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The weight of her life threatened to crush her, and another sob worked its way up her throat. She couldn’t quite contain it, and the resulting sound was somewhere between a scoff and a yell.
“We’re almost there, sweetheart,” Trey said, and Beth turned her head to look at him. He probably called every womansweetheart, but somehow, her heart thought he’d reserved the word just for her.
He glanced at her, and their eyes met for a moment. He shifted in his seat and made the last turn to get on the road where the hospital sat. Only thirty seconds later, he pulled up to the emergency bay and said, “Get out on my side, TJ. Stay close to me now, y’hear?”
“Yes, sir,” TJ said, following Trey out of the truck.
“Close the door, bud,” Trey called to him as he rounded the hood. He opened Beth’s door for her, his dark eyes sparking with concern…and something else Beth couldn’t identify, because she couldn’t hold his gaze for very long.
“Come on,” he said. “You lean on me all you need to, Beth, okay?”
“I’m okay,” she said, sliding out of the truck, both hands still clasped together. Something pulled on her palm, and she sincerely hoped the fabric of the cloth hadn’t started to fuse to her wound.
His eyes flashed with black fire now. “No, you’re not.” He leaned closer. “It’s okay that you’re not. Admitting you need help is not a weakness.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond before he backed up, tugging her with him. He closed the door behind her and said, “TJ, you’re right here at my side. All the time. Come on now.”
TJ did exactly what he said, and Beth’s chest caved in on her. She had to beg TJ to find his shoes and brush his teeth, but there he was, obeying Trey’s every demand.
Inside, Trey took charge of checking her in, and he told the nurse behind the desk—who he seemed to know—that it was a high priority. Only five minutes later, another nurse called Beth’s name.
Her legs shook as she stood, and her vision swirled. She moaned, though she didn’t remember telling her voice to make that sound.
“We need a wheelchair,” Trey called as he took her into his arms. He held her right against that rock-solid chest, and Beth didn’t have enough mental power to even speak to him. Her whole body felt limp and cold, and she knew enough to feel him set her in the wheelchair. “Stay with me, Beth,” he said, his hand on her shoulder. “TJ and I are right here. TJ, tell your mom that story about the barn cats.”
She focused on the sound of her son’s voice, and that alone kept her awake until they arrived in a curtained-off room. Someone helped her onto the bed, and someone hooked her up to an IV. People touched her forehead and her chest, her neck, and then her hand.
She cried out when the cloth was torn away from the wound, and she distinctly heard someone say, “Push one thousand milligrams of ibuprofen. This is going to need a lot of stitches.”
“I’ll get Dr. Watts,” someone else said, and then the activity seemed to slow.
Trey filled the empty spot at her side, his warm fingers brushing her hair off her forehead. His other hand filled her uninjured one, and he said, “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me, okay, Beth?”
She put all of her energy into squeezing his hand. He chuckled and said, “Good, sugar. That’s good.” His lips landed on her forehead too, and he started talking about a couple of horses at Bluegrass that were giving Spur and Blaine trouble.
His voice was like the rolling Kentucky hills. Beautiful, and deep, and full of amazing things. Beth could get lost on the tide of it, and he seemed to know it, because he called TJ over and had him start to tell her about the moon rock project he was doing at school.
Eventually—she didn’t know how long—she opened her eyes, and everything stayed stationary. Her hand didn’t hurt as bad, and her head wasn’t throbbing anymore.
“Hey,” Trey said with a smile. “There you are.”
“I didn’t pass out.”
“I know.” He laced his fingers though hers again, and when he gazed down at her now, there was an edge of adoration in those eyes. Her heartbeat sprinted now, and she had the urge to fly from his presence.
Her mind moaned with a single word.Danny.
He’d been gone for thirty-one months now. Over two and a half years. Beth had managed to keep the farm, and it was actually making a little bit of money now. A very little bit. Her father had been helping her for a long time, and Beth really wanted to get out from underneath the bills, the debts, and her guilt that she needed her dad’s money to clothe herself and her son.
The doctor entered, and Trey stepped back. Beth talked to him, and he confirmed that she needed stitches in her hand. “Two layers,” The doctor said, poking at the fleshy part of her hand and the gaping ravine between the two halves of it the knife had made. “It’s a good, clean cut, though, so it should heal nicely.”
“How long?” she asked.
“At least twelve weeks,” the doctor said. “I might put you in a brace to keep it stationary for the first six. You use your hands so much, and you don’t want that to split.” He looked at her. “You’ll have to hire some help, Miss Dixon. You can’t use this hand forat leasttwelve weeks.” He was the very stern, not-great-bedside-manner type of doctor, but Beth found herself nodding.
“If you try to use it, you’ll just be back here at square one,” he said. “Zero, actually, because it’ll be torn up. You might have permanent damage and lose mobility for a lot longer than twelve weeks if you don’t just let it heal.”
“She’ll let it heal,” Trey said. “I’ll help her.”
“You don’t need to do that,” she said quickly, looking from the doctor to Trey and back. “He’s just my neighbor.”
