Chapter Twelve
Riley groaned and blinked up at the basement’s pressed tin ceiling. Her back hurt, and her head was throbbing. Her left ankle, too.
The baby…
Oh, dear Lord, had she hurt the baby?
Carefully, she laid her hand over the growing roundness where her baby slept. It felt…okay. No pain there. No cramping. And she wasn’t bleeding or anything, not as far as she could tell right now.
By some miracle, she seemed to have slid down the stairs on her back. Thank God…
Letting out another low groan, she turned her aching head to the side and saw her phone lying there, face up, maybe two feet away.
Reaching out, she managed to grab it, bring it close and tip the screen toward her face.
It opened automatically, and she was looking at Dillon’s grinning face. Amazing. Her phone seemed unscathed.
Not her body, though. With great care, she tried to turn to her side by pressing her left foot to the floor. That was a mistake. The yelp of pain escaped her before she even knew she would cry out.
“Oh my gosh!” A pretty dark-haired woman in housekeeping scrubs came out of the Basement Bar. “Ms. Thompson! What happened?”
“I…fell down the stairs. Bumped my head. Hurt my ankle…”
The woman darted across the floor and dropped to her knees at Riley’s side. Rosalee, Riley thought. She glanced at the woman’s name tag for confirmation. “Rosalee, right?”
Rosalee nodded. “That’s me. Oh, my goodness, let me get you—”
“Just…hold on a minute. If you’ll help me to sit up, I—”
“No way!” Rosalee put up a hand. “Stay very still.” She whipped a phone from her pocket. “I’m calling 911.”
“Wait.” Riley winced and gently felt at the back of her head. A goose egg was rising. As for her ankle, it throbbed, but it was bearable. Still, she probably shouldn’t try to walk on it.
“Ms. Thompson?” Rosalee got right down in her face. “Can. You. Hear. Me?”
“Of course I can.”
“Good. I am calling—”
“Don’t call anyone.” Riley waved her own phone. “I could do that myself if I wanted to.”
“But I think I should—”
“No. Wait. What I need you to do is to go on up to the lobby, tell Miranda at the front desk that I fell down the basement stairs and that I’m going to need help.”
Rosalee bent close. Her dark eyes spoke of sheer determination. “Ms. Thompson, you are injured. Miranda is only going to call 911. And yes, you could make the call yourself, but why not just lie there quietly and let me do it for you?”
With a sigh, Riley gave up. No, she didn’t want to admit that she might need an ambulance. But she had more than herself to consider here. There was the baby to think of, too…
“Okay,” Riley said. “Do it. Dial 911.”
* * *
Two hours later, in the ER at the hospital up in Sheridan, Riley was diagnosed with a mild concussion. She’d also suffered a grade 2 sprain of her left ankle that would take three to six weeks to heal. And her back ached, too. Also, she had a whopping bruise at the base of her spine.
As for the baby, an ultrasound showed no signs of injury. Riley was so grateful to see her little girl floating in the amniotic sac and sucking away at her tiny thumb, that she almost forgot her sore ankle and how much her head hurt.
Josh was there with her by then. Annette had called him, and he’d rushed to the hospital. He held her hand as the technician ran the wand over her round, gel-smeared belly.
Once they were back in the exam room, the doctor came to talk to her. He confirmed that the baby was unhurt. Riley heaved another big sigh of relief. “Great. So I’ll just go on back to work, then.”
“No,” Josh said. He stood at the door. “You need to take it easy.”
“He’s right,” said the doctor. “You’re going to need to stay off that ankle as much as possible for a few days. And after that, you’ll be using crutches or a walker for a while. The better you treat the ankle, the quicker you’ll be back on both feet again.”
“But I—”
“Ms. Thompson.” The doctor interrupted her.
“Your injured ankle isn’t the only reason you need time off.
You’ve suffered a mild concussion. You need at least a couple of days free of work concerns and any other situation that might cause you stress.
Avoid screen time during that period, as well.
You need to go home and rest. Take some time to relax and let your brain recover.
It’s crucial that you don’t return to normal activities too soon, or you’ll just end up prolonging your recovery. ”
“Doctor, I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” interrupted Annette from the chair in the corner. She gave the doctor a confident smile. “We’ll see to it that she doesn’t overdo.”
Riley scowled at her mother-in-law. “Annette, you can’t just—”
“Yes, she can,” said Josh.
Riley looked from him to her mother-in-law and couldn’t decide which one to strangle first.
