These Healing Hills Page 10

  “I guess she’s not hearing any rattlers.”

  A shiver went through Fran at the thought. “I hope not.”

  “Then again, it might be hard to hear them over the rain.”

  Fran started to jerk around to see if he was serious, but then decided to keep her calm. “Horses know, rain or not.”

  “You could be right.” He sounded amused again. “So you didn’t have a gun to shoot anybody yourself and you wanted to make sure nobody shot you.”

  “Better safe than shot.”

  “Plenty of soldiers I’ve known would agree with that. But there’s no war going on here.”

  “No wars like you’ve been in, but there can be other conflicts or problems a person might stumble up on. Especially at a remote spring or creek.”

  He suddenly laughed. “Of course. I guess I’ve been away too long. You were worried about moonshiners.”

  His laugh sounded like Woody, and if he went home and told this story to Woody, the whole mountain would know about it by next week. Maybe sooner. Not only had she gotten thrown from her horse and lost, she was afraid of moonshiners. Not one of her better days.

  “I guess it is funny.” She managed a laugh too. Might as well laugh at herself first. “I’m still getting used to mountain ways.”

  “Not everybody who lives in the hills is a moonshiner.” He wasn’t laughing now. Instead he sounded a little offended.

  “I didn’t say they were.” She started to apologize, but she hadn’t accused him or anybody else of being a moonshiner. It was certainly a fact of mountain life that moonshine was made in some of the hollows and on some of the hills. If he grew up here, he had to know that.

  An uncomfortable silence pushed into the cave with them. Fran had no problem imagining the man’s frown, even though she didn’t look around at him. Instead she shifted a little toward the outside of the cave. Rain was still peppering down, but no hailstones bounced off the rocks. The lightning and thunder sounded more distant.

  “It looks like the storm is passing. I thank you kindly for catching Jasmine and guiding us to this shelter, but I should move on. A baby is on the way over the next ridge.” At least she hoped it was over the next ridge. She didn’t really want to ask him for more help, since his mood seemed to have darkened, but she’d be foolish not to ask for directions. “Can you point me toward where the Nolans live?”

  “Nolans?”

  “Woody told me they lived west of your place. I was just there checking on Sadie.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “Trouble with her ears. Nothing serious, but she does seem to have one problem after another. Your mother is trying to get her to eat more.” Fran twisted to the side to look at him. “You coming home might be the best medicine for her. She misses her father.”

  “I can’t step into his place.”

  “I didn’t mean that you should, but having you home will be a good distraction for her sorrow.” She softened her voice when she saw the sadness settle on his face. “And perhaps for you as well. It must be hard for you to come home and not see him here.”

  He tightened his mouth as though he didn’t want to admit any struggle, but his eyes gave him away. She let him pretend what he wanted and said, “But about the Nolans?”

  “Name isn’t familiar to me.”

  “Well, they are young. I think she was an Abrams. Lurene Abrams.”

  A look of recognition and surprise settled on his face. “Lurene Abrams is having a baby? She wasn’t but thirteen when I left. Not even as old as Becca.”

  She started to tell him Becca was in the family way too, but decided that wasn’t her place. “She’s young, but some mothers are younger. So can you point me toward where she might live?”

  “Maybe. For a price.”

  “A price?” She stared at him. She had yet to meet the mountain man unwilling to point out the way she needed to go to this or that patient’s cabin. “I don’t have any money with me.”

  “I don’t want money.”

  14

  Ben bit his lip to keep from smiling at the look on the nurse’s face. Nurse Howard. Francine. Fran. He supposed he should be ashamed of himself, but she shouldn’t be so ready to jump to conclusions about mountain people. His people. He’d put up with enough of that in the army when he told people he was from the Appalachian Mountains. Outsiders were always ready to judge.

  Then again, she was right about the spring being a possible hiding place for a still. It could be he should have let out a shout before he walked up to the spring. A nervous moonshiner was apt to shoot first and ask questions later. That would have really been something. Make it home from the war only to be shot on the way up the mountain toward home.

