Always a Lady

by Sharon Sala

  “What is it?” she asked. And then the blood on his shirt made her gasp. “Are you hurt? There’s blood all over your shirt!”

  “Ain’t mine,” Duff muttered. “It’s the boss’s. He was trying to separate a cow from her calf and she took an instant dislike to the idea.”

  “No,” Lily whispered. “Where is he? How bad is he hurt? Should I call for an ambulance?”

  “Lord, no!” Duff cried. “He’d have all our hides. But bring the first aid kit out of the pantry there and come with me. He won’t let me see to it and if’n he don’t let us clean it up, he could get infected. A barn lot is a prime place for lockjaw. Seen it once m’self.”

  Lily yanked open the pantry door and fumbled around in nervous panic until Duff pointed out a case that looked like her father’s tackle box. She grabbed it and followed the little foreman out of the kitchen door, praying with every step she took that Case wasn’t hurt too badly. If he was, she didn’t care how much he argued, he was going to the hospital.

  The sun was hanging suspended about halfway between zenith and horizon as Lily ran toward the barn with the tackle box banging against her legs. A stiff breeze had come up just after the noon meal and was stirring the dry, dusty earth with choking precision. Lily breathed in the red dust through her mouth and spit as she ran. She didn’t have time to think about the unladylike manner in which she’d done away with the mouthful of dirt she’d inhaled. She was too panicked about Case’s blood on the shirt of the little man several strides ahead of her.

  “Oh no,” Lily muttered, as she rounded the corner of the stable door and stepped into the shade of the entryway.

  Case was sitting on a bale of hay just inside the door, mopping at a steady stream of blood that ran out of a long gash down the back of his arm.

  He looked up in disgust as he saw his aging foreman and Lily coming toward him with varying degrees of intent on their faces.

  “You just had to do it, didn’t you,” Case growled at Duff. “You just had to go and tell Lily I got a little scratch. What did you think she was going to do? Kiss and make it better?”

  “Shut up,” Lily said quietly, as she popped the lid of the first aid box and dug through it for some antiseptic and bandages.

  Case’s jaw dropped. This wasn’t exactly the most satisfying bedside manner he’d ever encountered.

  “What did you say?” he muttered.

  “I said shut up! I’ll never understand why men always get mad when they get sick or hurt. My father and brothers are just the same. Duff didn’t tell me you needed a kiss, smart aleck, and you’re not about to get one. But you’re going to get stitches and I’m telling you that for a fact.”

  Case blanched. Stitches. Damn, damn, damn. And he hated the needles the doctors used to deaden the area a whole lot worse than the actual stitches.

  “How did this happen?” Lily asked, as she swabbed carefully through the gash. It was long and, in two places, very, very deep. She thought she could see muscle exposed.

  “Cow knocked him against some barbed wire out on the meadow,” Pete answered. “Then to add insult to injury, she shoved her head into his belly.”

  Case mumbled beneath his breath as his ignominious downing was once again bandied about. He hated to be helpless, and he’d been helpless as hell when that cow had had him underfoot.

  “Does it hurt to breathe?” Lily asked quickly. He might have some cracked or broken ribs.

  “Not so much,” Case answered, and then he winced as Lily pulled his arm out to his side and poured a slow, thin stream of alcohol all the way into the cut. “But that sure as hell does!” he shouted, and yanked his arm away from her ministrations.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” Lily said.

  Case took one glance at the look in her eyes, the healed scar on her face, and shut up. He could do no less.

  “Now, am I taking you to the hospital, or do you want one of the men to drive you, Case? I’d be glad to, but I’m not familiar with the route and might get us both lost on the way back if they shoot you too full of painkillers.”

  “I’ll take him,” Duff said. “Don’t move, boss. I’ll go get my truck.” He scurried in a little two-step motion as he hurried outside toward the bunkhouse.

  Case was getting pale, and Lily knew it was probably shock. He’d also lost quite a bit of blood.

