by Indiana Wake
“Where to?” Grace had said, looking at her perplexed.
“I’m just going over to the Bryant’s place. I need to tell Arlen about my rhododendrons.”
“Honey, I reckon that makes more sense in your world than mine,” Grace said and shook her head, laughing quietly to herself as her daughter tore out of the house again.
Arlen hadn’t been out on the ranch that morning, despite David trying to tempt him out of the house with the idea that they would have another go at cattle herding with the wagon.
He’d been attacking Doc Brown’s exercises with so much gusto in the last weeks, his thigh muscle had finally begun to protest wildly.
He’d been limping badly all morning and was glad that he had the house to himself so that he could grumble and grimace in private. Realizing he hadn’t applied any of Doc Brown’s soothing salve for days, he went in search of it.
Once found, he hobbled into the sitting room with the dark green bottle and settled himself down on the armchair. Just a short walk backward and forward had been enough to make the sweat break out on his forehead and back once again, his muscles stinging unbearably.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the chair for a moment, breathing deeply and fighting an urge to feel sorry for himself.
“Come on, Arlen,” he said to himself in an angry attempt to snap out of it.
He leaned forward and began to roll up the leg of his brown corduroy trousers. They were loose enough to expose the thigh muscle and allow him to apply the thick, cold liquid.
He sucked in his breath, it really was cold, and shuddered a little before he began to gently rub the salve into his skin. He winced immediately, the muscle felt angry, inflamed, and he couldn’t just roughly rub the salve in as he ordinarily would.
“Are you all right?” Katie’s voice startled him, and he looked round sharply to see her standing in the doorway of the sitting room. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you jump. I passed Mary and Jason on my way here. She said they were going to town and I should just come in.” She looked apologetic.
“Oh, no, that’s all right. No problem.” He smiled but felt, for the first time in a long time, that he wanted her to just go.
He didn’t want to hastily roll down his trouser leg and give himself away for feeling ashamed. But he didn’t want her to look either, to see the devastated skin and muscle, for he really was embarrassed by it.
It was strange, it was his leg, and he’d even begun to grow used to the sight of it himself as the months had rolled by. But nobody else had seen it, apart from Doc Brown, and he felt himself sliding backwards, like the self-conscious young man stumbling into the church with everybody’s eyes on him.
“You don’t look so well. Is it very painful?” She seemed timid, as if she could see his discomfort both physical and emotional and now didn’t know whether to stay or run.
“It is. I didn’t go out onto the ranch today; the muscle is kind of sore. Well, very sore,” he said, feeling somehow paralyzed, stuck where he was, salve bottle in one hand as he stared back at her.
“I suppose it’s because you’ve done so much exercise. You’ve been working really hard and you’re getting some movement back, maybe that is why your muscle is so sore,” she said, and wandered further into the room, her eyes on his leg now.
“No, Katie,” he said quietly and closed his eyes. “Don’t. Don’t look.”
“Why not?” she said, but he could not find an answer for her.
Even with his eyes closed, he could almost feel her crossing the room to where he was and knew that she could see his tortured leg clearly now. She did not say a word, nothing, before he felt her fingers closing around the bottle of salve he was still holding, gently taking it from him.
He kept his eyes closed, his heart aching with a pain he could never have described. And then he felt her cool skin on his leg as she gently began to massage the salve into his thigh muscle with her fingers.
She was so gentle, causing him no pain whatsoever. She made little circular motions with her fingertips, and he felt the muscle which had been tight and unyielding slowly giving in under her touch, becoming suppler, letting go of the tight, angry knots.
Arlen couldn’t get on top of his own feelings for a moment, hardly knowing what it was he really felt. He could still feel the dreadful embarrassment, the idea that she was looking at his devastated leg and recoiling. But it was quickly being replaced by another idea, one which told him that she could not possibly be recoiling and touching him at the same time. He hadn’t asked her to do it, she was doing it by choice.
“Does the muscle normally feel like this?” Katie said in a louder voice now, a more confident one, her ordinary brand of inquisitiveness.
“Like what?” he said, finally opening his eyes.
Katie was still making gentle circles over the muscle, concentrating hard even as he looked at her. He had a moment to really study her and could not see an ounce of disgust there. She was just intent on helping him, the same as she always was.
“Look, when I press it, it kind of springs back. See?” she said and demonstrated for him. “Does it always do that?”
“I don’t know,” he said, calming down considerably and reaching out to gently press his muscle in the same place Katie had.
He could feel it, just as she described, springing back when he pushed down on it. And it was harder, he was sure, than it had been before.
Now that he was fully diverted, he began to forget everything that had seemed to knock the air out of his lungs just moments before. His embarrassment was waning and being replaced with the same kind of interest that Katie was displaying.
“I think it looks kind of bigger?” he said and looked at her.
“I don’t know, I never saw your leg before,” Katie said and shrugged. “What do you think?”
