A Match Made in Texas

by Arlene James

  Chapter Seven

  Folding the paper neatly, Kaylie passed it to Stephen for his own perusal. He seemed to soak in every word. A faint smile curved his lips, but the face that he presented to her clearly showed concern.

  “This helps, but sports writers and team management are not the same.”

  “No, they’re not,” she agreed, “but neither one is God. Why don’t you leave the future to Him and concentrate on getting well?”

  “Easy for you to say,” Stephen muttered, looking at the article again.

  “Yes,” she said meaningfully. “Yes, it is.” When he made no response to that, she changed the subject. “When’s the next game?”

  The frown came back to Stephen’s face. “Tomorrow night.” He glared at the television in the corner. The folded sheet of newspaper dropped to the bed. “You think there’s any chance I can get out of here before then?”

  Kaylie smiled. “We’ll see what the doctors say.”

  “It helps that I have you, right?” he pressed, sitting up a little straighter. The pillow slid down behind him, and Kaylie reached around to pull it back up. “I mean, you can take care of me at home, uh, Chatam House, so why stay here? Yeah?”

  “We’ll see,” she repeated, smiling.

  Stephen leaned back. “I need you, you know.” Kaylie blinked, more than merely surprised. “No, really. Yesterday, for instance. What would I have done without you?”

  “Someone would have called an ambulance,” she told him.

  “Yeah, maybe, but who would have held my hand throughout one of the worst days of my life?”

  She said nothing to that, but when he held out his hand, she placed her own in it.

  “I need you, Kaylie,” he said softly. “That’s why it’s so tough when you cut out on me.”

  Warmth spread throughout her chest, radiating from her heart. “I’ll do my best for you, Stephen,” she told him, “I promise you, my very best. But I do have other obligations, you know. My dad needs me, too.”

  His smile flattened. “Sure,” he said, letting go of her hand. He glanced around the room. “So what now? We stare at the walls until the docs show up?”

  Sighing, Kaylie gathered up the newspapers. “Why don’t we start by taking a look at the news?”

  “Oh, that’ll cheer me right up,” he grumbled, but he lay there and listened to her read, commenting from time to time and offering reasoned, if sometimes sarcastic, arguments when she disagreed with him. In truth, they agreed more often than not, and Kaylie found some of his comments to be surprisingly insightful, informed, no doubt, by his life on two continents.

  His foul mood seemed to lighten considerably, and his pain level remained low. The nerve block administered by the surgeon would wear off sometime in the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours, and his pain would return to previous levels, but she trusted that they could manage it successfully. Though mercurial, Stephen in a better mood and not in pain was a delightful experience, and it pleased her to be responsible for that in some small way.

  Perhaps it pleased her too much.

  “In the Netherlands,” Stephen pointed out in response to an article on highway gridlock, “if you live more than ten kilometers from your job—that’s just over six miles—your employer must provide you with a bicycle.”

  “A bicycle!” Kaylie exclaimed. “Oh, yeah, that would work. I can just see it now, bicycles fighting all those pickup trucks for space on our freeways. Yikes!”

  “The bicycles don’t go on the freeways,” Stephen pointed out. “They go on the city streets, which have special bike lanes, and that frees up space on the highway.”

  “Bike lanes aside—and I’ve never seen a bike lane on a Texas street—what about heat stroke? We get triple-digit summers here, not to mention other extreme weather.”

  “The weather’s not the issue. They get freezing weather in the Netherlands. The issue is distance. Here, everybody lives an hour’s drive from work.”

  “Not everyone can live where they work,” she argued.

  He started to reply, but just then the door swooshed open and Brooks Leland strode into the room. Tall and fit with a touch of distinguished gray at his temples, a stethoscope about his neck and a white, knee-length lab coat in place of a suit jacket, the general practitioner was both genial and handsome. Stephen had liked Leland from the first moment they’d met only days earlier, but the instant the other man’s eyes lit on Kaylie, Stephen knew the good doctor’s likeability was about to take a nosedive.