  “Got any orange juice in the bunkhouse snack bar?” Lily asked. One of the men nodded and ran to get it for her.

  Case looked at her as if she’d just asked for bugs.

  “When I donate blood, they always give me juice and cookies afterwards,” Lily said, answering his question before he had a chance to ask. “I don’t think you’re up to cookies, but you’ve lost an awful lot of blood. Maybe the juice will help your nausea.”

  “How did you know...” Case began.

  “I’ve been there, remember?” Lily said.

  “Hold this,” she ordered, and one of the men obeyed as Lily padded the wound with all the available gauze pads, wrapping them tightly with an ace bandage to hold them in place. The orange juice arrived, and Lily watched the color come back into Case’s face as he slowly sipped at the cold drink.

  Duff pulled into the stable doorway and yelled out the window.

  “Come on, boss. Time’s a wastin’.”

  Case rolled his eyes heavenward, got to his feet, and then staggered as if he’d been punched in the nose. The ground tilted beneath his feet, and he would have fallen if Lily and Pete hadn’t grabbed him.

  “Hold on to me,” Lily said.

  Forever, Case thought, as he leaned gratefully against her slender strength and buried his face in the top of her hair. It smelled faintly of cinnamon, and Case knew that he was probably going to miss the apple pies she was baking for supper.

  Lily pulled his uninjured arm across her shoulder and wrapped her arm around his waist as Pete propped him up from the other side. Together, they had him in Duff’s pickup truck and on the way to the hospital before he had time to argue.

  “I’ll get that, Miss Lily,” Pete argued, as Lily bent down to gather up the bloody gauze she’d dropped on the ground. “You go on up to the house and wash up.”

  Lily stared down at her blood-stained hands and the spatters of Case’s blood on the front of her clothes. She nodded gratefully and started toward the house when one of the men patted her on the back and handed her the first aid box.

  “You done real good, Miss Lily,” he said. “Real good. Couldn’t ’a done better myself. You’d make a real good cowboy...I mean cowgirl,” he amended with a grin.

  “Thanks,” Lily said, and walked back to the house with a smile as big as Texas on her face.

  She knew that Case would be sore, but unless he had further injuries to his ribs, he’d be healed soon with nothing more than a scar for a reminder.

  It was the word scar that brought her up short. Why did it seem so insignificant to her when it was on someone else? Of course, it wasn’t on Case’s face, but it was still going to be long and ugly and would probably never fade. Was it just possible that everyone viewed her scar in the same manner? Was it possible...maybe even true...that her scar was of no more importance to others than Case’s was to her? Had she let Todd Collins’s selfish reaction color her own instincts?

  Lily walked into the house, replaced the first aid box in the pantry and headed for her bedroom with one purpose in mind.

  She walked into her bathroom, turned on the overhead light as well as the light over the vanity and stared. It was still there. But was it as vivid as she’d imagined? Was that the first and last thing someone saw when they met her, or was it only the first thing? Was Lily, herself, enough to overshadow the disfigurement? Maybe...just maybe Case had been telling the truth.

  Lily leaned forward until her nose was almost touching the glass and turned first one way and then the other. It still looked as if she was staring into a broken mirror, and the image made her sick. She turned off the vanity light in disgust, turned on t
he water full force in the sink and proceeded to wash Case’s blood from her hands and arms. There was no sense in dreaming about what-ifs. The scar was there, and that was that.

  * * *

  Supper had come and gone and still no blue pickup truck. Lily sat on the front porch steps, her chin in her hands, and watched the dusky horizon for a glimpse of headlights. It was nearly sundown. She could already hear the crickets tuning up. Several cows were bawling out on the meadow beyond the corrals, obviously searching for the calves that had recently been weaned, and somewhere to the west she could hear dogs barking. Probably chasing a rabbit that hadn’t made it back to his hole before nightfall.

  Everything was so foreign to the way she’d been brought up, and yet so familiar. Lily knew that if she’d been back in L.A., she would probably be sitting out on her deck, watching the sunset over the ocean and listening to the surf and the night sounds of the city as it came alive in the streets beyond her home.

