Prairie Princess
PRAIRIE PRINCESS
ROSE
There aren’t many people around the Campground when the taxi drops me off on the gravel driveway, the driver waiting patiently as I wrangle my aluminum crutches out the car door and shimmy my way free of the vehicle. There’s only a smattering of motor homes. I guess it’s not super popular to camp in a flat grass field outside Hartford, population 3,501. The taxi drives away and leaves me to the sound of children in the playground, all three of them pinning me with unnerving stares, the metronomic squeak of the ancient swings a sad melody within the downtrodden campground. I pause long enough to give them a half-hearted wave. All three stop swinging in a synchronized, sudden halt of motion. They don’t wave back.
“That’s … yikes,” I whisper. “That’s just fucking weird.”
One of them tilts her head as though listening, even though there’s no fucking way she heard me at this distance, and then all three resume their swinging at the exact same moment.
“I guess at least I know how I’ll die.” I swallow the sudden tightness choking up my throat and start to hobble my way across the unkempt gravel, my leg throbbing. My RV stands out among the others strewn across the clearing. Big ol’ Dorothy might be closing in on thirty years old, but she’s pretty as hell, with polished chrome bumpers and a custom paint job of a flock of sparrows over a sunset of pink and yellow and orange. I’ve put every spare penny into Dorothy’s needs. She’s my year-round home. But this is the first time I’ve ever walked up to my RV and wished I had something more permanent. Maybe the kind of place where it’s not so easy for the rest of your home to just go and leave you behind.
“You’re just being sore. You’ll be back on the tour in no time,” I whisper above the clink and rattle of my crutches. “You’ll be fine on your own. You’re not afraid of the murder children. Because you’re a fierce, independent woman.”
And I believe that too. At least, I do until I stop at the door of my motor home.
“Fuck.”
It’s hot as Satan’s ball sack out here beneath the unobstructed prairie sun, and all I want to do is get inside so I can lie down and, let’s be real, probably ugly-cry myself to sleep. Problem is, I don’t know how to do that with crutches and a brace through a narrow door that’s two feet off the ground and a set of narrow steps on the inside. I’ve never thought about buying folding or temporary stairs to get in. It wasn’t something I ever needed.
My shoulders sag as I press my weight into the padding of the crutches, my body already protesting this foreign way of moving.
I’m blinking away exhausted tears when I hear a vehicle slowly roll to a stop behind me. I sweep a quick pass of my thumb beneath my lashes and then grip onto the handle of my crutches with renewed determination. I don’t need people staring. I hobble closer and slide the key into the lock and turn it. And then a large hand reaches above me and pulls the door open.
I startle, losing my balance as I turn, the sun blinding as I look toward the man standing behind me. He grasps my arm to keep me from falling. “I’m so sorry,” he says, his voice instantly familiar. He drops his hold on me just as quickly as it was given and moves back a step. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“McSpicy …?” I squint at him, my gaze darting toward the classic Ford F-250 parked nearby, my motorcycle strapped upright in the bed. “What are you doing here?”
“Scaring the shit out of you, by the looks of things. I’m sorry about that.” He glances toward the open door and the narrow stairs that lead into my home and frowns. When he turns his attention back to me, the intensity of his narrowed eyes burrows beneath my skin to heat it. “I heard you were released this morning instead of the afternoon, so I thought I’d bring your bike back and check on you. How are you doing?”
I could lie, if I just had a bit more in me to do it. But something about this man makes me want to tell him more than I should. Maybe it’s the way he watches me, his eyes fixed to mine, the door held open for me, his other hand lifted just a little as though he’s ready to catch me if I stumble.
“It’s been a shitty few days,” I say, my voice thinner than I hoped it would be.
Dr. Kane’s expression softens. His hold on the door relaxes a little and it creaks on its hinges. “Yeah. I can imagine.”
“I’ll manage.”
“I have no doubt.”
“Really? Because you sound like you have many doubts.”
He looks toward the motor home and shrugs. “I have doubts about the stairs.” When his attention returns to me, a smile tugs at one corner of his lips, his eyes a lighter shade of blue in the bright sun. “I don’t have any about you. I mean—your ability to look after yourself, of course.”
I bite down on a weary grin, though he doesn’t see it, not with the way his eyes dart to the shadowed interior of my motor home, then the gravel beneath us, then back to his vehicle as though he can’t wait to get into it and drive away.
“You should probably have some doubts about me, Doc,” I say, catching his gaze when it flicks back to me. “But I’ll still manage. Thanks for bringing my bike back. I’m afraid I can’t help you unload it, though.”
