A Temporary Arrangement

by Roxanne Rustand

  "Yes, well...when Grace—the old director of nursing—retired, three of the old-guard nurses decided to retire right afterward. Coupled with a few other changes and some nurses out with injuries, we've been running short until I can find some new staff. If you can come up with a couple good nurses for me, it's worth a million bucks."

  His low laugh seemed to resonate right through her, sensitizing her skin and making this casual conversation seem far too intimate. She took a step back.

  "For that kind of compensation, tell me exactly what you want and I'll start looking."

  "It's worth a million bucks. The actual reward might be somewhat less. Say, a double skinny latte at that coffee shop on Main."

  "My favorite place," he said dryly. "Must be all that pink stuff in the windows."

  "Or a beer. Tavern of your choice."

  "Nah. Give me yuppie coffee and froufrou any day."

  She couldn't help but laugh as she tried to envision him in that coffee shop, his broad shoulders dwarfing the delicate, chintz-covered chairs.

  "Did Dr. Edwards call you this morning?"

  "Yeah. She said to come in today for my IV, so she could examine and rebandage the incision. I understand we can start my treatments at home tomorrow afternoon?"

  "Right. And then you'll have just eight days left."

  In the soft midnight air, with wisps of fog starting to form at their feet she was surprised to find out just how comfortable it could be, talking to him.

  Maybe too comfortable, because her thoughts were beginning to stray into far more personal areas.

  He was silent for a long moment, and she had the oddest feeling that he was assessing her—truly looking at her—for the first time. 4 *Go on, get inside,'' he finally said.

  'Thanks. Ethan. For this place. For the groceries, and for taking care of my dog. I definitely owe you."

  Inside the cabin she locked the door and leaned against it, wondering if the past few minutes had just been her imagination.

  But Ethan didn't really want her here. She was only here to help with some meals and to stay with Keifer when Ethan started going off on his late-evening research jaunts.

  Which was fine. She had a great job waiting for her in California, and she certainly wasn't interested in any casual, short-term flings.

  Especially not with Ethan Matthews.

  On Wednesday afternoon Ethan flexed his arm to test the confines of the heavy bandage. The doc had promised to start rewrapping it with a much lighter material by Saturday, a week after the accident, if the incision had healed well enough.

  He suspected the current bulk was there more as a deterrent against overuse rather than medical

  need, but when he'd confronted her on Tuesday she'd only smiled.

  She apparently had no idea how frustrating it was to be so limited.

  The pain was lessening now, but the sutures were itchy and his skin too warm underneath all the gauze. And there were still two more days. She probably got some sort of satisfaction from seeing people suffer, he thought grimly. Between her lectures and Abby's, he hoped to never need medical treatment again for as long as he lived.

  And he pitied any man who had to be married to either one of them.

  He shuffled through the stack of papers on his desk one-handed, looking for the notes he'd taken on the wolf pack in June. Suddenly the stack shifted and half of it slid to the floor.

  Muttering a curse under his breath, he glanced at his open bedroom door, where just the tips of Keifer's sneakers were visible, draped over the end of the couch.

  The kid played computer games and video games 24/7. At his age, Ethan would have been outside 24/7 if his mom hadn't marched him into the house at dusk for supper. Yet Keifer seemed perfectly content to stay inside, with the incomparable northern Wisconsin summer waiting just beyond the porch.

  Where was his spirit of adventure? Apparently, held captive by a lot of violent animated characters on a TV screen.

  Tempted to remove his bandaging on his own,

  ROXANNE RUSTAND 131

  Ethan eased the rolled-up sleeve of his navy shirt over it—a tight fit—and launched to his feet. "Come on, Keifer, let's get out of this house."

  Keifer paused the game. "I thought you had to work:'

  "I did. I gave up. So let's go play."

  "Doing what?"

  "We could go fishing on Lake Lunara. We could take the canoe out to Brannock Creek."

  "You can't get your arm wet Abby said so."

