Aging with Gracie (3 page)

Grace groaned. The demise of her ferocious backhand was the farthest thing from her mind as pain shot from her elbow to the tips of her fingers. She tried to redistribute the weight from her throbbing ankle, but with her arm in such a painful bind, the movement was impossible.

Now, definitely at the point of tears, she looked down to find her modesty, not to mention her smoke-gray thigh-high stockings, in shreds. She finally gave up the struggle to maintain any semblance of decency. The pain in her left arm was so excruciating that she could have cared less that she was giving the entire room an unobstructed view of her most recent lingerie purchase.

At least she tried to convince herself that she didn’t care. In actuality, she was using the time between shooting pains to take a mental inventory of how many cellulite divots were congregating above the lines of her stockings.

Oh, well
, she thought. If nothing else, she’d certainly made a memorable entry into this aged society. The self-effacing part of her personality even longed to call out “Hello, Eden! Eve has arrived!” But as tempting as she knew the sight of her in all of her helpless feminine glory must be to them, she quelled the urge. The truth was that her extremities, not to mention her pride, were hurting too much to make the effort. She groaned in embarrassment as more people began to crowd around her.

“Someone grab an incident report!” The offensive whine of Nurse North echoed down the hall. “That stupid girl has fallen in those silly shoes of hers.”

Grace squirmed around like a fish on land. Finally, she managed to scoot up against a wall into a sitting position. By that time, there was a group of at least ten people circling her like a flock of vultures. Through a maze of walkers and orthopedic canes, she saw a pair of worn work boots approach. The crowd parted like the Red Sea...or rather, a very slow mudslide...as a man gently made his way past tittering grandmothers and gaping men whose attention appeared to Grace to stem more from curiosity than true concern.

Grace closed her eyes and tried to visualize a calming scene instead of the disturbing image of how many old geezers were currently craning their necks for a closer look at the lace edging on her thong underwear. That the underwear happened to match her stockings to a tee was no consolation in her present predicament.

Her tearful gaze followed a pair of muscular, blue-jean clad legs upward to a torso made in heaven. Honest to goodness, God had done a fine job designing the fellow standing in front of her.

Embarrassment quickly replaced her interest in the man, however. A disheveled, battered excuse for a woman lying spread-eagle and literally airing out her laundry in the midst of twenty geriatric onlookers was not the best first impression she could have made.

Grace knew that she would eventually have to face the music of her situation, though, and never one to shy away from a problem, grasped for whatever shred of courage remained in her arsenal. Her own inescapable embarrassment aside, she still hesitated to look upward because she was even more convinced that her rescuer was the man she had seen in the recreation room. It just had to be him!

She took a deep breath and chanced a peek.

“
Oh, my
.”

She felt a tingle all the way to her toes. Even through the haze of pain, she recognized that the man standing before her was unlike any man she’d ever seen. His eyes were as bright as the cold, Arctic Sea, and his smile...well, it was simply yummy!

Wait just a minute
! Grace’s thoughts stopped mid-assessment.
Is he laughing at me
?

For a moment, Grace was just a teensy bit annoyed that the man’s baby blues were flashing more with amusement than concern. Then she noticed his lips. They looked so perfectly kissable that Grace caught herself nibbling her own lower lip.

“
Have mercy, Grace
! As if it matters whether or not you’re still wearing lip gloss,” she mumbled under her breath.

Still, she just couldn’t help herself! The man was just about the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. His thick, wavy black hair just touched his collar. His amazingly straight white smile was not even necessary for the equation to be perfect. The package was just too irresistible…and in the blink of his sooty black lashes, Grace decided to forgive his amusement at her most recent, less than graceful incident.

“What’s going on here?” his deep drawl echoed throughout the hallway. At the sound of his voice, it was all Grace could do to keep herself from sliding back into the puddle from which she had so inelegantly crawled just moments before. Her rescuer reached down his hand.

“Don’t touch her!” a man called out as he frantically entered the fray without a thought for the elderly men and women gathered around.

Ouch
! Grace grimaced in commiseration as a petite, white-haired observer took an elbow.

Thankfully, with a warbled-voiced curse and an elbow of her own, the woman held her ground. Grace sighed in relief for she was pretty certain that if the woman hadn’t stood firm, the domino effect would have surely led to nothing less than a massive collapse of arthritic bodies and orthopedic equipment...and a huge claim on her father’s liability insurance.

“Wait! Don’t move her!” Another voice, this one high-pitched and feminine, called from across the room. “This may be the only chance I’ll get to earn my first aid badge!”

Grace caught a glimpse of the badgeless scout she had noticed on the front steps as the girl plowed over her fellow troop members.

“I’m fine,” Grace assured everyone. She held up her good hand, an action designed more for defense than entreaty. This had to be the most embarrassing day of her life. Way worse than in eighth grade when Jimmy Gonzalez had stolen her purse and ended up sticking a couple of her tampons in his ears in some twisted rendition of Frankenstein.

The girl knelt down beside Grace and leaned toward her ear.

“Listen, lady. I have no idea what I’m doing, but just play along with me, okay?”

The girl looked so desperate that Grace had no choice but to give in to her ministrations. Still reeling from her fall down the rabbit’s hole, Grace nodded mutely then cringed when the scout yelled in an authoritative voice.

“Do you have any neck or back pain, ma’am?”

Grace shook her head “no” without a hint of pain, but she thought as she did so that she would soon have a headache if all of the infernal yelling didn’t stop soon.

“Ladies and gentlemen, that’s a good sign!” the girl announced in her loud voice. “At least I think so,” she mumbled under her breath. “Where is the pain?”

“Just my left ankle and my left elbow. I think that I landed on that side.”

“I’ve got a plan. Just trust me,” Grace’s rescuer said more for her ears than anyone else’s.

