Threads of Grace (3 page)
Under normal circumstances, Seth knew how to handle a woman as well as he knew how to manage an injured mare. But he felt cold sweat dampen the back of his cotton shirt when he saw the awkward angle of her right ankle. How could she not be screaming in pain?
“I think it’s broken, Grace. I’m going to have to stabilize it before we go to the doctor.”
“Do what you think best, but I’m not going to the doctor. Once it’s set, it’ll heal. I’ll be fine.”
He blinked. Any other woman would be begging for relief—or, he thought wryly, surrendering to his arms like the heroine in one of those
Amisch
romance novels his
mamm
read, waiting to be carried off and rescued.
“You are going to the doctor,” he said after a moment. “If money is the issue, I’ll pay. You don’t have to be all public with the community fund.”
He saw a blush suffuse her white cheeks, but he plowed on. “If you’re worried about Abel, you know Jacob is fine with him. And if it’s simply me—well, too bad.
Der Herr
saw fit to bring me to you today.”
“It’s all of those things,” she said.
He nodded. “Fair enough. Now, hold still if you can. I’m
going to slide this piece of wood under your foot and calf.” He tried to concentrate on explaining what he was doing and not on her oblique statement—
“It’s all of those things.”
Him included.
Well, that should tell him something. As if it wasn’t already obvious that she didn’t care a whit for him. She hadn’t given him so much as a smile in the six months she’d lived in Pine Creek. He ought to take Jacob’s advice and just forget her.
Seth ripped off his shirtsleeve and tore it into strips, then gingerly slid the fabric around the wood and her leg. He steeled himself as he tightened each strip to the fullest, trying not to hear her quiet whimper.
When he was done, he laid his hands on his thighs and fought for breath. He felt winded, as if he’d run a mile in a sodden field. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
She shook her head, her lips white and compressed.
“I’ll go get your wagon and bring it round. Then I’ll take you to Lockport Hospital. Don’t worry, okay?”
He longed to touch her, simply to comfort her. And he almost reached out. Almost.
Then he rose and made himself walk away.
I
t’s a bad break, Mrs. Wyse.” The old doctor was soft-spoken and serious-eyed behind his spectacles.
“Mrs. Beiler,” Grace corrected him.
“Oh, excuse me,” the
Englisch
man said. “I thought your husband introduced himself as Wyse.”
Grace frowned up at Seth, who shrugged and gave her an innocent smile. It wasn’t worth the effort to correct the doctor again. She was feeling singularly tired and oddly quivery from the medicine she’d been given for the pain.
“Abel,” she whispered.
“He’s fine, Grace. Everything will be all right.” Seth leaned closer, and she caught the clean scent of him again—teasing, tantalizing—as she felt herself slip thickly into sleep.
S
he was dreaming. He could tell by the way her black lashes fluttered against her cheeks. She made small, ineffectual movements
of her hands, as if she struggled to contain something beyond herself.
“Grace,” he whispered. No response.
He leaned over the hospital bed. “Grace,” he repeated.
Don’t touch her,
a voice inside warned him
. Don’t touch . . .
But she was so close, and so obviously troubled. He lifted one of her hands, turned it palm up, and ran the pad of his thumb over it. Her fingers were rough with small needle pricks, marks that testified to hours of hard work, making quilts to sell.
Then her eyes opened and she was staring up at him in confusion.
“Grace, you’re at the hospital. They’ve set and cast your leg and ankle. Do you remember?” He gently laid her hand back on the white sheet.
“What about Abel? He’ll be so worried.” She made as if to rise, reaching toward the small red Call button on the end of a cord near her head.
“Whoa, wait. I called the barn at home. It’s only been three hours. Abel is fine, making gingerbread with
Mamm
.”
She sank back down on the pillow.
As she seemed about to drift off again, a nurse bustled in the door—stout,
Englisch
, probably in her late fifties.
“I’m Peggy,” she announced. She promptly stepped in front of Seth where he hovered by the bed. “If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Wyse, I need to check her vitals.”
“Uh, sure.” Seth moved back.
The nurse looked him up and down, her gaze pausing on his bare arm. She arched an eyebrow. “I understand you did some first aid yourself, Mr. Wyse?”
Seth flushed when Grace seemed to focus on his arm as well. “Yes. Only a bit.”
“I owe you a shirt,” Grace mumbled.
The words echoed in his brain, mingling disbelief with resounding promise. It was an intimate thing, the making of a shirt. But when he looked at her pale, beautiful face, he saw only a blank detachment in her gaze. Maybe she was still drugged.
“Forget it,” he said. “Let’s focus on getting you home instead.”
“Yes, you’re free to go,” Nurse Peggy said. “Dr. Green gave you a walking cast, and you’ll soon get used to the feel of it. In the meantime, use the crutches until you get your sea legs. He wants the cast on for at least four weeks. Don’t get it wet.” She produced a plastic bag with something gray folded inside. “You put this sleeve over your cast when you shower—er, bathe. It’s got a little pump seal with it.” She handed the bag to Seth and glanced between the two of them. “She’ll need help for a few days—getting around, taking some pain meds. Make sure she uses the crutches until she gets used to balancing on the rubber heel. Any problem?”
