Marked For Marriage

Maddie gulped, but she forced herself to sit up, shove her sheet aside and then cautiously slide off the bed to put her feet on the floor. There were hospital slippers down there somewhere, but she was afraid that if she bent over to look for them she might pass out. So she held the back of her gown shut with her left hand and took a barefoot stroll around the room, fighting nausea and dizziness every step of the way.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” Dr. Upton declared. “It will take about two hours to check you out. You’ll be taking prescriptions for antibiotics and painkillers with you. Get them filled right here in the hospital pharmacy or on your way home, whichever you prefer. I’d like to see you in my office in a week. Call for an appointment and tell the receptionist to fit you in. I’ll try to remember to tell her your name and to expect your call.”

“Thank you,” Maddie said with her very last ounce of strength. She was so glad that Dr. Upton left right away that she could have cheered. Instead, she stumbled to the bed and groaned under her breath while struggling to get herself back on it. Finally prone and covered with the sheet again, with her heart beating overly fast from the exertion, she shut her eyes and suffered in silence.

But the pain didn’t matter. She was going to be free to check on Fanny in a matter of hours. For that privilege she could stand anything.

Maddie had managed to relax some when a nurse came in and stated cheerfully, “So, you’re leaving us already.” The woman took Maddie’s wrist and checked her pulse.

“Yes, I’ll be leaving as soon as…” It hit her suddenly and hard enough to make her groan.

“You’re in pain again?” the nurse asked with a concerned expression.

“No, I just realized that I have nothing here…no money, no credit cards, not my insurance card. How can I check out without my insurance information?”

“Aren’t those things in your purse?”

“That’s exactly where they are, but my purse is in my trailer.” Maddie really did feel like bawling then. This brick wall she didn’t need!

“Maddie, your purse is in the closet with your clothes. Don’t you remember? A very nice young woman brought your purse…she said that you’d probably need it…and it was put with your other things.”

Maddie’s head swam in a concerted effort to figure out who the “nice young woman” was. For one thing, her purse was—or had been—in her locked trailer and she was the only one with a key. She took nothing with her to a contest, which was fairly common practice amongst rodeo contestants. Even loose change in a pocket could cause injury during a fall, so everyone pretty much did his or her thing with empty pockets.

Given the circumstances she could only conclude that what had been delivered by visitors she had absolutely no recollection of seeing was something other than her purse.

But she was curious about it, all the same. “Would you mind getting it for me?”

“Wouldn’t mind at all.” The nurse went to the closet and returned with…Maddie’s purse!

“How…who…for goodness sake,” she sputtered. “It is my purse, but how did someone go into my trailer to get it?”

“Wouldn’t know, honey. See you later.” The nurse departed.

Maddie opened her purse and saw, with relief, her wallet. She also saw a rosy pink piece of paper, which she knew for a fact hadn’t been in there the last time she’d looked. She took it out and unfolded it. It was a handwritten note and Maddie quickly read it.

Maddie,

I’m terribly sorry about your accident. Most of us in rodeo are not happy to win by default, which is what happened today. This is one trophy for which I feel no pride. At any rate, after they took you away in the ambulance I got to worrying about you being so alone in Austin. It also occurred to me that you didn’t have anything important with you, such as your wallet. So here it is.

I’m sure you’re wondering by now how I got into your trailer to get your purse. Don’t worry, I didn’t break in. It was only logical that you would have a door key hidden on or near the trailer, so I went hunting for it. Obviously I found it or you wouldn’t be reading this note but it took me a while.

I’m off to Abilene and then Laredo—you have the schedule—and since I feel certain that you’ll hit the circuit as soon as you’re able, we’ll be seeing each other again. I hope it will be very soon.

Janie Weston

Maddie almost couldn’t believe what she’d just read. It was so nice of Janie to go out of her way like this that Maddie was truly stunned. While she and Janie were friendly to each other, they’d never really been buddies. Frowning slightly, Maddie couldn’t elude the fact that she had very few close friends. In fact, she was hard-pressed to come up with even one. It was the lifestyle, the endless traveling, the moving on to one rodeo while a person who might have become a good friend went in another direction to the rodeo of her or his choice. For that same reason and the fact that followers of rodeo usually hung out in groups, it had been ages since Maddie had done more than drink a beer or have a dance with a man.

