The Rancher & Heart of Stone Read online

  She put her foot on the brake and it started. The air vents opened and the touch screen came on. “It’s like something out of a science-fiction movie,” she said, impressed.

  “Isn’t it, though?” He chuckled.

  She glanced at him, her face radiant. “I have got to have Daddy get me one of these!” she exclaimed.

  Cort hoped her father wouldn’t murder him when he saw what they cost.

  Odalie pulled the car out of the driveway in short jerks. She grimaced. “I haven’t driven in a while, but it will come back to me, honest.”

  “Okay. I’m not worried.” He was petrified, but he wasn’t showing it. He hoped he could grab the wheel if he had to.

  She smoothed out the motions when she got onto the highway. “There, better?” she teased, looking at him.

  “Eyes on the road,” he cautioned.

  She sighed. “Cort, you’re no fun.”

  “It’s a powerful machine. You have to respect it. That means keeping your eyes on the road and paying attention to your surroundings.”

  “I’m doing that,” she argued, looking at him again.

  He prayed silently that they’d get home again.

  She pulled off on a side road and he began to worry.

  “Why are we going this way?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Isn’t this the way to Catelow?” she asked in all innocence.

  “No, it’s not,” he said. “It’s the road that leads to the Lane ranch.”

  “Oh, dear, I don’t want to go there. But there’s no place to turn off,” she worried. “Anyway, the ranch is just ahead, I’ll turn around there.”

  Cort had to bite his lip to keep from saying something.

  Maddie was out in the yard with her garbage can lid. This time Pumpkin had gotten out of the pen when she was looking. He’d jumped a seven-foot-high fence. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she’d never have believed it.

  “Pumpkin, you fool!” she yelled at him. “Why can’t you stay where I put you? Get back in there!”

  But he ran around her. This time he wasn’t even trying to spur her. He ran toward the road. It was his favorite place, for some reason, despite the heat that made the ribbon of black asphalt hotter than a frying pan.

  “You come back here!” she yelled.

  Just as she started after him, Odalie’s foot hit the accelerator pedal too hard, Cort called out, Odalie looked at him instead of the road...

  * * *

  MADDIE HEARD SCREAMING. She was numb. She opened her eyes and there was Cort, his face contorted with horror. Beside him, Odalie was screaming and crying.

  “Just lie still,” Cort said hoarsely. “The ambulance is on the way. Just lie still, baby.”

  “I hit her, I hit her!” Odalie screamed. “I didn’t see her until it was too late! I hit her!”

  “Odalie, you have to calm down. You’re not helping!” Cort snapped at her. “Find something to cover her. Hurry!”

  “Yes...there’s a blanket...in the backseat, isn’t there...?”

  Odalie fetched it with cold, shaking hands. She drew it over Maddie’s prone body. There was blood. So much blood. She felt as if she were going to faint, or throw up. Then she saw Maddie’s face and tears ran down her cheeks. “Oh, Maddie,” she sobbed, “I’m so sorry!”

  “Find something to prop her head, in case her spine is injured,” Cort gritted. He was terrified. He brushed back Maddie’s blond hair, listened to her ragged breathing, saw her face go even paler. “Please hurry!” he groaned.

  There wasn’t anything. Odalie put her beautiful white leather purse on one side of Maddie’s head without a single word, knowing it would ruin the leather and not caring at all. She put her knit overblouse on the other, crumpled up. She knelt in the dirt road beside Maddie and sat down, tears in her eyes. She touched Maddie’s arm. “Help is coming,” she whispered brokenly. “You hold on, Maddie. Hold on!”

  Maddie couldn’t believe it. Her worst enemy was sitting beside her in a vision of a horrifically expensive pink silk dress that was going to be absolutely ruined, and apparently didn’t mind at all.

  She tried to speak. “Pum...Pumpkin?” she rasped.

  Cort looked past her and grimaced. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

  Maddie started to cry, great heaving sobs.

  “We’ll get you another rooster,” Cort said at once. “I’ll train him to attack me. Anything. You just have to...hold on, baby,” he pleaded. “Hold on!”

  She couldn’t breathe. “Hurts,” she whispered as sensation rushed back in and she began to shudder.