  The plummet began when Kaylie hopped up from the bedside chair and rushed toward Leland, calling out, “Brooks!”

  It dropped like a rock when the doctor grinned and opened his arms. “There’s my favorite nurse.”

  The two didn’t just embrace, they hugged, rocking side to side in their exuberance.

  “Kaylie darlin’,” Brooks Leland drawled, pulling back slightly to gaze down at her, “it’s been too long.”

  “That’s what you get for being such a stranger,” she scolded playfully. “Why don’t you ever come by anymore? Dad would love to see you.”

  “I’ll make a point of it. Soon.”

  “You better.”

  The door opened again, bumping Leland in the back, and another white coat slipped into the room. Stephen recognized the orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Craig Philem. So did Kaylie. Worse, he recognized her.

  “Kaylie, Kaylie, Kaylie,” he admonished with mock censure, reaching out an arm toward her. “Don’t you know that our Dr. Leland makes time with all the best-looking nurses?”

  “None of whom will give Craig here the time of day,” Leland said with a wink, one arm draped casually about Kaylie’s shoulders.

  “You wish,” Philem smirked, as Kaylie, to Stephen’s disgruntlement, laughed and reached out to slide her free arm around the young surgeon’s waist so that the three of them stood linked.

  Both shorter and thicker than Leland, with receding sandy brown hair, the orthopedist was, nevertheless, an attractive man. His eyes alone commanded attention, being a bright, intense blue. Stephen glumly supposed that some women might find those dimples adorable, too.

  Kaylie said something clever and chummy, no doubt, but Stephen tuned it out, wondering sourly if she was on hugging terms with every doctor in the hospital. Targeting the two physicians, he decided that it was past time to get down to business.

  “If you two are through pawing my nurse, I’d like to get out of here.”

  “Great!” Philem exclaimed. “How does tomorrow morning sound?”

  “Right now sounds better.”

  “Not happening, champ,” Leland said, strolling forward and lifting his stethoscope from around his neck. “Maybe if this was the first or only broken bone we had to worry about…As it is, though, I have to agree with Dr. Philem.” Waving Stephen into silence, he popped in the earpieces of his stethoscope and slipped the bell beneath Stephen’s T-shirt. After several seconds, he motioned Stephen forward, shifted and listened to his back. “Lungs are clear,” he finally announced.

  Philem stepped up, lifted the bedcovers and checked the color of Stephen’s toes. “How’s your pain level?”

  “Eh,” Stephen said with an unconcerned shrug of one shoulder.

  Philem chuckled and glanced at Kaylie. “These hockey players are tough cookies. But seriously, is the leg bothering you?”

  “Only when I move it,” Stephen said.

  “It’ll get worse as the nerve block wears off,” Philem warned. “But we’ll do our best to get on top of it and stay there. Isn’t that so, Kaylie?”

  “Yes, sir. I just have one concern,” she said, smiling at Stephen. “He’s been having nightmares.”

  “Kaylie!” Stephen snapped, appalled.

  “That’s why this happened,” she went on, ignoring him. “He broke the leg again when he fell out of the bed.” She shifted her gaze to Brooks, adding, “I suspect that’s what led to his rib injuries the other night, too.”

  “Kaylie!” S
tephen barked again.

  “Is that right?” Leland asked him. Then, without waiting for an answer, he shook his head. “I should have picked up on that.”

  “Those are some pretty violent nightmares,” Philem noted.

  “What happened to my right to privacy?” Stephen demanded. To his surprise, Kaylie turned on him.

  “What are you talking about? I haven’t breached any confidentiality. These are your doctors. They need to know how the drugs are affecting you.”

  “The drugs?” Stephen echoed uncertainly.

  “She’s right,” Leland agreed, consulting a PDA that he’d drawn from a pocket. He rattled off several familiar-sounding drug names. “In combination, any two of those can, in some cases, induce nightmares. In a small number of patients, one of them can even cause hallucinations.” He drew a prescription pad from a pocket, produced an ink pen and began to scribble. “Let’s change the anti-inflammatory and the oral analgesic.” After a few moments, he tore off the top sheet and handed it to Kaylie. “You can adjust the injections, too. May take a little tweaking, but I trust you to keep him comfortable without producing side effects.”

