Fay stepped inside and let the door close. Her eyes went to Mac, on the chance that it might be some hideous joke but he had forgotten her, now that he'd gotten her there. He washed his hands and cast glance at the unconscious man every fifteen seconds.
"How did this happen?" Fay asked. Her face felt stiff, frozen with the effort needed to speak.
A tall, rail-thin man in ragged jeans flanked by a shorter edition who had to be his son, backed out of the room and watched her warily. Her voice worried them in a way the unconscious man and a room full of needles didn't.
"Cutting wood. A tree fell wrong and pinned his leg against a log." Mac nodded to the man outside. "Least that's what I think they said. Burning wood," Mac said in disgust. "Silly goddamn way to save money." He shoved a stethoscope into her hands. "You know how to take blood pressure. I showed you when you came here."
Cutting wood. The words ate into a part of her she'd thought atrophied. It didn't sound like he'd gotten his furnace.
Mac started to slice away the man's pant leg and looked up to see her just standing there. "Fay! Dammit, wake up!"
She shivered and went through the routine. Mac's hurry showed.
Griffin's thick wool shirt sleeve had gotten in his way. Mac had already cut that off. The empty sleeve lay on the floor next to her feet and the blood pressure cuff was wrapped snugly around his hard muscled upper arm.
"Pressure's not great." She gave Mac the numbers. With a moth's touch, she took Griffin's pulse and then studied the bearded face washed bare of its anger and hostility.
Mac didn't understand. It was indecent for her to be there. To see him silent and unknowing. Defenseless.
He bared Griffin's left leg, knee to toes. "It would be nice if we could get our act together here. Shit, what a mess."
Fay's stomach knotted and turned queasily but as Mac's only help, she did not have the luxury of yielding to nausea. "How did he get here?" She tried not to see his leg.
"They were scared. We were nearest. You," he caught the eye of the ugly man watching through the half open door, "get on the phone and see where that ambulance is. He shouldn't be here," Mac said to himself, "Lord only knows how he's been hauled around. Or even how they got him out of the woods." All he could do was immobilize the leg. Not treat it. His frustration showed.
"Where the HELL is that ambulance! He's young for a gimp leg, but he can't just lay around like yesterday's tuna!"
"Mac!" Conscious or not, the bearded man, part of him, still heard. "Remind me to talk to you about your bedside manner."
The doctor's shrewd blue eyes shot to her face and then dropped to the bloodied leg. "Takes time," he said mildly.
He was wrong about the other words too. Griffin wasn't too young for a gimp leg. Griffin Keller was already lame.
"Come here," Mac said abruptly. Fay followed him and he pressed her fingers into the artery in the man's rapidly purpling foot. "Got it?"
Fay nodded. The weak but steady pulse echoed through her hand and arm.
"Watch this daydreaming now," he warned. "Pay attention. Tell me if it even burps." He assembled what he needed to begin an intravenous drip.
The unconscious man's pulse controlled her. She remembered every word and gesture and leaf's shadow of that other day. Her mind handled every stinging nettle in the hedge.
Like the unwelcome information she had received that day she'd made her ineffective call to the lawyer. She had learned through the lawyer that Griffin Keller owned the house and land adjoining the Judge's house. That they had no idea why he continued to caretake the place, since after the first two years, he had not appeared to live on that income. The checks had been cashed months after he'd gotten them.
And yes, they could look into a furnace.
"He doesn't need to know about me," she had told them. "Just put something decent in before cold weather. Don't go dragging this out. And call him," she had remembered to add, carrying the phone with her to reach over the refrigerator door to pour herself a glass of milk. "I said you'd call him."
The pulse in his foot flickered for a second. "Mac?" She counted precisely, one full minute, then another. The pulse held steady. "I guess not."
She had told the lawyer to take over and had returned to her solitude.
And it was November and Griffin Keller tended a two hundred year old wood furnace.
"Ambulance is here," Mac said unnecessarily, laying the bag of saline solution on the man's flat stomach. The whoop of the siren faded and died as the ambulance backed to the side doors.