  Cort was in hell. There was no other word that would express what he felt as he saw her lying there in bloody clothing, maybe dying, and he couldn’t do one damned thing to help her. He was sick to his soul.

  He brushed back her hair, trying to remember anything else, anything that would help her until the ambulance arrived.

  “Call them again!” Odalie said firmly.

  He did. The operator assured them that the ambulance was almost there. She began asking questions, which Cort did his best to answer.

  “Where’s your great-aunt?” he asked Maddie softly.

  “Store,” she choked out.

  “It’s okay, I’ll call her,” he said when she looked upset.

  Odalie had come out of her stupor and she was checking for injuries while Cort talked to the 911 operator. “I don’t see anything that looks dangerous, but I’m afraid to move her,” she said, ignoring the blood in her efforts to give aid. “There are some abrasions, pretty raw ones. Maddie, can you move your arms and legs?” she asked in a voice so tender that Maddie thought maybe she really was just dreaming all this.

  She moved. “Yes,” she said. “But...it hurts...”

  “Move your ankles.”

  “Okay.”

  Odalie looked at Cort with horror.

  “I moved...them,” Maddie said, wincing. “Hurts!”

  “Please, ask them to hurry,” Cort groaned into the phone.

  “No need,” Odalie said, noting the red-and-white vehicle that was speeding toward them.

  “No sirens?” Cort asked blankly.

  “They don’t run the sirens or lights unless they have to,” the operator explained kindly. “It scares people to death and can cause wrecks. They’ll use them to get the victim to the hospital, though, you bet,” she reassured him.

  “Thanks so much,” Cort said.

  “I hope she does well.”

  “Me, too,” he replied huskily and hung up.

  Odalie took one of the EMTs aside. “She can’t move her feet,” she whispered.

  He nodded. “We won’t let her know.”

  They went to the patient.

  * * *

  MADDIE WASN’T AWARE of anything after they loaded her into the ambulance on a backboard. They talked to someone on the radio and stuck a needle into her arm. She slept.

  When she woke again, she was in a hospital bed with two people hovering. Cort and Odalie. Odalie’s dress was dirty and bloodstained.

  “Your...beautiful dress,” Maddie whispered, wincing.

  Odalie went to the bed. She felt very strange. Her whole life she’d lived as if there was nobody else around. She’d never been in the position of nursing anybody—her parents and brother had never even sprained a hand. She’d been petted, spoiled, praised, but never depended upon.

  Now here was this woman, this enemy, whom her actions had placed almost at death’s door. And suddenly she was needed. Really needed.

  Maddie’s great-aunt had been called. She was in the waiting room, but in no condition to be let near the patient. The hospital staff had to calm her down, she was so terrified.

  They hadn’t told Maddie yet. When Sadie was calmer, they’d let her in to see the injured woman.

  “Your great-aunt is here, too,” Odalie said gently. “You’re going to be fine.”

  “Fine.” Maddie felt tears run down her cheeks. “So much...to be don
e at the ranch, and I’m stove up...!”

  “I’ll handle it,” Cort said firmly. “No worries there.”

  “Pumpkin,” she sobbed. “He was horrible. Just horrible. But I loved him.” She cried harder.

  Odalie leaned down and kissed her unkempt hair. “We’ll find you another horrible rooster. Honest.”

  Maddie sobbed. “You hate me.”

  “No,” Odalie said softly. “No, I don’t. And I’m so sorry that I put you in here. I was driving.” She bit her lip. “I wasn’t watching the road,” she said stiffly. “God, I’m sorry!”

  Maddie reached out a lacerated hand and touched Odalie’s. “I ran into the road after Pumpkin...I wasn’t looking. Not your fault. My fault.”

  Odalie was crying, too. “Okay. Both our faults. Now we have to get you well.”

  “Both of us,” Cort agreed, touching Maddie’s bruised cheek.

  Maddie swallowed, hard. She wanted to say something else, but they’d given her drugs to make her comfortable, apparently. She opened her mouth to speak and went right to sleep.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “IS SHE GOING to be all right?” Great-Aunt Sadie asked when Odalie and Cort dropped into chairs in the waiting room while Maddie was sleeping.

