2. West
WEST
W est Lawrence pulled up at the repair shop and got out of his truck quickly, grabbing his medical bag from the back before heading inside.
Christmas lights glowed around the big shop window, and he could see Old Joe Fournier pacing inside and Rob Bradford sitting at the desk.
There was no sign of the distressed girl he’d been called for.
West always hated being pulled into situations like this when the patient really should be going to the hospital.
But it was common out here in farmland where most folks never considered even coming in from the field for anything less than a protruding bone.
It also didn’t help that they all had bad years here and there and often worried about paying for an ambulance.
He figured most country doctors ran into the same kind of thing.
It was more important to help people than to split hairs about where you were doing it .
At least Milly wasn’t around to complain about his house calls anymore. Back when they were married, she seemed to resent every second he spent paying attention to anyone or anything else. Now that he was on his own, he didn’t have to feel guilty about answering the phone at all hours.
Of course, it also meant that he had to raise Elizabeth on his own, which was its own adventure. He was thankful at times like this that he had family around to help. Mom had come to sit at the house tonight while he was out, since Elizabeth was already sleeping.
He pushed open the door, sending the bells overhead jingling.
“Thanks for coming,” Rob said, getting up right away from behind the desk.
Joe pointed to the battered sofa that had been in the shop’s office since West was a little boy. At first, West thought he was looking at a pile of coats. Then he realized that a slender figure with dirty-blonde hair was curled up underneath.
“She was shaking,” Joe explained.
“You say she was in an accident,” West said, crouching to observe the girl. Thankfully, he could see she was breathing normally.
“Car’s totaled,” Rob confirmed.
“I brought her back here, but she fainted getting out of the tow truck,” Joe said.
“I carried her inside, and she woke up again after a minute, but she panicked when I said I would call an ambulance. Kept saying she was fine. She fell asleep right there while I was waiting for Rob to come in. She was shivering, so I put my coat over her. ”
“If she was in an accident, it’s possible she has a concussion,” West said, keeping his speech calm and slow. “You did just right by bringing her inside and warming her up.”
“Thanks, West,” Joe said. “I mean, Doc.”
A lot of the old-timers called him by his first name. West was used to it. They all remembered him as a little boy, and probably still thought he was one.
“I’m going to check her pulse,” West told him.
Joe nodded and Rob came closer, the two of them making West feel like he was on a stage.
Putting that feeling aside, he slid Joe’s coat down from where it rested on the girl like a blanket, revealing her arm.
Her own coat was big enough on her that it was easy to push up the sleeve to the elbow.
Whatever else was going on with the girl, she was definitely too thin.
Taking her wrist in his hand, he was relieved to feel that her skin was warm to the touch—not clammy or sweaty.
He took an official count of her heartbeats, as he had been trained to do. But he didn’t need the count to tell that her pulse was strong, but on the slow side.
“She going to be okay, Doc?” Joe asked when West carefully placed her arm back against her chest and pulled the coat up over her again. “Did she hit her head?”
“It could be a concussion,” West said.
Honestly he was more concerned that she had missed too many meals, but he didn’t want to share that theory with the others just yet. After all, this young woman’s medical history was private. He could share his thoughts with her directly when she was awake.
“Should we take her to the hospital?” Rob asked.
“No,” a weak voice murmured from beside West, and he turned to see that the girl was awake now.
She was too skinny by a lot, and her dark-blonde hair was unwashed and disheveled. But her blue eyes were startlingly beautiful, flashing with a feverish intensity.
She looks like a princess under a spell, he thought to himself stupidly.
“You can’t force me to go to the hospital,” she said, her voice a little rusty but her words perfectly clear. “That’s illegal.”
West blinked at her in surprise.
“This is the doctor, sweetheart,” Old Joe said to her gently. “You didn’t want to go to the hospital, so we brought him to you.”
“Thank you, Joe,” she said, her expression softening as she looked up at the older man.
“Why don’t I examine you here?” West offered. “Maybe we can at least rule out a concussion.”
“She fainted right after being in a car accident,” Rob pointed out. “What else could it be?”
West didn’t miss the guilty look on the girl’s face. She definitely hadn’t been eating.
“Rob, do you still have those snack machines in the shop?” West asked.
“Sure,” Rob said.
“Can you get us a can of juice?” West asked, pulling out his wallet. “Or a soda if there isn’t juice?”
“Sure,” Rob said, waving him off. “I’ve got it.”
“Thanks,” West said, turning back to the girl. “I’m West Lawrence. What’s your name?”
“Dulcie Bloom,” she replied, calmer now that it was clear he wasn’t planning on dragging her to the hospital against her will.
Even her name sounds like a princess’s name, he thought to himself without meaning to. He’d clearly been reading Elizabeth too many bedtime stories.