Closed, the brilliant hazel eyes Fay remembered were deep-set caverns. The wiry beard followed the hollow under his cheekbones, stamping his features with self-discipline and self-denial.
It was their fault. It was her fault. For not checking back. She had just not cared. And somewhere an estate trustee held bids on furnaces that could heat the White House.
"You know him," Mac said suddenly. "How?"
"I'm going with him. Can you get someone to bring my car to the hospital?"
"What in hell for? Why should you go along?"
"I just feel that I should."
"You DO know him then."
"I just feel that I should."
The shock of Griffin Keller's injuries began to wear off in the ambulance. Fay sat facing the attendant and saw tension begin to ripple through Keller's long, muscular body.
Fear raced through her. Guilt and knowing what to do were two different animals. It had been so long since she had worked with Steve, when he had taught her all those other techniques she had carefully made sure not to need. She had not thought beyond accompanying the man. She didn't even know him or how to get through to him. All she knew was his anger.
Within the wiry beard, his lips twitched. Whatever she did or did not know, she could not endure seeing another's pain. Fay leaned forward and pitched her voice above the engine noise. "You don't impress me either, Keller." She reached for words he'd thrown at her.
"You can't do anything, so relax. Give us all a break."
His lips moved faintly before he stilled. "If he'll listen to you, you'd better trade places," the attendant said. "He can't have any medication yet. He's not going to get happier."
She traded seats.
Four minutes passed before he started to approach consciousness again. Muscles corded in his shoulders and arms, wrists and hands.
"Come on, Keller. Just a few more minutes," she coaxed. He twisted his head restlessly. Glancing down, she saw the mess of his leg and the attendant monitoring the pulse in his foot. If those muscles tightened-
She closed her eyes briefly, opened them and bent nearer. Her hands curved to the shape of his face and ripples of anger seemed to spread from him to her.
"Keller! Open your eyes Keller. Open them."
As soon as the heavy lids twitched, she held one finger in front of his nose. "Don't be a coward, Keller, open your eyes." He dragged them open, halfway, fully. "Look at my finger. Watch it, dammit!"
She moved her finger up between his eyes, making him roll his eyes back in their sockets. "Take a breath," she said, suddenly slowing her voice.
"Watch my finger, watch it now." She touched his forehead between his eyes, just above brow level. His eyes flickered and closed.
She sagged back into her seat. The heavy muscle of his arm lay flaccid under her hand. Steve worked under those conditions. Not her. These were Steve's tricks. She hadn't tried them before. She couldn't even remember half of what he'd taught her. The ambulance attendant tried to hide his fascination. She saw him look at his watch and guess at how long the calm would last.
It was six minutes before the whole process was repeated and three minutes later Keller was wheeled into the hospital emergency room.
Fay stood in the middle of the waiting room and looked around her blankly.
A young blond woman with a thick braid twisted into a loop at the base of her neck came into the waiting area. She wore a physician's name tag on her smock and out of the mother and child, old man and Fay, selected Fay.
"He says, the ambulance man, you can put him under hypnosis that lasts five - six minutes. Please come in and continue."
"I don't have experience in trauma situations," Fay said. She'd been lucky to get away with it that long.
"Whatever you have, its more than ours." Her strong Scandinavian accent was as lovely as her hair. She stood back for Fay to precede her through the doors into the treatment rooms.
It wasn't lasting as long. She could see the tension building before she was even in the room and blind to everything around her, she took a deep breath and leaned over the man.
Anger. She frowned down at the man even as her hands went to his face, searching for the bone beneath the beard, shaping to the contours from cheek to brow. Her hands tightened on either side of his face to get his attention. How could she keep sensing anger so strongly?
"Keller, don't be a fool." Fay felt the blond woman's surprised eyes on her for a moment. "Keep your eyes closed. I don't care. Just listen." She held his head and would not let him twist away.
"Listen. Breathe in - take a deep breath and hold it." She counted to four with her entire attention, counted it with her own breathing. "Let it go - wait - another deep breath - hold it - let it go and wait -" She slowed her voice. The furrows of whatever raced through his mind faded, his frown smoothed slowly. "When I touch your forehead right there," her slender forefinger marked the spot, "you will let go and relax and think of-"
What would he think of?
