because I couldn’t bear to not be here.”
“Better,” he breathed. “Much better. Kiss me, Winifred. Gently. My head aches if I move it.”
She bent and softly pressed her mouth to his and heard him make a small noise deep in his throat.
“Now,” he murmured, “keep on talking.”
* * *
Zane had walked halfway up the hill from the hospital before he realized he’d pushed too far, too fast. He stopped and puffed hard for a few minutes.
What am I trying to prove?
Harlequin Historical November 2015, Box Set 2 of 2 Page 16
