Chapter 17
At noon the next day,Clark climbed out of his truck and stood there in the lightly misting rain to look at the horses in the pasture next to the barn. About an hour ago, he’d finished reading all the information Erin had on Broken, and he nodded as he looked around. It impressed him that his sister had hired Naomi, and her ability to run such a successful operation. He made his way into the barn, and began walking around to take in everything on his own. Not that he didn’t trust Naomi on his tour a few days ago, but he needed to walk around and get the feel of the place for himself. After walking up and down all the aisles, he made his way to the office where Naomi should be. He paused and scowled at the empty desk in the room. It took another five minutes to find someone, and he saw Denver.
“Hey,” Clark called out, and smiled when the other man jerked around to see who was there. He liked that his friend and former teammate wore a sidearm. With the threat against Naomi’s life, it was good to be prepared.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Do you know where Naomi is?”
“She went home, she said she had to get ready for her doctor’s appointment.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll ride over to see if she’s about ready. Maybe we can grab some lunch on the way.”
“Okay, let us know when you leave.”
“Will do,” Clark agreed, then nodded toward Denver’s side. “Thanks for being prepared.”
“No problem. I really like Naomi.” At Clark’s scowl, he grinned. “As a friend. I’m in love with Opal.”
“Okay.” Clark turned on his heel before his friend asked him about his own feelings toward Naomi. He really liked her and wanted to get to know her better, but he didn’t want to start anything until the threat hanging over her was eliminated. Maybe he was being too cautious, but he didn’t want his developing feelings for her to be because she was in danger, and that was the only reason he liked her. He wanted to be sure that he liked her for who she was, and not a beautiful woman in danger. He climbed into his truck and drove over to Naomi’s house. As he knocked on the door, he thought he heard a faint cry, but couldn’t be sure so he knocked harder, then opened the door to call in.
“Naomi, it’s Clark?”
“Here!” He heard her and followed her voice. He swore when he found her lying on the floor. He rushed forward, grabbed a folded towel off the closed seat of the toilet and covered her.
“Did you hit your head?”
“No, I have no idea why I keep falling.”
“Well,” Clark began as he made sure she was covered, and because she’d given him a tour of her home a couple of days ago, he knew where her bedroom was. He carried her there and gently placed her on the edge of the bed. “We’re going to the doctor to find out.”
“Yeah, could you bring me my clothes? They’re on the counter in the bathroom.”
Clark immediately left to retrieve the wanted items. When he returned, he handed them over, and saw she had covered herself with the towel. “I’ll step out in the hall.”
“Thank you,” she said, and watched as he left.
Instead of staying in the hall, Clark went into the bathroom and inspected the wheelchair and the surrounding area, that’s when he noted there was a bench in the center of the gigantic walk-in shower. The sight of it immediately brought images of the two of them having shower sex on that bench. It took several minutes to get the images from his mind. He had to wait for his erection to diminish somewhat before he wheeled the chair to her bedroom.
“Naomi,” Clark said as he lightly knocked on the door. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah,” she called out, and looked at him sadly as he entered, pushing her chair.
“It probably won’t happen, but may I watch you get from the bed to the chair. It’s about the same height, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Naomi whispered, and he watched her, but had to rush forward to catch her when her arms began to shake. “What the hell?”
“Your arms were shaking. Do you think that might have happened before?”
“I have no clue.”
“Do you feel anything?”
“I think so, I don’t want it to be phantom pain, but it seems lately whenever I move around to either get in or out of my chair I feel a slight twinge in my lower back, almost where my tailbone is, or a little lower, if that’s even possible. That’s when my elbows start to shake.”
“Okay, we’ll have to tell the doctor today.” He backed out of the room and watched as she turned herself around, then wheeled herself back to the bathroom.
“I just have to put on my makeup.”
“You know, you don’t have to put that stuff on for me. I think you’re beautiful as you are.”
The two of them stared at each other for several minutes before Naomi shook her head and went into the bathroom. “There’s coffee in the pot if you want some,” she called out to him. “Why are you here so early?”
“I thought we could stop in Fool’s Gold for some lunch.”
“Oh, I could eat.” She wheeled out, and he noted she’d only put a light dusting of blush, some black stuff on her lashes, and a pale pink lipstick. He liked the results. Instead of fixing a cup, they decided to take the coffee in travel mugs and they were quickly out the door. After Naomi was settled in the passenger seat of Clark’s truck, Clark dispensed with her chair, climbed in, started the truck, then pulled out his phone. He sent a text, waited for a reply, then looked at her.
“Jake.”
“Okay, good.” She waited until he’d done it again, then asked, “Detective May?”
“Yep, all good on both fronts.”
