Page 18 of Blazing Hot Nights
I kept at my work, chuckling at her burn. “Ouch. I’ll tell Beau you said that. He’ll be hurt.”
She didn’t react, so I let her stare into the fire while I worked my way down her shoulder to her elbow, massaging the muscles in her tiny arm. No. There were no muscles. It hadn’t grown since she was twelve when she had had her first accident. Her fingers were twisted and clamped tightly to her palm. She couldn’t open or move them anymore without using her other hand. Even with one arm paralyzed, the woman did more work than some men do. I once walked into the barn to see her hanging a bucket of feed off her elbow crease so she could feed the horses while making eye contact with them. I had to bite back the need to scold her because I didn’t have that right. I might want to protect her, but she had made it this far without me. I would do well to remember that too.
Her eyes closed when I started gently stretching each finger to warm the tight, shriveled digits. “If I had to guess, you don’t like the rodeo for one specific reason.” I cradled her lower arm in both of my hands until she opened her eyes. “You’re afraid to see someone fall off the way you did and get hurt.”
Her eyes closed again without words, so I said nothing and kept at my work. When I ran my finger over one spot on her thin, bony palm, she cried out. I lifted my hand immediately.
“I’m sorry. What did I do?”
Heaven pulled her arm into her side with her other hand and didn’t make eye contact. Things weren’t going the way I planned. I should have known when it came to a wild card like Heaven that they wouldn’t. My hands moved back up to her shoulder, where they would do the most good. They paused in their work when I noticed a tear run down her cheek. When a second one fell, my heart cracked open and fell broken to the ground. This woman had already been through so much, and she could never catch a break.
You’re not here to give her one, either, cowboy.
Yes, I am.
I argued with my inner self while I wiped away her tears. Heaven wouldn’t look at it that way, but the truth was, if she’d just let me have some of her land, she could keep the rest. She might not have a large cattle operation anymore, but she’d still have her home.
“Heaven, I’m sorry if I hurt you,” I said, rubbing her back the full length of it now to try and calm her. “I didn’t know that was a hot spot.”
“Neither did I,” she whispered. “I mean, I did, but I didn’t want to admit it. I just can’t catch a break.”
My hand paused in its rubbing but then went right back to it. “I was just thinking the same thing. What happened? Did you hurt it?”
“I suppose one of the contractures is getting worse. I might finally have to get a splint to wear at night.” She shrugged indifferently and wiped her right eye on her shoulder.
“The contracture is why your fingers aren’t straight?” She never talked about how bad her arm had gotten, so since she was, I wanted to take every opening she gave me to try and understand it better.
“Yes, a contracture is when the muscles or tendons shorten slowly so you can’t extend a joint all the way. I have them in my elbow as well. It happens when you have limited range of motion in your joints.”
“Understood,” I whispered, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “What would a splint do?” I asked, still massaging her shoulder. I wanted my hands on her, and it wasn’t to comfort her. It was to comfort myself. She had that kind of power over me even when she was the one in pain.
I hated it.
I hated that this little thing could bring out emotions in me that I hadn’t felt with the woman I married. Callie was dead, and I should’ve held her in the highest reverence. I did, in the respect that she had been a good, kind, beautiful woman who had given her life for my dreams. What I struggled with was the passing of time. The more time that passed, the easier it was to see that Callie and I wouldn’t have lasted. There was no flame. There was no passion.
We worked together, lived together, and slept together, but my heart and soul were never completely devoted to that relationship. In the beginning, I had myself convinced it was love. I think Callie did too. Then the joy and excitement of being a teenager in love fell away and was replaced with the responsibilities of adulthood. When the wide-open ranges of Texas disappeared and the hardships of our first Wisconsin winter set in, life got hard.
Callie was a good woman. She was the kind of woman who believed that when you made a commitment, you stood by it. She believed hard work and time would cure any problem you had. I agreed with her when it came to hard work but not when it came to matters of the heart. If the passion didn’t come naturally, hard work and time wouldn’t help. It was there or it wasn’t. Unfortunately, I figured that out way too late for Callie.
“A splint,” Heaven explained, breaking into my thoughts, “would cup my hand and hold my fingers separated and up off my palm. Sometimes the gentle stretching all night lessens the contractures to a degree.”
“Is that what that lump was?” I asked gently. “A contracture?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like all the other ones I have. I don’t know what it is, but I’ll watch it and see if it gets worse.”
“Where do you get one of the splints you mentioned? Tomorrow is Saturday, and I’d be happy to drive into town and get you one.”
Her chin hit her chest, and she shook her head slightly. “Thanks, Blaze, but we’d have to drive to Duluth or another big city. Even then, we might not find one. I’ll order one. It shouldn’t take long to get here.”
“I’m surprised you don’t have one already,” I said, working at an incredibly tight knot in her neck.
“I’m an adult, Blaze, and I’ve been dealing with this a whole hell of a lot longer than you’ve known me! You have no right to scold or judge me about something you don’t understand!”
Yikes, she was touchy to the Nth degree tonight. I had to tread carefully here or risk sinking my mission before it got off the ground.
“I’m not scolding you, Heaven. I wasn’t judging you either, and you’re right, I don’t understand everything that’s happened to your arm. I fully admit that.”
She hugged the arm and stared into the fire like a pouting child. She wasn’t going to make it easy on me and she didn’t have to. All I wanted to do was keep her talking while I tried to offer whatever relief I could.
