Diana Palmer Christmas Collection: The Rancher / Christmas Cowboy / A Man of Means / True Blue / Carrera's Bride / Will of Steel / Winter Roses

He did. The operator assured them that the ambulance was almost there. She began asking questions, which Cort did his best to answer.

“Where’s your great-aunt?” he asked Maddie softly.

“Store,” she choked out.

“It’s okay, I’ll call her,” he said when she looked upset.

Odalie had come out of her stupor and she was checking for injuries while Cort talked to the 911 operator. “I don’t see anything that looks dangerous, but I’m afraid to move her,” she said, ignoring the blood in her efforts to give aid. “There are some abrasions, pretty raw ones. Maddie, can you move your arms and legs?” she asked in a voice so tender that Maddie thought maybe she really was just dreaming all this.

She moved. “Yes,” she said. “But…it hurts…”

“Move your ankles.”

“Okay.”

Odalie looked at Cort with horror.

“I moved…them,” Maddie said, wincing. “Hurts!”

“Please, ask them to hurry,” Cort groaned into the phone.

“No need,” Odalie said, noting the red-and-white vehicle that was speeding toward them.

“No sirens?” Cort asked blankly.

“They don’t run the sirens or lights unless they have to,” the operator explained kindly. “It scares people to death and can cause wrecks. They’ll use them to get the victim to the hospital, though, you bet,” she reassured him.

“Thanks so much,” Cort said.

“I hope she does well.”

“Me, too,” he replied huskily and hung up.

Odalie took one of the EMTs aside. “She can’t move her feet,” she whispered.

He nodded. “We won’t let her know.”

They went to the patient.

Maddie wasn’t aware of anything after they loaded her into the ambulance on a backboard. They talked to someone on the radio and stuck a needle into her arm. She slept.

When she woke again, she was in a hospital bed with two people hovering. Cort and Odalie. Odalie’s dress was dirty and bloodstained.

“Your…beautiful dress,” Maddie whispered, wincing.

Odalie went to the bed. She felt very strange. Her whole life she’d lived as if there was nobody else around. She’d never been in the position of nursing anybody—her parents and brother had never even sprained a hand. She’d been petted, spoiled, praised, but never depended upon.

Now here was this woman, this enemy, whom her actions had placed almost at death’s door. And suddenly she was needed. Really needed.

Maddie’s great-aunt had been called. She was in the waiting room, but in no condition to be let near the patient. The hospital staff had to calm her down, she was so terrified.

They hadn’t told Maddie yet. When Sadie was calmer, they’d let her in to see the injured woman.

“Your great-aunt is here, too,” Odalie said gently. “You’re going to be fine.”

“Fine.” Maddie felt tears run down her cheeks. “So much…to be done at the ranch, and I’m stove up…!”

“I’ll handle it,” Cort said firmly. “No worries there.”

“Pumpkin,” she sobbed. “He was horrible. Just horrible. But I loved him.” She cried harder.

Odalie leaned down and kissed her unkempt hair. “We’ll find you another horrible rooster. Honest.”

Maddie sobbed. “You hate me.”

“No,” Odalie said softly. “No, I don’t. And I’m so sorry that I put you in here. I was driving.” She bit her lip. “I wasn’t watching the road,” she said stiffly. “God, I’m sorry!”

Maddie reached out a lacerated hand and touched Odalie’s. “I ran into the road after Pumpkin… I wasn’t looking. Not your fault. My fault.”

Odalie was crying, too. “Okay. Both our faults. Now we have to get you well.”

“Both of us,” Cort agreed, touching Maddie’s bruised cheek.

Maddie swallowed, hard. She wanted to say something else, but they’d given her drugs to make her comfortable, apparently. She opened her mouth to speak and went right to sleep.

Chapter Seven (#ulink_445e1b3d-67fa-516b-8ec7-760a399434e1)

“Is she going to be all right?” Great-Aunt Sadie asked when Odalie and Cort dropped into chairs in the waiting room while Maddie was sleeping.

“Yes, but it’s going to be a long recovery,” Cort said heavily.

“You can’t tell her,” Odalie said gently, “but there seems to be some paralysis in her legs. No, it’s all right,” she interrupted when Sadie looked as if she might start crying. “We’ve called one of the foremost orthopedic surgeons in the country at the Mayo Clinic. We’re flying him down here to see her. We’ll go from there, once he’s examined her.”

“But the expense,” Sadie exclaimed.

“No expense. None. This is my fault and I’m paying for it,” Odalie said firmly.

“It’s my car, I’m helping,” Cort added.

She started crying again. “It’s so nice of you, both of you.”

Odalie hugged her. “I’m so sorry,” she said sadly. “I didn’t mean to hit her. I wasn’t looking, and I should have been.”

Sadie hugged her back. “Accidents happen,” she sobbed. “It was that stupid rooster, wasn’t it?”

“It was.” Cort sighed. “He ran right into the road and Maddie ran after him. The road was clear and then, seconds later, she was in the middle of it.”

Odalie couldn’t confess that she’d gone that way deliberately to show Maddie she was with Cort. She was too ashamed. “She’ll be all right,” she promised.