Then with a voice as confident as any paramedic’s, the girl called out to the man standing nearby. “Hey, you! Carpenter Man! We need a set of muscles over here!”

And as the gorgeous stranger bent down to lift her into his arms, Grace realized why the girl had reminded her so much of herself when she had seen her earlier in the day. She had turned out to be an utter GENIUS!

Chapter Two

Pride, Pain, and Prejudice

“What do you mean, I have to use a cane?” Grace looked at the blonde Adonis who had taken charge of her, medically speaking, after what seemed like hours of health questions and a series of X-rays.

Full of adrenaline and smarting from the pain, she looked around the room with an unnatural zeal. The visit was sure to hit her father’s worker’s compensation insurance with a hefty bill. For crying out loud! Her father would have gotten off a lot cheaper if he’d only sent her to the Big Apple!

Take that, Daddy,
she wanted to shout, but her teeth were so tightly clenched with ire and pain that it was impossible to get more than a few words out...at least for the moment.

She turned from the doctor for a moment and gave her knight in shining armor a helpless glance.

Jackson Ellis
.

He’d finally gotten around to introducing himself after hoisting her into the front seat of his extended cab.
A manly truck for an oh-so-manly man
, Grace had thought upon seeing it.

In the five minutes it had taken to get from Mansfield Park to Manhattan General, she had discovered that not only did Jack Ellis come to the aid of damsels in distress, but he was also the general contractor for the Assisted Living Home’s renovation. Grace had immediately recognized the name, but the face had been another story. Jackson Ellis Construction was an Atlanta-based firm her father used for most of his jobs, but she had never met Jack. He was the only grandson of the company’s founder and took care of most of the business outside Atlanta. His father dealt with things at their corporate office in the city.

Grace grumbled to herself as she looked at Jack. Her father certainly had a lot to answer for. Assigning her to Granny Patrol was one thing, but keeping the prime specimen of manliness currently gracing her hospital room a secret was an unforgivable offense. Why on earth had she been sitting through the Singles class at church and praying every night for the perfect man when he’d been on her father’s payroll all along?

She should have entered the family business ages ago! It would have saved her a lot of heartaches...not to mention all of the time she had wasted on the losers she’d been dating.

Okay, so there hadn’t exactly been that many
, she thought. If she were honest, she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been on a date. She knew it had been during her undergraduate studies, but had it actually been over three years ago? Unbelievable!
Pitiful
was more like it.

Grace knew that if she were honest, she had only herself to blame. For years, she had begged off invitations to her parents’ dinner parties. After all, there had been more pressing things on her calendar...mainly getting through college and graduate school. She had also been involved in numerous mission projects through her young adult class at church. Sitting around with her parents and their friends had not been on her agenda.

But if she’d ever been given even the slightest of clues that someone like Jack had been lounging on one of her mother’s raw silk Queen Annes while she was spending the evenings with her face crammed in a textbook, she would have been at the family seat at the first ring of the dinner bell.

Grace had actually seen Jack’s name during her reviews of the Mansfield Park files, but the gray-haired Jackson Ellis she remembered from childhood in no way resembled the man sitting in the corner of her dingy emergency room cubicle with his jean-clad legs stretched out and his boots propped carelessly on the wheel of her stretcher.

Her hands itched to lean over and tap one of his biceps...just to gauge if it was as rock-hard as it looked encased in the faded chambray shirt. She glanced up and found him watching her with amusement.

Grace averted her gaze to a chart which explained the basics of Otitis Media in more detail than she cared to know. She cringed.

No wonder there were so many screaming kids in this place
, she thought.

If her eardrum looked like that nasty, fluid-filled balloon on the poster, she would be screaming to high heaven herself. As a matter of fact, she was tempted to do it anyway! She had yet to receive any pain medication, and a temper tantrum was looking better with each and every annoying tick of the ancient wall clock.

A cluster of chill bumps, which had nothing to do with the freezing temperature of the room or the one-size-fits-all cotton smock the nurse had foisted on her within two minutes of her arrival, raised their traitorous heads. In a one-armed effort, she tucked the edges of the gown under her legs. She had already practically bared her scantily-clad backside to the entire local chapter of the AARP. She was determined not to disgrace herself further.

“Miss Woodhouse?” the doctor’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Do you understand about the X-rays?”

She answered his question with a blank stare. “Excuse me?”

“Are you sure she didn’t hit her head?” The doctor turned his attention, and his question, to Jack.

“I’m fine,” Grace answered the question herself. “I certainly don’t have a head injury.” She tossed her hair out of her eyes, and feeling a headache coming on, wondered if she’d been too hasty with her answer. Had she actually hit her head? Surely not.

“I think she’s okay on that note.” Jack’s words were an assurance to both Grace and the physician.

“Well, that’s great, then,” the doctor said with a smile. “Now, back to the films.”

What followed was an extensive, exhausting explanation of the structure of bones that would have been perfect for a college pre-med course. Unfortunately, Grace caught only bits and pieces of the conversation. As her dismay escalated with each and every word from the doctor’s mouth, so did her shock at the news. She had actually broken her left arm in the fall...or so Dr. Adonis had just informed her.

“You also have a sprained ankle, Miss Woodhouse,” the doctor continued. “Coupled with your radial head fracture...”

“My
what
kind of fracture?” she interrupted.
Fracture
she comprehended. She needed a little help with the rest of the diagnosis.

“Your radius is one of the bones in your lower arm. The radial head is part of your elbow joint. You’ve broken it. We’ve already discussed that.”

“But I thought you said just a fracture,” Grace whined.

“Fracture, break…they’re one in the same,” the doctor mumbled.

Grace frowned. Her doctor’s bedside manner was beginning to nosedive...at an alarming rate.