Taken for English (29 page)

Annie pressed her lips together. She had questions she did not dare ask in this tremulous moment. Was she willing to take on a distraught teenager without any boundaries? She took a slow breath of prayer.

“I’m not going to hound you,” Annie said.

“You have to trust me.” Leah’s tone dared Annie.

“And I hope you can trust me,” Annie said. “Let’s start with tonight and see where we go, all right? How about a hot bath?”

Leah nodded.

Ruth accepted the coffee that Tom brought her a few minutes after Rufus returned to work. “Thank you.”

“No news yet?”

She shook her head. Surely by now Elijah was back from his scans.

“Pardon me, then,” Tom said. “I am going to force the issue by asking to speak to the Capps. I don’t want to abandon them, but I need to know what to tell my wife about when I’ll be home.”

Taking his own coffee with him, Tom sauntered toward the ER desk.

The automatic doors from the outside slid open, sending a draft of cool outside air into the waiting area. Alan Wellner stepped in and immediately spied Ruth.

“I heard about your friend,” he said. “I came to see if there was anything I could do to help.”

She shrugged. “I’m just waiting. There should be some news soon.”

“I could give you a ride back to Westcliffe.”

“Thanks, but I’ll be all right.” Ruth was stranded, and even if Tom Reynolds had room in his truck, the Capps might not want her to ride with them. But Alan unsettled her.

“I know it was weird with my dad the other day.” He took the seat Rufus had been in just moments ago and stretched out his long form, arms across the chairs on either side of him. “Stuff like that happens all the time, but it doesn’t mean anything. So don’t be freaked out by it.”

“I’m not.” Ruth sipped her coffee and moved her eyes to where Tom stood at the ER desk. “Every family is different.”

“My dad is in la-la land sometimes. He’ll call me next week like nothing happened.”

“I hope you can work things out.”

“I let it roll off my back. People sometimes do things just to make a point.” Alan’s fingers drummed against the back of Ruth’s chair, and she stood up.

“So how long have you and Bryan known each other?” she asked.

“Long time. Best friends.”

“That’s great for both of you.”

Mr. Capp had appeared at the desk and leaned in to speak with Tom. Ruth watched for clues about what they might be saying.

“Bryan likes you a lot.” Alan grinned up at her. “He tells me these things. He thinks the whole Amish thing is fascinating, and that you’re a strong woman.”

“He said all that?” Ruth had only seen Bryan a couple of times and thought he understood very little about the Amish.

“He’s a man who knows what he wants.”

Ruth was relieved to see Tom crossing the room toward her. “Good news?”

“Yep.” Tom rubbed his palms together. “They are doing the paperwork to release him now.”

“He can go home?”

“Nothing’s broken, everything works. And Elijah doesn’t want to stay.”

Relief swamped Ruth.

“I wish I could take you home, too,” Tom said, “but the truck will be crowded as it is. We’re going to make Elijah comfortable in the backseat and his parents will both ride in front.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Ruth felt the absence of the car she had owned for the last few months and the independence it provided her. “I’ll figure something out.”

As Tom walked away, Ruth took her phone out of her pocket and dialed Mrs. Weichert’s shop. No one answered. Ruth scrolled through her contact list. Most of the listings were people she knew in Colorado Springs, not Westcliffe.

“Looks like you’re going to need a ride home after all.” Alan stood behind her. “Good thing I’m here.”

N
o need, Alan. I can take Ruth home.” Bryan took Ruth by the hand and tugged her away from Alan.

“What are you still doing here?” Ruth was grateful for Bryan’s presence at that moment. “I thought you would have taken the ambulance back hours ago.”

“I did. I had to finish out my volunteer shift, in case there were any more calls.”

“And you came all the way back here?”

Bryan squeezed her hand. “I don’t like to leave a damsel in distress.”

“How did you even know she would need a ride?” Alan slid his hands into his pockets. “She could have been gone already.”

“Then why are you here, buddy?” Bryan jabbed his friend’s shoulder playfully. “At least I can claim some responsibility since I brought her here in the first place.”

He still held her hand, and Ruth relaxed into his grip. It was an odd sensation. Elijah was the only man who had taken her hand this way before, covering her slender fingers in a grasp both affectionate and protective, and only when they were alone. Yet Ruth trusted Bryan’s hold.

Alan circled them. “I was only trying to be helpful.”

“Thank you for thinking of me.” Ruth craned her neck to follow Alan’s pacing path.

“Yeah, thanks, buddy, but I’ve got this one covered.” Bryan released Ruth’s hand and put an arm around her shoulder. “How is your friend doing?”

“His parents are here to take him home. No serious damage.”

“I’m glad to hear that. His back is going to be one big bruise.”

“It could have been so much worse.”

“You would know. You’re an almost nurse.” Bryan guided her toward the door.

“I still have a ways to go with my education.” Ruth looked over her shoulder at Alan. “Is your friend going to be okay?”

