All About Seduction(14)
After what seemed like hours, the men finally had the gear loosened and it fell down away from the mangled wreck of Jack’s boot. He lifted his leg and reached to grab his foot, but it hung down at an unnatural angle. He missed, reaching in the place his foot should be.
The tall lanky man crashed to the floor in a dead faint.
Caroline buried her face against Jack’s back. She inhaled his clean male scent while fighting the rise of bile in her throat. The cadence of his breathing changed to shallower and quicker. Of all the men for this horrid accident to befall, why did it have to be him?
He shifted, his shoulders tensing against her face. She needed to help, not hide away. Her weakness embarrassed her, and she struggled to regain command. No matter how hard it was for her to look, Jack shouldn’t be trying to care for his own mangled limb. She crawled around, grasped his boot, and slowly lifted straightening the broken leg.
He groaned.
She scooted until she sat at his feet. As gingerly as she could she lowered his leg to her lap, trying to hold it in a normal position. Fighting the squeamishness that might show on her face and alarm him, she peeled Jack’s bloody fingers away. “Lie down.”
Most of the onlookers turned away.
“Would one of you men please go outside and see if the doctor has arrived?”
No longer laboring to free Jack, several of the men rushed toward the door. Jack threw his arm across his face. Caroline wished she could do more for him, but she was helpless. She plucked at his bloody laces, loosening them. She half feared his foot would come off when she removed his work boot. She gave up and circled her hands around his leg, trying to stem the flow of blood.
“Get back here and put this machine back together,” shouted the foreman.
Dragging their heels the men traipsed back toward the dissembled gears. Two of the men lifted the largest of gears and reseated it on the shaft. One of the men put a wrench to a fastener.
“The other bolt . . . has to go on . . . first.” Jack pointed. His arm dropped down as if it had grown too heavy and he labored to breathe.
“It’s all right. They’ll manage,” Caroline soothed, and gestured for him to lie back.
He batted her hand away. “If they don’t do it right . . . the gears will grind apart.”
“We’ll get it,” muttered one of the men, but Jack kept an eye on them and directed them when they seemed uncertain.
“You don’t have to hold my leg,” he said at one point.
“Someone needs to keep it straight until the doctor gets here.” She wished she could do more for him.
A couple of the women returned with cotton and strips of muslin and wrapped his gashed arm, put a pressure bandage around his calf above the break, and splinted the broken ankle. His hiss as she shifted his leg told her he was hurting.
Scooting back to his side, she took his hand in hers. His crushing grip conveyed the tight leash he was keeping on his pain. Not knowing what else to do, she murmured words of encouragement and stroked the skin on the back of his hand. Her heart pounding, she said, “You’ll be fine.”
He shot her a skeptical look, his brown eyes communicating a wealth of information. He wouldn’t be fine, and he knew it. Fear and anger were dominate, but there was a yearning there she couldn’t place. He turned his gaze away, leaving her feeling chastised for offering false hope.
“The doctor will know what to do,” she said firmly, although she only hoped a man well versed in war injuries would be better skilled than others.
Not knowing what else to talk about, she said, “You have a big family, don’t you?”
His lips tightened.
At long last the doctor arrived carrying his black bag. He shook his head as he bent over, assessing the broken leg. “I need to get him on a table to operate. We best get him to his home.”
Caroline thought of the unusual interchange between Jack and his mother and made a decision she knew would upset her husband. “Take him up to the main house.”
“Take me home,” demanded Jack.
But the men carrying him ignored him. And it wasn’t as if he could leap off the removed door they employed as a stretcher, not with the mangled mess of his lower leg. The pain sliced anew through him with each jog of the wood under his back. How could pushing little Mattie out of the way have led to this?
Jack grabbed the sleeve of his friend George. “Don’t take me up there where that war surgeon will butcher me.”
George looked down at him, and the pity in his expression made Jack want to punch him. But his hand slipped off George’s arm as if he no longer had the strength to hold on. There could only be one reason that particular doctor had been summoned. A war surgeon got comfortable with slicing off legs and arms. A sick feeling invaded Jack’s throat. He couldn’t lose his leg. He’d never amount to anything as a cripple.