“No,” he said. “No problem at all. She’ll have everything she needs.” He ignored Grace’s glare and turned a full smile on the nurse. “Thank you.”
The nurse arched an eyebrow at him as if to say he wasn’t so bad, for an
Amisch
. Then she pulled some forms out of a chart for Grace to sign, took the completed forms, and left without another word. Once she had gone, he leaned one hip against the bed and chuckled at Grace.
“What are you laughing at?” she demanded.
“You,” he said with a grin. “You need help, and you’re going to get it.”
G
race leaned on the crutches and tested her weight on the walking cast. She gazed down at it—it was blue, the color of the sky on a midsummer day. The thing felt cumbersome but not too heavy, and much to her surprise, she had very little pain.
Still, she wondered why on earth she had listened to Seth Wyse when he told her that she was coming to the hospital. Because she’d done nothing but listen for years and years, that’s why. She had been conditioned to obey.
He pulled the wagon up, then jumped down to help her.
“Back or front?” he asked.
She could barely recall the ride into town. He had laid her on a pile of quilts in the back of the wagon. Now she decided the front would be better—even if it meant sitting next to him and balancing her cast.
“Front.”
He lifted her, crutches and all, before she could even catch her breath.
“You weigh nothing, Grace,” he said.
“It’s not the most polite thing to comment on a lady’s weight.”
He slid her onto the seat, took her crutches, and deposited them into the bed of the wagon. Then he grinned. “Maybe I’m not the most polite of men.”
She stared straight ahead as he climbed up beside her and took the reins. Of course he was polite. She could hear his kind
voice in her mind, talking to people before Meeting, joking with Jacob at some gathering, soothing Abel as he taught him to ride.
The wagon jerked forward and he caught her arm. “Hey, better lean against me with that leg.”
“I’m fine.”
“Come on. I don’t bite, Grace.”
She inched a little nearer to him, careful to keep her leg propped on the front board. He encircled her shoulder with a strong arm, edging her flush against his side.
“You can’t drive with one hand.”
He laughed, a merry, rich sound from deep in his throat. “Grace, I could drive a horse blindfolded and using two toes. Don’t worry. And, by the way, I picked that color out, you know.”
“What color?”
“The blue. Your cast. I picked it out for you. Could have had green, but I thought it wouldn’t go well with your dresses.”
She stared down at the blue cast and forced herself to concentrate on the dull throbbing of her leg and the rhythmic sounds of the horse’s shoes striking the pavement. “It’s vanity to think that way. It . . . it doesn’t matter what I wear or how I look.”
He pulled her an inch closer. “
Nee
. It doesn’t matter, Grace. It doesn’t matter at all.”
S
eth wished the ride would last forever; she fit so perfectly within the circle of his arm. But he knew she was in pain, and more than that, he knew that she would
not
like what he was about to say.
“You know,” he began in a matter-of-fact way, “you’re going to
need help, like the doctor said. Your place is so small, to get around with crutches and all. I thought that maybe you should stay—”
“Nee.”
He glanced down at her. “What?”
“
Nee, danki
. Abel and I will be fine together.”
He nodded. “Might be a challenge, though, keeping an eye on that boy at the start of a summer’s fun.” He knew the boy was jumpier than a fly on a string.
She seemed to hesitate, just for a split second. “I—we’ll be fine.”
Despite her response, he persisted. “You’re quilting too, right? You’ll need something rigged up so that you can keep that ankle elevated while you work.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“
I have no doubt you can handle everything, Grace. But at least for a day or so—especially while you’re taking the pain medicine—why don’t you stay at our house? We can keep an eye on Abel, and you can go home feeling better.”
She was wavering. He could see it in the set of her fine jawline and the pulse that throbbed in her throat.
“It really would be
gut
for Abel,” he added. “I’ll take him riding.”
This final volley seemed to do the trick. She squared her shoulders beneath his arm. “It’s late. I guess—for tonight only. If your
mamm
won’t mind.”
Mind? She’d be ecstatic. “She will welcome you, Grace. And we’ve got plenty of rooms, though you might be more comfortable on the couch.”
Grace glanced sideways at him, and he felt his heart rate accelerate at the veiled look.
“Abel—he’s been sleeping with me lately. He gets these bouts of anxiety.”
Seth smiled. Here was a concrete fact about the beautiful woman: her son was everything to her. “He’ll be right with you. I promise.”
She pursed her lips. “And are you
gut
at that, Seth Wyse?”
“At what?”
“Making promises?”
He pulled her closer and smiled again. “Only the ones I’m sure I can keep.”
She nodded. “We’ll see then, won’t we?”
He swallowed hard. For the second time in one day, the Widow Beiler had intimated that there was the potential for future encounters between them.
A shirt and a promise. He could live on that.
S
eth Wyse, I’d say you planned this, but for the falling of the stone wall.”
In search of a drink of water, Grace was wrangling her crutches toward the sink when she caught the whispered admonishment coming from the pantry. She froze, then realized it was the worst possible thing to do. A moment later Seth and his mother emerged from the pantry room and both stopped still at the sight of her.
“Grace, please forgive me. You must have overheard. I just meant . . .” She trailed off rather helplessly, and Grace couldn’t help but notice the flush that stained Seth’s cheeks.