Page 5 of Sweet Home

Even her name sounds like a princess’s name,he thought to himself without meaning to. He’d clearly been reading Elizabeth too many bedtime stories.

“Dulcie, I know you were in an accident,” he said. “Is any part of you hurting?”

She shook her head.

“You’re not feeling any pain?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“What about discomfort?” he asked her. “Is any part of you uncomfortable right now?”

It was key to ask at least three times about pain and to rephrase if need be. He’d learned that the hard way from working with the older generation of farmers, men who were brought up to believe they should never complain.

She shook her head again.

“All right then,” West said. “I’d like to look at your eyes. Would that be okay?”

“Yes,” she said.

He pulled the instrument out of his bag and engaged her in the steady round of medical background questions that he always asked patients as he examined them. Her answers were reassuring, though with the resistance she clearly had to doctors and hospitals, she could possibly have an undiagnosed condition and not know about it.

She agreed to let him take her blood pressure and listen to her heart, probably just to avoid being taken to the hospital. But he was glad, whatever the reason, to be reassured that she was moreor less okay.

As he finished with her vitals, Rob came back in with a can of apple juice and handed it to West.

“I’d like you to sip on this,” West told Dulcie, holding it out. “Did you by any chance skip lunch today?”

He’d phrased that carefully. It was well after dinnertime, so if she’d missed lunch, she had missed dinner too. Basically, he was hoping to get her to admit that she hadn’t eaten at all today, without shaming her, or making her lie to him to save her pride.

She nodded, taking the can eagerly and popping the top. He watched as she drank it down, draining half the can before remembering to stop and pretend to sip.

He tried to hide his smile, but he was relieved. Getting some nutrition into her was a much easier problem to tackle than a concussion. For now, the sugar in the juice would help her feel better until he could get a solid meal in front of her.

“We’ll need to keep an eye on you for a little while,” West told her as she drank. “But I think you’re going to be okay. We’ll call over to the inn to see about getting you a room and a hot meal. And of course, Rob can help out with the car. I’d like to see you again in my office in the morning.”

“I-I don’t have money for a hotel room, or a car bill, or a doctor bill,” she said, her voice pitching up like she was trying to hold back sobs. “I can’t afford any of this. Can I just sleep here and get out of the way in the morning?”

She had directed her plea to Old Joe, who looked like he was ready to start crying himself.

“Why were you here tonight, Dulcie?” West asked her gently. “Do you have family nearby?”

“I was up here looking for work for the winter,” she said, her eyes cast down.

The room went silent for a moment.

West knew the others were thinking the same thing that he was. It was already December, which meant that the seasonal positions in shops and markets for the holidays were long filled. And the places around here that hired year-round wanted strong manual laborers who could work all day in the cold. One look at this frail girl, and they would know she wouldn’t be able to keep up.

She’s clearly in some kind of trouble,he thought to himself.She just needs a little help.

“I’ll take care of everything for now,” he heard himself tell her. “You can work it off when you’re feeling better.”

“You have a job for me?” she asked, her blue eyes suddenly alight with wonder.

“I sure do,” he told her, wondering what on earth he could actually let her do. She couldn’t work in the doctor’s office, but his mom could probably invent some gentle tasks for her on the family farm.

It was out of the ordinary, but this was the right thing to do. Between his work and caring for Elizabeth, he never seemed to have time to volunteer these days. It would feel good to do a good deed for someone who needed it.

“Okay,” she said, looking like she had just won the lottery. “That sounds great.”

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