Page 38 of His Christmas Star
Heaven waved Cece out the door and then pointed at me. “Caleb will reassign the hands to do the chores until that heals. You can do any work you need for the school, but leave the hard labor to the other guys for now. You have a hole in your toe, and that’s not going to improve if you keep pushing it. Is the wooden foot poking you somewhere?”
“No,” I said on a sigh. “The prosthesis shrinks the tissue over time and makes the bones more prominent. Now, it’s too big in one spot and pressing too much on another. They’re going to have to make new ones, and I need two sets, so it’s pricey. I like to go as long as I can before I have to get the next set made.”
“How much is pricey?” Amity asked as she came back over to the table.
“These were eighteen hundred a set.”
“That’s not surprising considering they’re custom made,” Heaven said. “Does the insurance cover them?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, giving her the palms up. “I’ve had these since I started working here. I probably pushed it a little too far this time.”
“A little too far?” Amity asked with a chuckle. “You might say an open gaping wound is too far.”
“I’ll get it taken care of tomorrow if they can see me,” I promised.
“You’re going to let the toe heal before you think about working again. We can keep you busy with the dance prep, so you don’t have to be on your feet all day. We’re going to get you to the clinic now to have that cleaned and packed while you call your people in Duluth and get an appointment,” Heaven insisted. And when Heaven insisted, you didn’t argue.
Dawn came back in carrying a smiling Sammy and settled at the table again.
“I’ll still need to wear the foot, Heaven. I can’t walk without it. I don’t have any balance.”
“That’s not going to work, Tobi. You can’t keep putting the toe back in the same situation.”
Dawn turned and pointed at the foot on the table. “Beau could come up with a better design for that in less than thirty minutes.”
I paused. “Do you think so?”
She kissed her daughter’s soft head and nodded. “He thrives on making people’s lives better. Especially his family. Could I send him to the cabin to talk to you about it? I know for sure the bison leather he has is softer than this,” she said, pointing at the leather gauntlet attached to the foot.
“As much as my internal child is screaming no, the adult in me says yes. I’ll talk to him. I need to do something, so I can at least limp around without falling over. I can’t use crutches,” I explained, clicking my fingers together. “It doesn’t work.”
“I didn’t even think about that,” Amity sighed. “Things have never been easy for you, have they, Tobi?”
“No.” I straightened my shoulders and finally met her eye. “But I’m happy here, and I don’t want you to think I’m not capable of doing the job. I can do the job.”
Heaven held up her hand to stop me. “We know you can do the job, Tobi. If you couldn’t, you wouldn’t still be here. You need to take a deep breath. Everyone around this table loves you and wants to take care of you, that’s all. No judgments and no worrying about your job.”
“Star!” a voice yelled from the front of the house.
“Speaking of people who love you,” Heaven muttered.
“What?” I said, but she just smiled serenely as Joe burst through the kitchen door.
“Star,” he whispered, sliding the last two feet into the kitchen on his knees. “Dawn texted that you were hurt.”
I gave Dawn a ‘really’ look, but she was busy fussing with Sammy’s hair quite suspiciously.
“I was almost home, and I turned right around. What happened?” He finally noticed the towel wrapped around my foot, and he tossed his hat down on the floor, so much for pristine, and lifted the towel off my toe. He covered it up immediately. “Babe, you said it was getting better every time I asked. That is three times as bad as it was the other night.” He pulled me over onto his shoulder and rubbed my back. “I’m taking you to the clinic. That needs a doctor.”
“And probably antibiotics and God knows what else,” Amity said from the table.
She was always so helpful.
“I’ll call the clinic,” Heaven said, standing and leaving the room.
“Where’s your coat, sweetheart. We’re going now.”
Amity grabbed my coat from the hook by the door and Joe helped me on with it. Heaven came back into the room with a grim look on her face.