  "We could go riding, but I don't think I could tighten the girth with one arm "

  Keifer's expression became bored.

  "What about a hike? There's a trail that leads to a pretty lake just north of here. We could pack a lunch."

  "What about going to a movie?"

  "That's indoors, sport."

  Keifer looked at him as if he'd just spoken Greek. "So?"

  'This is a nice summer afternoon, and we should be outside."

  Not for the first time, Ethan regretted the minimal time he had with his son. Having him here for just a few weeks every summer plus alternating Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays was in the boy's best interest, Barbara insisted, given the distance between parents and the limitations of every school year.

  Yet there was so much to teach him. So much Ethan wanted to share.. .and there was damned little time to do it. Last year had been even worse. Barbara

  132 A TEMPORARY ARRANGEMENT

  had kept Keifer over both holidays, so she could take him on trips to the Bahamas and Mexico.

  Maybe Keifer had raved about his travels during his phone calls to Blackberry Hill, but at hearing the boy's voice from so far away, Ethan had never felt so lonely.

  Keifer's bored expression turned glum. "So that's what you want to do? Go walking?"

  Ethan curbed his rising frustration. "It's much more than that. Now go put on a long-sleeved shirt and jeans—there are ticks out in the woods—then help me load some food in a backpack."

  Keifer rolled off the couch, zapped the TV off with the remote and trudged to his room with the air of someone heading to the gallows.

  By the time he reappeared, Ethan had filled a pack with bottled water, snacks, sunscreen and bug repellent, and had been waiting on the porch for five minutes.

  "Can we take the dogs?"

  "Rufus has to take care of her pups, Keif. She can't go that far."

  "Belle? I bet she'd like to go."

  At the sound of her name, the dog looked up at them from her shady spot under a lilac bush near the toolshed.

  "She isn't ours, and Abby isn't here to give her permission."

  "You could call the hospital. Please? I bet Abby would like it if Belle could go, too."

  Ethan felt a muscle ticking at the side of his jaw. "We shouldn't disturb her at work. Now let's go."

  ROXANNE RUSTAND 133

  Grumbling, Keifer closed the yard gate behind him and followed Ethan through the north pasture to a place where a sparkling stream wound through the trees past a tumble of big boulders.

  "Pretty cool, isn't it?" Ethan prompted.

  "Yeah. So where's the trail?"

  "On the other side of our fence." Ethan helped him through the three strands of barbed wire, then led the way up a rocky trail. * I often see deer, fox and coyotes out here. Black bears now and then, too, but they're pretty shy."

  "Cool."

  "We're also entering the range of the Lake Lunara wolf pack, but don't worry. The wolves will give us a wide berth."

  "What about the one Abby saw at your house?"

  "That might have been a coyote, son."

  "No, I think she really did see one, 'cause she sure sounded scared."

  "I'll bet she did." Yet she hadn't hesitated to choose a more distant cabin over a guest room in the house. Interesting. "Cityfolk don't know 7 how timid most wolves are when it comes to people."

  "I thought they killed things."

  "Deer mostly...a pack of four will take down around
seventy-two a year."

  "There won't be any left!"

  Ethan grinned, thankful to finally see a spark of interest. "In this area, cars kill three times more deer than the wolf packs do. And that*s just a drop in the

  bucket compared to the numbers taken by hunters or a harsh winter. Believe me, deer are incredibly prolific."

  Keifer fired questions at Ethan all the way to the rocky bluff overlooking the lake. And there, the boy fell silent.

  Ethan knew exactly what he was feeling. Knew the feeling well.

  He'd been coming out here for five years now, observing a pack that used a den just a hundred yards up the shoreline.

  He'd been here at dawn to watch the fog rising from the pristine surface of the lake. He'd seen the lake at midday, sparkling like a brilliant sapphire in a setting of lush green forest. He'd spent countless nights watching the waves glitter silver beneath the moonlight.

  Never once had this spot failed to enthrall him. Here, he could almost hear the activities of a long-ago Chippewa village along the shore. Detect the scent of their campfires. See their children playing at the water's edge.