  “Yes, but it’s going to be a long recovery,” Cort said heavily.

  “You can’t tell her,” Odalie said gently, “but there seems to be some paralysis in her legs. No, it’s all right,” she interrupted when Sadie looked as if she might start crying. “We’ve called one of the foremost orthopedic surgeons in the country at the Mayo Clinic. We’re flying him down here to see her. We’ll go from there, once he’s examined her.”

  “But the expense,” Sadie exclaimed.

  “No expense. None. This is my fault and I’m paying for it,” Odalie said firmly.

  “It’s my car, I’m helping,” Cort added.

  She started crying again. “It’s so nice of you, both of you.”

  Odalie hugged her. “I’m so sorry,” she said sadly. “I didn’t mean to hit her. I wasn’t looking, and I should have been.”

  Sadie hugged her back. “Accidents happen,” she sobbed. “It was that stupid rooster, wasn’t it?”

  “It was.” Cort sighed. “He ran right into the road and Maddie ran after him. The road was clear and then, seconds later, she was in the middle of it.”

  Odalie couldn’t confess that she’d gone that way deliberately to show Maddie she was with Cort. She was too ashamed. “She’ll be all right,” she promised.

  “Oh, my poor little girl,” Sadie said miserably. “She’ll give up, if she knows she might not be able to walk again. She won’t fight!”

  “She will. Because we’ll make her,” Odalie said quietly.

  Sadie looked at her with new eyes. Her gaze fell to Odalie’s dress. “Oh, your dress,” she exclaimed.

  Odalie just smiled. “I can get another dress. It’s Maddie I’m worried about.” It sounded like a glib reply, but it wasn’t. In the past few hours, Odalie’s outlook had totally shifted from herself to someone who needed her. She knew that her life would never be the same again.

  A sheriff’s deputy came into the waiting room, spotted Odalie and Cort and approached them, shaking his head.

  “I know,” Odalie said. “It’s my fault. I was driving his car—” she indicated Cort “—and not looking where I was going. Maddie ran out into the road after her stupid rooster, trying to save him. She’s like that.”

  The deputy smiled. “We know all that from the re-creation of the scene that we did,” he said. “It’s very scientific,” he added. “How is she?”

  “Bad,” Odalie said heavily. “They think she may lose the use of her legs. But we’ve called in a world-famous surgeon. If anything can be done, it will be. We’re going to take care of her.”

  The deputy looked at the beautiful woman, at her bloodstained, dirty, expensive dress, with kind eyes. “I know some women who would be much more concerned with the state of their clothing than the state of the victim. Your parents must be very proud of you, young lady. If you were my daughter, I would be.”

  Odalie flushed and smiled. “I feel pretty guilty right now. So thanks for making me feel better.”

  “You going to charge her?” Cort asked.

  The deputy shook his head. “Probably not, as long as she survives. In the law, everything is intent. You didn’t mean to do it, and the young lady ran into the road by her own admission.” He didn’t add that having to watch the results of the accident day after day would probably be a worse punishment than anything the law could prescribe. But he was thinking it.

  “That doesn’t preclude the young lady pressing charges, however,” the deputy added.

  Odalie smiled wanly. “I wouldn’t blame her if she did.”

  He smiled back. “I hope she does well.”

  “So do we,” Odalie agreed. “Thanks.”

  He nodded and went back out again.

  “Tell me what the doctor said about her legs,” Sadie said sadly, leaning toward them.

  Odalie took a long breath. She was very tired and she had no plans to go home that night. She’d have to call her family and tell them what was happening here. She hadn’t had time to do that yet, nor had Cort.

  “He said that there’s a great deal of bruising, with inflammation and swelling. That can cause partial paralysis, apparently. He’s started her on anti-inflammatories and when she’s able, he’ll have her in rehab to help get her moving,” she added gently.

  “But she was in so much pain...surely they won’t make her get up!” Sadie was astonished.

  “The longer she stays there, the stronger the possibility that she won’t ever get up, Sadie,” Odalie said gently. She patted the other woman’s hands, which were resting clenched in her lap. “He’s a very good doctor.”

