It's Just A Ranch

by Misty Malone

  She smiled at his words, and had the most contented look on her face he’d ever seen. It made it even harder not to pick her up and hug her.

  Dr. Fielding walked in and looked at the two of them, and saw the way they were looking at each other. He stood still, looking at them.

  Garrett saw him and stood. “Dr. Fielding, thank you for coming.” He saw the look on his face, but wasn’t quite sure what it meant. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, not at all. Going by the way you two were looking at each other when I came in, I’d say not a thing is wrong. It’s always good to see two young people who are obviously in love.”

  Garrett looked down at Mindy and winked. She smiled at both of them. “It’s a good feeling being one of the two young people in love, too,” she said rather quietly.

  The nurse walked in with a syringe, which broke the magical moment. Dr. Fielding cleared his throat. “The nurse says you’re awake, but you have a headache and feel dizzy when you move your head. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  He did an exam, watching her eyes as they followed his moving finger, followed by a few other quick tests. Afterward he talked to her and Garrett, who was waiting anxiously to hear the results of his exam. “You have a concussion, Mindy, but I don’t think it’s as serious as it could be. You were able to answer all my questions, which means your memory is okay, and on the exam I see definite signs of a concussion, but none of the signs that indicate it’s a severe concussion. I want to get you admitted and move you upstairs to a regular room, where we’ll watch you, but I think with a lot of rest you’ll be okay in a few days.”

  Garrett was nodding his head, happy with the news. The stubborn little lady laying in the bed, however, was frowning. “If I’m going to be okay, why do I have to stay here? Why can’t I go home? I can rest there.”

  “Two reasons,” Dr. Fielding said. “First, people rest more if they’re here than at home. There are too many things they can be doing at home, none of which will take long, but when you put them all together, they’re not getting the full rest like they need the first day or two after this kind of injury. But the more important reason is because I want myself and the trained nurses to watch you.”

  “But there will be people around at home that would be seeing me.”

  “But we’re not trained to know what to watch for,” Garrett said, with a look of warning on his face.

  “He’s right,” Dr. Fielding said. “There are obvious things anyone would recognize as a problem, like if you were to try to stand up, and nausea set in and you vomited. But there are many other, much subtler things that most people probably wouldn’t notice or pay any attention to, that a nurse would. She could pass it on to me so I can check it out, and we could note it on your chart and they could watch for it closer.”

  “How long will I have to stay here?”

  “If everything goes good, probably just a couple days. You have a pretty nasty bump on your head, and it knocked you out for over twelve hours. That definitely warrants us watching you to make sure you’re okay.”

  She tried to sit up so she could argue better, but both men could easily tell she was dizzy. “Whoa, easy,” Dr. Fielding said, laying her back against the pillow again. He nodded at the nurse, who stepped up to her IV and injected the medicine in the syringe into it.

  “That should start helping that dizzy feeling quickly,” Dr. Fielding told Mindy. “Lay back and let it work.” Once she’d calmed down and both men could tell she was feeling better, Dr. Fielding addressed her again. “That’s the other reason to keep you here for a couple days. We can give you medicine to help with the feeling of dizziness or nausea you’re apt to have while you’re healing. Anytime you have a feeling like that, call the nurse and let her know, even if she’s recently given you an injection. That’s how we know if we need to change the dosage, or even try a different kind. Are you feeling better now?”

  “Yes, much,” she admitted. “Thank you for that, and for the explanation. I guess I’d forgotten that happens a lot at first. It makes more sense to me now.”

  “Good,” Dr. Fielding said. “I’ll let you rest now. Garrett, it may not be any of my business, but the nurses tell me you’ve been here with her, at her bedside all night. I can tell you, now that she’s awake and I’ve checked her, she’s going to be okay. She just needs to rest. That injection she just had is going to make her drowsy in a little bit, so this might be a good time for you to spend a few minutes with her to assure yourself she’s okay, then when she falls asleep you go home and get some rest and a shower.”

