“Not yet. Nothing’s broken. I’ll just wrap it and-”
“Maybe I should go to South Shore for a second opinion.”
“You could, but this isn’t complicated.”
“Hmmm…”
It took some convincing, but finally Emma was wrapping the woman’s sprained thumb. Outside the window, the street was busy with the lunchtime crunch. The shops were doing a good business. Everyone was doing a good business but Emma.
“Hmmm,” the woman said again.
Emma looked up into Missy’s face. “Is something wrong?”
“What if it’s broken?”
“I showed you the x-ray. There’s no break.”
Across the street, a pickup pulled up and parked. Stone’s. He wore loose jeans and a polo shirt. Tall and sure of himself, he pulled out a clipboard and headed toward the corner building, moving with the carefulness of someone who’d been beaten up by three women in a bar only a week ago.
Or whatever had really happened to him.
Oblivious to her eyes on him, he headed-limping slightly-down the sidewalk, stopping in front of the old, rundown building on the corner. It had a FOR SALE sign on it.
Bending his head, he wrote something on the clipboard.
“I hear you treated him,” Missy said.
“Who?”
“The man you’re staring at instead of concentrating on your patient who.”
Yeah. Point taken. But just looking at Stone invoked memories, his bad boy eyes, filled with wicked intent, his smile, the one that backed up that intent.
She gave herself a second to digest that image.
“He is a fine boy.” Missy was smiling shrewdly. “Very fine.”
Except Stone Wilder was no boy. In fact, just remembering how little he resembled a boy brought a little secret tingle to certain places she hadn’t thought about in a while.
“And he’s very good at what he does,” Missy went on.
Yes, well, how hard could it be to play all day long?
“My niece’s boy was heading straight for juvie last year,” the older woman said. “And landed himself on one of those treks the Wilders take troubled kids out on. He did really well, but when he wanted to go again, Stone told him that he couldn’t go out if he kept up the stealing. So Trevor gave it up. The trek changed him, calmed him down. That was Stone’s doing, pure and simple.”
Okay, that didn’t sound like he was all mountain bum.
“Women love him.” Missy eyed her wrapped thumb this way and that. “So don’t blame yourself for having a crush on him.”
“I don’t-”
“Of course you do, dear. You were practically drooling. Don’t worry, there’s far worse things to be than Stone’s woman.”
Okay, that was two times now she’d been called that. “I’m not his woman.”
“Maybe we should consult with Doc about the possible break?” Missy asked, still eyeing her thumb.
Emma tried a deep breath. Didn’t help. “I can assure you, Missy, I know what I’m doing.”
“
How she managed such a wealth of doubt in that single syllable, Emma had no idea but she’d become used to it. Four years of undergrad and four years of medical school at Columbia, residency at NY Presbyterian, two years in the NY Bellevue ER-one of the busiest in the country-and yet the people here
“Did you know I knew your momma?”
“I didn’t, no.” Under diagnosis, Emma wrote: sprained thumb. She refrained from adding: pain in the ass.
“She was a good woman. A hard worker, too.”
Her mom
“I don’t know what happened to change her, none of us ever knew.”
Emma managed to keep the smile in place by sheer will as she stood. “Keep the thumb elevated, Mrs. Thorton. Aspirin as needed for the pain.”
“I mean she just up and left your father, one of the best men in Wishful. Crazy, right?”
Emma didn’t mean to respond but she found she couldn’t help but defend her mom. “She had her reasons.”
“Yes.” Missy nodded slowly. “I remember quite clearly how she-”
“I’m sorry.” Emma forced a smile. “But I don’t want to get into this now.” Or ever. “I’m busy and-”
The bell jangled out front, for once not annoying her. Saved by the ceramic cow bell. “I’ll print you a bill.”
“Oh.” Missy looked startled. “But your father just sends them to me at home.”
Where they were ignored. “Things have changed.” She moved out of the treatment room toward the front desk, where she’d hoped to have a receptionist by now, except for the lack of money with which to pay one.
“Got stung by a bee on the jobsite,” a twentysomething guy said to her from the front door, waving a hand supported by a wrist in a cast. “I can’t get the stinger out. The boss wanted me to go to South Shore, but I didn’t have enough gas.”
“Oh, the doctor’s not in,” Missy told him. “He’s still recouping.”
“Bummer.”
“The doctor
The would-be patient swiveled his head to Missy for reassurance.
Missy shrugged as if to say
Emma ground her back teeth to powder and pointed to the guy’s cast. “What happened there?”
“Oh, I fell hiking up the summit this past weekend. Tripped over my own laces and broke my wrist.”
The summit was only three miles from here. A quick five minute ride, tops. “Where did you get it cast?”
“South Shore.”
Lake Tahoe, which was at least forty-five minutes away at the best of times. She nearly did thunk her head down at that.
“I needed a doctor,” he said.
“I
“Okay, cool. You remove stingers?”
Chapter 6
That night, Emma risked driving the roads out to her father’s cabin again under the guise of bringing him another casserole, hoping for a sign that her torture would be coming to an end.
He accepted the casserole, but still couldn’t produce his medical records-shocker.
On the way home, there was a wind that knocked the truck around some, and she found herself holding her breath all the way back. By the time she got into town, she needed chocolate.
Lots of chocolate.
She parked at Wishful’s one and only grocery store in desperate search of a sugar rush. She ran into Missy in the dairy aisle and Annie in the cereal aisle.
Small town living.
She was deciding between