“Dulcie, I know you were in an accident,” he said. “Is any part of you hurting?”
She shook her head.
“You’re not feeling any pain?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“What about discomfort?” he asked her. “Is any part of you uncomfortable right now?”
It was key to ask at least three times about pain and to rephrase if need be. He’d learned that the hard way from working with the older generation of farmers, men who were brought up to believe they should never complain.
She shook her head again.
“All right then,” West said. “I’d like to look at your eyes. Would that be okay?”
“Yes,” she said.
He pulled the instrument out of his bag and engaged her in the steady round of medical background questions that he always asked patients as he examined them.
Her answers were reassuring, though with the resistance she clearly had to doctors and hospitals, she could possibly have an undiagnosed condition and not know about it.
She agreed to let him take her blood pressure and listen to her heart, probably just to avoid being taken to the hospital. But he was glad, whatever the reason, to be reassured that she was more or less okay.
As he finished with her vitals, Rob came back in with a can of apple juice and handed it to West.
“I’d like you to sip on this,” West told Dulcie, holding it out. “Did you by any chance skip lunch today?”
He’d phrased that carefully. It was well after dinnertime, so if she’d missed lunch, she had missed dinner too. Basically, he was hoping to get her to admit that she hadn’t eaten at all today, without shaming her, or making her lie to him to save her pride.
She nodded, taking the can eagerly and popping the top. He watched as she drank it down, draining half the can before remembering to stop and pretend to sip.
He tried to hide his smile, but he was relieved. Getting some nutrition into her was a much easier problem to tackle than a concussion. For now, the sugar in the juice would help her feel better until he could get a solid meal in front of her.
“We’ll need to keep an eye on you for a little while,” West told her as she drank. “But I think you’re going to be okay. We’ll call over to the inn to see about getting you a room and a hot meal. And of course, Rob can help out with the car. I’d like to see you again in my office in the morning.”
“I-I don’t have money for a hotel room, or a car bill, or a doctor bill,” she said, her voice pitching up like she was trying to hold back sobs. “I can’t afford any of this. Can I just sleep here and get out of the way in the morning?”
She had directed her plea to Old Joe, who looked like he was ready to start crying himself.
“Why were you here tonight, Dulcie?” West asked her gently. “Do you have family nearby? ”
“I was up here looking for work for the winter,” she said, her eyes cast down.
The room went silent for a moment.
West knew the others were thinking the same thing that he was.
It was already December, which meant that the seasonal positions in shops and markets for the holidays were long filled.
And the places around here that hired year-round wanted strong manual laborers who could work all day in the cold.
One look at this frail girl, and they would know she wouldn’t be able to keep up.
She’s clearly in some kind of trouble, he thought to himself. She just needs a little help.
“I’ll take care of everything for now,” he heard himself tell her. “You can work it off when you’re feeling better.”
“You have a job for me?” she asked, her blue eyes suddenly alight with wonder.
“I sure do,” he told her, wondering what on earth he could actually let her do. She couldn’t work in the doctor’s office, but his mom could probably invent some gentle tasks for her on the family farm.
It was out of the ordinary, but this was the right thing to do. Between his work and caring for Elizabeth, he never seemed to have time to volunteer these days. It would feel good to do a good deed for someone who needed it.
“Okay,” she said, looking like she had just won the lottery. “That sounds great.”
“We’ve got a spare room,” he told her. “You can stay there until you get on your feet.”
He saw the torn expression on her face.
“The Lawrences are good people,” Joe told her right away. “Doc here won’t let any harm come to you. And if you’re lucky, his mama will cook for you. Her pot roast is legendary around here. You couldn’t ask for a better situation. What are the odds the doc was hiring?”
Rob rolled his eyes behind Joe’s back, but West was grateful that the girl didn’t seem to notice.
“Okay,” she said after a moment. “That sounds good. Thank you.”
He straightened and stepped back to give her space to get up.
She scrambled to her feet, handing Joe back his coat and tugging her own more closely around herself.
“You take care of yourself, sweetheart,” Joe told her with a warm smile.
“Thank you, Joe,” she said, hugging him impulsively. “Thanks, Rob.”
Rob nodded to her, and she let go of Joe to head off with West, but suddenly stopped in her tracks.
“Wait,” she said, eyes wide with worry again. “I need to get my stuff out of the car.”
“I already put it all in a duffel,” Rob told her. “I’ll follow you out and carry it to the doctor’s truck for you.”
“Thank you so much,” she said, smiling as her shoulders lowered with relief.
West watched in amazement as grumpy Rob Bradford smiled right back at her like he couldn’t resist her sunny expression.
She’s just a young woman in trouble, he reminded himself. She’s not actually an enchanted princess.