  He'd never taken anyone to this place. And though he knew others surely had to know about it, he'd never seen another soul here.

  "Are those beaver?" Keifer whispered, pointing to the south shore.

  Ethan nodded.

  "They're huge!"

  "And take a look at the trees they're cutting down. Unbelievable, isn't it?" Ethan handed him a bottle of water and a granola bar. "This isn't the right time to

  see a lot of animals, though. Dawn and dusk are when most of them come out."

  An eagle soared low overhead, then swept upward to land on its perch on a high branch of a pine, his body blending into the dark foliage, his head bright as a white golf ball in contrast. Chattering chipmunks scurried across the rocks, their tails twitching.

  "Wow," Keifer breathed. "This is so much better than those dumb parks back home."

  "Everything has its own beauty. It's just.. .different."

  "So this is what you do? You come out here and watch things?"

  The simplification of his meticulous research made Ethan smile. "In a manner of speaking."

  On the way home, Keifer was silent, watching his surroundings with a far more careful eye. As they drew close to the house, he looked up at Ethan with a troubled expression. "This was way cool. Dad. I wish..." he swallowed. "I wish you wanted me here more often."

  Momentarily stunned. Ethan didn't know quite what to say.

  "I know 7 you're busy and stuff. It's okay."

  Did a guy hug a kid who was ten? Would it be an embarrassment to fledgling masculine pride? Ethan cursed himself for not having a better understanding of what made his own son tick, then dropped the backpack and gave Keifer a bear hug anyway.

  Stepping back, he rested his hands on the boy's thin shoulders. 'T love having you here. Every last minute. I swear, it's the very best part of my year."

  Keifer lifted his gaze from his shoes. "You didn't care about seeing me last year, at Christmas and Thanksgiving."

  A pain settled deep into Ethan's chest. "That was because you had a chance for some wonderful trips with your mom. They just happened to be the same year." He'd been gracious, trying to put Keifer's best interests above his own, but it hadn't been easy. "But, hey, it isn't going to happen again. Okay ? And we've got all the rest of the summer—more time than we usually have. So let's make the best of it, okay?"

  Keifer nodded, his eyes once again averted.

  "Want to race to the house?"

  Keifer took off in a flash, disappearing around a bend and leaving Ethan laughing as he jogged along behind him.

  But a second later, he heard the boy cry out in dismay.

  By the time he came in sight of the house, Keifer was running down the lane to the road, calling Belle's name.

  They'd carefully closed and latched the gate when they left, but now it was wide open. Rufus was in the shed, with just the tip of her nose showing out the door. Growling.

  And Belle was nowhere to be seen.

  Dad gave him an odd look and rested one big hand on his shoulders. "I heard you close the gate, son. I know you took care of it."

  "B-but..."

  "She might have bumped the gate just right, and lifted that latch with her nose. It's okay. Belle has been fed here, and there's nothing but forest and open land for miles. She'll probably come back when she gets hungry."

  Keifer closed his eyes, remembering how much Abby loved her new dog. "We should still try to find her, shouldn't we? I mean, Abby trusted that she'd be okay. What if Belle just keeps going?"

  "We've got plenty of daylight. We could drive down the road both ways, and if she doesn't turn up by tomorrow we could file a report at the animal shelter. I don't think she's likely to get that close to civilization, though. Not from clear out here."

  Keifer shuddered, remembering Abby's worry over getting to the shelter in time to save her dog. "I sure hope we find her before then. Can we go now?"

  Dad dropped his backpack just inside the gate. "We'll have to start always using this, too," he said, unsnapping a length of chain hanging from the chain-link fence and fastening it around the gate for good measure. He pulled a set of keys from his jeans pocket. "Let's go."

  "Belle's gone?" Her face pale and weary, Abby shut the door of her car. "For how long?"

  "Midafternoon. She was in the yard when we went

  hiking and must have bumped the hook open with her nose. Keifer was still upset when he went to bed. He thinks it's his fault."