  Kaylie slid the prescription into her own pocket and nodded at Stephen. “I’ll take care of him.”

  “Lucky stiff,” Philem cracked. He launched into a series of instructions that Kaylie probably didn’t need to hear and Stephen ignored.

  Instead, he watched her, the classical lines of her profile drawing him like a lodestone. He understood now what she’d meant yesterday when she had mentioned “taking care of” his nightmares. He understood, too, that she had become indispensable to his well-being. When he’d said earlier that he needed her, he hadn’t been exaggerating. Maybe he had been trying to schmooze her a bit, but the truth was that he didn’t see how he could do this without her now.

  Truth be told, Philem was right. He was lucky to have found her, and every instinct he possessed dictated that he hold on to her, which was why he didn’t like watching these two white-coated mashers drool over her. Not that he was jealous or anything. It was just that, well, she was his nurse. That meant she was with him. Right? He was determined to make that clear to her at the first opportunity.

  Her thoughtfulness and kindness touched and soothed him, and selfish as it might be, that was not something he meant to forego. She didn’t need to know that his nightmares were all too real, though, so real that no drug in the world could possibly make a difference.

  Predictably, Stephen’s mood had soured again. Kaylie felt his disappointment at this new setback and sensed his need to be up and moving around. When she suggested that he take a ride in a wheelchair just to get out of the room, however, his horror was almost laughably palpable.

  “I’m not getting into any wheelchair!”

  “Oh, I do fear that you are,” she said calmly. “How do you expect to get around otherwise?”

  He glowered. “The same way as before.”

  She shook her head. “You can’t put an ounce of weight on that leg until you get the walking cast, and I think you’ll find that the length of this one changes your center of gravity so that even hopping around on one leg will be very difficult. Trust me on this. You aren’t going farther than a few feet unless it’s in a chair.”

  Stephen rolled his eyes. “Great. That’s just great.”

  “It won’t be forever,” she pointed out, but he heaved a sigh and looked away.

  Searching for some way to lighten his mood again, she made small talk and scrolled through the channels on the TV, none of which elicited more than a grunt of disdain from him. Then inspiration struck. She walked over to the bedside table and picked up the receiver of the telephone there. After checking the note in her pocket, she punched in a number and waited for the call to be picked up on the other end. A male voice answered almost immediately.

  “Carter.”

  “Hello, Carter. It’s Kaylie Chatam. Just thought I’d let you know that today would be a good time to stop by.”

  “Great! We’ve finished our shift, but I think the guys are all still around. I’ll get them together, and we’ll head over to the hospital. What’s the room number?”

  “Three-thirty.”

  “Give us fifteen minutes.”

  “Looking forward to it,” she told him. Aware of Stephen’s glower, she hung up, cocking an eyebrow at him in silent question.

  “So now you’re arranging dates on my time?” he demanded.

  “What?”

  “It’s not enough that my doctors fall all over you? Now you’ve got to set up meetings with your other boyfriends when you should be taking care of me?” He stabbed a finger downward.

  Kaylie gaped at him. Was he jealous? She laughed in answer to her own silly question. Jealous? Of little old her? No. The man was spoiled. He wanted her there to wait on him hand and foot. That was all. She parked her hands at her waist.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t I?” He tossed out a hand. “I’m not blind. I saw with my own eyes how they greeted you. Leland especially seems to think he has some claim on you. Isn’t he a little too old for you?”

  She couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “Brooks Leland is my older brother Morgan’s best friend, if you must know. He’s like a member of the family, another brother almost.”

  “Oh.” Stephen pondered that for a minute, his frown easing, but then the frown deepened again. “What about Philem? And don’t tell me he’s like a member of the family because I saw the way he looked at you.”

  Kaylie felt heat blossom in her cheeks. “We’re friends.”

  “Baloney. There’s something going on between you and Philem.”