"-think of wind in the pine grove, swaying the branches back and forth, back and forth. You'll think of the wind in the pines. That's all you're going to think of. You're very comfortable. Just swaying back and forth like the pines. Just floating-"
She stood behind the gurney in the hall while the Swedish doctor waited for the x-rays to come out. Her fingers rested lightly on his temples, while she held the swaying of the trees in mind.
And something reversed.
Anger at his own stupidity boiled up through her fingers into her head mixed with pride and fear of helplessness and weariness.
She yanked her hands away to stare down at him in shock.
"He's got to be due for medicating," Fay said, without looking away from his ashen, bearded face. "I haven't done this before. I can't keep him under indefinitely."
"I know, I know. Not to worry." The blond doctor snapped the x-rays onto the glass light panels and another man appeared. They spoke too softly for Fay to overhear.
It had to be her imagination, or exhaustion from imposing her will upon him for so long. Carefully, as though he were a live coal, she slid her fingers back against his skin. In her mind she pictured the path around the corner of the big house, off toward the pines - his keys - another house-
Distinct as a sigh, weariness and a sense of emptiness slid into her fingers.
It was from him. Noone else. The sense, the image was just there, inside her mind...
The doctor turned in time to see the slender, sooty-haired woman sway on her feet, steadying herself on the gurney. "Medicate now - people for operating room two," she called down the hall to the nurses' station. "Is it you who are going to faint now?"
Fay found the woman close beside her. She shook her head, tried to clear it. "Should he have gone somewhere else? To the city? A larger hospital? Is this the best choice?"
"Not best, but good. Chances are not that good of getting someone better in the city, but very good he would have other troubles because of the time - When did he break that leg before? How long ago?"
Fay shook her head.
"Is there a wife? Relative?"
"No." She did not question her certainty.
Someone showed her to a smaller waiting area and in a low chair, she curled her feet up under her and fell asleep.
She didn't know what woke her. She twisted the arm under her head to see her watch - quarter to six.
Easing her shoulders, she stayed curled in the chair. Instead of the beige wall, she saw the few people who had used that huge house.
It came back slowly. She and Jed had led their own lives, entwining little with her family. But she remembered Jared.
Blond, arrogant Jared. With his high-style girlfriends. And boyfriends. Jared, who hadn't worked in thirty-two years. Who had house parties by accident and later, while he was grateful for the use of the place (wasted on unappreciative people, he implied) also mentioned that the plumbing had been slow. Or the bedroom he'd chosen had a broken light fixture. But nothing to worry about. He'd spoken to the man about it.
Spoken to the man.
It made Keller sound like some gamekeeper in an old novel. And brought her back to what she avoided. Fay hunted for anything except what had reversed between the unconscious man and herself. She refused to consider the slip in thought. Not seeing things was a talent developed after Jed. What couldn't be handled was pushed away till - whenever.
She would see only that Keller had reason for disgust with her family if he judged them by her uncle and Jared. He couldn't have spoken to her father more than a few times. Not enough to make up for the visitors.
A telephone sat on the table beside her. She watched it idly for another twenty minutes before remembering why she had accompanied Keller.
"Information please. Lenihan, Lenihan and O'Malley, Back Bay, Boston." She wrote the number on a paper scrap from her jacket pocket and began to dial.
"Fay Saunders from Rhode Island, to speak to Lenihan, Senior." She tapped her toe against the table leg. "I'm calling about the Reardon house in Quonochontaug." She listened and a frown deepened between the arched, charcoal brows. "I know the will is in probate. But I told you in September to replace the furnace. Even during probate, repairs are made. Did you do the work?"
The design around their phone number grew bold and angular. When the paper finally ripped, she set the pen down deliberately. "I don't believe that being thirty-one makes me THAT inexperienced... Thank you, you probably look younger than you are too. Nobody is contesting the will this time. And I DO own the house. I very clearly instructed you to see that the furnace - a furnace - was functional before cold weather... There was no issue over payment. If you had a question, you should have gotten back to me six and one-half weeks ago. Did you even contact Keller as I asked?"