“Alan? He’ll be fine. He goes into these moods sometimes, usually after he sees his dad.”

“He drove all the way over here because he thought I might need a ride.”

“He likes attention. Being a hero. But he tries too hard and it puts people off.”

“So you’re used to just ignoring him?”

“I learned my lesson years ago.” Bryan pressed his key fob and the lights of the gray Mitsubishi came on.

“You two have a…curious relationship.”

“Are you hungry?” Bryan opened the passenger door. “We could get something to eat while we’re in a town with some actual options.”

“I haven’t had anything since breakfast.” Ruth sized up Bryan’s car. It was a few years old, but it was clean inside and out.

“Then we’ll find a place, and I’ll treat you to an early dinner.”

What can you tell about a man based on his car?
Ruth wondered. She hardly knew Bryan any better than she knew Alan. So far they had met in public places within blocks of where she lived and worked.

“How about there?” Ruth pointed across the street from the parking lot to a casual dining establishment. If she decided she was uncomfortable for any reason, she would not get back in his car.

“You got it. Food coming right up.” Bryan closed the car door and walked around to the driver’s side.

Ruth sat facing the emergency entrance of the building. As Bryan turned the key in the ignition, the hospital doors swooshed open and an orderly pushed Elijah outside in a wheelchair. Behind, his parents carried their worried looks and studied discharge papers.

Tom pulled his vehicle to the curb, blocking Ruth’s view of the Capps. While Bryan backed out of his parking space and headed out of the lot, pressure burned in Ruth’s chest. Shock. Grief. Confusion. Love. Whatever it was, she ached for relief.

Rufus separated the tools that belonged to him from those his employer supplied. The end of the workday ushered in a swath of moments he dreaded.

The moment when he would decide whether to remain in the motel room he shared with an
English
man who spent his time flipping channels on the television or to seek quiet solitude elsewhere.

The moment when he would not sit down to dinner with his family.

The moment when he would not lie down in his own bed.

The moment when he would wonder what had become of Elijah Capp and have no way to find out.

The moment he would want to take his little brother to the barn to feed apples to the horses.

The moment he would wish for a glimpse of Annalise’s smile, the turn of her head.

Rufus double-checked that all his own tools were accounted for in the wooden toolbox he had made himself a decade ago, then did a final visual sweep of the room. The afternoon’s labor yielded a satisfactory rank of cabinets. Tomorrow a pair of young hospital publicists would move back into their remodeled work space, while Rufus and the rest of the team began on the next vacated space.

“We’re getting together a group for dinner. Wanna come?” Marcus closed and latched a red metal toolbox.

“Thank you for thinking to include me, but I have an errand,” Rufus said.

Marcus collected four empty Styrofoam cups to carry out of the office. “A man’s got to eat. You might as well use your per diem account.”

“I’m not all that hungry.” Rufus picked up his toolbox. “I’ll walk back to the motel later. It’s not that far.”

Before he left the hospital, Rufus made his way back to the emergency department, just to be sure Ruth was not still waiting for word on Elijah. A harried woman with three droopy-eyed children now occupied the seats where Rufus and Ruth had sat earlier in the afternoon. Rufus approached the desk.

“Excuse me, you had a patient named Elijah Capp today. Was he admitted to the hospital?”

A new clerk had begun a new shift, and she typed some letters into the computer. “We don’t have anybody under that name.”

Rufus puffed his cheeks and let out his breath. “That’s good. Thank you.”

He stepped on the mat that parted the sliding doors and leaned into the outside air sweetened with a flock of blue hydrangea. After a pause to get his bearings, Rufus calculated that the sign he had seen that morning must have been on the other side of the hospital and began to walk around.

Realtors worked primarily in certain geographic areas, he supposed. But southwestern Colorado was spread out, and a Realtor representing commercial property would surely have a larger region. Cañon City was not so far from Westcliffe that he could not find someone to help him.

Rufus rounded two corners of the blockish hospital and found himself where he wanted to be. The old house still had lights on inside.

Ruth ate with nearly embarrassing velocity. The potato soup was hearty, the black bread warm, the meatloaf baked to saucy perfection. Even the roasted broccoli, never Ruth’s favorite vegetable, settled into her taste buds pleasantly. All day long she had thought herself too nervous to think about food

“How about some pie?” Bryan reached for the dessert menu against the wall of their booth.

“I can’t eat another bite.” Ruth protested with two raised hands. “But thank you for all this. The whole day is a blur. I didn’t realize how much better I would feel if I ate.”

“They have peach pie.” Bryan wiggled his brow.

“It can’t possibly be as good as my
mamm’s.”

“You’ll never know if you don’t taste it.”

Ruth laughed. “Yes I will. Even I can’t make a peach pie that tastes as good as hers. The pies here probably come out of a box in the freezer.”

“Somebody had to make them and put them in a box.”