“I can do that,” he says, and I nod my thanks, gripping onto my crutch handles as I refocus on the entrance of my motor home. It’s going to be even hotter in there than it is out here. Dorothy’s been baking in the sun, but I’m desperate to peel off my leather jacket and strip down to my underwear and sleep until tomorrow. When I get to the step, I set my crutches against the side of the vehicle and grip the interior handle of the stairs. With the doc holding the door open, I hoist myself inside but hiss a curse when I bump my splint against the ledge on my way up.
“I’m good,” I grit out. Dr. Kane scrutinizes me as I pivot on my good foot to face him, his forehead crinkling at my forced smile. I reach back out the door for my crutches, but instead of grabbing them, I knock them over like dominoes.
“Well,” I say as we both stare down at them where they mock me from the ground, both mostly hidden beneath the motor home. “That … wasn’t great.”
“Not a strong start, no.”
“I’ll manage.”
“I can tell.”
“You’re not really helping.”
My deadpan joke seems to slap Dr. Kane out of his own thoughts and into action. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice barely more than a whisper. He lets the door close gently, resting it against my elbow before he bends to collect my crutches. His faded gray T-shirt pulls tight across his back as he leans forward to pull them from beneath the motor home. Hard planes of muscle bracket his spine, his shoulders broad and defined beneath the thin cotton.
I swallow when he straightens to his full height and stands before me. I’m a hint taller than him where I stand on my little landing inside the motor home, but he still seems to take up all the space in my field of vision.
“Thank you,” I say, a little breathless. I wrap a hand around one of the crutches and try to pull it toward me, but he doesn’t relinquish it. “I’ll manage.”
“Yeah, I heard that. But you’d manage better at my house,” he blurts out. His eyes widen as though the words have escaped his control.
“Um … what …?”
“I mean … you should come to my house. This setup,” he says, waving his free hand toward my home, “it’s not ideal. You can barely get into it.”
“I just need some practice.”
“You don’t have air-conditioning.”
“I do …” Sort of. When Dorothy is moving and the windows are open. Also, when she feels like it. Which is basically never.
The doc gives me a suspicious frown. For a moment, I’m not sure if I said my thoughts out loud. “What about a shower?”
“I’m sure they filled my water tank before they left,” I say, scanning the grounds beyond his shoulder. “And when it runs out, there’s a communal shower over there.”
Dr. Kane turns to follow my gaze to a small wooden cottage with a SHOWER sign painted on the side, the building’s green paint as faded as the unmowed prairie grass surrounding it.
“Looks totally safe.”
“They only murder people in there on the weekends.”
Dr. Kane faces me once more, his expression both wary and clinical. “You need to look after that incision and come back in a week to get the stitches out and the cast put on,” he says. “You can manage that?”
I swallow down the assurances that would only be half-truths at best. With every moment that passes, I’m increasingly nervous about being the star in what is clearly a horror movie entitled Campground: The Grisly Murder of Rose Evans , but I don’t really want some guy I barely know to realize that. As much as McSpicy is hot as fuck and seems genuinely sweet, I’m used to looking after myself. And it’s tough enough to face the fact that I can’t get around the way I’m used to without a constant reminder that I need help.
“Rose …” A darkness settles into the hollows beneath Dr. Kane’s eyes. He searches my face, hunting for something, like he’s weighing options and pathways set before him. The longer the silence stretches on, the more I long to fill it. When I shift to rest my swollen foot on the step behind me, he takes a sharp breath. “Matthew Cranwell.”
I try to keep my expression neutral. But we both know he caught me off guard. “Who?” I say a beat later than I should have.
“Matt Cranwell,” he repeats. “Do you know him?”
I swallow. Shake my head.
A shadow falls across his features, even in the bright light. Dr. Kane never averts his gaze, even when I try to break the connection and look away. He’s still right there, taking up the space in my door, sucking up all the energy that seems to crackle between us in the hot summer air.
The suspended moment seems to stretch long enough that I can imagine every thought and accusation that’s probably swirling in his head. He leans closer, his voice a lethal whisper when he says, “Did he do this to you?”
I want to back away. But I don’t move. I want to shake my head, but I can’t seem to make myself do that either. I’m like a fawn, unable to run when danger discovers it hidden in the grass.
“I suspect you’re not the only person he’s hurt,” Dr. Kane says. His shirt stretches over his biceps, the muscles more tense than they need to be for the simple action of running his hand through his hair. Strands fall across his brow, his forehead creased in a frown. “Do you want to tell me what really happened that night?”
Each breath I take is so shallow, it might not even exist. My heart riots in my chest. I still can’t shake my head, even though it could be the difference between me and the back of a police car.
Be tough. Be tough be tough be tough. You drive a fucking motorcycle in a metal cage in front of an audience of two hundred people in a goddamn circus. The fucking Globe of Death , for fucksakes. Don’t cry, Rose Evans. Don’t you fucking cry.
I totally fucking cry.