Her violet eyes rapidly darkened to a stormy purple. "Fantastic. Is the liability insurance paid up? Because Griffin Keller is currently in surgery after a wood cutting accident because proper repairs weren't made to the house... No! I don't want you to prepare for a lawsuit! I hope his damn tree fell in the front yard! You didn't follow my instructions or get back to me with these excuses. If you patronize me again, or question my judgment, I'LL sue YOU for incompetence and see how much of a trustee's fee you collect then!
"I'm at the hospital now. I'll get back to you at home, tonight, and I want a date when workmen arrive. From you. No messages. I'll pay them in cash when the heat goes on... No, there WON'T be any more misunderstandings!"
She slammed the phone down and swallowed hard. One more minute and she'd have disgraced herself and vomited on her own feet.
"You can at least stick up for yourself over the phone," Jed had insisted. "I know face to face is impossible for you - and I adore your gentle spirit - but Fay, I've had two heart attacks and I won't relax until I hear you take control. At least over the phone." He was naturally pale. After the last hospital stay, his fine black hair made his skin translucent. His ice-green eyes burned feverishly.
"Fighting with someone makes me nauseous. Nothing is worth having to fight like that," she insisted stubbornly.
"I pay a small fortune in insurance each month so you will never have to fight for money," Jed said coldly. It was a tone she'd heard from him only once before and never to her. "I think its worth your having to learn not to be hassled. How to give directions and have them carried out. And how to defend your choices." He eased off at the pain in her eyes.
"You look like some kind of sorceress. Fragile. Off in some dream world. You, more than another, have to be able to command attention. For me - next week you have off, come in and work with Allen Teft in Receiving. Help him trace missing shipments and let him tell me you check one case all the way through, find it and get it replaced. Just one shipment. Then I won't bring the subject up again."
Fay saw her scribblings around the paper scrap and shoved it into her pocket. Jed had been right to insist. More right than either of them had known.
Nearly six o'clock. She hadn't even demanded an exact prognosis from the doctor. She hadn't asked what he would wake up to but had trusted her intuition towards the woman and bet his use of that leg.
She was the one he'd hold responsible. Responsible for everything, once he discovered there was only her.
Half an hour later, the doctor appeared, moving with steady, driven stubbornness, ominous stains on the green cotton shirt and trousers.
Fay jumped to her feet and then swayed unsteadily.
"Is not that bad." She pressed Fay back into the chair and dropped onto the facing couch. "Is not as good as we might want, but not to faint over. From here," she slashed across her shin, "to the knee, is broken in two places. We clean up, set. Looks worse than it is."
Fay asked herself why she hadn't called Mac and gotten his advice.
"But this man - Griffin?"
Fay nodded.
"His ankle also was crushed. We took out chips, fix what we can. I think he will have pain from it," the doctor said. "I think in time will be better to have it fused - made not to bend at all."
"He already has a loss in that leg," Fay said. "Surely there are other choices."
"That will depend on how it heals. The strength left in the bone. And more could not be done for - one month, at least. For now, he has a cast to here," she marked two inches over her knee. "Very new, light cast, but not to bear weight for two weeks at least."
"How long will he be here?"
"Tonight. Maybe tomorrow night. He's healthy man. Can adapt. He wake up before an hour. You can see him then. Where did you learn the hypnosis?"
"Boston. I worked with a professional hypnotist. And studied with two others. They use it for anesthesia. I work mainly with stress and chronic pain." She spoke off the surface of her mind. "Not in trauma situations."
Why did she bother to keep saying that? It only SOUNDED definite. 'Not in trauma situations...' She'd told Mac that, more than once. Told the ambulance attendant. Told the doctor. Told everyone who'd listen and some who wouldn't. And then, after all that telling, had gone and done what she said she did not do.
"Is good skill. He could have done much more damage to the nerves. If you'd like to work during my shifts here, let me know. I make arrangements." She got to her feet wearily. "Room 305. You can wait there. He should be up soon."
Fay stayed where she was. She had waited before beside a bed that noone came back to.