An hour later, they were settled in at a table in the middle of Maddie’s Diner, and it wasn’t long before they were waited on. They ate their meal in relative quiet. At one point, he reached out and took her hand gently in his. “Penny for your thoughts?”
“I’m just worried about the appointment. I have no clue what she’s going to say.”
“Okay, I can understand that, but what else is bothering you?”
“It’s stupid.”
“No, if it’s worrying you, it’s not stupid.”
“Do you still have feelings for my doctor?” Naomi blurted the question out.
Clark smiled at her. “First, I don’t know if it’s Tessie. Second, I stopped being in love with her way back when I had to dig that truck out of the mud. Remember, I wasn’t going to that dance to be with her exclusively, I had only asked her to save a dance for me, that was it. I wanted to see if there was anything romantically between us during that one dance, that was all. When I saw her and Jared together, I knew they were right for each other. If you recall, I had only asked her to save me a dance at that dance. I didn’t ask her to be my date.”
“Oh.” Naomi nodded and finished her fries. They settled the bill and made their way out to the truck. Out on the road, Naomi turned to him. “Distract me.”
“How?”
“Tell me how you got that truck out of the mud.”
Clark threw his head back and laughed. “Sheer guts and determination, and a lot of ingenuity, along with some very inventive swear words.”
“Tell me.”
Clark settled in his seat, looked at her, took her hand in his, and looked back toward the road. “As Rin and the guys said, I never asked for help. It never occurred to me to even ask anyone for help. Dad said that I had to figure it out by myself, so I took him literally by doing it by myself. It wasn’t until everything was done that he pointed out that all I had to do was ask and he and the guys would have helped me. No one offered, and no one questioned what I did. I ended up going to the barn where we kept spare parts, and extra building materials. I fueled up a tractor with a bucket and put some boards in the bucket, along with the chains that went with that particular tractor.” He turned his head and grinned at her, causing her to suck in her breath when her stomach did funny flips at the sight of his grin.
“What happened next?”
“One thing you have to remember was that after I took the truck, and got it stuck, then tried to get it unstuck, and walked home, I had been up for twenty-four hours.”
“Okay, so you were exhausted.”
“Correct, again, I failed to really listen to my father. He didn’t tell me that I had to get the truck out by myself. He also didn’t say I had to do it right then and there. It was my own sheer stubbornness and determination to prove a point that drove me.”
“Okay, I can see that in a fourteen-year-old boy. I’m not laughing, but was your pride hurt?”
“Absolutely. The drive and determination I felt was that I had to prove to my father that I wasn’t a fuck-up, especially since I did all this while I was supposed to be grounded. Don’t ask me what for, because for the life of me, I don’t remember what I did to get grounded, all I remember is trying to get to the dance, then getting that truck out. Well, I drove the tractor there, and I placed those boards at the wheels, but I forgot to bring a shovel or shit fork.”
“Why would you need those?”
“I had buried the truck so deep that you couldn’t even see the wheels. See, in my mind, I pictured that I would pull it out with the tractor then pull it home.”
“Ah, and you couldn’t see the wheels.” Naomi didn’t mean to, but she covered her mouth with their entwined hands and snickered. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Looking back, I can see all the mistakes I made.” He shook his head and chuckled. “I think that experience helped mold me into the man I am today.”
“How did you get it out?”
He looked at her with another grin, then laughed at himself. “What Erin and the guys don’t know is that I did ask for help. However, I didn’t ask anyone on Erin’s Way for help. I hope I can explain this properly, but there was a reason why I was where I was.” He didn’t let her ask, before he continued, “There’s a ranch that borders us north west of here. I went that way because I didn’t want Dad to know that I took the truck. My thought process at the time, now remember, this is of a fourteen-year-old boy that thought he knew everything at the time. My thought process was that I could drive toward the neighboring ranch, and come out on the road that divided our property. That would take me into the backside of Fool’s Gold, and I’d only have to take a couple of back roads to make it to the school.”
“Ah, I get you, you wanted to sneak in undetected.”
“Correct, but I got stuck in the mud and muck. Oh, I know this doesn’t mean anything, but that wasn’t really a road, it was more or less a track that both ranches would use to get to that area of our ranches. If you weren’t from these parts, you wouldn’t know it was there. It was for farm use only, there wasn’t any public access to it. Anyway, when I couldn’t get to the wheels, I stood on top of the truck and looked around. That’s when I realized that Mr. Ducky’s place was closer than mine. I was about three miles from that lane versus six or seven back to my place.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, anyway, I walked to Mr. Ducky’s place.” He looked at her with yet another grin. “His name was Donald Donaldson, and Rin and I nicknamed him Mr. Ducky. He got a kick out of it. As I headed there with the intent to ask him for a shovel or pitch fork to dig the mud out from around the tires, I remembered that he had a set of Clydesdale’s.”