“I think…” he said and peered even more closely at his leg, wondering why he hadn’t noticed it before. “I think it is changing shape. Or getting shape, for it sure didn’t have any before. I don’t know, it is like it is finally starting to recover.” He looked at her in surprise. “I mean you can hardly see it, but I reckon something’s changing in there.”
“Just like my rhododendrons!” she said excitedly, her face lighting up.
“Your rhododendrons?” he said and felt the smile break out on his face.
Once again, Katie had made an awful moment seem suddenly normal, everyday, nothing to worry about. And she was the only person in the world, it seemed, who had that curious ability.
“Yes, my rhododendrons,” she said and began with her tiny circles on his leg once again. “That’s what I’m doing here,” she said as if he ought to have realized.
“What?”
“My rhododendrons have come to life. They’re thriving all of a sudden, just like your leg,” she said with a broad grin.
“Katie, I honestly don’t know what to say,” Arlen said and started to laugh, a strange relief beginning to take hold of him.
It was almost as if he had conquered the last hurdle, not in his physical recovery, but his mental recovery. It was the last thing that he’d been secretly afraid of. The idea that somebody he knew would look upon his leg and be disgusted.
But that was just one more thing which had been blown away like dust motes on the breeze. Blown away by Katie Lacey without her even realizing what she had done.
And in that moment, as he looked at her, all full of excitement for his leg and her rhododendrons, Arlen knew that he loved her. He knew he should not, he knew it could not work, but he was going to allow himself a few moments to feel that love and enjoy it.
Chapter 17
Katie walked briskly into town, wishing that she had thought to grab her shawl on the way out of the lumberyard to guard against the somewhat cooler air of the early autumn.
It was still sunny and bright, a beautiful day, but the summer was definitely drifting away for another year.
She had three letters to
take in the mail office, each one of them special orders to different suppliers for her daddy’s customers. Business was still booming, despite the fact that summer was nearing an end. But there was still a lot of building work going on around the edges of the town, the place growing year by year, seeming almost alive itself.
As was her custom, Katie went in and spent a few minutes passing the time of day with the post master, already looking forward to the pie and coffee she would treat herself to in the diner before she headed for home.
She had always liked that solitary wander into town, taking potluck in the diner as to whether she would sit alone or see somebody she knew in there. Either way, she always enjoyed it.
However, when she came out of the mail office to see none other than Todd standing there waiting for her, Katie had a feeling that she would not enjoy the familiar excursion as much as she ordinarily did.
“I thought that was you kept disappearing into the mail office,” Todd said with his usual relaxed, broad smile. “I haven’t seen you for a while.”
“Well, I had better get going,” Katie said, wanting to be away from him at the earliest opportunity.
“Where are you going to?”
“I’m just going down to the diner before I go home,” she said, wishing she hadn’t said anything at all.
She should have said that she was going to see Connie, or somewhere else he could not follow.
“Are you meeting someone?”
“I don’t know,” she said and began to walk.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Just exactly that.”
“How do you not know if you’re meeting somebody?” he said, annoyingly keeping step with her all the way along the street.
“I don’t know who’s in there, do I? If I see somebody I know, then I’ll meet them, won’t I?”
“Katie Lacey, you’re such a strange girl,” he said and laughed loudly. “Has anybody ever told you that before?” he said a little cruelly.
“Nobody ever seems to tell me anything else,” she said and sounded bored, despite being angry. “But I don’t see why it should bother you one way or the other. Now, please excuse me,” she said, but he didn’t go anywhere.
He carried on walking by her side as she walked down the street, smiling at her and irritating her. She really didn’t like him at all and wished that he would fixate upon another woman altogether. What on earth was wrong with a person who persisted even when it had been made clear to them that their attention wasn’t welcome? She couldn’t imagine doing something like that herself.
“It doesn’t bother me.” He shrugged. “I reckon I could even get used to it.”
“Get used to it?” Katie said and shook her head. “I don’t need anybody to get used to me, thank you.” She walked faster, but so did he.
In the end, she thought the only way she could get rid of him was if she ran. But then he would probably just run with her, and so she knew there was little point.
“Maybe you do maybe you don’t. But I’m telling you that I could get used to you.”
“I know, I heard you the first time,” she said sharply. “But what I am telling you is that you won’t have a chance to get used to me. I’m not interested in you, Todd. I don’t know how I can make it plainer to you. I never wanted to hurt your feelings before, but I’m starting to think that I do now.” She sighed in exasperation when he simply laughed it off.
“Still playing hard to get then?”
“I’m not playing anything, I’m just telling you straight,” she said and turned in at the diner.
To her dismay, he darted in front of her and dramatically pulled the door open for her to walk through. It occurred to her then to simply turn and walk away, but thinking that he would probably follow her, she just walked into the diner and hoped for the best.
“You don’t think I give up that easily, do you?” he said, following her into the diner.
“You might consider giving up right now, young man, when you have the idea of being run out of town by an angry old woman with a cast-iron skillet.” Connie seemed to appear from nowhere.