Sighing heavily, Maddie took out her wallet and flipped it open. The very first thing she saw was the snapshot of her brother. “Mark,” she whispered, and studied the handsome features of her older brother. With their parents gone, Mark was all she had. Oh, there were plenty of Kincaids living in the Whitehorn, Montana area, but none of them meant to her what Mark did.

Loneliness suddenly beset her. She needed to talk to Mark. Maybe she needed to hear him say something sympathetic, something kind and loving that would bring tears to her eyes and joy to her heart.

No, she didn’t want sympathy, not even from Mark. But she really would like to talk to him, and years ago he’d made her promise that if she was ever ill or injured she would let him know. He didn’t entirely approve of her unsettled lifestyle, and no doubt she’d get a brotherly lecture on the dangers inherent in her chosen career. But he’d be sweet, too, once she told him about the accident.

There was a telephone on the bedstand, and she tried not to jostle her sore and aching body while reaching for it. She needed a pain pill badly and knew that she should have taken the one offered by the nurse this morning, even though her own sheer bravado had convinced everyone that she was ready to go home. Truth was, if she knew for a fact that Fanny was being properly cared for, she would gladly stay in this bed for another night.

After dialing Mark’s home and getting no answer, Maddie looked up his work number in the little address book she carried in her purse. Mark was a detective for the Whitehorn police department, and Maddie doubted that he’d be sitting at a desk hoping the phone would ring. To her surprise—which was accompanied by a sudden attack of nerves—the man who answered her call asked for her name and then told her to hang on a minute. Raising his voice, he said, “Hey, Mark, your sister’s on line three.”

Almost at once Mark’s voice was in Maddie’s ear. “Hey, this is a nice surprise. Where’re you calling from?”

“Austin, Texas. How are you?”

“Couldn’t be better.”

“Marriage agrees with you then.” Mark could still measure his marriage to Darcy Montague in weeks, and Maddie was extremely happy that he’d fallen head over heels for a woman who seemed so perfect for him.

“More than I ever thought possible. So, what’s up with you?”

“Uh, I had a little accident,” Maddie stammered, suddenly very uncertain about the wisdom of this call. “In the arena.”

The tenor of Mark’s voice instantly changed, from that of a glad-you-called-just-to-say-hi brother to that of the protector he’d been to his baby sister all her life. Mark was thirty, seven years older than Maddie, and from the day of her birth he’d watched over her. That protective side of him was undoubtedly the reason he didn’t like her driving her truck all over the country, pulling her trailer and happily heading for the next rodeo.

“How little is ‘little’?” he asked suspiciously.

“Um…no major bone breaks…just a couple of tiny bones in my right hand.”

“And that’s all?”

“No,” she said weakly. “I’m pretty badly bruised. The doctor wants me to take it easy and to stay away from rodeo for a month, which is rather extreme, I believe, and—”

“And nothing! Maddie, you do exactly as that doctor says, do you hear me? In fact, if you have to take it easy for a whole month, I want you to come home and do your recuperating in Darcy’s and my guest room.”

“Well, of course,” Maddie drawled. “That’s exactly what newlyweds need, to share their little love nest with the groom’s sister. Mark—”

“Stop right there! You’re at least fifteen hundred miles away and alone. Damn it, Maddie, if it were the other way around and it was me laid up and alone, you’d be here so fast my head would spin. Hey, I just thought of something. Are you calling on your cell phone from your trailer? We’ve got a really clear connection, which doesn’t usually happen when you call on your cell.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. Mark was a natural born detective. She should have known he’d recognize the difference between her cellular calls and this one. She’d had no intention of telling him everything, but now she had no choice.

“I’m not using my cellular phone,” she said quietly. “I’m…calling from the hospital.”

“You’re in the hospital! Maddie, you said a ‘little’ accident. What really happened?”

After a heavy sigh, Maddie related the fall she and Fanny had taken. “I have no idea what caused it, but there it is. Apparently Fanny wasn’t injured, but the medics took me to the hospital. I can’t be too bad off because I’m being discharged sometime today. That’s the whole truth.”

“Except for what the doctor told you to do.”

“Mark, I can’t do nothing for a whole month!”

“You could if you were under my roof. Look, why don’t you put Fanny in a good stable, leave your truck and trailer in a safe place—I’m sure a city the size of Austin has rental spaces available for RVs and such—and fly home? I hate the thought of you limping around that little trailer you live in and trying to fix yourself something to eat. With one hand yet. And surely you’re not thinking of taking care of Fanny yourself. Maddie, it’s just not sensible for you to stay in Texas.”