“You didn’t.” Naomi laughed when she thought she knew where this story was going.
“Didn’t what?” He laughed along with her.
“Tell me you didn’t ask him to use them to pull you out.”
“I didn’t.” Clark threw his head back and laughed. He had to let her hand go so he could wipe his eyes. “He volunteered.” Clark shook his head, and then sobered. “Mrs. Ducky was still alive then, and she made me come in and get something to eat while I explained to them how I came to be knocking on their door asking to use their horses, and why I was filthy from head to toe. If I recall, there wasn’t a clean part of my body. I do know that when I finally got that truck home, Mom made me stand in the horse showers so she could hose me down. She refused to allow me in the house until I had at least the first layer of mud off me.” He shook his head at the happy memory. “I just stood there and let her do it. I was so hot, tired, and filthy, that I didn’t even care that I was soaking wet at the end of it all. All I remember was that water felt great.”
“Did they ever find out what you did?”
“I have no clue, I suspect that Mrs. Ducky called Mom and Dad to tell them what I was doing, but they never said anything to me. Anyway, after I ate lunch, Mr. Ducky put the rigs on his team, and we ended up using four horses. I had both a shovel and fork with me, that I borrowed from Mr. Ducky. When we got back to the truck, he only shook his head and asked me what I had planned. I can look back on it fondly now. He never raised his voice at me, he just stood there and asked me what I had in mind. He treated me like a man, and not a little kid. As I told him, I started moving the mud away from the tires. He never told me that my idea was silly, or stupid, or that it wouldn’t work. He just stood there, and I don’t know, his presence encouraged me to continue. I want to say he calmed me.”
“How long did he let you dig before he hooked up his team?”
“Until the wheels were about halfway uncovered.” He looked at her and shook his head. “All four of them.”
Again, Naomi snickered as she pictured what he described. “Once there was enough room, I wedged those boards beneath the tires, and asked him to hook up his team to the truck. I knew horses, but I didn’t know his rig. I didn’t want to mess anything up. It took fifteen minutes, but those four horses were able to pull that truck out, and after he unhooked the team, I hooked the truck up to the tractor. He made sure it was in neutral, then told me to follow him. He used his team to get across the range, avoiding the mucky areas. Once we made it to that lane, I hopped off the tractor, thanked him, and because I still had my good clothes on, I gave him the twenty dollars I had in my pocket for his help. I wouldn’t let him give it back to me.” He shook his head as he remembered that time.
“What did you do next?”
“Mr. Ducky went back to his house, and I drove the tractor down that lane, came out on the main road, then drove that all the way home. Dad must have heard me coming, or Mr. Ducky called him to tell him I was on my way, because he only stopped me and told me where to take the truck. Nothing was ever said, and for the next two months, whenever I had any free time from school and sports, Dad taught me how to rebuild that transmission.” He looked at her again and laughed.
“What?”
“Have you seen that half green, half red truck at Erin’s Way?”
“Yes, what about it? It might be old, but it’s perfect for picking up the feed order.”
“That’s the truck I buried.”
“Holy cow.”
“Yeah.” He took her hand in his again, and they remained silent for the rest of the drive into the doctor’s office. By the time they arrived, the skies had really opened up, and before getting out of the truck, Clark reached behind them and brought three items to the front. “Here.”
“What’s this?”
“A rain poncho. There’s no reason why both of us should get soaking wet, and I’m not being controlling, but I will be pushing you into the office. You can hold the umbrella. I’ll duck beneath it.” He looked at her sternly and when it looked like she was going to question him, he only quirked a brow at her.
“Fine, but can you move the truck closer?” she asked, but reached for her purse and pulled out something to hand him.
“What’s this?”
“A handicap placard.”
“Oh.” Clark took it and looked around. Instead of parking in the back row, he moved forward and was able to park right next to the walkway. He donned his own rain poncho, and by the time they headed to the door of the office building they were laughing as Clark ran when he pushed her through the torrential downpour. Thankfully someone opened the door for them, so they didn’t have to stop. They shook off, and made their way to the room they had been told to come to. After checking in, they had to wait twenty minutes before being called back.
Naomi looked at Clark in shock, and gripped his hand tightly when they were led to the doctor’s office and not to an exam room.
“Shit,” Naomi whispered and shook her head. When Clark questioned her, she looked at him with tears in her eyes. “From personal experience, when a doctor wants to see you in their office, it’s always bad news.”
Clark looked at her in shock, moved his chair closer and wrapped his arm around her, letting her put her head on his chest to try to reassure her. They stayed like that for what felt like hours, but was only ten minutes before the door opened and a female doctor walked in.