  In L.A. there was always a siren somewhere, and people everywhere. Lily may not have been brought up in the country, but she’d taken to it like icing on a cake. She didn’t even want to think about how much she was going to miss all this space and silence when she had to leave. And she absolutely refused to admit that she would miss Case Longren. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  Lily heard the pickup shift gears as it came around the bend in the road that marked the beginning boundary of the ranch. She breathed a sigh of relief. They were back!

  Duff pulled to a stop, but wasn’t fast enough to beat Lily to the passenger side of the truck.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, as she yanked open the door and peered into the dusky interior. Duff’s cab light was out and all she had to see by was the glare of headlights in front of her. The first thing she saw when she peered inside were blue eyes walled in pain.

  Case had never been so glad to see anyone in his whole life. He was hurting like crazy and had been alternating between curses and prayers when Duff turned into the front yard of the Bar L. The little man drove like a bat out of hell and there was no denying it.

  “I’m fine,” he growled, and stretched one long leg out of the cab.

  “No, he ain’t,” Duff argued. “He wouldn’t let them doctors give him any more painkillers after they sewed him up and he’s sicker than a dog. Doctor said he should have somethin’ on his stomach. Might help the nausea. It’s caused from all the shots they used to deaden the cut.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Kildare,” Case muttered.

  “Help me get him in the house,” Lily said. “Then I’ll see to the rest.”

  “I don’t need to be carried,” Case argued. “Just let me lean on you. I can get myself there.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Then come here, tough boy. I think you’ve had just about enough for one day.” Her words were gentle, but her touch was gentler.

  Lily leaned into the cab, offering her shoulder to Case, and stepped to one side as he slid his good arm across her back and swung himself out of the truck.

  “Thanks, Duff. See you in the morning.”

  “Sure thing, Boss,” the foreman answered, and as soon as Lily and Case had cleared the yard and made their way into the house, he drove back to the bunkhouse and parked, anxious to get inside and regale the men with his version of the boss’s trip to the hospital.

  Lily maneuvered Case through the front door, up the stairs, and down the hallway to his bedroom without any incident. But as soon as she had him inside his room, he sank down on his bed, not caring about the dust and dried blood on his clothes, and lay back on top of that black satin with no more thought than if it had been a haystack.

  “Oh, Case!” she said before she thought. “Your bed!”

  “It’ll clean,” he muttered. “If it doesn’t, I’ll buy another one. I’m too damn tired to care.”

  “At least let me take off your boots,” Lily argued. She had his foot in hand and the boots off before he had time to disagree.

  His shirt had snap fasteners and Lily leaned over and slowly unpopped each one, revealing brown skin and taut muscles. It was sinful to delight in the fact that she could do this without any fear of being misunderstood. He had to have help. It was obvious.

  She nudged his shoulder and he grunted as he rolled slightly, allowing her easier access as she slipped his shirt from under him and tossed it to the floor. It was beyond fixing. What the barbed wire hadn’t torn, the doctors had cut, to open an area in which to work. A huge dark bruise in varying shades of black and purple was forming on the side and front of his belly, and Lily knew that was a direct result of the blow he’d taken from the cow that had knocked him down. Her fingers drifted gently across the bruise, and then she yanked them back as if she’d been stung. She shouldn’t be touching him like that and she knew it.

  “How many stitches?” she asked softly, letting her gaze drift across his chest and down the ripple of muscle across his belly.

  “A whole damn lot,” Case growled, glaring at the long swath of white gauze covering his forearm.

  “Could you drink some soup if I brought it up?” Lily asked.

  He nodded and watched her walk out of his room with his torn shirt in her hands. He was in fine shape. Here he was in his room, flat on his back in bed with Lily not three steps away, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. The room swirled around him and he cursed, closed his eyes, and dug his fingers into the satin beneath him, holding on to the only solid thing he could feel. He hated being weak. But even more than that, he hated going to bed in this filthy condition. Not only had he bled all over himself, but he still wore remnants of his roll on the prairie beneath the angry cow’s feet.