“Sweetheart, relax,” Annette advised silkily. “We’ll work it out. Right now you need time to recover—and not only for your sake, for the baby and for Dillon, too.”
Riley couldn’t argue with any of that. But she sure did want to.
* * *
It was past noon when the hospital finally released her.
Josh drove Riley home. He also carried her from the car to her front door. She’d taken her key from her shoulder bag and used it to let them in.
As the door swung inward, he asked, “Upstairs or the sofa?”
“The sofa, please. I don’t want to be stuck in my bed all day—and I can make it on one foot if you help me.”
“Not today. Today, you need to stay off that ankle. As soon as you’re settled down here, I’ll get the walker from the truck.” The hospital had provided one on loan. “For the next couple of days, you can use it only when you absolutely have to.”
“Josh, it’s not a big deal. Just put me down and let me hop over there.”
He didn’t budge. “Indulge me.”
“Look. I’ve got things to do, anyway. I have to pick up Dillon by five.”
“I’ll do that for you. Shane’s with Lenore, so he’s taken care of.”
“You’re not listening to me, Josh.”
“Yes, I am. I’m just not doing what you want me to do.”
“Look. You don’t have to—”
“Riley Jane, I do have to. You’re supposed to rest and take it easy. If you won’t do it for yourself, please think about the baby.”
That gave her pause. She puffed out her cheeks with a discouraged breath. “Fine,” she said, though it wasn’t fine. Not at all. Three to six weeks of this? She had far too much to do to be off her feet for that long…
Josh went on, “Dillon and I will stop by my place. I’ll pack a bag for myself and spend the night here.”
“You don’t need to do this.”
“Yes, I do, and you know it, too.” He carried her to the sofa and gently set her down.
She dropped her shoulder bag on the coffee table. “Just take over everything, why don’t you?”
“Thank you, I will.” He grinned. “Do not move from this sofa. Whatever you need, tell me. I’ll bring it to you.”
She wanted to argue some more. But she knew him. He wasn’t going to give up. Plus, he happened to be right. Continuing to insist that she was fine and didn’t need his help wouldn’t make either of those things true.
“Go, then,” she said through gritted teeth. And then added more gently, “And thank you.”
He bent close and kissed her forehead. The brush of his lips on her skin… It scared her in a thousand little ways. He was so good to her. She could not get enough of him no matter how hard she tried.
But she was not in love with him. Being in love with him would make her vulnerable in a truly dangerous way. She could end up desperate and alone if she ever lost him. Just like with TJ…
And her mom, too.
True, it had been almost twenty years since Darla Barkowski died in hospice care up at the hospital in Sheridan—almost twenty years that felt like yesterday.
Her dad wouldn’t let her go up there. He’d said she was too young, that it would be too hard on her. He’d taken her to Macy’s house, where Macy’s mom could look after her.
Riley had been furious with him for that, for cutting her out. Later, after he came for her and took her home and broke the awful news that Mom had passed, she’d beat her fists against his chest as he tried to comfort her. She’d screamed that she hated him and he’d better bring her mom right back…
And then ten years later she’d lost him, too.
On a cold, rainy afternoon in early spring, she’d answered the front door to find a kind-faced woman she’d never seen before, a woman from the coroner’s office sent to inform her that there had been a landslide on Teton Pass and her dad would never be coming home…
“Rile?” Josh smiled down at her.
“What?” she replied way too sharply.
He answered her soothingly. “I said, how about I go upstairs and bring you down some pillows—and something more comfortable to wear than your work clothes?”
“Uh, sure.” She made a real effort to be civil.
Because he was amazing and verbally abusing him wouldn’t make him give up and leave her to deal with this situation on her own.
“Thanks,” she added grudgingly. “Something comfy to wear would be great.” She told him which clothes she wanted and which drawers to find them in.
“Got it,” he said, and off he went. When he came back down, he’d brought the extra quilt from the foot of her bed, too. He handed her the pillows, the quilt, the joggers, the cozy socks and the soft, roomy shirt she’d asked for. She plunked them down beside her on the sofa.
“Now, settle in,” he instructed.
“Frankly, I need to pee.”
“Then let’s take care of that.” He helped her to the downstairs bath where she relieved her bladder and changed into the clothes he’d collected for her.
After that, he got her set up on the sofa with her ankle elevated, wrapped in a compression bandage and iced.
He closed the downstairs curtains so she could rest, brought her a late lunch and took the tray away after she’d finished eating.
Then he carried her work things up to her room and also went out to his truck to get the walker for her.