* * *
Annalisa sat perfectly still while the doctor wound wet cast material from her wrist to her biceps.
“Wear this for three weeks and then you get the grand prize,” the amiable doctor said, “a shorter waterproof version of this dandy little number.”
She stared dubiously at her forearm, frozen at a right angle. “When will I be able to move my elbow?”
“After this one comes off. Fortunately all the bones are aligned or you’d be on your way to Hot Springs to an orthopedist. All we have to do is keep the bone as still as possible for it to heal properly, and you should be as good as new.”
She shuddered at the memory of James’s strong hands and the loud pop as he intentionally rotated her arm until she screamed. The gleam in his eyes, the bulging veins in his neck. The fury.
She squeezed her eyes tight, scared just thinking about him. God, I never want to see James Winchell again. Show me what to do.
Dr. Ron’s gentle voice jerked her to attention. “I’m a doctor, Miss Keller. Anything you tell me is confidential. If you need help...”
He let the offer dangle while he completed the wrap and pressed his palms against the drying cast. Heat penetrated through the padding.
The doctor knew she hadn’t fallen, or at least he suspected.
She wanted to tell someone about the abuse, but shame held her back. Shame and the knowledge that she was responsible. She’d broken off the relationship once and been foolish enough to let James back into her life. She’d believed his promises and accepted his explanations. He was under stress at work. She’d provoked him. It wouldn’t happen again.
But it had.
Annalisa lowered her lashes. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine.”
Dr. Ron was silent for a couple of beats while he scribbled on her chart.
“Wilma will have some instructions for you on cast care and problems to look out for.” He ripped a piece of paper from a pad and handed her a prescription. “Austin will take you by the pharmacy to get this pain medicine filled. Take one if you need it, every four hours for pain. Nights are usually the worst.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” Annalisa slid off the slick, paper-covered table and went to the door.
“Call if you need anything,” he said, serious eyes boring into her as if he knew everything she’d been through. “Anything at all.”
Annalisa understood his implication. With a nod, she hurried out.
In the waiting room, the cowboy sat scrunched in a chair, one boot crossed over the opposite knee and his pale green gaze glued to the hall leading to the exam rooms.
When he spotted her, he unfolded his length from the small chair and stood. An imposing man, he was tall, and dark as a thundercloud with shoulders as wide as a quarterback’s.
One look at her casted arm and his mouth curved. “Lime green?”
From somewhere she found an answering smile and lifted the cast higher. It weighed a ton. “I’m a fashion diva.”
“Yeah, we get a lot of calls for those in Whisper Falls,” he said wryly, and she wasn’t sure if he joked or not. “Where to from here?”
She held out the prescription, feeling like a bum. She’d imposed on this man enough, but what else could she do? This wasn’t exactly familiar terrain. “Do you know where a pharmacy is?”
“Not a pharmacy. The pharmacy. Jessup’s. Like Dr. Ron’s clinic, the only one in town.”
Annalisa followed broad shoulders to his truck, grateful that this man had been the one to find her in the woods. A little taciturn, he was a take-charge kind of guy who saw what needed doing and did it. Maybe she should worry about that, but right now, she had no choice except gratitude.
As she got into his truck for the second time that day, a troubling thought struck her.
“Oh, no,” she breathed, fingers pressed to her lips in dismay.
“What?” Austin hooked an arm over the steering wheel and shifted in her direction.
“I can’t fill the prescription.” She swallowed, gut fluttering with a new anxiety. Her situation had just become more dire.
Black eyebrows dipped. “Why not?”
“I—I must have lost my handbag when I fell.” A total lie. James had her purse in his car. When he’d shoved her out, she’d had no time to grab anything. Her phone, her money, her ID. Everything was in her purse. In time she could replace most of it, but that didn’t get her beyond this very awkward moment.
“You’re saying you don’t have any money?”
A flush of heat rushed up her neck and burned her cheeks. “Not at the moment. I have money back in...at home. Just not with me.”
Intelligent and already suspicious, he jumped on her slip of the tongue. “Back where, Annalisa? You’re not from Whisper Falls, so where’s your car? Where’s your hiking gear? People don’t just drop out of the sky and start hiking through miles of woods and hills to a waterfall in sissy shoes like that.” He gave her feet a scathing glare.
Acid burned in her stomach. Like the doctor, the cowboy was no fool, and her story was as thin as nylon.
“Forget the prescription. I’ve been too much bother already. Please, just take me to the nearest hotel.”
“How you gonna pay for that?”
She opened her mouth, only to shut it again. How indeed? The receptionist at the doctor’s office had taken her insurance information on nothing but faith in her promise to scan and send the card at a later date. She doubted a hotel would be as forgiving.
“I don’t know.” She pressed a hand to the dull headache drumming at her temples. “I’ll think of something. Let me think a minute.”
The cowboy apparently hadn’t a minute to spare because he started the engine and aimed the truck down the narrow, curving street. She had no idea where they were going and at the moment, didn’t care. She was stuck in the rural Ozarks without a dime or a credit card or a checkbook. And calling James to retrieve those items was out of the question.
She would rather live under that waterfall for the rest of her life and eat bugs.
Annalisa leaned her throbbing, hot head against the side window. Her whole face ached and she wondered if bruises were starting to appear. James was usually more careful. A slap here or there or cold intimidation, but not all-out battering.
She shivered and pressed closer to the door. An angry man was a powerful thing. And no matter how hard she’d tried, she’d not been always been able to pacify James.
Annalisa vowed not to make Austin Blackwell angry.
With a furtive glimpse at his dark, solemn profile, she wondered if she already had.
She’d gotten herself in this predicament. Now what? She could use her phone-a-friend option, but her friends were also James’s. They all considered him the catch of the day. Somewhere in their eight-month dating history, he’d steered her toward people in his circle and away from hers.
Unshed tears pushed at the back of her eyelids. If she had a family to rely on. If she wasn’t so terribly alone. If she hadn’t made such a mess of things.
Regrets. So very many regrets. What a fool she’d been to bend to James’s every whim, even to the point of drifting away from her church. God, forgive me.
Shame was an ugly companion.
Holding back frustrated tears, she focused on the streets of Whisper Falls and tried to think of anything but her predicament. The town