  “Okay, Doctor, I can take a hint,” Garrett said with a chuckle. “Now that you mentioned it, I did come straight from working all day on the ranch, without a shower.”

  Dr. Fielding laughed. “I really didn’t mean it quite like that. It’s not that bad. But you do look like a few hours of sleep and a shower would do you a world of good.”

  “It would. Thanks for the advice, Doctor.” The doctor was still chuckling as he left. Garrett turned to Mindy, still smiling. “You heard the good doctor, honey. I need a shower and you need to rest. I can tell that shot’s making you drowsy already, isn’t it?”

  “It is, and I don’t like that. I want to talk to you.”

  “We’ll have plenty of time to talk, honey. I’ll be back, I promise.”

  “But can’t we talk first, at least for a couple minutes?”

  He sat back down beside her. “What do you want to talk about that’s so important to you?”

  “Last night. I ruined our big night out. Now I don’t know where we were going, or why it was such a secret. Were we going to do something special?”

  “We were, but don’t worry, honey. We’ll still have our big night. We’ll just postpone it until you’re out of the hospital and feeling better.”

  “No, you can’t do that.”

  She tried sitting up, but he could tell it was a bad move. He gently pushed her back down, onto her pillow. “Ssshhh, honey, calm down. Don’t move. Okay, we’ll talk more. But don’t move, please. I don’t want you hurting.”

  “But I couldn’t stand waiting, not knowing what we were going to do. Please tell me. I can’t stand waiting. Please don’t make me wait until I get out of here. I won’t be able to rest.”

  He smiled at her affectionately. “You are about the most impatient little lady I know. Did you used to sneak downstairs and open your Christmas presents early when you were little? Am I going to have to hide them from you?”

  She blushed again. “I used to try to, yes. I hate waiting. In fact, it makes me nervous. I don’t try to be that way, but I can’t help it. I get very antsy if I have to wait for something. Can’t you please tell me where we were going so I know? I’ll relax and rest much better, trust me.”

  Garrett studied her a couple minutes, and sighed. “Knowing you as I’ve gotten to know you, I totally believe what you’re saying. I’ll tell you what. Let me go home and take a shower, maybe take a quick nap, and think about it. I might check on the ranch while I’m home, too, to make sure Wyatt’s doing okay, see if he has any questions. Then I’ll come back in to see you. I’ll probably give in and tell you where we were going, because you’re right; you probably will rest better afterwards. But I want you to know, we’re still going to go, after you’re released and feeling better. Deal?”

  “Deal. Thank you, Garrett. I love you.”

  Hearing those words brought an automatic smile to his face. “I love you, too, honey. You go to sleep now, and listen to the doctors and nurses. I’ll be back in later today.” He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on her lips, holding her down when she tried to meet him. He tried to look stern. “I said to listen to the doctors and nurses. Didn’t they tell you to stay still and don’t move your head much if it hurts?”

  “Sorry,” she said, but he didn’t see a bit of remorse on her face.

  He shook his head, but smiled. “Behave,” he told her before leaving. He stopped at the nur
se’s desk to be sure they had his cell number and would call him if her condition changed any. After getting their promise, he went back to her room and looked in on her. She was sleeping already.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Maria met Garrett at the door when he got home. “Is our girl going to be okay?”

  As he was about to explain the situation, he saw Wyatt coming to the house, so he waited a minute. When he got to the door, Garrett opened it to invite him in. “Is she going to be okay? The men and I have been worried about her. She didn’t look too good when she left.”

  Garrett couldn’t help the smile that etched its way across his face. “The men?”

