Say You'll Stay And Marry Me

“It was quite a blow.” He pointed to the cluster of buildings that had come into view as the truck reached the top of a small rise. “Take a left at the stop sign. The hospital is right behind the high school.”

They were at the small clinic within minutes, a single-story cinder-block building painted sterile white. Sara parked directly in front of the double glass doors, ignoring the yellow-striped parking spaces on the other side of a low brick planter.

“Wait here. I’ll get somebody to help you.”

Sara jumped from the truck and disappeared inside. She was back almost immediately, followed by a nurse pushing a wheelchair.

“Afternoon, Susie. How are you?” he greeted her. Susie wore her usual no-nonsense white uniform covered by a shapeless, colorless sweater. She was as wide as she was tall, and her faded brown hair curled tight to her scalp like sheep’s wool. She’d been playing around with those home perms again, he saw.

“Mac Wallace, what have you done to yourself?” She yanked open the truck door and stood with her hands on her massive hips, her look disapproving.

“Have you been losing weight again?” he asked. “I swear, you’re going to disappear on me one of these days.”

“That didn’t work when you were a kid trying to get out of a shot, and it won’t work now. Come on, let’s haul your butt out of there.” She took off her wire-rimmed glasses and let them dangle from the gold chain around her neck, motioning with her hands. “Scoot forward. Try to take your weight on your good leg.”

He couldn’t believe the agony caused by the slightest movement. His denim shirt was soaked with sweat by the time he’d maneuvered himself into the wheelchair. He took a deep breath, steadying himself, before he looked at Sara. She stood in front of him, beside her blue truck, uncertain, looking as worried and as near tears as Michael had. He tried to smile reassuringly.

“Thank you,” he said.

She nodded. “You’re welcome.” The silence lengthened while Mac stared into dove gray eyes, suddenly hesitant to say goodbye.

“The doctor’s waiting for you,” Susie said, releasing the brake on the chair. “And he’s not too pleased about having his fishing interrupted, so we better get a move on.” She started to turn the chair to the door.

“Goodbye,” Sara called. She lifted a hand in a halfwave.

“Goodbye. Thanks again.” The chair faced the hospital entrance, and he could see Sara’s reflection in the glass doors. He watched her walk around the truck before the automatic opener on the hospital doors swung them wide, stretching her image until it broke and disappeared. He heard the truck door slam and the engine start as Susie pushed him over the threshold into the cool, antiseptic hallway. His teeth began to chatter. Delayed shock, he told himself, clamping his mouth shut. The empty feeling in his gut had nothing to do with loneliness.

Sara pulled into the hospital parking lot an hour later. Instead of heading down the highway, she’d had a hamburger from a drive-through ice cream stand and wandered around the four-block main street of Dutch Creek, self-proclaimed gateway to Yellowstone National Park. Miniature stuffed buffaloes and gaudily dyed geodes seemed to be the tourist merchandise of choice, along with the ever present T-shirts.

She’d followed the sidewalk past the last shop—a combination frozen-yogurt-southwestern-pottery store—to the park at the end of the street. She’d sat on a bench next to the empty playground under the shade of a cottonwood tree and worried about Mac. After a half hour of internal debate, she’d walked to her truck and returned to the hospital, unable to drive away without checking on him.

She felt guilty, she decided. That was why she was so reluctant to leave. It had nothing to do with the way his hand had lingered on her face that brief moment in the truck, his roughened fingertips gentle against her skin. She just needed to be sure he’d been released and was on his way to the ranch. Just a quick stop at the front desk was all it would take. She’d make it to Jackson Hole before dark.

But the admissions desk was shuttered when she entered the hospital, and there was no bell on the counter under the hand-lettered please-ring-for-service sign. A single hallway stretched before her, its waxed gray vinyl reflecting the overhead fluorescent lights, the walls a no-nonsense, industrial-strength green. She started down it, searching for the nurse’s station.