  But whether she was right or not, that didn’t mean he couldn’t still make her at least think twice before she branded every man in the mountains an outlaw. The way she was looking at him right now, it was evident she was doing plenty of wondering about him.

  He had to give her credit though. She stood her ground and was doing her best to stare him down. It wasn’t hard to imagine her thoughts. Alone in the woods with a man she didn’t know. Thinking he might be about to force himself on her.

  He let her think it. He thought about it himself. A kiss would be interesting. He tried to remember the last time he’d kissed a girl. There was Ginny here at home. They’d kept company before he went to the army. But he’d asked for no promises and she’d made none. His mother wrote that Ginny got married a couple of years ago. Moved to Perry County. Probably had a kid by now. Then there’d been that nurse in France who grabbed him and planted a kiss on him when Germany surrendered. Not sure that counted as a real kiss.

  Kissing this woman he’d just met wouldn’t count as a real kiss either. But it was an interesting thought. Not one he had any intention of carrying out and not what he really wanted from her. Could be, he had let her stew about it long enough. She might even now be feeling around behind her for a loose rock to knock him in the head. She didn’t look like the wilting type.

  “You think you could trade a little of your nurse expertise for directions?” He nodded toward the saddlebag on the horse. “You have surgical and such tools in there?”

  She quit trying to edge away from him, but her frown deepened. “I can’t give you my equipment.”

  “I don’t want you to give them to me. I want you to use them.”

  Now she looked even more astounded. “What are you talking about? This is no place for surgery.”

  He smiled. “I’ve done some doctoring in worse places.”

  “That’s right. Woody said you were a medic in the army.” Her frown eased a bit. “So what do you want?”

  “This blasted cast off my arm. You might not even need a scalpel. The rain soaked it and it’s crumbling.” He held his arm out toward her. The light was dim, but an accommodating flash of lightning lit up the shallow cave.

  She changed right in front of his eyes from the frightened woman lost in a storm to the nurse ready to help as she reached out to prod the cast. Her fingers made impressions in the soft plaster. “How long has the cast been on?”

  “A month.”

  “Not long enough. Bones take a while to knit.” Her voice had no give. “You need to go to the hospital and get a new cast.”

  “I’m going home. Not to the hospital, and the cast is coming off whether you cut it off or I do.” He kept his voice every bit as sure as hers.

  She shifted her gaze from his arm to his face. Again the lightning cooperated to let her see he meant it.

  “That’s your decision, but I can’t do something that might be harmful. You don’t want to have a crippled arm.”

  “You and I both know a wet cast is not a good cast.” He softened his look on her. “I’m asking you to help me.”

  She didn’t shy from his gaze. “Do you give your word you’ll not use your arm until you get it checked out?”

  He was still holding the mare’s bridle with his good ar
m so he held up the arm with the cast and kept a solemn face. “I give my word, Nurse Howard.”

  “All right.” She breathed out a long sigh. “I’ll probably get reprimanded for this.”

  “I’ll tell them I did it.”

  “I don’t lie or ask others to lie for me.”

  “Ever?”

  “Lies just double back and make things worse.”

  “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

  She had been looking around, perhaps considering where to perform the cast removal, but now her look shot back to his face and then quickly away, as if his remark had hit too close to home.

  “Everybody has been lied to at some time, don’t you think?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “We’ll have to do something with Jasmine. You can’t hold her while I’m cutting on your cast, and it would be better if you were sitting down.” She peered toward the back of the shallow cave.

  “The storm is letting up.”

  “It’s still raining.”

  “Rain won’t hurt your horse or us. As long as the lightning moves off. I’m guessing you’ve been wet before.”

  She almost smiled. “I think we’re both already soaked. Okay, I’ll tie Jasmine up to a tree and you find a place to sit. The rain might help keep everything clean. We don’t want an infection. But I’m sure you know that after working with the injured in the war.”

