Longbow’s screen door opened and out stepped the man himself. He was holding a cup of steaming coffee in each hand. Blanca’s jaw dropped when he crossed the porch and lowered himself beside her, handing her a cup.
“I take it you know about what happened yesterday,” Blanca said. “I’m not even going to ask how you knew where find the key to my apartment.”
“Just so you know, under the door mat is not a good hiding spot. It’s the first place I checked when Tim called and said he was ten minutes out.” He studied her a minute and then asked, “Don’t you like coffee? I thought that’s how all you city-folks got started in the morning.”
Blanca sipped at the coffee absently, not really tasting it, unable to enjoy even that. “Have you heard from Max?” she asked, staring off after a mountain blue bird that had stolen a worm from a robin.
“Yes,” he said. “But I’m not going to tell you anything until you go back inside and get some breakfast.” He leaned back in the swing and crossed his ankles like he had all day to wait for her. “Change into some grungy clothes, and put a cap on that bed head of yours while you’re at it.”
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Not exactly the speech she’d expected. Why hadn’t he told her to go in and shower and make herself pretty for the day?
“Go on. Get to it. And don’t think I won’t know if you skip the breakfast part, ‘cause I will.”
When Blanca came back out in a worn pair of stretch pants, a faded T, and bare feet, the smile on Longbow’s face nearly lit the darkness in her heart. What a strange man, she thought. He handed her a gardening shovel and spade, and motioned for her to follow him.
They spent the better part of the morning fertilizing the garden bed and planting seedlings and seeds. By the time they were done, she was so focused on how much she’d achieved she hadn’t thought about last night in hours. Longbow sat in the dirt next to her looking up at the sky, breathing in the fresh air like he’d never had it so good.
“Why did you take the time to plant a garden? You’ll most likely not be anywhere near here when it comes time to harvest,” Blanca said.
Longbow didn’t answer right away. He closed his eyes and considered her question for a moment before he opened them again. “A labor of love is work you do without consideration of the benefits or rewards. Some efforts are reward enough in themselves. I like being one with nature, helping things grow and blossom. It’s not much different than being a doctor I suspect. You don’t take care of people for the praise or the money, but for the satisfaction of helping others. We’re not so different, you and me.”
When their eyes met, a calm washed over Blanca making her feel more at ease than she had in months, maybe years. She stretched out on the grass and closed her eyes.
Longbow spoke to her in a hypnotizing voice. “You’re a healer, Blanca, a white island of peace and tranquility. When you let outsiders contaminate your waters, block the flow of your natural abilities, you hinder your gift and deprive others of it as well.”
He paused and stretched out on the grass beside her. “Max said his brother pulled through surgery well and will be coming home in a few days. He’ll need a lot of therapy to strengthen his arm and leg, but the doctors said he should make a full recovery and be back to work by the end of the summer. They called what you did for him a miracle. He would’ve certainly died had you not intervened. And Max made certain his uncle was standing in the room when the doctors gave their verdict.”
Blanca was quiet for a long time, taking in his words, imagining Dr. Phelps’ face as the doctors praised her work. None of it changed how she felt inside. She was in a place no man could touch, for better or worse, and she took comfort in the odd sense of peace while it lasted.
“Why didn’t you tell me that first thing this morning?” She opened her eyes and looked over at Longbow, waiting for his answer.
He simply smiled. But it was a vibrant, spring crashing into summer kind of smile that warmed her from the top of her Bear’s ball cap to her daintily painted toe nails.
*****
Blanca spent the rest of the afternoon helping Longbow spread black tarp and grass clippings around the plants in the garden. He’d mowed the front and back of both their yards, so she figured it was the least she could do.
When her stomach started growling she went in and prepared dinner for the two of them. But when she knocked on Longbow’s door to invite him to eat with her, he didn’t answer. Strange, she thought, she’d heard his shower turn on as she was leaving her own. Where could he have gone? She went back inside and wrapped the plate she’d prepared for him in cellophane and placed it in the fridge.