  “Yes,” Sadie said absently. “He treated my nephew when he had cancer. Sent him to some of the best oncologists in Texas.” She looked up. “So maybe it isn’t going to be permanent?”

  “A good chance. So you stop worrying. We all have to be strong so that we can make her look ahead instead of behind, so that we can keep her from brooding.” She bit her lower lip. “It’s going to be very depressing for her, and it’s going to be a long haul, even if it has a good result.”

  “I don’t care. I’m just so happy she’s still alive,” the older woman cried.

  “Oh, so am I,” Odalie said heavily. “I can’t remember ever feeling quite so bad in all my life. I took my eyes off the road, just for a minute.” Her eyes closed and she shuddered. “I’ll be able to hear that horrible sound when I’m an old lady...”

  Cort put his arm around her. “Stop that. I shouldn’t have let you drive the car until you were familiar with it. My fault, too. I feel as bad as you do. But we’re going to get Maddie back on her feet.”

  “Yes,” Odalie agreed, forcing a smile. “Yes, we are.”

  Sadie wiped her eyes and looked from one young determined face to the other. Funny how things worked out, she was thinking. Here was Odalie, Maddie’s worst enemy, being protective of her, and Cort just as determined to make her walk again when he’d been yelling at her only a week or so earlier. What odd companions they were going to be for her young great-niece. But what a blessing.

  She considered how it could have worked out, if Maddie had chased that stupid red rooster out into the road and been hit by someone else, maybe someone who ran and left her there to die. It did happen. The newspapers were full of such cases.

  “What are you thinking so hard about?” Cort asked with a faint smile.

  Sadie laughed self-consciously. “That if she had to get run over, it was by such nice people who stopped and rendered aid.”

  “I know what you mean,” Cort replied. “A man was killed just a couple of weeks ago by a hit-and-run driver who was drunk and took off. The pedestrian died. I wondered at the time if his life might have been spared, if the man had just stopped to call an ambulance before h
e ran.” He shook his head. “So many cases like that.”

  “Well, you didn’t run, either of you.” Sadie smiled. “Thanks, for saving my baby.”

  Odalie hugged her again, impulsively. “For the foreseeable future, she’s my baby, too,” she said with a laugh. “Now, how about some coffee? I don’t know about you, but I’m about to go to sleep out here and I have no intention of leaving the hospital.”

  “Nor do I,” Cort agreed. He stood up. “Let’s go down to the cafeteria and see what we can find to eat, too. I just realized I’m starving.”

  The women smiled, as they were meant to.

  * * *

  MADDIE CAME AROUND a long time later, or so it seemed. A dignified man with black wavy hair was standing over her with a nurse. He was wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope draped around his neck.

  “Miss Lane?” the nurse asked gently. She smiled. “This is Dr. Parker from the Mayo Clinic. He’s an orthopedic specialist, and we’d like him to have a look at your back. If you don’t mind.”

  Maddie cleared her throat. She didn’t seem to be in pain, which was odd. She felt very drowsy. “Of course,” she said, puzzled as to why they would have such a famous man at such a small rural hospital.

  “Just a few questions first,” he said in a deep, pleasant tone, “and then I’ll examine you.” He smiled down at her.

  “Okay.”

  The pain came back as the examination progressed, but he said it was a good sign. Especially the pain she felt in one leg. He pressed and poked and asked questions while he did it. After a few minutes she was allowed to lie down in the bed, which she did with a grimace of pure relief.

  “There’s a great deal of edema—swelling,” he translated quietly. “Bruising of the spinal column, inflammation, all to be expected from the trauma you experienced.”

  “I can’t feel my legs. I can’t move them,” Maddie said with anguish in her wan face.

  He dropped down elegantly into the chair by her bed, crossed his legs and picked up her chart. “Yes, I know. But you mustn’t give up hope. I have every confidence that you’ll start to regain feeling in a couple of weeks, three at the outside. You have to believe that as well.” He made notations and read what her attending physician had written in the forms on the clipboard, very intent on every word. “He’s started you on anti-inflammatories,” he murmured. “Good, good, just what I would have advised. Getting fluids into you intravenously, antibiotics...” He stopped and made another notation. “And then, physical therapy.”