Dead Man Falls (40 page)

"Gosh, this looks like a fun party," I said cheerfully, "but I really better be going."

Pollock turned himself around in the chair and looked at me beseechingly, with sincere angst even.

It was kind of touching, really, and when he got a little moisture in his eyes, well, we might have even bonded.

With a very bright smile, I wiggled my fingers in a cute little wave and winked at him. "Glad I’m not you."

I managed to make it to the hall before I laughed out loud. "He’s in there, isn’t he?" boomed a deep female voice.

I looked up to see a rather sturdy dark-skinned nurse with a determined glint in her eye headed my way.

No, I didn’t need to ask who she meant. I nodded and pointed to the door behind me. "Oh, yeah."

The nurse looked like she could--and cheerfully would--be collecting Pollock in short order. In fact, she sort of looked like she might want to break his cocky little neck first. We all understood that emotion.

"Give him a few minutes. He’s catching hell for a few past misdeeds and he deserves every minute of it."

"Well, he’s going to be catching something worse from me. That snake hooked his monitors up to his roommate, cut himself free of his drip and stole a wheelchair! Can you believe that?"

Yeah, I could. I nodded. "He's something, isn't he?"

"Oh, he's something, all right. Had the nerve to sweet talk some candy striper into getting a room number for him."

We could only hope he hadn’t tried to talk her into bed too.

"He won't be sweet talking me," the nurse continued. "And he won’t get away again, I’ll tell you that for sure."

Oh, I didn’t doubt it for a second.

Had I been an evil and perverse type bent on vengeance--and we all know I am not--I might have suggested a battery of unnecessary and humiliating gastrointestinal tests that would have kept him busy for a while. Of course, he’d probably just consider that sort of thing great fun anyway. So, instead, I just wished her well with her capture and kept my thoughts pure and sweet as I hurried away.

When I found my way back down to the waiting room, my hour wasn’t quite up, but the patients had been dispersed nonetheless. Rick had been moved to a regular room for overnight observation and Jerry was "probably going to have to be released" any second. The phrasing was odd enough, but something in the way the woman at the desk delivered this news made me seriously wary.

Then, I heard the always calm and in-control sheriff’s voice booming from a back treatment room. Something on the order of yes, he would be leaving and where he went was none of their damn business, and furthermore, he was walking out of here under his own steam, thank you very much.

A thud against a wall and mumbled cursing.

"That, Mister Hot-Shot Sheriff," said the voice of a highly perturbed woman with a thick Texas accent, "is why you’ll be riding in this here wheelchair out to the car. You bust your head open again and you’ll have to stay here with me, and I’ve got better things to do than deal with the likes of you. Now, sit your butt down and behave."

Oh, my, but this did not sound good, and I took it as my cue to run get the Tahoe, which I hoped would now be parked somewhere in the general vicinity. I whispered to the woman at the front desk that I’d just run get the car. She nodded and whispered back that I ought to hurry up about it.

When I got to the automatic doors, I saw my car sitting right in front with a Bowman County sheriff’s vehicle parked behind it. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see an inanimate object. As I rushed toward it, I caught a glimpse inside the cop car. The two senior citizens in the front seat had apparently found the romantic glow of the hospital emergency sign highly enticing and were busy playing kissy face when I hurried by.

I did not look back, just scurried around to the driver’s side, opened the car door, made sure I had keys in the ignition and went around to open the other side for Jerry. As I did so, the lovebirds had decided to straighten up and fly right for a few seconds and Lucille rolled her window down to acknowledge my presence.

"Are you coming out to the house tonight, Jolene?" she called to me, not even having the decency to look a little guilty for her unseemly behavior. "Jerry Don can come too if he wants, there’s plenty of room."

Oh, yeah, right. I’m sure Jerry would be thrilled at that plan. "I don’t know what Jerry will want to do, but we’ll be fine. We both still have rooms at the hotel, or I can drive him out to his house. Don’t worry about tonight, but I’ll be there tomorrow, probably sometime after lunch."

"No hurry," Lucille said, the window rolling up over the last word. She gave me a cursory wave, then fluttered her hands some more, probably urging Fritz to get them out of there before I changed my mind.

"You are the worst patient I’ve had in here in a month of Sundays," a woman said behind me.

When I turned around, I saw the nurse whose voice I’d heard earlier. She was of medium build and height--if you didn’t count the extra four inches of unnaturally red hair piled up on her head. She was maybe in her late fifties, early sixties, and she was not smiling.

The man sitting in the wheelchair like a carved wooden statue didn’t look too happy either.

"I’ll be glad you’re out of my hair and not my responsibility." She jammed the brakes on the chair and flounced around in front of him, shoving his feet off the foot rests and flipping the silver plates out of the way. "Big manly man thinking he knows everything about everything. Well, as we can see, the bigger they are, they harder they fall on their butts."

Jerry huffed and growled, but I said not one word, just smiled kindly at the nurse and extended my hand to Jerry.

He ignored it and pushed himself up and out of the chair, then grabbed the open door of the Tahoe to keep from falling.

The nurse was behind him in a flash, and I grabbed his arm. With a bear-like growl, he shook us both off and dragged himself up into the passenger seat and slammed the car door.

The nurse grabbed a clipboard from the back of chair, told me to sign, which I did, then mumbled that I probably ought to read it sometime or other, not that she cared.

A glance at the top of the sheet told me that I had just signed off on "patient care and follow-up instructions." Okey-dokey, we were apparently on the fast-track release program. "Thanks," I said, again very kindly and with a smile.