Mac’s voice was audible after only a few feet, coming from an open door at the end of the hall. She peeked around the edge of the frame. A narrow hospital bed, both foot and head raised, took up almost all of the tiny room, and Mac took up almost all of the bed. His one-size-fitsall beige gown came only as far as his knees, so the old-fashioned, white plaster cast, molded from mid-calf to toes, was the first thing to draw her eyes. The intravenous drip attached to the back of his hand was the next.

Mac was shouting into the perforated circle in a metal panel on the wall near his head. He held a cord in his free hand and was viciously poking the white button at its end with his thumb.

“Susie, this is the last time I’m saying this, I want to go home!”

Sara heard the nurse’s voice echo from the panel, impatience clear despite the scratchy intercom.

“You can’t go home, Mac. Now settle down before I come give you another shot of something. And stop pushing that buzzer.”

“The boys are home by themselves. I can’t just lay here. I’ve got to get home.”

“Listen, I’ll call the Swansons and have Libby go over—”

“They’re in Cheyenne.”

“At the Cattlemen’s Association—”

“Yeah, yeah,” he interrupted. “Now bring me my clothes and the only boot that damned doctor didn’t mutilate and—”

“Mac, the doctor said we need to keep an eye on you overnight. I can’t do a thing about—”

“I can stay with them.”

Mac’s head shot around at the sound of her voice.

“What was that, Mac?” Susie asked over the intercom.

“Just a minute, Susie. I’ll buzz you.”

“You touch that buzzer one more time and I’ll—”

Mac flicked the switch on the wall, cutting off the nurse’s threat.

“Hi.” He looked at Sara as if nothing would surprise him anymore. “I thought you’d gone.”

“I came back.” She didn’t elaborate.

“Oh.” He paused. “Did you know that damned doctor cut off my boot? Elephant. Genuine elephant. It’s not like you can go down to the local five-and-dime and get another elephant hide boot!”

“I’m sorry. They looked like nice boots.”

“Damn right! And now they’ve got me pumped so full of painkillers they say they want to keep me overnight so they can drip it into me drop by drop!”

“Mac, I’d be happy to go to the ranch and stay with the boys,” she said. Why not? That was the whole point of her new life—no schedule, no worries, no one to answer to. If she could help out someone who’d helped her, what did it matter if she took a day longer to get to Yellowstone? “Besides, I still owe you for that last batch of repairs. I could keep an eye on the boys tonight, come pick you up in the morning, and we can settle the bill then.”

“I can’t have you go to all that trouble.” Mac bounced his good leg against the mattress in frustration. “There’s got to be somebody who didn’t go to Cheyenne for the weekend.”

“You’d be doing me a favor, really,” she told him. “It’ll be difficult finding an RV spot this late in Jackson. I need a place to park.”

“It’s nice of you to offer, Sara, but...” Mac hesitated and she was surprised to see a look of embarrassment on his face. Of course! She realized the problem with a start. That time they’d shared in the truck had made her feel so close to him, she’d forgotten they were strangers. She couldn’t ask him to leave his children in the care of someone who’d wandered into his gas station mere hours before.

“But I could be a mass murderer or something?”

“I don’t mean that, but—”

“Hey, you can’t be too careful these days. You’re absolutely right. I’d feel the same way in your place.” Sara thought for a moment. “I tell you what, why don’t I give Cyrus a call over at the university? He’ll vouch for my sanity.”

“Any friend of Cyrus’s is a friend of mine?” Mac thought it over for a moment. “Sure, sounds like a good idea. Of course, it could be the morphine talking, but right now all I want is to go to sleep and I can’t think of any other alternatives.”

Mac did look tired, sick-tired, with dark smudges under his eyes. Sara picked up the phone next to his bed and dialed the number of her late husband’s oldest and dearest friend.

“Cyrus?” She was pleased to hear his voice after only the first ring. “You’ll never guess who I ran into in Dutch Creek.”