pursed his lips. “Maybe we need to do it the other way around.”
“You willing to help me on this?” Rachel asked hopefully.
He was going to find some duct tape and seal his mouth closed. “I could talk to J.C.” J. C. Mueller was Rosewood’s only neurologist and a friend of Bret’s.
Impulsively Rachel hugged him. “That would be perfect!”
Yep, just perfect.
Samantha finished brushing her hair, then looked in the mirror. She’d never put much value on looks, but it was startling to see her near-skeletal reflection. Bret had always claimed she was beautiful. Sam peered closer. If that had been true, it certainly wasn’t anymore. The unflattering clothes didn’t help. Her wardrobe these days was sweats, the only thing she could struggle into on her own.
Bret would probably be by soon. She hadn’t wanted to accept his help these last few weeks, but the truth was she couldn’t have gotten by on her own much longer. Without asking, he’d installed grab bars in the bathroom and bought a shower chair so she could bathe. Rachel had taken over, adding vanilla shampoo and green-tea-scented bath gel, along with loads of thick, soft towels. Her cousin had also taken care of the laundry.
Between goodies from Ethel Carruthers and childhood favorites Rachel brought over, Samantha had more than enough food. But she still shared breakfast from the café with Bret. He told her it was the only way he could be sure she really ate at least one meal a day. She heard him knock on the front door that she’d left unlocked for him. As had become his habit, he walked directly to the dining room table. “Change of pace today. Breakfast sandwiches.”
She joined him.
He unfolded the paper from his own. “Less mess.”
“Good idea.” Her appetite was still nonexistent and she ate only a few bites. Bret finished his sandwich almost as quickly, surprising her. She glanced up. “You must be in a hurry.”
“You could say that.” He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.
She noticed that he hadn’t brought any coffee. He rarely went anywhere without a cup. He liked the brew so strong it was almost espresso. “I can’t believe you forgot your coffee.”
“Have my thermos in the Blazer, along with some cups.” His chair scraped over the wooden floor as he pushed it back. “We have to get on the road.”
Her face fell. “What?”
“You haven’t been out of the house enough. You need fresh air.”
Feeling panicked, Samantha shook her head. “I get plenty of air through the windows.”
Bret grasped the handles of her chair. “Nope.”
Before she could protest more, he pushed her out the door over the newly installed threshold adapter that had arrived the previous day. “Bret, wait! I don’t want to go around the neighborhood.”
“Good. We’re taking a drive.”
“A drive?”
“You know.” He opened the passenger door of his SUV. “That thing when you get in the car and go somewhere.”
Shaking her head, she reached for the wheels to reverse. But he was faster, lifting her up and into the vehicle. “Bret!”
Closing her door, he stowed her wheelchair in the back, then got inside.
“Where are we going?”
“Breathe, Sam.”
She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath in a death grip that nearly matched the one she had on the door handle.
“Have I ever done anything to hurt you?”
Never. “You used to be the master of practical jokes.”
He turned the key, starting the car. “And you weren’t?”
Sam felt like a bat pulled out of its cave, blinking in the sunlight, wanting desperately to be back in the safety of her parents’ home.
“It’s not far,” he continued.
Nothing was very far in the small Hill Country town. Established in the mid-eighteen-hundreds, Rosewood had never outgrown its practical roots. Resisting the urge to become a tourist destination, instead it was a community that thrived on small businesses and individuality.
When Samantha had arrived, she hadn’t paid attention to the cozy warmth of Main Street with its Victorian buildings and shops. Nor had she noticed the signs of summer in the large elm trees that lined the sidewalks. When she was a kid, super-stores had tried to establish a foothold, but the town hadn’t wanted to give up its rural lifestyle or run entrepreneurs out of business. Since the land outside town was owned by ranchers whose places had been in their families for generations, developers got nowhere with them either.
The town had invested in state-of-the-art hospital facilities, though. One that Bret was turning into. Dread assailed her. “What are you doing?”
Bret didn’t reply until he found a parking spot near the physicians’ building. “This is Rosewood, not Deadwood. We have doctors, indoor bathrooms, most everything.”
Samantha bristled at his tone. She might have left eight years ago, but she didn’t dislike her hometown. “Really?”
“And you have to keep up your medical care.”
Sam hated that her emotions were now so close to the surface that she felt like crying nearly all the time. “I told you I can’t afford it.”
Bret turned off the car, then faced her. “Sam, do you remember anybody in Rosewood going without care?”
It was the way they did things. When someone didn’t have enough money, people donated services and whatever else they could to make certain no one was denied help. But she’d been away from that kind of thinking for a lot of years. Straining desperately not to cry, she leaned back, scrunching into her door. “I’m not going to be a charity case.”
“That’s okay by me.” He retrieved the wheelchair, and rolled it to the passenger side. “You’d better lean in if you don’t want to land on the ground.”
Only the possibility of further humiliation made her move.
His hands were strong as he again lifted her. For a moment she wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and hang on. But she knew he wouldn’t want her to. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with her since their last and ultimate fight over the future.
Bret eased her into the chair, then took control of the handles. “The good part about going to therapy is once you get out of this chair, no one can push you around.”
Yeah. That was going to happen. She was silent as they entered the building, then traveled through the corridors.
“You remember J. C. Mueller?” Bret asked. “Three years ahead of us in school?”
J.C.