  “Yes, the men,” Wyatt confirmed. “That little lady of yours has stolen more hearts around here than just yours.” Garrett’s eyebrows shot up, and Wyatt explained a little further. “Not in the same way, obviously, but everyone working on this ranch, including me, think she’s a special lady. We’ve all seen her do her special little things. On hot days when the men come in and go straight to the big thermoses Charlie keeps full of ice water, they all try the one on the end first, just in case she’s swapped out the ice water in that one for ice cold lemonade. They usually come away smiling with a big cup of lemonade.”

  “They know she’s the one doing that?”

  “Oh, we all know. They see lots of little things she does around here that you may not even know about.”

  “Like what?”

  “Remember that day Maria taught her how to make a pie?”

  “Absolutely. She made me a lemon pie, which is one of my favorites. It was delicious.”

  “The men all liked them, too.” Garrett looked at him, confused. “She made eight of them, and took several out for Charlie to serve for supper. She told him not to mention where they came from. But you know Charlie. He gives credit where credit is due. They all think the world of her. She does those things because she wants to; not to get credit for them. When they heard what happened, we’ve all been worried half sick about her. So enough talk. The last we heard was at midnight, when you said she was still unconscious. What’s the word; is she going to be okay?”

  “She is, but it may take a little time. She woke up around six o’clock this morning, but she gets dizzy if she moves her head, and she has a headache. The doctor says she has a concussion, but after checking her out pretty good after she woke up, he doesn’t think it’s too serious. He wants to keep her a couple days or so to watch her, and make sure she gets over the dizziness and headaches, but he thinks she’ll be okay. He says she needs lots of rest after a concussion.”

  Wyatt was smiling big at the good news, but had to chuckle. “And I bet she didn’t want to stay there, and won’t want to rest much.”

  “She argued with him, saying she could rest at home, and you’re right; she won’t want to rest much. He convinced her, though, that they can treat her for the dizzy feeling while she’s in there so they can get that eliminated. I could tell the dizziness bothered her enough that it made her feel nauseated, so she agreed, at least for now. She’ll probably be ready to come home before he suggests it, though.”

  “No doubt in my mind,” Maria said. “Garrett, I have breakfast ready. Go sit down, and we can talk more while we eat.”

  “Dr. Fielding told me I need to shower,” he said with a laugh.

  “He’s not wrong,” Maria said, “but you need to eat and sleep, too. Food’s ready now, so you can do that first. Now get in there and sit down.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a grin.

  The men sat down at the table while Maria started taking food in for them. Wyatt had a couple more questions about Mindy. He was relieved she was doing so well, remembering how she looked when they’d found her yesterday. Wyatt assured Garrett he had everything under control with the ranch, and convinced him to take a shower, get some sleep, and go back in to see Mindy, and spend the evening with her. Garrett thanked him, and promised to be back on the job tomorrow.

  Garrett had been thinking about Mindy’s request since he left the hospital. He did believe she would be able to rest better if she wasn’t focused on what she missed last night, but was unsure what to do about it. An idea came to him while he was taking a shower, and the more he thought about it the more he liked the idea. He got dressed and made a couple phone calls, the first one to her doctor to get the okay for his plan, before laying down to get a few hours of sleep.

  When he got back to the hospital later that afternoon, he stopped at the nurse’s station first to check on her, and was told she’d slept most of the day after he left, but seemed to be doing well. He enlisted their help to pull off his plan, and after hearing it, they agreed enthusiastically. He thanked them and went in to see her. She was sleeping, so he pulled the chair up next to her bed again and sat down to wait.

  He didn’t have long to wait. She woke up about ten minutes later, and smiled up at him. “You’re back,” she said.

  “I told you I would be. Don’t you know yet that I mean what I say?”

  “Yes, I do know that. I wasn’t expecting you back this soon, though. I figured you would be working.”

  “Working, when you’re here?”

  “Well, you do have a ranch to run, you know. Thank you for coming, though.”

  “After the scare you gave me last night, I had to come back. I had to assure myself you are, in fact, okay.”