Now what was she supposed to do? There were no movie theatres, no malls, no amusement parks, or zoos. What did people out here do for entertainment, she wondered? Tired of being cooped up, she decided to take her baby for a spin. She hadn’t had Daisy, her yellow Mazda Miata, out of the car port since she arrived.
She drove the direction of the setting sun, with the north fork of the Payette River on her left and the top down despite the cool mountain breeze. At the junction of highway 55 she pulled into the Banks Café and bought herself an ice cream cone. From the terrace overlooking the south fork of the Payette she could see rafters and kayakers along the sandy beach on the far side. Some were putting in and others were getting out, having come down the middle fork and ended their trip at Banks. So that’s what people around here did for entertainment on the weekends, she realized.
She grabbed some brochures from one of the river guides outside the small mercantile attached to the café and returned to Daisy only to find two state troopers parked on either side of her. One of the state troopers was leaning on Daisy and talking to the other, like they were waiting for her or something. What now?
The trooper with his back to her pushed off Daisy and stood to face her when the other one motioned in her direction. “Miss, is this your car?”
Blanca drew in a calming breath. “Yes, Officer. What can I do for you?”
“Not a thing, Miss Islas. You’ve already done more than any of us could ask. Jax Reynolds is a good friend, a good man, and a damn fine officer. If there’s anything we can do for you, just let us know.” The officer held out his hand. “We take care of our own around here. I’m Michael Phelps, and this is my cousin Bryan.”
Blanca stiffened when the officer mentioned his last name.
The state trooper still sitting in the SUV offered his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet the woman who saved our cousin and showed my uncle up all in one fell swoop. Sorry, cuz,” he said, looking back at Michael. “I know he’s your dad and all, but he can be as stubborn as a badger when he gets his mind set on something.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Bryan said. “I was raised by him, remember?”
A dispatch came over the radio in Bryan’s rig, interrupting their playful banter. Blanca tried hard to not eaves drop on the incoming call. Michael tipped his hat and returned to his own vehicle as Blanca opened Daisy’s door.
“Hey, Doc,” Bryan said. “We’ve got a fire along the highway between here and Horseshoe Bend. Some camper dragging their hook-up chain managed to spark the mountainside ablaze. Best head home before they close the road. I know it’s your day off, but with the roads closing we’ll be diverting traffic through Garden Valley to Lowman and Boise. Any firefighters or civilians needing medical attention north of Banks will be sent your direction for triage and stabilization.” He gave her a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, I know the clinic is technically closed on weekends, but we rednecks don’t know the meaning of office hours. You get business as it comes or you don’t get it at all in these parts.”
Blanca drove back to the clinic thinking of the things she’d need for patients with burns, sprains, and heat exhaustion. When she arrived, she noticed a package on the clinic doorstep. The box contained an eight by ten recessed picture frame with a bullet mounted in the center of it. The note at the bottom of the box
read, Therapeutic touch does save lives. Thank you, Jax Reynolds. She left the picture frame on her desk and began setting up triage stations with burn salve, dressings, and oxygen masks. She didn’t want to think about the man who could’ve died as a result of her treatment just as easily as lived. And she definitely didn’t want to think about his uncle who had threatened her.
She worked sporadically through the night: a dehydrated volunteer firefighter here, a burn patient there, a tourist who’d broken his ankle falling off a rock trying to take pictures of the blaze, and another with road rash from crashing his motorcycle while bypassing the road block.
Nikki found Blanca the next morning, dosing on the waiting room couch. “Have you been here all night?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She pulled Blanca up and pushed her toward the door. “Go home. Get some rest. I’ll call you when something comes in.”
But as Blanca reached the door, a truck pulled up with a bed full of injured firefighters. By the time she got home Sunday evening she was so beat she could barely lift her arms to unlock her door. She mindlessly wandered around her apartment checking the fridge, cupboards, and looking longingly at her bed. She ended up grabbing a Gatorade and sitting on the back porch.