"Don’t be thanking me." She ripped off the top copy of the sheet, shoved it in my hands then spun the wheelchair around. "He’s your problem now," she said, racing back toward the double glass doors. "And I’m glad of it."

I scurried around to the driver’s side, hopped in the car and started the engine. "Do you want to go to your place?"

"No."

I grabbed the patient instruction sheet, turned on the overhead reading light and read to myself. "Wake every two hours and check pupil dilation. No strenuous activity until after follow-up visit."

There were other things to watch for, what to do, what not to do, but one thing was crystal clear: I’d be spending the night with Jerry Don Parker--the grumpy version--and it was not going to be fun.

"I’m taking you to the hotel," I said, firmly this time. "The sooner you get into bed, the better."

He said nothing in response, so I turned off the light, pulled out of the emergency room drive and drove the half-mile or so to the happy Hilton.

I found a parking spot by the elevator and somehow managed to get him out of the car and up to the room with only minimal physical grief--mine. There was, however, maximum mumbling and grumbling by the patient, who could darn well walk all by himself, thank you very much.

The key card still worked and I guided Jerry into his room, sat him on his bed and helped him out of his shirt, undershirt and shoes. I would have helped him with his pants as well, really I would have, but just getting into the room had pretty much worn him out, not that he’d admit it.

I pushed him down, fluffed his pillows and pulled the covers up over him. "I know you’re not going to like it, but I have to wake you up every few hours to make sure you’re okay. Okay?"

Jerry’s eyes were closed, but he reached up toward me. "Jolene...."

I gripped his hand and held it, saying nothing.

"Thanks."

What? Thanks for what, getting him here?

Then, like, say, a baseball bat to the head, it dawned on me what might be causing part of the kink in his usually mellow tail: macho man hadn’t saved
me
. The white knight had been rendered unconscious by the time I’d been dragged into the melee--and he couldn’t help me. Was that it? Or did he think I’d saved him and that hurt his male pride? Both?

Well, the fact was, I couldn’t have done a darn thing about anything if he hadn’t given me the tools to do it. I owed him. Big time. I sat down on the edge of the bed beside Jerry and he scooted over to give me some more room. "You’re welcome," I said, still holding his hand. "It was a long drive from the hospital to the hotel, but somebody had to do it. Glad I could be of help."

"You know what I mean," he grumbled, confirming my guess.

"Actually, Jerry, I don’t. But I will tell you what happened after you were bashed in the head and injected with morphine--if you want me to."

He did, of course, and I told him everything I could remember. When I finished, I was certain he’d fallen asleep. I scooted around a little, pushed myself away and tried to release his hand.

He gripped tighter and pulled me back down on the bed. "Don’t go," he said, his voice back to its usual heart-stopping Texas rumble. "Please."

Now, it’s a fairly well-established fact that when Jerry talks to me that way, I will do anything he asks. Yes, including jumping off a cliff or bridge or whatever. It is my one inherent weakness in life--the others I’ve cultivated--and it just doesn’t go away.

I slipped off my shoes and tentatively settled myself--fully clothed and disgustingly mother-like--next to him. I can take the high road occasionally. Although having been recently reacquainted with certain alternatives, I wasn’t skipping down that road gracefully.

It wasn’t entirely my fault. As I might have mentioned, Jerry is a very handsome man, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt to cover the broad muscular chest that just kept glaring at me, begging me to pay attention.

Yes, I realized he was hurt, and that I should be keeping my unseemly thoughts to myself, but you wait twenty-five years for what I waited for then tell me you could do better.

Jerry looped his arm around my shoulders, nudged me onto my side facing him, and hugged me closer to his warm bare chest. "Now, I think I can sleep."

Well, swell, that made just exactly one of us. I wouldn’t be napping any time in near future. I settled my head on his shoulder and tried to take my torture like a big girl. "I’ll wake you in a couple of hours," I said, more for my benefit than his because he’d dropped off to sleep the second after he’d spoken.

I watched the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest for a minute or two, wondering if somebody somewhere had put a hex on me or if this was just more cosmic payback for some evil I’d committed.

Yes, the good money was on the last option, but determining which specific crime was not going to be easy. Not to worry. Best I could figure, I had about one hundred and eighteen minutes to narrow the list. Then, I could wake Jerry and start the whole little torturous process all over again.

Should be great night of fun. What dreams are made of…

THE END

The adventures continue in
Turkey Ranch Road Rage
.

About the Author

Paula Boyd grew up in a small town in Texas that some would say is not unlike her fictional Kickapoo. She attended Midwestern State University where she was news editor for the university newspaper and co-editor of the yearbook until she was stricken with the tragic urge to get married.

After a decade of being away from writing to have three children, the creative side came bursting out and she began writing her first novel in 1993. Paula hit her stride in the mystery genre in 1999 when Jolene and Lucille found their way into her life.

Hot Enough to Kill,
the first Jolene Jackson Mystery
,
is included in the University of Texas Press'
Lone Star Sleuths: An Anthology of Texas Crime Fiction.
The second title in the series,
Dead Man Falls
, won the 2001
WILLA Literary Award for Best Original Paperback
and the third,
Turkey Ranch Road
Rage, was published in 2010.
Killer Moves
continues the adventures.

Paula Boyd and the Jolene Jackson Mystery Books have been featured in magazines such as
Redbook, Mountain Living, San Antonio Woman
,
Romantic Times
and
Colorado Homes and Living
, and in newspapers across the country.