  Case staggered to his feet, wincing every step of the way out of his room and down the end of the hall to the bathroom. By the time Lily made her way back upstairs with a steaming cup of noodle soup, Case had shucked his Levi’s, and was taking a shower with his freshly bandaged arm sticking out of the partially opened shower door. He knew enough to not get anything with this many stitches wet. He also knew he was going to have to hurry because he was dizzy as hell and hated to face how he’d look if he passed out buck-naked in the shower. A man had some pride.

  Lily took one look at the empty room, set the cup of soup down on the bedside table and started out of the door with a look on her face her brothers could have warned Case about.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?” she yelled, as she yanked back the bathroom door and saw steam, shower spray, and Case’s arm in the midst of it all, pointing shakily toward the ceiling in a weak attempt to keep it dry.

  “I’m through.” His voice emerged from the clouds of mist and steam, as he turned off the knob to the shower. “Hand me a towel.”

  “I ought to hand you your head on a platter,” Lily grumbled, “but from the looks of you, it probably already feels like it’s there.”

  She handed him a towel, her actions gentler than her tone of voice. And much as she was tempted to do otherwise, she averted her eyes as she helped him from the shower.

  “There’s nothing worse than a woman who thinks she’s always right,” Case said as he wrapped the towel around his middle in a halfhearted attempt to conceal his bare rump and masculinity.

  “Get yourself in bed, mister,” Lily ordered, her green eyes flashing, as she stepped aside and pointed down the hall toward his room.

  By the time Case had walked the length of the hall and into his room, his head was spinning, and even though he hated to admit it, his legs felt like a bowl of Pete’s cooked-to-death noodles.

  Lily pulled back the black satin and a light sheet and blanket that lay beneath, and stood without saying a word as Case sank gratefully into the cool comfort of his own bed. Lily pulled the covers up to his waist before she muttered, “Hand me that wet towel.”

  Case complied weakly as he slid his good arm down beneath the covers and removed his only clothing. He was to
o shaky to make wisecracks. He’d exceeded his limit by taking a shower, but he’d never been so glad to be clean in his life.

  Lily leaned over and grabbed the extra pillow, intent on stuffing it behind his head to prop him up enough to drink his cooling soup, when Case sighed. She could feel his breath against the curve of her neck, and she shivered at the thought of how it would feel to lie naked, skin to skin, with this big man and feel his breath on every square inch of her body.

  “My God!” Lily muttered to herself. This had to stop. “Can you hold this cup or do you need help?” she asked sharply, and then regretted her anger the moment it came out. Case didn’t deserve to suffer just because she was having some kind of sexy hot flash.

  Case stared. Her words were sharp, but the expression on her face and the gentleness of her touch told him that she cared.

  “I can manage,” he said quietly, and took the cup from her hands and drained it. “Thanks, Lily Catherine,” he said. “You’d make a very good nurse, if you’d just work on your bedside manner a bit.”

  Lily started to argue when she saw the look in his eyes. Even in pain he was trying to make her smile. She felt a sharp tug in the region of her heart and knew that it was her conscience telling her to put up or shut up. She opted for the latter.

  Lily took the empty cup, set it down and pulled the extra pillow out from under his head. She couldn’t resist swiping at the dark, black swath of hair that kept trying to slide across his forehead and she brushed at it gently as she tested his forehead for signs of a fever.

  “Where are your pain pills?” Lily asked.

  “Probably in my pants pocket,” Case mumbled, already nearly asleep. “But I’m not taking any of the damn things. They give me a hell of a hangover. Got too much to do tomorrow.”

  Lily ignored his arguing, hurried to the bathroom, retrieved the jeans and found the bottle of pain relievers in his front pocket. But by the time she returned to his room, Case was fast asleep. She set them down on his bedside table, filled a glass with water and set it beside the pills. She started to leave the room but then turned for one last look.