The sunset beamed a ray of light onto the garden she’d helped plant the day before. Longbow was likely working the fire and would not return until it was out, she figured. Despite her complete exhaustions she forced herself out of the chair and found a hose to water the seedlings. Light reflected off the spray of the water and created a rainbow against the backdrop of mountains surrounding her. A contented smile crossed her face and lit her eyes. She continued watering until the sun went down.
Monday morning Blanca noticed Longbow leaving their driveway on foot. He was dressed in his firefighter gear, a helmet in one hand and a shovel in the other. She hollered out her door, “Longbow, wait! I’ll give you a ride.”
He stood by her car as she scrambled for her keys and wallet. As she unlocked Daisy she gave him a questioning look. “Did you put me to bed again last night? I don’t remember much after collapsing on the porch swing. I take it I fell asleep out there and you carried me in.”
Longbow didn’t acknowledge her one way or the other. He folded his long body into her car and sat blank-faced, waiting for her to start the engine and pull out. Blanca shook her head at him and let the subject drop until she was on the road, driving to Banks.
“You know, you keep sneaking me into my room like that and people might start getting ideas.”
He didn’t answer, but Blanca sensed him stiffen against the seat and suddenly there was a tension between them like the first day they’d met: cold, impersonal, and distant.
When Longbow finally spoke, it was with a controlled, clipped voice Blanca didn’t like. “What has happened in your life that makes you think men just want to get close to you so they can seduce you?” he asked. “Why are you suspicious of a simple kindness?”
Blanca’s face heated with embarrassment. She’d offended him. She was only teasing. She didn’t mean to accuse him of being after one thing. Or had she?
“Not all men are like that you know,” Longbow continued. “Some men enjoy the company of the opposite sex for reasons much less sinister than seducing and conquering them.”
Blanca opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before finally saying, “Name them.”
“What?” he asked.
“Name them. Give me the names of some men who don’t want to learn a woman’s weaknesses, flaunt her faults, and suck every ounce of dignity from her very bones.”
Longbow blinked, looking even more offended. Blanca stared out the front windshield wishing she hadn’t said so much. He had no way of knowing about the vipers she’d dated in Chicago. He probably thought she was a nut case.
Longbow put his hand over hers as she shifted gears. “I don’t know what kind of men you’ve been dealing with, but I assure you we’re not all like that. Some men actually feel privileged to learn a woman’s weaknesses, find their little faults endearing, and would place the dignity of a woman before their own every time.”
Blanca slid her hand out from under his and placed it on the wheel while she discreetly used her opposite hand to wipe away a tear. The rest of the drive from Crouch to Banks went by without either of them speaking another word.
At Banks, several men with water tankers and four-wheel drives were parked along the highway preparing to drive out and meet the fire. Longbow slammed the door getting out of her car, and didn’t look back as he walked toward one of the trucks.
Blanca punched Daisy’s gas pedal and spun the car to block Longbow’s path. Longbow stopped, but didn’t make any effort to see what she wanted.
Blanca rolled down the passenger side window and said, “Stay safe out there today, okay?”
Longbow leaned down and peered in at her. There was a smirk on his face but the smile fell short of its usual warmth. “It seems I’m safer already.” He backed away with his hands held up as if he were surrendering.
The rest of the day didn’t go much better for Blanca. She treated multiple burns, a patient with asthma, and even a firefighter with a rattlesnake bite, but nothing made the ache in the pit of her stomach go away. She told herself she was upset over what Longbow said, but the truth was it went much deeper than that and she knew it. She had unhealed wounds, burns below her skin no one would ever see, but that didn’t take away the fact they were there, nor the memories of the men who’d burned her.
It was four days before she saw Longbow again. He left for work before she got up and didn’t come home until long after she was in bed. She was beginning to think he’d never give her a chance to apologize when he showed up at the clinic on Friday afternoon. Nikki was just leaving to go to the Dirty Shame as he walked in.
