Page 33 of Long Past Dawn
I ran my finger under her eye. “Is that why your eye was red, too?”
Dawn nodded and glanced away. “That’s another kind of inflammation that can occur with this kind of arthritis. The arthritis I have now circles back around to the disease process I had as a child. I suffered for years with it, and now I have a lot of damage to my joints because my parents didn’t get me the proper treatment.”
I sat in silence and gazed at her, working to keep my anger at her parents in check. “Why didn’t they get you treatment? Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t have a problem with doctors, right?”
She shook her head and gazed down at her hands. “No, they don’t. As long as you don’t take a blood transfusion, you can have any medical procedure you need. They tend to stick with doctors of their own kind, though. The doctor they kept taking me to preferred to treat me with herbal supplements over actual medication to treat my inflammatory disease.”
I bit back the cuss word that wanted to fall from my lips. “I’m sorry, darlin’. That wasn’t fair to you. I can’t imagine the pain you must have been in.”
Dawn shrugged, but I noticed the tears in her eyes. I decided not to acknowledge them and embarrass her any further. “It was hard,” she agreed. “We owned a ranch, so the work was physically demanding. Some days I couldn’t even move, and that made my parents even angrier. They insisted the supplements I was getting were enough to get rid of the pain, so they insisted I do my chores like everyone else. Since we were homeschooled, which consisted of reading a book when we weren’t doing chores, I couldn’t get help from outside sources. When I turned seventeen, I’d finally had enough.”
“And that’s when you left?” I asked, remembering what she told me about her family.
“I did. I ran, Beau. Only not actually because I was in too much pain. I took a bus to Minnesota and found a job as a guest manager for a large hotel. With that job, I had some basic benefits and was able to get treatment for my arthritis after living in pain for almost ten years. Once it was treated, the symptoms slowly subsided, which is typical with juvenile arthritis. After I was feeling better, I moved on from that job and found the ad for Heavenly Lane. When I stepped onto the soil here, it was just like I was home. That’s the only way I can describe it, Beau,” she whispered, lifting her head to the sky. “I was so happy when Heaven and Duane hired me the same day as my interview. I had missed working with the animals, but more than that, I’d missed being part of a family and not feeling so alone all the time. The arthritis had been gone for about seven years, and I never expected it to come back.”
“But then it did,” I said softly, rubbing her thigh.
“Then it did,” she agreed with a nod. “When the pain returned last fall, I just thought it was because I was doing too much work from picking up Heaven’s slack. Then it got worse instead of better, which scared me even more. The doctors are still testing and waiting to see how things develop, but the working diagnosis is psoriatic arthritis.”
“Do you have psoriasis? I’ve never noticed any problems with your skin. It’s always soft and glowing.”
She wouldn’t make eye contact with me, and I allowed it for now. Telling me about her past with her parents and her current health problems wasn’t easy for her. That much was obvious. I wouldn’t make it harder on her than it had to be. I cared about her too much. All I wanted to do was hold her, comfort her, and protect her.
“I don’t have skin problems, and most people don’t know you can get psoriatic arthritis without having psoriasis. My family history and my childhood history of arthritis make me more likely to have it. Either way, the doctors started me on a new anti-rheumatic medication to help relieve some of the symptoms. That’s why I had to go to the pharmacy that day when you saw me in town.”
I hung my head with shame, the acid churning in my gut. “I’m so sorry, Dawn,” I whispered, rubbing the palm of her hand. “I was a real jackass doing what I did to you.”
“It’s already forgotten, Beau. I’m not upset about it. I was just explaining why I was there. Over this past winter, the pain became unbearable. I couldn’t take it anymore and finally had to see the doctor.”
“That’s why you lost weight?”
She rested her chin on her knees and stared at the fire. “To a degree, yeah. The pain sapped my strength to the point I never had an appetite. I was depressed from dealing with the pain, knowing that the arthritis was back, and all the changes at Heavenly Lane, too. Arthritis can cause weight loss, so that was thrown in there, as well.”
“It was a perfect storm, is what you’re saying,” I said, kissing her knuckles gently, so I didn’t hurt her.
“Complicated by my inability to face any of it. I wanted to pretend like none of it was happening. The first time I got sick, my own flesh and blood didn’t want anything to do with me. I was inconveniencing them, and all they wanted was for it to go away, so their life wasn’t so hard.”
I couldn’t stop the growling groan that escaped my lips. “I have no respect for those people. They may have created you, Dawn Lee, but you’re nothing like them.”
“I know,” she said, a smile on her face again, even if it was small. “That was the driving force behind who I became. Everything I did was the exact opposite of what they would do. I figured as long as I kept that idea in the forefront of my mind, I’d always be in the right. It has worked for me so far.”
“At least until this past fall when you decided to torture yourself again and not get treatment.” I lowered my brow at her, and she sighed heavily.
“I was afraid, Beau. Afraid of losing the family I’d created at Heavenly Lane. At the same time, I was lonely, which sounds absolutely daft, but this is us being honest, right?” she asked, finally lifting her gaze to mine.
I nodded, working hard to keep a smile on my face when I wanted to do nothing more than take her in my arms and comfort her. “Honesty is always hard. Once the truth is spoken, then you do feel a lot better. I promise you, darlin’.”
Dawn nodded, biting her lower lip. I wanted to moan at how sexy she was, but I bit it back so I didn’t distract her from the honesty we were sharing.
“I’ve always cherished our friendship, Beau. It’s been the last few years that I’ve wanted more. I told myself that was crazy because I’m not the kind of girl Beau Hanson looks twice at, at least as anything more than a friend. I wasn’t delusional. I noticed the type of women you dated. They were the exact opposite of who I am.”
I shook my head in confusion. “Dawn, I haven’t dated since this beautiful, brown-eyed beauty started workin’ at the neighboring ranch.”
Her head snapped up, and her eyes flamed with anger from across the blanket. “I’m not obtuse, Beau!” she exclaimed, shoving me in the shoulder. It only made her angrier that it didn’t even budge me.
“I don’t know what you think you’ve seen, but it hasn’t been me dating anyone,” I whispered, rubbing her arm up and down to calm her.
“What about all those women you keep dancing with at The Wise Anchor.”