  Abby had left by seven in the morning. Once again, she'd pulled in at midnight. Silver in the moonlight, her hair had escaped in tendrils from the knot on top of her head, and her eyes looked huge and dark.

  She looked so fragile, he had to fight an unexpected urge to put an arm around her and pull her close. Which, of course, would be a very bad idea.

  "I'll be gone before he gets up, but tell him I'm not upset with him, okay? Things happen." She managed a reassuring smile. "Belle was a stray, so she probably figured out her escape methods long ago. I just hope she comes back."

  "We did spend a couple hours looking. We drove to the end of our road, then back toward town. After supper, Keifer rode Buddy bareback through the pastures calling for her, and I jogged several miles down our closest trails. No luck."

  From the horizon, in the direction of Lake Lunara, he could hear wolves howling faintly. Other wolves howled from much farther to the west—barely audible.

  Abby seemed to sense his watchfulness, because she turned toward the sound and her shoulders tensed. "Will they go after my dog?" she asked quietly.

  "Mostly they hunt deer, and a fair number of beaver in the fall and spring."

  "But on occasion..."

  "A wolf that ignores the scent and howl messages

  of another pack's territory trespasses at risk of death. A roaming dog faces the same risk."

  "Poor Belle."

  "Mostly hunting dogs, though. The wolves probably consider the baying of a hound a territorial challenge."

  "But they still might go after her, right?"

  "Maybe. There's been farm dog depredation, but it certainly isn't common."

  Abby sounded so heartbroken that he let himself rest a hand on her shoulder. Her warmth radiated through her thin cotton scrub top and landed dead-center in his chest, reminding him of all the reasons he'd kept careful distance.

  He cleared his throat and eased away to lean one hip against the rear fender of her car. "That doesn't mean Belle won't come back. She could turn up on your step first thing in the morning."

  "I sure hope so." She stepped around him and opened the trunk of her car. "Sorry I wasn't here to help with Keifer or supper this evening. I do have the IV equipment and antibiotic for you, though."

  She lifted out the base of an IV stand and handed it to him, then gathered up the top section of the stand and a cardboard box.


  Well, this certainly looked like fun. "Your place or mine?"

  She shrugged. "We're closer to the cabin. It won't take long, since you already have a heplock in place."

  "Makes me feel like a bionic man," he said.

  She settled him at the kitchen table, hung a bag of saline and with quick, professional efficiency set up the small bag of antibiotic, then unwrapped his IV site and swabbed the rubber port thoroughly with an alcohol pad. In a few moments she had the antibiotic running. He leaned back to watch the steady drip, drip, drip of the fluid.

  "I still think they couldVe given me a bottle of pills."

  "Not of the antibiotic the doctor ordered. This is the only way. And believe me, with the kind of soft tissue damage you had, the potential for infection was a big concern." She carefully unwrapped his dressing, inspected the incisions and redressed them. "Looks good. No heat, redness or other signs of infection."

  He watched her straighten up her supplies. Her scrub top was covered with cartoon characters in primary colors; the baggy bottoms were electric-blue. Definitely meant to put toddlers at ease, the whimsical motif made her look like an escapee from a three-ring circus...incongruous considering her crisp efficiency.

  "The nurses tell me your surgeon has done some amazing facial reconstruction. You should have very little scarring on your arm," she said as she returned to look at the IV drip. "How are you feeling?"

  "Impatient."

  She rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't have guessed."

  She flicked the IV line to flush the last of the med through, watched in concentration, then disconnected

  the line and flushed the port to keep the heplock open until his next dose.

  "There you go. We might as well leave all of this here, unless you want to take it up to your house."

  "Leave it." He stretched, stood.

  The cabin was utilitarian at best, but she'd gathered a bouquet of wildflowers for the table and a velvety quilt in mossy green and rose was draped over the sofa. A candle she'd just lit on the kitchen counter scented the air with lily of the valley.