  “Yes.” He could tell her about some of the things he’d seen. Gangrene. Shrapnel embedded in muscles. Men screaming. He shut his eyes and pushed the memories aside. “I do know.”

  “Good.” She gasped as she ducked past Ben out into the steady downpour. She clucked her tongue at the mare and eased her out of the shallow cave where she attached the reins to a branch. The horse shivered as the rain peppered down on her, but then lowered her head to nibble at a bush.

  The nurse got her saddlebag and stepped back into the cave to open the pouches. She pulled out scissors and some cotton that she stuck in her pocket. After she slid an apron over her head and tied it behind her back, she poured alcohol on her hands and a scalpel. He’d done the same thing with various instruments out on the battlefield.

  “If you run out, I can try to find some moonshine.” He stepped closer to her.

  “The alcohol will be fine, but they tell me moonshine works in a pinch.” She held the scalpel to the side as she answered evenly. She obviously wasn’t going to let him goad her into saying something she might regret. She was a nurse now. He was the patient. “Did you pick out a place to sit?”

  “I can stand and lean against the rock here.”

  She flashed him an irritated look. “I know you can stand, but I want you to sit. You’ll need to rest your arm on your leg to steady it. If you don’t want to cooperate with my orders, I’ll leave you to your own devices and continue on to deliver a baby.”

  “Is that your bedside manner?”

  “When necessary.” She didn’t smile.

  “All right. Why don’t we step out into the rain, Sergeant Howard?”

  She didn’t flinch when he said sergeant. “A sensible choice, Mr. Locke.” She nodded toward a knee-high boulder just outside the cave. “Sit there.”

  He should have simply pointed the way over the hill and gone on to his house where he could have easily removed the cast himself with his mother’s help. He wasn’t sure what had made him ask her help. She was a nurse, but he had been a medic. Still, he had asked. So now there was nothing for it except to do as she said, sit in the pouring rain, and feel more than a little foolish.

  What had she gotten herself into? When Betty heard about this, she’d be called on the carpet for certain. As she should be. Removing a cast before the proper time had passed for the bones to heal. But the man was right. The cast was a soggy mess.

  She was a soggy mess too. Rain dripped down into her eyes and trickled down her shirt collar. Her tie had come undone in her fight through the underbrush and now hung every way but straight. The cut on her arm was burning like fire from the alcohol. That was probably good, but it didn’t feel good. Not that she was about to complain out loud. Not to this man wounded in the war.

  But Woody said he wasn’t wounded in battle. It was after the war ended. Fran probed the cast, looking for the best place to cut it off. She didn’t want to slice open his arm. She wasn’t a surgeon. She was a nurse. But here in the mountains, nurses had to do all sorts of things they might never attempt in other places. They had to treat whatever came their way. Not that this qualified as a necessary treatment. She shouldn’t have agreed to do it, but it was too late to back out now with him watching her, almost daring her to get on with it.

  Even as a kid, she paid no attention to dares. If she didn’t want to do something, she didn’t do it. So did that mean she wanted to do this? No, what she wanted was to get on Jasmine and find her way to the Nolans’ house. If only she didn’t have such a terrible sense of direction.

  “Let me know if you feel anything.” She made a slight cut.

  “By then, it might be a little late.”

  “There is a considerable difference in a scratch and a deep cut. I will be careful, but you can help by making me aware if something goes wrong.” She looked straight at him. “Understand?”

  “Yes sir.”

  She ignored the prod. It didn’t matter what he called her. What mattered was getting this foolish operation over and done with. She leaned over his arm, much too aware of how close she was to him. Something that had not bothered her in all the people she had treated in Cincinnati or the mountains. But now she could almost feel those dark blue eyes watching her. A man’s eyes. Not just a patient’s eyes.

