Chapter 8
Poppy
After two more days, my ankle and I have reached an understanding.
The understanding is this: it will allow me to hobble around Gibb's cabin with the crutches without making embarrassing noises, and in exchange I will stop pretending it is fine when it isn't and allow myself to be carried down stairs by a man who apparently considers it a personal insult when I suggest he can't manage the weight.
I think this is a fair deal. Especially as it includes kissing Gibb, which I do often. I’m about to climb out of my skin because I want to do more than kissing. I feel like Pavlov’s dog, quivering when he whispers all the dirty, dirty things he wants to do to me in my ear.
But for now, he’s only talking about it and not doing it.
He’s worried about my ankle, muttering about a possible hairline fracture.
So instead of manhandling me the way my body is screaming for, he’s gentle and hesitant, tending to me with ice, heat and elevation.
I get ibuprofen every four to six hours because the swelling and purple ring around my ankle is bothering Gibb.
So much so that he curses when he unwraps the bandage on the third morning.
“That’s it,” he announces. “I’m not taking any chances. We’re going into town.”
"Into town," I repeat.
"Hollow Peak has a clinic. I want someone who actually went to medical school to look at that.
" He's already standing, moving toward the closet by the door.
He's been up since dawn. I know because I strained my ears to hear him moving around while I lay restlessly in bed hoping this morning is the morning he stops being a gentleman.
Instead, he made veggie omelets with fresh eggs and fancy cheese and Stevie has had her breakfast while I sat and watched from the bench Gibb tricked out with cushions so I’m not uncomfortable while I visit with my favorite little goat.
Prior to bringing me out, he’d already attended to the whole barn, and the man hasn't sat down once.
I'm starting to think Gibson Hart runs on something other than coffee and sleep.
"It's really much better," I say. "The swelling has gone down some."
"Not enough. Maybe I’m not doing the right thing by bandaging it." He looks back at me. "The roads are clear. I need to pick up some things anyway, and I want it seen to properly."
I think about arguing because I really just want to stay here in this cozy space and not think about the real world but Gibb is worried and I don’t want to cause him any stress.
"Okay," I say.
Stevie bleats from her corner of the kitchen, where she has stationed herself like a very small, extremely self-satisfied chaperone.
"Not you," Gibb tells her, without looking.
She bleats again. Louder.
"Still no." He rolls his eyes at me. “I can’t believe you talked me into letting her in the house.”
“She’s not hurting anything.”
“You say that now. Wait until she chews on the leg of my favorite chair.”
The drive down the mountain is nothing like the trail up was, which I am deeply grateful for. Gibb's Land Rover is big and solid and handles the switchbacks the way he seems to handle everything: steady, unhurried, aware of exactly where the edges are and how far he can go.
The valley opens and closes and opens again as we descend, the mountains enormous and impressive on every side, and I sit in the passenger seat and drink in the sunshine. Spring seems to be returning after the ice storm and I tip my face towards the warmth.
"Tell me about Hollow Peak," I say.
He glances over. "What do you want to know?"
"Anything. Everything. You said your family had been here a long time, how long is that?"
"Since before it was a town." He navigates a long curve, the vehicle bouncing over the ruts.
"My great-great-grandfather settled the land during the mining era.
Most of the family left over the years, moved to Denver or farther west. My grandparents stayed.
My grandfather was the local doctor for thirty years. "
"Did they live in Hollow Peak?"
"Same land. Different cabin. The original homestead burned down in the nineties. I had the current one built about five years ago." A pause. "Gramps helped me design it. He died not that long ago."
I feel his loss in my heart and I'm quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry."
"He was ninety-one and sharp as a tack until the end.
He knew I was coming back." Gibb's voice is level and careful, like the memory he carries is as fragile as a glass sculpture.
"After my parents died, my sister and I lived with him and my grandma, in Hollow Peak. He had a hunt camp on the homestead, and we’d go up there to get away every chance we could.
He used to say the mountains don't forget.
That the land waits for whoever belongs to it. "
I look out at the peaks, enormous and permanent. "I think he was right."
