“You’re the town doctor?” I clarified.
She smiled. “Born and raised here. Didn’t go far to get my medical degree and came back after I finished my residency.”
She sounded so happy about this that I distrusted her immediately. Something was wrong here.
Happy people freaked me out.
They were all liars.
I loved all unhappy, depressed people.
They were usually the most honest and intelligent.
Happy people were stupid, and they weren’t in touch with the world or themselves, because if they were, they’d be unhappy.
“How do you feel?” Carrie asked.
“I feel, so that means I’m not on enough drugs,” I said, glancing to the IV attached to my arm.
Another friendly, warm smile. “I’ve got you on fluids, some over-the-counter meds for the swelling in your ankle and the pain, but I’m not in the practice of prescribing strong opiates to my patients when they don’t need them. They do more harm than good in the long run.”
Ugh. Of course she was the only doctor in America that hadn’t been bought by big Pharm and wanted to actually help people and not make money.
She also seemed to have a jut to her chin that told me she would not budge on her admirable but irritating moral stance.
I also did not have the energy to try. “Do you have a phone I can use?”
I hadn’t taken mine with me on my ill-fated hike, with the idiotic intention of switching off from the pulsating mass that was social media. Never again would I try to have a healthy relationship with nature and myself without technology. No good came of it.
“Do you have family you want to call?” she asked, her hand moving to her pocket.
I snorted. “No, I don’t have family to call.”
Maybe a year ago, I’d have had a family to call. A father to call. But his illness moved fast. Ruthlessly. So even if I did call him to say I’d almost died in the middle of the woods, his first question would be, “Who are you?”
“I have a friend,” I continued. “She’s a doctor. Well, she’s a brain surgeon. But I’m sure she’ll understand the basic anatomy of an ankle.” What I didn’t say, is that she was not on the same moral ground as this doctor and was a lot more generous with her prescription pad. “I’ll call her.”
“She’s in town?” Carrie asked, holding the cell phone but not placing it in my outstretched hand.
I gritted my teeth. “She’s in New York.”
Carrie glanced at her watch. “She’s not going to be able to get here until tomorrow evening at the earliest. You have anyone closer?”
I glared at the phone she was holding hostage. Even if it was hers. Prisoners got at least one phone call. “No.”
She regarded me with a surprisingly hard gaze. “Well, it’s getting late. I live upstairs anyway and I want you to have someone close by just for a precaution. After that, you’re not going to be able to move too much at all for the next three weeks.”
Before I could argue heavily with everything she just said, she looked to the statue of a man still sitting silently in the corner.
I thought about asking Katy to take off work for three weeks, but that would be about the same as suggesting she scalp herself with a scalpel. She would come if something like a mountain lion gnawed my leg off. That was acceptable. A sprained, not even broken, ankle? No.
And no one else would want to come. Plus, I wouldn’t want anyone else to come. I shuddered at the mere thought.
“I’ll handle it,” I said through clenched teeth.
Carried frowned. “No, you are in Emily’s cottage, isolated. With winter coming. You will not be able to handle it. No matter how tough you think you are.”
This woman’s concern over me was fucking annoying. I wondered how rude I could be to her in a concentrated amount of time so she would hate me enough to send me off to die in my own cabin because I couldn’t reach a water bottle.
But no, having the town doctor hate you was almost as bad as the town bartender hating you.
“I assure you, my capacity to deal with pain without relying on others will surprise you,” I told her.
She raised her brow, reading me. “You don’t have friends or family close by?”
I shook my head. The utter aloneness of my situation would scare a lot of people. Not me. I loved it. Apart from the fact that tripping over in the woods meant certain death if rogue demons didn’t happen to be wandering around.
“Well, Saint can watch over you,” Carrie said finally.
My stomach dropped inexplicably at the mere thought of this. And it wasn’t just relying on a stranger, or another human being, for that matter. It was him. Everything about him. His silence, his presence, the fact he’d been the one to save my life. I didn’t like what I owed him. I definitely didn’t like that I seemed to be bewitched by him.
“Not happenin’.” He spoke the words gruffly, but firmly, in a tone that not many people would argue with.
I was about to argue with it, but Carrie spoke first, jutting up her chin and sharpening her gaze.
“You’re her closest neighbor,” she said.
Ah, the elusive closest neighbor. Margot was right. This guy never would’ve baked me muffins.
He wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was staring at me, arms folded, looking like he was trying really hard to make me drop dead. That was his problem, he was the one that stopped that from happening.
“You need to help her out. Check on her. Make sure she’s stocked with firewood.”
“That’s not necessary,” I said quickly. “I’ll arrange something myself. I’m quite capable.” Surely Amazon had a Prime option for firewood. Or I would find something to burn. Not books. I’d chop off my own limbs and roast them before I did that.
Her eyes went to me. “As I said, your ankle isn’t broken, but it’s a pretty bad sprain. You’re recovering from mild hypothermia. You’re staying here overnight, without protest.” She said the last part firmly, as if she could sense me about to protest, heavily.
Which I still did.
“I don’t see the point in staying when I’m not dead,” I sniped. “And when you’re not giving me hard drugs.”
She raised her brow at me but turned to Saint. “I’ve lived here all my life. So, I know that people either come here for the quiet, or the isolation. I know you came here for the latter. But you made a choice to take yourself out of that to help out your fellow human. So, you can either say yes to helping her now, or I’ll make sure that every curious gossip in this town loses her healthy fear of the man in the woods and bakes him pies and delivers it personally.”
Though I was not at all impressed with the message, her delivery, tone, and her strength behind it was something to behold. I was sure she was a soft-spoken caregiver that had a small-town mindset and disposition. Margot had been the same. Women of this town were surprising me.
Saint stood. He glared. Not at Carrie, who was delivering orders I was certain he wasn’t used to hearing from anyone, let alone a woman. She got no hostility. I was blessed enough to be the sole recipient of it. And in my weakened state, I felt it. Just a little, nothing like a lot of others would. But I shrunk, ever so slightly, in the bed. Fear crawled up my throat. This man hated me. It was painted in the air, tattooed onto my skin.