A single tear slips past my lashes, sliding down my burning cheek. The crease softens between his brows as the doctor watches me sweep it away with a frustrated flick of my fingers. “I’d better go. Thank you, Doc,” I say, trying to pull the door closed behind me. But he doesn’t let it go.
“Rose, he’s not the kind of person you want to fuck with.” His expression darkens, and it feels as though there’s no escaping his warning. “He was a Lincoln County deputy before he got himself suspended a few years back, something about an arrest that got out of hand. From what I heard, it was the last straw in a string of bad behavior on the job. Now he spends most of his time between two places. His farm outside Elmsdale, and the Fergusons’ grain mill. Which is literally next door ,” he says, gesturing toward the back of my motor home. I look in the direction he’s pointing, but I see … nothing. Nothing but wheat fields beyond the fence that encompasses the campground, with no structures and no landmarks visible. When I turn back to the doc with a question in my crinkled nose and furrowed brow, he rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine . Next door is a few miles that way, but it’s still next door. Technically.”
I can’t say I love the idea of Matt being in my neighborhood, even if that neighborhood is a bunch of plants and a view for miles, an unobstructed perspective that makes it hard for him to sneak up on me. But I’m guessing he’s a crafty motherfucker, even if he is down an eye.
My stomach flips uncomfortably. I stare blankly at the horizon, my mind trapped in the memory as I replay the image of driving the cocktail sticks into his face.
“I can help you.”
The softness in Dr. Kane’s voice pulls me away from the imagery, a soothing caress, so unlike the violence of that night. When I turn to him, something about the curves and angles of his face seems pleading. “It’s safer in Hartford. I hardly ever see him there, only at the clinic once or twice a year. Elmsdale is closer for him.” The doctor’s eyes don’t leave mine as he pulls something from his pocket and holds it between us. Matt’s license. “Come and stay with me. I have a guest room. A hot shower. Functional air-conditioning. Edible food. I even know a thing or two about looking after injuries.”
I blink at him, processing his words as he patiently waits for me to catch up. “I’m out of work,” I finally say, dropping my gaze to the splint that encases my leg. “I can’t pay you.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
Dr. Kane passes me the license. With a tentative hand, I grasp the edge, but I don’t pull it away.
“You’re not going to serial kill me in my sleep, are you?” I ask, narrowing my eyes. I’ve only asked him that to make him laugh. For any other man I barely know, it would be a legitimate question. But there’s something about Dr. Kane that puts me at ease. Maybe it’s the way he held my hand in the ambulance. May it’s the way he holds this damning piece of evidence between us, one that could so easily be used to put me in jail. But I think it’s just an essence, like a vibration in the air, something I can’t touch or taste. Something I just know. I’m safe with him.
A grin slowly ignites in his full lips. “You’re not going to serial kill me in my sleep, are you?”
I shake my head.
“Good. Then why don’t you pack up some of your essentials and we get the fuck out of here. This place gives me Children of the Corn vibes,” he says as he looks toward the seemingly feral group of kids on the swings.
“Same, honestly. Except that’s wheat, not corn.”
“It’s still crops. And creepy kids. That’s enough for me.”
With an unsure smile, I pull the license free of his hand and slide it into the interior pocket of my jacket. He unloads my motorcycle as I water my plants and throw a few changes of clothes into a backpack. When I get back to the door, he takes the bag from me and slings it over a shoulder. Before I can struggle my way down from the ledge, Dr. Kane slides a strong arm around my waist and lifts me out of the RV, igniting an electric charge that skitters through my chest and dances along my ribs. I feel as though I’m floating in the bracket of his muscular grasp, like it takes no effort on his part to take my weight. When he sets me down, it’s done carefully, slowly. He offers me his arm for balance and waits until I’m steady on my foot before he passes me my crutches. And even when we leave, he walks with me, matching my slow pace when he could easily stride ahead.
I don’t remember the last time a man walked me to the passenger side of a vehicle. Or opened the door for me. Or got my belongings situated before carefully helping me inside. I don’t remember anyone buckling me in. Not ever. But he does all those things, chatting the whole time, telling me about the truck and his house and the town. He flashes me a fleeting smile before he closes the door, and I can’t recall ever feeling the way I feel now about such a simple gesture.
Dr. Kane slips into the driver’s seat and keys the engine. He shifts it into gear, but keeps his foot on the brake as he turns to look at me. “Anything I should know before we do this?”
That electric charge I just felt? It seems to burn in my guts. I shake my head again.
“Okay. Good,” he says, and then we roll away from my motor home and the Campground.
I should stop him. Place my hand on the sun-kissed, corded muscle of his forearm as he reaches forward to turn up the volume on the radio. Tell him what really happened with Matt. I should shatter this moment. I should do it now, before it shatters me.
The truth rises to the surface. But it doesn’t quite break through.