The Tender Vine (Diamond of the Rockies #3)(122)

She fumed, thinking of the personal and beautiful poems he had shared with her. That Roderick Pierce would not only see them but turn Quillan’s words to his own advantage . . . She waited fretfully while the youth loaded Quillan’s things into her buggy, then gave him a coin and accepted his assistance up to the seat. She slapped the reins. Quillan would not be happy.





Quillan could do nothing but stew. Day after day he pondered the affront. Roderick Pierce had skipped town with his journal and probably felt justified after the scene Carina described of their last encounter. Quillan pictured it easily. As slippery as Pierce was, he had not avoided Carina’s kick, though she wouldn’t tell him what precipitated it. But that didn’t make the theft of his journal anything less than that. The man was a snake.

Dr. DiGratia broke into Quillan’s thoughts as he came into the room. His visits were less frequent now that they had moved Quillan to a small porch off the east side of the house. He had a fainting couch that enabled him to sit more easily, though it was less comfortable for sleeping, a side table, and a shelf for the books Carina had brought from the hotel and any of those in her father’s collection Quillan might care to read. In his extreme boredom, he did exactly that.

The doctor carried a small saw. “Are you ready to have that off?” He indicated the cast on Quillan’s right arm. His dry humor did nothing to improve Quillan’s mood.

Quillan held up the arm, which had been out of the sling for several days. The doctor worked silently, sawing through the plaster, then pulling it off the arm. Quillan eyed the lumpy scar where the bone had pushed through muscle and skin. Then he straightened his elbow and felt the expected weakness. It was worse than the left arm had been, though limited use had begun to restore the first to something better than a noodle. As Dr. DiGratia examined this pale, wasted forearm, Quillan considered what it had been.

“A straight mend, it appears.” Dr. DiGratia picked up the scraps of cloth and plaster.

“And my leg? Are you taking that plaster off?”

The doctor glanced down at the leg lying as it had been week after week, a plaster log from hip to calf. “Not yet, I think.”

“Why not?”

The doctor took a breath, then released it. “The femur was broken twice, one section more nearly crushed. It needs time yet.”

Quillan swallowed. “Time for what?”

“For what healing there will be.”

Quillan squelched the panic of those words. He was maimed? Useless? Like Cain? Cain hadn’t been useless, a voice inside argued, but Quillan ignored it. How would he support his wife, children when they came? Would Carina even want a cripple for a husband? Surrender your independence. And what? Depend on her? He opened and closed his right hand, clenching the fist harder and harder.

Dr. DiGratia paused, the split cast and fragments balanced in his hands. “We will see when the time comes. There’s no use imagining the worst.”

“I doubt you’ve told me the worst.”

The doctor’s chin cocked slightly. “The worst is the leg will not bear your weight, and you’ll use a crutch.”

Again Quillan pictured Cain hobbling over the rough ground. Oh, God! He forced his voice to steady. “When will I know?”

“Once I determine the bone is fused, we will begin to strengthen the leg.”

“How can you tell anything through this?” Scowling, Quillan knocked on the plaster near his hip.

“I can’t. Maybe it’s ready now. But I will err on the side of caution.” He fixed Quillan with his blue stare. “Too soon a try might damage the bone beyond repair.”

Quillan closed his eyes. He was peevish and unfair in his impatience. Dr. DiGratia had expended much time and effort with his care. “I’m sorry.”

A faint smile pulled the doctor’s lips. “You must understand my position. One wrong move with you now, and I’ll have Carina’s ire forever.”

Quillan stared at him. That was the first acknowledgment of permanent status he’d had from the man. Why now, when he could offer so little?

He’d lost his fortune and even his strength. Now he truly had nothing to offer but himself, and even that was questionable. The tightness in his throat became an ache. Had he misunderstood something somewhere? But though the doctor left him brooding, he could not see it.

Carina passed her papa coming from Quillan’s room, the saw and cast pieces in his hand. “His arm is healed?”

“The break is knitted.”

“But his arm . . . it will . . .”

Papa paused his stride. “Your husband is strong and determined.”

Her husband. To hear it again from Papa’s lips assured her of Quillan’s place in her family. No one talked anymore of annulling; no one tried to keep her from the man she loved. If only it had come without Quillan’s pain. But even in that she was sure God had a purpose.

Vittorio came and took the pieces of the cast from Papa. “Shall I show him how to strengthen the arm?”

Papa nodded. “Slowly today. Strength only. We will train the reflexes later.”

Train the reflexes. She thought of Quillan’s speed with a gun when he shot the head from the rattlesnake. Train his reflexes?

But Carina felt a surge of pride. Quillan could be in no better hands than her papa’s. What if he had landed in the care of a doctor like Miss Preston’s father, who would have determined his care by the bumps on Quillan’s head or by his complexion and assumed temperament?