“Hey, Forest,” Nikki said. “Where’ve ya been? It seems I haven’t seen you in forever.”
He smiled politely and shrugged. “I’ve been around, just busy. We’ve got the fire under control and should have it completely contained by tonight. You should plan on a rowdy crowd. I imagine the guys will be up for a celebration.”
“You gonna join in?” she asked. “You’ve been promising me a dance for over a year now. I’m beginning to think you’re just leading me on,” Nikki said with a wink.
Longbow patted Nikki on the shoulder. “You save me a table, and I’ll save you a dance, how’s that?”
Nikki giggled, a high pitched sound that said she was pleased with how she’d cornered him, and then she looked back at Blanca on her way out the door. “I’ll see you both there. Bring your dancing shoes.”
Longbow held the door open for a minute after Nikki left, staring after her like he was making sure she made it across the street to her other job before closing the door and coming in.
Blanca stood abruptly from the reception desk and spoke before he had a chance to open his mouth. “I’m sorry I was such a jerk the other day. From now on I promise I will simply thank you for any kindness you show me and not question the motive behind it.”
“I was the one being a jerk,” Longbow said. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
“It’s not?” Blanca looked him up and down.
Longbow unbuttoned his flame retardant shirt and slowly opened it revealing his chiseled chest, and the six-inch long wood splinter that was completely embedded in it. If it weren’t for the blood at the entry site of the wound, Blanca would’ve thought the abnormal bulging of his left pec muscle was the result of a previous branding.
She gasped and stepped forward placing her ungloved hands on either side of the foreign body. “What happened?”
“We were creating a back-burn and a tree fell on me. I guess one of the branches snapped and I caught a splinter.”
The splinter was the size of a small ruler. She moved it slightly from side to side. It had penetrated the skin and grazed the muscle but not gone to the bone. It wouldn’t need an x-ray.
Longbow didn’t f
linch or make a sound. He stood, waiting for her to finish her assessment and then he asked, “Are you going to remove it right here, or should I go into one of the treatment rooms you’ve got back there?”
She snapped to attention and pointed to the first empty room in the hallway behind her. Blanca could’ve kicked herself. She’d forgotten herself entirely. She didn’t offer him a room or a gown, take a history, or even pre-warn him she was going to examine his injury. What happened to professionalism in the presence of any challenge? It must’ve gone out the window with her ability to think. She’d practically stroked the man.
Longbow had worn a flimsy tank top while he’d mowed their lawns the other day, but this was different. Standing there watching him undress messed with her mind. She hadn’t been thinking like a doctor. She actually had visions of him continuing further and moving on to undressing her, until she’d seen the wound.
It took her ten minutes to cool the flush of her skin and slow her breathing enough to enter the treatment room. She carried a suture tray and dressing in one hand and a scalpel in the other.
*****
Blanca leaned over Longbow’s bruised chest preparing to excise the splinter when he hollered, “Ouch!” making her jump and the seat beneath her roll backwards.
Longbow busted out laughing. “Are you skittish, Doc? ‘Cause if you are, I can go down to Ogden’s tire shop around the corner and have one of their grease monkeys remove it instead.”
She slapped at his shoulder making him flinch. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “Did I hurt you? Serves you right. You get infection in this wound and you and I will go the rounds. Now hold still.”
He lay on the table, no shirt, no gown. He’d refused the gown, which made it easier to work on him, but a little voice in her head kept chiding her for being so susceptible to his toned body and bare skin. She hated to mar the perfection of his chest any more than had already been done, but the best way to get wood out was to excise it. Pushing it back out the entry site was too risky. Wood and bark shards could be left in the wound, which would eventually cause infection. The splinter had to be cut out and the area thoroughly flushed with sterile saline before she could suture it back up. Even then the man would need a week’s worth of oral antibiotics and a tetanus shot.
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