We come around a final curve and the town appears below us.
It looks like a Hallmark movie set and as we drive in, the main street buildings of brick and timber give that quintessential smalltown feel.
Smoke rises from somewhere to the east, curling white against the blue sky, and the late morning sunshine shines like warm amber on the old-fashioned storefronts.
"Oh," I say. "It's lovely."
"It is," he says. And then he turns to me with a smile. "It’s nice to see it through your eyes."
I don’t know where to look first as we cruise down Main Street. There is a stretch of nineteenth-century brick and timber fronts, a hardware store with hand-lettered signs, and a place on the corner called The Switchback Café. There’s a line-up at the café.
I want to explore every inch of it, but my ankle reminds me that being a tourist is not happening today.
Gibb turns off the main street and parks in front of a modern-style building with a small sign that reads Hollow Peak Family Clinic.
He comes around to my side before I can attempt the door, and I've learned enough in the past two days to simply accept the hand he holds out to help me navigate out of the vehicle.
He holds my crutches and helps me balance, stealing a quick kiss that leaves me dizzy with desire.
Inside, the clinic is cozy, clean and unexpectedly chic with beautiful photographs of the mountains on the walls and comfortable looking chairs. A woman behind the front desk looks up, noticing Gibb, and smiles warmly. "Gibson," she says. "Good to see you. This is your houseguest?”
“Poppy Johnson,” I say, sniffing the air. I expected it to smell antiseptic, like my doctor’s office back home, but the clinic smells fresh and crisp somehow.
“I called Lila earlier,” Gibb says.
“Room 3, Gibson. Dr. Brennan will be right with you.”
The doctor walks in five minutes later with the type of energy that makes me think she is always three things ahead.
She reminds me of my boss, Geoff. She's tall and precise, chic glasses, a stethoscope she doesn't look like she ever takes off, and eyes that do a complete clinical assessment of my ankle in about four seconds.
"Hiking in the ice storm resulting in a sprained ankle," she says, reading what the desk gave her. "Gibson Hart playing mountain medic again." She says it to my chart, not to him, but there's warmth in her voice.
"Road was closed in the storm and I didn’t want to risk not getting out." Gibb says from the chair by the window, where he's stationed himself with his arms folded and his full attention on me.
"Gibb wrapped this for you?" she asks, unwinding the bandage and probing the joint with careful efficiency. Her hands are quick and cool on my tender skin. “His grandfather taught him well.” She peers at me. “Any other injuries?”
“No, just the ankle.”
Dr. Brennan pulls down the eye examine thing, shining the light, first in one eye then the other, then taps my knees and runs her fingers up the inside of each of my arms. "Grade two sprain. Good job on the wrap, nothing shifted, but it wasn’t so tight as to restrict the blood flow with the swelling.
" She looks up at me over her glasses. "You're lucky. This wants another week of rest and elevation. No hiking, or anything too strenuous.”
She doesn’t look over at Gibb, but I’m sure the blush I feel crawl up my neck gives away the fact that I want to do all kinds of strenuous activity. "I wasn't planning to," I manage.
"Good." She rewraps it with a speed and neatness that makes Gibb's excellent job look like a rough draft. "You need to keep off it, keep it elevated when possible, and I’ll prescribe some anti-inflammatories which will help a little more than the ibuprofen.” She pauses, tilting her head.
“How long are you staying in Hollow Peak?”
“For as long as she wants,” Gibb says, and I dare not look over.
Dr. Brennan gives me an assessing look. I’m flustered and not sure if I should chime in or not.
I called Geoff and explained the injury, obviously leaving out the fact that I was very nearly an accomplice to breaking and entering.
He was incredibly understanding, even offering to send a car for me if I was stranded.
With a doctor’s note and Geoff’s insistence that I use the time to recover and relax as I wouldn’t take a vacation last year, I do have some free time.
But I don’t even know what this is with Gibb, if it’s anything at all. Maybe it’s another situationship. Maybe it’s nothing at all and when I leave, I’ll just have fond memories of being rescued by the most gorgeous man I’ve ever met.