  She made herself concentrate on the cast. The rain had done most of the work for her already. He was right to know the cast needed to be removed after getting soaked. She shifted closer to see the cut she was making and felt his breath against her cheek. Her own breath came a little faster.

  “Am I making you nervous, Nurse?”

  “I’m simply trying not to hurt you.” That was true, just not the entire truth. He was making her uneasy. She remembered her earlier statement about lying, but at times, the entire truth wasn’t necessary. This was definitely one of those times.

  Betty would say she shouldn’t have put herself in such a vulnerable situation. The men they treated might be patients, but they were still men. And the nurses treating those men were still women. Not that Fran thought Ben Locke was looking at her with any kind of romantic interest. She wasn’t the kind of woman who attracted men and certainly not a handsome man like this returning soldier.

  “Don’t be too concerned. I’m pretty tough,” he said.

  “Especially, I would think, after being in the war.” Fran shifted her thoughts away from a man and woman alone in the rain to what he’d experienced. Always better to think about the patient rather than herself. “Woody says one of the soldiers you were treating attacked you and broke your arm.”

  “The kid was having a bad time.”

  “Was he hurt?”

  “Nothing you could see, but yeah, he was hurt. Not everybody can handle seeing his buddies blown up.”

  “I guess not.” She kept her voice low, calm. For all she knew, Ben Locke might have some of the same invisible wounds. She shifted talk away from the war. “As dry as it’s been, this gully washer won’t cause a flood, will it?” Weather was surely a safe topic.

  “According to how long it rains.”

  “The Middle Fork River was flooding when I got to the mountains back in May, but I’m told that since then, it’s drier than normal.”

  “What made you come to Hyden?”

  “To go to the midwifery school. I was a nurse in Cincinnati, but decided a change of scenery and learning new skills would be good.”

  Ben laughed. “You got that change of scenery. That’s for sure.”

  “The mountains are beautiful. I was here in time to see the rhododendrons bloom. Since then, I’ve seen something new
nearly every day. It’s like getting a new gift to open each morning.”

  “I’m doubting you’ll count standing out in the rain, working on a recalcitrant patient, as one of your better gifts.”

  “I can be grateful for the rain.” She laid the scalpel aside and used her scissors on the last connections of the cast. She gently pulled the cast away from his skin.

  Ben lifted his arm free with a grimace.

  “Moving your elbow may be painful for a while after being immobilized so long.” She soaked a cloth with more alcohol and carefully cleaned his arm. The bone felt straight when she probed his arm, and his muscles were strong under her fingers. With a bit of good fortune, he should be fine without the cast. That was a relief, because she had doubts about whether he would make the trip to the hospital for a new one.

  “But it’s good to move it.” He pulled away from her hands and bent his elbow.

  “As long as you’re careful for a little longer. Remember, no lifting with that arm, and please, avoid falling at all costs. If you do trip, tuck your arm up against your stomach and protect it.”

  “You’d rather I fall on my face and break my nose?” He frowned as he lifted his arm in the air.

  “Yes.” She pulled a strip of cloth out of her bag and fashioned a sling for him. “Here. See if this works.”

  He slid the sling over his neck and positioned his arm in it. “You do know that doctors say a fracture that heals makes a stronger bone than before.”

  “That’s after it’s fully healed.” Fran stepped back under the shelter of the cave to wrap the scissors and scalpel in the alcohol cloth.

  Ben stayed seated on the rock. She knew he was watching her, but she ignored him while she packed her supplies back in her saddlebag. She positioned the bags on Jasmine, who seemed unconcerned about anything now that the thunder had retreated. Even the rain had let up until it was little more than drips from the branches overhead.

  She grabbed a handful of her own hair and squeezed water out of it before she brushed through it with her fingers. Then she wrung out her tie and the edges of her sleeves and wished for a towel. Even her boots had collected water while she stood in the rain, working on his cast. Her socks squished with every step. She leaned back against the rock wall and pulled one boot off to shake a few drops of water from it.