  “We’re not dating, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  Stephen’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “But he’s asked, hasn’t he?” Suddenly, he grinned. “He asked, and you shot him down. Ha!”

  “I didn’t ‘shoot him down,’” she insisted. “My father was very ill,” she added defensively, “and I didn’t feel I could be away from him.”

  Stephen’s grin grew. “It’s because Philem’s going bald, isn’t it?”

  “It is not! I told you—”

  “Yeah, yeah, Daddy was too sick at the time. And what’s your excuse now?”

  Kaylie blanched. “And now, we’re friends,” she told Stephen firmly, “not that it’s any of your business.”

  The truth was that she and Philem had dated for a while, and she had liked him very well—still did like him—but when he’d kissed her, she’d suddenly found herself wanting to run in the opposite direction. After her father’s heart attack, she’d used his physical condition to allow the relationship to wane. They had remained on friendly terms, but that’s as far as it had gone. And as far as she would allow it to go.

  “It is my business if you’re making dates for three-thirty in the afternoon when you should be working for me!” Stephen insisted.

  Kaylie went to the door and pulled it open. Pressing it all the way back, she stood against it, her arms folded, while he glowered in confusion. Finally, she pointed to the two-inches-high gold letters affixed to the door. Three-three-zero.

  Stephen’s eyes nearly popped out of his head, but then he recovered enough to accuse, “You gave my room number to someone.” She nodded, a tad smugly perhaps. “Who?” Stephen demanded.

  For once, Kaylie decided to get back a bit of her own. “Guess you’ll find out when they get here.” With that, she spun and left the room, the door smoothly swinging closed behind her.

  “Kaylie!” Stephen yelled, but the door muffled the sound.

  Ignoring him, she stepped far enough away that she couldn’t hear. The nerve of the man, jumping to such conclusions, acting as if he owned her! Far worse was the unmistakable thrill that she felt because of it.

  Dismayed, she reached out to the Lord of her life.

  Father God, why him? Why couldn’t Craig Philem make her heart trip? Or Brooks, even! Anyone else, a
nyone who could fit into her world. Anyone who shared her beliefs and lifestyle. Anyone her father might approve of. Lord, I don’t understand myself. Surely I’m just feeling sorry for him. Help me put these feelings into perspective. In the name of Jesus, help me.

  Linda Shocklea walked by with another nurse, took one look at Kaylie’s face and stopped, nodding at her workmate, who went on her way. “The bear bit you, did he?”

  Kaylie sighed. “Let’s just say that I’m giving my patience a breather.”

  Linda chuckled. “It’s a pity, isn’t it, that such a good-looking guy is such a grouch?”

  “Well,” Kaylie said, feeling unaccountably protective of him, “he’s been through a lot, and he still has a lot to get through.”

  “Mmm.” Linda cut a knowing gaze in Kaylie’s direction. “Honey,” she drawled, “a man that handsome, if he was all healed up, I might let him bite me, too.” She grinned and sauntered off, leaving Kaylie alternately gaping and sputtering laughter.

  A moment later a male voice softly called her name, prompting Kaylie to turn in the opposite direction. A quartet of male smiles greeted her. As the four drew near, one of them asked, “How’s he doing?”

  “See for yourself,” she said brightly, leading the way.

  You gave my room number to someone. As if she would ever do anything to hurt him. She only hoped that she wasn’t foolish enough to let herself get hurt.

  “You may not remember these guys,” Kaylie said as four young men crowded into the room. “They transported you to the hospital.”

  “I remember.” Stephen acknowledged the paramedics with nods.

  Having one leg in a cast made it difficult to kick one’s self, but he would have dearly liked to do so. Barring that, he’d have been pleased for the floor to open up and swallow him whole, adjustable bed and all. As it was, he could only smile and shake hands all around. It was bad enough that he’d made a fool of himself over her and the doctors, but he should’ve known that she wouldn’t give his room number to anyone who could or would harm him. To make matters worse, at least one of these fellows, Carter, was a real fan.