  They spent the next hour talking. At one point a nurse came in and checked on her, asking some questions to check her memory. She also had a syringe that she emptied into her IV, saying it was something Dr. Fielding prescribed to fight her dizziness when she moved.

  After the nurse left, Garrett asked if she remembered what happened last night, and she said she did. She said it was nice out and she was walking along the ravine, looking down at the creek. She saw something down at the bottom of the ravine, right by the creek, but couldn’t tell what it was. She was curious, and decided to go down to investigate. Unfortunately, she couldn’t remember what happened after she decided to go down, but they both figured she just lost her footing and slid down. She was surprised to hear when he found her she was half in and half out of the creek.

  They were still talking when two nurses came in, carrying meal trays. “Okay, dinner time,” one of them said as she set the tray down on her bed table. “I just came on shift and we haven’t met yet. I’m Nina. How are you feeling?”

  “I feel okay, but I’m not sure how hungry I am,” Mindy said. “I doubt I can eat a whole meal, but it looks like you brought two. What’s up with that?”

  “You might want to look at this before you say that,” Nina said. “This looks awfully good.” The nurses helped her get ready to eat. They adjusted her bed so she was sitting up a little straighter, and put her pillows behind her. They put both dinner trays on the tray table over the bed, and Nina turned toward Garrett. “Feel free to sit on the bed, in case she needs help with anything.

  “Oh, okay,” Garrett said, moving to sit on the bed, facing her. Nina and the other nurse took the covers off both meals at once, and Mindy’s mouth dropped open.

  Mindy looked up to see that Garrett and both nurses were grinning. “What’s going on here?” she asked. “I have never seen hospital food that looks anywhere near this tempting. And believe me, I’ve seen a lot of hospital food.”

  “This is from the restaurant I was going to take you to last night,” Garrett explained. “You asked me if I would at least tell you where I was going to take you last night, so I decided I would do this. I called and apologized for missing our reservations, and explained why we missed them. I asked if I could get something delivered here for tonight, and he was really helpful. It’s from the new French restaurant that opened in town. I’m not that familiar with French cuisine, so he suggested we try two of his most popular dishes. That’s what this is, although that’s about all I know about them.”

  “I can help you a little bit,” Nina said. “He sent along this description of the two
dishes, along with one other thing. I’ll be right back.”

  Garrett read the descriptions of the dishes aloud, as Nina slipped out in the hall. She came back in a minute later with a small vase of flowers. The ribbon tied around it said Get Well Soon.

  “Oh, how nice,” Mindy said. “Thank you, Garrett. That was so thoughtful of you.”

  “I had nothing to do with the flowers,” he confessed. “The restaurant manager did that on his own. I stopped in today to pay them for our reservation we missed. I called and canceled, but it was at the last minute, so I planned on paying them for a couple meals, to be fair. He asked why I had to cancel at the last minute, and I told him. He said they were able to give our table to someone else that called in, so he wasn’t out any money. I asked about something for tonight, and he said he would do this. When I paid him a little extra for a tip, he even said he’d make sure it got delivered. I’ll have to call and thank him. It looks delicious, doesn’t it?”

  “It sure does.”

  They enjoyed their meal, but she could tell he was watching her carefully. Finally, she had to ask about it. “What are you worried about?”

  “Nothing. What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been watching me like a hawk ever since you got here. What’s wrong?”

  He sighed. “Nothing’s wrong, honey. I just, when I found you last night, laying half in a creek and not moving, I can’t begin to tell you how worried I was. I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said I had to come reassure myself that you are here. And I will admit, I’ve been watching you to make sure you’re not flinching, or in pain. You’ve been sitting up, moving your head for a little while now. I think maybe we need to get you laid back down so you can rest.

  “I’m fine,” she said with a mischievous grin. “You always did worry too much about me.” His eyebrows raised, but before he could say anything, she put her hands up, as if in defeat. “There’s something I wanted to tell you, and I just had to say that first. When you hear what I have to say I think you’ll understand.”