Katie was always pleased to see her, but never more so than now. She smiled broadly, wanting to throw her arms around the woman, especially when she saw how her bold threat had affected Todd.
He was certainly taken aback and looked as if he would have turned on his heels and run away if his young man’s pride wasn’t riding high.
“You know me, Mrs. Langdon, I like to have a joke with the girls now and again.”
“Well, she’s not a girl, she’s a woman, and she is clearly not amused.” Connie went on glaring at him relentlessly, her eyes as steely as a wolf getting ready for battle.
“All right, all right,” he said sulkily, his palms up. “I was going anyway,” he said and turned slowly, walking away in a relaxed attitude that was rather more determined than natural.
“Oh, Connie!” Katie said and squealed with laughter. “Would you really chase him out of town with a cast-iron skillet?”
“Well, I could certainly wield the skillet, but I honestly don’t think I could run after him.” Connie chuckled. “So, are you coming to join me?”
“Yes, please.”
When Mary had declared with a sigh that she had run out of flour, Arlen had been only too ready to offer to go into town for her. The wagon and horse were already hitched, and he reckoned he was just about ready to wander out into the wider world without his protective sister-in-law at his side.
It had been a long time since he had gone out into town for something as mundane as a few groceries, and it had long since felt like an experience he could well do without.
But if he could manage church and all the curious glances, he reckoned he could manage the main street. He would just drive his wagon down and get on with it, maybe even leave it at the top end and walk down to the grocery store.
Not only would it do him good in terms of exercise, it would be a little test of how far he’d come of late. And with all the tests he’d passed with flying colors, he reckoned this one would be easier than he’d ever imagined.
Arlen had been in a strange, almost dreamlike kind of world for the last few days. Ever since Katie had looked on his leg without so much as a wince, Arlen had occasionally found himself wondering just how different life might be. He’d never thought about finding a woman, not since the very day of the explosion. All along, he thought there would be no point. No woman could look at him now, much less reach out and touch him.
Until Katie Lacey, that was.
But then there was the other part of him, fighting against his dreamlike wonder, reminding him that Katie’s kindness was simply that; kindness. And kindness didn’t mean romance, and it didn’t mean marriage, he knew that.
The fact was that nothing had really changed, including his own determination to swallow down the feelings that were growing all the time; his real love for her. He knew it wasn’t fair, she was just a young woman who had not only extended the hand of friendship but had seen that friendship through even when he was at his worst. To expect her now to fall in love with him on top of it all, the cherry on the cake, was far too much to hope for, he knew that.
And Arlen had always erred on the side of sparing himself unnecessary disappointment, knowing that some of the wilder dreams in life were best ignored. For now, he would do better to concentrate on the idea of getting himself back up on a horse one day soon. Take life’s challenges one step at a time and leave the dreaming to one side for a while.
However, his heart was having none of it as he drove into town, the cool autumn breeze lifting his thick, fair hair as he went. He felt light-hearted, his mind wandering, remembering how it felt to have her soft hands on his skin, gently soothing the tortured muscle of his leg until the pain slowly drifted away.
And he was still in that very frame of mind when he got down from the wagon, much more gracefully than ever before, and began to make his way through the busy
street and down towards the grocery store.
When he saw her familiar thick ashen ponytail in the distance, it immediately brought a smile to his face. She was coming out of the mail office and about to cross the street.
He was still some yards away and thought to quicken his pace, but soon thought better of it, suspecting he would likely end up toppling if he tried to speed up. And so, he just watched her, waiting to see which direction she went in so that he could follow along and hopefully catch up with her.
And that was when he saw the handsome young man, all smiles and dark hair, striding up to her. Arlen ground to a halt, so quickly that a woman walking behind him almost ran into him, forcing him to apologize.
When the tutting woman went on her way, he turned his attention back to Katie. She was already walking away, her ponytail swinging this way and that, at the side of the dark-haired man.
Arlen immediately felt his heart plummet like it had landed hard in his stomach. He started to walk again, taking his steps carefully now that he was not studying the ground as much as he was studying Katie and her friend.
Her friend? Was that all he was? They certainly looked as if they knew each other. The man was animated, his arms moving all the time and his head continually turning to look at her, to smile at her. He was handsome in a way that Arlen himself might have been once, although he was certain that he had never been quite so sure of it as the dark-haired man seemed to be.
But maybe he was just a friend. But then Arlen was just a friend, wasn’t he?
Arlen stopped in his tracks again, knowing that it wouldn’t do him any good to just keep following along behind them. He had already gone far past the grocery store in his haste to watch Katie’s reaction to the man she was with. But did he really want to see her reaction? Did he need to know?
And worse still, was it any of his business?
With a sigh, Arlen leaned against the corner of one of the buildings, a store which sold ornaments and dishes and all manner of other fancy goods. He watched Katie and the man until they were almost out of sight, his heart lurching once again when he saw them disappearing into the diner together, the man making a gallant show of opening the door for her.